- The Sandman by Neil Gaiman – Technically, not a single book but a 75-volume (not counting spin-off titles) comic book series published by DC. I was in college at this time collecting superhero comics like X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, etc. but this particular title was different. There were no muscled bodies in spandex suits, just ordinary people with ordinary lives briefly touched by a dysfunctional family of seven eternal beings called the Endless (not “gods” as Gaiman puts it, for they “existed before humanity dreamed of gods and will exist after the last god is dead…they are embodiments of (in order of age) Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium.
Favorite Passage: I like the stars. It’s the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they’re always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend…I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don’t last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust…but I can pretend. (From Sandman: Brief Lives)
- All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum – I discovered Fulghum when I was fresh out of college and in my first job as a high school English teacher. I enjoyed the stories and reflections he narrated from his rich experiences, and he told them in a very easy and comfortable voice. Reading a Fulghum book was like listening to a doting grandfather telling you about the people he encountered, the joy, sorrow, hardships and happiness he encountered in his life. He was one of the earliest influences in my writing style as I wanted to emulate his voice.
Favorite Passage: My favorite book ending is no ending at all. It’s where James Joyce leaves off in Finnegans Wake, in midsentence, without punctuation or explanation. Some scholars believe the last phrase connects with the incomplete sentence that begins the book, implying an unending cycle. I hope it’s so. I like that. But Joyce never said. You are free to draw your own conclusions…The next time I will tell you about frogs; Miss Emily Phipps; a sign in a grocery store in Pocatello, Idaho; the most disastrous wedding of all time; a Greek phrase asbestos gelos (unquenchable laughter); the Salvation Navy; the man who knew then what he knows now; the smallest circus in the world; the truth about high school; and the time the bed was on fire when I lay down on it; and
- The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White – If there is only one book a writer can read in order to improve their writing, it is this one. Even bestselling horror novelist Stephen King mentions Strunk and White over and over in his memoir of the craft, On Writing. First published in 1959 (and since then has undergone several reprintings and editions), this brief tome contains a wealth of good advice, examples and explanations on the art of writing.
Favorite Passage: Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer makes all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.