Books
On Tuesday, January 27, 1998, I listed on my website’s “thoughts” section my favorite books to date. They were:
- Love Story, by Erich Segal
- Remembrance, by Jude Devereux
- A Separate Peace, by Jonathan Knowles
- Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
- The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
- Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
- Shane, by Jack Shaefer
At some point in 2003, I wrote in my Friendster profile that my favorite books were:
- Einstein’s Dreams, by Alan Lightman
- A Separate Peace, by Jonathan Knowles
- Love Story, by Erich Segal
- Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
- The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
- Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
- Shane, by Jack Shaefer
It looks like Remembrance fell off the list and Einstein’s Dreams took its place. Of these books, I’ve only reread Love Story and Outlander. The rest were one-time reads, but they affected me in a way that I can’t forget.
It’s weird; I had definitely read Einstein’s Dreams before 1998 when I made my original list, but it only made its way onto the list later. I wonder if it just became more significant to me as I changed.
I feel quite sad that I haven’t been able to add anything new from the last eight years to my list. I always think of myself as a voracious reader who loves both fine literature and easy, light reading for the sake of entertainment, yet, I can’t think of anything that moved me so much in the last eight years that I would consider it a favorite. The worst is that the last eight years is when I’ve spent the most money on books, too. The other thing is that while I consider myself a reader of diverse interests, I’ve mostly had only the “dessert” of the metaphorical literary [two words that perhaps should not be used in conjunction] meal in the last few years, with a decided void where the proteins and veggies should be. Erg. My theory is that I only seem to get to read right before falling asleep so I am never in the mood for thoughtful reading. So I have been trying to read earlier in the day whenever I have time, so that I have the brain-bandwidth to read other books. 🙂 Still working on Life of Pi! 😀
What books are your favorite? Which ones do you have on your bedside stand? Which ones do you always pick up with a knot in your heart? Are they the same?
Chomsky and I went to the same high school! Heh. I just can’t let it go. He also taught at my college, but I don’t think he was teaching any classes when I was attending. Boo. I was bummed about that. See “Boo”.
I wonder if we are just too old for “life changing” books, if books can only do that when we are still finding ourselves.
I was just commenting to M the other day that I don’t think I get as much out of reading novels as I should. I said I needed guidance, maybe a class at a community college… and he said “You mean a English Lit class” and then asked if I hadn’t taken one in college. Then I described the “Humanities” program at MIT.
Then I forgot all about it.
Until just now. 🙂
Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that I don’t really have “favorite” books. I very much enjoy Haruki Murakami, Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, Toni Morrison (thanks to you!), and others, though.
“I wonder if we are just too old for “life changing” books, if books can only do that when we are still finding ourselves.”
I can’t believe you were able to even THINK this with a straight face. Or brain. Or whatever.
You can’t be serious, can you?
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ridiculing (ridiculous? 🙂 but, for myself, I’ll be done finding myself and changing my life when I’m dead.
To be more clear: I think that as long as we are open to change and growth in ourselves, we are open to outside forces shaping us. That includes other people, ideas, books, music, the news, art, etc etc etc.
These days, I’m too tired to read books that require me to think too hard. Consequently, I’m unlikely to read something that will change my general outlook.
Conversely, I never felt that “finding myself” was some discrete period. Nor have I ever had that kind of existential angst that required an answer or felt I was reaching closure on who I am. That is, this is always an ongoing process and I know it will always be ongoing. I look back every year and feel I’m different, or still finding myself.
I have, however, always been interested in learning new stuff. So, as a product of that interest, I’ve tended to come across stuff that did change the way I think about things, generally.
My point is that I think my inability to find a that “significant” book is more a result of exhaustion from the day to day, rather than an end to my personal development.
Apologies for sounding New Agey.
Well, I dunno, re: life-changing from books. I sort of feel like it’d be quite hard for a book to radically change my outlook on life, because a huge amount of my worldview has been pretty well reinforced. That is, I can’t imagine reading a book that would change any of my major ideologies. Religion? Political leaning? Love of animals? Basic moral code? Blah blah blah.
A book might touch me, sure. It might make me think about new things. But it’s not going to really be critical in the formation of my basic understanding of the universe, as far as I can imagine. That’s not to say I’ve “found myself” or have stopped growing in some way – I just feel like change, for me, is going to be more significant through experience, and less significant through a relatively abstract injection of information via a book.
That said, what have I enjoyed recently? I’ve been reading What Einstein Told His Cook 2, The Gun Seller, which is ok, but not extraordinary, and The World According to Clarkson, which is a collection of columns by Jeremy Clarkson, most of which I completely disagree with, but still find entertaining to read.
I can pretty legitimately say that ‘Life of Pi’, especially reinforced by the Epilogue, touched me and changed my outlook on [insert subject here, don’t want to spoil it for ei-nyung who is reading it] in a way that “real” life and conversations and personal interactions had not.
I accept that these kinds of occurances are probably less frequent at our age than when we were in high school and college.
Re: Clarkson
That’s funny because it’s almost exactly my reaction to him as well. I read his anti-environment ranting and raving in the Top Gear magazine and other stuff, and while I almost always disagree, I still find it a fun read.
re: life-changing from books.
