**Books for Readers Archives**
Numbers 21-25
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Newsletter
# 21
April 9, 2002
From time to time I go back to books I read a long time ago. Lately, I've been re-reading books that my teen-age son is assigned for school or reading on his own. For example, this past week-end, I re-read THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. When I first read CATCHER in my late teens, I flat-out hated it. I hated it partly because I'd been told I was going to love it, and partly because it is so thoroughly a boy's book that I found nothing in it to help me learn how to be a woman. Reading it now, in later middle life, I have much more sympathy for poor self-pitying Holden Caulfield. There are also pleasures I had totally forgotten, like its portrait of a long-gone New York City and a lively, large cast of characters. I had remembered the book as almost all Holden Caulfield, but in fact, Holden spends most of the book trying to reach out to old friends and strangers. There are several outstanding scenes: Holden and his little sister; Holden getting beat up by his roommate, Holden getting beat up by the elevator boy-pimp in the hotel. The weakness of the book to my taste, is Salinger's heavy-handed repetitive use of nineteen-forties prep school slang. The recurrences of "it killed me" and the epithet "old" accompanying just about every proper name give flavor and texture at first, but after a while, they become irritating and finally turn into a kind of inexorable tic that gets in the way of the story. Still, I enjoyed my re-reading– and think you might like to re-read it too.
I also just finished TIPPING THE VELVET, and now I'm an official Sarah Waters fan. Waters does that wonderful fictional trick of conjuring up a world we readers would never have experienced on our own. In this case, the setting is late nineteenth century England, mostly London, and mostly the worlds of vaudeville theater and sex work. It's essentially a picaresque novel in which a naive protagonist has lots of adventures moving through many class levels, hits bottom a few times, and finally ends well. In Waters' world, ending well is not just a matter of becoming financially solvent but also of discovering higher aspirations that include equality in a love relationship and a little political perspective as well. The sex in the book is mostly between women, but Waters is such a good story teller that you'll identify with the heroine whatever your sexual persuasion. Now I'm looking forward to AFFINITY and FINGERSMITH.
One last recent pleasure for me was Roger Fouts' NEXT OF KIN about a man's experience sharing life and language with chimpanzees. It's a wide-ranging book that includes memoir, the in-fighting and politics of research institutions, and the possible origins of human language. Along the way you have adolescent female chimpanzees with crushes on human research assistants and the ongoing movement to create a safe and healthy place for retired chimpanzees here in the United States.
This month I also received lots of great suggestions from readers: Sam Swope talked about "EMBERS by Sandor Marai, who was a leading Hungarian novelist in the 1930's.... EMBERS is ... a wonderful novel, essentially a monologue -- a disturbing and powerful meditation on friendship. The occasion of the book is the return of a best friend who'd disappeared decades before, and as the protagonist awaits the visit, we realize he's been mulling over this friendship and his sense of betrayal for decades." Sam also suggests LYDIA CASSATT READING THE MORNING PAPER by Harriet Scott Chessman. "This new novel is told from the point of view of Lydia Cassatt, the sister of the Impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt. Lydia had a terminal illness that lasted a long time, and at times was quite ill as she sat as the model for some of her sister's most famous paintings. I liked the book for the way it shows the complicated relationship of artist and subject; the complications of sibling relationships; and most of all, for the heartbreaking way Mary Cassatt tries to capture a sister in art, a sister who is slipping away from her."
Jane Hicks tells us that "Kathryn Stripling Byer has a wonderful new book just out from Louisiana State University Press. It's called CATCHING LIGHT: POEMS. Inspired by a series of photographs... it takes a look at women and aging."
Ardian Gill reminds us not to forget Fred Chapell's work, especially LOOK BACK ALL THE GREEN VALLEY, which he calls "particularly poetic."
George Lies recommends Chris Offut's THE GOOD BROTHER, which he describes as being about "Kentucky culture and the revenge by one brother for the death of his brother. The main character eventually goes into exile in Montana, just as a major forest fire breaks out and the [government] goes after gun activists in the mountains."
Staying in the mountains, we have Phyllis Moore writing to praise the work of Jane Yolen, who is married to a West Virginian. Yolen, says Phyllis, "wrote one book based on a Webster Springs [WV] story, UNCLE LEMON'S SPRING. Her DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC and BRIAR ROSE are thought provoking holocaust related stories. As I recall, DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC was burned on a library's steps by some group." Any book that has been banned or burned is one I want to read!
GOOD NEWS ABOUT OUR READERS!
Ardian Gill's novel THE RIVER IS MINE about the John Wesley Powell exploration of the Green and Colorado Rivers in 1869 has just been published in a beautiful edition with photos by the author from Local Color Press, Ltd., 526 West 26th Street, Suite 506, New York, NY 10001. I read this book in manuscript and was happy to write a blurb for it.
BOOKS RECEIVED AND BOOKS NOTED
Suzanne Carter's mystery DISTURBING THE PEACE is now available from http://www.iuniverse.com.
I also received notice that THE NIGHT BILLY WAS BORN AND OTHER LOVE STORIES by Joseph Cowley is available. Look for it at http://www.iuniverse.com .
Newsletter # 22
April 25, 2002
It has been about a year since I discussed why I produce this newsletter, and since there are many new readers, I want to say it again: above all, this newsletter is what it appears to be– a sharing of book suggestions.
