Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit”
Jean-Paul Sartre’s work, “No Exit” is a play about three people who are sentenced to hell and forced to spend the rest of eternity in the same Second French Empire decorated room without the luxury of their eyelids. The work, mostly known for its phrase, “Hell is other people,” is one of Sartre’s more popular...
BFM: The Inverted World
I just finished reading “The Inverted World” over the course of a weekend, and I’m still trying to recover from it. “The Inverted World” is apparently a full-length novel adapted from a short story, and while I haven’t read the short story I’m under the impression the novel just expanded onto it. The gist of...
BFM: Cat’s Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel “Cat’s Cradle” is one of the more unique books I’ve read in a while. The work follows the journey of a writer named John whose goal is to document the life of a scientist who worked on the creation of the atomic bomb. In particular, he’s interested in what Dr. Hoenikker...
BFM: Pulp
When a book is literally “dedicated to bad writing,” you can go all-in on a bet that it was written by Charles Bukowski. That is not to say that Bukowski’s work is bad–far from it. Rather, Bukowski is known for his ability to embrace bad writing and make it fun and witty in his own...
BFM: Ishmael
Imagine you’re reading the newspaper and you find an advertisement that reads: “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.” Would you go? This scenario is the exact premise of Daniel Quinn’s 1992 book entitled “Ishmael.” The entire work is narrated by an unnamed character who finds that...
BFM: 1984
George Orwell’s “1984” is likely one of those books you read in high school but weren’t old enough to appreciate yet (much like The Great Gatsby). If this is the case, you should revisit this extremely fascinating and inspiring novel about a man named Winston who struggles with the conflict between his inner thoughts and outer...
BFM: The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka features a salesman named Gregor who one day wakes up and finds himself transformed into a hideous unspecified beetle of sorts. Of course, it takes some time to get adjusted to his new body, and it’s only when he’s late for work (which he never was before) that his family becomes...
The Persistence of Bukowski
As the poems go into the thousands you realize that you’ve created very little. Charles Bukowski “As the Poems Go” American author and poet Charles Bukowski is one of the best examples of creating inspiration that I know of. Bukowski, a gruff and blunt writer known largely for his steam of consciousness poems, has one...
BFM: Life of Pi
Yann Martel’s work Life of Pi features a vegetarian universalist boy named Piscine (Pi) Patel who grows up in a zoo-owning family and finds himself suddenly overboard and on a life boat with a huge Bengal tiger. Struggling with his inability to find sustenance and overcome is constant fear of getting eaten by a tiger, Pi...
BFM: On The Road
Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” was one of the most incredible books I read in my late teenage years. Most men, before and into their low twenties, have an overwhelming desire for adventure. Kerouac’s work tells the story of a world before mine, where hitchhiking was normal and highway security was minimal. The characters in...
BFM: Second Variety
Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety” is a short story that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the terrain is nothing but feet of ash caused by nuclear warfare. Under the ash lie machine factories, originally started by the Americans to seek out and kill all life forms, but very soon the machines began to...
BFM: The Stranger (L’Étranger)
The Stranger by Albert Camus is a book I read in High School but did not appreciate until I recently re-read it last week. I remember the book was odd, but on a second reading there was nothing odd about it at all. The first-person novel tells the story of Mersault–a stoic, heartlessly honest man who...
