Snuggling Up with Books About Books

My book buddy, Helen, inadvertently gave me a topic to write about today! I posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for today's #Estellagram prompt, that I'm currently reading Sara Nelson's So Many Books, So Little Time.

For some reason, when I was at the library on Sunday, I got an itch for books about books. After my post, Helen asked me to post a list of books about books! With a quick Google search, I found this completely awesome, and somewhat overwhelming, list of books about books from Goodreads. It includes fiction and non-fiction which is kinda fun.

So out of curiosity, I went through the first few pages to see which books about books I'd actually read. And WHOA! I've read a lot of them. Here are some of the non-fiction. The fiction books are a whole other post.

1. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman -- Fun book. I think she's a little smarter than the average bear, and I felt a little alienated as a reader on occasion. Overall, a great read, though.

2. Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason by Nancy Pearl - Fun, quick reference.

3. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff - One of my favorites. A touching book about a bookish friendship.

4. More Book Lust by Nancy Pearl - More quick reference. 

5. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby - Hornby has a great voice. I'd read hardly anything he discussed, but oddly, it didn't matter. 

6. So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson - Not too far in, but this one is very accessible and her goal (to figure out why she's so into books and reading) is one to which I can relate!

7. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch - Awesome. Depressing at times as it deals with death and grief, but still amazing. 

8. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi - Powerful. If a slog in spots. 

9. How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster - An accessible book for those interested in doing more analysis of their reading. 

10. Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose - Insightful, though I was more interested in the books and reading part than the writerly techniques and motivations part. 

11. How Reading Changed by Life by Anna Quindlen - A thin little book filled with awesome. 

12. Books by Larry McMurtry - I'm sort of cheating here since I read a portion of this book in a bookstore and never finished. Not the book's fault. But I was charmed. 

13. This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson - One of my all-time fave non-fiction books. This is a great spotlight on the changing nature of libraries and the role of librarians. They rock, FYI. 

14. My Reading Life by Pat Conroy - A really touching, poetic book about Conroy's life as a reader. 

15. How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom - Bloom is a douchey old windbag, but I still tried it. 

Which books about books have you read? Do you have any to add to the list? 

Snuggling Up with Books About Books

My book buddy, Helen, inadvertently gave me a topic to write about today! I posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for today's #Estellagram prompt, that I'm currently reading Sara Nelson's So Many Books, So Little Time.

For some reason, when I was at the library on Sunday, I got an itch for books about books. After my post, Helen asked me to post a list of books about books! With a quick Google search, I found this completely awesome, and somewhat overwhelming, list of books about books from Goodreads. It includes fiction and non-fiction which is kinda fun.

So out of curiosity, I went through the first few pages to see which books about books I'd actually read. And WHOA! I've read a lot of them. Here are some of the non-fiction. The fiction books are a whole other post.

1. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman -- Fun book. I think she's a little smarter than the average bear, and I felt a little alienated as a reader on occasion. Overall, a great read, though.

2. Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason by Nancy Pearl - Fun, quick reference.

3. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff - One of my favorites. A touching book about a bookish friendship.

4. More Book Lust by Nancy Pearl - More quick reference. 

5. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby - Hornby has a great voice. I'd read hardly anything he discussed, but oddly, it didn't matter. 

6. So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson - Not too far in, but this one is very accessible and her goal (to figure out why she's so into books and reading) is one to which I can relate!

7. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch - Awesome. Depressing at times as it deals with death and grief, but still amazing. 

8. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi - Powerful. If a slog in spots. 

9. How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster - An accessible book for those interested in doing more analysis of their reading. 

10. Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose - Insightful, though I was more interested in the books and reading part than the writerly techniques and motivations part. 

11. How Reading Changed by Life by Anna Quindlen - A thin little book filled with awesome. 

12. Books by Larry McMurtry - I'm sort of cheating here since I read a portion of this book in a bookstore and never finished. Not the book's fault. But I was charmed. 