Another important reason for such a newsletter, however, is that there are serious problems with the distribution and publicizing of books under our current system. Each commercially published book is expected to earn back not only its own costs plus a profit but also to support an enormous corporate overhead that includes exorbitant expenses like seven digit salaries for top executives. This problem has proved to be especially severe for published writers whose books may have done well with the critics but have not made sufficiently large profits to satisfy the corporate bottom line.
There are, of course, excellent new books that are being published every day commercially as well as by nonprofit, small, and university presses. Recommendations of any and all such books are welcome in this newsletter, as are books from two years ago, ten years ago, or ten centuries ago. The second reason for the newsletter, then, is to make a small effort at alternate means of publicizing books.
The third reason for this newsletter is simply that the World Wide Web exists and is open for exploration and experimentation. How can we use and enjoy it? My brother-in-law David Weinberger has just published a brand new book about the Web– SMALL PIECES, LOOSELY JOINED. David sees the Web as an essential next-stage of human development and communication. He and his 11 old son Nathan, for example, are just finishing up an online journal (a Web Log or "Blog") of their trip to China that is appearing in the BOSTON GLOBE's online edition. I (and potentially millions of other people) have read their reactions to standing on the Great Wall– and also their anxiety about Nathan's ear-ache.
To return the focus to Hard Copy, let me give you a recommendation from Shelley Ettinger for a new book that is getting excellent reviews and lots of media attention: "I'm reading a wonderful book," writes Shelley, "(although this one hasn't sent me swooning to my sickbed). AT SWIM, TWO BOYS, by Jamie O'Neill. The story takes place in Dublin in the year leading up to the Easter Uprising of 1916. Writing with extraordinary depth, erudition and grace, the author weaves together the issues of gay oppression, class and Ireland's struggle against British colonialism. It was a little tough going at first, because the language is imbued with Irish idiom, but I got the hang of it and have since been swept along. I'm recommending it even before finishing it because I have faith the ending won't betray this beautiful novel."
Joan Newburger writes about some books she is reading as background for a novel she is writing in which the marriage of "a smug and self-satisfied couple... is given a shock through their experiences with a group of British and American expatriates in Spain over a summer in the early seventies." She read and recommends "THE ROCK POOL, by Cyril Connelly. He was a critic ... and this is his only novel. Written in the 30's, it may have been influenced by THE SUN ALSO RISES, written in the 20s. THE ROCK POOL is about a group of expatriates on the French Riviera. Most unpleasant group of people, especially the protagonist, but it's engaging almost for that reason. Rootless, for the most part penniless, they lie, cheat one another, sleep with whoever, change lovers overnight, all in the laziest, most relaxed, ennui-ridden style you can imagine. The protagonist, Naylor, at first disdains them, thinks of himself as an observer of the scene, just on a long holiday, but ends up...just like them, is trapped in this life of bored drinking and eating and sleeping around."
Joan also went back to the Original Expatriate himself to reread THE SUN ALSO RISES. "First reading was in high school, re-read it more than 20 years ago. It's quite amazing– it was Hemingway's first novel– and what impressed me most is not what you might think of as a particular strength: his descriptions of place, landscape. They are simple, direct (just like Hemingway) and totally realized. I was bothered ... by the blatant anti-Semitism in the book. It's hard for me to tell whether it's all there for the purpose of illuminating the ultimate outsider– the book opens with Robert Cohn; he seems to be the glue of the story: he is vilified throughout– or if it's the writer's own prejudice speaking.... There's also a particularly male point of view about women and sex: although Jake is impotent, it seems that he can be satisfied, possibly through oral sex, although it's not spelled out; apparently, though, Lady Brett cannot be satisfied in that fashion; she's got to have a man with a hard-on to get off. Oh well, that's Hemingway, and that's the 1920s. What I liked, though, was that these ‘lost' people were drawn so sympathetically; Jake Barnes is really a tragic figure, in a small, human way. Anyway, despite my discomfort with the anti-Semitism, I think the book is fascinating. I couldn't put it down."
She also likes "a story about a longish, sourish marriage... Paula Fox's DESPERATE CHARACTERS. A series of seemingly minor mishaps in the daily life of the Bentwoods (Otto and Sophie), beginning with Sophie's being bitten by a stray cat she's been feeding, threads and underscores their marital life. I enjoyed the New York, educated, not at all trendy, upper-middle class feel (Brooklyn brownstone, upper West-Side intellectuals, lawyers, etc.)."
As usual, I end this newsletter with a request that you, too, share your reading-- old novels, new novels, nonfiction, poetry, and even books to avoid. What are you reading these days?
– Meredith Sue Willis
MSueWillis@aol.com
Http://www.MeredithSueWillis.com
BOOKS mentioned in this newsletter are available from your public library and your local bookstore as well as online. For online shopping through independent booksellers, go to Booksense. Good online sources for used and out-of-print books are Advanced Book Exchange and Alibris at For comparison shopping and deep discounts, try http://www.allbookstores.com and www.half.com.
ENTHUSIASTIC PLUGS! Joan Newburger's story "Death and Taxes" is online in the SALT RIVER REVIEW and Shelley Ettinger's poem about Henry Kissinger and Chile is online at Mudlark.
If you want to write, please email Meredith Sue Willis directly at MSueWillis@aol.com.
