/lit/ - Literature

Dopefiend by Donald Goines is a *very* powerful book. It's not written in any kind of a "/lit/" style, but man does it pack a punch. I've never done heroin, but reading that book, I feel like I know what the high feels like, and what withdrawal must feel like. There's also a gang-rape scene in the book that's just, well, it's kind of like being an eyewitness to an ill-planned, brutal home invasion robbery deteriorate into an extremely brutal, no-holds-barred gang rape.

I guess everyone knows about Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries, but it's a rather good maybe even a very good book.

Hubert Selby's Requiem for a Dream has to be the greatest book about drugs of all time. The movie tries hard - it's a noble effort - but save for a handful of scenes, it does not come close to the power of Selby's book. Pretty sure Requiem would be on my top 10 list of best books of the 20th century if I were ever to make such a list.

The pages in Art Pepper's autobiography where he touches on his drug use and addiction are top-tier stuff.

On the subject of alcohol, Jack London's John Barleycorn is an outstanding autobiography of his history of alcoholism, starting starting with his account of getting drunk for the first time at the age of 5. The book is in the public domain:
>https://books.google.com/books?id=sOPa9iabXr4C

>>10175982
>So would God forgive me if I sin my whole life planning to repent on my death bed and then genuinely repent on my deathbed?

Do not despair: one of the thieves was saved.

Do not presume: one of the thieves was damned.

t. Augustine