[vineel]

Are there any specific books you recommend?

[tankbot]

Run With the Hunted and Love is a Dog from Hell spring to mind, but for me half the fun of reading him is just jumping in randomly. His life was chaos so it's fitting. If you read enough about "Hank" a picture of who he was will start to materialize.

Since he's dead and not able to spend your book sales money on booze and horses, he'd probably be ok with you just reading his stuff online for free[0]. He is also great to listen to, there are a lot of recordings of his readings that you can find in the usual places. The poems are filled with a kind of beautiful carnage which contrasts the even tone of his delivery. Like, "Yeah, that crazy shit happened but so what?"

One of my favorites as a teaser to start with:

  Rain

  a symphony orchestra.
  there is a thunderstorm,
  they are playing a Wagner overture
  and the people leave their seats under the trees
  and run inside to the pavilion
  the women giggling, the men pretending calm,
  wet cigarettes being thrown away,
  Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the 
  pavilion. the birds even come in from the trees
  and enter the pavilion and then it is the Hungarian 
  Rhapsody #2 by Lizst, and it still rains, but look,
  one man sits alone in the rain
  listening. the audience notices him. they turn
  and look. the orchestra goes about its
  business. the man sits in the night in the rain, 
  listening. there is something wrong with him,
  isn't there?
  he came to hear the
  music.

[0] http://www.poemhunter.com/charles-bukowski/poems/

p.s. I can't speak for the quality of that site, you may have better luck elsewhere. When I looked up Rain all I got was the first line, so it's possible that other poems have errors.

[jacquesm]

Very pretty, thank you.

[eshvk]

Women was an excellent book. A complicated book that works on many subtle levels. On one level, it is in essence, the T.V. series Californication. On another level, it is the story of a man finding himself through his partners. Ham on Rye was also another excellent story of Bukowski's origins. All of his books were part memoirs, now. Post Office, tracks his early years working in the Post Office. Day in, day out. Checking in, his life being eaten away. The prose isn't great. However, it is rather amusing to read it today. Especially in a city where you hear people working 90 hour weeks; 90 hour weeks in tiny red-bull fueled offices. For what, for someone's glory.

[byproxy]

Ham on Rye