Books to Bury Me With: Josh Sherman

The book I’d want to take with me to the grave:
I like the idea of opening up my apartment to anyone who wants to come and take whatever books they want from my personal library after I die. Like a Funereal Free Library. Before that, I’d maybe set aside a few specific titles for certain friends. Regardless, I don’t think any book is making it to the grave with me.

The first book that hit me like a ton of bricks:
I had a typical teen boy’s introduction to literature. The first book that, as you say, hit me like a ton of bricks, was a Kurt Vonnegut novel. For as long as I can remember, I’ve avoided reading an author’s most famous work first. I want to first establish some context in which to place it. So, with Vonnegut, I sidestepped Slaughterhouse Five and went with Galapagos instead. I’ve always had an affinity for post-apocalyptic stuff, and it didn’t disappoint. 

The book that’s seen more of my tears, coffee stains, and cigarette burns:
I’m obsessive about the condition of my books. Most of them look unread. If you’re not an animal, it is possible to read a paperback without creasing the spine. Once, I spilled a large travel mug of coffee on a softcover copy of Jean Rhys’s Complete Novels. Looking at the damage bothered me so much that I jettisoned that edition for a hardcover copy (which remains pristine).

As for tears, sure, a lot of my books have seen them. I cry not infrequently while reading. One time that stands out is when I was reading Eve Babitz’s Black Swans. The piece about not getting around to seeing her gay friend while he was dying of AIDS — stuff kept coming up, she thought she’d have more time — had me crying behind my Ray-Ban® Clubmasters at the beach.

I rarely smoke indoors, so my books are burn-free.

The book that shook my world like a goddamn hurricane:
I’m wondering now about the relative intensity of being hit by a ton of bricks versus being shaken like a goddamn hurricane.

Let’s just say this: if Galapagos hit me like a ton of bricks, then Seasonal Associate, by Heike Geissler, shook my world like a goddamn hurricane. That’s because the book, a great non-fiction novel about Geissler’s experience working in an Amazon warehouse, was my introduction to semiotext(e), which has become my favourite publisher. I’ve since read more than 20 books on the imprint and counting. Discovering Seasonal Associate was formative.

The book I wish I’d discovered when my liver was still intact:
Probably something by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a cautionary tale. The Beautiful and Damned — reading about Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert’s booze- and personality-disorder fueled relationship earlier in life might’ve saved me from an IRL shitstorm. Oh well.

The book I’d shove into everyone’s hands if I were king of the world:
Look, this is going to sound annoying, but I prefer to cater book recommendations to the individual. That way, there’s a better chance they’ll have a good experience and maybe read something else afterwards (if they aren’t much of a reader to begin with). But because this seems like an annoying answer, I’ll try and pick a book I love that I’d argue has broad appeal as well: Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry, by B.S. Johnson. It’s about a bank clerk who decides to start applying the credit-and-debit system to his own life. So if he feels life has slighted him, he allows himself a credit. These credits begin to take the form of revenge, and the situation escalates. It’s really funny and accessible despite being an experimental post-modern novel, which happens to be my favourite combination of traits. 

The book that nearly drove me to madness:
Honor Levy’s My First Book. Nobody snorts Vyvanse!

The book I can’t keep my hands off of, no matter how many times I’ve read it:
I’m not a big re-reader. There’s so much I’ve yet to read, and I’m at the midpoint of my life (at best). I’m still making major discoveries that inform my style or that I obsess over. I only recently encountered the New Narrative writers. The level of excitement I felt a few months ago when I came across David Shields’s The Very Last Interview, which is an autobiography entirely comprised of questions that Shields has been posed during interviews over his own lifetime, was as intense as, say, when, at a used bookstore in my early 20s, I’d find a Bukowski book that I hadn’t read.

Speaking of Bukowski, Ask the Dust, by John Fante, Bukowski’s hero, is one of the only novels I’ve read cover-to-cover more than once. On the rare occasion that I am re-reading a book and it’s not Ask the Dust, I’m skimming a poetry or short-story collection. I return to Richard Brautigan from time to time. The Tokyo-Montana Express is awesome if you can track down a copy. It’s basically a series of vignette-type stories that are funny/sad/absurd, like this one called “Meat”:

A man is staring at meat. He is so intently staring at meat that his immediate surroundings have become the shadow of a mirage.

He is wearing a wedding ring.

He is perhaps in his early sixties.

He is well dressed.

There simply are no clues to why he is staring at meat. People walk by him on the sidewalk. He does not notice them. Some people have to step around him.

Meat is his only attention.

He’s motionless. His arms are at his side. There’s no expression on his face.

He is staring into the open door of a meat market locker where whole sides of beef are hanging from the hooks. They are in a row like cold red dominoes.

