How much do endings matter?
Lev Grossman (author of The Magicians and The Magician King) wrote in Time recently: “I often find that after a month or two I can’t remember the ends of novels at all, even novels I loved — even detective novels, where the whole (putative) point of the book is the big reveal at the end. Oddly, the meanings of books are defined for me much more by their beginnings and middles than they are by their endings.”
And here I’ve been thinking all these years that I’m the only one who can never seem to remember the endings of books (and movies, too). The beginnings and middles of novels are where the “meat” is – they’re where we readers are concentrating so hard on getting into the book, immersing ourselves, absorbing everything that happens and anticipating what might happen next. Perhaps one reason why beginnings and middles stick with us more easily, and for longer, than endings do is because we invest so much thought and focus into them. Also, they just take longer. I might be “in the middle of” a great novel for a week or two–but typically I’m only “at the end” for a short few hours, or perhaps the last 50 pages. Sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination, that sticks with us as readers.
Or, is it the writing itself that makes us forget or gloss over endings? Grossman writes, “Nowadays when I’m chatting about a novel with friends, I almost don’t bother to add, ‘it kind of fell apart towards the end,’ because I’m a bit surprised when a book doesn’t. Again: not a disaster. A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I’ve just gotten in the habit of forgiving.”
Is the ending any more or less important than the rest of a book? What do you think?
Skimming and skipping
Are you ashamed of skipping parts of books? | Robert McCrum | Books | guardian.co.uk.
In his article for The Guardian, Robert McCrum reflects on Somerset Maugham’s notion of “the useful art of skipping.”
I’ll admit to having skimmed (or skipped altogether) parts of novels I’ve read over the years, mostly books assigned for school. The phrenology chapter of Moby-Dick? I skipped it in tenth grade and then again in college. “The Pension Grillparzer,” the story-within-a-story in The World According to Garp? Skipped that too, the first time I read it. (In my defense, I did later go back and reread the entire book, including “Pension”). I’m positive I’m guilty of skipping even more parts of more books that I don’t even remember.
Should we be ashamed of skimming or skipping parts of books? As McCrum asks, “Does the urge to skip feel like a defeat, or a necessity? Which books are best skipped vigorously (Maugham said he would never have read Clarissa if he hadn’t found an abridged edition)? Which books simply must NOT be skipped? Does an e-reader encourage the act of skipping?”
What do you think?
Week 4 Recap: Authors’ favorite book gifts
Every day in December, we were honored to have a different author visiting our Facebook page to answer the question “What is the best book you’ve ever received as a gift for Christmas or Hanukkah?” Here’s a recap of the great stories from the final week.
Read previous recaps: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3
Day 23: Alexis Moniello, illustrator, “Everything Butt Art” series
I’ve always loved to read and always hoped to be a professional doodler, so its only natural that my favorite books tend to be fantastic and illustrative. The words turn to pictures as soon as they hit my brain. A few Christmases ago, my brother, remembering my obsession with Wicked and children’s tales, gave me every book written by Gregory Maguire. The first of the pile I read was Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, classic Cinderella told from the point of view of her very artistic stepsister, Iris. Its about beauty, both physical and intangible, and paints a picture as exquisite as the one Luykas Schoonmaker paints of the beautiful, yet helpless, Clara. (Thanks, Anthony!)
Day 26: Chad Peeling, contributor to Cane Toads and Other Rogue Species
A couple of years ago, someone gave me YOUR INNER FISH: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin. As someone who spends much of his time explaining the origins of life, this insightful book gave me a fresh perspective on anatomy and physiology and the origin of our bodies. Shubin made me rethink the inconveniences of middle age in a new light, showing how we’re all living historical documents (complete with lots of mistakes), and how our bodies convey modified pieces of our ancient ancestors. It’s a wonderful thing to get to see ourselves as a window into time in this way.
Day 26: Phil Rossi, author of Crescent and Eden
If i had to choose, I’d say one of my favorite books received as a Christmas gift was Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir part and part “best practices”, I instantly related to the author’s take on the process as well as his outlook on creating. Needless to say, this book has provided a lot of inspiration and I re-read it on a yearly basis. When I need a boost–some aid to help me through a creative rut–Stephen King’s On Writing is just the right book for the job!
