book theme for this summer: guy-lit

book theme for this summer: guy-lit

With a new novel by Palahniuk published earlier this month, I've decided to make it a summer of guy literature (Palahniuk wrote Fight Club, Fight Club is the ultimate in guy reading, "Rant", Palahniuk's new novel is similar to Fight Club, hope this ridiculously contrived sentence explains my thought process behind the theme for this summer).

While I'm interested in diving into Hemingway and Cormac McCarthy, I elected to start the summer off with lighter selections: "Women" by Charles Bukowski and "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" by Tucker Max.

Mr Bukowski (died 1994) while critically un-acclaimed has had a massive influence on the culture of smart people. He was a dirty old man who lived in a dirty old apartment, who drank and fucked a lot.

Mr Max is an up and coming blogger who got published in 2006. Like Bukowski he drinks and fucks a lot (but that's where the similarities end). His book is made up of autobiographical stories taken directly from his website. The early writings are clumsy and he reintroduces the same characters over and over which takes away from his funny writing and excellent stories.

I've thoroughly enjoyed both books except for one thing. The overwhelming amounts of sex. I've read at least a hundred almost identical sex scenes between the 2 of them in the past week. It's so boring. Their tales of sex are very similar.

1. Meet random girl, she was pretty/ugly/had a nice set of tits/is a landbeast/etc

2. I/We got drunk

3. We had sex

I'm hoping that my other choices this summer either don't mention the subject or more interestingly/insightfully describe sex. Seriously I'm starting to miss William S. Bourroughs disturbing gay prostitution weirdness, at least he knew how to change the storyline up a bit.

I've done the random girl story line in real life, it's boring and I'm pretty tired of reading it repetitively.

If anyone out there has any suggestions for guy reading please let me know. I'll must warn you, suggest Tom Clancy or other similar tripe (Rainbow Six was good but if you've read one...) there's a good possibility that next time we meet you'll get kicked in the balls/ovaries.

Anyway, happy summer reading my friends!