Why "Pretty Little Dirty" matters.

BLACK FLAG

Bakersfield, December '82

Look around. Look at the singer and his band. Look at the other hulking things with their bad tattoos leaning against the walls and know that this is not what you believed it would be. Feel your mistake like a steel-toe to the chest. Decide, anyway, not to cower. Put your mind to it. You will do this, and you will be good at it. You will give up to the outside everything on your inside. You will reverse your skin like a sweater pulled over your head. You will show her, them, all of them, every last one of them, how human you are. You will force them to see that you are exactly the same. You will. Decide, first, that you need another drink (4).

__________________________________________________________________

Now, that is an introduction. The first time that I picked up Pretty Little Dirty by Amanda Boyden at my university's bookstore, I saw the cover and was interested. I read that introduction and was hooked. I had never heard of Boyden, knew nothing about the 80s music scene and had no idea what I was about to get myself into. But from that first paragraph on, I couldn't put this book down. Despite the introduction's setting and focus, this novel isn't just about music. It is an epic about art, friendship, growing up, and the self-destructive impulses that all teenage girls have (Trust me, I used to be one). The narrator of this story is Lisa Smith, a pretty, petite, bright girl, coming-of-age in 1970s Kansas City. But from the first line of Chapter One, we know that this story isn't just about her. In fact, we don't even learn Lisa's name until the eighth page. The first name that we learn is that of her best friend, Celeste Diamond, and the first chapter is about how they met. The novel opens this way because from that moment on, Lisa and Celeste are a team, a partnership, a dynamic duo, and this book is their story. They go from being twelve-year-olds attending summer camp, to twenty-one-year-olds soaking in the hardcore California music scene. This book details their journey from girls in jazz class to women in steel-toe boots. It's about privilege and choices, music and love. It's about your best friend and mine. This book is about the life that you wish you had the guts to choose and it mattters.

On the surface, the two girls could not be more different. Celeste is beautiful, brilliant, and popular immediately. Lisa is cute and sharp, but feels average when compared to her best friend. Celeste's home is huge and filled to the brim with laughter. It contains two funny, able-bodied parents who shower their three daughters with love. They consider family dinner to be a daily need, not a holiday treat. Lisa's home, on the other hand, is dark and quiet, and her parents are less than personable. So Celeste brings Lisa into her world, more than willing to share her happy home and beautiful life with her new best friend. This willingness to share everything from parents, to beds, to boys is a sentiment that I understand. My best friend is my soul mate, my left arm, my person, and I don't know what I would do without her. I relate a lot to Lisa, Celeste and their friendship. In fact, my bestie and I both do because yes, I made her read this book too. In fact, when I finished it for the first time I immediately went online, bought another copy and sent it to her. She loved it as much as I did. This is one of the biggest reasons why this book matters, because the friendship within it is so real and relatable. But, I'll get to that later.

Lisa and Celeste become like sisters, partners in crime, the ring-leaders of their group of friends, two young girls in matching red coats. After they meet, they attend and survive their first co-ed summer camp experience, their first game of spin-the-bottle, and their first crushes that actually crush them. After camp comes junior high, the most uncomfortable time in any girl's life. But Celeste and Lisa face the awkwardness together, which makes dealing with new boobs and new boys a lot easier. High school is better time for them, and a New Year's Eve party freshman year sets the stage for their entrance into high school notoriety. That year passes quickly and happily, as does sophomore year, which Lisa sums up as, "a sickly-sweet and nearly perfect dream for the two of us Renaissance women" (99).

The summer before junior year, the girls are exposed to the art world of Kansas City and fall in love with both the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the art students who work there. They spend the summer at the museum, flirting and taking in the artwork adorning the museum walls. Little did they know that this summer would actually mark a time when how they looked at their lives changed drastically. They are exposed to freedom and rebellion and the need for exciting experiences fluttered in their hearts as they got lost in the art. The novel uses a slightly-disjointed timeline, in which events do not always appear in chronological order. I think that this reflects Lisa and Celeste's need to escape the established norm of their lives, and these visits to the museum sparks that need. So do some events during junior year that regard Lisa's already absent mother, but I'll let you learn about those on your own. I can't tell you everything ;)