Day 27: Mary Carlomagno, author of Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less and Live More, Want Less: 52 Ways to Find Order in Your Life
The best gift book I ever received is Adriana Trigiani’s Don’t Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from my Grandmother. My dear friend Judi gave it to me, mainly because of our shared Italian heritage and because one of the grandmothers in the book shares the same name as my new baby daughter, Lucia. I specifically chose the name Lucia for it’s meaning. In Italian, Lucia means light. Light by definition makes things visible. As I read the book, I was reminded that good friends, like good books do the same thing. They make the important things in your life visible by shining their light on the lessons that you are to learn, when you are ready to learn them.
Day 28: Valerie Peterson, author of Peterson’s Happy Hour and Peterson’s Holiday Helper
My first favorite gift book was The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. I was very young and it was from my godfather, my Uncle Louie. I loved looking at the book and, later, reading it—and I credit The Snow Queen (and all those other early books) for my lifelong love of reading… Today, “the best book I ever received as a gift” is usually the latest one I’ve been thoughtfully given. So right now my favorite is Hopper, a slim volume about the paintings of Edward Hopper by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Mark Strand. I’ve been on a Hopper kick and this year visited both the artist’s Nyack home and his Greenwich Village studio. My friend Andrea remembered my mentioning those visits and gave me that “just the right book” this holiday.
Day 31: Jeff Sharlet, author of Sweet Heaven When I Die and The Family
In 2004, my in-laws gave me Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead for Christmas. They didn’t know how much Robinson’s first novel meant to me, so it was a lucky choice. Not a hard one, though — it was one of the big books of the year, Robinson’s only fiction since her amazing debut, Housekeeping, in 1981. That, incidentally, is the single book I’ve given as a gift not once but multiple times — I should buy it in bulk. Or stand on street corners passing it out like a religious tract. Anyway, Robinson’s new novel should have been just the right choice.
Earlier that year I’d found myself in Iowa City on a book tour. My host says, “What do you want to do while you’re here?” No question about that — I want to meet Marilynne Robinson. My host, the poet and children’s author Laurel Snyder, had heard Robinson was teaching a Bible class in a church. But which church? Compounding the problem was the fact of a blizzard. But we marched out into the snow, moving from church to church, looking for lighted windows. And we found her! We stomped in, covered with ice and snow, shaking our jackets and hats like wet dogs. We’d arrived mid-class, a meeting for bearded poets who wanted to understand scripture. Robinson didn’t seem to find our presence strange, at all. She directed a man to find us some chairs and Bibles, and we were in. But here’s the thing — it was kind of disappointing. The book I was touring on is subtitled “A Heretic’s Bible.” What Robinson delivered that night was some pretty orthodox liberal Christian teaching. Nothing ugly, just nothing startling, either.
So, anyway, Christmas — Gilead — my in-laws. “Thanks,” I said, caressing the book’s beautiful, textured cover, sure I’d never read it. I was going to stick with Housekeeping. I don’t think I read Gilead until my wife was pregnant with our daughter. And then I read it, at first, like a how-to book. A very, very slow how-to book. It’s an epistolary novel, a series of letters from an old and dying preacher to the young son of his late-life marriage. The preacher lives in a small town in Iowa. He’s led a quiet life. There’s not much to say. His interpretations are orthodox liberal Protestantism. Except, except — they are and they aren’t, and the moments of the book that linger are the most ordinary ones, not the words you go searching for in a blizzard — though there are some of those, too, from the “shining star of radicalism,” as Iowa was once known — but the words that fall like snow on a flat field, no wind, accumulating, until the landscape is transformed. Not blanketed, but, strangely, revealed.
____________________________________________________________
A HUGE thank-you to all the very talented authors who shared their thoughts with us this month, and to Laura Rossi of Laura Rossi Public Relations for making it all happen, to Whitney Peeling, and to all of our Facebook fans, new and old!
Our Year in Reading
As a customized book subscription service, we appreciate that different people like to read different types of books–in fact, our business is based on picking books that are uniquely right for individual readers! So rather than coming up with a definitive best-of list (which seems impossible!) we’re sharing some of our favorite books of the year in various categories.
Click through to see the official list: Some of Our Favorite Books of 2011
Week 3 Recap: Authors’ favorite book gifts
Every day in December, we’ll have a different author visiting our Facebook page to answer the question “What is the best book you’ve ever received as a gift for Christmas or Hanukkah?” Here’s a recap of the great stories from our third week.
