Broke & Bookish (I like to think of them as entities) are back with a vengeance. Another great top 10 idea this week. There are a lot of books that would have made my life less complicated if I had read them as a child. Mainly, it would have allowed me to find more decent male archetypes to mold my understanding of life on. Here's what I think would have saved me a lot of teen angst. I included in here what I wish I had read from Zero to Sixteen years old.
1-The Count Of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas: Or at least a simplified version of it. I wanted to read it for as long as I can remember, but the sheer page count turned me off until 2009. Edmon Dantès has a very important lesson to teach. No matter how trapped you feel by your present, the important is to take action against it.
2-The Star Wars novels: Whenever I walk even remotely close to the Science-Fiction aisle in my bookstore, there are ugly, flaccid people with pony tails, bad skin and irritable temper storming around the Star Wars collections. Since I don't live in the past, I leave those novels to people who don't completely live in the present.
3-V For Vendetta by Alan Moore: Great graphic novel about individuality. It's OK to not do whatever the others are doing if you think it's shitty. Great example for kids, yet somewhat violent tale of retribution.
4-Harry Potter series by J. K Rowling: Yep, I said that. Taking responsibility for your actions and who you are has became something rare in Occidental society. I'm promoting whatever promotes it. Great series for children.
5-The Odyssey by Homer: It's the grandfather of tales of manly badassness. The Iliad is a lot more complex, adult and geared towards oral representation. It's like Indiana Jones B.C
6-Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk: Why, oh why didn't I read this by the time I was sixteen? It was out already. Young enough to be appealing. Mature enough to make my sixteen years old self think.
7-Dragonball Manga Series by Akira Toriyama: A bit of the same than Harry Potter, just a little more rubbish and 7-12 years old in its execution. Makes for killer childhood memories. Memories I don't have since I watched the T.V series at 25 years old.
8-The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler: It's somewhat of an easy read and it's the quintessential P.I. Reading this in a young age would have made me a neurotic kid (it was inevitable), but I also would have been spare some catching up in my twenties.
9-The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien: I was always mystified by kids who read those (first time I saw a classmate read this book, I was in sixth grade). I wish I had read them sooner, so I could have told people it's not all that. It's certainly an interesting tale of fate...but I don't know...wizards and all. Not my thing.
10-Ghost In The Shell Series by Masamune Shirow: I would have been the coolest kid on the block with that book under my arm, retelling the story of humanity's tormented future to my friend. Unfortunately, it waited until my twneties.
