Young People DO Still Read!

Just when I get discouraged about the decrease in readers, especially among young people, I get proven wrong, to my delight. I tend to worry that young people spend all their time online or on the phone or playing video games or doing anything else but reading. (OK, it's a stereotype, and I am exaggerating a bit, but there is definitely some evidence for this). However, I should have more faith in young people and in the enduring joys of reading. Yesterday I was at a hair salon and a very young (maybe 20ish) woman working there began talking with me about books. She told me she loved to read, and told me what kinds of books she reads. I was of course tickled to hear that she reads Jane Austen, along with contemporary novels and poetry. She told me she always has a book with her, wherever she goes. And that she loves reading in the morning with a cup of coffee. She also loves spending time in bookstores. A girl after my own heart! And - not to my surprise - she told me that her mother loves to read too, and always read to her when she was little. Hurray for the young readers of the world (and for the moms and dads who read to them!)! (I gave her the address of this blog, so if she is reading this: Thanks for giving my faith in young readers a big boost!)

"Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life"

When I read reviews of "Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life: A Memoir" (Riverhead, 2010), by Kim Severson, my interest was immediately piqued. It's a memoir, it's about the "foodie" world, and it's by a former food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle (my daily newspaper) who currently writes about food for the New York Times. What's not to like, right? And on the whole, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Severson has a straightforward, if a bit wordy and occasionally repetitive, style, and an honest voice. She tells of her insecurities, her earlier alcoholism and drug use, and her difficulties in coming out as a lesbian. The conceit of the book is that she has learned lessons from each of eight women cooks, most of whom she met through her work as a food writer. The cooks are her mother Anne-Marie Zappa Severson, Marion Cunningham, Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Marcella Hazan, Rachael Ray, Edna Lewis, and Leah Chase. This does provide a good framing device for Severson's story, although at times the frame seems a little forced. Severson's relationships with these women range from lifelong to a couple of meetings. She does provide some intriguing, even gossipy, insights into some of these cooks; on the whole they are an admirable, even inspiring, if very human, group of women who made successful careers for themselves, and educated and helped many others, often at a time when women faced many obstacles in the working world (most of the women are or were in their 60s, 70s, and 80s). I was rooting for Severson's success and happiness, and fortunately, with the help of these women, Severson has achieved a successful and enjoyable career, a happy marriage to her wife Katia, and equally happy motherhood of a young daughter.

In Praise of a Very Determined Reader

When Canadian professional writer of detective fiction and avid reader Harold Engel's ability to read was taken away by a stroke, he could see letters, but "they looked like Cyrillic one moment and Korean the next." Engel couldn't accept this result, and very very slowly, with the help of a lot of therapy and trial and error, he taught himself to read again by tracing the letters in the air with his finger, or on the roof of his mouth with his tongue. Something about those movements reactivated his sense of the meaning of the letters and words. It is an awkward, slow process, but it has allowed him to read and write again; he has since published a novel and two memoirs. Oliver Sacks, the psychiatrist who has written about so many oddities of the human brain (most famously in his book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat"), tells Engel's story in the current (6/28/10) issue of The New Yorker (see http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/28/100628fa_fact_sacks for a summary of the article). I am in awe of Engel's dogged determination, and see it as a testament to the crucial importance of reading -- far beyond its practical necessity -- to those for whom reading is a sort of life's blood. Engel says that he persisted because "Reading was hard-wired into me. I could no more stop reading than I could stop my heart....The idea of being cut off from Shakespeare and company left me weak." His experience -- along with the experiences of those who are blind or illiterate -- serves as a reminder to the rest of us not to take for granted the great privilege and pleasure of being able to read easily and at will.

"Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal"

"Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal" (Hyperion, 2009), by Julie Metz, tells the story of a 40ish woman whose husband suddenly dies, and of what she finds out after his death about his complicated secret life and his many affairs. Metz is shocked and devastated by her husband's early and sudden death, and shocked and devastated again when his many betrayals come to light. Only her young daughter, her friends and family, and time can help her rebuild her life and her faith in other people, and help her let go of at least some of her bitterness. I don't think I am giving too much away by revealing that the story has a happy ending. I realize as I type this summary that it sounds like the plot of a weepy bestselling "women's" novel. But Metz's writing, although sometimes veering a bit toward the overly dramatic, is convincing, and we feel for her. She makes her story compellingly readable, and I have to confess that I read it all in one day. And I admire her (seeming, at least) honesty and openness even about aspects of the story that put her in a less than ideal light. There is always a slight feeling of voyeurism in reading a memoir like this one, but I think we learn about the human condition from such stories as well. (I admit that it is possible that the second half of that sentence may just be a rationale or excuse for the first half, but I am not going to go there today....)

"Walks with Men"

In contrast with the hefty "The Lacuna" (507 pages), which I posted about yesterday, "Walks with Men" (Scribner, 2010), by Ann Beattie, is a little slip of a novel (1-2 pages and measuring just 5" by 7"). I have read Beattie's stories and novels for years, including the many stories she has published in The New Yorker; in fact she, along with John Updike and a few others, seems the quintessential New Yorker short story author. This new book is, like much of her work, understated, with her usual low-key style, but packs a punch. Recent Harvard graduate Jane moves to New York in 1980 and becomes involved with Neil, who as a writer 20 years older seems to Jane the epitome of worldliness, sophistication, and knowledge of "how to live." (Don't we all, when young, long for someone to instruct us in how to live well?) His advice, which he pronounces with great authority, ranges from the very specific ("Wear only raincoats made in England") to the very general ("Time changes everything"). Jane has her own tentative and erratic career, but her life is organized around Neil and his authoritative pronouncements. Their relationship is bumpy, with betrayals and reconciliations and a surprise ending, near but not at the actual end of the novel. Jane learns to put her life with Neil in perspective, and the novel ends with another surprising and counter-intuitive scene, quiet, a little sad, but lovely. This novel will speak to many who look back on their early adulthood, seeing with the clearer perspective of age the people who attracted and influenced them, and the sometimes inexplicable decisions they (OK, we!) made.

"The Lacuna"

Reading "The Lacuna" (Harper, 2009), by Barbara Kingsolver, was for me like climbing a steep mountain: long (over 500 pages), arduous, breathtaking (in both senses of the word), and worth the effort. (Not that I have climbed any mountains lately, but it seems like an apropos if not very original metaphor.) I initially resisted reading this novel, but since it was chosen for my next Reading Group meeting, highly recommended by one member, I tackled it. It took me almost a month to read, and I read a few other (shorter and less arduous) books during this time. I started reading it in large print, got tired of that (see my 5/31/10 post on large print), continued in regular print, and finished the book on CD (read very effectively by the author herself) during two recent car trips. The main character is Harrison Shepherd, a young man born in the U.S. of a Mexican mother and American father and raised in Mexico, a classic bicultural person, so common in the 20th century. In the 1930s, he works for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and then for Trotsky in exile, before returning to the U.S. and becoming the author of bestselling novels about ancient Mexican history. He tries to live a quiet life in Asheville, NC, but is blindsided by the anticommunist McCarthy era, which targets him for having associated with Communists and accuses him of being anti-American, using distorted and completely false "evidence." This is ironic, as he is actually very pro-American, and tragic, because it destroys his life and career. Kingsolver's portrayal of the viciousness and mindlessness of this witchhunt era is powerful and frightening, especially in view of some present-day echoes of this mentality. Kingsolver's writing has always been admirable not only for its literary quality but also for engaging with important social/political events and issues; "The Poisonwood Bible," for one outstanding example, is unforgettable. There are other rewards of this book, including the evocative portrayals of the main character, his assistant Violet Brown, Kahlo, and Trotsky; lovely and detailed descriptions of the various locales; and the way the author gives readers a vivid sense of history, both ancient and recent.

Will I Ever Read All of the "Great Books"?

