Members Only Post #165 – 3 Great Authors Every Man Should Be Reading

Reading and writing are two of the most important things that a man can do. Writing makes your thinking exact, as writing is essentially the act of thinking and then putting it down. Whether its articles that never see the light of day, arguments, journals, diaries, fiction, or just little snippets here and there I believe that every man should write every day as the benefits are just so great. It’s great for sharpening your thinking, working things out, and just overall learning and development.

As is reading. Not enough men read these days and believe it or not I think that has something to do with the masculinity crisis that we have in our modern society. Reading is one of the single most beneficial habits that you can pick up. Others have likened reading to a superpower and I would agree with that assessment. With reading you can enter new worlds, new minds, you can connect to things that are timeless and eternal. As well as learn easy what others had to fight hard to learn.

But perhaps one of the greatest undersold benefits of reading is the connecting yourself to strong myths. Myth are stories that teach deep and timeless themes and lesson, though not “morality tales” like we often think of them. They’re beyond that, illuminating things that we might never find on our own and connecting us with something deep and timeless. I think understanding and being familiar with your culture’s myths is incredibly important, after all without traditional culture you’ll end up with the modern world’s culture which is unhealthy in every way.

Connecting to myth is connecting to power, to strength, to understanding, and to wisdom. Today I want to share with you some modern myth makers that you can draw power and understanding from and that I think every man should at least once in his life.

Great Author Every Man Should Be Reading #1 – Robert E. Howard

Most famous for his Conan stories, Howard was the prolific writer of action adventure or sword and sorcery tales during his short writing career. Howard was also a bodybuilder and a boxer, able to charge his work with a vigor and grit that you’ll see lacking in today’s hipster dominated offerings in the genre. I’ve read most of Howard’s work and enjoyed it immensely. I consider him to be one of the greatest writers of American birth. Not so much because of his ornate prose but rather because of the power of his work.

There is an immediacy, a virility to his work that like I said is missing from modern works. Whether it’s Conan, Kull, or even El-Borak. He is a modern myth maker of heroic warriors who face the harshness of the world unflinchingly. In many ways I’d say his works have a sort of “western” quality to them with the starkness of the heroes just without the sappiness that took over westerns for awhile there. He pioneered a genre, sword and sorcery, and hasn’t been matched since.

Start with the Conan works as they’re often seen as his best and I wouldn’t disagree there. After that I’d also recommend checking out the stories of Kull, Bran Mak Mon, and Solomon Kane. All are worth reading despite their age. All have power to them and are some of the best works of heroic fantasy and the continuation of the mythic tradition.

Great Authors Every Man Should Read #2 – H. P. Lovecraft

Most know for his horror stories H. P. Lovecraft wrote around the same time Howard did and even mentored him in some aspects of his craft. Lovecraft was the master of what has come to be known as “cosmic horror”, horror that centers around the unknown. As H. P. Lovecraft said “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Lovecraft’s mythos has strong themes of man not being quite as great as he thinks he is.

Many of the stories revolve around men getting into things they shouldn’t or touching against things that shake the fabric of their reality. Lovecraft’s story are a great antidote to the hubris of the modern world where man thinks himself a god and beyond limits, beyond being touched. I’ve read all Lovecraft’s short stories and a chunk of his novels. Most of them just as good as the others, which is saying something considering how many he wrote.

If you’re looking for a place to start it really depends on what you enjoy. I started with his collected short stories and just worked through that, only later getting into the novels, starting with The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. Most people start with Cthulhu mythos but really just get one where the plot interests you the most, though I’d say Lovecraft is particularly hard to sum in a plot synopsis. So pick what you want and start there.

Great Authors Every Man Should Read #3 – J. R. R. Tolkien

Unlike the other two authors above, at least to my knowledge, Tolkien set out to write a sort of modern myth in a way. A myth for England of that time period but it ended up transcending the island nation and becoming a myth for far more than just that. Tolkien was steeped in the old myths, being a professor of English Language and Literature among other things and doing a translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf and his stories reflect that.

The most famous being The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, four books that are all worth reading. He also did many other stories that are lesser well known but still worth reading. I read the Lord Of The Rings books as a child and honestly they were a bit complicated and confusing for me at the time. However later in life looking at them I was able to get a lot more.

Tolkien deals with all of the subjects that the great myths do. Love, loss, heroism, courage, wisdom, nature of evil, nature of man, corruption, human nature, and so on and so forth. It covers a wide swath and hearkens back to many myths of old. From the Bible to Beowulf to The Ring Cycle to the Norse Eddas to Celtic Mythology and more. All things I’d recommend checking out at one point or another. Most start with The Hobbit though written for children still a good tale, though Lord of The Rings might be the more logical choice for a grown adult.

Connect To Myth, Connect To Power

Stories are far more than just frivolous past times, they’re some of the most important facets of human life, certainly one of the most powerful. The myths that you connect or fail to connect to has consequences. Remember when you don’t connect to good myths you’ll automatically connect with myths of this modern age which are sickening and life destroying. You have to attach to a source here are just a few good sources of power and wisdom. Of good myths to draw from and to connect with. Let these be a start, a jumping off point, and then go from there.