One a Day

Something was changing for a long time. It took about a year to understand it, but now I do. People who've been coming here for a long time know that the original focus of this blog was on writing. For a long time I couldn't stop writing and I couldn't stop talking about it. I took classes and workshops and attended retreats and wrote the better part of two bad novels before I stopped to try to figure out what my problem was.

It became obvious over time, but what I found was the more I challenged myself with what I read, the more unhappy I became with what I was writing. A woman I met through blogging and emails came to Denver this summer and we finally met in person. She'd read the first hundred pages of my second attempt and what she told me came as a strange relief. She thought what I'd written was very good, but after getting to know me she had a hard time reconciling what I'd written with who I am. It didn't sound like me.

By that time, I'd stopped writing completely and I focused all my energy on reading. I'm glad I did. The truth is that I don't want to write something I wouldn't want to read and I'm not capable of writing that well. Maybe I never will be.

Over the past few months I've started writing again, but I'm not working on a novel. I have notebooks full of ideas and fragments and pages of gibberish that would make Gertrude Stein chuckle, but it's what I need to do now. In 2009 I all but abandoned poor Eudaemonia. I didn't know what to say.

Now, I think I do -- at least here on this blog.

I've finished twenty-one books since my last post about reading. Catching up won't be easy, but I have a plan. I'll write about one book a day until I'm caught up.

For those of you who are new here, understand that I'm not a book reviewer or literary blogger. I'm not even a college graduate. I'm just someone who likes books. My intent in writing about them is to capture my personal and not always rational opinions about the books. I don't presume to assign literary merit. I put a great deal of thought into what I read, so my going in position is that they're all "good" (as meaningless a word as it is).

Here's the list of books I've read, but not yet talked about. Tomorrow, I'll begin.

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Falling Man by Don DeLillo

Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Night Train by Martin Amis

The Brain Dead Megaphone by George Saunders

Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas
Cathcart and Daniel Klein

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Mark Twain in Hawaii by Grove Day

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel by Steven C.
Weisenburger

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Catholics by Brian Moore

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser

I'd love to hear your thoughts about the relationship between reading and writing and of course -- about the books.

Books I Read in December (Part II), January and February

For quite a while, I've been posting about the books I read every month, but in December, I only managed to post thoughts about half of them and I've been delaying subsequent posts ever since.

I needed to really think about what I want to say about these books, which led me to question what I was reading, why and what I hope to find. I've never intended my posts to be reviews. There are scads of places to find a standard synopsis of plot and general impressions about books. I don't want or need to try to replicate that. But in thinking about what I'm trying to get out of the books I read, I've been able to zero in on my choices and read much more closely. I plan to talk more about my reading objectives in my next post.

For now, I want to get this list out and provide a few thoughts about these books. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you thought.

On Beauty, by Zadie Smith This book was the start of my problems in talking about books and I may do a separate post about it. I have not read White Teeth, but I have read a number of articles and essays by and about the author. My expectations were high and this was a very good book. What makes this book (and others that fall into the high expectation category) difficult to talk about is that I read them much more closely and tend to be a tougher critic. Zadie Smith is unquestionably a great talent. On Beauty is filled with richly drawn characters and is dense with plot and subplots. There is a point at about the halfway mark where I sensed fatigue on the author's part. I had the strange notion that the author was under tremendous pressure to finish the book and to live up to the early reputation she'd garnered. I also learned, once I'd finished the book that if one happens to be familiar with the works of E.M. Forster, one might have noticed some parallels. I'm disappointed to have not read any Forster and wish I had. I'm certain it would have further enhanced or even changed my experience with this book entirely.

God Knows, by Blayney Colmore I can never resist reading books written by people I know. By sheer chance I found this book, written by the Episcopal priest (now retired) I best remember from the church I attended through adolescence. I was delighted to find that he's also a blogger and I am very happy to be back in touch with him. I nearly finished this book in one sitting. It captures beautifully many of his thoughts and ideas about life and the nature of the world and what it's all about

Edinburgh, by Alexander Chee When I saw the blurb from Annie Dillard on the cover (I never see Annie Dillard blurbs, so this one I paid attention to), I knew I was in for something special. You can find a short plot synopsis here. Reader reactions about the story itself are conflicted, but I believe the tough subject matter has been a factor. There is no debate about the beauty of Chee's prose. I recently heard that he was a poet before he attempted long form fiction, which would explain the lyric, almost hypnotic effect the book had on me.

"Fifteen. I lose my voice. My new voice sounds like a burned string rubbing. Singing is touching, you bang the air and the air moves something inside you and the thing moved registers, says, That is a sound. When we sing to each other we are touching each other through this sleeve of air between us. When my voice changes I know this new creature is capable of no significant touch, no transformations. This voice cannot erase me, take me over and set me aside. This new voice has no light. It can barely push enough air aside to tell people, Hello, Good Morning, Good Night. I stop talking as much."

Songs for the Missing, by Stewart O'Nan This book is about the disappearance of an eighteen year old girl in Ohio and the impact the disappearance has on her family, friends and community over the course of a year. The NYTBR said this. I am sure it's a matter of taste that this book didn't satisfy me, because the reviews have all been very positive. I have no criticisms about the way the book is crafted, I just felt something was missing. Stewart O'Nan is immensely popular and I believe this is his eleventh novel.