13. This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson - One of my all-time fave non-fiction books. This is a great spotlight on the changing nature of libraries and the role of librarians. They rock, FYI. 

14. My Reading Life by Pat Conroy - A really touching, poetic book about Conroy's life as a reader. 

15. How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom - Bloom is a douchey old windbag, but I still tried it. 

Which books about books have you read? Do you have any to add to the list? 

Review: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

One of the most buzzed-about books about books to come along in a good while is Nina Sankovitch's memoir, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading. Three years after the death of her sister, Anne-Marie, Sankovitch decides to read one book every single day in order to slow down her life and deal with her grief instead of running from it.

Grief is a complicated thing. When I picked up Tolstoy and the Purple Chair it was for the pure rush of excitement of picking up a book about books. However, the grief component in this book came into focus for me when I found out that a good friend of mine from my undergraduate days passed away. While we hadn't been in close contact in a good while, I still enjoyed keeping up with him on Facebook, the occasional exchange of a funny comment or a "How's life?" Even though we were removed from each other by miles and hectic lives, some little part of me was crushed to lose such a wonderful and influential friend. On top of that, he died a good while back, and I'm just finding out. How the hell did I not KNOW?! For that, I am regretful.

When I was 18 and a freshman in college, I moved out of my mom's house and lived on the campus of Baylor University in a dorm with 600 freshman girls (ack!).  I grew up in a small town of 1,200 in northeast Texas. I graduated with a class of 52. Baylor is made up of roughly 15,000 students and was slightly overwhelming.

On the whole, Baylor is a "privileged" environment. Lots of rich kids and upper-class families (celebs' kids, a prince even). I was one of the students who came from a single-parent home and depended on scholarships and work-study to get through. I started my on-campus job as a Student Technology Specialist on my third day there, and Mike was the first person I met. The group of students with whom I shared the campus computer labs would become like a family to me for my two years at Baylor. Mike was one of my favorite people. At a Baptist college, and having led a small town existence to that point, I was not expecting the first friend I made to be an openly gay atheist with 10 piercings.

But my God, he was so special. He was outgoing, more than a little hyper, funny, and one of the smartest people I've ever met to this very day. He never met a stranger, he could learn a new language in six weeks flat, and he was always a character. He accompanied me to my freshman formal dance where we scandalized the crowd with our dancing, and when I got my first apartment he showed up to christen the place with a box of wine. I woke up in tears in the middle of the night because I can't believe he's gone and I can't believe I didn't know.

Reading this book, I had the grief part covered. Of all the things Nina Sankovitch writes in her book -- and there are a great many wonderful things -- what I relate to most is the multi-faceted need she feels for books. She's looking for inspiration, insight, comfort, motivation, empathy. She's looking for authors she can relate to, who feel the same things, express them in ways she cannot.

That, friends, is a laundry list of the reasons why I read. Books allow me comfort and heightened insight, heightened experience. While I hadn't expected my own grief to sneak into my reading of this book, it most certainly did. While Mike and I did not have a bookish connection, we had a beautiful, fun, spirited friendship and this book allowed me to share some of the insight and solace Sankovitch experienced during her year of reading. Throughout my life, in the throes of personal tragedies and losses, I too turned to books with a deep need for some enlightenment. It was not at all painful to read Tolstoy and the Purple Chair but quite cathartic.

A few favorite passages:

When I was in high school, I began keeping a journal of favorite quotations from books. The purpose of the journal was to act as a vault. I wanted to save the words whispered in my ears by beloved authors, and store them up for the day when I would need to hear them again. As much as they had inspired me when I first read them, I could turn to them when needed and rekindle the inspiration. I hoped back then that by following the words, I would become stronger, wiser, braver, and kinder. The quotes I saved in my journal were the proof of, as well as guidance for, how I would meet any challenge and overcome difficulties. (111)