I walk past him and turn around and look at him and then want to know why he is standing there and I walk back and try to see what he is seeing as I walk past him.

There has to be something else, but I’m wrong again in this life.

Nothing but meat.

Otherwise when re-reading, I consult the old haiku masters (Basho, Issa, Buson).

The book I’d hide in the back of my closet, pretending I’m too highbrow for it:
The only thing hidden in the back of my closet is my Hot Wheels collection. (There are roughly 1,900 cars, sorted alphabetically by make.)

I’m too earnest to have any pretenses about literature. If I like something, I’m open about it. I’m not really concerned about what others will think. I’m constantly disgracing myself anyways. If you’ve seen me have a meltdown on Twitter, who really cares what’s on my bookshelf?

Somehow, though, people are regularly surprised to see Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned”, by Lena Dunham, on my shelf. Maybe it’s the cover. It looks like it’s part of the Shopaholic series (Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic & Baby, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, etc.).

The book that left a scar I wish I could forget:
New Millennium Boyz, by Alex Kazemi — and not because of the writing.

The sheer volume of shittalk I faced online just for saying the book was OK… I’m getting annoyed just thinking about it. There are, like, 2.2 million new titles published every year. People were trying to tell me that New Millennium Boyz was the worst book they’d ever read, or one of the worst books published, and that I was an idiot or shill for not agreeing. People don’t realize how unironically bad literature can be, and in what vast quantities it’s released every single year.

The author who made me think, "Now that’s a soul in torment":
Édouard Levé, particularly his final book, Suicide. It closes with these three lines:

Happiness precedes me
Sadness follows me
Death awaits me

A few days later, he killed himself.

The book I’d get a tattoo of if I had the nerve:
I know these questions are hypotheticals, but I’ve remained tattoo-free for aesthetic reasons. Were that not the case, I still doubt I’d get a book tattoo. More likely it’d be some autofiction-related quote, something like:

“It is when what I am writing takes the form of a journal that I most strongly feel that I am writing fiction.”

—Hervé Guibert, The Compassion Protocol

(Another compelling argument in favour of me not getting any tattoos.)

The book that made me question everything I thought I knew:
Good question. It’s gotta be Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey. I was convinced that she couldn’t write anything that didn’t suck, but the foreword to that book was OK (the rest of it still sucked, though).

The book that’s so damn good I’d never loan it out:

I don’t tend to lend my books out. As I mentioned earlier, I’m so particular about their condition. It’s not that I don’t trust people — though I don’t — it’s more that anybody who knows me is aware of my book-condition mania, and they’re reluctant to borrow a title from me in case it gets messed up in their possession. I made a friend re-buy me Ottessa Moshfegh’s short-story collection Homesick for Another World because she fucked up my copy on loan.

I do know a handful of people I’d trust most of my books with, but even they won’t get their hands on my Brautigan first editions. Willard and His Bowling Trophies and The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western. I paid like $200 for them over the pandemic when I had a plum government contract (albeit at the most toxic workplace I’ve ever encountered). 

The book that’s been my companion through the darkest nights:

It’s different books at different times, which is part of why I love literature. One of the reasons I’m so drawn to autofiction is that reading about other people’s experiences can be comforting, especially if the author’s life is shittier than mine.

The book I’d throw in someone’s face during a heated argument:
During an argument, I once threw a copy of the second issue of the Great Lakes Review, in which a short story of mine had recently appeared, at somebody.

I’d do it again.

The book that reminds me of a lost love or regret:
The Black Obelisk, by Erich Maria Remarque. Ludwig’s love interest shares the name of someone I once knew. She also suffers from the same brain disorder as another woman I dated.

The book I wish I could have written, but know I never could:
See, this is the majority of my favourite books. Word-for-word it’s got to be Ask the Dust, though. Pulling off that lyricism without veering into corny territory is a feat to behold.

The book that makes me want to drink myself into oblivion:
Anything by Guillaume Dustan. He makes self-destruction sound so fun. Maybe that’s also why he died at 39.

                                                           

The book that’s been my refuge from the world’s cruelty:
Autoportrait, another one by Édouard Levé. It’s a non-linear memoir, a novella-length paragraph of sentences about the author, at random. For example, it begins:

“When I was young, I thought Life A User’s Manual would teach me how to live and Suicide A User’s Manual how to die. I have spent three years and three months abroad. I prefer to look to my left. I have a friend who gets off on betrayal. The end of a trip leaves me with a sad aftertaste, same as the end of a novel.”

After reading Autoportrait, I was inspired to write my own. It’s a project that has occupied the past two years of my life, making it an extended refuge stemming from Levé’s work. VANITY Press published an excerpt and so did Bizarre Publishing House, and I now have a publisher lined up (can’t mention yet). Since the project is wrapping up, I’m sure my answer will be different in a few months.