Living by Fiction, by Annie Dillard This book changed my life and was the impetus for a complete change in perspective about reading and writing. I wrote about it briefly here. In Living by Fiction, Annie Dillard talks about the art of literature. She has inspired me to seek out the works of many of the modernists and post-modernists and to study how the best examples work. She has caused me to slow down and study novels, rather than tear through them. Dillard's approach to fiction is scholarly, yet she never takes herself too seriously and in fact, is quite funny at times. Exploring the question of whether or not fiction interprets the world:

"Complexity, subtlety, and breadth are the virtues here. If a writer is going to engage in the intellectual business of assigning meanings and showing relationships, he had better think very well. The novel of ideas had better be good...On the other hand, a novel is not a very long-playing but lightweight television set. We are no longer children, and we no longer enjoy fiction with our eyes only. We seek, as I say, a complex, subtle, and broad set of ideas...And-- importantly -- writers who have only an ear for prose and a taste for subtle surfaces may be credited with having a good deal more. We may actually assume such writers have something on their minds."

I will never see fiction again in the same way, and for that I'm grateful.

Swann's Way, by Marcel Proust I was excited enough about this book while reading it to dedicate a post to it before I was even finished. Committing to reading the whole of In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is to the reader what running the New York Marathon is to the casual jogger. Swann's Way is the first of seven volumes that make up the whole novel and it initially took some time to learn how to read Proust. I read with a highlighter and dictionary at hand and was constantly checking the end notes. Over time, Proust taught me how to read him and to truly love his work. The book was originally self-published and one publisher's rejection was something to the effect of "I don't see why a man should take thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed before he goes to sleep." If you've read Proust, you're probably laughing. In contrast to the modern novel's get to the point within fifty words or less approach, this languid style takes some getting used to and I imagine, most people don't have the patience for it. But if you can weather the initial shock of bumping up against Proust's style, there is something wonderful here.

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, by Marcel Proust Although I intended to spread the seven volumes of Proust's novel out over a long period of time, I was engrossed enough after Swann's Way to move on to Volume 2.

The Wordy Shipmates, by Sarah Vowell This pop-culture exploration of the Puritans and their journey to America to become John Winthrop's "city upon a hill" could not have been a more radical departure from Proust! Sarah Vowell was best known to me as that quirky voice often heard on NPR's This American Life. The Los Angeles Times Book Review (may it rest in peace) called her "a Madonna of Americana". Despite the unusual style and the humorous insights, The Wordy Shipmates draws an excellent historical picture of early American figures like Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop, Rhode Island's Roger Williams and activist Anne Hutchinson that is informative and surprising. At times, the analogies to pop culture were intrusive -- but that's me. I think this book and this approach have made legitimate history more accessible and palatable to younger readers who might not otherwise be interested in the subject.

The Stranger, by Albert Camus I'd read Camus and Sartre in early adolescence and despite my cigarette-sneaking, black turtle-necked, angsty, brooding nature, I'm afraid the philosophical implications were lost on me at the time. I picked it up again after having watched a series of lectures on DVD about Existentialism and it made much more sense the second time around. For more The Stranger, look here.

Waiting for the Barbarians, by J.M. Coetzee After reading Disgrace, I became a fan of the South African born Coetzee. Waiting for the Barbarians is an allegorical tale about oppressors and the oppressed, set in a fictional country in an indeterminate time period. One can't help but wonder about Coetzee's roots in South Africa when reading this story, but it's not long before one's musings about the story become broader even than that.

Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov I'd read Lolita (more than once, actually) and although I'd heard of Pale Fire, I knew nothing about it when I began to read. The novel is structured around a 999 line unpublished poem, written by a recently deceased fictional poet and narrated by his fictional friend and neighbor. This is an amazing example of successful metafiction. I am not a huge fan of metafictional novels because so many are (in my opinion) more style than substance. Not so with Pale Fire. This novel is one of those few where I was dazzled by the concept, the prose and the elegance of it the entire way through. I would imagine there are scholars who've spent entire careers studying and interpreting this work.

The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow Reading novels written decades ago is sort of like getting off a freeway, driving into a rural village and getting out to stroll. I have an almost visceral change in posture when I pick up one of these older, bigger books and I feel like I have all the time in the world to give to them -- and they generally do need more time and patience.

English-born writers and literary critics Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis have both noted that The Adventures of Augie March is certainly on the short list of Great American Novels if you consider the definition to encompass a story that focuses on life in America within a given time period.

"I am an American, Chicago born -- Chicago, that somber city -- and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus,, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles."

Wikipedia describes the novel this way: "The Adventures of Augie March (1953) is a novel by Saul Bellow. It centers on the eponymous character who grows up during the Great Depression. This picaresque novel is an example of bildungsroman, tracing the development of an individual through a series of encounters, occupations and relationships from boyhood to manhood."

Bellow, like Proust is a writer who demands patience. I read this novel with highlighter in hand, as I do Proust as the author frequently makes references to historical figures and events that aren't necessarily well known (at least not to me). I recently read a quote from Norman Mailer about Saul Bellow where he accused him of reading a million books, but not really having any ideas. I thought was an interesting comment as Bellow's familiarity with a huge body of literature comes through quite clearly in his work, but I don't know that I agree with the second part of his comment.

I kept the highlighter handy for a second reason. Bellow was an incredible writer. I often like to highlight especially fine passages in books I read to refer back to them later, but in the case of this book, I found myself tempted to highlight nearly everything! His descriptions of people, in particular, captivated me.

