Blog

favorite authors/books & profound influencers

in no particular order

Zenna Henderson (fantasy/scifi)

Ask for my favorite writer and I’ll probably reply with the name of this little-known author. She wrote gentle short stories – mostly fantasy – during the 50s, 60s and 70s. A long-time teacher living in the American Southwest, she set her stories in those arid lands, and she sketched children’s characters better than just about anybody. About half her stories are about “The People” – human-looking aliens with special powers, struggling to find each other. All her stories are collected in 2 hardbacks. My fovorite stories are the sublime “The Anything Box” and the devastating “You Know What, Teacher?” (the latter was published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and is her only non-fantasy story) – both are non-People stories.

  • Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (hardback)
  • Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson (hardback)

Ayn Rand (fiction & non-fiction)

Ayn Rand’s style and substance can be summed up by the title of one of her books: THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS. She was a gutsy, independent thinker. While I am not philosophically congruent with Ayn Rand, I find myself agreeing with many of her conclusions. In fact, I could hardly think abstractly or analytically or philosophically before encountering her writing. For that, she has indisputably strongly shaped my thinking. And I love her novels.

  • Anthem
  • Atlas Shrugged
  • We the Living
  • The Fountainhead
  • The Virtue of Selfishness
  • The Ideas of Ayn Rand by Ronald E Merrill
    (excellent intro to her ideas by someone outside her circle of devotees)

Edward Stratemeyer (fiction)

Who? Creator of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew – that’s who. Fun and formative stuff. Every now and then, I’ll pick one up and read it. Stratemeyer didn’t really write the stories, tho. He (and later, his daughters and other successors) provided outlines to ghost writers who fleshed them out, under the famous pseudonyms of Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene. Leslie McFarlane ghosted the first Hardy Boy books. Mildred Wirt Benson ghosted the first Nancy Drew books. For fans of the 1930s, Applewood Books is reproducing the original versions of the early books with their original illustrations and dust jackets.

  • The Hardy Boy series
  • Nancy Drew series
  • The Nancy Drew Scrapbook by Karen Plunkett-Powell (lotsa info on the Stratemeyer Syndicate)

Jack London (fiction)

He was 21 when he joined the Klondike gold rush and experienced a life that his imagination turned into massively popular stories. Later, he sailed the Pacific, resulting in tales less famous – but were equally vivid and exciting. He rode the rails on a whim, and spent time in London’s impoverished East End (which he called “the abyss”). I’m a lifelong stick-in-the-mud and must accept that I will not be able to write a Jack London type of story that rings true. One of my favorite books of his is the fictionalized autobiography “Martin Eden” – not just because it detailed his early struggles to become a writer – but also because his recreation of a woman who had entranced him perfectly resembled a woman I had fallen for at the time I read it.

  • South Sea Tales
  • Martin Eden
  • The People of the Abyss

Jules Verne (fiction & scifi)

This is more my type of writer. A stay-at-home dreaming of far-off adventures. His stories were somewhat formulaic but vastly fun – if you don’t mind reading a lot of travelogue type descriptions.

  • The Mighty Orinoco
  • Michel Strogoff (Michael Strogoff)
  • Journey to the Center of the Earth

Dante (epic poetry)

Even tho I ain’t religious, I was transported by Dante’s great work. I read John Ciardi’s verse translation, laden with footnotes. I hope to read it again. It doesn’t mean anything that I felt most at home in “Inferno”, does it?

  • The Divine Comedy

Eric Hoffer (non-fiction)

Hoffer deeply influenced me at the same time as Ayn Rand. They might be said to be the antidote for the other. Yet, despite their differences, they had certain similarities that are less apparent – except to someone who has studied them both. A voracious reader, despite lacking in formal education, Hoffer wrote insightful observations on societies current and past. He preferred brief, lucid explanations, so his books are all very short – but rich in content. He had a exceptional writing style that makes reading his essays enjoyable. “The True Believer” is destined to be his profoundest work – and explains much that is going on today in the 2000s. Due to circumstances, he lived a modest lifestyle which was revealed in a journal he kept for a brief while late 1950s (the first book listed below). I reread it occasionally to regain my sense of grounding. 