Newsletter
# 23
May 13, 2002
This newsletter begins with a controversy about Cyril Connolly and Ernest Hemingway. Ardian Gill said he was surprised anyone would suggest reading Cyril Connolly's ROCK POOL (as Joan Liebowitz did in Newsletter #22). "His THE UNQUIET GRAVE, by contrast, is quite good," says Ardian, who does join Joan in liking THE SUN ALSO RISES.
But not Allan Appel. Allan relates, "When I was teaching private school high school English, a colleague asked me to read [THE SUN ALSO RISES.] He was teaching it (I wasn't) and since I advanced the opinion that Hemingway was over-rated -- all style and no substance -- he asked me to read the novel....So I did, and I was, as Dorothy Parker usefully said, underwhelmed. It's true that the book has a driving momentum and it's difficult to put it down, but so is pornography, once you get hooked on it. I'm not calling it pornography, but the secret engine that drives the book is the intimation that the narrator Jake is going to a) do the right thing finally, b) reveal something that will confirm reader's growing exasperation, c) reveal something about himself, d) change. None of this ever happens. The book stays in its key and doesn't shift although at any moment it feels as if it might. Each frame is the same as the preceding, with slight decorative shifts. The anti-Semitism is there because the author is an anti-Semite and this trait provides no self-knowledge to him or Cohn or anybody. People just drift through in this alcoholic haze and our interest is sustained by their stylishness and, as I say, the hope for change. But it doesn't occur....Incidentally, I love the Gary Cooper films based on the Hemingway novels and one reason is that the movies, with their different level of expectation (just seeing the characters in action, without revealing much is okay in a movie, for me, while not okay in a book), don't disappoint as the novels do. Well, that's it from the Hemingway curmudgeon corner."
Barbara Rosenblatt weighed in with nonfiction she has been reading for her masters' program: THE HOT ZONE by Richard Preston, SEABISCUIT by Laura Hillenbrand, THE LIARS CLUB by Mary Karr, and STORY OF A SHIPWRECKED SAILOR by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, along with some Susan Orlean pieces.
More nonfiction suggestions come from Fran Osten: "THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN , by Anne Fadiman... is a story of a Hmong child with a serious seizure condition and the collision of the American medical culture and the family's Hmong traditions and beliefs--pretty powerful.... [and] THE BLACK DOG OF FATE, by Peter Balakian, on the Armenian Genocide and the writer's growing awareness of his family's experience." She says she is currently caught up "in MARTYR'S CROSSING, by Amy Willentz, a story about Israeli-Palestinian interface, with interesting characterizations of both Palestinians and Israelis. Very topical just this moment. I haven't finished it, but am liking it thus far. It is the first thing I have read putting a personal face on the Palestinian side of things... I ... also enjoyed Michael Ondaatje's ANIL'S GHOST not so long ago, about genocide in Sri Lanka. There seems to be a theme in the books I've read lately doesn't it?" Yes, Fran, but unfortunately a theme in world events as well.
Halvard Johnson directs us to some good poetry: "For a hardy little band of poems republished online by THE BLUE MOON REVIEW, just click on this– http://www.thebluemoon.com/index.shtml. Poems by Gene Frumkin, Dick Allen, Elaine Equi, Tom Raworth, Bobby Byrd, Michael Heller, Mark Pawlak, James V. Cervantes, Charles O. Hartman, and Wendy Battin."
Jo Kerr Hodara has begun reading Coetzee, starting with FOE, which "I found "incomprehensible, but recognized as post-modernism. Did any of your other readers think that's what he was doing? Quite a different story with DISGRACE by the same author, a really interesting, maybe profound book."
Dolly Withrow, a self-described voracious reader, has recently enjoyed "TENDER AT THE BONE: GROWING UP AT THE TABLE, by Ruth Reichl; ADDIE, by Mary Lee Settle, AT HOME IN THE HEART OF APPALACHIA, by John O'Brien, and TEACHING A STONE TO TALK, by Annie Dillard (anything by Dillard)." Dolly also likes "anything by Barbara Holland and Bailey White."
Win Thies says he wants to return to some books he enjoyed in college. "In a busy world it is easy to get entangled in the passing and peripheral, in daily papers, news magazines and the like. I recall with pleasure a book I read Freshman year at Princeton (for European Lit 101): Italo Svevo's THE CONFESSIONS OF ZENO. Svevo's ‘real' name was Ettore Schmidt, and he was a banker in Trieste, in addition to an author....Trieste was a confluence of Austrian-German and Italian culture. The novel is comedic: Zeno seems to fail at everything. He seeks to court and win the most beautiful of three sisters, but ends up with the most homely, who turns out to be the only one who is truly caring. In investing, he loses mightily on a particular stock, but on account of an extreme currency fluctuation he makes money anyhow--! Let me read it again and see whether it stands up to a more adult sensibility."
