Books on Women's Liberation

The second wave feminist movement, then called "women's liberation," took place mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. I can still remember the excitement of the movement, and of the startling and thought-provoking political/social/ideological/theoretical books coming out of, and contributing to, the movement. Their topics included politics, the law, health, literature, religion, and more. Women's lives and opportunities have substantially improved since that time, largely because of this movement and these books. Yes, there is still a long way to go, absolutely, and yes, these opportunities are far from fairly distributed; race, class, ethnicity, nationality, and other factors still limit the opportunities of so many women. We need to keep fighting the good fight for equity and for better lives for all women. But today I would like to pause for a moment to honor the groundbreaking books of the movement, and to thank their authors for their important insights and for their courage in writing about this topic for which so many people (and laws and practices) had such hostility and disdain at the time. The following books, some of the ones I read/studied/learned from during the 1970s, are representative of all the books by all the brave women writing at that time.

Against Our Will, by Susan Brownmiller (1975)
Beyond God the Father, by Mary Daly (1973)
The Dialectic of Sex, by Shulamith Firestone (1970)
The Female Eunuch, by Germaine Greer (1970)
The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan (1963)
Literary Women, by Ellen Moers (1976)
A Literature of Their Own, by Elaine Showalter (1977)
The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (1979)
Of Women Born, by Adrienne Rich (1976)
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence, by Adrienne Rich (1979)
Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by Andrea Dworkin (1979)
Reinventing Womanhood, by Carolyn Heilbrun (1979)
The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir (1949)
Sexual Politics, by Kate Millett (1970)
Sisterhood is Powerful, edited by Robin Morgan (1970)
When God Was a Woman, by Merlin Stone (1976)
Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her, by Susan Griffin (1979)
Women's Estate, by Juliet Mitchell (1971)

"Where the God of Love Hangs Out"

Unlike much tediously predictable contemporary fiction, Amy Bloom's new short story collection, "Where the God of Love Hangs Out" (Random House, 2010) never stopped surprising me from beginning to end. Such originality is bracingly refreshing, and I savored every minute of reading this collection. Bloom, a psychotherapist, presents us with unique, intriguing characters and situations. Her stories explore family, love, divorce, illness, race, and much more, but never in a familiar way; there are always twists. There are twelve stories in the book, every one of them compelling, but the most riveting are two linked sets of four stories each. The first set, "William and Clare," focuses on two longtime friends who in middle age become lovers and eventually divorce their spouses to marry. One of the things I value about this set of stories is the way Bloom shows that the love of older people can be just as deeply passionate as that of the young. The other set of stories, "Lionel and Julia," revolves around the kind of ad hoc, complicated family that is becoming so common these days: a cobbled-together unit composed of ex-spouses, stepchildren, and half-siblings, no less close for being unconventional (very unconventional, in one case in particular). In many of the stories, there is unorthodox, even reprehensible behavior, but one of Bloom's strengths is her power to make readers suspend our usual moral judgments because of our connections to the specific, very human characters involved. We can't help becoming entangled with, empathizing with, and even falling in love with some of the characters, despite their messy lives.

Virginia Woolf

I both admire and take great pleasure in the writing of Virginia Woolf. I am in awe of her both as a pioneering feminist thinker and writer ("A Room of One's Own," "Three Guineas") and as a novelist ("To The Lighthouse," "The Waves"). Over the years, I have read all of her novels, some several times,and most of her published diaries, letters, and essays. The book I keep returning to is "Mrs. Dalloway." This exquisitely written novel about one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway gives readers access to a woman's mind as she moves through and absorbs her world hour by hour. The events of her day range from the very ordinary to the tragic. Woolf powerfully conveys the way life unfolds, minute by minute, and how we both experience it afresh every minute and at the same time integrate it into all of our past experiences and memories. What strikes me perhaps most of all, every time I read this masterpiece,is how Woolf so vividly shows us that at any given moment we contain all of our lives, all of our experiences, all of our histories, and that these are constantly present and in conversation with each other within our minds.