I received an e-mail from a man in New York City who had been doing research for a book club meeting and happened upon my review of The Sin Eater by Alice Thomas Ellis. Over the next few months he would become a regular correspondent, recommending books like The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy and Desperate Characters by Paula Fox. He and I, complete strangers, made a connection through our love of books. A reader reached out from Germany, the sister of a friend wrote from Brazil with recommendations of Brazilian writers, a woman wrote from Singapore, and I had a whole slew of British book lovers writing in with recommendations. There was a world of voracious readers out there, and they all had "must read" and "loved this" books for me. (105)

 I was right there with Bolsover on his search for understanding, rooting alongside him for a why and wherefore for death, and hoping that he might find relief from his agonizing pain of responsibility and, in finding this relief, show me a way to ease my own. Bolsover felt guilt as a clawing into his shoulder. I felt it closer inside me, a sharpness scratching hard against my heart. My still beating heart. Beating only by chance. The chance that felled my sister but kept me alive. (89)

Now, as much as I liked this book and as much as it landed in my life at the exact right time, it was not perfect. In a book all about coping with death and grief, things can get a little repetitive. I found it very easy to get lost in Sankovitch's rich turn of phrase, but it felt a little like she shoehorned some of her chapters to get them to fit with her overall theme. In some instances, I wished I was reading a book like Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris where the love of reading was allowed to exist on its own and not always circle back to death.

If you have an opportunity to try this book, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. For those who may be turned off by the subject of grief, I would still give it a go. There are a great many things to enjoy in this thoughtful examination of the reading life and the healing power therein.

Rating:

Snuggle -- Skewer

Pub. Date: June 7, 2011
Publisher: Harper
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0061999849
Source: Library

Review: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

One of the most buzzed-about books about books to come along in a good while is Nina Sankovitch's memoir, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading. Three years after the death of her sister, Anne-Marie, Sankovitch decides to read one book every single day in order to slow down her life and deal with her grief instead of running from it.

Grief is a complicated thing. When I picked up Tolstoy and the Purple Chair it was for the pure rush of excitement of picking up a book about books. However, the grief component in this book came into focus for me when I found out that a good friend of mine from my undergraduate days passed away. While we hadn't been in close contact in a good while, I still enjoyed keeping up with him on Facebook, the occasional exchange of a funny comment or a "How's life?" Even though we were removed from each other by miles and hectic lives, some little part of me was crushed to lose such a wonderful and influential friend. On top of that, he died a good while back, and I'm just finding out. How the hell did I not KNOW?! For that, I am regretful.

When I was 18 and a freshman in college, I moved out of my mom's house and lived on the campus of Baylor University in a dorm with 600 freshman girls (ack!).  I grew up in a small town of 1,200 in northeast Texas. I graduated with a class of 52. Baylor is made up of roughly 15,000 students and was slightly overwhelming.

On the whole, Baylor is a "privileged" environment. Lots of rich kids and upper-class families (celebs' kids, a prince even). I was one of the students who came from a single-parent home and depended on scholarships and work-study to get through. I started my on-campus job as a Student Technology Specialist on my third day there, and Mike was the first person I met. The group of students with whom I shared the campus computer labs would become like a family to me for my two years at Baylor. Mike was one of my favorite people. At a Baptist college, and having led a small town existence to that point, I was not expecting the first friend I made to be an openly gay atheist with 10 piercings.

But my God, he was so special. He was outgoing, more than a little hyper, funny, and one of the smartest people I've ever met to this very day. He never met a stranger, he could learn a new language in six weeks flat, and he was always a character. He accompanied me to my freshman formal dance where we scandalized the crowd with our dancing, and when I got my first apartment he showed up to christen the place with a box of wine. I woke up in tears in the middle of the night because I can't believe he's gone and I can't believe I didn't know.

Reading this book, I had the grief part covered. Of all the things Nina Sankovitch writes in her book -- and there are a great many wonderful things -- what I relate to most is the multi-faceted need she feels for books. She's looking for inspiration, insight, comfort, motivation, empathy. She's looking for authors she can relate to, who feel the same things, express them in ways she cannot.