Once junior year is over, Lisa and Celeste embrace the carefree lifestyle they had so enjoyed the summer before. The girls are happy to return to the Nelson-Atkins but this time, the men they meet there are far more interesting than the art. Celeste falls for Hank, a teacher at the Art Institute in Kansas City, and Lisa, quite conveniently, falls for his young protege, Ess. They are drawn to where Hank lives, dubbed the "sculpture house", as the grounds surrounding the large home hold most of the Institute's collection of marble art work. The girls wander around the yard and feel the passion of this place seep into them. They are reminded, yet again, that art and freedom are synonymous. That summer changes them, and they return to high school for senior year feeling like outcasts in their own group of popular friends. They participate in pranks and go to dances, but they just do it because it is expected of them, and because it temporarily alleviates the boredom. "We were too old there now," Lisa says, "and yet, too young for Hank's, too young for the Art Institute crowd to take us in completely. We were displaced by our desires, our own doing, and we suffered for it" (231).  The girls' desire for freedom is too strong, and they soon realize that they can't stay away from the sculpture house, or the men who dwell there. So, Lisa and Celeste spend most of their senior year among the statues, the only place where they feel that they belong.

Celeste and Lisa leave for college excited about the promise of freedom, education and new ideas that are always thought to be associated with higher learning. But they instead find a facade, an illusion of adulthood that is still fenced-in by the need to choose a "useful" major and the pressure to receive good grades within that major. Lisa wanted original thought and passionate art, but instead gets rehearsed speeches by TA's. Celeste's experience is the same, compounded by a lack of experienced men in the vicinity. So little by little, the girls reach their breaking point, throw up their hands and decide that there has got to be more than this. This decision changes their lives, uproots them to California and makes them a permanent fixture on the hardcore music scene developing there. "I could never exactly explain it," Lisa says. "Our decision to go where we did, that is. You can't, really. Explain it. You try" (370)

The women thrive like flowers on cacti, beautiful but surrounded by thorns. Their specific experiences I will leave you to read for yourselves, because honestly, they are much more powerful when read in full, rather than explained in a few short sentences by a blogger. They touch you more that way too, because you see the bravery of these two women firsthand, and the strength it took to do what they did. And this inner strength, this bravery, is the first reason why this novel matters. These two women, barely eighteen years old, have the guts to forsake the beaten path of college and dive into life head first, without fear. Lisa and Celeste want to see what the world has to offer and refuse wait for the experiences to come to them. They just need something new; pleasure or pain, it doesn't matter. Lisa explains it in her own words, a statement that resonates with the deep desire for freedom we have all felt at one point or another. "I had been a younger somebody interested in being able to speak from experience before I said anything. I wanted to know what I would be judging. Bring on the drugs, I had said... Bring on the poverty. Jesus, I'd grown up so privileged, it was pathetic. Bring on the dark side. Try to kill the meat you eat" (370). These girls face the darkness, face life, without hesitation and that is a kind of strength anyone can admire.

The way that this novel is structured keeps the pace fluid and the reader interested, as the timeline eventually brings you up to the present day and the chapters are separated by anecdotes of Lisa's experiences at hardcore concerts in California. These inserts may not seem important, but in reality they are the second reason why this novel matters. The first insert, as you have seen, is about a Black Flag show in which Lisa decides to show the world that she is made of tougher stuff than anyone would guess, stronger than anyone thinks. After tales of Social Distortion, Butthole Surfers and Circle Jerks, come The Skulls. After that show, Lisa knows the power that she wields over boys and men and invites all women to "Feel your might" (118). After The Skulls come the Dead Kennedys, and after them comes Sonic Youth. The Violent Femmes make Lisa feel raw, sober, and at that moment she knows that she needs more something and goes searching for it. More popular groups like Red Hot Chili Peppers, D.O.A. and Bad Religion make an appearance, as Lisa and Celeste fight their way from mosh pit to mosh pit, living on keg beer and desire. Because that was all these girls needed, music and each other. It fed them, kept them sane, gave them a reason to journey down the road not taken. What they did may be seen as immature, or a waste of all the time and effort spent on their educations, but this music gave these girls meaning and freedom and these inserts show that. In the final section Lisa reports from a Sex Pistols concert in London, 1977. She is never actually at the show, but for a moment she feels that she is. "And for a few seconds," she writes, "the room, in its unity, fills up with unadulterated joy. Only joy" (415).

