A Year of Reading Happily, Part II

by

Lauren Roberts

As I continue to reflect on this year’s reading, I realize how much of what I read reflects events or trends in my personal life. I suppose that’s true for everyone. It’s part of what makes a book “right” for reading at one time and not at another.

I have often wondered too if those who keep book diaries, places where they record what they’ve read, include things about their lives in order to establish a context. I’ve tried doing that, but it’s never worked. I’m not sure why because whenever I finish a book, I write a post-reading review in it (and since I write them each time I read, some books have several of those reviews in them). But these often don’t contain “context,” though I’m not sure they need it. I write for no one but myself, and it is easy to recall my original feelings when reading the words.

Sometimes my personal reading coincides with my professional (AKA BiblioBuffet) reading. At other times it veers off as you will see from my list below. No particular reason exists for that. Like you, I have various parts of my life and am often reading more than one thing at any given time. Some of my favorite reads in 2006 were not new ones but rereads, among them Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927) and Dodsworth (1929).

They are devastating, powerful statements for Lewis’ acerbic, strong and unapologetic views of mainstream America in the first half of the twentieth century. He elaborated upon these in his acceptance speech for the 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature, and I find his words tell more about his books—and in fewer words—than any full-fledged review could: “. . . in America most of us—not readers alone but even writers—are still  afraid of any literature which is not a glorification of everything American, a glorification of our faults as well as our virtues . . . we still revere the writers . . .  who in a hearty and edifying chorus chant that the America of a hundred and twenty million population is still as simple, as pastoral, as it was when it had but forty million; that, in fine, America, has gone through the revolutionary change from rustic colony to world empire without having in the least altered the bucolic and Puritanic simplicity of Uncle Sam.”

Yet that cannot have been entirely true, for Lewis’ early novels sold fantastically well. Perhaps it was as Lewis claimed, that Americans could not stop paying attention to their “scold” as he saw himself. It’s a shame that his personal life and his drinking apparently overtook his talent and that his later works do not live up to their predecessors. But that in no way diminishes the brilliance of these novels, each one a look at an institution through an individual. Carol Kennicott and main-street America. George Folansbee Babbitt and American business. Dr. Martin Arrowsmith and American medicine. Elmer Gantry and American evangelism. Dodsworth and, shall I say, choices and values. The latter is the most sophisticated of the four (and the only one in which Lewis seems to sympathize with his protagonist), but all four of them should be put at the top of your “to be read” pile. Now.

Why? Because I think that perhaps even more so now than at the time they were written, these books offer a sorely-needed perspective on American society. The 21st century’s increasingly myopic political and social kaleidoscope is distorting and, in my view, destroying this country’s Constitutional ideals in its rush to create a picture-perfect, one-sided America. While I do not intend to preach my views, I hope BiblioBuffet’s readers spring from that group which wants to have its thoughts challenged, its lifestyles questioned, its choices and methods debated. Lewis offers that to both his characters and his readers in these novels.

But before you plunge into his books, I suggest reading Lewis’ speech (linked above). He talks of the context from which his books sprang, and it is notable for its optimism as much as its cynicism. It is also the perfect introduction to this man whose writing I admire immensely. These have my highest recommendation, and they would be especially valuable as a book club choice.

I also returned to Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, having first read this book ten years ago (in a beautiful two-volume edition, translation by Constance Garnett with an introduction by Thomas Mann, and published by Random House in 1939). I remember how stunned I was at the beauty and power encased in the novel, and wondered why the hell I hadn’t found it earlier.  

This is a book that takes a seemingly simple opening sentence—Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way—and delves into the nuances and niches of what is actually one of the most complex of thoughts. For three weeks, I wallowed in its luxurious prose and comfortable pace. In the mornings before work, at lunch and in the evenings I would pick up this book and “return” to Russia of the nineteenth century. If you are interested in this particular edition, a search on ABE turned up 131 copies of this edition ranging in price from $129.95 to $1. However, numerous translations abound including several current editions. This has my highest recommendation.

Two books I have owned for many years, but which had lain on the to-be-read pile until this one were essays by Alexander Theroux. Each small book contains three of them, one on The Primary Colors, the other on The Secondary Colors.