Childhood Bonding with Fictional Characters

Sometimes as children we feel a strong bond with certain characters, almost believing that the characters are real rather than make-believe. One such feeling of connection is still vivid in my mind: when I read "Ellen Tebbits," by the great children's author Beverly Cleary, and believed that the eight-year-old main character's secret was just between her and me, no one else. The secret was trivial, even quaint from today's perspective: Ellen's mother made her wear woolen long underwear. I didn't have to wear long underwear, but something about sharing a secret with this fictional character made me feel fiercely protective of her, and I hoped and believed that no one else would learn her secret and embarrass her about it. I think I believed that if I wished it enough, no one else would even read the book besides me! Of course part of my connection was that, like every little girl, I loved having secrets. As a girl with three brothers, I sometimes had to protect my own secrets very carefully! (Yes, brother K., I still remember when you read my diary!). But it also seems to me now that this bond with Ellen was an early instance of the intense connections I have so often, over the years, felt with characters in books.

Books Remembered and Forgotten

My friend Mary V. recently asked me if I generally remember the books I read. I had to answer that in many cases the answer is "no." Sometimes books, especially genre books such as mysteries, are written and read for entertainment, and are soon forgotten. Other more "literary" books are just not very memorable. But the main reason for forgetting so many books is that there are just too many to remember. In my case, I read about 100 books a year, and have been doing so for many years, so it would be impossible to remember all of them. When I look through the list of "Books Read" that I have kept since I was ten years old (see my posts of 1/24/10 and 1/25/10 about this list), many of the titles bring few or no specific memories to mind. But I believe that all the books we read leave traces of themselves on our minds. I also believe that what we learn from and remember about books is cumulative: as we read more and more, and as the various reading experiences intersect and intertwine in our minds, we are constantly expanding and enhancing our universes of experience and imagination, and we are infinitely enriched by the complex worlds we as readers contain.

Not THAT Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor (1912-1975) was a wonderful English author who wrote a dozen observant, gently witty novels and four short story collections about -- mostly -- the lives of upper-middle-class women. Her stories were often published in The New Yorker. Taylor's own life was quiet and low-key, and she preferred, she said, to write books in which "practically nothing happens." But the "nothing" she describes is a compelling one; Kingsley Amis called her "one of the best English novelists" born in the 20th century. She, like Jane Austen, was especially good at portraying the kinds of self-deception we all practice. Virago Press, the excellent publisher I posted about earlier (2/17/10), republished all of her books in the 1980s, and then again republished several of her novels this decade. Thank you, Virago, once again! And thank you, Benjamin Schwarz, for the article of appreciation of Taylor's work in the September 2007 issue of the Atlantic, some of which I have drawn on here.

The novels include "At Mrs. Lippincote's," "A View of the Harbor," "In a Summer Season," and "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont," which in 2005 was made into a lovely movie starring the perfectly cast Joan Plowright. Over the years, I have read all of Elizabeth Taylor's published novels and short stories, some volumes more than once, and highly recommend her work to you.

Book Parcels

There is something exciting about getting books in the mail. Maybe I feel this way because when my brothers and I spent our boarding school holidays in the small town in India where my parents worked, we had no access to bookstores with books in English, so my mother would occasionally order us books from a large city. What a treat it was when the box bursting with paperback books arrived, and we scrambled to open it and put "first dibs" on the most promising looking volumes. What bounty! Even now, if I have ordered books directly from a publisher, or if a friend mails me a book, I feel an instant lift of spirits at the prospect of opening the package to find a book or books - fresh and new - ready to be devoured!

Books from our Baby Boomer Youth

For Baby Boomer high school and college students, certain books epitomized youth, freedom, nonconformity, coolness, intensity, and a refusal to be impressed by or controlled by "The Establishment." These books made us feel that our generation, and we personally, could be different, challenge the status quo, make our own rules. They are redolent of rebellion, irreverence, spirituality (sixties versions), politics, and of course, "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll." The books do not "belong" to our generation; some of them are still widely read. But many of them are products of a specific time in history: the sixties and early seventies. For a trip down memory lane for those who came of age during that time, cast your mind back to your late teens and early twenties, and see if this sampling of books looks very, very familiar...