Marianne Worthington begins her suggestions with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's famous novel ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. She writes that "although I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, I only recently read [it]....Because my experience with magical realism is limited, I wasn't sure I could even read this book, but quickly I realized that the author was calling me to divorce myself from reality in such a non-threatening way that it was easy to give myself over to the language and the stories in this marvelous classic. After I finished, I just wanted to lock myself up for a couple of months and do nothing but read! I have also recently read Morris Allen Grubbs' anthology of short fiction called HOME AND BEYOND: AN ANTHOLOGY OF KENTUCKY SHORT STORIES. Presented chronologically, these stories--some famous and some obscure--resonate with the contra positions of home and away. The marvelous (scholarly but readable) foreword, introduction, and afterword are nearly worth the price of the book alone. I also recommend Tony Earley's new book of autobiographical essays called SOMEHOW FORM A FAMILY: STORIES THAT ARE MOSTLY TRUE. Earley's graceful and lucid prose illuminates the dual perspective most middle-aged people have with roots in rural America: how television has affected our existence as much as our earthy relatives. (Earley's title is from "The Brady Bunch" theme song)....Poet Ron Rash's new collection...is haunting and beautiful. RAISING THE DEAD juxtaposes poems about the flooding of the Jocasse Valley (South Carolina) with poems about the death of the poet's first cousin at age 16. The results are poems with ghostly, watery narrators, compelled to speak and given the finest of voices through Rash' meticulous attention to poetic craft. This is a compelling book of poems."
Finally, Phyllis Moore asks, "Have you reread BAMBI lately? I was surprised at its message to grown-ups." Speaking of Phyllis, keep an eye peeled for her guest-edited issue of this newsletter coming up in June to celebrate writers from West Virginia!
BOOKS FOR READERS is not a Listserv; that is, your responses are not automatically sent to everyone who subscribes. If you want to tell what you're reading, please send email to Meredith Sue Willis at MSueWillis@aol.com.
BOOKS mentioned in this newsletter are available from your public library and your local bookstore as well as online. For online shopping through independent booksellers, go to Booksense. Good online sources for used and out-of-print books are Advanced Book Exchange and Alibris at For comparison shopping and deep discounts, try All Bookstores and Half.com.
BOOKS FOR READERS is not a Listserv; that is, your responses are not automatically sent to everyone who subscribes. If you want to tell what you're reading, please send email to Meredith Sue Willis at MSueWillis@aol.com.
If you want to write, please email Meredith Sue Willis directly at MSueWillis@aol.com.
Newsletter # 24
Memorial Day Week, 2002Here's a confession: at least since my son was born– and that is now seventeen years ago– I've rarely gone to the library. For speed and efficiency in getting exactly the book I want, I tend to buy my books from used, online book stores.
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a book on my "To Read" shelf at home. Forgotten by me for maybe four years, still sporting its bright orange $4.88 sticker from some cut-rate bin, CITIES ON A HILL by Frances Fitzgerald is made up of four longish nonfiction pieces originally written for The New Yorker. Each piece tells of an attempt in the 1980's to create Utopia in America. The four places are Jerry Falwell's born-again community in Lynchburg, VA; the Rajneeshpuram in Oregon; an all-senior citizen community in Florida; and the loosely organized, self-consciously gay neighborhood in San Francisco called the Castro. The book proved very useful for me as research for a novel I'm working on, and it also had as one of the real life characters in the Castro section the writer Armistead Maupin.
Maupin's series TALES OF THE CITY has been recommend by several people in this Newsletter, so I decided to vary my routine and give it a try by borrowing it from my local library. In my own defense, I'd like to say I never had very good library-going habits. It always seemed like a kind of miracle to me that you can walk into one of these places and carry out a stack of books. I was nine or ten and already a reader when I first went to the one-room Shinnston Woman's Club library. Up to that point, I had read gift books and family books and comic books I bought for myself, but one important day I finally visited that tiny room, run by volunteers, tucked in between a dentist's office and the mysterious Masonic Lodge. Books lined three walls, and there was one free-standing shelf with books on two sides. The far side was where I discovered heavy, closely-printed novels by the Russian writers Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy who I confused for years with Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky. I was always expecting to get caught looking at the forbidden writers (sorry, Dostoyevsky, rolling in your reactionary Slavophile grave!)– or arrested for walking out with too many books.
But, about a month ago, anticipating a slowdown in my spring teaching schedule, I made a leisurely visit to the South Orange, New Jersey, public library. It is a spacious brick building with meeting rooms and the children's section on a separate floor from the adult books and reference. I had to have my card updated, but I had the great fun unfolding my Books for Readers suggestion list and wandering in the stacks for a while. I took out Arthur Golden's MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, J.M. Coetzee's LIFE & TIMES OF MICHAEL K., and Armistead Maupin's SURE OF YOU– the first volume of the series was checked out.
Maupin's book was an easy read– somehow refreshing and light, even with the shadow of AIDS falling over various characters. Arthur Golden's best-selling MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA is one of many books with a brilliant opening narration of childhood. I was delighted with the carefully researched information about geisha life, the gradations of social class, the differences between geisha and prostitutes, etc. I didn't care as much for the final third of the novel with its happy ending— it was almost as if the first two thirds were the real story, the final third one of many possible endings, not especially inevitable.
Finally, in LIFE & TIMES OF MICHAEL K., J.M. Coetzee in his lucid and cool way tells an excruciating story of a deracinated man who tries to take his dying mother home, then struggles for a foothold in a dangerous world. The protagonist is something of a cross between Bartleby the Scrivener and Kafka's Hunger artist: that is, he protests against a mysteriously harsh world and an absurd social order by refusing. He refuses to be made a servant, he refuses to take help, he refuses food. One of the finest scenes is when his secretly nurtured pumpkins come ripe and he roasts one. It's a short, quirky, excruciating book. Coetzee seems to me to be one of those writers always worth reading.