That, friends, is a laundry list of the reasons why I read. Books allow me comfort and heightened insight, heightened experience. While I hadn't expected my own grief to sneak into my reading of this book, it most certainly did. While Mike and I did not have a bookish connection, we had a beautiful, fun, spirited friendship and this book allowed me to share some of the insight and solace Sankovitch experienced during her year of reading. Throughout my life, in the throes of personal tragedies and losses, I too turned to books with a deep need for some enlightenment. It was not at all painful to read Tolstoy and the Purple Chair but quite cathartic.

A few favorite passages:

When I was in high school, I began keeping a journal of favorite quotations from books. The purpose of the journal was to act as a vault. I wanted to save the words whispered in my ears by beloved authors, and store them up for the day when I would need to hear them again. As much as they had inspired me when I first read them, I could turn to them when needed and rekindle the inspiration. I hoped back then that by following the words, I would become stronger, wiser, braver, and kinder. The quotes I saved in my journal were the proof of, as well as guidance for, how I would meet any challenge and overcome difficulties. (111)

I received an e-mail from a man in New York City who had been doing research for a book club meeting and happened upon my review of The Sin Eater by Alice Thomas Ellis. Over the next few months he would become a regular correspondent, recommending books like The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy and Desperate Characters by Paula Fox. He and I, complete strangers, made a connection through our love of books. A reader reached out from Germany, the sister of a friend wrote from Brazil with recommendations of Brazilian writers, a woman wrote from Singapore, and I had a whole slew of British book lovers writing in with recommendations. There was a world of voracious readers out there, and they all had "must read" and "loved this" books for me. (105)

 I was right there with Bolsover on his search for understanding, rooting alongside him for a why and wherefore for death, and hoping that he might find relief from his agonizing pain of responsibility and, in finding this relief, show me a way to ease my own. Bolsover felt guilt as a clawing into his shoulder. I felt it closer inside me, a sharpness scratching hard against my heart. My still beating heart. Beating only by chance. The chance that felled my sister but kept me alive. (89)

Now, as much as I liked this book and as much as it landed in my life at the exact right time, it was not perfect. In a book all about coping with death and grief, things can get a little repetitive. I found it very easy to get lost in Sankovitch's rich turn of phrase, but it felt a little like she shoehorned some of her chapters to get them to fit with her overall theme. In some instances, I wished I was reading a book like Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris where the love of reading was allowed to exist on its own and not always circle back to death.

If you have an opportunity to try this book, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. For those who may be turned off by the subject of grief, I would still give it a go. There are a great many things to enjoy in this thoughtful examination of the reading life and the healing power therein.

Rating:

Snuggle -- Skewer

Pub. Date: June 7, 2011
Publisher: Harper
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0061999849
Source: Library

Memorable Passages: My Reading Life

One of the things I love about my Nook is that I can quickly and easily mark passages of interest in the e-books I'm reading. I've always been a perpetual note-taker, dog-earer, and passage highlighter.

As I was working my way through Pat Conroy's My Reading Life, I found myself marking a LOT of passages. While I'm not planning to write a formal review given the gushing in my last post (that opinion did not change), I will share another passage that made me smile and laugh a little at the end.

Here is what I want from a  book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart. I want a novel so poetic that I do not have to turn to the standby anthologies of poetry to satisfy that itch for music, for perfection and economy of phrasing, for exactness of tone. Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food and drink, because a writer has possessed me, crazed me with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next. Again, I know that story is suspect in the high precincts of American fiction, but only because it brings entertainment and pleasure, the same responses that have always driven puritanical spirits at the dinner table wild when the talk turns to sexual intercourse and incontinence.

Right on!

Have you read any noteworthy passages lately?

Memorable Passages: My Reading Life

One of the things I love about my Nook is that I can quickly and easily mark passages of interest in the e-books I'm reading. I've always been a perpetual note-taker, dog-earer, and passage highlighter.

