My friends and I were into reading Ayn Rand, Aldous Huxley and Jean Paul Sartre when we were all Juniors in High School. In fact, I even acted in Sartre's play "No Exit" in drama class. On weekends, we'd dress all in black and drive over to Sunset Strip to the coffee houses where we played chess and occasionally and randomly proclaim, "Who is John Galt?" like it actually had some special meaning. We thought we were beatnik intellectuals. Can you imagine?
When I stopped taking life so seriously, I started reading novels by Terry Southern and Patrick Dennis. Terry Southern's Candy is a total kick in the pants. If you've never read Terry Southern, you should. Patrick Dennis' First Lady a pictorial novel about a fictional first family will have you screaming with laughter. Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge is another fun read. Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker is also a lot of fun as are all of Robbins' books.
These days, I read Gregory Maguire who wrote Wicked and a series of other fantasies, most all of which I have read. Another fun author is David Sedaris who wrote Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which is a collection of 22 essays. Chuck Palahniuk, another whacked out writer who wrote Fight Club is a pretty good read too, plus he hails from Portland.