"He was a beer saufer; droopy, small, a humorist, wry, drawn, weak, his tone nosy and quinchy, his pants in creases under his paunch; his nose curved up and presented offended and timorous nostrils, and he had round, disingenuous eyes in which he showed he was strongly defended. He was a tio listo, a carnival type, a whorehouse visitor. His style was that of a hoofer in the lowest circuit, doing a little cane-swinging and heel-and-toe routine, singing, "I went to school with Maggie Murphy," and telling smokehouse stories while the goofy audience waited for the naked star to come out and begin the grinds. He had a repertory of harmless little jokes, dog yipes, mock farts; his best prank was to come up behind and seize you by the leg with a Pekinese snarl."

Throughout Augie March's journey, he encounters and often returns to dozens of characters. The dialog and discussions between them are full of ideas.

"Boredom starts with useless effort. You have shortcomings and aren't what you should be? Boredom is the conviction that you can't change. You begin to worry about loss of variety in your character and the uncomplimentary comparison with others in your secret mind, and this makes you feel your own tiresomeness. On your social side boredom is a manifestation of the power of society. The stronger society is, the more it expects you to hold yourself in readiness to perform your social duties, the greater your availability, the smaller your significance. On Monday you are justifying yourself by your work. But on Sunday, how are you justified? Hideous Sunday, enemy of humanity. Sunday you're on your own -- free. Free for what? Free to discover what's in your heart, what you feel toward your wife, children, friends, and pastimes. The spirit of man, enslaved, sobs in the silence of boredom, the bitter antagonist. Boredom therefore can arise from the cessation of habitual functions, even though these may be boring too. It is also the shriek of unused capacities, the doom of serving no great end or design, or contributing to no master force. The obedience that is not willingly given because nobody knows how to request it. The harmony that is not accomplished. This lies behind boredom. But you see the endless vistas."

I loved this book and will be reading much more Saul Bellow.

The Easter Parade, by Richard Yates I'm an enormous Woody Allen fan and bought this book some time ago because his characters in "Hannah and Her Sisters" mention it. With all the talk about Revolutionary Road recently, I decided it was time to read Richard Yates.

The Easter Parade is the story of two sisters, who live different, but individually tragic lives and is told over the course of four decades, beginning in the 1930's. The book has one of the best first sentences I've read in a long time:

"Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents' divorce."

The book is told from the point of view of the younger sister, Emily and I was quite taken with the intimacy and accuracy the author brought to a female character. The writing is spare and beautiful and the story was poignant and painful.

On a separate note, this book is the type of story that I believe people are talking about when they claim that literary fiction is depressing.

* * *

A Reader's Growing Skepticism

There was a time in the very recent past when I was quite interested in reading books on some “best of” lists and even more interested in reading books with shiny medallions imprinted on their covers – specifically books that had been awarded the Pulitzer, or the National Book Award or the Booker Prize. With the thousands of books published every year, some credible filter has to exist that can distill the great from the good and the very best from the great. Certainly, some group of people exists who have the credentials, the supernatural ability to review the many worthy novels and apply stringent criteria to select the few titles each year that will be marked for all time as award winning literature. I was never 100% invested in this idea, but as time has passed and as I’ve read more of these books and more importantly, more of what’s been said about the prize winners, I have adopted a much more jaded view of the process and the results.

While it is true that I’m not the most educated or discerning reader alive, I get better all the time. I look at the list of books I read last year and I wish I’d read fewer titles and I wish I’d read them more closely. The reality is that most of us don’t know why we like what we like. I can list a dozen titles that I loved, but I can’t tell you exactly why I thought they were good.

I recently read a piece, published in The Atlantic in August of 2001 that has given me a great deal of pause. "A Reader’s Manifesto" is, in short, “an attack on the growing pretentiousness of American literary prose.” The author, B.R. Myers has been simultaneously attacked and praised for coming from completely outside the literary establishment with this manifesto. While I can’t say that I agree with everything he says and I find some of his criticisms to be arbitrary and not wholly representative of the authors he criticizes, he does make some excellent points and his examples are mostly on the mark.

It was interesting to reflect on two of the works he chose to attack (The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx and Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson) because I remember falling in love with both novels when they came out, but I can’t dispute the specific criticisms he’s made.

What I can judge about the books and about myself as a reader in the early nineties is that there is much to like about the books. At the time I read them, there were probably phrases and sentences didn’t quite make sense to me or that I probably didn’t notice because I was ultimately taken in by the entirety of both stories, by the characters and by the preponderance of description and fine prose that did resonate. Good enough for me.

To Myers’ point, perhaps it should not have been good enough for those professional literary critics who should have been reading more closely, nor for the reviewers who lauded the books with unqualified praise.

He doesn’t hold back in his criticism of a number of other popular and celebrated authors, specifically Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo and Paul Auster. I will confess to feeling a shameful relief when I read what he had to say about White Noise. I finished that book with a particularly empty feeling and a sensation that I must have missed something because others thought so highly of it. Perhaps I didn’t.

I don’t like negative criticism. In fact, I’ve always thought less of the person who writes it. It’s so disturbing to me that I’ve unsubscribed to a number of blogs and stopped following several people on Twitter because the negativity casts a pall over my day that can literally keep me up at night. More and more negative criticism escalates into the low art (or entertainment might be a better description) form called Snark -- if that’s what the kids are still calling it these days; my distaste for Snark in general makes me see myself shaking a crooked old finger at the kids whose baseball has rolled into my yard, but that’s who I am. The fact that so many bloggers find it not only acceptable, but entertaining confirms my belief that my disdain for it is generational.