Read previous recaps: Week 1, Week 2
Day 15: Sandra Beasley, author of I Was the Jukebox: Poems and Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life
The best book I ever received for Christmas is a first edition of W. S. Merwin’s THE FOLDING CLIFFS, “a narrative of 19th-century Hawaii”–in other words, one of the great epic poems written in our time. In elegant, urgent verses Merwin tells the story of a family determined to stay together as they flee government capture during a quarantine effort on Kauai. Woven in amidst the action is an appreciation of the native culture, mythology, and landscape of this gorgeous island. The book is dedicated to Olivia Breitha (1916-2006); Breitha was known as an outspoken advocate of those discriminated against for leprosy, and her firsthand experience resonated with later generations affected by the AIDS epidemic.
It would be enough to appreciate this gift in terms of its literary merit…but the real reason I share it with you is because of the spirit in which it was given. It was the first Christmas that I had chosen to spend away from home to be with a love, and I was on the eve of making a trip to Kauai myself–without him. He was a huge Merwin fan. The day after Christmas, after all the “official” gifts had been opened, I was packing to make the 15-hour drive back to see my family for a day and catch a plane to Hawaii. That was when took his own copy of this book, signed it to me, and told me I must read it. I carried this spontaneous gesture to Kauai’s beaches.
There is a second signing in the book–”To Sandra and her own poetry. All good wishes, William Merwin.” Merwin came to DC, where I live, to serve as Poet Laureate. Earlier this year after one of his readings I nervously waited in line with THE FOLDING CLIFFS. When I handed him the hardback, still in its original 1998 slipcover, his face softened. He said it was one of his favorite of his books, but it had never found much of a reception outside the West coast. I told him it had been given to me, a DC girl, from a guy who’d read it while in Vermont, on a day spent in Mississippi: proof these poems had reached well beyond Hawaii and California.
The tale of Pi`ilani and her family does not have the happiest of endings. But you can have a great love without a happy ending. This profoundly moving collection reminds me of poetry’s highest ambitions: to illustrate fundamental truths through small, human moments. I will never know a purer form of loyalty than the moment when Pi’ilani struggles up a mountainside under the moon, through the rain, so she can stand at her husband’s grave–which she dug with her own kitchen knife–
“she stood watching the ragged light scattered across the leaves
tears were running down her face and under her breath
from the center of her body she chanted to the place
Kalua i Ko`olau nobody knows where you are
nobody has found you nobody has found you.”
–and I will never know a purer form of generosity than to take a beloved book off the shelf and press it into someone else’s hands.
Day 16: Sandra Brown, author of Lethal, Rainwater, and others
My husband, Michael, gave me my best Christmas present book: a rare copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, printed in Florence in 1928 because it was banned in England and the United States. In pristine condition, my copy is number 841 of only 1000 D. H. Lawrence signed. This beautiful story wasn’t published in the U.S. until 1959.
Day 17: Elaine Hall, author of Now I See the Moon and co-author of Seven Keys to Unlock Autism
The best book I ever received for a Hanukkah Gift was To Begin Again by Naomi Levy. In this beautiful, soulful memoir, Rabbi Naomi Levy tells first her own story – being part of a very loving family and having a close relationship with her father – and then living the horrors of his being murdered shortly before her 13th birthday. That she dedicated her life to being of service to others as a Rabbi and how she has helped others “begin again” inspired me during a very dark time in my own life. My son, Neal was six years old, diagnosed severely autistic; he was unable to attend public school due to intense sensory sensitivity and challenging behaviors so I had to homeschool him; my husband left us penniless and we were about to be homeless. Reading Naomi Levy’s beautiful book gave me Hope to begin again.
Day 18: Diane Isaacs, co-author of Seven Keys to Unlock Autism
I was tomboy growing up, spending my free time climbing trees, playing kickball at the end of Cedar Lane or catching frogs in the lily pond. As in my favorite classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and I shared the barefoot and overall fashion statement. In fact, I had a full piggy bank by kindergarten because I would chargemy parents serious coinage to put on a dress. And more, to keep it on. As an adult, my sporty nature developed into a competitive amateur Ironman triathlete. I loved the extreme challenge of pushing my body to its edge…and beyond- and was quoted in an article for Muscle and Fitness, “Ironman is not a day in my life, but my life in a day.” A few Christmas’ ago, my sister gifted me the book, Explorers of the Infinite, by Maria Coffey, that fearlessly explores the psyche of extreme adventurers and athletes, weaving between the intensity of high risk and the serenity of finding a spiritual connection. I am humbled by the outrageous conquests of these extreme athletes, and yet, could tap into the diverse descriptions of how they touched something beyond the mountain peak, the dangerous expeditions or the finish line.
