S.G. Browne

Other than the two titles that made the final list, the only other books I’ve read that begin with the letter R include The Red Badge of Courage (Crane), Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), Road Trip of the Living Dead (Henry), and Rose Madder (King). I’ve never read any of the Rabbit series written by John Updike or Red Dragon by Thomas Harris or The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, though I have Never Let Me Go on my list of books TBR.

As for other familiar titles that begin with R? If this was a category on Jeopardy!, I’d be the last one pressing my buzzer.

No Ragtime or Rebecca or Rich Man, Poor Man.
No Runaway Jury or Red Storm Rising or The Return of the King.
No Right Stuff or Razor’s Edge or Red Pony.

I’m apparently very deficient when it comes to reading my R’s. But I’ll make up for it next week. For now, I give you my two favorite books and my favorite narrative poem that begin with the letter R.

Blue Ribbon:
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
A bleak, haunting, Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of a father and son’s journey across a post-apocalyptic America in which few humans have survived. The fact that you never find out exactly what happened to cause the cataclysmic disaster only adds to the power of the narrative. Written with sparse prose and no chapters, the story is both heartbreaking and nearly impossible to stop reading.

Whatever Color Ribbon Is For Second Place:
The Regulators, Richard Bachman
Bachman is, of course, the famous pseudonym of Stephen King, having written a number of novels and novellas. Although their writing styles are similar, Bachman tends to be a little more fast-paced than King, with his narrative, coming at you relentlessly in this supernatural novel about a spirit who takes over the mind of an autistic boy and turns his suburban hometown into a wild west nightmare.

*Bonus – Favorite Narrative Poem
The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe
While I love Poe’s version, I have a hard time remembering the actual lines to the poem because I’ve rewritten parts of it several times, including my ode to turning 40 titled Poe and the Big 4-0: The Raven Reprised. Most recently, I rewrote The Raven for a Best Man’s speech that starts out: “Once upon a bachelor dreary…”

No. The Princess in the blog title does not stand for The Princess Diaries, just in case you were wondering. And although I’ve seen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, I’ve never read the French novel on which it’s based.

I’ve also never read The Pearl (Steinbeck), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde), or Pride and Prejudice (Austen), with or without zombies. I’m not a big Jane Austen fan, so adding zombies to one of her books isn’t going to compel me to read it. You could add zombies to The Bridges of Madison County and I’m not going to read that, either. Though I do have a signed copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on my bookshelf.

Some of the titles I have read include Patient Zero (Maberry), Pressure (Strand), Phantoms (Koontz), Pet Semetary (King), and Presumed Innocent (Turow). I currently have Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Suskind) on my stack of books to read, though it keeps getting pushed back by all of these books I keep buying. Someday…

On to my favorite books that start with the letter P:

One for the money:
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
This is another instance where I read the book after I saw the film, so my memory of it is somewhat colored by the Hollywood version. But since Goldman wrote the screenplay as well, it stays truer than most adaptations. Good writing, memorable characters, great dialogue, an adventurous plot, and lots of fun twists and turns gives this one top billing. It’s a joyous romp of a read.

Two for the show:
Post Office, Charles Bukowski
A recommendation from a writer friend of mine, this first novel by Bukowski is apparently as much autobiography as it is fiction. Filled with down and out Americans, booze, gambling, failed relationships, meaningless work, and a main character who is more cynical than Sam Spade and Han Solo. This novel is a good introduction for anyone interested in reading the author who TIME called a “laureate of American lowlife.”

Three to get ready:
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
I didn’t read much as a kid. I hated going to the library and checking out books, which invariably sat on my dresser, unread, until the due date arrived. But I remember loving this adventure fairy tale about a bored kid who discovers a magic tollbooth and decides to drive through it into another world. A classic childrens’ story worth re-reading as an adult.

O. I like the letter O.

The whole circular nature of things. Every end a new beginning. That sort of nonsense. But when I first sat down to figure out my favorite books that start with the letter O, I could only think of my top three, plus a couple I never read. Then I actually started focusing (which means I cheated and searched for titles on the Internet) and realized I’d read a lot more for this entry than I’d thought.

Some of the titles that didn’t make the list include Oliver Twist (Dickens), Odd Thomas (Koontz), Out of Sight (Leonard), The Outsiders (Hinton), and The Old Man and the Sea. Which should come as no surprise, considering my lack of enthusiasm for Hemingway. And since he’s already made my Classic Literature Razzies list once for A Farewell to Arms, I figured I’d let him slide this time.

Some of titles I’ve never read include On the Road (Kerouac) and One Hundred Years of Solitude (Márquez). I keep thinking I should eventually get around to them, but I’d rather watch Arrested Development on Netflix.