Thoughtful analysis of writing done well is just as useful, if not more so, and far more positive an endeavor. Annie Dillard does this to charming effect in Living by Fiction and James Wood uses quite a few nice examples in How Fiction Works.

I've come to be able to assess my opinion on a book based on some fairly simple criteria:

1. Story. There has to be a cohesive story no matter what the type of novel. Story is the lowest common denominator required of all types of fiction, regardless of genre.
2. Fine Writing. The writing has to be better than average for me to enjoy the book. Whether the prose is tight and spare or whether it is expansive and descriptive, it has to be good.
3. More. My personal preference is to get something that goes beyond story and fine writing. The novels I enjoy typically make some reference to society or culture (post 9/11 novels like Man in the Dark, or cold war era novels like Hoffman's Hunger, or anti-war novels like Slaughterhouse Five come to mind). Or the novel needs to leave me thinking about some philosophical question about the nature of existence or life or relationships (again, Hoffman's Hunger, Sophie's Choice (which did both), The Stranger, Swann's Way).

The majority of published fiction probably satisfies my need for story and for people who read purely for escapism, story is probably plenty. But for a novel to be elevated to what I'd consider literature, I think it needs to encompass all three of my criteria, and before deciding how well the author did at writing his or her book, I really need to understand what I believe he or she was trying to accomplish.

I would never judge a police procedural harshly because the main character wasn't pondering the meaning of his existence, for example -- which is not to say that a police procedural can't do that too.

But when done properly, there is something to be learned from a constructive negative assessment, whether I like it or not. The fascinating thing about negative criticism is that people only spend time lavishing it on works they feel have been unjustly praised and therein is the crux of the problem. (Let's assume we're not addressing silly negative criticism leveled at books that have accomplished what they set out to).

The author of a competently written book with an entertaining story is rarely attacked by a credible reviewer. Although it shouldn’t need to be said, I don’t count flaming comments (or glowing ones, for that matter) found in Amazon reviews to be credible, unless I recognize the contributor. In this age of frantic book promotion, there are very few authors and reviewers who have not heaped hyperbole on books that, while they may be good reads, are probably undeserving of the superlatives they get. And the more competition there is, the more the praise becomes meaningless and the more likely the Snark is to fly.

On a side note, one of my pet peeves about negative criticism is that too often it comes off as a personal attack on the author. Negative reviews often give me the sense that the reviewer is alleging that the author is perfectly capable of writing a great book, but instead has chosen to dupe the book buying public and cheat them out of their hard earned money by writing something substandard. I doubt this is ever the case with any author who aspires to write literary fiction. It may well be that there are some author brands that have become virtual book writing factories that crank out formulaic crap, based on what people seem to be buying and if that is indeed what those authors are doing then shame on the readers who keep buying those books.

I stand behind my opinion that The Shipping News and Snow Falling on Cedars are good novels, even though my recent read of "A Readers Manifesto" has spotlighted some chinks in the armor. Was The Shipping News the best choice for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer in ’93 and ’94? Was Snow Falling on Cedars the best of all the candidates for the PEN/Faulkner Award in ’95? I now wonder and I concede that maybe there were more worthy choices.

What I will concede to B.R. Myers is that those people who are charged with bestowing the highest literary recognition in the land have a solemn duty to closely read and analyze. I may not continue my habit of writing about every book I read. Perhaps I’ll save my positive thoughts for those books that have made a significant impression on me. To do anything else renders my opinion worthless, doesn’t it?

Myers published an entire book on his manifesto and this page has a number of links at the bottom to the many responses that both the Atlantic article and the book provoked. Interesting reading and I'd love to hear more thoughts on this.

Whether your tastes lean toward literary fiction and all its incarnations or more traditional genre fiction, have you defined your own criteria for what an exceptional book must do to impress you?

The Year 2008 Mapped Out in Books

It is perhaps fitting that the last book I finished reading in 2008 was Living by Fiction, by Annie Dillard and it’s even more fitting that I didn’t read Annie Dillard’s work until now.

The reading list for 2008 is long and varied. I didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to read this year and the titles are a mix of books that won awards or critical acclaim and books that were recommended to me by people I trust. Some were gifts, eleven of them were written by other bloggers, two were written by the man I voted for to be our next President and several are non-fiction titles I read to feed my interest in culture and politics.

The novels I read were a mixed bag and I enjoyed most of them. I firmly believe in the maxim that a writer needs to read as much, if not more than she writes. In 2007 and 2008 I spent a lot of time reading books that would give me a better idea what kind of novelist I want to be and I’ve finally developed a fair level of confidence that even though I can’t directly answer that question, I know where I’m headed.

The titles I’ve highlighted are the ones that I felt most strongly about and that left me with the rare thought that I'd love to have been able write them.

