Wait, like, that Cold Water Flat?

finished: Tinkers by Paul Harding

next up: Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur by Thomas C. Reeves

current audio listen: The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman

From the "Who Knew?" files: Paul Harding, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tinkers, is Paul Harding, who was in the 90s band Cold Water Flat.

OK, so I'm a bit late to the Tinkers party. But here's the thing: I was totally one of the few who were AT the Cold Water Flat party, so what do you have to say about that, huh?  It's true. When it comes to mid-1990s alterna-pop and non-top 40 radio, I am your girl. Better than Ezra? Jennifer Trynin? Grant Lee Buffalo? Sinead Lohan? Freedy Johnston? Bring it. Been there, done that, bought the CDs, because those were the days when you liked the single played on the radio so much that you went to Zia or (R.I.P.) Tower and bought the CD, not like now when you like the song played on the radio/Lastfm/Spotify/YouTube so much that you go to iTunes and buy the song. Which you already know and hear all the time. What's the fun in that?

Anyway, so Cold Water Flat is in fact one of the bands that is even a tiny bit more special for me because I was also at the Internet party in 1995 (when many of you -- don't deny it! -- were still a bit befuddled by all this talk of Telnet and chat rooms and the someone@something.com beginning to appear under the names of readers who wrote letters to the editor of Newsweek. So it was still somewhat of a novelty for me to e-mail Cold Water Flat at the e-mail address printed in their liner notes and talk about how I worked at my (ASU) college radio station and their upcoming show in Phoenix and so on ... and I got a response! I totally emailed with someone from Cold Water Flat back in the day! And no, I can't remember any of the details. Or even that long gone ASU e-mail address of mine. I transferred to USC the next year, and eventually the whole world got online, and the past faded away.

Fast forward to 2010. I'm in Chicago. I've got 700 books on my Goodreads "to-read" list. Tinkers by Paul Harding wins the Pulitzer for Fiction. No one has ever heard of this book. The interesting story in all the press and interviews and newspapers is how it was rejected by publishers before the tiny Bellevue Literary Press printed it in all its small but remarkable literary silence. The New York Times' "Look who wrote a Pulitzer" piece doesn't even mention that he was in a band until the fourth paragraph; the name Cold Water Flat comes in paragraph 14. I didn't read that New York Times piece in 2010. I noted the Pulitzer winners (because, um, I always do, since I kind of am obsessed with the Pulitzers) but all I remember thinking about Tinkers was, "Oh, that's really small. What is it? Oh, it's a tiny little white book. Note to self: read Tinkers."  The title and description evoked in my mind someone older than, you know, my approximate age or a few years older. The author was obviously literary, an Iowa Wrtiers' Workshop graduate, and I mentally placed him in his 50s. (Oh, hush, you know we all make random judgments like that.)

Fast forward again to May 2012. I'm catching up on recent Pulitzer winning fiction, and I check out Tinkers from the Phoenix public library. I read it in a day or two. I like it a lot. I start reading some of the post-Pulitzer  press, no longer afraid of spoilers, devouring the info about this literary wonder author who was checking the Pulitzer web site to see who won when he discovered that he won. And then I see: the drummer for Cold Water Flat. Such a flashback! Two of my worlds colliding!

I try to picture myself driving around Phoenix or L.A. in the late 1990s. I may have sold my Cold Water Flat CD in one of my great used CD purges -- back when you could actually get some money that way. Would I have ever imagined that one of the members of this band would write a novel that would surprise everyone by quietly becoming a Pulitzer Prize winner? Would the members of the band have imagined it, either?

I love creative people.

Oh, and guess what? Jen(nifer) Trynin has written a book, too. 

The beauty of Tinkers

now finished: Tinkers by Paul Harding

I've caught up on another Pulitzer winning novel, and this one is small and wonderful. Most summaries say something like, "A dying man thinks back on his life" and while that is true that is not the entirety of this work. I think the real magic in Tinkers is the way that two stories are told, of two different men, and yet you slowly come to realize how connected we all are, even when separated, and how much our stories are part of one another's stories.

Also, the Maine setting works painfully perfectly for this novel. It, too, is vivid and magical. And so literary! And, yes, a wee bit mournful, I'd say:


"Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? ...And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough. - p. 72

There are several surprising, delightful moments, like when Russell the Cat makes an appearance. I immediately loved Russell the Cat, and remember him well, brief though his time was on the Tinkers stage:

"The children were astonished by the ham that Kathleen had cooked for the Christmas meal. It was the largest they had ever seen. It was covered in a crust of brown sugar and molasses. Buddy the Dog sat at attention, as if recommending himself to the ham over the children by his proper manners. Kathleen shooed him with a kick in the ribs, but he just let out a yelp and stayed put. Russell the Cat came into the room, too, and sat facing the wall, away from the table, cleaning his paws, as if an affectation of utter disinterest might be the trick to getting a scrap." - p.83

Why did the Bellevue Press publish this book? In part, this is a story about epilepsy. In part, it is about humanity.  It is about what it means to work, to feel, and to make a life. In part, it is about what it means to be mentally ill and the judgments we freely cast on one another.

"Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools?" - p. 124

When I used to review advance reader copies as a Borders front-of-store person, the cards I filled out for the Random House rep asked me to compare the book to another work. (This, to get the bookseller thinking about recommending it to readers, obvio.) I think Tinkers feels a bit like "The Little Match Girl."

Also, when you read Tinkers you will learn about clocks. And you will like doing so.

The Island of the Day Before

now finished: The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco was one of the sure bets in my A-to-Z Literary Blog Project to make the top half, in which I am revisiting my top 13 authors by reading another book of theirs. The book I read for 'E' is for Eco during the original project, The Name of the Rose, was so perfectly what I expected it to be -- including interesting and good, along with much more -- that I became convinced he would continue to be perfectly what I expected of him in his other works. I had always thought I'd read Foucault's Pendulum  next, it being so "the other book by Umberto Eco" famous and all, and I've even touched it many a time, but instead I am in hanging out in Phoenix and my local branch of the library had The Island of the Day Before on the shelf and I was there and could have put a request for the Pendulum to be transferred from another branch but The Island of the Day Before was about a man shipwrecked on a ship, and it was blue...so blue...I like blue things...

OK, so this was a strange book.

I can truly appreciate the Goodreads reviewer who referred to its "150 page screening process to weed out the unworthy."  I really did not know what was happening for quite some time and I wasn't sure if I was enjoying the book at all, but it ends up getting kind of trippy and good, at least in parts.

I know, I know, it doesn't sound like a very enthusiastic recommendation, and there are so many of you who are all like, "I ain't gonna work to read a book" and that's fine, just go on back to your Hunger Games, now, really. Run along. Umberto Eco melds philosophy and whimsy and wink-wink cleverness and social criticism and story and literary allusions (including to himself) and some weirdness and some history and god knows what all else. There is no "OMG I literally hunger for these games" here.

Sometimes The Island of the Day Before is straightforwardly clever, such as when Roberto della Griva's father advises him, "Well, war's an ugly animal, that's sure. Anyway, my son, never forget: always be good, but if somebody comes at you and means to kill you, then he's in the wrong. Am I right?" - p. 51 

Sometimes it's wry:  "He was now so sure an Intruder was on board that his first thought was this: Finally he had proof he was not drunk. Which is, after all, the proof drunks constantly seek." - p. 200

Sometimes there's a kind of winking sympathy directed at the reader: "We could say that Roberto had definitely lost his mind, and with very good reason; no matter how he calculated, the figures would not add up. The paradoxes of time can indeed unhinge us." -p. 338   This basically sums up the experience of the main character and yet also the reader of the book.

I personally think the book became excellent when he started philosophizing with Father Caspar about religion, swimming, the universe, and so on.

And really, who else but Umberto Eco could use the word "hircocervi"? I mean, sure, he wrote in Italian and the translator used the word "hircocervi," but the Italian could very well be the same, and I'm sure you get my larger point. Who writes about hircocervi, mentioned in a passing metaphor? Umberto Eco, that's who.

Have I mentioned that the ship on which Roberto della Griva is shipwrecked, as well as the island he can see but can't swim to, as well as the story he is writing, as well as a few other things are these incredibly layered metaphors?  Have I mentioned that "the day before" refers to the international date line, which thoroughly trips out our hero Roberto, as he thinks about the ramifications of swimming to yesterday?  Have you ever thought about how central figuring out longitude calculations can be to life on Earth as we know it?  These days, we see how nuts some religious folks can be about evolutionary biology, dinosaurs, and prayer before football games. I thought about that as our characters grappled with what longitude says about papal conceptions of Earth's place in the universe, and as they matter-of-factly discoursed on whether God created infinite worlds and the meaning of atoms, The Void, and all being essentially being nothing.
 
Some books are easy to talk about. This isn't one of them. I enthusiastically recommend this book, but unlike The Name of the Rose, the list of  people to whom I'd recommend this one is pretty small.

Page numbers I cited are from ISBN 0-14-0259198

Everlasting: Then and Now

just re-read: Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Anyone who was in Mrs. Muscato's SAGE reading class at Sunrise Elementary undoubtedly remembers the "Good Books" quarterly(?) book report projects. Each student read a different book and completed an extensive report/questions/activities, and then for the next go-round selected a different book, which might be the one a friend had read the previous quarter, or the one a different friend would read the next quarter, or even the next school year, as SAGE students attended SAGE Reading from third through sixth grades. The rotating list of titles included loads of classics: A Wrinkle in Time, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Witch at Blackbird Pond, My Brother Sam Is Dead, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, etc., and we were all aware of which ones our classmates were reading. I never got around to some of the books, such as A Separate Peace, although I read that later in life. Everyone did Bridge to Terabithia at some point in SAGE; that was sort of the all-around acclaimed favorite. "It's soooo good!!" we would gush to one another when we were on our Terabithia rotation. But I had a secret, at ten years old: I liked Tuck Everlasting more.

Not everyone cycled through Tuck Everlasting; it was a bit more obscure of a choice. I remember being drawn to it and feeling a sense of calmness in its pages, a depth. Occasionally when I worked at Borders during my twenties I spied a copy of it in the children's section and was glad to know it was still around. I noticed when the movie was made a while back, but I didn't go see it -- the vivid image from my childhood reading was still sufficient in my mind. Last week, as I strolled through the Phoenix Public Library looking for something else, I noticed the book on a shelf and picked it up, wondering if I would like it as much now as I did 25 years ago. I stood there and started reading.

I ended up checking it out of course, to bring home and savor again.

There's a mention early in chapter one of the wood that belongs to the Fosters. "The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it," the narration tells us. "How deep after all can it go? If a person owns a piece of land, does he own it all the way down...Or does ownership consist only of a thin crust under which the friendly worms have never heard of trespassing?"

Interesting, I thought, standing there in the library children's section. This is how I think.

I began remembering how philosophical Tuck Everlasting is. Then, Winnie starts talking to the toad, and I remembered the toad. I remembered that the toad was significant --significant enough, as I recall, that there was a question about him in the Good Books set of activity questions.

When I got home from the library, I lay on the couch and quickly devoured the book, relating once again to the part where Winnie doesn't want to keep the fish they catch so they throw it back, remembering the house and the pond and the man in the yellow suit and the sheriff, reliving the jail switcheroo late in the book, Jesse's offer, and the fate of the toad.

At our ten-year high school reunion, a friend of mine observed that while people had changed quite a bit since high school in many ways, there was something about the essence of a person that remained the same, recognizable, an inner something that was still just them. There is some Linda-ness in me that was in me at age nine that is still in me in my thirties. This book, with its profound message and big philosophical questions and somewhat earthy-crunchy/somewhat atheist sensibility, spoke to that Lindaness then -- before I even knew how much those things were a part of my Lindaness -- and still speaks to that Lindaness now. 

I guess my love for Tuck Everlasting is...well...everlasting!

The Yearling

now finished:  The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
What did I know about The Yearling before reading it? Let's see:

1. It's about a boy and a deer.
2. It's sad.
3. It won a Pulitzer.
4. It was a movie. Father Mulcahy goes on and on about the movie in a particular M*A*S*H episode.
5. Have I mentioned the deer?

Well, I am now pleased to inform you that I know much more about The Yearling, having finally read it and checked off another Pulitzer winner/classic/book-we-should-have-read-in-high-school/American gem from my list(s).  I savored the experience of reading it and promptly gave it five stars on Goodreads.

I want to talk like the Baxters and Forresters and other people around those parts where the book is set, in northern late 1800s Florida. Pa Baxter, aka Penny, is maybe my new hero, although I sure do like Buck Forrester as well. Jody's Pa is just so wise and wonderful, though, and I love when he says things like, "There's dogs is bear dogs, and dogs that jest isn't bear dogs" and "When there's trouble waitin' for you, you jest as good go to meet it" (promptly followed by a snake bite -- ouch!) and, in response to Ma saying that he would stick up for the devil himself, "I reckon I would. The devil gits blamed for a heap o' things is nothin' but human cussedness."  This man, simply put, rules.

Neighbor Buck, on the other hand, won my heart when he said, "I git that-a-way. I like to come and I like to go. Wherever I be, I'm content a while, and then I jest someway ain't content no more." - p. 185  He was also nice enough to help out the Baxters while snakebit Pa was lying in bed recovering. I might add that another wonderful character in that chapter was the drunken Doc, who admitted that he did little to actually help cure Pa, and who was funny about the whiskey and other things, like in this exchange:

Jody said, "I'll be back shore, before dinner."

"Reckon you'd not git home a-tall," she said, "if 'twasn't for dinner-time."

Doc said, "That's man-nature, Ma'am, Three things bring a man home again -- his bed, his woman and his dinner." -p.166

There is also the use of the marvelous word "faintified," more than once, in this book. I swoon.

But in addition to the perfect vernacular of certain characters' dialogue, there is also the subtle philosophy to consider.

"He climbed to the top of the load of hay and lay flat on his back, staring at the sky. He decided that the world was a very peculiar place to live in. Things happened that had no reason and made no sense and did harm, like the bears and panthers, but without their excuse of hunger. He did not approve." - p. 269

This is just a really well-crafted story, a gem of a book, that speaks to all of us with life experience who have ever had to go through the loss of something and learn things. (All of us.) Like Moby Dick and pretty much all of U.S. History class, I think The Yearling is wasted on young'uns.

"None of us don't know what we want 'til it's mebbe too late to git it." - p. 347

The way nature is woven into this book is well done. Some people don't really go for a lot of nature in their books. Sparkly vampires are apparently OK, but actual frogs and panthers and trees are "boring." However, the whole point of this entire novel is how these people live off the land and depend on the Earth and on one another. It's a different kind of community, and the fullness of emotions that Jody feels when at the sink-hole or on a hunt suck the reader in. I especially relate to this: "He decided that sunrise and sunset both gave him a pleasantly sad feeling. The sunrise brought a wild, free sadness; the sunset, a lonely yet a comforting one. He indulged his agreeable melancholy until the earth under him turned from gray to lavender and then to the color of dried corn husks. -p. 397

Of course, what many people remember about The Yearling is the sad ending. Naturally, I knew a sad ending was coming and I braced myself for it, but I found it not nearly as gut-wrenching as I expected. I think it's because I was so philosophically prepared for it not just because the book is so famous and all but because I was so wrapped up in what this book teaches us about the way life's cycles invariably complete themselves, not to mention the inevitable fact that life is hard. Totally awesome, and totally hard.

"He lay in a stupor of weariness. He hung suspended in a timeless space. He could go neither forward nor back. Something was ended. Nothing was begun." - p. 422

And then it was over, and I moved on from reading The Yearling. But not before telling you to read it, too!

Mattie and Margarita

now finished:

Nacer Bailando by Alma Flor Ada

and True Grit by Charles Portis

During the last weekend in April I finished two books. Don't be impressed; they were both short and sweet.I checked out Nacer Bailando from the library because I like reading in Spanish and French from time to time to keep up my language ability (although I recognize that what I really need is to improve my speaking ability in both of those languages). My intention is to read a Spanish and a French book each month, which is why I sometimes pick up young adult books, to at least get a bit closer to that goal! So much fail, there. Anyway, True Grit was cosmic because my mother and Brian and I had recently watched the original John Wayne movie after discussing how much Brian and I loved the Coen brothers' remake, whereas the original is a film beloved by my mother that I recall being on in the living room quite often during my childhood. The three of us also went to Utah recently to clean out my late grandfather's garage, and what to our wondering eyes should appear but a copy of that novel. Needless to say we did not include it in our donate-to-charity boxes, but instead brought it down to Phoenix and all read it in succession.