The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
Catcher in the Rye (and the other novels and short stories), by J. D. Salinger
Cat's Cradle (and many other novels), by Kurt Vonnegut
A Coney Island of the Mind, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe
Eros and Civilization (and other works), by Herbert Marcuse
Howl and Other Poems, by Alan Ginsberg
The Making of a Counter Culture, by Theodore Roszak
On the Road (see also The Dharma Bums and other novels), by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Politics of Experience, by R. D. Laing
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion
Steppenwolf (see also Siddhartha and other novels), by Hermann Hesse
The Stranger, by Albert Camus
Summerhill, by A. S. Neill
The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig

Some of these titles are impossible for me to reread now, but they meant a lot to me at the time, so I honor them for that.

(As I look over my list, I see that these books are almost all by male authors. Although this is distressing, it is not really surprising, because the time in question is just before and at the beginning of the Second Wave women's movement, when many influential books by women started to appear. Soon I will write a separate post about some of those books.)

Carol Shields

If you have not read Carol Shields' novels, please put them at the top of your to-read lists. This Canadian author wrote some 20 books, all wonderful, but I particularly recommend three. Her first big success, "The Stone Diaries" (1994), won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Governor General's Award. It is the story of the long life of an "ordinary" woman, Daisy Goodwill; it explores the concept of how we understand our own lives. "Larry's Party" (1997) tells the story of an equally "ordinary" man who works as a florist and then, surprising himself and everyone else, becomes a famous builder of garden mazes. The title refers to the dinner party that takes place at the end of the novel, one at which Larry's current lover and his two ex-wives are present. "Unless" (2002) tells of a mother and her bafflement when her college-age daughter inexplicably starts silently panhandling on the corner of a busy Toronto street. All three novels are very original, beautifully written, with an almost Woolfian lyricism, yet are very concrete and down to earth as well. Sadly, Carol Shields died in 2003; she is greatly missed.

Ms. Magazine

I recently posted about two resources for books about women: Virago Press, and the Women's Review of Books. Another valuable resource, one which I have subscribed to and read for many many years, is Ms. Magazine. Ms. provides a wealth of information and inspiration regarding women's issues: political, social, economic, health, art, and much more; it also occasionally publishes fiction and poetry. Here I want to highlight the numerous book reviews in every issue. Reviews cover fiction and nonfiction, on a wide variety of topics and by a wide and inclusive variety of writers. The current issue (Winter 2010), for example, reviews such titles as "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," by Rebecca Skloot; "Shadow Tag,"by the noted Native American novelist Louise Erdrich; "Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work is Done," by the well-known media studies scholar Susan J. Douglas; "The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation is Reshaping Family, Work and Gender in America," by Kathleen Gerson; and "Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone," by Nadine Cohodas.

A Literary Pilgrimage

A few summers ago, after attending a conference in Canterbury, I took some extra days to travel in England. I had been to London several times, but had spent little time in the English countryside. It was beautiful, green, and pastoral, just as I had imagined it. I spent some time in Oxford and Bath, both wonderful, as was Canterbury. But the highlight of the trip was my pilgrimage to the tiny, idyllic-looking village of Chawton, where Jane Austen spent her last and, from most reports, happiest and most productive years. Austen, with her mother and sister, lived in a cottage provided by one of her brothers who lived in a mansion nearby. To get there, I took a train, and then a bus, and then walked the last half mile or so. There it was in front of me: the place where my most-loved and most-revered author had lived! There were a few other visitors, but it was mainly quiet and peaceful. I walked through the garden and then through the small but charming house. I stood in her bedroom. I saw the little table in the drawing room where she wrote. I was in awe, and felt so privileged to be standing in the very place where she had lived and where she had written several of her books. After I left Chawton, I went to Winchester Cathedral, where Austen was buried, and knelt to touch her grave marker on the floor of the Cathedral. Yes, tears came...tears of happiness at being there. It was truly a sentimental journey for me.

Two Organizations Promoting Women's Writing

As a longtime feminist, I can remember when books by and about women were much less available than they are now. The current far greater proliferation didn't just happen: many writers, readers, publishers, academics, journalists, activists and others worked very hard to create structures and possibilities for more publications by, for, and about women. Here I would like to give credit to two entities that have been extremely influential in this area: Virago Press and the Women's Review of Books.

Virago Press (www.virago.co.uk/) began in 1973 in England. The founders of the press recognized that biases on the part of publishers, reviewers, academe, book distributors, and others all kept many worthy books by women writers from being published or kept in print. The publisher's mission was and is to discover, or in many cases rediscover, these books, many of which had fallen into obscurity. Virago calls itself "a feminist publishing company," and is now the largest women's imprint in the world. After studying English literature in college, where we were still assigned mostly books by white male Western authors, I remember my joyful discovery of Virago books, especially the "Virago Modern Classics" series, with their beautiful green-bordered covers. Some of the great authors whom Virago published -- authors who might have been lost to us otherwise -- were Vita Sackville-West, Rosamond Lehmann, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy Richardson, Mary Webb, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Rose Macauley, Mary Olivier, and Rebecca West.

The Women's Review of Books (www.wcwonline.org/womensreview)was first published in 1983 by the Wellesley Center for Women at Wellesley College. Its goal was "spreading the news about the scholarship emerging from the then new field of women's studies and about creative writing -- fiction, memoir, poetry -- that examined women's experiences" (from the website), and it has continued to spread that news. It publishes not only reviews and essays but also poetry and photography. It is an essential resource for those of us who love, read, and write about books by and about women. I am a longtime subscriber, and I find every single issue both enjoyable and useful.

Reading Friends

I am fortunate to have several friends who are as passionate about books as I am. We discuss books, pass books on to each other, exchange book recommendations, give each other books for birthdays and holidays, and go to bookstores together. But most especially: we talk, talk, talk about books. The best, longest running, most continuous book conversation I have had is with C., a close friend whom I have known and discussed books with for 39 years. Although we haven't lived in the same city or even on the same coast since grad school, we manage to talk about books by phone, mail, e-mail, and in person often. Our tastes in books are not exactly the same, but overlap substantially. We understand the kinds of books each other likes. We send each other books. When we ARE in the same place, one of the things we often do is go to bookstores, browse, and point out recently-read books to each other, giving thumbnail summaries and reviews as we go. When I saw her last month in her city, that is exactly what we did, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. I value C.'s recommendations highly, I treasure our years of conversations about books, and I love the way that books form one of the major bonds between us.

"One Writer's Beginnings," by Eudora Welty

A few days ago, I wrote about three recent books on reading and writing. Today I am writing about an older such book, a classic in the genre, a must-read: "One Writer's Beginnings," by Eudora Welty (Harcourt, 1983). The book is divided into three parts: Listening, Learning to See, and Finding a Voice. It is a mixture of memoir and thoughts on books and writing; it clearly and delightfully illustrates the influence of childhood on writers and readers. Welty remembers her parents' great love of books, their sacrificing to buy books for her, and their gentle encouragement of her fascination with books and writing. She provides much indirect advice for both writers and readers. The book also weaves in various strands related to growing up in the South, education, families, race, and much more. It is enhanced by several pages of family photographs.

There are so many passages I would like to quote, but I will confine myself to three excerpts:

"It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time that I was not in love with them -- with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself" (pp. 5-6).

"I live in gratitude to my parents for initiating me -- and as early as I begged for it, without keeping me waiting -- into knowledge of the words, into reading and spelling...My love for the alphabet, which endures, grew out of reciting it, but, before that, out of seeing the letters on the page. In my own story books, before I could read them for myself, I fell in love with various winding, enchanted-looking initials...at the heads of fairy tales" (p. 9).

"Ever since I was first read to, and then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn't hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn't my mother's voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice" (pp. 11-12).

As this book is an adapted version of a set of lectures that Welty gave at Harvard, and as these lectures are available on CD (Harvard University Press, 1984), we are fortunate to be able to hear that "reader-voice" quite literally. Hearing Welty's own voice is a wonderful pleasure that further deepens our appreciation of her work.

Welty (1909-2001) wrote five novels and several collections of short stories. I especially recommend two of her novels, "Delta Wedding" and "The Optimist's Daughter," as well as "The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty."

Finding Books Serendipitously

Sometimes we find intriguing books we weren't even looking for. I have stayed at borrowed or rented lakeside cottages, for example, perused the odd mishmash of books on the bookshelves there, and serendipitously found books that kept me reading late into the night. Once - going much further back in my history - for some reason I looked in a dark and little-used cupboard under the stairs in the lounge of the dormitory I lived in when in high school, and found a hidden stash of Agatha Christie mysteries. It was my first discovery of Christie, and soon I was devouring every one of the slightly battered paperbacks I had found, one right after the other. Somehow these books, bought and read by an unknown past resident of the cottage or dorm, and unexpectedly discovered by me, have a very particular appeal - even a sort of thrill - of their own. Here's to serendipity!

Irresistible Geographical Settings

I am drawn to certain novels because of their geographical settings. I especially cannot resist novels set in India, San Francisco, Manhattan, or England. In the cases of the first two, the reasons are obvious: I grew up in India, and that experience will always be an essential part of who I am, and I have lived in San Francisco most of my adult life. Manhattan settings are appealing for at least two reasons. First, New York is the center of American literature; it is the one place in the United States that almost all serious readers know and can picture. Second, it has a glamor and excitement that most of us are drawn to. I have never lived there, but have visited fairly often, and always feel it is a sort of magic, larger-than-life city. As for England: As I mentioned in an earlier post (on mysteries), I have always been an Anglophile (perhaps not surprising for a person born in Canada and raised in barely postcolonial India). So much of the literature and culture that means the most to me comes from England. Although I have only visited a few times, I feel I know London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Brighton, the English countryside, the English seaside, the English cliffs...I have read about them so very often in the novels I love. They are the settings portrayed so vividly by Austen, the Brontes, Eliot, Dickens, Hardy, Mitford, Pym, Thirkell, and so many more English authors. These places will always be part of my mental and emotional geography. These are the settings that draw me in; I am sure all readers have their own such lists...

Reading to Children

One of the great pleasures of parenthood (and for others with children in their lives) is reading to one's children. I remember when my daughter was small, I read to her for hours and hour...maybe hundreds or even thousands of hours over those first few years of her life. We started with the usual hard-paged books, and tactile books such as "Pat the Bunny." I loved reading her books that I myself had loved as a child, such as "Charlotte's Web" (which my mom would read to me, and I would cry, and then ask her to read it again...and again...and again...and cry each time! And I loved every minute of it!). My daughter and I enjoyed going to libraries and bookstores, especially for story hours, but also for browsing. I remember one children's bookstore that had replicated, full size, the scene of the book "Good Night, Moon" in a nook near the entry way -- furniture and all -- it was enchanting! Later we read the Ramona books, the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, the Anne of Green Gables books (all favorites of my own childhood as well), and many many more. Those hours reading together are some of my best memories of my daughter's childhood.

Please Patronize Independent Bookstores!

At the risk of "preaching to the converted," I urge readers to spend their money at independent bookstores rather than at the large chains or online vendors. Some of the many reasons to do so are as follows:
1. Local, independent bookstores are more individualized, often more specialized. They are attuned to their local customers and their locales. They do their own buying, rather than having a national office make decisions for the whole country.
2. Booksellers at independent bookstores are usually more knowledgeable about books.
3. Independent bookstores often have great readings and classes. It is true that some chains do as well, but the local bookstores can focus on local authors and cater to local interests.
4. Independent bookstores are more community-oriented. They often have programs that benefit local schools and other community institutions.
5. Statistics show that a much higher percentage of profits of independent bookstores goes back into the local community; profits don't go to the national corporate offices as they do with the chains.
6. Chains are often predatory, moving in very nearby to existing independent bookstores, undercutting the prices of those bookstores (because they have the corporate resources to do so), driving them out, and then sometimes raising prices again. (I have seen this happen in the area where I live; a few years back we lost the beloved A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, here in Marin County, this way.)

Independent bookstores have been closing at a disturbingly high rate. If we lose these stores, we will have lost something essential and irreplaceable. Then all we will have left is the cookie cutter chain experience.

I would like to end by recognizing some of my favorite local, independent bookstores in the San Francisco Bay Area: Green Apple, on Clement Street in SF; Book Passage, in Corte Madera; and Books, Inc., on California Street in SF. I treasure these wonderful bookstores; long may they live!

What are your favorite independent bookstores?

Three Recent Books on Reading and Writing

Those of us who love reading and writing often like to read about reading and writing as well. Below are three recent books on the topic that I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend. All three authors - each in her own way - perfectly and evocatively capture connections among reading, writing, and life.

