I read a book last year about how to read, and I didn’t get the message. But it contained a list of books to read before I die, and the list is vast. It has been well over half a year since I read it, and I’m only in the Fs.

The author had posted the list in alphabetical order. Most of the novels are tough to read, especially Jane Austen’s, Brontë’s, Gustave Flaubert’s, to name a few. Reading them was like reading the label on a bug spray can. Not to take away from their artistic achievements, but goddamn they were dense. The paragraphs continued for a page, or at times, a page and a half, and the sentences were full of semicolons.

British authors in the nineteenth century loved to use the word paroxysm for some reason or countenance instead of looks or facial expression—words I would never use in everyday speech. But again, I respect their achievements, even when I’m thinking about what I’m supposed to buy at the grocery store later while I’m reading them.

One author, however, stole my attention. Her name is Jane Bowles, and her novel is Two Serious Ladies. Her language was so direct, and it sounded as if she was telling me the story while I was going to bed. Now she was an effective writer. Nothing pretentious. No need to keep a dictionary nearby.

In Southern California, we have In-N-Out Burger. The menu is simple: hamburger, cheeseburger, double-double, fries, soda, milkshake. That’s it. (There’s a secret menu, too, but for the sake of this comparison, we won’t go there). Bowles’s prose is as direct as that menu. No crispy chicken sandwich, no onion rings, or bacon avocado burger, nothing like that. It’s needless to say, I recommend Two Serious Ladies to anyone who wants to read a novel that carries them along instead of stopping them and forcing them to look up the word countenance for the thirteenth time because they’ve forgotten the meaning seconds after looking it up.

Again, I respect Austen, Brontë, and Flaubert, not to mention Dickens—whom I tried to read for a chapter but just couldn’t stomach the language. Dostoevsky gets my respect, too. I read Crime and Punishment all the way through, but I won’t lie and say I knew exactly what was happening in the story because of my ADHD. I take Adderall, and even that won’t help with reading the goddamn book.

Raymond Carver was another author whom I could read effortlessly, although a lot of his stories bored me. He would write paragraphs about someone opening his refrigerator and drinking from a bottle of milk. It was plain and easy to understand, but what the hell?

Right now, I’m reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. It’s easier to understand than the aforementioned classic British, French, and Russian authors, but it’s still a challenge because Franzen tried to fit as much description and exposition in each sentence as I got lost in translation. But it’s still an enjoyable novel. At least I think I know what’s going on.

My hope is that, in this vast list of books to read, I will find another writer like Jane Bowles. I got to. There’s no way I won’t.