The third and final reason why this novel matters is the friendship between Lisa and Celeste. I have already mentioned this, but now it is time to explain why a fictitious relationship between two people who don't actually exist is the most important reason why this novel needs to be read. I can sum it up in two words: unconditional love. Lisa and Celeste do not have a perfect friendship; they have disagreements, hurt feelings and jealousies. But what they do have is a love for each other that is so pure and so strong that it easily withstands those little problems and unites them together against bigger ones. It truly is Lisa and Celeste versus the world. Because from the first day they met it was decided, a duet they would be. And when the time came to drop their old lives and create new ones, it was done in tandem, without hesitation. They didn't need money, education, or a plan. They had each other and that was enough. Because life is full of ups and downs, disappointments and failures, but with a true friend by your side it is possible to get through anything, go anywhere, and live without regrets. Lisa states that Celeste is the only one she loves for sure, "without reservation" and that is a sentiment anyone can relate to if their best friend is their partner, their soul mate, their Celeste (318). Mine certainly is.

Pretty Little Dirty by Amanda Boyden contains sex, drugs, mistakes, and doesn't apologize for it. It tells the truth about seeking freedom through self-destruction, shows women living in a world of their own making. It is a middle finger to every person who told you to color inside the lines, and that the prettiest girls are your greatest competition. And while you may not agree with the actions of these two women, know that what they did isn't the point. It's the fact that they did something. They decided that their lives would be created by their choices, not the choices of others, and that there was more out there than what they had been brought up with. Lisa and Celeste chose what shaped them, changed them, and they did it together, side by side, a duo until the very end. This novel shows a friendship strong enough to withstand mosh pits, and bravery powerful enough to support a cross-country move. It is about having the guts to take your life into your own hands and that is why it matters.

Boyden, Amanda. Pretty Little Dirty. New York: Vintage Books (A Division of Random House, Inc.), 2006. 4, 99, 118, 231, 318, 370, 415. Print.

Why "Hearts in Atlantis" matters.

It didn't take me a long time to make my first book selection for this blog. In fact, it took me no time at all. I have already recommended this book to about twenty people, all of whom have either politely declined, or take the book but never make it past the first page. But this is a book that should never be set aside; this is a book that needs to be read. Hearts in Atlantis takes you on a journey through time, and is one of those rare books that compels you, that causes your heart to race and makes you unable to set it down. You fall in love with the characters, memorize the dialogue, and cry when it's over. In fact, the first time I finished this 672 page masterpiece, I immediately started it over again. Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever read a book so amazing, so inspiring, so full of truth that you turned back to first page after you had finished the last because you weren't ready for it to be over? Because if you haven't, then you are not reading the right books. This is one of those right books. It is an amazing book. And it's by a very well-known author, an author who has written so many novels that he has at least two shelves in the Barnes and Noble Fiction section. You have heard of him, you may have even read one or two of his books or seen the movie versions. But trust me when I say that this book is nothing like his others. It carries his style and shows his excellent writing ability, but the content and the profoundness of what is said within it has no equal in any of his other works (at least compared to the 10 or so novels of his that I have also read). And for that reason, I am not revealing the author's name until the end of this post. Because after reading my summary and knowing what this book is all about the answer will shock you, disarm you, and maybe make you look at this writer in a different light. And, hopefully, it'll make you want to read this book. Because this books matters. Let me tell you why.

The premise of Hearts in Atlantis is simple: it's about the Vietnam War. But the story itself and the way that the book is set up are not so simple and that's one of the reasons why I love it. And one of the reasons why this book is such an interesting read. Because this was not a simple war, it was a war that split the nation, a war that had reasons, but was never actually declared. Never in the history of America was a war so protested, so not wanted by the blossoming generation of teens and young adults. It took place in a time of change and unrest and because of that, the author needed more than one person's prospective and a hearty back-story to make the tale complete. This way, the reader could understand the true impact of what happened over the course of a decade and how Vietnam affected every life it touched. The book has five sections from four people's perspectives and, as I tell you about each section, please know that I don't seek to give anything away. I just want to give you enough so that you can see the depth of this book, and understand the potential impact it could have on you if you are willing to read past the first page.

