Making Lists. Or Not.
February 28, 2010

As I write this on Friday morning I am at work where I actually have little work to do. So I decided to spend some time cruising around the Internet and some of my favorite blogs before getting down to writing my own stuff when I came to Catching Days where Cynthia’s latest post stopped me. “As my tower of unread books grows taller and spawns little towers, it’s a way to prove to myself that I am reading,” she noted. “It’s a way to measure progress.”

She’s speaking about the list she keeps of how many books she’s read in a given year. Now she’s far from the only one to keep such a list—the comments show that—and I know Lauren Baratz-Logsted keeps a diary of her year’s reading too. While I enjoy reading about others’ reasons for and experiences with keeping these lists, I have no interest in doing that for reasons I don’t yet understand. I don’t care how many books I finish in a week, a month, or a year. I don’t need to know how many I started and didn’t finish or how many I did finish. And while I don’t understand it the reason may be the same one as the reason I have never joined a book club or add much to the “What Are You Reading Now” thread in the Book Balloon online forum.

I am apparently  . . . different. I don’t mind that. But I do wonder how many people are more like Cynthia and Lauren or are like me. Most readers, it seems, love to talk about the books they are reading or books they have read. One of my best friends and a reading fanatic, Lynn, is a good example of that, and to her credit she is so enthusiastic about the truly good ones that, without intending to, she persuaded me to take on Wolf Hall, a book I’d normally pass by because it is fiction. It helps that it’s historical fiction set in an era I find fascinating, but still. It’s modern fiction. By simply talking about it she talked up the book sufficiently to overcame my initial resistance.

And she’s not alone. The proliferation of book clubs and online discussions, and of larger publishing houses now maintaining pages for book clubs and courting them with advance reader copies of their upcoming books and enticing them with contests, virtual author visits, and other inducements is staggering. And it’s obvious why: most readers love to talk with other readers about what they are reading and why. Not so much me. While I enjoy being part of others’ discussions and soaking up information and opinions, thoughts and ideas, and even arguments, I am not particularly inclined to join in. And I don’t mind. The reason I think is because I develop a relationship with the book during my reading of it that seems so personal, almost intimate. Chatting it up in groups or in any arena where it is me with . . . lots of people feels almost like a public betrayal, as if I am spilling secrets of our relationship where others can pick over the comments. I’m not stripping naked so much as I am stripping my significant other naked.

At the same time I like to measure my “progress” too. I find that best accomplished by using something I developed years ago—a Post-Reading Review. On the front free endpaper or a blank page in the back of the book I write out a personal evaluation as soon as I finish the book. Because I write one each time I read a book, in cases where I am re-reading, there might be two or even three of them, squeezed on any blank pages I can find anywhere in the book (between chapters, if nowhere else). Each one is dated and signed. And since I often don’t remember when I read them I find it amusing and interesting to come across them, and discover what I thought at the time. Once it proved embarrassing as when I sent, with his permission, all of my copies of his books to Nicholas Basbanes to him for signing. I had forgotten about the post-reading reviews, but especially the one in which I expressed my disappointment about its not living up to its predecessor. When it arrived back at my home, I opened it up and was appalled when I discovered what I had done, and only semi-appeased when I read what he wrote: “What a delight for me to read ‘a post reading review’ of this book! A first, and a delight to boot. Keep ‘em coming.)” I don’t think I stopped blushing for days.

So I’m not really sure I could consider my post-reading reviews a list even by the most flexible of standards. Nor do I feel a need to track my reading. Progress for me is measured on my shelves, by the books that my eye affectionately runs over when looking for something new to read. And by the post-reading reviews that surprise me when they pop up. Those are my ways of sharing my thoughts on the book in a way that isn’t too public for me., and of keeping track of what I have read and when. As for everyone else—keep ‘em coming, as Nick says. Your lists and your thoughts are the best ways for me to find new books for my own reading.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
Only one festival is coming up next weekend, the Lex Allen Literary Festival in Roanoke, Virginia. On Saturday, March 6, it begins at 9:30 am with check-in and refreshments. The featured authors are David Payne, Molly Peacock, and Valerie Martin who will offer readings and discussions. All events are free except for lunch, which may be purchased. In the afternoon there will be a poetry panel featuring the work of winning students for the Literary Festival Poetry and Fiction prizes followed by a reception in the Visual Arts Center.

The Pub House:
Angel City Press specializes in nonfiction and gift books about the City of Angels (Los Angeles), California, and pop culture in general. Being a native of the area and having a large collection of books about American culture, I do possess quite a few of  their titles. Though most would be classified as pop, they are nevertheless accurate, informational books about certain aspects of our culture. They also tend to be fun. Anyone interested in Hollywood culture in particular will find things here such as Hollywood du Jour: Lost Recipes of Legendary Hollywood Haunts. But they also take on more historical fare in Downtown in Detail: Close-Up on the Historical Buildings of Downtown Los Angeles, a perfect contribution to rich architectural heritage of the city; and for those who like the under-belly of history, Brown Acres: An Intimate History of the Los Angeles Sewers, a historical narration (with photographs, diagrams, and maps) of the people who designed, developed, worked, and fought over it. One of their best books is the anthology, My California: Journeys by Great Writers that showcases the writings of more than twenty-five excellent California writers, including Pico Iyer, Carolyn, See, T. Jefferson Parker, Thomas Steinbeck, and Patt Morrison,  What’s unique about this book is that everyone involved donated her or his time and work in an effort to help benefit the California Arts Council and literary in schools. I own this; it’s a beauty, and if you want to understand the state, this is an excellent way to do it.

Imaging Books & Reading:
Damaged books, especially if they are old, make me sad. But they can also be, with the right photographer’s eye, a study in broken beauty. What I call The Death of a Book speaks of books once so valuable they were chained to their cabinet but captured in this image at a time when it appears they, or at least this one, had been severely damaged. Or had they simply been abandoned? We can’t know. All we have is this photograph that will forever preserve the book’s death.

Of Interest:
Not about books but definitely mental stimulation. Richard Wiseman’s blog is even fantastic for those of us who are math-challenged or otherwise like or could use some brain games. It’s a blast! Wiseman, a psychologist, magician, and author, likes to post “quirky mind stuff” that challenges his readers to discover the answer to, well, stuff. Like this recent puzzle: “A ten volume set of books are placed upright, in order, on a shelf (see photograph). Each book is 4.5 cm thick, and has two covers, each of which are .5 cm thick. A bookworm starts on page 1 of volume 1 and munches his way in a straight horizontal line through to the last page of the tenth volume. What distance does the worm travel?” But it’s not just literary things. He goes all out to find unique, unusual, puzzling, and just plain wonderful things. It’s a mind party where you get to have the fun.

This Week . . .
phati’tude is a series of literary programs that uses a variety of mediums—a printed magazine, website, television programming, and live events—to “keep the written word alive.” It was developed in 1997 as a literary magazine by IAAS (Intercultural Alliance of Artists and Scholars), a nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy, but it has become so much more. Though I will be the first to say I find their use of flash annoying on the home page, it can be stopped. And it has so many wonderful things that this is worth overlooking. Just online they have literary news, the “phat profile” (in-depth author interviews), book reviews, the art scene, video shorts (featuring poets, writers, and artists), and a featured poet. It’s really an amazing site so I recommend checking it out. I think you might end up adding it to your favorites as I have.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren