The Threepenny Review

The Threepenny Review is a wonderful quarterly publication on literature and the arts that is edited and published by Wendy Lesser in Berkeley. Besides insightful book reviews, it publishes essays on music, art, architecture, and all the arts; it also includes poetry, fiction, memoirs, and photographs. Two characteristics of the Threepenny Review always strike me, every single issue. First, there is a sense of abundance and generosity. Whole pages are devoted to poetry; photographs are plentiful and large, with enough space around them to allow us to truly appreciate them. Second, most of the writing has the piquancy of originality, sometimes quirkiness, often surprise. For example, the Fall 2009 issue includes "A Symposium on the Piano," in which various writers comment on the topic from various angles (the piano as furniture, the piano as art, the piano as it influenced Kandinsky and other artists, the question of how pianos should reproduce Baroque music, and a riff on various types of pianos by the jazz pianist Ethan Iverson). The same issue includes multiple photographs by Ben Shahn throughout its pages; as the photography note points out, Shahn - the painter, muralist, and printmaker - "is probably least known for his photographs" (p. 7), so this issue gives us a different view of an artist we have known in a different way. The Threepenny Review is informative, enjoyable, and even exciting to read; I feel a sense of discovery when I read each new issue. As a bonus, subscriptions are inexpensive.

Two Recent Essay Collections

In recent years I have found myself reading more essays than in the past. I highly recommend two recent collections of essays. The well-regarded novelist Michael Chabon's "Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son" (Harper, 2009) includes engaging pieces on the author's own childhood, his marriage, his children, and much more. Although I was a bit wary of the book, just as I am of all the attention men often receive if they do parenting tasks that women have always done without special acclaim, I was won over by Chabon's honesty, modesty, originality, and beautiful writing. As an aside: Chabon and his wife, the writer Ayelet Waldman, are active in the literary community here in the San Francisco Bay Area (they live in Berkeley); for example, I saw Chabon interview the political cartoonist Garry Trudeau at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, and I briefly met Waldman at an event at one of my favorite bookstores, Book Passage in Corte Madera.

The English writer Zadie Smith, also a well-known novelist (whose novels include "White Teeth" and "On Beauty," both wonderful) has a new book, "Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays" (Penguin, 2009) that includes essays on books, movies, politics, and family; it ends with a touching tribute to her father. The writing is thoughtful, personal, and often illuminating, and is written in a direct, almost conversational tone. The pieces I particularly like include those on E. M. Forster, George Eliot, and other writers who have influenced Smith's own writing. (Her novel "On Beauty" is loosely based on the structure and story of E. M. Forster's masterpiece, "Howards End," one of my all-time favorite novels.)

"The Uncommon Reader," by Alan Bennett

A small (120 pages), very witty and funny book that I have recently pressed on friends is Alan Bennett's "The Uncommon Reader" (Farrar,Straus, & Giroux, 2007). When I first read reviews of the book, and for some time after, I resisted reading it, as it sounded too gimmicky, too "cutesy." However, when I finally gave in and read it, I loved it. Its humorous, tongue in cheek premise is that the Queen of England suddenly -- through her unlikely accidental friendship with a lowly but well-read palace cook's assistant named Norman -- discovers the pleasures of reading. She becomes completely besotted with books, devouring classics, contemporary novels, memoirs, and more, to the surprise and sometimes barely stifled displeasure of some around her. She is unfazed by controversial themes, salty language, or risque illustrations, taking it all in imperturbable stride. The only thing that bothers her is that she didn't start reading sooner. Along the way, she airily or acerbically tosses off deadpan amusing comments about books. For example, on being asked by members of her public if she has read the Harry Potter books (she doesn't like fantasy), she "invariably said briskly 'One is saving that for a rainy day' and passed swiftly on" (p. 43). And while reading Henry James, she comments aloud, "Oh, do get on" (p. 49) (but doesn't stop reading!). This is a lovely book, a real treat for readers who love books about books, and an extra treat for those of us who love all things English.