The Big O:
The Odyssey, Homer
I love Greek mythology and this epic poem has it all. Cyclops, Syclla, Charybdis, Sirens, a witch-goddess, sacred cows, a bunch of horny Suitors, a determined hero, death, adventure, treachery, love, betrayal, and a bunch of meddling, bickering gods screwing around with everyone’s fates while enjoying the perks of their Mount Olympus HOA.

Two for the Money:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
I will admit that the film version has filtered its way into my memories (since I read Cuckoo’s Nest in high school), but the book is populated with memorable characters, including the rebellious McMurphy, the controlling Nurse Ratched, and the silent Chief, through whose eyes we experience the book’s narrative. While the film version is a fairly solid adaptation and Nicholson steals the show, the novel is worth the read.

Three’s Company:
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
While technically a novella written as a play, this is the second of Steinbeck’s Dustbowl trilogy (sandwiched between In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath). Having never read Cannery Row or East of Eden, I admittedly have a smaller pool to choose from, but this is my favorite Steinbeck novel. Painful and tender and tragic, the themes of loneliness resonate more than 70 years after the book’s publication. (Odd Trivia – Apparently, an early draft of the novel was eaten by his dog.)

Favorite Guilty Pleasure:
The Other Side of Midnight, Sidney Sheldon
Not my favorite guilty pleasure of all time (that still goes to Waterworld), but I read several Sidney Sheldon novels in high school (including Bloodline and If Tomorrow Comes), and this was my favorite of the three.

While I’ve been spending a lot of time lately talking about my favorite books and authors who have inspired me, I’m also a big fan of movies and they’ve had as much of an influence on my writing as literature.

Over the past twenty years, I’ve developed an appreciation for a number of writers and directors, including the Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski), Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), David O. Russell (Flirting With Disaster, Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees), Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited), and David Fincher (Fight Club, Alien 3, Seven).

There’s more, but I figured that was enough.

As for my favorite films of all time, I did it purely my letter association, picking the first two films that popped into my head for each letter of the alphabet – though I could only come up with one film for Y and no titles for Q. Of course, limiting the list to two per letter caused me to leave out a number of films I really enjoyed, like Adaptation, CQ, Ghostbusters, and Scotland, PA. But I think this is a pretty good representation of the movies that have influenced and inspired me in one way or another:

A – Alien / Almost Famous
B – Being John Malkovich / The Big Lebowski
C – Caddyshack / Close Encounters of the Third Kind
D – Donnie Darko / Diner
E – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind / The Empire Strikes Back
F – Fight Club / Flirting With Disaster
G – The Graduate / Groundhog Day
H – High Anxiety / Halloween
I – I Heart Huckabees / It’s a Wonderful Life
J – Jaws / Jacob’s Ladder
K – Kingpen / Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
L – L.A. Confidential / Lost in Translation
M – The Matrix / Mystery Men
N – Night of the Living Dead / Napoleon Dynamite
O – Ocean’s Eleven / Office Space
P – Pulp Fiction / The Princess Bride
R – Royal Tenenbaums / Raiders of the Lost Ark
S – Star Wars / South Park
T – There’s Something About Mary / Tremors
U – Unbreakable / The Usual Suspects
V – Very Bad Things / V is for Vendetta
W – What Planet Are You From? / When Harry Met Sally
X – The X-Files / X-Men
Y – Young Frankenstein
Z – Zoolander / The Zero Effect

What are some of your favorite films of all time?

Well, the second half of the alphabet starts off with a lot of empty seats in the audience. Not that it’s a reflection on the quality of titles for this entry, just the quantity. Two titles, no wild cards, and only four total books I’ve read that start with the letter N. I even searched on the Internet for books I might have read and forgotten about and couldn’t find anything remotely familiar.

Other than the two titles that I’d recommend, the only other books I’ve read for this entry are both by Stephen King: Needful Things and Nightmares and Dreamscapes. And while I love King, I can’t bump either of these two titles into the third spot on the list.

So on to the best two books I’ve read that begin with the letter N:

Top Dog:
1984, George Orwell
Give me a better and more influential dystopian novel than this one and I’ll put it on my list of books to read. Orwell’s novel about a totalitarian regime and a manipulated society is a cautionary satire about nationalism, sexual repression, and censorship, condemning intellectualism and emotional intimacy. It also spawned several terms and concepts that have become common in contemporary usage, including the term Orwellian. And while the Thought Police might not be a reality, Big Brother is watching you.

Second Fiddle:
No Sleep Till Wonderland, Paul Tremblay
This is the sequel to Tremblay’s The Little Sleep, an homage to the benchmark of detective noir novels, The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. The play on words with the titles alludes to the main character, a down-and-out private detective who suffers from narcolepsy, which causes him to nod off and hallucinate at inopportune moments. The writing is crisp and engaging, the plot intriguing, and the humor sharp and often laugh-out-loud funny. While both books are fun reads, I liked No Sleep Till Wonderland a little bit more.