Best Books First

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”

― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Thoreau was right. There are so many books to read that sometimes I feel overwhelmed and I am definitely not going to waste my precious time with books that are not the best. So I follow Thoreau's advice and read the best books first. Recently, I've enjoyed The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, Carry on Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton, Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo and The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech. Two children's books, one essay collection, and one novel. 

I'm calling Carry on Warrior an essay collection, but it's really a collection of blog posts by my new hero, Glennon Doyle Melton. Her honesty and skilled storytelling echo Anne Lamott, my favorite truth teller.  She says, “I used to numb my feelings and hide, and now I feel my feelings and I share them. I’m not afraid of my feelings anymore. I know they can come and they won’t kill me. And that they can take over for a little while if they need to. But at the end of the day, they’re just guides. They’re guides to tell me what the next right thing is for me to do.” Read her blog, Momastery, and you'll want to read this book. More later about the other books…

"The Word" from Word, Wisconsin

“What I do know is that God loves us, completely, every one of us, all the time, and upon that single fact the hundred billion stars are hung. That love is both the source and the cause of all life.” Those words from David Rhodes’ Driftless are one of my favorite book lines ever. And I’ve underlined millions of lines in books over the years. Driftless is one of those rare books that I read with no preconceived notion, no idea what the book was even about. My wonderful friend Beverly recommended it for our book club and I downloaded it on my Kindle and read, never even having seen the book in a store or library.  It was a delightful surprise.

Published in 2008, Driftless is a series of connected chapters about the different characters in a very small town in the driftless zone of Wisconsin. Driftless is a geological term referring to the fact that the retreating glaciers at the end of the Ice Age somehow missed this area, creating a unique topography.  The town portrayed in the book – Word – is also unique, and also bypassed by the modern world in many ways.  A central figure emerges like Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge to connect all the characters in the novel.  The enigmatic July Montgomery reaches out to each character in different ways, but seems to understand what each person needs most. As a reader, I was deeply involved in and connected to each character. July Montgomery was more in the background of each person’s story.  As the narratives began to overlap, each person in the book was equally important to me and July’s importance becomes more clear. I won’t say more, but if you liked Olive Kitteridge, you will love this novel. It’s not a religious book, even though my opening quote in this review might make you think that. It’s a book about humanity and hope and redemption and community.

David Rhodes is a highly skilled writer and I can’t believe I’ve never heard of him. I learned that he wrote three critically acclaimed novels thirty years ago and then disappeared after a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed.  Driftless is his first book since the accident. I hope to see many more "words" from this intriguing author.

In case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been reading this year (since I’ve been sporadic on this blog), here is a list. I want to review several of them, but you’ll have to wait. Starting with the most recent (before Driftless), I’ve read The House Girl by Tara Conklin, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander, Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quinlen, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and Wonder by R. J. Palacio. I’ve only reviewed Wild, but I’d love to tell you about Wonder (amazing!!) and The Night Circus. But that will have to be another day! Happy reading!

The Journey Through Fear

I just finished the book, Wild by Cheryl Strayed. I know I'm way behind in reading this memoir by woman who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail several years ago, but I'd heard that the book was ordinary and whining.  So I thought it could wait. But I have to say Wild was well-written, poetic in places and inspirational. I love stories about ordinary people who do amazing things and that is just what this book was about.

Cheryl Strayed hiked 1,100 miles from the Mojave Desert to the southern border of Washington State woefully unprepared for the ardor and hardships she would face as a woman alone in the wilderness.  The book is about that hike, but - more than that - very much about grief and loss. Strayed hikes the trail alone to face all of her weaknesses and she emerges a much stronger woman, healed in so many ways. 

At one point, she says, “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.” 

Recently selected as a Giver for World Book Night in April, Wild is the book that I will be giving away for free to 20 women - light or nonreaders - here in Houston. I know that the book will inspire them as much as it did me.

Mystery and Beauty in NYC

 My love of New York City and my love of books are intertwined in my heart. I grew up reading my most beloved books set in New York City - Eloise, Harriet the Spy, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler. So it’s no surprise that every time I visit NYC, I pay homage to the fictional city of my childhood and the book lovers paradise I know as an adult.

On a visit to the city early in December, everything I did was part of my interwoven love of books and New York City. It all started with a visit to The Frick Collection to see the Dutch Masters Exhibit. There I saw The Goldfinch, which inspired the new bestseller by Donna Tartt.  I’m enjoying reading that book right now and having seen the painting has enhanced my pleasure in this amazing book.