Day 19: Jessica Francis Kane, author of The Report and Bending Heaven
Three books come to mind. (I’m sorry. I’m chronically unable to list just one of anything.) My first Christmas in college, my parents gave me The Chicago Manual of Style. My mother’s inscription said something about how they believed I was a writer and this book would help—a boost of confidence I’ve never forgotten. That orange-jacketed hardback has anchored a corner of my desk ever since. My senior year in college, my boyfriend gave me a copy of The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. He’d heard me go on about how much I loved The Great Gatsby in high school, and he thought someone serious about literature ought to have the complete works. He was right. Then a few years ago, this same wonderful man (now my husband) gave me The Final Solution by Michael Chabon. Our daughter was almost two and we were visiting my husband’s parents. I’d finished very few books since she was born, the sleeplessness and demands of parenting interfering with the part of my brain that loved to read. When all the presents were opened, my husband put the book in my hands and said, Go. Go read. With that, he gave me a day of uninterrupted time. It was glorious.
These Christmas books were not rare or particularly expensive, but each one changed my perception of myself, or reminded me of something I’d forgotten, and that is a wonderful gift, indeed.
Day 20: Amy Wilson, author of When Did I Get Like This?
When I was a little girl I wanted to be an actress– a typically grandiose career aspiration for a youngster (see also: astronaut; Yankees pitcher). Unlike most other kids, my overambition never corrected itself, and when I was seventeen, I told my nonplussed parents that I would be pursuing a life on the stage. That Christmas, they gave me Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting, which taught me not only how to act but also how to hold my head high with my career choice in the years to come. As I told my parents, I didn’t “want to be” an actress; I was one, even if I wasn’t Julia Roberts. And to my parents’ great credit, they gave me that respect– even when they must have been certain I was throwing away my $80,000 college education. Now that I think of myself more as a writer, I still think of Ms. Hagen’s words of wisdom– like when I’m told that blogging isn’t real writing, or that writing about motherhood is not to be taken seriously, or that choosing life as an author is fighting a losing battle in today’s marketplace. Thanks, JTRB, for including me!
Day 22: David Ebershoff, author of The 19th Wife and Pasadena
William Trevor: The Complete Stories.
I had just graduated from college and my dad knew I wanted to be a writer. He also knew I didn’t have a clue of where to begin. I had a notion of myself as a writer although in fact I wasn’t actually writing all that much. On Christmas morning he handed me a present. It was obviously a book but especially heavy and dense, nearly four pounds. I was thinking Dad got me a bible? It wasn’t a bible, although for the next five years or so it became mine. I studied almost every story in that book to figure out how Trevor did it. Underlines, dog-ears, asterisks in the margin – each marking a turn of phrase or plot that showed the master, as many call Trevor, subtly at work. I analyzed his Irish oddballs and lonelyhearts, his farmers and bachelors and sales ladies and old maids, to break down how precisely Trevor broke their hearts – and mine. I lugged the book around as I moved from one AC-less apartment to the next, propping it on windowsills, radiators, atop the microwave. It became my MFA degree (minus the department parties with the greasy pizza and warm merlot). The dust jacket was white with red letters. Wherever my dad had bought it, probably at Hunter’s Books in Pasadena, they had cut the price off the flap on the diagonal. I found that gesture touching and appropriate because you can’t really put a price on a bible – although of course people do. I don’t know why my dad chose this book over all the others. A review? a bookseller? because he’d read a few stories in the New Yorker? My dad is the quiet, sit-down-and-do-it type and maybe he realized that this book, with its 1300 pages of stories, could teach me as well as any that there was only one way to become a writer: you sit down and you begin.
