Books To Bury Me With: Forrest Muelrath

The book I’d want to take with me to the grave:

The Holy Bible with an inkjet copy of The Psychedelic Experience tucked in the jacket.

 

The first book that hit me like a ton of bricks:

Notes from Underground—So you mean to tell me people have always been this way?

 

The book that’s seen more of my tears, coffee stains, and cigarette burns:

Haynes Repair Manual for the 1982 Mercedes-Benz 300 Turbo Diesel.

 

The book that shook my world like a goddamn hurricane:

The Incest Diary by an Anonymous author, published in 2017.

 

The book I wish I’d discovered when my liver was still intact:

Sadly, Baudelaire found me after Burroughs had already had his way.

 

The book I’d shove into everyone’s hands if I were king of the world:

A Preface to Plato by Erik A. Havelock.

 

The book that nearly drove me to madness:

Book III of Lacan's Seminar: The Psychoses. My comprehension was so low the first time I read it that I mistook it for a DIY manual.

 

The book I can’t keep my hands off of, no matter how many times I’ve read it:

Rings of Saturn.

 

The book I’d hide in the back of my closet, pretending I’m too highbrow for it:

Infinite Jest. Back when I was still dating, I hid it under my bed until someone found it and threw it out.

The book that left a scar I wish I could forget:

Junkie and Queer.

 

The author who made me think, "Now that’s a soul in torment":

Daniel Paul Schreber.

 

The book I’d get a tattoo of if I had the nerve:

The Twits by Roald Dahl.

 

The book that made me question everything I thought I knew:

Kafka's Metamorphosis. I distinctly remember an irrational fear that the ground would open up beneath me.

 

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

Carl Jung's Red Book. I cling to all my books but this one cost the most.

 

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

Simone Weil's Gravity and Grace.

 

The book I’d throw in someone’s face during a heated argument:

I Love Dick.

 

The book that reminds me of a lost love or regret:

Wuthering Heights.

 

The book I wish I could have written, but know I never could:

James Nulick's The Moon Down to Earth.

 

The book that makes me want to drink myself into oblivion:

Does Writing Have a Future? by Vilém Flusser.

 

The book that’s been my refuge from the world’s cruelty:

Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, Rachel Pollack.