1. "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books," by Maureen Corrigan (Random House,2005). -- Corrigan, who reviews books for NPR's "Fresh Air" (my favorite radio program, very literate in its own right), is a self-described "obsessive reader" who tells us that "from adolescence on, at least, I've read my life in terms of fiction."

2. "Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for those Who Want to Write Them," by Francine Prose (HarperCollins, 2006). -- Prose, a well-known novelist, writes about how essential careful reading is to good writing. This book is a blend of close reading and analysis of great books; Prose's own personal stories; advice for readers and for writers; and a list of recommended reading.

3. "Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home: Life on the Page," by Lynn Freed (Harcourt, 2005). -- This South African novelist and short story writer focuses on the ways in which a writer's experiences, particularly childhood experiences, influence her writing; she is generous in sharing her own experiences.

"Diary of a Provincial Lady"

I'd like to recommend a rather quirky, hilarious book, "Diary of a Provincial Lady," by E. M. Delafield (originally published in 1931, now available in a 1982 edition from Academy Chicago). The narrator, a middle-aged married English woman living in the countryside, writes in a low-key, faux-straightforward, but actually ironic, voice. She makes deadpan, ever-so-slightly-barbed comments about her husband, children, neighbors, and herself, and all the small events and concerns of the family and neighborhood. Just under the surface is a kind of anarchic quality, perhaps an almost feminist dismay at her circumstances, yet the narrator manages to do her duties, contain her feelings in front of others, and express them through gentle but deadly accurate observations written in her diary. Despite these veiled criticisms, the reader senses that the narrator is actually, mostly, quite happy with her family and her life. I found myself laughing out loud several times as I read. The humorous line drawings throughout the book add to the reader's enjoyment.

There is a sequel, in which the provincial lady goes to London; this volume is also enjoyable, but a bit of a letdown after the first book.

"Middlebrow" Novels

Some years ago, critics used to speak of "middlebrow" literature. These novels were assigned a place somewhere between, on the one hand, "good," serious literature, critically acclaimed, and on the other hand, "lowbrow" literature, genre fiction, and "beach reads." This category still exists, although we don't often use the term "middlebrow" these days. Although I generally seek out and read "serious" literature, I have a place in my heart for middlebrow authors who are usually extremely skilled and competent at creating very readable, even compelling works. I think of them as craftswomen (the ones I like are almost always women) and good writers, but their novels are just a bit too undemanding, predictable and formulaic to be great. Yet I can rely on them to interest and entertain me, every time. When I learn that their newest novels are out, I almost always look for and read them. Among my favorite middlebrow authors are Elizabeth Berg, Anita Shreve, Anne Rivers Siddons, Nancy Thayer, and Joanna Trollope. I give these authors great credit, and thank them for the many hours of reading pleasure they have provided me.

Campus Novels

Campus novels are strangely compelling. As an academic myself, I particularly enjoy them, but I think anyone who has ever been a student, or worked on a campus, finds them intriguing. Here I list (in order of publication dates) some of the best such novels I have read over the years. (As I am making the list, I am reminded of how many of these books are satirical. I wonder what that says about campuses and academe?)

1. The Professor's House (1925), by Willa Cather. A lovely if sometimes sad book by the wonderful, pioneering Cather.
2. Groves of Academe (1952), by Mary McCarthy. As sharp in tone as McCarthy's work usually is, and great fun to read.
3. Pictures from an Institution (1952), by Randall Jarrell. His fictional college is based on Sarah Lawrence College, where he taught. Scathing in places.
4. Lucky Jim (1954), by Kingsley Amis. Probably the most famous campus novel ever. Satirical and hilarious.
5. The War Between the Tates (1974), by Alison Lurie (1974). As much about the couple's relationship as about the campus, but it is all connected. Also hilariously, if appallingly, candid.
6. Changing Places (1975), Small World (1984), and Nice Work (1988), all by David Lodge. All very funny and great fun to read. Lodge also gets some great potshots in on both sides of the Atlantic, writing about academe in the U.S. and England, especially in Changing Places.
7. Moo (1995), by Jane Smiley. About a midwestern agricultural (thus the title) university. Very funny in parts, if a bit too detailed and sometimes a bit over the top.
8. Straight Man (1997), by Richard Russo. Funny, but also explores the human dilemma. By one of my favorite authors.
9. On Beauty (2005), by Zadie Smith. A British professor, with his multicultural family, comes to the U.S. to teach at an Ivy League university; there they both connect and clash with another professor's family. The British Smith, who spent a year teaching in the U.S. herself, has some very sharp but sometimes affectionate observations to make about race, class, multiculturalism, youth, romance, marriage, pride, and more. She has said that E. M. Forster's novel Howard's End provided a inspiration and a framework to this novel. A "big" novel with many wonderful aspects to savor.

