Tag: books

Over the holiday weekend we kept an almost constant fire burning in the fireplace. At times, while the kids and their cousins played together downstairs, the grownups sat on the couch facing the fire, and chatted, dozed, and occasionally read our books, the pages softly turning in the gleam of the fire. It seems like a perfect place to read, and I have spent many and enjoyable hour on that couch reading. But it is not currently among my favorite places to read. As it turns out, all of my favorite places to read are in hindsight.

There is a carrel in the Granada Hills branch of the Los Angeles Public Library that I loved to read in when I was twelve or thirteen. During the oppressively hot summer days in the San Fernando Valley, I’d walk the mile from our house to the library, doing my best to stay on the shady side of the street. Stepping into the library was like stepping into an oasis in the desert. The doors would open with a whoosh, and you could feel the cold air pour from the building. After spending a considerable time perusing the shelves gathering books, I’d take my harvest to one of the carrels that patrons used for reading. There, the carrel, the library, everything, would disappear while I read.

Years, later, after I’d graduated from college and started at my job, I would drive from the Valley out to Pacific Palisades, park the car alongside a park that overlooked the Pacific Ocean and sit on a bench to read. There, with an ocean breeze blowing and a quiet surrounding, I read several books, including William Gibson’s Idoru and Damon Knight’s Humpty Dumpty: An Oval.

For many years, on an early April Saturday, I’d head over to the local Swenson’s in Studio City, sidle into a booth, order a chocolate milk shake, and crack open In Memory Yet Green, the first volume of Isaac Asimov’s autobiography. There, with my shake in a glass and a refill off the side, I would sit for an hour or more reading the first few chapters of that book, oblivious to most of what was going on around me. To this day, however, the smell of an ice cream shop pulls me back to Swenson’s.

Returning from a vacation in Hawaii in 2005, I arrived at the Lihue airport around 6 pm for a 10:30 pm flight back to Washington, D.C. via Los Angeles. The United counter didn’t open until 6:30 pm and once I was checked into my flight, I found my way to an outdoor patio. I’d picked up a mai-tai along the way, and sat on a bench with the mai-tai and a copy of Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda. With the trade winds blowing around me, I read, and sipped, and read, and sipped, and sniffed the air. I began to wish that my flight would be delayed until morning. I could sit there reading and sipping and sniffing all night.

My cousin belonged to a fishing club in Vermont and would take me there from time to time. The club was deep in the Vermont wilderness. There was no electricity at the clubhouse, but there was a generator. My cousin taught me to fly fish there. I would take a rowboat out into the lake, fish for a little while, and then, find a shady spot along the short and read. After a while, I’d return, and we’d clean and grill our catch. When it rained, there was a screened in porch and I would sit on that porch with the sound of the rain tuning everything else out reading.

In Castine, Maine, I visited some family. At night, in my room, I noticed how dark and silent it was. I sat up in bed with a light on, reading John Adams by David McCullough for a good part of the night. The silence and darkness gave me some hint of what it might have been like for Adams in Braintree, reading by candlelight, warmed by a stove. What places those books must have taken him!

But my favorite place to read was on the porch of an apartment I rented for several years in Studio City on Tujunga Avenue between Ventura Boulevard and Dilling St., just around the corner from the Brady Bunch House. It was a first floor, corner apartment and had a wraparound porch. I spend hundreds of hours sitting on that porch with my chair propped back, my feet on the railing, and a book in my lap. I must have read a hundred books on that porch in the years that I lived there. In my memory, the weather was always perfect, the scene always serene, even when the street was blocked off while filming a scene from Magnolia¹ there. Of all the places I’ve read, that porch is my favorite.

It may be that in ten or twenty years from now, the places I read today will be among my favorites. I enjoy sitting out on our large deck with a book. I like sitting on the couch in front of the fire. There is a chair in my office surrounded on three sides by my books where I like to read. But for me, a favorite reading place becomes so only in hindsight.

Way back in May 2000, I discovered a tattered copy of Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy in The Iliad Bookshop–one of my all-time favorite bookstores. The back copy of the book interested me, and so I bought the used paperback, took it home, and began reading. I was immediately gripped by the story. I tore through that roughly 1,000-page book in the space of week. And because it ended in a cliff-hanger, I went on to read the even longer Executive Orders. I remember really enjoying those book.

A few days ago, I pulled out Debt of Honor as I floundered about trying to figure out what to read next. Maybe returning to an old book that I enjoyed would be just thing I needed. I started to read it–I didn’t remember much of it more than 20 years later so it sort of seemed new to me. At the same time, what was such an enjoyable story for me 20 years ago was suddenly marred by what I could only think of as bad writing. The writing was so bad this second time around that I couldn’t take it. I gave up on the book, despite enjoying the story.

It got me wondering how many books I’ve read that, upon re-reading, wouldn’t live up to that first time. I remember a few years back trying to re-read Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. When I first read that book 25 years ago, it instantly became my favorite novel. But until a few years ago, I never tried reading it again. When I did, I found that while the writing was wonderful, the story flagged for me, and lost its wind about halfway through. I gave up on the re-read.