Forty-plus years ago, my parents bought the 54-volume "Great Books of the Western World" set (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), and these impressive volumes have been a fixture on my parents' various living room bookshelves over all these years. This set was edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, and was based on their educational theory that all college students should read these classic books; the program was implemented at the University of Chicago and elsewhere. Over the years my late father and I and other family members read some of the volumes. It has always been understood that eventually the Great Books would pass to me (as the English major and biggest reader in the family). I love the idea of the books, I love how they look on the shelf, and I love taking volumes down and browsing through them. I love what it shows about my parents' priorities that they spent a considerable sum of their hard-earned money on this set (as well as the Classics Club set and many other wonderful books). My vague idea when I was younger was that "someday" I would read all 54 volumes. Now, older and more realistic, I realize that it is highly unlikely that I will ever have the time or - more crucial - the inclination, if I am honest with myself, to read Euclid, Plutarch, Ptolemy, Thomas Aquinas, Gibbon, etc. I am probably almost as unlikely to re-read some of the authors I read in college classes: Euripedes, Rabelais, Milton, Hegel, Goethe, etc. As I am mainly a novel reader, the volumes I am most likely to read, or re-read, are the novels by Swift, Fielding, and Tolstoy. However, even if I have to relinquish the grand vision of myself reading my way through those 54 volumes, I love the idea of them, with their solidity and their embodiment of hundreds of years of history, literature, science, and culture. Of course the fact that they are from the "Western World" means they are limited culturally, and nowadays - appropriately and fortunately - we are much more aware of global and multicultural knowledge and literature. But that doesn't mean we can't continue to treasure these glorious "Great Books."

"Romancing Miss Bronte"

As "Jane Eyre" is one of my all-time favorite and often-read books, I have read a lot about the lives of Charlotte Bronte and her sisters and brother as well. I read Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte, as well as later books and articles and at least one fictionalized version of her life. I have just completed another fictionalized version: "Romancing Miss Bronte" (Ballantine, 2010), by Juliet Gael. Although it sometimes veers a little into the "romance novel" genre, and has touches of the portentous and overwrought style you might expect in that genre, it is generally well-written. It recaps the sad but compelling story of the very bright children of a parson in the small, isolated town of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors, the precocious fantasy stories they write together, the diseases that take them one by one, the difficult path to publication by the three surviving sisters, and finally the late marriage to a curate by the sole surviving sister, Charlotte. Where the book is strong is in its exploration of Charlotte's psyche. An enjoyable if often sad read.

Reading Engages the Senses

In my 6/18/10 post, I quoted Thomas Newkirk as saying that memorizing literature helps readers "taste" the words. This reminds me of one reason I love reading in print rather than online: Old-fashioned print engages the senses. Sight of course is primary, but not just for understanding the words. The way the book looks (size, shape, color, cover art, etc.), the way the pages look (layout, margins, etc.), the way the font looks, the size of the print, illustrations: all are part of the reading experience. Sound enters with the whisper or crackle of pages turning, and with the satisfying sound the book makes when set on a table, or when pulled from the shelf. Touch: Is the cover embossed? smooth? made of paper or fabric? Is the binding sewn or pasted? Are the pages thin or thick? How heavy is the book? How does it feel when held in the hand? Smell: All books have distinctive scents, especially very old and very new ones; those scents are part of the reading experience as well. All of this is lost when reading online....

In Praise of "Slow Reading"

An AP news story yesterday ("NH Professor Pushes for Return to Slow Reading," by Holly Ramer, June 17, 2010) describes the "Slow Reading" movement, which now has many proponents, and focuses on one professor's efforts. Professor Thomas Newkirk of the University of New Hampshire says that "students have told him they've become accustomed to flitting from page to page online and that they have trouble concentrating while reading printed books." To help counter this problem, Newkirk "is encouraging schools from elementary through college to return to old strategies such as reading aloud and memorization...to help students truly 'taste' the words." I am, as you might guess, very much in support of this movement. As I was reading this article, my thoughts flashed back to my beloved 8th grade teacher, Mr. George Fisher, and how he would have us memorize poems. Sometimes we resisted this assignment, but we enjoyed it too, and felt proud of being able to recite the poems. Learning a poem "by heart" does indeed, as Newkirk says, promote "tasting" the words. One poem that Mr. Fisher had us memorize that sticks in my mind still, although I can no longer recite more than a few lines, is "The Brook," by Alfred Lord Tennyson. "I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glide.../For men may come and men may go/But I go on forever."

