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The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.
Ann M. Martin.”
“The Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway.
“Plays, the odd bit of poetry. Then there are the books I teach every year: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Johnny Got His Gun, A Farewell to Arms, A Prayer for Owen Meany, some years Wuthering Heights, Silas Marner, Their Eyes Were Watching God, or I Capture the Castle. Those books are like old friends.
It is so simple, he thinks. Maya, he wants to say, I have figured it all out. But his brain won’t let him. The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone. My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart. We are not quite novels. The analogy he is looking for is almost there. We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that. In the end, we are collected works. He has read enough to know there are no collections where each story is
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