There are books I remember reading that really wowed me. I remember reading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton a few years before the film came out and I really enjoyed that book. I remember reading Jumper by Steven Gould and loving that book, too. But I wonder, given my experience, if I would enjoy them a second time? My gut tells me that I would not–at least not as much as the first time.

That’s not the case with all books I’ve read before. I’ve read 11/22/63 by Stephen King 7 times and each time I think it gets better. I find the same to be true to It by Stephen King. I’ve read One Man’s Meat by E. B. White 4 times and I look forward to each time I read it, delighted by how good it is, and never let down by it so far. I’ve read Isaac Asimov’s entire Foundation series at least 5 times–but the last time I read it was 16 years ago and I have this feeling that if I read it again, I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as I used to.

What is it that makes me enjoy re-reading some books that I loved, and dislike others that I loved? In both cases, I’ve often read a lot more and much more widely than I had the first time I read a book. So I bring to subsequent readings all that I have read and learned since. If I thought a book was well-written, and coming to discover far better writing over the course of subsequent decades, than what I think of as good writing today is different from what it used to be. Does that mean that the books that I can re-read and enjoy stand the test of time, and all of the reading I have done since? Or is there something else at play?

Kelly saw me sitting in the office on Monday, tears streaming down my face. “What’s wrong?” she asked. I hesitated. I was a little embarrassed and not sure how to respond. Finally, I said, “It’s this book I’m reading.” The book in question was Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson, book four of THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE. Spoiler alert if you haven’t read the book and are planning to: the scene I’d just finished was one that involved Teft and Moash toward the end of the book. If you’ve read it, you know the scene I’m talking about.

I finished the book on Monday. As it turned out, those tears were the first of many that I shed, some sad, some happy, in the last 200 pages of that 1,200 page long book. In fact, I can’t remember crying as much as I did in the last 200 pages of the book than in the last 20 years of my life. To me, that says a lot about the story. Set aside the genre, the writing style, the writing itself. If a story can draw those emotions from a reader, well, there’s something there. I wish I could tell a story that well.

There are writers that are good with endings, they can stick the landings. Others not so much. I’ve heard readers complain about Stephen King’s endings, although I don’t mind them. The end of 11/22/63 always brings me to tears (“How we danced!”). And I should know. I’ve read the book 7 times. The same is true for the end of Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov, which I have read at least 5 times¹, although for slightly different reasons. As Janet Asimov wrote in I. Asimov, “Forward the Foundation was hard on him, because in killing Hari Seldon, he was killing himself.”

It takes skill to build up a story to the point where readers care enough about the characters that they affect them emotionally. Thinking back over the stories that I have written and published, there is only one that, upon re-reading, has the potential of doing this to me: “Gemma Barrows Comes to Cooperstown.” The ending of this story gets me on the rare occasions that I re-read it. I did something right in this story. I’d like to be able to find that again.

I began reading THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE last November, and raced through the first three books (more than 3,000 pages total) before 2020 was over. Then I moved onto other things, before I decided last week to try to catch up and read Rhythm of War. When I finished, of course, I wanted to read book 5, but as far as I can tell, the next book in the series isn’t due to be released until sometime in 2023. Probably late 2023.

It’s always difficult to finish a good book and find another good one. I struggled, as I often do after finished a good read. I finally settled on The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. By the time you are reading this, I should have finished that book.

I find it amazing that words on a page can produce these emotions. Screenwriters, actors, directors, and musicians combine their talents on screen and on stage to produce moving stories, but there, you have images and music to manipulate your emotions. With a book, it’s just you and the words on the page. I think that’s what I love so much about being a writer. How can I make someone feel with just words on a page? It is also what is perhaps the most intimidating thing about being a writer, at least for me.

The New York Times Book Review is celebrating its 125 anniversary. As part of the celebration, they are asking everyone to nominate the best book of the last 125 years. There is no definition of what “best” means. A recent correspondent asked me what I would pick for the best book in the last 125 years. I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that question. I haven’t read nearly enough books to get a sense of the wide variety of what has been published in that time. Even on existing lists I am woefully under-read. Take Modern Library’s Top 100 Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century. Of the 100 books on that list, I have only read 13.

I imagine that some people would pick their favorite book, other people what they think is the “best” book. It is likely that some people will pick books that they haven’t read simply because other people think it is good, or popular. The Bible will get picked a lot but since that book has been around far longer than the last 125 years, I don’t think it will count. There are no real guidelines. Fiction and nonfiction are equally acceptable. The only stipulation is that the book must have been published in the last 125 years–that is, after 1896.