1. (1960) Low Men in Yellow Coats
Bobby Garfield is a 10-year-old boy who lives in Harwich, Connecticut with his mother and the first two things that you learn about him are that his father is dead and that all he wants for his 11th birthday is a red and silver Schwin bicycle. Bobby's best friends are John Sullivan (a.k.a. Sully-John, like the boxer) and Carol Gerber and all three are living in that sweet time of life when childhood is almost over, but the stresses of adulthood have not yet hit. When Bobby's birthday arrives his mother hands him a package much too small to hold the prized bike but instead contains a library card, an adult library card. Bobby isn't as thrilled as I was when I got my first library card, but don't blame him for that, he's only 11. That same day Bobby meets an older man moving into the upstairs room of the the building in which Bobby and his mother live. Little does he know, as he walks away from their now shared stoop, that this man will change his life forever. Ted Brautigan becomes Bobby's teacher, the first male mentor he's had since he was three. Ted gives him Lord of the Flies and Bobby devourers it. Ted also gives Bobby a job and on the surface, it just looks like Bobby is being paid to read the newspaper to man whose eyes have seen better days (I can never resist a pun). But that is not the whole truth. Ted is paying Bobby to keep an eye out for "low men in yellow coats", shady characters who want to get their greasy hands on Ted and who communicate in mysterious ways. Bobby understands that his new friend is being hunted, but by who? For a while, he doesn't give the situation much thought. Summer has come and Bobby wants to spend it with his best friends. During those few short weeks Bobby gets his first kiss, plays baseball with his friends and does his best to avoid bullies from St. Gabriel's Secondary School. But Bobby has bigger problems when he starts to see signs that the "low men" have come for Ted. It is this moment when Bobby makes the first (and worst) adult decision of his life: he doesn't tell Ted. You can guess the disastrous consequences of this action, both for Ted and Bobby, but what you may not be able to guess is who these men in yellow coats really are. Gangsters? Aliens? Government agents? Figments of an old man and troubled boy's imaginations? Even by the end of this section we don't really know. What we do know is that Bobby, Carol and Sully are never the same and that that summer, the summer of 1960, was a turning point in each of their lives. It was the summer of experiences that ended up putting them on opposite sides of a war.

2. (1966) Hearts in Atlantis
The book's title comes from this second section and while Bobby's story sets up the rest of the novel, this part is my favorite and I understand why the author saw this section as title-worthy. Peter Riley arrives at the University of Maine for his freshman year in 1966 with a Barry Goldwater bumper sticker on his car (AuH20-4-USA) and a head full of Republican ideals. When he leaves in 1970, however, his hair is down to his shoulders and he sports a sticker on his backpack that states RICHARD NIXON IS A WAR CRIMINAL. College is always a time of change, right? Like the majority of college students in the late 1960s, Peter becomes passionate about the Anti-War movement but, unlike most college students, he also becomes passionate about Hearts. Hearts is a card game that Peter and his dorm mates in Chamberlain Three become obsessed with, playing it both for bragging rights and money. During this time the draft was in place and college males had to live by one rule, 2.5 to Stay Alive. This meant that if their grade point average fell below a 2.5 they lost all their scholarship money and would have to drop out of school. And that meant automatic entry into the military system and, eventually, going to war. The boys in Chamberlain Three waste their time and money on Hearts and the game claims more than a few of them for Uncle Sam's cause. And as Atlantis sinks around him, Peter starts failing his classes, draws his first peace sign, and falls in love with a girl named Carol. There is so much more to this section; an angry paraplegic, profane graffiti, boys becoming men and life lessons being learned. But to give away too much more would be an injustice to Peter and I just can't do that.

3. (1983) Blind Willie
Bill Shearman is a former St. Gabriel's student and Vietnam War veteran whose day centers around his wife, his work, and his commute from the suburbs into the big city. It is December and Christmas is quickly approaching, but Willie doesn't care. Although he appears to have a good job and a happy, stable life, deep sorrow and remorse lurk just beneath the surface and the man in the dark suit and blue tie is wracked with painful emotions. Willie served in the Vietnam War and is haunted by his experiences, but his deep regret comes from a time before the war, the summer of 1960. His actions during that summer haunt him and in this section we see the daily penance he has imposed on himself to make up for what he did to Carol. And upon his arrival to work on that fateful day, he transforms from Bill Shearman, successful business and family man, into Willie Shearman, a Catholic high school student who writes over and over again, I am heartily sorry. Once his writing is complete, Willie puts on his army fatigues and becomes Blind Willie Garfield, a homeless veteran who panhandles to support himself. This man is neither blind nor homeless,and makes his living by lying about who he is and what really happened to him in "the bush." He hears people's voices shaking as they donate their change and ask about his experiences, telling him that they too were there. And after a long day of standing on the sidewalk, Blind Willie becomes Bill Shearman again, joins his wife at a dinner party and enjoys a glass of eggnog as if all is right in the world. Because the importance of his portion of the story is not found in the destination, but in his daily journey, which is why you get to know the ending.