         

Color is a curious a starting point for a series of essays, but Theroux brings it off beautifully. Each of the six colors—blue, yellow, red; orange,  purple, green—explores, in approximately 25,000 words each, what that color is, what it means; its place in nature, history; its ties to places, people, cultures; its role in food, objects, art, entertainment, poetry and literature, mythology, medicine. It is, in its own way, a new perception of something common, a dive into a color’s significance and consequences on both macro and micro levels.

Red, for example, is my favorite color. I did know it is associated with passion, with women more than men, and with love. It is cherries and strawberries. It is blood. But some of the things I didn’t know include the fact that Hitler loved red marble floors; that red was the first color to be designated by name in most primitive languages; that it is found in soils everywhere; that the living room of Dorothy Parker’s Pennsylvania farm was painted in nine shades of red; that though cough syrup is often red, there is no red Necco wafer; that the decks of 18th-century British ships were painted red to hide spilled blood; that Kodachrome film has a red bias; that there are red writers (Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Poe); that the most lethal amphibian poison of all comes from tiny reddish-pink frogs in South American jungles; that red is the first color to disappear as you dive underwater; that Greta Garbo would not wear red boots or shoes; that the irrepressible  Wife of Bath had flashy red stockings.

Though out of print, these books are worth seeking out. For Theroux does much more than recite facts. He digs and digs and digs into the who, the what, the when, the how, the why. He weaves these intricacies of knowledge, moments of reflection, odd curiosities and common facts together in a spectacular meditation. These two books have my highest recommendation.    

I am attracted to adventure, though my tastes in real life adventure (where I enjoy challenge) admittedly differ fr0m my tastes in reading adventure. For the latter, I prefer things I would not personally do because of the extreme danger, which is probably what makes them so attractive as books.

I scuba dive, but stick to the sport end of it. Nevertheless, I am fascinated by extreme diving—cave and wreck. Fatal Depth: Deep Sea Diving, China Fever, and the Wreck of the Andrea Doria by Joe Haberstroh has the same gripping narrative as The Last Dive, Beyond the Deep and the recently popular Shadow Divers. All of them made my reading list this year, and all of them were as satisfying to me as they were deadly to those involved. No explicit violence mars these books, yet it can be disturbing to read of how a diver’s death happened and not feel the terror of breathless strangling enveloping you. For adventurous reading, these topped my list this year. Highly recommended.

Other books that made it onto my 2006 reading list—and to which I also give my highest recommendation—include:

100 Suns by Michael Light
An unusual fine art photography book that is a brilliant depiction of the science of destruction taken to its ultimate level.

Saturn: A New View edited by Lovett, Horvath and Cuzzi
While this book is primarily about photographs, it also offers well-written commentary on the most recent discoveries by the Cassini-Huygens mission now in progress. Its beauty and clear information can make an astronomy enthusiast of anyone, and would make a particularly good gift for an older child or teen.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
One of the best horror stories ever written, it also examines social culture and the role of humans and nature. It is best read twice in a row, first for the story as entertainment, and second for its humanistic questions.
 
Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainment by Michael Dirda
An entertaining collection of his personal essays written for the Washington Post Book World in a style he calls “playful journalism,” meaning serious issues written about in a lighthearted way.

The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath
A powerful collection of articles written for a San Francisco newspaper about the Oklahoma refugees, the history of labor and the policies  of the federal government, it formed the basis for his classic novel.

Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold by Michael Benanav
More than a travel memoir, this is a graceful and respectful tribute to a lifestyle, a product and a people  who are unknown to much of the world.
 
Great Grilled Cheese: 50 Innovative Recipes for Stovetop, Grill, and Sandwich Maker by Laura Werlin
Comfort food usually refers to foods of our childhood that we eat now when we want to treat ourselves to emotional as well as physical satisfaction. If grilled cheese sandwiches are among your favorites, this small, but outrageously gorgeous book is the one to find. Yum!

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
One of the most persuasive anti-war novels ever written.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
Bryson casts his usual witty eye on his middle-class childhood in middle America in the middle of the twentieth century, and produces a laugh-out-loud funny memoir, but that will be appreciated by all but especially by anyone of the same generation.

Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines have reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, 750 bookmarks and nearly 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it