Nacer Bailando was good. I want to give it to my niece and nephew (in English--they are so resistant to my wishes that they become bilingual at an early age!)  Its central characters are Margaraita, a Texas-born California resident of Mexican heritage who discovers when her Mexican-born cousin comes to live with her that it's okay to like her Mexican heritage as much as her U.S. life and heritage. It sounds kind of simplistic and "politically correct" but it's really not treacly at all. And it totally celebrates and exposes the young reader to a famous poem and some other cultural things.

True Grit is an even quicker read than the children's fiction, I think! You just zip through it, so if you're even considering reading it, you really have no excuse not to go check it out from your local library; you'll be done a day later. Of course Mattie Ross is awesome as always, and the mentions of my boy Rutherford B. Hayes  don't hurt.  As much as I grew up with John Wayne and will always recall waiting for "the snake part" to come along as a child, and as much as I adore General Sterling Price, I am kind of into the Coen brothers' flick, particularly Hailee Steinfeld. Did you know she is working on Romeo and Juliet now? I do believe that will show us whether or not she is as magical as she seemed in True Grit. 

A Visit From the Recent Pulitzer Winners

recently finished: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Delayed blogging...I actually finished this book in late April. In fact, it was good timing that I had checked it out of the library shortly before the Pulitzer Prize winners were announced. The 2012 winner for the Fiction category was: nobody!  But I just picked up last year's winner, Goon Squad, from my to-read pile and carried on as if something had happened, because I had not got around to reading the 2011 winner yet.

So, then. Did I love it? Well, I wasn't sure I was going to love it, but then it got better near the end. I do not refer to the Power Point chapter, about which I am still decidedly "Whatever" but I just really liked how aptly she illustrated the disconnect between those in the younger generation who aren't willing to say anything that might offend anyone and, well, the rest of us. That got this book so many points from me. More points than all the drugs and rock n' roll and random New York and California moments.

As I mentioned on Goodreads, I think the joke is on the reader in a way. That is, to the extent readers marvel at its incisive criticism of technology -- while reading it on their iPhone or whatever. As I also mentioned previously, I really liked that instead of capitulating to this whole "Woe is the music industry" thing she just wrote about it, accepting that it is changing but not buying into the hyped idea that it is dying.

All in all, I consider this worth a read. I also firmly believe that even if you create individual works of art, you can link them together into a greater work of art, and thus make a new work of art. In other words, it's a novel, not a collection of short stories.

It's About Meat War

now finished: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

A decade or so ago in a galaxy not too far away(L.A.), some friends and I had a book group at Borders (R.I.P.) called "The Books We Should Have Read in High School." One of our selections was Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. One member of our book group triumvirate was skeptical about reading this particular work and he would offer up as a reason "It's about meat." It was very funny, the way he said it. Of course it turns out that The Jungle is about far more than meat; in fact, I found that meat played a decidedly small role when compared to the struggles of Polish and other Eastern European immigrants and all the horrible things endured by factory workers and people who weren't rich (you might say the 99%). "It's about meat" became a kind of code-phrase of ours to use for a pre-reading simplification and/or rejection of a book. You know, like, All Quiet on the Western Front: "It's about war."   Or Twilight: "It's about sparkly vampires." If only more people had the good sense to reject that "book," for that or any other reason. You get the idea.

ANYWAY, I don't suppose The Hunger Games could be so simplified, as the title of this blog post would do, but I am here today to tell you that yes, it is about war. The reason I am telling you this is because some friends of mine - who have read it - recently engaged in a discussion about whether The Hunger Games was anti-war. This surprised me because I, who had obtained the vast majority of my Hunger Games knowledge from two years of incessant Entertainment Weekly coverage including an interview with author Suzanne Collins, was decidedly under the impression that it was an anti-war novel. You know, governments plucking teenagers from their homes and families to fight to the death in a breathlessly followed/televised spectacle for no discernible reason, other than to further the power and glory and control of said government? Um, that would be---> war.

Well, I have now read The Hunger Games, and while it is not "amazing" or "soooo totally well written" or even a little bit well-written, it is okay, and it has an interesting premise. Which is about war.

A few quotes from the book:

"What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?" - p.55

"We both know they have to have a victor. Yes, they have to have a victor. Without a victor, the whole thing would blow up in the Gamemakers' faces." - p.344

"It must be hell to mentor two kids and then watch them die. Year after year after year. I realize that if I get out of here, that will become my job." -p.386

War, war, war.

From the "Nothing Attracts a Crowd Like a Crowd" Files

They tried to make me love the latest hyped bestselling trilogy, and I said no, no, no...

I can hear it now. Now that I have finally read The Hunger Games, I will discuss its flaws and then people will accuse me of disliking it because it's popular. Please let me assure you that popularity is not what I dislike about The Hunger Games.

Oh, wait. Perhaps I should rewrite those sentences so Suzanne Collins and her fans can better understand them. Let's try this:

I can hear it now, that I have finally read The Hunger Games, I will discuss its flaws and then people will accuse me of disliking it -- because it's popular -- please let me assure you that popularity is literally not what I dislike, about The Hunger Games.

Unfortunately, that is how Suzanne Collins writes  in The Hunger Games, way too often for my liking. Yes, my basic idea is still communicated in the above paragraph. Yes, someone might write that way on a daily basis -- someone like a blogger, or perhaps a junior high student writing a note to a friend. You know what should not be written that haphazardly and punctuated that poorly?  Books! The atrocious writing in itself would be bad enough, but then you have to think about the editing. Who are the people at Scholastic Press who let sentences like that go to print?

I do have things to say about The Hunger Games' anti-war allegory (oh yes! there is one!) but first we have got to talk about the punctuation. I was not aware that as the publishing industry crashes and burns their plan was to just release books without bothering to copy edit them, but I really have no other explanation for what happened here. I am not sure when I have ever been so frustrated by run-on sentences, missing commas, extra commas, and missing apostrophes. I thought maybe I was reading my Facebook news feed, but no, it was an actual published book.

You want examples? OK!  Page numbers are from the hardcover edition I borrowed from my local public library.

•  "Electricity in District 12 comes and goes, usually we only have it a few hours a day." -p.80
• "When suddenly I notice Peeta, he's about five tributes to my right, quite a fair distance, still I can tell he's looking at me and I think he might be shaking his head." -p.150
•  "But I don't dare leave the jacket, scorched and smoldering as it is, I take the risk of shoving it in my sleeping bag, hoping the lack of air will quell what I haven't extinguished." -p.173
•  "The girl with the arrows, Glimmer I hear someone call her -- ugh, the names the people in District 1 give their children are so ridiculous -- anyway Glimmer scales the tree until the branches begin to crack under her feet and then has the good sense to stop." -p.182
•  "They know I have the bow and arrows, of course, Cato saw me take them from Glimmer's body." -p.241
•  "I chew a few mint leaves, my stomach isn't up for much more." - p.282
•  "The strong fatty cheese tastes just like the kind Prim makes, the apples are sweet and crunchy." - p.309
• "Portia and Cinna receive huge cheers, of course, they've been brilliant, had a dazzling debut." - p.360

I'm pretty sure Suzanne Collins' computer might actually be missing its semi-colon key. 

Meanwhile, she manages to do something else terrible. In multiple instances, first-person narrator Katniss explains that a character "literally" did something or other. I noticed at least four, such as:

• "To say I make it in the nick of time is an understatement. I have literally just dragged myself into the tangle of bushes at the base of the trees when there's Cato..." -p.223
• "He tosses his fork over his shoulder and literally licks his plate clean with his tongue making loud, satisfied sounds." -p.312

There is nothing more colloquial, current, and annoying than the use of the word "literally" in all kinds of sentences where it doesn't belong.  Turn on your television or radio and you will hear everyone from sportscasters to politicians adding "literally" into their sentences for emphasis. You will hear them use it in place of "very" or "actually" or even "not literally at all" such as when an ESPN commentator the other night said the NFL draft was "literally consuming New York City." No, it was not literally consuming New York City. That's the whole point of using a metaphor, or speaking in entertaining hyperbole.

It is becoming rarer and rarer to hear or read a use of the word "literally" in which the word means what it means, namely, the opposite of figuratively. Millions of us have been guilty of overuse of "literally" in excited casual speech. That's bad enough, but the misuse is even more annoying than the overuse, in my opinion. I recognize that word saturation happens; sometimes words achieve a weird place in the vernacular. Does this mean published, edited books should succumb? No! That is why it annoyed me in The Hunger Games. It's too easy for Suzanne Collins to write as if she is blogging. It's too easy to fail to be careful and creative with language. It's too easy to require nothing special from our writers and editors, in a world where everyone can self-publish and cheapen the value of the written word.

I'm sure someone will say that Katniss talks that way. Katniss is supposed to be our postmodern heroine, telling her story in a casual, personal, freewheeling tone. Yes, creating a narrative voice -- even a casual one -- is a literary achievement. The writer should create a voice, maybe even a jaded one peppered with slang, like Holden Caulfield.  Consider all the ways J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is nothing at all like The Hunger Games. The author isn't creating a magical Katniss voice if Katniss just sounds like the author herself. That is my objection to "literally." It doesn't sound like a young, fierce hunter from District 12 in the dystopian future. It sounds like Suzanne Collins. Today.

This stuff bugged me to no end as I read The Hunger Games.  The story is all right. In my next post, I will address how very much it is indeed an anti-war novel. But I find myself once again disappointed by the latest hypity-hype-hyped bestseller, and I have no immediate desire to rush out to get my hands on the next installment in the series.The fact that shoddy work can get published and that millions will breathlessly enthuse about it without stopping to notice or care about such basic mistakes offends all of my writerly and readerly sensibilities.

Not that Garfield

now finished: Garfield by Allan Peskin

Not bad, Allan Peskin, not bad.  This President James A. Garfield of ours was an interesting character. While he did not catapult himself into the ranks of my favorites (20 presidents into my project, my top four are James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and Rutherford B. Hayes), Garfield did manage to remind me a lot of - myself. Not necessarily in a good way.

Some of it was just factual...he felt out of place as a youngster at times, and his literary aspirations occasionally seemed mismatched with his political aspirations, and he went to a religious academy to get out and do SOMEthing SOMEwhere in the world as a teenager...but Garfield held onto his religious devotion much longer than I held onto mine (i.e., his life). Also, he put work off until the last minute and thrived under deadline pressure, and sometimes he was kind of a jerk to people. But he meant well.

As for differences between us, he actually was  a wonderful orator, but labored over writing, so we're opposites there. And he really enjoyed being a soldier. I for one am really looking forward to getting out of this stretch of presidents who fought in the Civil War because each prez bio is taking me through the same battles, over and over and over, as I see the war through yet another prism. A Civil War buff I ain't.

The bio was well written for the most part, although this one had some weird editorial and grammatical things that seemed slightly off at a few points, like a date or sentence had been inserted from some other thought process that contradicted the page before. Mostly, though, it presented the mass of information very well, and it once again had really interesting discoveries lurking in the endnotes, such as the fact that in a speech called "The Currency" (Garfield was a freak about greenbacks and being anti-inflation), he used the term "industrial revolution," apparently 13 years before it was supposedly coined, according to the author of this bio.

