This week, I have decided to do something a little different. The following 5 books are some of my favorite reads from my personal collection; each book in this list is unique in its own right and each one holds a special place in my heart. Despite it being a short list of recommendations, I do feel that there is something here for everyone. So I hope you enjoy!
City of Night by John Rechy, 1963
“From the street, I looked up into the apartment buildings, into the naked windows of the tiny cubicle-rooms. More haggard faces peering blankly; skinny, maimed bodies of uncaring women in slips; men without shirts. All have the same look: the look of no longer-questioning, resigned doom. The world on its knees. …” -City of Night
Ever since reading, City of Night as an undergrad at UCLA, it has claimed its spot on my list of favorite books.While written in a dazzling and poetic prose, City is dark and gritty in plot and premise. This part fiction/part memoir masterpiece chronicles the exploits of its narrator, an unnamed “youngman”, as he wanders the timeless streets of New York and Los Angeles in search of something, someone, to fill the seemingly endless void that he feels. Lonely and drowning in existential dread and narcissism, this gay male hustler searches for meaning in the darkest corners of cities across America. Along the way he meets a cast of characters including, johns, drag queens,and bdsm enthusiasts—and finds himself in situations many of us are likely to never experience first-hand. There is much intensity within these pages.
For those who dig philosophy and existentialism, this novel does a truly remarkable job of painting “the youngman” as a kind of poster child (adult) for angst and despair. The author, John Rechy has crafted a narrator that is both believable and fascinating; I can’t tell you how many hours I personally spent silently psychoanalyzing “the youngman” and trying to fully figure him out. Needless to say, much like myself, the narrator remains an enigma—and perhaps this is why City of Night has continued to hold such a special place in my heart to this day.
Here is an excerpt from, City of Night:
“In this room, the world is flaunting before me what could, if tested and found false, be its most deadly myth … love … love which, even at the beginning, was revealing itself as partly resignation; perhaps offering only the memory of an attempt to touch … implying hope of a miracle in a world so sadly devoid of miracles. Surrender to a myth constantly belied (a myth which could lull you again falsely in order to seduce you—like that belief in God—into a trap—away from the only thing which made sense—rebellion—no matter how futilely rendered by the fact of decay, of death)—belied, yet sought—sought over and over—as this man himself has searched from person to person … unfound.”
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho,1993
“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.” -The Alchemist
A bestseller since its release in 1993, The Alchemist is a magical little book that tells the story of a young shepherd named Santiago who leaves his homeland in Spain on a kind of pilgrimage in search of a “worldly treasure”. Along his journey across foreign lands, Santiago meets the elusive Alchemist himself, who endows him with a sacred understanding of life that forever changes Santiago. Despite its seemingly simple and uncomplicated prose style, The Alchemist is rich in depth and meaning. Santiago is at once his own character and at the same time acts as a symbol for all of us, or the universality of man, regardless of society or culture.
Through Santiago’s fabled story, readers are confronted with the true meaning of what it means to be “rich”—and it’s meaning might shock you. Santiago’s journey is one of self actualization and intuition that is likely to resonate with us all (it certainly resonated with me), and to leave us feeling as though a veil has been lifted from our eyes. This is a beautiful book that will leave you feeling hopeful and excited for the future. The Alchemist is sure to shift your perspective in more ways than one.
Here are some quotes from, The Alchemist:
“Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.”
“ I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul.”
“Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.”
How to Grow Up: A Memoir by Michelle Tea, 2015
“Finally, I turned to the ultimate conundrum decider—the old deathbed scenario. When I was on my deathbed, would I want to look back on a life filled with fear-based fidelity to a series of jobs that were not my true passion? No. I wanted to have lived. To have taken chances.” - How to Grow Up: A Memoir
My most recent read, How to Grow Up: A Memoir by, Michelle Tea proves itself as an exercise in vulnerability. In her personable and no-bs tone, Tea candidly recounts her young adult life as a queer, working class womyn, and her rise to responsibility and self-awareness. Michelle isn’t shy to reveal to us her transformation from a broke party girl into a successful writer, working to make her life-long dream a reality. How to Grow Up is a witty and honest look into what it means to become yourself, after years of flopping around in the dark.
