It was a terrible realization the other day as I went to watch Barfly and realized I had never really read any Bukowski. I know, right? I believe that I read Women when I was younger or at least started to at the insistence of someone I knew but I don't remember finishing it or anything about it. Also, I am NOT a big fan of poetry......or so I thought. After finding the Elliott Smith bio (which was shelved in the music section of non fiction and not with the biographies?) I decided to walk over to the poetry section and see if they had any of Bukowski's poetry collections and sure enough they had one (he published 50+ but one at my neighborhoods branch of the Free Philadelphia library system is HUGE - I mean they don't even have an assigned branch copy of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - wtf) and I took that bad boy home and started on it IMMEDIATELY and fell in LOVE. OMG could it be - poems that break every rule I knew of poetry and he writes about booze, sex and the racetrack. I was hooked. Hooked. Finished the entire book in less than 24 hours and the next day hiked to TWO branches of the library so I could pick up the books I had on hold that came in and go in search of more Bukowski.
So this is my reading stack now - the 2 Nick Hornby's are the rest of the collections of essays he wrote for The Believer on what he is reading (follow up to the Polysyllabic Spree I just read), I got a large collection of Bukowski poems that he wrote between 1951 and 1993 called "The Pleasure of the Damned", a collection of Bukowski short stories and essays published after his death called "Portions From A Wine Stained Notebook", a Bukowski novel about his years working for the USPS called "Post Office" and I still need to read that Elliott Smith bio - which I promise to get to eventually. I am just on a major Bukowski kick. It's how I roll.
I should mention that Alex is on his Mancation v2.5 - The Return or Dewdapalooza with the boys in Vermont til late Monday night and since I don't wanna spend too much moolah at the bar drinking alone I figured the best way to spend my boyfriend free days was to crawl into as many books as I can. And that is soooooo my plan. Any guesses on how long it will take me to read this stack?
And if you are keeping track I am up to 30 books in my 2010 50 book a year challenge. Hell yes. Go me! You can keep track of what I read here as well if you really care: My Goodreads Profile I have a shelf titled 50 book a year challenge to see what you may have missed...if you care.
But now I am off to do some reading.
Cheers!
T.R.