What are your favorite campus novels?

Books-On-Tape

I love books-on-tape (or, these days, actually on CD). I listen to them in my car while driving to work, or while doing errands, or while on a longer trip, such as visiting my mom 3.5 hours away. It is such a treat to have someone read wonderful stories to you while you are driving. And it makes the stories come alive. I especially (but not only) like to listen to the "classics" -- including my beloved Jane Austen's novels -- on tape, luxuriating in hearing the much-read stories one more time. Fortunately these are available at my local library, so listening to tapes/CDs is not expensive. Usually the novels are read by professional actors, or occasionally by the author herself/himself. I sometimes recognize certain readers who read often. One in particular who has recorded hundreds of tapes over the years is Flo Gibson. At first I didn't really like her gravelly voice, but I soon grew quite fond of it, and admired her skill at conveying the different voices of the characters. After a while, she sounded like an old friend unexpectedly re-encountered from time to time. I guess that even as adults, we never completely outgrow wanting to have stories read to us!

Favorite Living Authors

In addition to the writers I have already posted about (e.g., Penelope Lively, Colm Toibin, William Trevor, Anne Tyler), the following living (as far as I know) authors are among my favorites:
Writers of fiction: Margaret Atwood, Margaret Drabble, Anne Enright, Mavis Gallant, Jane Gardam, Gail Godwin, Mary Gordon, Barbara Gowdy, Tessa Hadley, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Margo Livesey, Ian McEwan, Alice Munro, Antonya Nelson, Ann Patchett, Richard Russo, Jean Thompson, Tobias Wolff.
Memoirists: Diana Athill, Mary Gordon, Patricia Hampl, Alice Kaplan, Madhur Jaffrey.

I also enjoy and learn from the magazines I regularly read. Favorites include The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Ms., The Nation, The Progressive, The Women's Review of Books, The New York Times Review of Books, The Threepenny Review, New York, San Francisco Magazine, and Vanity Fair.

Food and Restaurant Literature

I enjoy going to good restaurants here in San Francisco and in other cities where I travel. I also savor books about restaurants and food, especially memoirs. Below are some examples that I have read and highly recommend. Enjoy! And please let me know of your "food lit" favorites as well.

1. Anthony Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential.
This chef's behind the scenes restaurant kitchen revelations are fascinating, funny, and a little scary!
2. Frank Bruni. Born Round: The Secret history of a Full-Time Eater.
In this memoir by the longtime New York Times restaurant critic, he writes about his life in food, including his struggles with dieting, as well as about his life as the most powerful food critic in the U.S. (He stepped down from that job last year when he published this memoir.)
3. Phoebe Damrosch. Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter.
Damrosch was a server at a top New York restaurant, Thomas Keller's Per Se.
4. Andrew Friedman. Knives at Dawn: America's Quest for Cuinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d/Or Competition.
A blow-by-blow account of the preparation of the United States' candidate for this premier French award competition in 2009. He came in 6th place.
5. Betty Fussell. My Kitchen Wars: A Memoir.
A delightful and sometimes mordant memoir from the years when gourmet cooking first became popularized.
6. Judith Jones. The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food.
Jones, a literary editor for almost 50 years, edited many of the greatest cookbooks and other food-related books by such eminences as Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, and Madhur Jaffrey.
7. David Kamp. The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution.
Kamp chronicles the rise of the foodie movement in the U.S.; a very informative and sometimes very funny book.
8. Thomas McNamee. Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. The story of the woman at the culinary forefront of the movement toward local, seasonal, organic, ingredient-driven food, and of the iconic Berkeley restaurant she still runs today (along with spreading the word on school gardens, and - reputedly - advising President and Mrs. Obama on food-related issues.)
9. Ruth Reichl. Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table.
A beautifully written memoir of the food critic's childhood initiation into the world of truly flavorful, fresh, properly-prepared, and delicious food, and of her early years in a life of restaurants and food. (This memoir was succeeded by two others: Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table; and Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise. Both are of interest, and enjoyable to read, but the first book - Tender at the Bone - remains the best.)
10. "The Waiter." Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip -- Confessions of a Cynical Waiter.
This longtime waiter and blogger shares inside information and opinions about restaurants. The author pulls no punches, sometimes praising but often skewering restaurant owners, workers, and patrons alike.