Having read most of Michelle Tea’s work, I can honestly say that she has written no books that I would not recommend. While LGBT audiences are likely to find pieces of themselves in Tea’s writing, you do not have to be Queer to appreciate and relate to the struggle of what it means —not only to grow up, but also to grow into the best and most successful version of yourself. Sure to make you giggle and maybe even shed a few tears, How to Grow up will teach you lessons you’ll wish you’d learned sooner.
Here are some quotes/excerpts from, How to Grow Up: A Memoir:
“When its hard for you to grow up—because you’re poor and can’t afford the trinkets and milestones of adulthood, or you’re gay and the mating rites of passage don't seem to apply to you, or you are sensitive to the world’s injustices and decided long ago that if being a grown-up means being an asshole you’ll carry out your days in Neverland with the rest of the Lost Children, thank you very much—when adulthood seems somehow off-limits to you, growing up takes time.”
“Rebels without causes look sexy and romantic when they and you are young, but as you get older and wiser it all just looks like mental health issues.”
“Hail the breakover, a breakup-inspired makeover. We have all sorts of falling-in-love rituals, weddings being the most extravagant. But what about coming-apart rituals? I guess getting totally shitfaced is a common contemporary breakup ritual, but I’m thinking of something a bit more positive. The last thing you need when you’re feeling rejected is booze bloat and a shame spiral.”
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, 1890
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” -The Picture of Dorian Gray
If you have not had the pleasure of reading the classic and captivating, Picture of Dorian Gray, I would recommend getting to it. At the time of its publication in 1890, Dorian Gray was seen by many critics as a scandalous and lewd work.The story centers around a young and innocently naive man named Dorian who has recently inherited the sprawling estate of his late grandfather. After being introduced into high society, and becoming a kind of muse to artist Basil Hallward, Dorian begins to see himself in a new light—and soon enough, his boyish charm becomes transformed into a lethal arrogance. Dealing with themes of sexuality, morality, and “sin” in Victorian England, Wilde’s seminal work is a philosophical examination into the “corruption” of the soul.
If you’re looking for classically good literature that deals with themes that are still just as relevant contemporarily, you should read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde’s prose style and use of language is both poetic and profound, often leaving readers like myself in awe of the nuggets of philosophical truth scattered throughout the work. Dorian Gray is surely to leave you meditating on the question of moral decay for weeks to come.
Here are some quotes/excerpts from, The Picture of Dorian Gray:
“But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.”
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.”
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1855
“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” -”Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass is an anthology of poems as beautiful as they are meaningful, and is regarded today as Walt Whitman’s most famous and influential work, his magnum opus. Written in a free-verse style, the poems are separated into vignettes that are able to stand alone while also functioning as individual parts of a larger whole. In “Song of Myself”, the most acclaimed poem of the bunch (and a personal favorite), Whitman makes spiritual that which has long been understood as its diametric opposite: the body and the flesh. Whitman does this by praising the holiness of the physical body of man (humankind). When Whitman refers to himself in the poem, he is really referring to us all—as he is speaking for the universal collective as much as for himself.
Overall, the poems from Leaves embody themes of Americanism, Democracy, Spirituality, Individualism, Connectedness, Radical Empathy, and so forth. There’s a reason Whitman’s work is still just as popular and influential today, over 150 years after its publication. The reason is that human beings haven’t really changed all that much—there’s something in us that Whitman saw, something worth turning in poetry. And maybe after reading Leaves of Grass, you’ll see it too.
Here are some excerpts from, Leaves of Grass:
“I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runway sun, I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again look for me under your boot soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you”
“I have heard what the talkers were talking . . . . the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now; And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”
“I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth”
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