“Reading maketh a full man.” ~ Francis Bacon

To be a better photographer, one should read books. Many books.

I noticed the other day there was yet another book list making the rounds on the intertubes. You know the kind, the top fifty or one-hundred essential books. Always with the tag line “How many have you read?” I’m a sucker for these. Even though I never agree with all the books on the various lists, I like to discover where the curators and I do find accord. But as I was scrolling through this latest and shaking my head or rolling my eyes at the inclusion of this book or that book, it occurred to me I should just make my own damn list! Why not, right? My parents raised an avid reader who’s reached a nice ripe middle age and has lost track of how many books he’s read. You can continue to mock other people’s lists, but what’s the point? Time to come up with your own, Mr Smartie-pants.

OK then, for what it’s worth and in no particular order…

Michael Kircher’s 50 Essential Books™
Sure To Make You A Better Photographer. 
(also Spouse, Parent, Friend, Lover … You can thank me later. )  🙂

1. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
2. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
3. Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
4. Lie Down In Darkness – William Styron
5. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
6. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
7. The Shipping News – Annie Proulx
8. Empire – Gore Vidal
9. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
10. Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson
11. The Sea Wolf – Jack London
12. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
13. Couples – John Updike
14. Candide – Voltaire
15. Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
16. A long Way Down – Nick Hornsby
17. Priority – Iselin C. Hermann
18. For Whom The Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
19. Democracy – Henry Adams
20. One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
21. Europa – Tim Parks
22. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
23. The Elegance of The Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
24. The Clothes They Stood Up In – Alan Bennett
25. Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne du Maurier
26. The Fermata – Nicholson Baker
27. The Razors Edge – W. Somerset Maugham
28. The Quiet American – Graham Greene
29. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
30. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
31. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
32. Bunker Hill – Howard Fast
33. The Girl Of The Sea Of Cortez – Peter Benchley
34. The Cheese Monkeys – Chip Kidd
35. West With The Night – Beryl Markham
36. Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
37. Guerrillas – V.S. Naipal
38. Tropic Of Cancer – Henry Miller
39. The Magician’s Assistant -Anne Patchett
40. The Farewell Party – Milan Kundera
41. Lady Chatterly’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
42. Centennial- James A. Michener
43. A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
44. The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara
45. On Photography – Susan Sontag
46. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
47. Angel Of Lucifer – William Kircher
48. Beach Combing At Miramar – Richard Bode
49. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
50. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Please feel free to share the books that most influenced you in the comments. The more the better.