Habitual Reader Profiles - Page 2

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	Name: Rob Loughran
	City & State: Windsor, California
	Vocation / Avocation: Freelance Writer
	Website: www.lulu.com/rloughranjokes

Why I'm a Habitual Reader:

I love everything about books; I can't imagine life without them.

My List of Ten: Books You Read in Your 30s (or younger) That You Should Re-Read In Your 50s

1. Briarpatch
Author: Ross Thomas
Briarpatch is even more entertaining and seamless than it was when I read it in the 1980s.

2. Legends of the Fall
Author: Jim Harrison
Legends seems a bit prissy and self-indulgent now; the first time I was in awe. Hmmm.

3. Emma
Author: Jane Austen
Jane is an incredible and timeless and perceptive writer.

4. Lovers of Their Time and Other Stories
Author: William Trevor
His narrative style, which belongs to an earlier, different esthetic works so well. Trevor says, "Come here and let me tell you a story..." He engenders a trust I've rarely felt with any other author.

5. Dubliners
Author: James Joyce
The best book Joyce wrote, by far. It's the only book where he cared more about his characters than showing off and establishing a reputation.

6. Cathedral
Author: Raymond Carver
I still don't know why (or how) his simple stories affect me so.

7. Wise Blood
Author: Flannery O'Connor
The first (I was 22 or so) undeniably great book that was funny. Still is.

8. The Sheltering Sky
Author: Paul Bowles
I was inspired the first time (again in my 20s) to read this obvious work or art. Now it seems humorless and contrived and quite rambling in the final one-third. (Kind of like the sentence I just wrote)

9. The Quiet American
Author: Graham Greene
As good or better and probably the best film version of a novel I've seen. (Although, I don't watch a lot of movies)

10. The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
It was fricking fun and laugh-out-loud funny and still is and I ammend my comment about the best film version of a book I made 17 seconds ago.

Have you read any of these titles? Review one now.

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