1. Forgetfulness, by Ward Just
2. Josie and Jack, by Kelly Braffett
3. Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, Illustrated by Joe Ciardiello
4. Twinkle, Twinkle, by Kaori Ekuni
5. On Love, by Alain de Botton
6. Veronica, by Mary Gaitskill
7. How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton
8. The Sky Isn’t Visible From Here, by Felicia C. Sullivan
9. I Killed Hemingway, by William McCranor Henderson
10. Gang Leader for a Day, by Sudhir Venkatesh
11. The Fourth Watcher, by Timothy Hallinan
12. Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee
13. The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian
14. Torch, by Cheryl Strayed
15. The Raw Shark Texts, by Steven Hall
16. How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, by Pierre Bayard
17. Meyer, by Stephen Dixon
18. The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith
19. Nine: Adolescence, by Amy Hassinger
20. Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox
21. John Lennon & The Mercy Street Café, by William Hammett
22. Paris to the Moon, by Adam Gopnik
23. The Empanada Brotherhood, by John Nichols
24. How the Dead Dream, by Lydia Millet
25. Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D.
26. One Sister's Song, by Karen Degroot Carter
27. The God File, by Frank Turner Hollon
28. Head Case: How I Almost Lost My Mind Trying to Understand My Brain, by Dennis Cass
29. America, America, by Ethan Canin
30. The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield
31. The Eleventh Draft, edited by Frank Conroy
32. Time's Arrow, by Martin Amis
33. Rose's Garden, by Carrie Brown
34. The House on Fortune Street, by Margot Livesey
35. Simon Says, by Kathryn Eastburn
36. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
37. The Bright Forever, by Lee Martin
38. Catching Genius, by Kristy Kiernan
39. Inglorious, by Joanna Kavenna
40. A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas
41. Migration Patterns, by Gary Schanbacher
42. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
43. Tethered, by Amy MacKinnon
44. How Fiction Works, by James Wood
45. Hoffman's Hunger, Leon de Winter
46. She Was, by Janis Hallowell
47. Bad Behavior, by Mary Gaitskill
48. Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill
49. Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami
50. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
51. Leaving Atlanta, by Tayari Jones
52. Man in the Dark, by Paul Auster
53. The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama
54. One Good Turn, by Kate Atkinson
55. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski
56. The Confessions of Max Tivoli, by Andrew Sean Greer
57. Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama
58. Matrimony, by Joshua Henkin
59. The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton
60. The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin
61. The Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman
62. The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
63. Crazy for God, by Frank Schaeffer
64. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, by Richard Hofstadter
65. The Fall of Rome, by Martha Southgate
66. The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard
67. Like Trees, Walking, by Ravi Howard
68. On Beauty, by Zadie Smith
69. God Knows: It's Not About Us, by Blayney Colmore
70. Edinburgh, by Alexander Chee
71. Songs for the Missing, by Stewart O'Nan
72. Orange Mint and Honey, by Carleen Brice
73. Living by Fiction, by Annie Dillard

I own many short story collections, but I rarely read one of them from cover to cover (I only read two short story collections in 2008). I do like to dip in and out of them, so I've decided to list the short stories as I read them. There is a new sidebar with the most recent:

The Babysitter, by Robert Coover

Going into 2009 my reading goals are quite focused. Although I will continue to cheer my fellow bloggers on and I'll support them by buying their books, I plan to be much more stingy with my reading time and my choices will be far more self-serving in order to advance my writing goals.

I have an entire bookcase loaded with books I've not yet read and I intend to work through it with a vengeance.

I plan to start 2009 out with one of the big mothers I've been saving (or putting off -- take your pick) because of length and difficulty, so if you've got a yen to read Swann's Way, Gravity's Rainbow, The Recognitions or Infinite Jest anytime soon, drop me an email and we can give each other moral support.

How was your year in reading? Did you have a plan and if so, did you stick to it? If you're a writer, did you read any books you'd like to have written? What books did you most enjoy?

Note: My first post inadvertently left off Orange Mint and Honey, by Carleen Brice. I don't recall when I actually read the book, but I was honored to have the chance to read an advance reader copy and I was so thrilled that I kept it a secret -- and consequently neglected to list the book on my sidebar or the first run of this list.

How Diverse Are Your Bookshelves?

This July 2007 New York Times article, by Martha Southgate motivated me to make a commitment to read a broader range of work by authors of other ethnicities and cultures. It wasn't that I was consciously reading only white American authors, but Ms. Southgate made me realize I was missing out on a lot of great work I hadn't heard of.

Pakistani writer and blogger, Usman Rafi recommended The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid and Snow, by Orphan Pamuk and Tim Hallinan, blogger and author of, most recently, The Fourth Watcher recommended Twinkle Twinkle, by Kaori Ekuni and Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto.

I'd read Denver writer Carleen Brice's superb debut novel Orange Mint and Honey and I've got her second novel, Children of the Waters on pre-order. You can read an excerpt here. I heard about Boulder author Kim Reid's memoir, No Place Safe, the 2008 Colorado Book Awards winner in creative non-fiction, through publicist Bella Stander's Literary Ladies Luncheon. For the most part, I'd only read the work of black authors I'd met (either in person or on line) or I'd read the work of very famous black authors.

It wasn't until Carleen Brice declared December "National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black" month that I decided to revisit my goal of reading more broadly to see how I did.

Carleen's new blog (you may know her from her blog, The Pajama Gardener) is White Readers Meet Black Authors and people are talking about it all over the internet. New York Magazine placed National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month on the brilliant side of their approval matrix.

This very funny video puts a tongue and cheek spin on the project.

