"The Big House"

My friend Mary recommended a wonderful book I have just finished reading: "The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home" (Scribner, 2003), by George Howe Colt. Thank you, Mary! The book is bursting with so many ideas, so much lovely description, and so much feeling that a paragraph on this blog can't possibly do justice to it. Although I am a very happy longtime resident of the West Coast, I have always been fascinated with the East Coast, especially New England, and the very words "Cape Cod" elicit all sorts of images and feelings. So I couldn't help but be enchanted by this depiction of a family's long history of several generations' spending summers at a huge, ramshackle, delightful old house on Cape Cod, eating meals around the big table, swimming, fishing, sailing, playing tennis, drinking, and talking, in the midst of old furniture, photos and family memories. The author is also realistic in acknowledging family problems, illnesses, and estrangements over the years. But the predominant impressions are of family, love, tradition, and continuity. The issue of social class privilege hovers over the book as well; the author deals with it head on, and the truth regarding this issue is more complicated than one might think. My very favorite part of the book, as Mary predicted, was the evocative description of the thousands of books scattered throughout the house, accumulated over decades, and of the pleasures of curling up and reading in various rooms in the house. If you can get access to a copy of this book, and if you read nothing else, do read pages 230-236, all about books and reading in the Big House.

Romantic Memories and Current Reading

I have written about associating certain books with certain times or places in our lives. Do we also associate certain authors or literary works with certain people we were close to, perhaps especially with romantic attachments? A friend -- whom I will call "Z" -- tells me (in response to one of my blog posts) of the effects of a youthful romance on his appreciation of a certain author. His romance with a sophisticated older woman -- let's call her Y -- in a glamorous city -- let's call it NYC -- included a mutual devotion to a certain young, well-known, understatedly hip author. Z and his lady love Y even met this author -- let's call her A -- at a reading. Now, some 20 years later, when Z lives another life in another city with another woman, he no longer reads A's work, and tells me that this is partly because in his mind A is too much associated with memories of his romance with Y. I find Z's story intriguing, and try to remember if there were a similar situation in my life. I rack my brain, hoping for an equally glamorous memory, but -- nothing! Before my long marriage began, I had the requisite romances, and I like to think that some of them were glamorous, intellectual and literary, but somehow my stories don't measure up to Z's in this regard. Sigh. (I did, however, just now have a moment of feeling a bit Carrie Bradshaw-esque, tapping away on my laptop about sophisticated romance in the big city...I can almost hear the voice-over...we get our glamour where we can....)

"In Envy Country: Stories"

I had read Joan Frank's book reviews in my local paper, The San Francisco Chronicle, but only a few days ago did I pick up and read one of her own books, "In Envy Country: Stories" (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). Although Frank doesn't directly say so, many of the stories take place in and near San Francisco, with side trips to Europe. So the familiar names and locales were part of the pleasure for me, but the appeal of the book was so much more. The stories are very much about the characters, and the characters are very familiar, sometimes painfully familiar. Who hasn't met the self-made boss who everyone has to pretend is clever, or the self-righteous, arrogant colleague who can't let any grudge go? Who hasn't had beautiful friends that came to a bad end? Who doesn't have married friends who fight too much? Who doesn't sometimes become frustrated or disillusioned with a family member one simultaneously desperately loves? Who doesn't have friends who show off? Or old loves from the past that show up at inopportune times? Although these situations are familiar, as are the marriages and families Frank portrays, they are also unique and original in Frank's hands. I can promise you that you will not be bored by this collection of observant, touching, wry, realistic, and sometimes wrenching stories.

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!)