Mark compiled a three foot shelf reading list, based on books he’s seen written up by James Wood. I think this is great idea and that it can also be applied to litbloggers. Here then is my Punkass Three Foot Shelf, a guide to titles that have been great sources of literary inspiration over the past few years:

Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (for perspective)
James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (for grit and pain)
John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor (for satire and voice)
T.C. Boyle, World’s End (for ambitious narrative juggling)
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (for perspective)
William Gaddis, The Recognitions (for amibition)
Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems (for prose and voice)
Knut Hamsun, Hunger (for voice)
David Lodge, Small World (for comic clarity)
David Markson, This Is Not a Novel (for experimentalism and minimalism)
John P. Marquand, Sincerely, Willis Wayde (for perspective and clarity)
Don Marquis, archy and mehitabel (for the heart)
Ian McEwan, Atonement (for sumptuous subterfuge)
Henry Miller, The Rosy Crucifixion (for honesty)
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (for accessible ambition)
George Orwell, Collected Journalism (for clarity)
Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast Trilogy (for description)
Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations (for ambition)
Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries (for giddiness)
Gilbert Sorrentino, Mulligan Stew (for experimental narrative)
William T. Vollmann, The Rainbow Stories (for perspective, courage and honesty)
Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days (for perspective)
Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (for prose, minimalism and editing)

From Kate’s Book Blog:

One book that changed your life: Lexus, Sexus and Nexus by Henry Miller. I read The Rosy Crucifixion when I was 23 and this trilogy, perused in one mad gulp, gave me invaluable lessons about clinging obstinately to my dreams, remaining true to myself, and being unapologetically honest and passionate. Sure, there was a lot of sex in the three books and that didn’t hurt either. But before Henry Miller, I was a nervous and bumbling kid. I emerged on the other side with the beginnings of an unstoppable impetus. (Other authors I read during this time committed to these self-same truths: James Baldwin, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson — a lot of Jims for some strange reason. But, his narcissism aside, it was good ol’ Henry Miller who I am most indebted to.)

One book that you’ve read more than once: Many, but Richard Powers’ The Gold Bug Variations and William Gaddis’s The Recognitions come immediately to mind.

One book you’d want on a desert island: I hate to pilfer from Jenny D, but The Riverside Shakespeare is truly the only option.

One book that made you laugh: John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor

One book that made you cry: William T. Vollmann’s The Rainbow Stories, in large part because Bootwoman Marisa reminded me of someone I once knew who had gone down a horrible path because she was misunderstood.

One book that you wish had been written: A three-way tie between Dickens’ unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the fourth and fifth books that Mervyn Peake had hoped to write in his Gormenghst trilogy with an elderly Titus Groan.

One book that you wish had never been written: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. While this novel contains undeniable (and certainly unintentional) comic value, perhaps the Rand disciples, who cling foolishly to Rand’s tenets the way flies flock to feces, might have put their energies towards something more humanist. This book, in addition to being a plodding mess I read through to the very edge, is pretty much my ideological opposite.

One book you’re currently reading: Scott Smith’s The Ruins, a good romp after a lot of high-octane literary fiction.

One book you’ve been meaning to read: Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, which has been sitting around unread for years.

The Book Standard has uncovered the latest Kids and Family Reading Report conducted by Yankelovich and Scholastic. 92% of kids enjoy reading for fun. 90% of kids also say that they believe reading for fun is important. Unfortunately, there is a sharp drop-off in high frequency readers between the ages of 5-8 (40%) and 9-11 (29%). The study, taken from a sample of 500 kids, also notes that “the #1 reason why they do not read more is because they can not find books they like to read.”

Part of me wonders if there is some fundamental disconnect going on here that American society is remaining silent about. If the desire to read within kids is there, what is our education system doing to steer children off reading? Does the drop-off occur here because it’s not socially acceptable to read? Or because parents are demanding their kids to read instead of letting them discover books on their own? What underlying factor that shifts reading away from fun and more towards work? The study here suggests that 72% of high frequency readers associate the need to read with getting into a good college or nabbing a good job when they get older. Reading becomes viewed as “work” as early as the age of 5.

But if the chief problem here is that kids aren’t finding books they “like to read,” perhaps there is something within the current system that is not only preventing kids from “liking” literature, but prohibiting a sense of self-discovery. Thus, the “fun” becomes “work,” rather than something naturally embedded within young minds, and the great interest dissipates.

Dana Gioia: “Los Angeles, the city of Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury and Octavia Butler, is now the biggest book market in North America. And, as a recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts demonstrates (with a statistical certainty of 99.5%), Californians read more than New Yorkers. Los Angeles is one of the great literary centers of the English-speaking world — not to mention a growing center of the Spanish-speaking mundo.”

Jacqueline Wilson notes ten books to read aloud to children. Amazingly, Trout, Petits Fours (Delaware Style) and Other Regional Delicacies for the Avid Traveler (1998 edition), published by the Brandywine Valley Visitors and Convention Bureau, somehow didn’t make the cut.