i love reading.

I'm reading a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories and I think I want to continue on my journey through American history via fiction. Next, I can read Hemingway or Steinbeck (but not Faulkner, it's too painful)...then Salinger. I've never been a Hemingway fan, but he was frenemies with Fitzgerald and a mentor to Salinger so I have to read at least a short story by him. However, I wasn't a Fitzgerald fan in high school either, which is the only time I've ever read Hemingway. I'm thinking I had bad taste in high school...we'll see if I still enjoy Catcher in the Rye in my mid-twenties. I think I'm more interested in the progression of writing and genres in America versus the actual history of our country. After Salinger, I'm thinking probably Kerouac and Kesey, then on to Vonnegut and Updike. After that the world is my oyster because in the 70s Postmodernism started building and hasn't really stopped...Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, Chuck Palahniuk...I may stop with Salinger and move on to Flannery O'Connor.


I'm always amazed when I discover that authors were friends or rivals. I think it's hilarious that Charlotte Bronte considered Jane Austen a rival while Mark Twain greatly disliked anything Austen. (Personally, I love Austen.)

To be totally honest...I'll never read all of those authors in any kind of particular order. I have so much that I want to read that's on my shelf that I have to get through first. (Some of which includes the above authors like Flannery O'Connor's short stories and everything published by Salinger...sadly, I even have Faulkner that I've never read). I should probably focus on school and studying for the LSAT...but it isn't nearly as much fun as dreaming of all the free time I will have to read for pleasure. Or, better still, actually reading for fun!