Books That Writers Should Read, Yes

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Note: I have not seen the movie based on the book.

A New York Times #1 bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this book is a memoir from Frank McCourt. It gives a vivid description of the poverty and resultant disease that he endured growing up as a child in Ireland.

Even though McCourt wasn't a journalist, he was an English teacher, he provides a very powerful lead and nut graph on the very first page of Chapter 1. After this, it's just the details:

"My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone.

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."

Wow--that says it all. The poverty, the senselessness, the hopelessness, the omnipresent, yet foreboding Catholic Church in Ireland, the death and the unhappiness. But what makes this book worth the reading is the little boy that McCourt uses to tell his story. Little Frankie McCourt tells a tale as only a child can, and it is this voice that makes the misery bearable.

Along the way in Angela's Ashes, McCourt buttresses almost every Irish stereotype, providing real-world examples from his family: a father who drinks and drinks and drinks. A family subservient to the Catholic Church, often to their detriment. Potatoes...lots of potatoes. And of course wonderful stories and singing. This book has it all. But first and foremost, it is a great story, well-written. And that my friends, is why Angela's Ashes is a must-read book for all communicators.

Books Journalists Should Read, Definitely No, Unless You're a Hunter Thompson Fan

The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson

Disclaimer: I have not watched the movie The Rum Diary starring Johnny Depp.

Instead, I read this book because it was on the list…yes the list of books compiled by members of the College Media Advisers listserv. The list that all journalists should read.

In this case, I’d have to disagree. While The Rum Diary is entertaining, and Hunter S. Thompson is a talented writer, this isn’t a must-read book for all journalists. This book is a loving and longing reflection on a time that was the height of romantic journalism—lots of drinking, hamburgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, easy, beautiful women who fall for journalists, and party, party, party on the beach. Who wouldn’t want to lovingly remember such a lifestyle? Unfortunately, the glamorized world of Paul Kemp is more Earnest Hemingway than reality. Too bad, because it’s wildly entertaining.

Thompson does work in some gems of writing throughout The Rum Diary. Like this bit on writers:

“Most people who deal in words don’t have much faith in them and I am no exception—especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they’re scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.”

Cuts right to the quick doesn’t it.?

Much of The Rum Diary gives some similar cheap shots at luck, friendship, Puerto Rican media, Puerto Rican police, journalists and flacks. Allusions to famous films, gangsters and lazy natives abound in this thin novel, with ascerbic commentary and booze-filled nights.

If you’re a journalist’s journalist, Thompson provides all of the cynicism and worldly pleasures expected, including a shot of rum with a get-out-of-jail chaser. That’s probably the charm associated with The Rum Diary, and probably one of the reasons that anything by Hunter S. Thompson was included on this list. Some more discerning listers specified Thompson’s Fear and Loathing books. I’ll be reading those next.

Books Everyone Should Read, Really

The Shining by Stephen King

Disclaimer: I have watched the movie The Shining starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.

Okay, so this book veers from the list of books compiled by members of the College Media Advisers listserv, but I’ve never read The Shining and a girl needs some entertainment every now and then.

And entertaining this book is. A hotel that basically comes to life, including blood, guts on the wall and murdered gangsters and their girlfriends (and sometimes boyfriends too). Hedge animals that move, bite, tear and grab, but ultimately fall prey to gasoline and fire. But scariest of all, the tightly-wound father who comes unraveled based on imaginary liquor and over-inflated sense of self.

Of course in the movie, the tightly-wound father is the character to watch, so aptly played by Nicholson, but the true focus of this book is The Shining, those people with the ability to read minds and see the future. In this case, Jack’s son and namesake, who sees and hears much scarier things in the book than he does in the film. I’ve found this to be the case with all Stephen King book’s I’ve read: They’re much scarier than the movies.

I’m not a big scary movie, scary book person, but Stephen King is one of the best writers of our time. He’s also one of the most prolific, delving into the psyche and plumbing the depths of what makes each of us get the skin-crawling sensation that gives us bad dreams, or keeps us up at night.

As usual, King’s writing is something to be emulated by all good communicators. Direct and descriptive, King cuts to the heart of the matter.

The story, while creepy, is a bit out there as believability goes. However, it still induced a couple of wide-eyed nights as I read some of the most supernatural and unbelievable parts.

Recently, I told several students at Texas A&M University, that the best way to improve as a writer is to read. Well here’s a chance for students to read something that may be of more interest than their textbooks. While you’re reading, enjoy the entertainment, but pay attention to the writing. It’s so good, you’ll forget to pay attention. Now that’s what I call a great writer.