Day 22: Walter Kirn, author of Lost in the Meritocracy, Up in the Air, and Thumbsucker
At Christmas time in 1978, when I was a junior in high school, a favorite English teacher — the one with the long hair, the eight-cups-a-day black coffee habit, and the Dire Straits tapes in his car — gave me a copy of Naked Poetry, a paperback anthology of contemporary free verse. I didn’t know what free verse was at the time, nor did I know that English teachers were allowed to break certain sacred classroom boundaries and give a student a book. I was flattered to an almost tearful level. I read the poems in the barn on our small farm, afraid to take the book inside the house because its title suggested revolutionary content. And so it was. The poems by Robert Bly, Adrienne Rich, Robert Creeley and other visionaries cracked open my head like a geode full of crystals. I sparkled inside, I realized as I read. I was full of crazy, lovely, colored light. Later, I noticed the book had an inscription. It was something like “To Walter, Who Wants to Write.” How had my teacher known? Why did he care? And what if he hadn’t acted on what he’d known? I dare not think about even now.
It turns out, though I didn’t know it when he gave me the book, that my teacher had attended the Iowa Writers Workshop but had dropped out when he learned that his girlfriend was pregnant, and he made a hard decision: give up his writing studies to concentrate on preparing for and supporting a new family. When he met me, he said, I reminded him of himself as a very young man and so he passed his dream to me. It was an “I am not worthy moment,” devastatingly touching. And isn’t it true that for all the schooling we undergo, it always comes down to just one or two teachers when the question of our true destiny is concerned?
One more thought: good books are like good deeds. You never know what wonderful repercussions they’ll have. But to do their work someone first has to liberate them from the bookstore and get them out there into the world of readers where they can do their stuff! (Come to think of it, good books aren’t like good deeds — good books are good deeds.)
Next > Read the Week 4 Recap
Book Gift of the Week: Habibi by Craig Thompson
Graphic novels can seem intimidating. If you’ve never read one before, you might be inclined to think they’re only for kids or for people who love comics and superheroes. But the truth is, there are graphic novels that fit into just about every genre of fiction, and even non-fiction. A good graphic novel has a compelling story and solid writing, plus images that add something to the story. The best graphic novels, like the best books in general, will sweep you away in the worlds they create.
Habibi by Craig Thompson would make a wonderful gift for the reader on your list who loves moving, heartwrenching stories and who you think might be open to trying something new–or for the person you know already loves graphic novels. Six years in the making, Habibi is gorgeous in words, pictures, and packaging. The publisher’s description:
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them.
At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.
Graphic novels can be a fantastic change of pace for someone used to reading standard novels. Because of the images and the pacing, I find myself finishing most graphic novels I read in just a day or two (or even a few hours). As satisfying as it is to finally finish a big, meaty book after weeks of reading, it’s equally as satisfying to devour an entire graphic novel in one evening.
So consider giving Habibi or another graphic novel a try. You might just discover an entirely new type of reading experience.
First glimpse of Gatsby
Is this what you’d picture Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece to look like? It works for me! Even though the movie release is more than a year away, I’m getting excited already. I have high hopes for this latest film version of one of my favorite books–with this all-star cast and Luhrmann’s artistic flair, it should be a fresh and worthwhile addition to the already impressive line of Gatsby adaptations.
First Official Images From ‘The Great Gatsby’ Feature Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan & More.
Week 2 Recap: Authors’ favorite book gifts
Every day in December, we’ll have a different author visiting our Facebook page to answer the question “What is the best book you’ve ever received as a gift for Christmas or Hanukkah?” Here’s a recap of the great stories from our second stellar week.
Click here to see days 1-7.
Day 8: Matthew Polly, author of Tapped Out and the crictically acclaimed American Shaolin
When I was growing up in Topeka, KS, all I wanted to be was a writer, but I kept it a secret because “being a writer” was not considered viable possibility. So I kept it to myself and planned to become a lawyer, until I won a Rhodes scholarship. That’s when I made the fateful decision to try to write for a living, thinking to myself, “How much harder than winning a Rhodes can it be.”
My very conservative parents were horrified, but I set off for New York City to make my way. My first Xmas my parents came to visit and were horrified by the tiny little hovel I was barely able to afford. My dad took me aside and said, “I’m worried about you, son. But if you are going to try to live you dreams, you might need this.” It was a copy of Writer’s Digest. And I actually got a few writing gigs using it. But it was the most special book, because it showed that while my father didn’t approve, he still loved and supported me.
