The Book of Books: a life entangled with reading

By Jimmy Jazz

This book chronicles one reader's obsession with books over 30 years. It starts with a book assigned in high school in 1984. A book by George Orwell. Imagine how accidentally picking up a book by Andy Warhol or Malcolm X might spin you in a new direction. Imagine picking up 1300 books. This is the story about how a man escaped the ordinary life they had planned for him by becoming a reader. It's a story about how a kid who started listening to punk rock and reading books came to believe that he could be a writer too. It follows him around the country where he meets some of the great writers of his generation. He learns that it's possible to be an outsider bohemian artist and raise a sane and functional family. The books he reads flow in and out of that daily domestic tte--tte, act as a buffer against loneliness and death. What do you do when your wife and daughter leave you? What do you do when your cat dies or your grandma or your baby? What do you do when the bitter human stupidity and meanness of the world drag you into the depths of depression? You read. You get in your book and hit the road. You zoom off into space. You climb into some stranger's head or bed through the vehicle of the novel. This is what reading is. This is what reading can do.Sure, this is a book about the history and science of reading, but also about the unparalleled pleasure of reading. It's a book about books. A book about how one book leads to another. A book that explores the way books explode like the chaotic arrows of the compass rose in 360 directions. It encompass everything that ever was in a book. It opens with a preamble, preface, forward, introduction & prologue. It's made of photos, art, blood, piss & cum. It has a thumb index for crying out loud! It uses fiction & non-fiction, contains interviews & reviews, biography, autobiography & memoir.. It is a novel, contains a play. It discuses history, science & literature. It examines belief & ideology. It is both a puzzle and a running gag. It took six years to write and has more words than Moby-Dick. And, if the writer says so, it is also an epic poem.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1534706526
• ISBN13: 9781534706521
• Release Date: September 2016
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 628 Pages
• Weight: 2.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 1.6" x 7.0"