As I was working my way through Pat Conroy's My Reading Life, I found myself marking a LOT of passages. While I'm not planning to write a formal review given the gushing in my last post (that opinion did not change), I will share another passage that made me smile and laugh a little at the end.

Here is what I want from a  book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart. I want a novel so poetic that I do not have to turn to the standby anthologies of poetry to satisfy that itch for music, for perfection and economy of phrasing, for exactness of tone. Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food and drink, because a writer has possessed me, crazed me with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next. Again, I know that story is suspect in the high precincts of American fiction, but only because it brings entertainment and pleasure, the same responses that have always driven puritanical spirits at the dinner table wild when the talk turns to sexual intercourse and incontinence.

Right on!

Have you read any noteworthy passages lately?

I Love What I'm Reading

Every once in a while, one of those books comes along worth savoring, worth dragging out for far longer than it should take to complete. I'm three fourths into one of those books now; My Reading Life by Pat Conroy is just beautiful. It's funny, quirky, smart, and not at all short on emotion.

In one particularly touching essay, "On Being a Military Brat," Conroy recalls his abusive relationship with his father, a fighter pilot in the U.S. Armed Forces. He discusses not only what it was like to be uprooted constantly and deal with abuse, but also how his father was reformed and learned to love in his later years. The end of the essay is especially touching, as he explains his vision and his dream of hosting a parade of "military brats" just like himself with armed forces fathers lined up in the stands saluting those brats' "service" to America. His mother, and the kids alike, always felt that they were part of the military just as much as the father and served America by being true to one of its protectors and constant in their devotion and service.

While I'm not a military brat myself, and I can't relate to the lack of belonging Conroy discusses in the essay, it was just unbelievably powerful. Here's a snippet about the parade he imagines:

To the ancient beat of drums we could pass by those erect and silent rows of fathers. What a fearful word "father" is to so many of us, but not on this day, when the marchers keep perfect step and the command for "eyes right" roars through our disciplined ranks and we turn to face our fathers in that crowd of warriors.

In this parade these men would understand the nature and the value of their children's sacrifice for the first time. Our fathers would stand at rigid attention. Then they would begin to salute us, one by one, and in that salute, that one sign of recognition, of acknowledgment, they would thank us for the first time. They would be thanking their own children for their fortitude and courage and generosity and long suffering, for enduring a military childhood.

And now off to read some more...

I Love What I'm Reading

Every once in a while, one of those books comes along worth savoring, worth dragging out for far longer than it should take to complete. I'm three fourths into one of those books now; My Reading Life by Pat Conroy is just beautiful. It's funny, quirky, smart, and not at all short on emotion.

In one particularly touching essay, "On Being a Military Brat," Conroy recalls his abusive relationship with his father, a fighter pilot in the U.S. Armed Forces. He discusses not only what it was like to be uprooted constantly and deal with abuse, but also how his father was reformed and learned to love in his later years. The end of the essay is especially touching, as he explains his vision and his dream of hosting a parade of "military brats" just like himself with armed forces fathers lined up in the stands saluting those brats' "service" to America. His mother, and the kids alike, always felt that they were part of the military just as much as the father and served America by being true to one of its protectors and constant in their devotion and service.

While I'm not a military brat myself, and I can't relate to the lack of belonging Conroy discusses in the essay, it was just unbelievably powerful. Here's a snippet about the parade he imagines:

To the ancient beat of drums we could pass by those erect and silent rows of fathers. What a fearful word "father" is to so many of us, but not on this day, when the marchers keep perfect step and the command for "eyes right" roars through our disciplined ranks and we turn to face our fathers in that crowd of warriors.

In this parade these men would understand the nature and the value of their children's sacrifice for the first time. Our fathers would stand at rigid attention. Then they would begin to salute us, one by one, and in that salute, that one sign of recognition, of acknowledgment, they would thank us for the first time. They would be thanking their own children for their fortitude and courage and generosity and long suffering, for enduring a military childhood.

And now off to read some more...