"The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"

"The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" (Doubleday, 2010), by Aimee Bender, tells the story of a young girl, Rose, who discovers she can taste the emotions of the person who made the food she is eating. Emailing with my friend C., I discovered that we each, independently, had read reviews of this novel and were resisting reading it because it sounded gimmicky. I, however, had seen it in the library and something made me pick it up anyway, thinking I could always stop reading it if I didn't like it. To my surprise, I found the book entrancing, thoughtful, sensitive, and beautifully written. The "gimmick" of the story, Rose's ability to taste emotions in food, is really only a fresh way to explore the feelings of a young girl growing up in a family where there is much love and support but also much sadness and many secrets. Rose's father is loving but has trouble communicating, her mother is devoted but dissatisfied and vague, and her older brother is a genius who lives in his own little world of the imagination. Each character is quirky and complex, and often baffled by her or his life. I grew quite attached to Rose and her family, and was touched by the surprising, bittersweet ending. I have now pressed this book on C., and would like to press it on you as well.

"Major Pettigrew's Last Stand"

"Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" (Random House, 2010). Isn't that a great title? I know that I often post negative or mixed "reviews" of novels here, but today I wholeheartedly recommend this novel by Helen Simonson. The setting is a small town in England: Edgecombe St. Mary (another of those great British names), in the present. The main characters are Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali, the neighbor with whom - despite obstacles - the Major develops a friendship and then a romance. These two characters are very likable and complex; they, along with the other characters, are beautifully drawn. The plot is interesting and well-constructed; it, along with the characters, kept me eagerly reading. Village England, besides being the setting, is practically another character in this novel. Although it has many of the characteristics we Anglophiles are so familiar with, in fiction if not in actual close-up knowledge, it is more complicated than its usual portrayal. The author is not afraid to show not only the good points about England and about village life today, but also the defects, such as prejudices, materialism, and lack of respect for the past. Although in some ways the novel has a strong flavor of the past, it also acknowledges how England is changing and becoming more multicultural; this acknowledgment is, happily, more than lip service. But the major (so to speak!) drama and draw of this novel are the internal struggles and changes that the noble but very human Major Pettigrew goes through during the course of the narrative. Please find and read this wonderful novel!

I Love My Built-In Bookcases

Four years ago, when we were house hunting but I was briefly out of town, my husband told me about a house he had found and was excited about. The main draw was the location and the view. But knowing me and my devotion to books very well, he also told me of an added inducement: "It has built-in bookcases!" When I got back from my trip and saw the house, I loved it as much as my husband did, for many reasons, and one was those bookcases. They are floor-to-ceiling, with an abundance of space for many books. Of course I love bookcases in general: at home, in my office at the university, anywhere.... But there is something extra special about built-in bookcases. They are an integral part of a room, a sign that someone made books a priority when the house was built. They are so solid, so permanent. Readers, we bought the house and moved in very soon after. And one of the very first things I did when we moved in was to arrange my books on those magnificent, roomy built-in bookshelves!

Maisie Dobbs is Back

Although I have been a lifelong reader of mysteries (see my 1/27/10 post), I have "gone off" mysteries a bit the past couple of years. However, the publication of a new Maisie Dobbs mystery, "The Mapping of Love and Death" (HarperCollins, 2010), by Jacqueline Winspear, lured me back to the world of mysteries. This novel, the seventh in a wonderful series, all of which I have read, is as compellingly readable as its predecessors; I read it in one day. The series is set in England, post-World War I. Maisie Dobbs came from poverty but was discovered to be unusually bright, and with support from some rich patrons, received an excellent education, served as a nurse during the war, and now has her own small detective agency. In this most recent story, she is asked by an American family to find out information about their son's last weeks before he died in France during the war, and about a woman he had met before his death. In the course of unraveling an ever more complicated mystery, Maisie also deals with large changes in her personal life. If you enjoy mysteries, and you haven't yet discovered Maisie Dobbs, I urge you to find and read these novels about her, preferably starting with the first one, titled simply "Maisie Dobbs." I am guessing you will then be hooked, and will have the pleasure of the next six novels in front of you! If you are, on the other hand, already a Maisie Dobbs fan, you probably don't need my urging to find and read this latest installment of her story.

