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.