Day 9: Donna Johnson, author of Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir
The World Religions by Huston Smith tops the list of my favorite holiday gift books. Smith renders each of the major faiths through the eyes of a devout believer. This is religion at its most mysterious and lovely. I originally bought the book used when I was sixteen and read it so often if fell apart. One holiday morning years later, I found it again in a stack of wrapped books my new husband had chosen for me. I had mentioned the importance of the book once, and he had heard me.
Day 10: Priscilla Gilman, author of The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story of Unexpected Joy
Every Christmas, my sister & I give each other hard-to-find or especially cherished gems from our childhood. My favorite book gift was one Claire gave me about 10 years ago, a few years after I’d had my first child & begun working as an English professor. As I tore open the wrapping paper & saw the familiar green & golden cover of the original edition of Eleanor Estes’ The Witch Family, I was instantly transported back to the summer of 1979, when we first read this book over and over again & endlessly enacted pretend scenarios inspired by it. The story of two best friends, Amy and Clarissa, “ordinary real girls” who love to draw and tell stories about characters they invent, and whose belief in their imaginative creations blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, spoke powerfully to me and Claire, two “ordinary real girls” who believed our Paddington Bears were living, breathing members of our family and spent most of our waking hours either engrossed in novels or engaged in creative play. At some point when we became teenagers, my mother had given the book away, and I’d longed for it for years. Claire’s gift of this beloved and influential book simultaneously attested to the persistence of our childhood bond and affirmed the sanctity of imagination and unfettered imaginative exploration. It reminded me, at a time when I was feeling downtrodden by the competitiveness and aridity of academia, why I’d chosen to study and teach literature: because I passionately loved words and stories, characters and imagination. It reassured me in the midst of all my new parent exhaustion and anxiety that though I was now an adult and a parent, I need not give up the freshness of perception and faith in magic that had characterized my childhood. The Witch Family has since been re-released in spanking new editions, but I will always treasure the worn, well-loved book whose flap copy celebrates “a story that is exciting, humorous, wholly original, and marvelously unpredictable, in which the worlds of reality and fantasy blend into an unforgettable whole.” Unforgettable indeed.
Day 11: Sharon Heath, author of The History of My Body
What a wonderful coupling ~ the winter holidays can open our hearts; a terrific book often opens new worlds! At fifteen, I was a relative newcomer to the college town of Berkeley, California. My plumber father and waitress mother had taken advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start their own business and moved us out of L.A., where I’d actually been one of the popular kids for the firs…t (and only) time. Berkeley in those days was pretty tame, suspended in a brief hiatus between being a west coast anchor to the beat generation and a lightning rod for the sixties. I hated the sweet rhythms of that small town; the boys all seemed awkward, and the girls barely wore any makeup! Lonely, sullen, and mutely lost to myself as only a teenager can be, I was surprised with a gift from one of the more sympathetic Cal students who worked at my family’s hamburger joint: a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Suddenly I was on fire. Whitman’s poems alerted me to a world beyond my constant quarrel with my parents and a body sprouting unwelcome curves, strange smells, and unmentionable desires. Instead, he celebrated such things, poking his protean imagination into the glories of sex, our kinship with the natural world, and death as the enigmatic frame for life’s rich palette. Reading “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” I hardly knew what to do with myself. What kind of a magician was this Whitman, looking like a cross between a hobo and God, with his dented hat and curling white beard? How could the cry of a mockingbird for its missing mate stir such a hunger in me? As I remember all this, it’s beginning to dawn on me just how much my writing The History of My Body – with its young protagonist Fleur mourning the fallen petals of a rose, savoring the luminous patterns of light rippling across a pool, losing herself to the first boy who calls her “beautiful,” finding the irreplaceable solace of friendship – was seeded by that early, poignant call.
Day 12: Laura Zigman, author of Piece of Work and host of the NPR show “Hash Hags”
I always freeze when anyone asks me what my favorite anything is: I remember a particularly promising interview with the then head of Doubleday back in the mid-80s, toward the end of which the guy — a hipster — threw me a curveball: “What’s your favorite music?” he asked. To which I stutterered and stammered and drooled: “Classical.” Not because Classicial was my favorite kind of music, but because I couldn’t, for the life of me, think of anything else. My mind went blank. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.