Now I'm wondering about the rest of you. Are you an inveterate haunter of libraries? Shelley Ettinger borrows books from the vast library at New York University and says she is often the first person to take out books of fiction.
How about you? Do you like hardcovers best? Do you pass on your books or keep them forever? What kinds of books on your own shelves do you go back to? Do you buy online? From where? Do you go to the library every Thursday after work come hell or high water? Do you only make time to read what your book club is discussing this month? When someone directs you to an article or story online, do you read the screen or print out a hard copy? How do you read?
Please send comments, suggestions and responses to Meredith Sue Willis.
BOOKS RECEIVED
Belinda Anderson's book of short stories, THE WELL AIN'T DRY YET, has been praised by Lee Smith as "original, lively, poignant, and brimming with life" and is available from Mountain State Press or from Amazon.com.
David Cortesi's SECULAR WHOLENESS: A SKEPTIC'S PATHS TO A RICHER LIFE is available at http://www.tassos-oak.com.
BOOKS mentioned in this newsletter are available from your public library and your local bookstore as well as online. For online shopping through independent booksellers, try Booksense. Good sources for used and out-of-print books are Advanced Book Exchange and Alibris. For comparison shopping and deep discounts, try All Book Stores and Half.com.
Many of you sent responses to my questions about libraries and where you get the books you read. To keep the email version readable, I sent shortened versions of people's reflections. This is the online expanded version.
Lee Maynard said, "I was intrigued by the questions you asked about books and reading habits. You hit on some points that have always been important to me, but which I seldom hear talked about among other readers and writers. Do I like hardcovers best? Absolutely. Since I buy most of my books from used bookstores, I frequently will find a book in paperback that I've been meaning to read. I'll buy the paperback, I'll love the book, and then I'll hunt around until I can find the SAME book in hardcover and I'll buy it. Just so I can have the hardcover on my shelf. Strange, eh? It's just that, once I've read a good book, I sort of consider it to be "mine", that the writer wrote some message that drove straight into me, something that I can't bear to part with.....Normally, I root around in the used bookstores, gambling that what I find will be worth taking home. When someone directs me to an article or story online, I usually read it quickly online, then, if I'm interested, I'll print out a hard copy. I'm from the old school -- I still like to hold things in my hand when I read them. "
Joan Liebowitz is glad that a branch of the New York Public Library is a block away from her apartment. "It's a vital, vibrant institution in this marginal little neighborhood. There are readings, and a book group, and special events, a marvelous children's section that I use when my grandchildren are in town, computer availability, daily papers and periodicals, so you don't have to subscribe in order to read People Magazine, Popular Mechanics or The Atlantic Monthly or Scientific American. I love the place and couldn't do without it. I check out several books each month....I may be indulging a bit in hyperbole, but for me the library represents the ultimate in civilization."
Ardian Gill also praises the NYPL. "I use the New York Public Library for research. Their collections are amazing: NY Times back to the Civil War, for example. (You can learn about abortion trials in the 1860's). And the restored main reading room is beautiful. As a child I lived in the library of my small town. I contrived to get a special pass to use the adult section when my age and grade in school limited me to the children's section."
Bob Bender is an afficionado of New Jersey libraries: "A retiree, I enjoy going to the various area libraries which participate in the foreign film festivals. I love free foreign films - and libraries. And the coffee and cookies at some of them, like Millburn and Springfield. And I browse and buy some - a few - of the reduced priced books."
Finally, Naomi Freundlich tells how her children took her back to the library: "I have been taking my kids to the library for years, watching them take out stacks of books and work their way through them over the next three weeks. Even with the inevitable fines and lost books it's the world's greatest entertainment bargain. One day my older daughter asked me why I never take anything out myself and I really couldn't give them a good answer. Since then I've taken out several books--usually things I think are too trashy or lightweight to actually buy!....When I spent three weeks last summer in a small town in the Catskills I got a library card for the small cedar-shingled library and my children and I would walk the half-mile or so and take out books nearly every other day. I'm not sure why I don't take serious books out of the library but I think it has something to do with the pressure of having to bring it back by a certain date. Of course you can renew books--in Brooklyn you can even do it on-line or by phone--but I guess after years of writing on deadline I've become phobic of accepting any more such responsibilities...Sometimes I buy books and don't get around to reading them until months later."