I think they’re still out there for me. There are just so many topics that I don’t know anything about, that learning about them would change my worldview.
I remember people coming out of their first architecture classes going around saying, “hey, you know, buildings do look like penises!” having heard about phallic symbols and such.
I think there are still “they look like penises!” moments left for me. 😀
…
Or something.
Similarly, I was walking with my wife the other day and pointing out same make/model car my parents bought and how it looked like another car nearby. She said, “they all look like gray cars to me.”
This was almost exactly what I said to a friend of mine when he was pointing out several varieties of plants to me. I simply didn’t care/couldn’t tell the difference.
The thought ocurred to me that it’s like that for everyone. If you’re a masonry guy, the sidewalks are probably endlessly fascinating. “Look at the mix they used for that. … that’s definitely going to crack …”
I think there are still things that I’ll learn that will change the way I view the world.
I’ve actually just starting reading fiction again, and I’ve had to make a concerted effort *not* to re-read the sci-fi/fantasy books that are my favorites. Two weekends ago, I started (and finished) one of the best books I’ve read since college – Shantaram.
I’ve also got a deal worked out with a best buddy of mine. I sent him the title of one book that I thought he absolutely had to read. And he sent back two titles that I absolutely have to read. Yes, very book-club-ish.
I told him he had to read The Old Man and the Sea. Strangely, he hadn’t read it yet, and he *loves* baseball. He told me I needed to read Lucky Jim and Vile Bodies. Lucky Jim, thus far, has been wholly uninteresting to me. Vile Bodies, I haven’t cracked yet.
Shantaram. I’ll blog on this more later.
I read Tuesdays with Morrie about 3 years ago for the first time.. it’s def one that touched me and effected my outlook. Tuesdays and The Alchemist are the two books I’ve read more than once and will undoubtedly read again 🙂
right now I’m reading
Our Inner Ape by Frans de Waal
it was my flight companion while watching the much-discussed jetblue Laguna Beach marathon.
it’s effecting my outlook, but in a more subtle way, which may be the way things go in our grey and dreary old age.
To be more clear: I think that as long as we are open to change and growth in ourselves, we are open to outside forces shaping us.
I do agree entirely with this sentiment. We even discussed this earlier yesterday! Heh, didn’t mean to say I was going to stop changing. I guess the vague thought I was trying to articulate was that when I was younger, I wasn’t just growing and changing, I was being molded into a core that was me and the whole point of existence at that point was to figure things out and get a sense of identity, whereas now, I have a sense of that core identity, and everything is a refinement of that.
Like, my very existence isn’t all about growth and changing, as we are at that stage. It’s a part of life, always, but not the only thing that’s going on. So I see myself as being far more open to change and to large influences at the time.
This isn’t to say that I’ve read nothing that was important or added to my outlook in the last ten years of my life; I have. But rather than form me, it’s added facets to an existing structure.
Even then, I don’t expect this not to happen in the future/present. It’s just not a daily experience as it was as a kid/teen. 🙂
As I read these conversations, I think that I tend to agree with a_b here: My point is that I think my inability to find a that “significant” book is more a result of exhaustion from the day to day, rather than an end to my personal development.
And I agree with seppo here: I just feel like change, for me, is going to be more significant through experience, and less significant through a relatively abstract injection of information via a book.
I don’t rule out change via something I read, but significant change is definitely more likely to happen to me through interpersonal interactions.
Maybe it’s just the situation I find myself in, but I seem to have mostly surrounded myself with people who are a lot like me. I’ve become acutely aware of that because of Mc, of course, and even he is very much like me in most ways. So I tend to think that I’m more likely to be exposed to new ideas and viewpoints through media (music, books, newspapers, etc) than through interactions with people, because my interactions with people have become so repetative and narrow in an almost inevidable kind of way.
I’m not sure why I think my intake of media is less repatitive and narrow. Hm…
A few of my absolute favorites are as follows:
– Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
– The House of Mirth , Edith Wharton
– Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
– The Witching Hour, Anne Rice
– Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
– The Cider House Rules, John Irving
I hardly read books cover to cover anymore. I read about 100 pages of a lot of books, and then put them down and move on. I usually buy non-fiction and don’t have the patience to finish them.
My favorite books are still the stuff I read as an adolescent, like the Lord of the Rings and other fantasy crap.
I wish I could say my tastes are more high-brow, but they aren’t really. I’d like to say I really enjoyed Macbeth or something clever like Infinite Jest (never finished that either), but I wouldn’t want to sit down with either of these, or many others, at this point.
Of stuff I can remember I’ve read (outside of stuff I read as a kid) and would consider my “favorites”, which I define as enjoyed and/or impactful:
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, by Hal Foster
Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics, Hal Foster
World Orders Old and New, by Noam Chomsky
The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Except for Neuromancer, most of that stuff I read a while ago. Recent stuff has been interesting (stuff I have and haven’t finished), but they either weren’t particularly enjoyable, or they didn’t really change my way of thinking in any significant way. The non-fiction books tend to fill in gaps in my knowledge, but they don’t result in a new way of looking at things.
I tend not to read fiction, in general. When I do read it, I can’t put it down. I don’t understand my reaction to it.
As for my bedside table, Count Zero, which is the “sequel” to Neuromancer.