But anyway: this answer will be a two parter: both post-op-related gifts. The first post-op best-book-I-ever-received-as-a-gift was Curious George Goes to The Hospital. Someone (my parents, probably) gave this to me when I was four and just recovering from emergency appendectomy surgery. My appendix had ruptured in the middle of the night, in the middle of a the Blizzard of ’67 (<–an actual storm, not a Dairy Queen treat), and it landed me at Boston Children’s Hospital for over three weeks. I was fascinated by doctors and nurses and surgery and stitches, and when I got the book and saw those great drawings of Curious George getting x-rayed after eating the puzzle piece — well, I just couldn’t get enough.
The second post-op best-book-I-ever-received-as-a-gift was one of Ina Garten’s cookbooks. I’d been recovering –for months — from breast reconstruction surgery five years ago, and at some point during the long cold winter in bed with my remote, I discovered The Barefoot Contessa on PBS. As always, I was late to the Ina Garten party, but I quickly became addicted to watching her roam around her giant Hamptons estate and kitchen and gourmet shops. There was something very comforting about the way she related to food and the way she prepared it and the way even though her husband Geoffrey was never home and they had kind of an interesting relationship, he came home every Friday night to a gorgeous roast chicken — and her.
Day 13: Michael Connelly, author of The Drop, The Fifth Witness, and many others
A few years ago I unwrapped a book from my wife. It was a first edition of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. Not only is a first edition of the 1953 worth a few bucks, but I think it is one of Chandler’s best all the while being vitally important to me. Essentially, I became a writer because of this book. Of course, when I read it back in 1975 it was a paperback with a photo of Elliott Gould on the cover. It was a movie tie-in. Gould had played Philip Marlowe in the 1973 movie. I saw the movie, which led me to the book, which led me to all the books, which led me to the conclusion: I want to try to do this. I want to be a writer. More than three decades later there was a wrapped book. It’s a tough thing to give an author a book for a gift. You better be confident in your choice. My wife was and she was spot on. I love this book.
Day 14: Nicholas Sparks, author of The Best of Me, Safe Haven, and many others
The best book I ever received for Christmas was a signed, first edition copy of TO DANCE WITH THE WHITE DOG by Terry Kay. It’s one of my favorite novels, and a novel that I reread at least once a year. I adore the story, the characters are realistic and the pages continue to turn. It’s all that a good novel should be. My agent, Theresa Park, knowing how much I loved it, got me the copy, and it sits proudly on the shelf in my formal office.
Next > Read the Week 3 Recap.
Gifts of the Week: Picture Books We Love
For the little ones on your shopping list…. three adorable picture books they’ll love as much as we do.
Stars by Mary Lyn Ray and Marla Frazee
“Stars are everywhere and can mean many things: a star on a sheriff’s badge, a star on a magic wand, a star on your calendar to mark a special day. Stars in the sky only come out at night, but they are there even when you can’t see them. With lovely colorful illustrations, Stars reminds us of the beauty and permanence of nature and the world around us.” – Barb
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
“Oh no! Bear’s hat is missing, and he doesn’t know where to find it! He asks everyone in the forest if they have seen it, but no one has. He’s just about ready to give up when all of a sudden, he gets a clue. The reader is in on the joke, but will Bear ever figure out what happened to his beloved hat? Witting and engaging, with sparse text and fabulous illustrations.
I Want My Hat Back is terrific fun!” -Kathy
The High Street by Alice Melvin
“This is our favorite new book! Sally is shopping on High Street with a list of ten items. As she arrives at each darling little shop, the reader opens the full-page flap to enter and then helps Sally find what she’s looking for. Adorable illustrations, plenty of little things to look at and discover… this is one that will be read and re-read over and over and over again! A must have; LOVE IT!” - Kaley
*****************************
Want to give the gift of reading all year long to your favorite baby or child? Give one of our Kids Series, and we’ll send just the right books, chosen just for him or her, all year long. For all ages, all reading levels, all interests–we’ll get it just right, guaranteed!
Happy Birthday, Gustave Flaubert!
Kathleen Massara at MobyLives does a great job of saying happy birthday to Gustave Flaubert.
I’ve had Lydia Davis’s translation of Madame Bovary on my bookshelf for most of 2011 and still haven’t gotten to it. I smell a New Year’s Resolution…