I went through my bookshelves to see how many books I've got by non-white authors. It's not as easy to figure out as I thought it would be. My goal to read more widely included black authors, as well as Middle Eastern, Asian and Latino authors. If you look at the picture of me reading Martha Southgate's, Third Girl From the Left you'll see two piles of books on the shelf behind me and one on the shelf below that one.

The double stack is my collection of books by black authors; some African-American, some British, some from the Caribbean and some African and the smaller pile has Middle Eastern and Asian authors.

I didn't fare as well in the Latino category; however, my favorite lit-blogger, Scott Esposito, regularly reviews books in translation at Conversational Reading and he features them in The Quarterly Conversation. Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives and 2666 are on my Christmas wish list.

In addition to Carleen Brice and Kim Reid's books, I've read some notable novels by black authors this year, including Leaving Atlanta, by Tayari Jones, The Fall of Rome, by Martha Southgate and Like Trees, Walking by Ravi Howard. I recommend all of these fine works of literary fiction.

Whether literary or genre fiction is your preference, take a look at some of the recommendations at White Readers Meet Black Authors and join in the discussion.

What recommendations do you have when it comes to reading authors of another race or culture? What's on your wish list?

Books I Read in October and November 2008

For days after our return from Scotland, I tried to divine meaning from the things I lost on the way home. By the time we'd cleared customs and another security checkpoint in Newark, I realized my camera, a copy of Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum and my Kindle were gone. It's still hard to fathom how I could have left the the paperback tucked into the seat pocket, the Kindle wedged between the seats, or let the camera slide out of my open bag on the floor or how I could have gotten off the plane without noticing. After ten days without my laptop, internet, television, telephone or newspapers, I interpreted the careless losses as a final departure from technology. Maybe I lost them because I felt too connected to the grid. I'm still not sure, but I haven't replaced anything.

I have a suspicion I've lost track of a book or two I may have read these weeks, but here are all of them that I remember. The list is dominated by works of non-fiction, a direct result of my near obsession with the election and questions it created in my mind about who we are in America.

Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama. This story of race and inheritance came about after Obama was elected the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and was offered a book deal. It was finished when he was 33, prior to his real entree to politics and so is a much more revealing view into Barack Obama than The Audacity of Hope. The book is beautifully written and makes me believe that had he not taken the path he had, Obama could have been a novelist. I see that quality of watching, listening and interpreting the world that is a common trait of the writer. The focus is race in America, but as the world has discovered, Obama's own lineage as the son of an absentee Kenyan father and an independent white mother from the middle west are not a typical American story. As ludicrous as it seems to express this thought, I believe that his circumstances and lifelong journey to discover where he fits, what our collective history means and how we can continue to grow and evolve resonates with my own feelings of never quite fitting in. I don't think I've met a thinking person, especially among writers who has not lived with a feeling of separateness for as long as he or she can remember. As different as our backgrounds and lives have been, there is something in this book that made me frequently feel a kinship with the main character.

Matrimony, by Joshua Henkin. I intend to write a separate post and a contest/give-away on this lovely novel. I was fortunate enough to have won my copy at author Leslie Pietrzyk's excellent blog, Work in Progress at the end of September and I read this wonderful story that begins with a couple that meet in college and follows them through the next fifteen years. Lots more to say about this notable book and I promise it will be forthcoming.

The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton was the perfect collection of travel essays to take on the long trip. I became enchanted with de Botton when I read his novel, On Love and became a devotee of his works when I read How Proust Can Change Your Life. Alain de Botton is as much a philosopher as he is an artful essayist who helps us to examine those aspects and feelings about travel that are not what we typically think of or anticipate.

The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin is a brilliant and even handed journey into the inner workings of the Supreme Court. Toobin provides us with fascinating characterizations of justices who served from the Reagan Administration through the summer recess of 2007 and behind the scenes insight into how several historical decisions came about. The book is a great primer for those of us who understand that the ability to nominate justices to the Supreme Court is perhaps the most important legacy a President can leave, but don't have an in-depth understanding of the machinations of the court and the significance of the differences in each justice's philosophy toward the interpretation of the Constitution.

The Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman provides an excellent history of the politics and the economy in the United States, beginning in the Gilded Age and provides a compelling argument for narrowing the wide gap in income inequality that we're currently experiencing. Krugman is the 2008 Nobel prize winner for Economic Sciences, a columnist for the New York Times and a professor at Princeton.

The GOD Delusion, by Richard Dawkins sat on my TBR pile for quite a few months before I finally picked it up. Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and he's written many books, most related to the science of evolution. I believe this book and Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything were both released the same year and my reluctance to jump into the Dawkins book was initially tied to the public personas of both Dawkins and Hitchens. Just as I can't bear to listen to a fundamentalist televangelist (although I've done it), the activist atheist is just as obnoxious to me; however, in light of how frequently religion popped into conversation during the election season, the time was right to read the book. Dawkins makes rational arguments against the likelihood of God's existence, discusses the global roots for religion and morality and presents the case that non-believers need to speak out against religion. While I can concur with his rationale for the scientific arguments about the likelihood of the existence of a God and even about the apparent human need to believe in a supreme being, I'm personally uncomfortable with the idea that atheists and agnostics need to become vocal in the political arena. Fundamentalists are often dangerous, but are in the minority of believers. I don't believe that intelligent human beings leave their intellect at the door of religion and I don't believe that most people who ascribe to the notion of a deity of some sort are dangerous. What does concern me is the influence religious groups are able to exert within government in order to insert church into state. The vast amount of money and influence the Church of the Latter Day Saints was recently able to bring to bear in the State of California with the passage of Proposition 8 is a good example of this. He makes some interesting observations about the way society views its non-believers and it's interesting to note that at the national level, there is only one self-proclaimed atheist in Congress. We are a religious nation and I believe the majority would feel more comfortable electing a Muslim than an atheist to national office. The Libby Dole negative ad and response in North Carolina made it clear that calling someone "Godless" was perhaps the worst thing one could ever do. His statistics about the number of Americans who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible were quite staggering to me, as were the statistics on the number of people who believe in creationism as science as opposed to evolution. America is unique in the western world in its religiosity. There were some interesting things in the book, but in the small world where I prefer to live and let others live and believe what they will (as long as they don't try to force their beliefs on me) it was a little too snarky and sarcastic at times.