4. (1999) Why We're in Vietnam
"When someone dies, you think about the past." (576) This line opens up the fourth section, where we catch up with John Sullivan, formerly known as Sully-John of Harwich, Connecticut. At this point in his life, Sully-John is older, wiser and the owner of several car dealerships. He served in the Vietnam War with Bill Shearman and also survived to tell his tale. Well, he survived in the similar way Jake Barnes "survived" in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, with his life, but not necessarily with his entire manhood. Sully is attending the funeral and wake of an old military buddy and through conversations, drunken rantings and a series of flashbacks, it is easy to see the legacy that the war left on those who survived it. Because Sully not only remembers the war, but is constantly reminded of it every day, both by the body parts he is missing and by old mamasan. Old mamasan is the ghost of woman whom Sully saw murdered in the bush, who followed him home from war and is now his constant companion. She sits next to him on the car ride home from the wake and Sully talks to her, hates her, misses her for the brief periods of time when she is gone. But she always comes back and he knows this. She never says a word, and Sully knows this too. His section ends in an unclear way, whether insanity or odd coincidences took hold of him we may never know. But what we do know is that the fifth section opens with Bobby Garfield returning to Harwich, Connecticut to pay his last respects to an old friend.

5. (1999) Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling
Bobby's return to Harwich brings on a flood of both happy childhood memories and the terrible heartache that followed the summer of 1960. Bobby grieves for Ted, for his lost childhood and for the friends who had once meant so much to him. Friends that the war took so much from. This section is special, it is the shortest of the five and is the closing scene of a masterful work of literature. The last few pages of this novel are filled with some of the most amazing words I have ever read, so I won't say anything more. Because why would I tell you to read a novel and then give away the ending?

That is my summary of the book that I've read more times than I can count, the book I have owned three copies of, the book I have recommended to many people, but still a book I alone have read. I have given you background and plot summary, and now I am giving you the point, why all this matters. Because these are not five stories joined only because the narrators grew up in the same part of town. These are five stories connected by a war, by change, even by a little magic and coincidence. And each of these five stories have something to teach you, some message that you may not see until the second, third, or tenth time that you read this book. Ted once says, "Good books don't give up all their secrets at once," a line that I think is actually describing the novel itself, a line that speaks the truth (49).

Bobby's last bit of childhood is spent with Ted, a man of unknown origin or motives, a man who gives him a book and changes his life. Ted becomes his teacher and his friend and uses literature to teach about truth, both to Bobby and the reader. His section shows a boy on the cusp of adulthood, and the fear, confusion, and responsibility that comes with that new stage of life. We watch as he learns to not trust all adults and that there are severe consequences to both his actions and inaction. And we cry with Bobby when Ted is gone. That is one of the reasons that this book matters, because it makes you feel for the characters in a way many other books fail to achieve. The same is true of Peter Riley's story, in which we watch his life fall prey to hearts, both the card game and the organ beating in his chest that yearns for Carol. While Bobby's story is about becoming a young adult, Peter's is about falling in love and learning to stand up for what you believe in. Both of these acts involve bravery, and both bring pleasure along with pain. In Peter's section, Carol becomes the teacher and her wisdom is undeniable. She says, "Maybe you love me and maybe you don't. I'd never try to talk anyone out of loving me, I can tell you that much, because there's never enough loving to go around" (434). Carol knows loss and pain, but she also knows love. And when there's a war going on and countries are being split apart, what else do you have but love? In a sense, that's what the core of the hippie movement was all about and I never would have realized that without Carol. She affected my Republican ideals too.

