Do We Really Want to Know?

Literary scholars and readers disagree about whether we should consider authors' biographies when we judge their books. Some say yes, that knowing about their lives enriches our understanding of their books. Others say no, the books stand alone. What about you? Do you like to know a lot about authors before you read their books? Are you disappointed when the author blurb at the back of a book is too short and unrevealing? Do you like to see an author photo on the inside of the back book cover? After you find favorite authors, do you read up on them and their lives? Do you attend author lectures and readings? Watch their appearances on TV? Speculate about whether or not their stories have autobiographical roots? Do you like literary gossip? Or does all of this seem irrelevant and uninteresting to you? Do you even purposely avoid learning too much about authors, in case that knowledge negatively affects your appreciation of their books? We readers are all different in this regard. Personally, I enjoy learning about authors' lives, and I will confess to an interest in "gossip" about them. I admire writers -- especially writers of fiction -- immensely, yet find it reassuring to learn of evidence that they are not perfect beings but are instead very human and fallible. I am not consistent, though; if I learn something really terrible about an author, I find it hard to put it out of my mind and continue reading and enjoying his or her books.

"I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays"

Sloane Crosley has been compared to Dorothy Parker, David Sedaris, and Sarah Vowell; I think these are overstatements, especially regarding the first two (I don't particularly enjoy Vowell's work). In her first book, "I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays" (Riverhead, 2008), now in paperback, Crosley tells mostly humorous, somewhat sarcastic, somewhat painful, mostly entertaining stories of her life. Some take place in her childhood and teenage years, but most are set in her twenties and early thirties in Manhattan. My daughter, who is in her mid-20s and lived and worked in Manhattan for a couple of years (actually only three blocks from where Crosley lived) found the stories intermittently insightful and funny, but overall not funny and engaging enough. I just finished reading the book, a very quick read, and agree with my daughter's appraisal.

Well-drawn Female Characters by Male Authors

Some people believe it is hard, perhaps even impossible, to portray believable characters of the opposite sex. Others assert that the talent of good authors allows them to transcend the limitations of their own identities and experiences, and that their imaginations provide the material to portray characters who do not share the author's gender, race, class, age, or other identities. To be more concrete, I have been thinking about which female characters by well-known male authors are realistic and truly convincing. Even after some pondering, a quick consultation with my bookshelves and with the Internet, and a little conversation with and help from my friend B., I could only think of the following outstanding examples: Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Thackeray's Becky Sharp (in "Vanity Fair"), Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Henry James' Isabel Archer (in "Portrait of a Lady"), and Forster's Margaret Schlegel (in "Howards End"). Readers, do you have other examples?

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....)