Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Reading List

I don't know nearly enough about what I don't know so I'm building a reading list. I'll be starting with biographies of productive, interesting people. Names on the list include Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Johnson, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Mark Twain, Shirley Jackson, Charles T. Munger, Angela Carter, and Da Vinci.

I've already read up on Hemingway, Bukowski, Harlan Ellison, and Margaret Bourke-White so they're out.

In the spirit of reading about other people's lives (in a pre-blogging world), I am soliciting requests for other biographies of productive, creative people with interesting stories.

Do you have any specific book suggestions for other productive people?

The list should not be limited to writers or titans of industry, that's just where I've started.

4 comments:

AZGypsie said...

Helen Keller was particularly inspiring to me. I am not handicapped in any capacity (thank who/whatever!) but the tenacity of any one faced with the challenges of, not one, but multiple handicaps and over coming them to any extent, is inspirational to me.

Folly Blaine said...

I saw "The Miracle Worker" performed at a community theatre when I was a kid and really enjoyed it. It was the first time I thought of Helen Keller as a real, living person, as opposed to a paragraph in a textbook.

I just read the Wikipedia article about her and it says, among her other accomplishments, she is credited with brining the first Akita dog to America from Japan in 1937. I didn't know that.

Folly Blaine said...

That should be "bringing the first Akita dog" not "brining."

AZGypsie said...

Yeah, dogs don't take to brining all that well!! When I was in high school drama, we put on "The Miracle Worker" my junior or senior year. I have also seen both renditions of it with Patty Duke as Helen and as Teacher. My Stepmother was paralyzed from the waist down due to polio and was another great inspiration to me and my siblings. You find it hard to complain about BS when you watch someone that life has challenged to that extent, rise above it all!