After a fair amount of thought, here is how I replied to my correspondent:

I’d probably blend my definition to include favorite and important. I don’t know if I could settle on one. I’d like to pick Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization, but that is 11 volumes and I’ve read the first six of them so far. Another might be The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams, which just makes the cut, since it was published early in the 20th century. Turing’s Cathedral by George Dyson tells the story of how we got to our modern digital age. Given where the future is headed, The Double Helix by James D. Watson could be the best—if the last 50 years have been about digitalization and the hackers that created our modern digital world, the next 100 or 150 years might be about genetic hackers, the coders of the future. Then again, for pure joy, maybe Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella is the best of the last 125 years. Thing is, for every book I’ve read there are tens of thousands that I haven’t and how many of those might qualify for “best”?

My correspondent suggested Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which has been on my list for a long time now, but which I haven’t read yet. My correspondent also suggested that maybe the best way to think about it is to play the desert island game–you are stranded and you can only pick one book: what would it be?

That makes things easier, as I have thought about that often. If I could count Will and Ariel Durant’s 11-volume Story of Civilization as one book, then that would be my pick, hands down. With those 11 volumes, I’d never really feel alone. I’d have thousands of figures from across the entire span of human civilization. I could read about their art and science, their culture and religions, their work lives and leisures. It would all be there.

If I had to be one book, however, just one, that is much more difficult. Indeed, if I reimagined the New York Times question, and asked myself “What is the best book I’ve read in the last 25 years–regardless of when it was published?” I’m not sure I could answer it. I suppose I could go through the list of books I have read since 1996–1,110 of them as of this writing, and pick out the best book from each year to get a Top 25. Even from those 25, it would be difficult to whittle the list down to one “best” book. I could make the argument for The Sweet Science by A.J. Liebling–a collection of essays on, of all things, boxing. But the writing! I could make the argument for The Library Book by Susan Orlean because libraries meant so much to me growing up, and this book is about the Los Angeles Public Library, one of which I made enormous use as a teenager. I could make the case for 11/22/63 by Stephen King, still my all-time favorite novel, even ten years after I first read it. Or The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. Or The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Any of these and a dozen others could be my “best” with equally compelling reasons.

I’m probably overthinking all of this. But I take lists like these seriously since I use lists like these for recommendations, and I want to trust the judgments that they contain within their enumerated titles.

If you want to nominate your candidate for best book, head over to the New York Times Book Review and fill out their form. And if you can manage to whittle your list down to a single best book, and care to share, let me know what it is in the comments. I am always looking for the best books to read.

I saw some debate online recently about whether or not it is rude to an author not to finish a book of their that you start. I don’t think it’s rude. It’s pragmatic. Not every book works for every reader. Time is limited. So one must spend that time wisely. For me, that sometimes means quitting a book as soon as I don’t find myself drawn into it. There are too many other books waiting in the wings.

Sometimes, however, even when I do finish a book, it doesn’t stay with me. I may enjoy the book while I am reading it, but all memory of it vanishes after a time, and although I see it on the list of books I’ve read, I could give on the most vague descriptions of what the book is about. I was thinking about this today because I started reading Voyage by Stephen Baxter today, looking for a little science fiction interlude. I read this book back in September 1998, and although I remember it was some kind of alternate history, I remember almost nothing else about it. Granted, this was in the days before I started taking notes on books I read. Still, it was a little unsettling to realize that while I had read the book, I couldn’t remember it.

I decided to go through my list and see how many examples of this I could find. Here are some of the results:

• Idoru by William Gibson
• Humpty Dumpty: An Oval by Damon Knight
• Pyschoshop by Alfred Bester and Roger Zelazny
• Voyage by Stephen Baxter
• Does American Need a Foreign Policy by Henry Kissenger
• From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey
• Tip of the Iceberg: My 3,000-Mile Journey Around Wild Alaska, the Last Great American Frontier by Mark Adams

I find it interesting that most of these are works of fiction. I seem to have a better recall for nonfiction than for fiction. In a way this makes sense. Fiction is more ephemeral and there is less to connect it to, while nonfiction fits in the larger mold of the world. I can always find connections of one work of nonfiction to another, often several others. Fiction can connect to other fiction, of course, and occasionally to nonfiction, but it doesn’t seem to have the same staying power in my memory.

I remember where I was or what I was doing when I read most of these books. I remember driving to the cliffs in Pacific Palisades and sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean while reading Idoru, for instance. I recall sitting in my office in Santa Monica early in the mornings (around 5:30am) reading Voyage, or sitting on the deck in from of my apartment in Studio City, chair tipped back, and feet up on the railings, reading Does America Need a Foreign Policy? I remember reading Bright Shiny Morning when Kelly and I were in the midst of planning our wedding. It’s just the content that is a blur. Of all of these, the one I most regret no remembering is East of Eden which I can recall enjoying, even if I can’t recall why I enjoyed it.

Fortunately, in a list of more than 1,100 books that I’ve read since 1996, there are only a handful that I don’t really remember at all. And in the last 10 years or so, the only one on the list that draws a blank is Tip of the Iceberg. For that one, at least, I have brief notes in my journal that I wrote at the time I finished it (something I began to do with all of the books I read when I rebooted my journal in 2017).

At some point, I’ll probably go back and re-read these to see what it was that I have forgotten.