DEPARTMENT OF BELOVED VICTORIAN LITERATURE I decided to treat myself with a fix of Victorian Literature from my private supply. I own the Oxford edition of Dickens (it always makes me feel secure to have ALL of Dickens on my shelves), looked for something short, and pulled out A TALE OF TWO CITIES. It is such a grand old-fashioned read! The history is for the birds, but the melodrama sings– "Tis a far far better thing I do" and all the rest– in the end, it is really a story about the ravages of alcoholism and the possibilities for redemption in this world, not about revolution at all. – MSW
READERS RECOMMEND Denise Mann has several book suggestions plus one major author: "I am also a big fan of Armisted Maupin and found the whole series engaging and a guilty pleasure much like some nighttime dramas. I also loved his haunting novel THE NIGHT LISTENER, which, although underdeveloped in parts, was truly chilling, and I found MAYBE THE MOON, a book about the fate of the world's smallest woman who once played a part in a movie similar to ET, is one of my favorite novels. I just finished Richard Russo's EMPIRE FALLS which was rich, entertaining and impossible to put down. I loved it and highly recommend it to anyone. It was by far my favorite book this year, next to Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS. I have also read STRAIGHT MAN by Russo which was hysterical. This Spring, I finally picked up AMERICAN PASTORAL which has been on my book shelf for quite a while. I found it real and disturbing. It also helped me recall my fondness for Philip Roth's early work (GOODBYE COLUMBUS and PORTNOY'S COMPLAIN) in particular. I read his first ever novel LETTING GO which was dense but interesting to read in terms of his evolution as a writer. Then I read OPERATION SHYLOCK which was timely and even eye-opening given the state of affairs in the Middle East. Both are worth reading for Philip Roth fans.
Shelley Ettinger is reading "Jonathan Safran Foer's EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED, the latest highly touted work by a wunderkind, and oh damn, I say with the pettiest jealousy, it's incredible. Very funny and utterly heartbreaking. I can't imagine how someone so young could have done it, but this book captures, it seems to me, the funny, brokenhearted core of what it is to be a Jew."
Naomi Freundlich enjoyed, for light reading: "ME TIMES THREE by Alex Witchel (it's amazing how being a powerful entertainment reporter and married to Frank Rich can get you a fiction contract). Elinor Lipmann's books were a good surprise two summers ago and last summer I read the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Susan Cheever's memoir." She adds, "I also read LIFE AND TIMES OF MICHAEL K.[by J.M. Coetzee] and found it to be searingly depressing and bleak, I think it is his darkest book and probably the least-read. I recently read KAVALIER AND CLAY by Michael Chabon and thought it was fantastic. It's been a long time since I read a book where the author creates such a dense and complete fictional world with characters who you care deeply about. His research on topics as diverse as the birth of action comics, the Golem, magicians, escapists and life in Prague during the 1930s was admirable. Finally, a friend of mine is a literary agent and she gave me several books by her client Robb Forman Dew. She has a new book out called THE EVIDENCE AGAINST HER, which takes place in Ohio at the turn of the century. It's the first of a family saga and is quite good. But I also read a book published in the late 70's (I think) that's been re-released called DALE LOVES SOPHIE TO DEATH. It's a story about a woman who goes back to her childhood home (also Ohio) with her children for the summer while her husband stays back at their home in Mass. I wonder if anyone else knows this author?"
BONUS: REFLECTIONS ON READING
Lee Maynard: I was intrigued by the questions you asked about books and reading habits. You hit on some points that have always been important to me, but which I seldom hear talked about among other readers and writers. Do I like hardcovers best?
Absolutely. Since I buy most of my books from used bookstores, I frequently will find a book in paperback that I've been meaning to read. I'll buy the paperback, I'll love the book, and then I'll hunt around until I can find the SAME book in hardcover and I'll buy it. Just so I can have the hardcover on my shelf. Strange, eh? It's just that, once I've read a good book, I sort of consider it to be "mine", that the writer wrote some message that drove straight into me, something that I can't bear to part with.
Which brings me to your next question: do I pass books along or keep them forever? Both. I will NOT part with a hardcover, but I do pass along paperbacks. Years ago, I got to know a ranching family in Arizona. They became very important to me and we still keep in close touch. I visit there often. These days, they raise and train very expensive horses, very hard work, one of those pre-dawn-to-after-dark businesses. When I have a box of paperbacks to send along, that's where I send them. They have established a type of lending library in one of their barns. Makes me feel good to know where the books go.
What kinds of books on my shelves do I go back to? Good books of any kind. Good fiction, mostly. I seldom re-read a book from cover to cover. Usually, I just open a good book (a Hemingway, MacCarthy, Phillips or . . . a Willis) at some random spot and read until I am satisfied. Sort of like having dessert in the middle of the day. Completely refreshes and energizes me.
Do I buy online? Yep, new books only, and usually from Amazon. I live 35 miles from the nearest bookstore, so Amazon is just an easy way to go. Otherwise, I normally save my "wants" until I can get to the area's largest bookstore, in Albuquerque. I'll buy from one to 10 books at a time. Of course, where I live also means that I'm 35 miles from the nearest library, so I don't get there as often as I would like. No regular schedule to visit the library.
Since I don't belong to a book club (except yours, of course) I have no bunch of folks throwing good books my way. Normally, I root around in the used bookstores, gambling that what I find will be worth taking home. When someone directs me to an article or story online, I usually read it quickly online, then, if I'm interested, I'll print out a hard copy. I'm from the old school -- I still like to hold things in my hand when I read them.
Joan Liebowitz: A branch of the New York Public Library is a block away from my apartment. It's a vital, vibrant institution in this marginal little neighborhood. There are readings, and a book group, and special events, a marvelous children's section that I use when my grandchildren are in town, computer availability, daily papers and periodicals, so you don't have to subscribe in order to read People Magazine, Popular Mechanics or The Atlantic Monthly or Scientific American. I love the place and couldn't do without it. I check out several books each month; if something isn't on the branch's shelves, it can be ordered from another branch and held for me. I'm notified the minute it comes in. I don't feel that I've wasted my money if I don't like a book I've checked out, and, on the other hand, if I love a book I've checked out, I'll go buy it so that I can have it on my shelves. I may be indulging a bit in hyperbole, but for me the library represents the ultimate in civilization.