Stockpiling Books: A Unique Twist

In today's New York Times Book Review's back page essay, "My Backlogged Pages," John Feffer writes of the great stocks of books, many unread, that he has on shelves and in boxes. What distinguishes this story from others about voracious book buyers and readers is that Feffer bought most of these books when he was a teenager. To quote him: "I made these purchases three decades ago...in the initial phase of my love affair with books. It all took place at a book sale that happened one weekend a year...in a church around the corner from my house in suburban New Jersey." He goes on to tell of his excitement about the sale, and of his buying piles of books of many genres, all at less than 25 cents per book, and at the end of the sale, at $1 for all the books one could fit in a box or bag. He has been reading those books ever since. Looking back now, he says that "I still may not finish all the books....But I could never sell them or give them away. They are not just books, after all. Provided I hold on to this library, I can still pretend that I will be all the people that I imagined I would be as a teenager, as I wandered the church book sale and selected gifts for my futures selves." I urge you to read the full essay; the URL is below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/books/review/Feffer-t.html

"Boys and Girls Like You and Me"

A new book. "Boys and Girls Like You and Me: Stories" (Scribner, 2010). By Aryn Kyle. Boys. Girls. Young people. Trauma. Drama. Divorced parents. Cruelty. Alienation. Sex. Joyless sex. Affairs. Tenuous relationships. Breakups. Desertion. Smoking. Lots of smoking. Drinking. Lots of drinking. Shoplifting. Meaningless jobs. Confusion. Halfhearted suicide attempts. Temporariness. Carelessness. Uncertainty. Angst. Lots of angst. Well-written. Recommended.

Consistency is the Hobgoblin....?

I often say that I will not read books electronically, on Kindle, the IPad, or the like. I feel very strongly about this (although I may have to eat my words at some point, as I have had to before regarding various technological advances). I want books to be published on paper, and I want to read them the old-fashioned way; I think giving up that experience would be a terrible loss. But I was thinking this morning about how much time I spend reading other things online: e-mail, Facebook, blogs, websites, news publications, journal articles when I am doing research, etc., etc.). Not to mention writing this blog and being glad when people read it online! I guess I am not as much of a purist on this topic as I like to think. Sigh. I still think that reading novels electronically is a very different thing than reading email, blogs, etc. But finally, perhaps my only defense is Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous words: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

The Hodgepodge Reading of a Bookish Young Teenager

Reading a recent review of a new biography of Somerset Maugham reminded me of reading and loving his novels as a teenager. "Of Human Bondage." "The Moon and Sixpence." "Cakes and Ale." "The Razor's Edge." The novels were powerful and psychologically intriguing, and gave me the feeling of having a window into "real life." Thinking about these novels reminded me of the strange hodgepodge of books I read as a young teenager. I would follow up reading a children's mystery with an adult mystery with a bestseller with a nineteenth century novel, all jumbled together. For example, here is a small sampling of the books I read when I was about fourteen (taken from my ongoing "books read" list, kept from the age of ten; see my 1/24/10 and 1/25/10 posts for more about that list):
-Penny Allen and the Mystery of the Hidden Treasure
-The Seven Dials Mystery, by Agatha Christie
-Death Be Not Proud, by John Gunther
-Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens
-Anthem, by Ayn Rand (!)
-Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton
-Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
-Perry Mason and the Case of the Amorous Aunt (!), by Erle Stanley Gardner
-The Ugly American, by Lederer and Burdick
-Danny Orlis, Big Brother
-Maigret Has Scruples, by Simenon
-Babbit, by Sinclair Lewis
-The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky
I hardly think that at age fourteen I understood, beyond the plot, much about some of these books, especially "The Brothers Karamazov"! But I could feel that novel's power, its intimations of the complicated depths of human character and of what life could bring. And always, with all the sometimes indiscriminate reading, I was taking in the world, savoring all the experiences, sensing the vastness and complexity and possibility of life. I instinctively knew that books were my portal into that vastness.

"One D.O.A., One on the Way"

A very small book (166 small pages) from minimalist writer Mary Robison, "One D.O.A., One on the Way" (Counterpoint, 2009) has a very large impact. The novel is both a prolonged cry of despair for New Orleans, post-Katrina, and a sad sort of love letter to the city as well. The main character, Eve, a movie location scout without much visible work, is married to Adam, and is having an affair with his twin brother Saunders. Saunders' wife Petal has threatened him with a gun and is now in the only psychiatric hospital still open in N.O. Adam and Saunders' parents are rich and extremely difficult. The story is told in very short episodes, often less than a page long, and is interspersed with lists about the terrible conditions in N.O., such as the crime statistics and lack of adequate police or other city services. Also interspersed are frequent lists of different types of gun holsters available; guns are a motif throughout the story. Somehow, despite all the despair, Eve's persona is smart if wounded, and her voice is mordantly witty. The novel easily kept my attention all the way to the dramatic conclusion.

How to Frighten Parents of Teenagers

Anne Lamott's new novel, "Imperfect Birds" (Riverhead, 2010), is a frightening one for readers who are, or will be, parents of teenagers. In this third installment (following the earlier novels "Rosie" and "Crooked Little Heart") of the story of young Rosie and her family, Rosie is 17 years old and experimenting with all that a teenager's life has to offer, including alcohol, drugs, and sex. Her mother Elizabeth and stepfather James are baffled, afraid, and sometimes angry. Rosie can be so sweet and loving, yet so rude and rebellious. She lies to her parents all the time, and they are caught between wanting to believe her often convincing stories and knowing better. What the novel illustrates scarily well is the unbearable experience of watching one's child go off the rails, and the helplessness that parents feel in the face of all this. The only allies Elizabeth and James have in battling with the situation are love, faith, supportive friends, access to relevant services, and the fact that Rosie is basically a "good kid" underneath it all. The novel - like most of Lamott's writing - is set in Marin County, California, where she lives and, as it happens, I live as well. Many of the scenes - geographical and social - are very familiar to me. Lamott's writing, although a bit workwomanlike, is effective, and kept me absorbed. And in case readers dread reading about such a painful topic, let me add that there are many positive and even happy scenes among the difficult ones, as well as quite a bit of humor, and that the novel ends with a note of hope.

Girls Wandering Through Life

I have very recently read three novels that have much in common: "The Wonder Spot" (Viking, 2005), by Melissa Banks (author of the bestseller "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing"); "Girls in Trucks" (Little, Brown, 2008), by Katie Crouch; and "Men and Dogs" (Little, Brown, 2010), also by Katie Crouch. Each features a young woman main character, and each of those characters is a bit lost, a bit stumbling as she makes her way from her teenage years well into adulthood. Each character takes a number of unchallenging jobs and has trouble finding a "real" career. Each has a series of relationships with men ranging from those obviously wrong for her to others that seem more promising but somehow always go wrong and/or fade out. Each has mixed (but basically loving if exasperated at times) feelings about her parents, and ambivalent relationships with grandparents; two of the three, interestingly, are closer to their brother(s) than almost anyone. This description may make the novels sound depressing, and there is that aspect, but in fact all three books are quite enjoyable to read. One reason is that there are many positive aspects in each young woman's life: family, friends, enjoyment of the cities where they live, fun, and continued if shaky optimism. Another enjoyable element in these novels is humor; Sophie, the main character of "The Wonder Spot," has a particularly funny, sardonic voice that enlivens the book. Further, all three novels are well-written.

Wishful Reading

I sometimes wish I could read anytime, anywhere: read while driving, read in the shower, read while sleeping, read while walking.... Of course I don't do any of these. Actually my friend Ch. DOES read while walking, as she walks on the beach almost every day; I wish I could do that, but I don't think I am coordinated enough, or perhaps relaxed enough. And as I already read so much, it is probably just as well that I don't read ALL the time!