Garfield was often disgusted by people who took power in the Republican party. (Another similarity between us!)  He said: "The war has brought to the surface of National politics many men who are neither fitted in character, nor ability, to be leaders of public thought or representative of the true men of the country."  (pp. 329-330)  Although he didn't hate Ulysses Grant, he did think Grant's presidency failed and really had negative effects on the Republican party. Then again, Garfield was totally wrapped up in the politics and ideas of James G. Blaine, whereas other people were on Roscoe Conkling's side (such as Garfield's VP, Chester A. Arthur), and Conkling was crazy, but Blaine was a little crazy, too, and it's hard to say if anyone was actually justified in his actions.


The most interesting parts of this book, hands down, were the 1880 Republican convention in Chicago where Garfield surprisingly got the nomination -- a drunken fest of backroom shenanigans! -- and the story of Garfield's assassin, Charles Guiteau. (I feel sorry for the guy -- his messy, deranged upbringing is clearly what made him a pitiful crazy man capable of taking out a president "for the good of the country.")  Anyway, so after being shot Garfield suffered for quite a while and died, as all my presidents do at the end of the prez bios. If I continue along this project at a good clip, I just might get to Carter,Bush, Clinton and Obama before they go. (I still haven't decided if the Usurping Decider gets to participate in my project, or if I should stick to just presidents.) 

And the Pulitzer goes to ... nobody!

As I'm sure we all know, the Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday. Wait, you mean everyone else didn't have the announcement in their Google Calendar for months? OK, fine, I may be slightly  more interested in the Pulitzers than some most other people, but yesterday there really was something interesting for those of us who like to read a good ol' Pulitzer-winning novel now and again: no Fiction award this year!

The last time this happened for the Fiction category was 1977. In fact, it happened for Fiction three times during the 70s!  It happens from time to time in most categories. I was intrigued to note that there has been No Award only once each for Poetry and Biography as opposed to the multiple No Award years for other Letters and Drama categories. Anyway, since I have known and loved many a Pulitzer-winning novel, I thought I would offer my totally unsolicited recommendations to those of you who were ready to rush out to your local bookstore/library to pick up a copy of this year's winner, only to find there was no winner. Here are...

Linda's 10 Pulitzer Fiction Books To Read Instead of This Year's Non-Existent Winner (Pulitzer award year is in parentheses)

1. His Family by Ernest Poole (1918)
   This was the first one, awarded in 1918 (note: there was no Fiction award in 1917, the first year of the Pulitzer Prizes!) His Family went out of print and few people remember Ernest, who wrote some other acclaimed novels as well. I consider this a little-known gem, especially for people who like or have lived in New York City and want a taste of its old days -- the city has always been filled with immigrants, financiers, do-gooders, and bright-yet-obnoxious young people (even if they weren't called hipsters yet). This book also speaks to a changing nation faced with war and a new generation that will surely do things better than the old generation did -- right?
2. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (1919)
   Another early winner, awarded in 1919, that looks at the progress of a nation's people and their shifting political and financial fates, this time in the Midwest. The younger Amberson with his sense of entitlement from his "great" family kind of reminds me of Dubya.
3. So Big by Edna Ferber (1925)
   Edna Ferber is a truly underrated writer. She's vaguely "famous" but really not pushed on anyone in the academic canon, and most young people probably just tune out at the name Edna. Big mistake. (Your great-grandchildren will do the same thing with "Britney" and "Jaden," you know.) Any book of Edna's you pick up is a good choice (Giant, Cimarron, and Showboat, to name a few) but why not start with So Big, which won the Pulitzer and may be of particular interest to my readers in Chicago, Iowa, Michigan and environs?
4. Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1926)
   Our hero has some flaws in this one, but his journey is interesting, and the ending made me cheer - out loud and everything! Awarded in 1926, this is one of those books that makes you realize people have always just been people and we have hopes and dreams and fears in common with our peeps of previous generations.
5. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1947)
   Dude, you think politicians are messed up now? Well, I mean, they are. But they were messed up in 1947, too, when this book won the Pulitzer, as they were in the 1930s when the events in Louisiana that may (or may not) have inspired this novel transpired. Very well written!
6. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1953)
   For those of you who want to check a winner off your to-do list quickly, head for this novel. I think it goes by pretty fast, unlike some other Hemingway works I could mention *cough* set in the Spanish Civil War *cough* and plus it's got the Cuba connection! And it's the eternal struggle of man versus nature! And yet it's so much more! And so on.
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee  (1961)
   Because seriously, if you haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird by now, you are just not caught up on one of the best, most essential works of the 20th century.
8. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (1986)
   This is one of my favorite books ever. It's a big one, but well worth it. It immerses you in a world with wonderful characters and unparalleled achievement in storytelling, plus snakebites and campfires and prostitutes and sweeping vistas that are evoked by the stellar writing. I know that a lot of people think, "Lonesome Dove?" as they wrinkle their noses and recall fleeting images of the 80s mini-series and Robert Duvall in a cowboy hat. The answer is: yes. Lonesome-freakin'-Dove. AMAZING.
9. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1994)
   I think people are divided on this one, but I love it. It's all so gray and cold and psychologically dark, up there in the northeast U.S. and Newfoundland, and there is so much that haunts the characters and, naturally, the reader. Bonus points: the protagonist is named Quoyle. Cool name.
10. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2007)
    I'm totally with Oprah here. Yeah, it's got the whole depressing apocalypse thing going on, but it's a fantastic choice for everyone because although it's grisly at times, it's the story of a father and son and the choices of humanity. The writing style is such that it moves quickly, but that's only one reason I couldn't put it down. And yes, you just might cry at the end, if you (and humanity) have a soul.