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back, by Frank Schaeffer is a fascinating memoir. It was the second part of the book's title that caught my attention. This book provided an interesting behind the scenes view of fundamentalist Christian history in America and some frank truths about the influence of evangelists in government. The author grew up in Switzerland, the child of missionaries and although they were fundamentalists, they believed in secular education, had a love of literature and artwork and they practiced a tolerant and a compassionate ministering style. They were somewhat embarrassed of a certain uneducated, intolerant brand of proselytizing preacher, although it would be years before they moved back to America and had to deal with it. When they did move back, they became part of the Christian Coalition that mobilized such a large part of the Republican base and they did it via the pro-life movement. The author never strays from his pro-life position, but concedes that the tactics used and the movement itself took advantage of a group of people based on a flawed position. In fairness, he also points out the the extremists on the pro-choice side of the issue present unsupportable, flawed logic as well.

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, by Richard Hofstadter was the winner of the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction and I discovered it when I did an on-line search on "anti-intellectualism". Once again, the election pushed me toward this search. As I observed the appeals to "Joe Six-Pack" and "hockey moms" and the denigration of higher education and intellect, I was mesmerized. It was fascinating to me that there was a case being made that not only were average, uneducated working people capable of running the free world, but that they were preferable to those who'd pursued a specialized higher education and who valued intellectual curiosity and an interest in the world. Although there are a handful of books newer than this one on the subject, Hofstadter's 1964 title is still viewed as the seminal work on this subject. To my surprise, anti-intellectualism has been a part of American culture and politics since the days of the Puritans. Despite the fact that this book is nearly a half century old, it is entirely relevant and readable. I will say that it has been a very long time since I've read a book this heavily foot-noted. The research that went into this was extensive. It was a fascinating read.

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The length of time since my last post and my reading diet over the last couple of months are symptoms of a strange state of mind that's inhabited me since the election. I came too far out of my tiny world and I am having a hard time finding my way back. I've got more non-fiction books in my TBR stack and it's hard to let go of the big picture issues related to social justice, the environment, the economy and global foreign policy to focus all my attention back on the imaginary people in the tiny fictional world I've created or to jump into reading novels again and hide out there. It's impractical to worry about the real world so much, but having poked my head out of this cozy cocoon where I spend most of my time, it's hard not to view what I'm doing and think, so what?

It's the curse of the overly curious, I suppose. I still read all of the blogs I love every day and I check into Twitter to see what people are doing, but there's a paralyzing force that freezes my fingers in place over the keyboard and taunts me whenever I'm about to "speak".

What could you possibly say that will make any difference at all?

Obviously, none of us would ever tap out a word, if making a difference was the sole criteria for doing so. I will find my way back sooner or later. I've stopped watching the cable news, unsubscribed to all the news and political blogs in Google Reader (I miss you Andrew and Ezra) and sometimes it's true, I literally sit at my desk, stare at the screen and lose time, waiting to figure out what it is I'm supposed to do.

Books I Read in September 2008

I got lots of reading done this month and since I've been doing so many serious posts on election issues recently, I need to lighten things up with a major change of subject. So here are the books I read in September:

Leaving Atlanta, by Tayari Jones is a fictional account of the period around 1979-1982 when the Atlanta child killer was at large and murdered 29 African American children. The story is told from the points of view of three fifth-grade classmates. Tayari Jones gives voice to a unique and terrifying period from the perspective of three very different children. Reading as a writer, I was particularly taken by the fact that the author successfully pulled off shifting points of view using third person, first person and even choosing to use the unusual second person for one character. The children's voices were authentic and powerful. This book was frightening, heartbreaking and beautifully written. It was selected as One of the Best Books of the Year in 2004 by the Washington Post. Tayari Jones, also the author of The Untelling (on my TBR stack) is one of my favorite blogging authors and you can read her posts, filled with insights, observations and links to all things literary here.

Man in the Dark, by Paul Auster is the story of 72 year old August Brill. An insomniac and a retired book critic, he is recovering from a car accident at his daughter's house in Vermont. He is immobilized, with two broken legs and is still grieving his wife's death. His middle aged daughter is alone after a painful divorce and his granddaughter has also come to stay after losing her boyfriend to a horrific murder. In order to deal with his insomnia, Brill imagines a parallel world where 9/11 never happened and instead of going to war with Iraq, America is at war with itself as a result of the 2000 election. After reading Man in the Dark (a quick read at 180 pages), I picked up The Brooklyn Follies on the B&N clearance table. Auster, who has written many novels, but was new to me is one of my best finds this year.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, by Barack Obama is a book I hadn't gotten around to reading until after the nomination. Since the author had his sights on the Presidency when the book was written, it is a detailed vision of his views on our two-party system, values, the Constitution, politics, opportunity, faith, race, the world and family. This book is not quite as personal as the memoir that preceded it by some ten years, but it provides an excellent perspective on how Barack Obama sees the possibilities for our nation -- and I like his views. He's the first politician who has ever inspired me and given me hope, something we sorely need right now.

