The Rundown: Book It

In looking back over the numerous Rundown's we've shared together in the year and change I've been writing them and you've been reading them, I realized that I have skipped out on one major, major Rundown.

My Favourite Books.

See, I consider it major because reading is what turned me on to writing. I was always decent enough at it in school and once considered pursuing an English degree in University, but that never happened and entry into the working world involved shaking hands and settling disputes, not writing essays on the character interactions in King Lear or my views on abortion.

But that foray into the world of customer service did provide two important components that led to where we are today - a bunch of disposable income and fairly decent amounts of time off to lay around the house doing nothing.

In my case, nothing often meant playing PlayStation 2 and watching movies, but sometimes it meant reading.

One of the books I read during those years changed my life and started me down the path we're on together today. The gentlemen pictured above who looks like a Gap mannequin is to blame...

Top Five Books

5. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
I know it was partially fabricated and Oprah hates him, but I'm not a suburban housewife so I don't have to do everything that Oprah tells me. Outside of the controversy, this is an incredibly powerful work. The way it's written in disjointed sentences, more staccato than prose and the violent, vivid images that Frey creates for the readers hook you in to the point that you don't want to put the book down for a minute. The book about overcoming addiction becomes your addiction. At least it did for me.

4. Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley
The movie also made my Favourite Movie list a while back, so you had to know that I was a major fan of the source material. This one goes along with the longstanding belief that the book is always better than the movie. As outstanding as the film was - and don't kid yourself, it was outstanding - the book is even better in delivering more background on protagonist Nick Naylor, his insane boss B.R. and his relationships with his family, his friends and a back-stabbing bitch that never really showed up in the movie. This one got me through my stint at the Marine Atlantic Ferry Terminal.

3. The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green by Joshua Braff
I actually read this book because I love the author's brother - Zach Braff, he of Scrubs and Garden State fame. Thankfully, incredible talent is a trait both Braff boys hold (as does their sister...) as Joshua crafts a beautiful tale of a young Jewish boy growing up with some truly unthinkable thoughts. As I write this, I'm eagerly awaiting Braff's next effort because if it's anything like Jacob Green, it'll be on the next incarnation of this list.

2. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
This is the fictional version of "That's me!" Hornby's Rob Fleming - later turned into Rob Gordon and dumped in Chicago by Cusack & Co for the outstanding film version - encompasses everything that I am and everything that I was at the time I read the book. He has no idea what to do with his life, I had no idea what to do with my life. He was a moron with women, I was a moron with women. In the end, it worked all worked out... for the both of us.

1. Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
This is the non-fiction version of "That's me!" Everything Klosterman put down into words in this collection hit on something I had thought at one point or another in my life. And we're not talking brilliant, Earth-shattering developments here either, we're talking shit like, "How are there so many naked housewives in the world?" and "Is the Sim version of me happier than the real me?" I own everything the man has ever written now, having gone back and read what I had missed and bought everything that has come after it, save for his crappy fictional effort...

So if you need to blame someone for getting me started down this path and making me think I could one day be a real, live writer, blame Chuck Klosterman.

Continue reading ...