There now. Just because the Fiction jury consisting of Maureen Corrigan (whom I love listening to on Fresh Air) and Michael Cunningham (whom I love reading and even meeting in real life) and Susan Larson (whoever that is) didn't find any Pulitzer-worthy fiction that was published in 2011, you still have choices.

And may I suggest that to obtain these books you either a.)get a library card  or b.)visit an independently owned bookstore?  Happy reading!

We Need Another Rutherford

now finished: Rutherford B. Hayes, Warrior and President by Ari Hoogenboom
now reading: Garfield by Allan Peskin

Rutherford B. Hayes has long been my favorite obscure president. His name is great for starters; I think that's what sucked me in years ago.  As I have gone through my Reading A Biography of Every President In Order, To See Where We Went Wrong, a project  obviously begun under the Dubya administration, I have discovered some other favorite presidents, including the also obscure Millard Fillmore and the not-at-all-obscure James Madison, as well as my soulmate John Quincy Adams, who falls somewhere in between (famous, but not well known). So when I got to #19, Rutherford, I wondered if he would regain his title as my favorite obscure president, now that I am all up on #13 Millard Fillmore's awesomeness.

I will say this: Rutherford is the man. He had integrity. I do so love the presidents with integrity. (For example: not Van Buren, and Polk.)  And like some of my other favorites, he served the public well, did his life work well, fought against corruption, kept religious hooey from being dragged into government, and a whoooole bunch of other stuff. And, he kept a diary, so Hoogenboom's account is filled with lots of straight-from-the-horse's-mouth stuff, and I really feel like I know Rud very well. (That's the nickname, Rud, in case you were wondering or planning on naming your baby/pet Rutherford or anything.)

Rutherford was a Buckeye through and through, a man of Ohio, who was totally into his Ohioness, even though he was also a well traveled president. In fact, he was the first president to visit California while in office, and he even visited my alma mater USC on that trip!  Awesomeness!  Rutherford has me intrigued about Ohio things in a way few people have been able to do.  He was a good lawyer, he did good things for people, and no, lest you think I am swooning, he was not perfect, and I don't agree with him on every single thing. But I like him, and I think he did a great job.

The Hoogenboom bio is thoroughly researched and well written, and all in all it is one of the high points of my prez bios project.

Now, I have moved onto James A. Garfield, another Ohio man, and yes, they did know each other although they were not BFFs or anything. Garfield is not striking me as quite as spectacular philosophically, although he means well most of the time. In my Garfield bio, I am currently in the 1870s, when corporations and railroads and corruption are doing their thing in business-government.  Garfield is finally getting along with his family, after kind of being a jerky absent father/husband for the first few years of his marriage to the loooong-suffering Lucretia. What took me the longest to wade through in this book was the Civil War. For the last six or so presidents I've been reading about the Civil War politics, of course, but with Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, and now Garfield I have had to go through the entire Civil War, battle by battle, general by general, political ideology by political ideology, party split by party split, and did I mention battle by battle?

It could be interesting, I suppose. You know, to, like, a Civil War buff.  A Civil War buff I am not. I am a person interested in history, so it's great to learn things, and as a bio reader it is interesting to see which battles are brought to the fore in each president's life story, but seriously -- I'm mostly just over it. OK, Bull Run...McClellan sucks...here we are in Tennessee...there goes Grant to Vicksburg...who's where...is Sherman to Atlanta yet?...are we in Virginia...? And so on.  It's kind of like I'm in Groundhog Day, experiencing the same thing over and over again, with just a little difference of perspective.

A lot of times when I read my prez bios I wouldn't necessarily recommend the books for the casual reader, but I think I would in fact recomend Hoogenboom's Rutherford B. Hayes. I mean, you have to want to read a big bio, but it's an enlightening look at a period in history and a president about whom I'm willing to bet you know next to nothing. And yet he was so progressive and did so much! 

And you won't even have to experience the battles over and over if you are just reading Rutherford and not the surrounding presidents.

Is The Hunger Games anti-war? (And if not, why not?)

now reading in English: Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President by Ari Hoogenboom
now reading online in French: Douze ans de sejour dans la haute Ethiopie by Arnauld d'Abbadie

now listening on my MP3 player when I exercise: The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

As much as I don't enjoy reading multiple books at a time, it just works out that way when the medium is unique for each one.  I never used to listen to audio books, and I still can't stand to listen to fiction being read to me AT ALL, but I have discovered that I can listen to non-fiction. It's kind of like listening to intelligent news/public radio. So anyway, I'm making my way through these three works, at different times and in different places.

Anyone notice what I'm currently not reading? That's right, The Hunger Games. But fear not! You will be happy to know, ye of the "ZOMG!-it's-SO-amazing!" persuasion, that I am planning to read it as soon as I get to the top of the holds list at the good ol' Phoenix library. (No, I'm not going to buy it. I prefer to buy books that need my dollars more, and check out from the library something that is already a runaway bestseller and that I am not sure if I'll love.) I think I will actually reach the top of said library holds list fairly soon, as I have gone from position #236 on the holds list to #29 in just a week and a half.

So yes, I am planning to read The Hunger Games, and I will probably see the film, too, and I am not at all concerned about seeing the movie soon, because frankly there is nothing I hate more than being packed into a crowded theater, because I prefer silence with my films. I never ever ever go see movies on the days they come out. Ever. I verrrrrrrrrrry rarely go see films on Friday or Saturday at all. I like having lots of empty seats around me. Anyway, I have actually been vaguely planning to maybe read the novels for a year and a half or so, because the constant EW coverage and some of what I read in the blogosphere started to convince me they were worth a read. Of course, in 2010 when I started to become intrigued by The Hunger Games I also capitulated and read Men Who Hate Women aka in the U.S. as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and it was so overrated that I promptly did not read the next 2 Stieg Larsson books and I went back to ignoring bestselling series for a while, but I've come back around to The Hunger Games because it's so short and YA, so how much of a mental investment can it be, really? And because it's anti-war.

