W o r d J u n k

Here let me recommend some books to you Tumblr…

If you’re looking for stuff to read here are some favorite books of mine that I read along with a nifty rating alongside!!

- House of Leaves by Mark. Z. Danielewski (***) This book is strange. It’s very long too, so if you read it, make sure you have lots of spare time. It’s basically about this dude who goes crazy reading this manuscript by an old guy for a movie about some other guy who finds an alternate dimension inside his house. It’s full of weird footnotes and appendices and other cool visuals. If you’re up for a challenging but fun book, read this. It only gets three stars because it can be very overwhelming and easy to get lost if you put it down and pick it up after a while

- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (****) This is definitely one of my favorite books. It’s Absurdist humor at it’s best and is also very touching. Catch-22 is about an air-base during WWII outside of Italy and follows the misadventures of a slacker pilot named Yossarian. He does all he can to get out of the war, but the minimum requirement of runs he must do always goes up each and every time he becomes eligible for discharge. This book is excellent at pointing out abuse of power and conformity from authority. It’s a decent length too, but you’ll find it hard to put down. There’s a character named Major Major Major Major. That’s how ridiculous this book is.

(Secondary recommendation: If you really enjoy this book I recommend reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Another tragic and funny novel and it’s shorter)

- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (***1/2) Another book where characters go crazy (I guess that’s theme of this post) it tells the tale of the Bundren family as they move their dead mother across the south to her grave. It tells the tale from the perspective of different characters. There is no one specific narrator, although many times it is through the point of view from a couple central characters. When I first read this I was really apprehensive because it was set in the south and the language was a little hard to decipher since Faulkner wrote it in “stream of consciousness”, which basically means the narrators tell what happens as if they’re thinking it in their own minds. But by about half-way through the book it began to grow on me and I started to really love the characters which are all so different and have their own style of narrating. Because of this they all have their own biases as well and you can’t rely on any one narrator. In fact the book has quite the twist in it. If you aren’t sure about AILD when you start it, just keep reading (the books is under 500 pages) and it may start to intrigue you. My only complaint would be the beginning is rather weak since you don’t know any of the characters and it can be confusing.

Happy reading!