Women, by Charles Bukowski

Anyone who knows me knows 1) I love to read (though, admittedly, I don’t get as much time as I used to), and 2) I LOVE Charles Bukowski a.k.a. Henry Chinaski a.k.a. Hank a.k.a. Buk.

I used to ask friends about their favorite book so I could liven up my own reading. This particular friend recommended Atlas Shrugged and The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories. He said, “Charles Bukowski is my favorite writer, but you have to read The Most Beautiful Woman in Town before you read anything else.” He was right. Buk can come across fairly foul depending on what you read, so it’s important to know right from the start just how sensitive and thoughtful he is. The first short story of the collection The Most Beautiful Woman in Town is a short but breathtaking account of a beautiful woman tearing at her beauty.

All of this to say that my review of Women gets a lot of likes on GoodReads.com. I’m sharing it here in hopes that the next person to discover Buk gets some insight about his sensitivity and a quick take on this fan’s perspective of a fantastic read.

“The leading crazy lady’s name is Lydia. I can relate. Charles Bukowski has a way of betraying you and making you laugh in spite of yourself; disgusting you and then melting your heart with one tender and insightful paragraph you do not expect, at a moment that doesn’t seem appropriate in context to that which he is speaking. It is impossible to love Bukowski and impossible not to love him. This book is just a delight, if you can absorb it. He is mushy soft at his core.”