One Good Turn, by Kate Atkinson is the author's fifth novel, but the first I've read. She's an English author, living in Edinburgh and this is her second mystery featuring a retired police officer, now millionaire. Atkinson has a unique, sardonic voice and the story, told in multiple points of view is packed with eccentric characters. The story is kicked off when a good Samaritan helps the victim of a beating incited by a case of road rage and somehow everyone involved becomes part of the sinister story that follows. To be truthful, I wasn't expecting a mystery, but I just love Atkinson's style. I've got Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Human Croquet on the TBR shelf and will be reading them shortly. To be honest, I'd read an interview with Kate Atkinson before reading any of her work and she seems kind of -- cranky. That appealed to me.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wrobewski has been getting lots of attention, particularly since Oprah selected it for her book club. Fortunately, I was in the middle of reading it when the announcement was made, otherwise my irrational reverse snobbery about popular novels probably would have led me to ignore the book for quite a while. The hype is true and you can read reviews galore on this one, along with the most complimentary blurb -- from Stephen King, no less -- that I have ever read by an established author about a debut novel. A fellow blogger (after seeing me Twitter my enthusiasm while reading the book) Twittered back that the book is "awful" and found a bad review to back up her opinion, so fair warning, not everyone shares my glowing views but overwhelmingly, the book has gotten great reactions. The author (who lives in Colorado) spent over ten years writing this story and then rewriting and revising it. It is an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, set in early 1970's rural Wisconsin on a small farm where the Sawtelle family raises a fictional breed of dogs. I should also disclose that I love Hamlet and I own three different film adaptations of it on DVD. If the reader was unfamiliar with the story of Hamlet, I have no idea what kind of a reaction he would have to this story, but the prose is undeniably beautiful. I am guilty of being biased toward books for many reasons and I confess to being especially enamored of this one because of the Hamlet connection and because I have such great admiration for this debut author (a software developer by day) who took the time to learn how to write a wonderful story and then made it big. Congratulations to David Wroblewski and his Cinderella story and I hope a second novel will follow -- when he's ready.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli, by Andrew Sean Greer was quite successful and there was a lot to like about it. The plot device is that the main character is born with the physical appearance of an elderly man and he grows older mentally like any other child, but his body appears to age backward and grows younger every year. The tragedy of the story is that Max is able to try to win the heart of the woman he falls in love with at three different times in his life although she never recognizes him for who he is. The book is set in turn of the century San Francisco and the writing is unquestionably beautiful, although the prose is written in a formal, almost stilted fashion so I was somewhat relieved that the book ended when it did. Perhaps my expectations were too high and I've never been a huge fan of historicals so I enjoyed, but did not love this book. The story arc was almost too inevitable and I just wasn't surprised, sympathetic or intrigued enough by Max Tivoli's plight. Andrew Sean Greer is a talented author and his other works aren't written in quite this style. I've got his short story collection, How it Was For Me, his novel The Path of Minor Planets and his newest book, The Story of a Marriage on my TBR shelf and I do look forward to reading them.

Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance With Death, by Kurt Vonnegut was the audio book I went to sleep to for several nights this month. Vonnegut's words, as read by Ethan Hawke were oddly, the perfect bedtime story. From the Audible website: "Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes 'unstuck in time' after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden." I had never read this book and I just loved it. I think the firebombing of Dresden was an event that really defined Kurt Vonnegut, and for good reason. Incredibly, it's a chapter of World War II that most people don't seem to know much about, although the destruction allied bombing caused to civilian men, women and children could be said to have rivaled that in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

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By next month, I hope to have finished Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama. I was about 250 pages into it when Scott happened to pick it up and commented that he'd really like to read it -- so I'll finish it after he does. This memoir was written in 1995 when Obama was selected as the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review and it provides a very personal perspective into who this man is. If he hadn't become a politician, he would have had a successful career as a novelist. He's an excellent writer.

Tomorrow night is the Vice Presidential debate, so we'll be in front of the TV with popcorn and Twizzlers because there's really no telling what we're going to see, but it will certainly be historic.

Despite any political differences we may have, there lots of amazing bloggers in our online community. If you haven't already, please take a look at Moonrat's raffle to help a friend in need and Travis Erwin's very noble cause to help spread literacy.

I would promise to exclusively get back to my regularly scheduled posts about books and writing, but this election is just too important. I want to share what I learn about the issues here in the hope that some of it may be helpful to others and in the hope that it might generate some discussion. And hey -- I'm pretty proud of us. So far, despite the number of issues related posts, we've all been civil and that's a great thing. Thank you for that and remember that no matter how wound up we get about the politics, this is what's important.

And now -- with all the heaviness of the news of the world behind us, PLEASE share something positive! What have YOU been reading lately? Has anybody read any of the books I listed and if so, would you care to comment on them? Seen any good movies? Heard any uplifting anecdotes? Get any good news? What keeps you going?