The stories of Willie and Sully-John are different from the coming-of-age dramas of Bobby and Peter, and give the reader a different perspective from the other side of the war. These men fought for their country, saw their comrades die screaming, and barely escaped from the bush with their lives. Different lessons can be learned from their sacrifice, lessons that a solely-anti-war novel would not have contained. During that time, some people called the peace sign "the track of the great American chicken" and that may be true in these two men's eyes. They went to war voluntarily and truly believed in what they were doing. Sully once asks himself, "They were brave kids. And if their bravery had been wasted in a war made by pigheaded old men, did that mean the bravery was of no account?" (619) Their experiences left them beyond scarred, causing one man to live in a permanent state of penance and the other to be haunted by old mamasan. Even though you may judge Willie for pretending to be blind or disagree with Sully's actions in the bush, remember survival. Remember compassion. And know that soldiers in Vietnam faced hell as bravely as they could. That is what these two sections teach you, that war is brutal, but that compassion and strength can be learned in dangerous territory. Because Willie Shearman is just trying to make amends for what he did. And although Sully's ghost may be justified in her haunting, her presence makes Sully want to be a better person than the man who watched her die without lifting a finger. These men may not have believed in love and peace the way Peter or Carol did, but they did believe in honor. And I believe in my heart that they are both honorable men.

Besides these few lessons, and glimpses of life and truth that I have shown you, Hearts in Atlantis is filled with many more. It is a book you will finish and immediately want to start over again, a book that shows how hearts don't usually break, just bend, and are actually much stronger than they appear (433). And all of this from the author who wrote Carrie, The Shining and countless other horror stories. Stephen King is the author of Hearts in Atlantis and I think that this novel says more about his writing ability and intelligence than any of his other works. Because pig's blood on the prom queen and a little telekinetic boy are both very entertaining situations, but this book contains truth. And that is the biggest reason why it matters. Because an intriguing plot and characters that you fall in love with are the hallmarks of any great novel, but truth is what matters. This novel does not sugar-coat, it does not give away all of its secrets and it might leave you with a million questions, but the wisdom contained in it is worth all of that. Atlantis sinks, people make mistakes, and war may be inevitable. But truth and love are worth fighting for, living for, dying for and certainly worth reading for. That is what Hearts in Atlantis is about and that is why it matters.

King, Stephen. Hearts in Atlantis. 2. New York: Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc., 2000. 49, 433, 576, 619. Print.

Why books (and this blog) matter.

Ever since I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the 4th grade I have been a bookworm and have made it my personal mission to devour as many works of literature as possible. Over the last 13 years I would venture to guess that I have ingested more than 500 books, from the classics of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, to the more modern David Mitchell and George R.R. Martin. Some of these works have been tasty novels filled with interesting plots and witty repartee, while others have left more than just a bad taste in my mouth.

But the job of a bookworm is not only to know the good from the bad, but also to be ever ready to make recommendations to newer members of the Oligochaeta class. At times, I have given out books as medicine, some Hunger Games to heal a broken heart or a little American Psycho to understand that you could have bigger problems. And other times, I finish the last page of a novel and think to myself, "This. So-and-so NEEDS THIS." But whatever the reason, I have always been prepared to lend a friend a novel, whether they are eager to take it from my hands, or accept it with a raised eyebrow and a shrug.

In many instances, however, my recommendations fall by the wayside, are placed on a shelf or in a bag, and are never opened or appreciated. There are so many fantastic books in the world, but it seems like if they aren’t being turned into movies, no one is interested, no one cares. That is why I am starting this blog, to expose the Internet to a fact that seems to be lost on my generation: Amazing books are out there, books that can take you on adventures and teach you things that you may never have known otherwise. Reading is not terminally uncool, but an essential part of a healthy life, one that should not be overlooked as paper becomes an obsolete material and virtual becomes reality. Because despite the format changes happening in the publishing world today, books themselves aren't going anywhere and still have so much to teach us if we are willing to read them.

The books that I will be discussing on this blog may be unknown or undersold, but they contain truth, wisdom and the essence of life itself. They might make you laugh or cry or just expose you to a world that you didn’t know existed before you turned to that first page. I cannot promise that you will love all of my recommendations, but what I can promise is that these books are worth your time, worth turning off the TV and closing your laptop for. These books were published to be read but more than that, they should be read because they matter. And I'm going to tell you why they matter.

So, here is to the odd, to the outstanding and to the obscure, books that everyone should read, but no one knows about. Happy reading my friends! I hope that these books help you find what matters to you.