D.J. (“Dave”) Butler grew up in swamps, deserts, and mountains. After messing around for years with the practice of law, he finally got serious and turned to his lifelong passion for storytelling. He now writes adventure stories for readers of all ages, plays guitar, and spends as much time as he can with his family.Butler's new novel is Witchy Winter, book two in the epic fantasy series Witchy Winter.
Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Butler's reply:
I just finished reading Moby Dick for the second time. I think it deserves its claim to be a contender for the great AmericanVisit D.J. Butler's website.novel; it's sui generis, it doesn't belong to our time but it didn't really belong to its own time, either. I felt I owed MD a reread after a twenty-year hiatus because I don't think I grappled with it deeply enough the first time. Contemplating the thesis that the white whale might represent suicide gave me an additional hook in the material, and I really enjoyed this reading. I expect I'll come back to it again in twenty years.
Having finished Melville, I'm now starting Lord Jim (for the first time). I loved Heart of Darkness, and had never read any other Conrad. I had forgotten what an astonishingly good writer of English prose this Polish emigre was.
In non-fiction, I just recently finished an English translation of an ancient Jewish grimoire called The Sword of Moses, together with commentary by M. Gaster. I read a lot of arcana and ancient scripture; I do, after all, write fantasy.
I'm also reading several books strictly for language learning and practice purposes. By way of example, I've started again into Clyde Pharr's Homeric Greek, so I'm reading again about the wrath of Achilles in the original dactyls, a little every day. I'm also reading Goethe's Faust, usually 4-6 pages every morning on the cross-trainer. His verse is so song-like in its rhythms, I barely notice the motion of the machine.
The Page 69 Test: Witchy Winter.
--Marshal Zeringue
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