Ardian Gill: I use the New York public library for research. Their collections are amazing: NY Times back to the Civil War, for example.( you can learn about abortion trials in the 1860's). And the restored main reading room is beautiful. As a child I lived in the library of my small town. I contrived to get a special pass to use the adult section when my age and grade in school limited me to the children's section. I think MY FRIEND FLICKA was the first adult book I took out. Today, with Barnes and Noble, who needs a lending library, just go in and read. As for books read most often, UNDER THE VOLCANO (Malcolm Lowry) is a clear first, and HUCKLEBERRY FINN is next. There are good audio tapes for these. I especially recommend Dick Cavett's (yes!) recording of HUCKLEBERRY FINN.
Bob Bender: Your essay about libraries touched me in several ways. First, last year I bought CITIES ON A HILL, I think for $1, at the reduced rack at the Metuchen [New Jersey] Library. A retiree, I enjoy going to the various area libraries which participate in the foreign film festivals. I love free foreign films - and libraries. And the coffee and cookies at some of them, like Millburn and Springfield. And I browse and buy some - a few - of the reduced priced books.
But last week Patty and I got engaged in vacation planning, necessitating state maps. For that I use the encyclopedias that Cousin Judy got for us 30 years ago. But the only place they fit in our bedroom was on the bottom shelf near the tv. Now I have trouble kneeling due to the knees and seeing too. So it was time for a change. After a brief dispute with Patty, we agreed on an alternative. That necessitated going through another bookcase. That yielded even more books from our voluminous library that I should read. So there, for the libraries!
ABOUT AMAZON.COM
The largest unionized bookstore in America has a webstore at Powells Books. Some people prefer shopping online there to shopping at Amazon.com. An alternative way to reach Powell's site and support the union is via http://www.powellsunion.com. Prices are the same but 10% of your purchase will go to support the union benefit fund. For a discussion about Amazon and organized labor and small presses, see the comments of Jonathan Greene and others in Issues #97 and #98 .
WHERE TO FIND BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS NEWSLETTER
If a book discussed in this newsletter has no source mentioned, don’t forget your public library and your local independent bookstore.
To buy books online, I often go first to Bookfinder or Alibris. Bookfinder has a feature that tells you the book price WITH shipping and handling, so you can compare what you’re really going to have to pay.
A lot of people whose political instincts I respect prefer the unionized bricks-and-mortar bookstore Powells (see "About Amazon.com" above) that sells online at http://powellsbooks.com. Another good source for used and out-of-print books is All Book Stores at http://www.allbookstores.com/ .
Take a look also at Paperback Book Swap, a low cost (postage only) way to get rid of your old books and get new ones by trading with other readers.
If you are using an electronic reader like Kindle, Nook, or Kobo, get free books at the Gutenberg Project-- most classics, and other things as well. Libraries now lend e-books too!
RESPONSES TO THIS NEWSLETTER
Please send responses and suggestions directly to Meredith Sue Willis at MeredithSueWillis@gmail.com. Unless you instruct otherwise, your responses may be edited for length and published in this newsletter.
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LICENSE
Books for Readers Newsletter by Meredith Sue Willis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.meredithsuewillis.com. To subscribe and unsubscribe, use the form below.
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#130 Lynda Schor, Ed Myers, Charles Bukowski, Terry Bisson, The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism
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#128 Jeffrey Sokolow on Histories and memoirs of the Civil Rights Movement
#127 Olive Kitteridge; Urban fiction; Shelley Ettinger on Joyce Carol Oates
#126 Jack Hussey's Ghosts of Walden, The Leopard , Roger's Version, The Reluctanct Fundamentalist
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#124 Cloudsplitter, Founding Brothers, Obenzinger on Bradley's Harlem Vs. Columbia University
#123 MSW's summer reading round-up; Olive Schreiner; more The Book Thief; more on the state of editing
#122 Left-wing cowboy poetry; Jewish partisans during WW2; responses to "Hire a Book Doctor?"
#121 Jane Lazarre's latest; Irving Howe's Leon Trotsky; Gringolandia; "Hire a Book Doctor?"
#120 Dreama Frisk on The Book Thief; Mark Rudd; Thulani Davis's summer reading list
#119 Two Histories of the Jews; small press books for Summer
#118 Kasuo Ichiguro, Jeanette Winterson, The Carter Family!