  • Working and Thinking on the Waterfront
  • The True Believer
  • The Ordeal of Change
  • The Temper of Our
  • First Things, Last Things
  • Before the Sabbath

Charles Darwin (non-fiction)

If religious thought inhibits understanding, it should not be surprising that thinking which challenges religious conventions can be freeing and potent. By confronting religious dogma (however reluctantly), Darwin has set biology on the most productive path – as well as freed minds from their religious straitjackets. 

  • The Origin of the Species
    (i recommend “The Illustrated Origin of Species, Abridged Edition” edited by Richard Leakey)

H.L. Mencken (non-fiction)

Perhaps this journalist of the first half of the 1900s was too cynical, but I find his style of writing so engaging that I don’t care what the content is about. He (like S.I. Hayakawa & Abba Eban) has that cadence to his prose that appeals to my inner rhythm, along with a sweeping vocabulary that furnishes just the right word or phrase. He was prolific and works are widely reprinted.

  • A Mencken Chrestomathy

S.I. Hayakawa (non-fiction)

My thinking hasn’t been the same after reading Hayakawa’s most famous work. It gleaned the best insights and techniques from a very flawed system of thought (IMO), Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics. Somehow, I managed not to be affected by his flawed left-leaning politics. Altho, I was mesmerized by his prose.

  • Language in Thought and Action

Christopher Hitchens (non-fiction)

A lifelong Trotskyite, Hitchens’ leftist fans turned viciously on him with his stance on the Iraq war – and support for Israel – and his warnings about the muslim refugee invasions of his home country and his adopted country. He detoured in many ways from the leftist mindset and it can be comfortably asserted that he was like the quantum electron – hard to pin down. But his religiosity wasn’t. I listened to the audiobook version of the book listed below and was constantly nodding in agreement and often struck by a fresh insight. Like Mencken & Hayakawa & Hoffer – he was a wordsmith of the highest order.

  • God Is Not Great

Edward de Bono (non-fiction)

I suppose I can measure deBono’s influence by how it easy it is for me think “laterally”, ie, to see in new and creative ways. He studied the mechanics of thinking – which he taught in practical step-by-step techniques with illustrations – as opposed to prose suggestions. 

  • PO
  • I’m Right, You’re Wrong
  • The DeBono Code™ Book
  • etc

C.W. Ceram (non-fiction)

When I read Ceram’s famous book around 1982, I realized that my heart wasn’t in computer programming. However, decades later, I have been too poor to engage in archeological field work. However again, this book has led to the realization that my eclectic reading choices over the years were dictated by an anthropological curiosity – in myself.

  • Gods, Graves and Scholars

Herbert Bensen (non-fiction)

I come from a very high-strung family. To reduce stress, I took self-hypnosis classes. That led directly to my reading Bensen’s highly informative book which demonstrated the similarity between self-hypnosis, meditation and relaxation techniques – and confirmed their benefits. While I’m not floating thru life blissfully like a yogi, I’m less stressed than I could have been.

  • The Relaxation Response

Elaine Morgan (non-fiction)

This Welsh writer became an apostle to British biologist Alistair Hardy and his Aquatic Ape Theory after encountering the theory from British zoologist Desmond Morris, who mentions the theory regularly but noncommittally. There’s nothing non-committal about Morgan. She has vigorously promoted it in her own series of books. I first heard of the theory from a wonderful Australian documentary called “Waterbabies”. I don’t know if the theory will prove accurate, but it is fascinating in itself – and for the emotional antipathy it provokes from supposed scientists.

  • The Descent of Women
  • The Scars of Evolution
  • The Aquatic Ape

John Dunning (mystery)

I had never been interested in book collecting as a hobby or a business – and I’m still not, but John Dunning makes it central to his Cliff Janeway series – and I often found that background more fascinating than the mysteries. The first book in the list below is his first novel and can serve as a introduction to book collecting – with each book adding a bit more instruction. The second book in the list (the fourth in his series) is my favorite of the ones I read. I keep it in my shelf instead of giving it away – it’s a first edition hardback in good condition – and autographed.

  • Booked to Die
  • The Sign of the Book

(first published in an earlier personal website – before i begin using freed prose – minor changes – and a couple additions)