What is John O’Neill Reading?

I always feel as though I’m not reading enough, particularly during this pandemic, during which I’ve found it (apparently not a unique phenomenon) difficult to concentrate. When I do pick up a book (I read mostly fiction these days) even that simple act is fraught – should I choose a new book, a new author, or something I’ve neglected in my reading history? I consider myself woefully under-read, and – a tad unreasonably, I admit – have no right to call myself a writer until I’ve engaged with every celebrated author in the history of the written word.

For instance, a few summers ago, it was Alice Munro; I plucked her hardcover collection Friend of My Youth from the sagging bookcase of a bed-and-breakfast where my wife and I were staying; duly and predicably impressed, I read her My Best Stories. Last summer, it was John Steinbeck; I checked off Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden. This summer it’s been – a bit perversely given the pandemic – Samuel Beckett, starting with his trilogy of novels, Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. I sampled all of these folks in University, but felt I hadn’t given any of them their due, although I still feel that way. I don’t think I’ve read the oeuvre of any author, except maybe for the great Nathanael West (best known for The Day of The Locust) but his literary output – he died when he was 37, in a car accident just one day after the death of his close friend F. Scott Fitzgerald – was, though tremendously influential, fairly small.