As a reader, I love to know what draws fellow word lovers to their favorite works. The following are some of the writers whose words have brought me laughter, tears and more insight than I could have imagined.
April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. As a poet who lives in the hills above Los Angeles, I feel it’s my duty to pay homage to Charles Bukowski. Los Angeles poet and cultural commentator, Bukowski will leave you crying at the beauty he finds in the ugliness of life. This is not conventional poetry by any stretch of the imagination. “What Matters Most is How Well You Walk through The Fire” is a raw slice of humanity that will haunt you long after you read Bukowski’s final words.
Like Bukowski, Marian Keyes doesn’t shy away from the crazy quilt that is human experience. Marian’s breezy confessions in “Under the Duvet” and “Further Under the Duvet” will leave you feeling like you’ve just shared a few secrets with your best friend. And her novels are a sublime mix of humor and despair. Marian’s work always makes me feel better about both my self and my life.
But of course we all know there are times you just want to be entertained, to enjoy the bookish equivalent of SUDOKU. When that urge arises, I turn to the queen of crime: Agatha Christie. Even though I’ve read virtually all of Dame Christie’s works, own the DVDs of the stories that have made it to the screen, and saw “The Mousetrap” on the London stage, I never tire of the Belgian with the egg-shaped head, the spinster surrounded by murder and mayhem, and those pesky newlyweds, Tommy and Tuppence.
:-) I saw the mousrtrap in London, too.
As a writer, though, there is one man whose work remains unparalleled for his brutal honesty. That man is Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt. Although “Angela’s Ashes” is his strongest work, I still enjoy dipping into ‘Tis. After all, not many people are brave enough to come clean about the dirt they dish in their own lives.
Why are you drawn to your favorite writers?
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Tomorrow Therese talks about La La Land
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