Men Love to Read by the Pool
THE VIOLENT TENOR OF LIFE... PESSIMISM AND THE IDEAL OF THE SUBLIME LIFE... THE DREAM OF HEROISM AND OF LOVE.. THE VISION OF DEATH...
Since it is Kaitlin’s “birthday week,” I am doing a few posts so that she can properly relax in the backcountry, per design. I thought the logical thing for me to write would be an alternative summer reading list of non-fiction books. (Though I’ve been asked not to subscribe, I imagine Kaitlin has made it pretty clear that she only reads fiction about divorce.)
Non-Fiction Pool Reads Recommended by Kaitlin’s Husband
Occasionally I am overcome with an earnestness/over-seriousness that results in going on holiday with a set of incomprehensible books on theory that I fondly imagine myself reading on the beach (with a highlighter?). Anyone who has tried to read Seven Types of Ambiguity (or One Dimensional Man) with a fierce sun beating a tattoo on the top of their heads knows that this is an exercise in vanity.
However, there are non-fiction books—even serious non-fiction books—that are captivating enough that they can be read even in the kind of French wine bar that plays thumping early 2000’s music. I have put some of my favorites together here in the hope that you will enjoy them too. In no order other than that which I remembered them in.
Mishima’s Sword by Christopher Ross
A missive from a lost age of journalism—just 2006!—when a paper would pay you to go live in Japan for a year and look for the sword Mishima used to kill himself. Left me painfully jealous.
Wonder Bread and Ecstasy by Charles Isherwood
I found this book on the street in Paris. I lent it to an ex, who lent to the painter she worked for. He never returned it. An unauthorized biography by a fan of the “first power bottom,” Wonder Bread and Ecstasy charts the rise and fall of gay porn star Joey Stefano in ‘80s and ‘90s Los Angeles.
Along with chaotic house shares and a relentless diet of drugs and junk food, Joey worked for Madonna and dated David Geffen. Joey—portrayed in adoring detail—makes for a strangely tender subject. Dumb but fun-loving, doomed yet endlessly optimistic. At the back of the book are the three-line reviews by the author of every single film Joey starred in, from The Dildo Kings to Tijuana Toilet Tramps.
Crash by Ian Sinclair
The best book about the collaborative process between director and author. Ian Sinclair interviews both Cronenberg and Ballard about Crash (the film and the book).