#117 Cat Pleska on Ann Pancake; Phyllis Moore on Jayne Anne Phillips; and Dolly Withrow on publicity
#116 Ann Pancake, American Psycho, Marc Harshman on George Mackay Brown
#115 Adam Bede, Nietzsche, Johnny Sundstrom
#114 Judith Moffett, high fantasy, Jared Diamond, Lily Tuck
#113 Espionage--nonfiction and fiction: Orson Scott Card and homophobia
#112 Marc Kaminsky, Nel Noddings, Orson Scott Card, Ed Myers
#111 James Michener, Mary Lee Settle, Ardian Gill, BIll Higginson, Jeremy Osner, Carol Brodtick
#110 Nahid Rachlin, Marion Cuba on self-publishing; Thulani Davis, The Road, memoirs
#109 Books about the late nineteen-sixties: Busy Dying; Flying Close to the Sun; Looking Good; Trespassers
#108 The Animal Within; The Ground Under My Feet; King of Swords
#107 The Absentee; Gorky Park; Little Scarlet; Howl; Health Proxy
#106 Castle Rackrent; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; More on Drown; Blindness & more
#105 Everything is Miscellaneous, The Untouchable, Kettle Bottom by Diane Gilliam Fisher
#104 Responses to Shelley on Junot Diaz and more; More best books of 2007
#103 Guest Editor: Shelley Ettinger and her best books of 2007
#102 Saramago's BLINDNESS; more on NEVER LET ME GO; George Lies on Joe Gatski
#101 My Brilliant Career, The Scarlet Letter, John Banville, Never Let Me Go
#100 The Poisonwood Bible, Pamela Erens, More Harry P.
#99 Jonathan Greene on Amazon.com; Molly Gilman on Dogs of Babel
#98 Guest editor Pat Arnow; more on the Amazon.com debate
#97 Using Thomas Hardy; Why I Write; more
#96 Lucy Calkins, issue fiction for young adults
#95 Collapse, Harry Potter, Steve Geng
#94 Alice Robinson-Gilman, Maynard on Momaday
#93 Kristin Lavransdatter, House Made of Dawn, Leaving Atlanta
#92 Death of Ivan Ilych; Memoirs
#91 Richard Powers discussion
#90 William Zinsser, Memoir, Shakespeare
#89 William Styron, Ellen Willis, Dune, Germinal, and much more
#88 Sandra Cisneros's Caramelo
#87 Wings of the Dove, Forever After (9/11 Teachers)
#86 Leora Skolkin-Smith, American Pastoral, and more
#85 Wobblies, Winterson, West Virginia Encyclopedia
#84 Karen Armstrong, Geraldine Brooks, Peter Taylor
#83 3-Cornered World, Da Vinci Code
#82 The Eustace Diamonds, Strapless, Empire Falls
#81 Philip Roth's The Plot Against America , Paola Corso
#80 Joanne Greenberg, Ed Davis, more Murdoch; Special Discussion on Memoir--Frey and J.T. Leroy
#79 Adam Sexton, Iris Murdoch, Hemingway
#78 The Hills at Home; Tess of the D'Urbervilles; Jean Stafford
#77 On children's books--guest editor Carol Brodtrick
#76 Mary Lee Settle, Mary McCarthy
#75 The Makioka Sisters
#74 In Our Hearts We Were Giants
#73 Joyce Dyer
#72 Bill Robinson WWII story
#71 Eva Kollisch on G.W. Sebald
#70 On Reading
#69 Nella Larsen, Romola
#68 P.D. James
#67 The Medici
#66 Curious Incident,Temple Grandin
#65 Ingrid Hughes on Memoir
#64 Boyle, Worlds of Fiction
#63 The Namesame
#62 Honorary Consul; The Idiot
#61 Lauren's Line
#60 Prince of Providence
#59 The Mutual Friend, Red Water
#58 AkÉ, Season of Delight
#57 Screaming with Cannibals
#56 Benita Eisler's Byron
#55 Addie, Hottentot Venus, Ake
#54 Scott Oglesby, Jane Rule
#53 Nafisi,Chesnutt, LeGuin
#52 Keith Maillard, Lee Maynard
#51 Gregory Michie, Carter Seaton
#50 Atonement, Victoria Woodhull biography
#49 Caucasia
#48 Richard Price, Phillip Pullman
#47 Mid- East Islamic World Reader
#46 Invitation to a Beheading
#45 The Princess of Cleves
#44 Shelley Ettinger: A Few Not-so-Great Books
#43 Woolf, The Terrorist Next Door
#42 John Sanford
#41 Isabelle Allende
#40 Ed Myers on John Williams
#39 Faulkner
#38 Steven Bloom No New Jokes
#37 James Webb's Fields of Fire
#36 Middlemarch
#35 Conrad, Furbee, Silas House
#34 Emshwiller
#33 Pullman, Daughter of the Elm
#32 More Lesbian lit; Nostromo
#31 Lesbian fiction
#30 Carol Shields, Colson Whitehead
#29 More William Styron
#28 William Styron
#27 Daniel Gioseffi
#26 Phyllis Moore
#25 On Libraries....
#24 Tales of the City
#23 Nonfiction, poetry, and fiction
#22 More on Why This Newsletter
#21 Salinger, Sarah Waters, Next of Kin
#20 Jane Lazarre
#19 Artemisia Gentileschi
#18 Ozick, Coetzee, Joanna Torrey
#17 Arthur Kinoy
#16 Mrs. Gaskell and lots of other suggestions
#15 George Dennison, Pat Barker, George Eliot
#14 Small Presses
#13 Gap Creek, Crum
#12 Reading after 9-11
#11 Political Novels
#10 Summer Reading ideas
#9 Shelley Ettinger picks
#8 Harriette Arnow's Hunter's Horn
#7 About this newsletter
#6 Maria Edgeworth
#5 Tales of Good and Evil; Moon Tiger
#4 Homer Hickam and The Chosen
#3 J.T. LeRoy and Tale of Genji
#2 Chick Lit
#1 About this newsletter
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