BOOKS...no commercials

I spent a few hours of fun this week reading titles of 1000 best and/or famous books bringing back good memories trying to recall where I was when I read them...some of them I read as a young kid when we didn't have TV growing up in Montreal; some in college, but most at home as a dad while the kids were crying their heads off...reading is a wonderful distraction from real life especially when your spouse takes care of them. Why did I do this exercise? Because for the past six months I’ve been on a reading kick and been devouring novels and short stories like they’re going out of style. Being semi-retired has its benefits sometimes.

Some of my old favorites include Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea), Alexander Dumas (The Count of Monte Christo), Herman Melville (Moby Dick), Agatha Christie (and Then There Were None), and Robert Lewis Stevenson (Treasure Island).
Lately I’ve found several on-line sites offering free or very inexpensive e-Books for my Kindle. Kindle-ing is a great way to go...while reviewing tons of books I saw many authors and books I’ve always wanted to read but have never gotten around to reading.

I've read about 95 of those thousand famous books. Years ago I began reading best sellers like James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Clive Cussler, John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, Stephen King and about a dozen others who’s latest books I have a hard time staying away from…I don’t hardly have yard work to do anymore, the house needs a bit of painting here and there and I hope to one day paint something...I don’t think anyone can read 8 hours a day but reading is a nice way to spend a few hours (a few time a day) and I’m not going to stop reading these favorites. (A home office can be a real curse for readers)

But I’ve always had a desire to read some of the early 20th and late 19th century authors...when I watch an old movie from a book by one of these authors or if I don’t have a good answer to (A question really) to Jeopardy 20th century authors’ category it makes me want to read these people.
As I was reading the list of 1000 I jotted down authors' names and book titles that wrung a bell for me...just about everybody’s heard of these authors or books:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (I did see the movie and liked it),
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut,
The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway,
On the Road by Kerouac,
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger,
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis,
War and Peace by Tolstoy (On second thought it may be a bit too long to keep my attention…I might order the movie from Netflix instead)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Smith
Herzog by Saul Bellows
Don Quixote by Cervantes

From now on I'll be reading a Hemingway then Patterson...F. Scott Fitzgerald/John Grisham...Jane Austen/Dean Koontz...yup, that’s it……