A Novel for Grown-ups: "Noah's Compass"

I enjoy novels about characters of all ages, but I sometimes particularly appreciate reading about characters in their fifties, sixties, and older, and their experiences and perspectives. I just finished reading one such novel, "Noah's Compass" (Knopf, 2009), by Anne Tyler (who is 68 years old herself). The main character, Liam Pennywell, is 60 years old, recently retired, and at loose ends. He is, like many of Tyler's characters, seemingly quite ordinary, stolid, and somewhat passive. He is neither unhappy nor particularly happy. He says at one point, "I just...don't seem to have the hang of things, somehow. It's as if I've never been entirely present in my own life" (p. 263). It is a heartbreaking realization. Such a tamped-down character is unlikely to immediately intrigue readers, who may be tempted to bail out of what seems that it will be a rather depressing story, but somehow Tyler's portrayal of how Liam ponders and responds to the events and everyday moments of his life draws us in, and we begin to admire his essential modesty and goodness, and his determination to be satisfied with what he has in life. I realize that this description of "Noah's Compass" probably won't send you running to the bookstore or library, but I urge you to give the novel a chance to win you over, as it did me.

On Tea in Literature

Tea is a treasured part of my life: tea itself, teacups, tea trays, tea parties, afternoon tea, hotel teas, tearooms, long talks over tea. Some of my favorite novels - by Jane Austen, Henry James, Barbara Pym, Angela Thirkell, Dorothy Sayers - have scenes featuring tea. So I was struck by the regular meetings for tea - what was called "sacred tea" - in the novel "The Elegance of the Hedgehog," by Muriel Barbery (which I wrote about in yesterday's post). Here is a passage about tea from the book:

"The tea ritual: such a precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tastes; accession to simple, authentic and refined sensations, a license given to all, at little cost, to become aristocrats of taste, because tea is the beverage of the wealthy and of the poor; the tea ritual, therefore, has the extraordinary virtue of introducing into the absurdity of our lives an aperture of serene harmony. Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed" (p. 91).

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

I initially resisted reading the bestselling French novel, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog," by Muriel Barbery (English version: Europa, 2008, paperback), not finding the description appealing. Then it was chosen for my reading group, so I plunged in. The first several chapters were, to be blunt, somewhat tedious. Big chunks of those chapters were treatises on philosophical topics...perhaps interesting in the abstract, but not what you expect to find in a novel. The early emphasis on the precocious, unhappy 12-year-old Paloma was also not appealing to me. But once the character of Renee, the concierge in her fifties, an autodidact who hid her extensive knowledge of literature, art, opera, and philosophy from almost everyone, was introduced, the story began to draw me in. Both Paloma and Renee were - like hedgehogs - prickly on the outside but vulnerable within. When a new tenant, the wealthy and courtly Mr. Ozu, entered the picture, and when the three main characters discovered each other and their common interests, the interplay of the characters was both touching and intriguing.

Throughout, the writing is intricate and often beautiful, even transcendent. There are entrancing passages about Japan, art, tea, language, grammar, social class, life, death, and much more. Here is a small excerpt from Renee's thoughts after Mr. Ozu has introduced her to a wider world: "A few bars of music..., a touch of perfection in the flow of human dealings -- I lean my head slowly to one side, reflect on the camellia on the moss of the temple, reflect on a cup of tea, while outside the wind is rustling the foliage, the forward rush of life is crystallized in a brilliant jewel of a moment that knows neither projects nor future, human destiny is rescued from the pale succession of days, glows with light at last and, surpassing time, warms my tranquil heart" (page 106).

I recommend this novel; don't get discouraged by the first few chapters, but persist, and I think you will be as captivated as I was.