He’s the poet laureate of frat boys, the founder of a new genre dubbed “Fratire.” Meet Tucker Max, whose hard-partying days at the University of Chicago and Duke University Law School are chronicled in such bestsellers as “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.” Eventually, “Beer” became a movie, and it’s just inspired a play, “I Hope They Serve Beer on Broadway” — actually, they do — which started a limited run off-Broadway, where Max recently saw it for the first time. “I don’t know if it’s a good play or not,” he says, “but the book is my life — I wrote about what actually happened to me. I think people think I’m a cartoon character, but I really lived it.” Granted, he says, now that he’s 37, “I don’t live it anymore.” Here’s what’s in his library.
Zen Bow, Zen Arrow
by John Stevens
Subtle yet simple, this introduction to and translation of the maxims of the great Japanese archery teacher Awa Kenzo will inspire effort and introspection. Provocative quotes abound, such as “Destroy Evil means to make the evil in your heart submit” and “a practitioner must be unshakable in intent, fearless in spirit, full of compassion.”
The War of Art
by Steven Pressfield
Pressfield’s famous for historical fiction: His book “Gates of Fire” is on the required reading list for the Marines’ officer school. This nonfiction book is about what stands in the way between creation and execution. He calls it “Resistance,” and says the only way to beat it is to sit down every day and do the work.
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
I was in college, and someone handed this book to me and said, “You need to read this.” I did, and was blown away. I kept rereading it, and it seems the better I get at writing, the more genius this book is. It’s the apotheosis of the written word!
The Neon Bible
by John Kennedy Toole
After “Confederacy of Dunces” was published posthumously, Toole’s family looked through his stuff and found this essay he wrote for high school. That essay is “The Neon Bible.” To my mind, it’s everything that “Catcher in the Rye” gets credit for, but “The Neon Bible” does it better. It taught me how to write about emotion. I give this book to all my friends who want to be writers.