Anyone who has spent more than twenty minutes with me in the last half a year has heard about my admiration for Martin Amis. He is the Nomeansno of writers. He keeps on going for decades without losing his wit or relevance. The last writer who awoke such interest in reading in me was Hunter Thompson. Thompson was a journalist. Amis is primarily a novelist but also a journalist if he wants to be. His ability to translate feeling into words is, in my under-read opinion, unsurpassed. Yellow Dog is the last book I read of Amis's. I am trying to read his entire canon. At times I get confused and don't understand what is going on but the writing is so evocative and poetic that I enjoy it nonetheless. After a few uncertain paragraphs the meaning and the story reassert themselves. No matter what he writes about, he makes it interesting. Just keep a dictionary handy. Concurrently with reading all of his books, I shall read the writers he most admires: Nabokov, Saul Bellow, John Updike. I will even try to read some Shakespeare. I have tried and I couldn't understand it. If anyone has any recommendations of books that they loved, please tell me what they were.
Thanks.
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