So Jared and Sean and I are standing out by a mom-borrowed-car drinking absinthe. Or something blue-green anyway, could have been antifreeze. It was in a non-tupperware plastic container, the kind you usually put leftovers in.
And Jared is talking about comics and is trying not to go all “Antimatter” on me, fully aware of the minefield he’s running and the idea is floated that we should read Faust. And some other books. We should each pick a book the others have to read in a year. And fuelled by (non-hallucinogenic) alcohol this seems like a good idea. Not at all like the kind of thing I get mad at Oprah for organizing. This is a Real Man Challenge but with books.
So what does Jared choose as his book the rest of us have to read? Take a look at the Real Man Book Club list and see if you can guess. (Hint: Sean yelled a bunch when Jared chose it.)
- Faust by Goethe
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
- V by Thomas Pynchon
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
I have a couple of things to get through before I hit anything on this list (we do have a year after all), but I’m actually a little bit fascinated with the whole experiment. I’m sure that whenever we actually talk about any of these books it’ll just devolve into shouting at Jared, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