Later that same day, I visited the Metropolitan Museum in honor of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The Egyptian tomb brought back memories of Claudia and Jamie’s adventures in the Met in E.L. Konisgberg’s book.  I read the book to my older daughter before taking her to the Met when she was ten.

I finished this literary NYC day with a top-notch production of Twelfth Night. This repertory performance with the amazing Mark Rylance used reproductions of the costumes and instruments actually used in that time. And the words of Shakespeare never fail to disappoint and amuse.

The highlight of my next day was the Broadway production of “Matilda the Musical” based on the Roald Dahl book is about an extremely smart little girl who loves books. The play espouses the idea that reading books is revolutionary. Surrounded by book lovers young and old, we all cheered on the irrepressibly intelligent Matilda. I was in my element.

I capped off this literary visit on my last morning with a visit to the New York Public Library to luxuriate in the Reading Room and visit a special exhibition called “The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter.”  This wonderful exhibit pretty much summed up my visit. From Goodnight Moon to Where the Wild Things Are to The Phantom Tollbooth to Harriet the Spy, old friends from my childhood surrounded me. I spent at least an hour enthralled by the history of children’s books and all the fine specimens on display.

A visit to the reading room at the Public Library was my last stop. My photo here doesn’t do justice to this palace of the book.

This city and its books mirror “all the mystery and the beauty in the world,” as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of New York in The Great Gatsby. 

In Peace, Charlotte Zolotow

I woke up this morning to the sad news that children's book author Charlotte Zolotow died at age 98. She was something special and her books reflected her sensitivity and awareness of children's deepest feelings. My mother read me her books and I read them to my children and they will surely read the books to theirs. Mr.Rabbit and the Lovely Present, Big Sister and Little Sister, I Like to Be Little, Over and Over, Someday are all books I treasure. She inspired me as a child and continues to touch my heart as an adult.

The obituary in today's New York Times says that she was an awkward shy child with a back brace, black eyeglasses and orthodontic braces. "She found solace in books and determined early to be a writer," the obit says. In addition to her children's books, she was also an editor and brought books like the Newberry-award-winning Sarah, Plain and Tall to millions of young readers. 

Zolotow was honest and straightforward with children because as she once said, "We are all the same, except that adults have found ways to buffer themselves against the full-blown intensity of a child's emotions."

I pulled out my copies of her books and the pages are worn and the covers torn. These books have been loved.

Rest in peace, Charlotte Zolotow.

Books are Like Crack for Me

It's true confession time. I have a book addiction. There. I've said it. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. And I must accept that I cannot keep buying books at this rate, without off loading a few … or a hundred. Maybe you already figured out about my addiction. But I've been in denial. 

I had an intervention a few days ago by my friend The Clutter Fairy, Gayle Goddard. She already knew that books were the one thing in my house (except the people I live with) that I could not throw away. But if we ever want to move to a smaller place (and we do),  we've got to pass on some of these books (my husband, bless his bookish heart, is as bad as me, but he won't admit it …  don't tell him!). We have bookshelves everywhere. Three in our bedroom, plus stacks of books on our bedside tables and even this tower of books (see left photo). Then we have three bookshelves in the game room, two large ones in the living room, two built-in bookshelves in the family room, not to mention the coffee table books and the bench books and the cookbooks in the kitchen and the many shelves in the office where I'm sitting right now. You get the picture - books are our main household accessory.

So - with the prodding of Gayle - I had a great idea. I will start a library somewhere - maybe a Little Free Library or just a few bookshelves at favorite place - Memorial Assistance Ministries or Yellowstone Academy or Project Rowhouse. I have donated to the library, one of my favorite places, in the past, but I want to give my books to actual people.  I am going to start sorting my books to see which ones I can share. But if you have any helpful ideas about where I can share my collection of books, please let me know. 

The Power of Fiction

I recently saw a quote by one of my favorite Presbyterians and one of the world's most eloquent writers, Frederick Buechner. This sums up exactly why I love fiction. Buechner in his collection of short essays, Whistling in the Dark, said "From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein."

I believe the best books teach us something about ourselves and our world. Through novels I've learned about a Jewish girl in Budapest in 1943, a black girl in rural Mississippi in 2008, a small town Australian boy in 1959, a Chinese girl with bound feet .... These novels and many more helped shine a light on another person's situation, another's thoughts and feelings and showed me how to become more human. These books weren't always pretty and didn't always have happy endings, but they all illuminated another way of living and taught me something about humanity.

This theory of mine was recently PROVEN through a scientific study that found that "after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on test measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking."
This means that people that read literary fiction are more empathetic and more caring individuals.
Re-read the Buechner quote above, "...literature asks us to pay attention."