Restaurant and Tour Guidebooks

One of my bookshelves is lined with small, thin, colorful books whose titles begin with "Zagat," "Michelin," "Frommer's," or "Lonely Planet." Although these are not the kinds of books we generally read cover to cover, they are extremely useful. I don't rely on any one of them completely, and always "cross-check" with other sources, but they are very valuable in providing ideas and information when we want to eat at restaurants, or when we are planning trips. I often annotate the pages of these books after a trip or a restaurant outing, so they become records and souvenirs for later. And there is another dimension to these books, beyond their practical uses: they provide us with material for daydreaming. Leafing through a guidebook, savoring the photographs of castles and cathedrals and museums and green hills, or deciphering the maps, I either remember former travels, or imagine and hope for future voyages. I make itineraries in my head; I picture myself in various settings. Or with the restaurant guides, I imagine going to charming Michelin-starred restaurants in little towns in France or Spain, or the latest fashionable eating places in bustling cities all over the world. What these little guidebooks have in common with all good books is that they open up our worlds, they let us live in realms where everything seems delightfully and deliciously possible.

Reader's Digest Condensed books

Readers of this blog may well be surprised to see the title above. I am guessing that you, like me, firmly believe that books should be read unabridged; abridging books seems unnatural, almost like mutilating them. But I have to admit that when I was a child and young teenager, I sometimes liked reading Reader's Digest Condensed books. What an odd medley of books (mostly novels) each volume contained! Each included about five books, five tastes of five different worlds. Opening up a new volume, one never knew what one might find. Reading these condensed versions allowed me to read many books I probably wouldn't have read otherwise, especially when we lived in India and didn't have easy access to libraries with books in English. Sometimes these volumes introduced me to new authors, and I would later seek out and read other (unabridged) novels by those authors. So, although I haven't read any of them for decades, I find I have affectionate memories of those solid, uniformly gold-trimmed volumes that looked so impressive sitting in a row on a bookshelf, each containing such surprising mixtures of reading experiences.

The Upstart Crow: A Pioneering Bookstore

Yesterday I wrote to recommend Lewis Buzbee's book, "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop." In that book, Buzbee writes about the first bookstore where he worked many years ago, in San Jose, California. When I saw the bookstore's name, I gave a start of recognition; it brought back memories from 30 years ago. Soon after I moved to San Francisco from Michigan, my parents moved to Fresno, California, also from Michigan. On one of my first visits to Fresno, they took me to a bookstore they had discovered there, one that included a cafe, of all things: Upstart Crow! It was a member of a small chain of bookstores. (The source of the name, according to Buzbee, was an envious contemporary of Shakespeare, who scornfully dubbed him an "upstart crow"). As Buzbee tells it, "Decades ahead of other book retailers," Upstart Crow created bookstores with "foreign periodicals, chessboards, plenty of big tables and comfy chairs" and a cafe. Now, of course, all of these features are old hat, but at the time we were amazed and impressed by the combination of a bookstore and a cafe: What a very clever idea!

A Must-Read for Bookstore Lovers

Please put "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History" (Graywolf Press, 2006), by Lewis Buzbee, on your to-read list! I recently came across this book when I was chatting with a bookseller at The Depot, an independent bookstore near where I live in Marin County; when I told her how much I loved bookstores, she pressed this book on me and told me I absolutely had to read it. She was right! Buzbee writes vividly and engagingly of his lifelong love affair with books and bookstores. He worked in bookstores and later as a book sales representative for many years, and is a published fiction writer himself, so he knows this world very well. As the title suggests, the book includes Buzbee's own very well-told stories, interleaved with (just enough, not too much) historical background about books and bookstores. For me, the book's interest is enhanced even further by the fact that Buzbee lives in San Francisco, and writes about bookstores that I know as well. And, coincidentally, I found out after I finished the book that he teaches creative writing at the university where I teach too. "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop" begins as follows: "When I walk into a bookstore, any bookstore...I am flooded with a sense of hushed excitement." How could you not want to continue reading?