I mean, I thought it was anti-war.

I certainly read about it being anti-war. In the aforementioned EW coverage for starters. I've read a lot about the book in the last two years, much of it straight from Suzanne Collins' mouth, and I have a distinct impression of an anti-war message. But today I've been following the discussion of some friends (who have actually read the books?) as to whether it is in fact anti-war. So I poked into the blogosphere a bit on this specific topic, and I think what I'm discovering is that there might be more disagreement on what it means to be anti-war more than there is  disagreement about The Hunger Games.

And I certainly don't think it is exclusively anti-war. Of course it is also anti-totalitarian evil f#&*$ in government and anti-infatuation-with-glamorized-entertainment-at-the-expense-of-real-people's-tragedies and so on. Why would those things prevent it from being an anti-war allegory?

But clearly I need to read it, because there is more to this than meets my eye. So, what do you think? WITHOUT SPOILERS, give me your opinion: is The Hunger Games anti-war?

Killers for Life

now finished: Intimate Wars by Merle Hoffman

now reading: Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior & President by Ari Hoogenboom

now listening: The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

I found this Merle Hoffman book especially interesting what with all the fracas over birth control in the national media of late. Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room is a so-so memoir in the personal-life-recollection parts, but a fascinating inside look at this country's power structures in the history-of-abortion-reality parts. To be even more precise, it's a look at how those power structures affect people who don't have anywhere near as much power, including women who need abortions. And it's a look at what it took to make Choices, her clinic in New York, a reality.

I recommend Intimate Wars because I think more people need to take an unflinching but realistic look at abortion. In the book, Merle Hoffman specifically does not try to downplay anything, including the reality of abortion, which helps all the more to drive home her point that the "other side" (i.e., the anti-choicers outside her clinic who threaten her staff and make bomb threats while calling themselves "pro-life") are very much engaged in the business of lying about the reality of abortion. If they can make up some grisly picture and convince everyone this is what abortion looks like, they rally people to their side. Who needs facts when you can have grisly wedge issue titillation?

She details how much violence and threat of violence she and other clinics faced in the 1980s and 1990s, a history that must not be forgotten. If those anti-choicers get their way, there is such a terrible lot of violence, either against abortion providers (when abortion is legal) or against women's bodies (in back allies and other butcheries, when abortion is not legal).  

Bonus:  Merle Hoffman has traveled to Russia a few times (including when it was the Soviet Union) and there are interesting looks at what was going down there vis-a-vis women's health as well.

Revisiting Philip K Dick

now finished: VALIS by Philip K. Dick

Despite my occasional sigh-fi wall, Philip K. Dick made the top half of my A-to-Z Literary Blog Project authors, and I read a second book of his, VALIS.  Or is it Valis? It gets written both ways. The book didn't blow me away, but it was enjoyable. I recall that the first PKD book I read, Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, was greatest in its last third, and I think somewhere between the halfway to two-thirds-of-the-way points of this one would where I started to most enjoy it, too.

Really, though, in the end, what I enjoyed about this book were the pithy quotes that I find awesome both in and out of context. So, I decided to share here my  Top Eight Valis quotes. With no further ado:

"A lot can be said for the infinite mercies of God, but the smarts of a good pharmacist, when you get down to it it, is worth more."  -- p. 44

"Sherri resented every creature on earth, in order of proximity to her; that is the more she had to do with someone or something the more she resented him, or her or it." -- p. 89

"You can understand why Fat no longer knew the difference between fantasy and divine revelation -- assuming there is a difference, which has never been established." --p. 101

"Someone is playing a board game with time, someone we can't see. It is not God. That is an archaic name given to this entity by societies in the past, and by people now who are locked into anachronistic thinking. We need a new term, but what we are dealing with is not new." - p. 119

"...on Judgment Day and they're going to laugh at him like he laughs at us. That's what he deserves: a Great Judge exactly like himself.  That's not a bad theological idea," I said. "You find yourself facing yourself." -p.129

"It would not be in China, nor in India or Tasmania for that matter, that Horselover Fat would find the fifth Savior. Valis had shown us where to look: a beer can run over by a passing taxi. We had just saved Fat a lot of money, plus a lot of wasted time and effort, including the bother of obtaining vaccinations and a passport." - p. 158

"God can be good and terrible--not in succession--but at the same time.  This is why we seek a mediator between us and him; we approach him through the mediating priest and attenuate and enclose him through the sacraments. It is for our own safety; to trap him within confines which render him safe." - p 178

"It is amazing that when someone else spouts the nonsense you yourself believe you can readily perceive it as nonsense." --  p. 210

Generally Speaking

now reading: Grant: A Biography by William S. McFeely

In my prez bios project, I am on president #18, one Ulysses S. Grant. Of course, trivia lovers among you may know that he was not in fact named Ulysses S. Grant, rather, his name was Hiram Ulysses Grant and the (senator? congressman?) who got him into West Point mucked up his name and it kind of went from there. Anyway, I am a little past halfway through this book and as usual it is interesting learning about the president's formative years, rise to fame and greatness, and place in the swirling events of history. I continue to love this reading project. As for Grant in particular....

He was quite the popular hero. I have always been fascinated/skeptical when it comes to the voting-public-enthalled-by-a-general thing (like, what exactly makes a general qualified to be president? no one can say), but it happens every few presidents, even though it hasn't worked in my lifetime (yet), most prominently when some people bandied about Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf's name but that was a total non-starter.

This particular biography actually qualifies for two of my reading projects, as it is also a Pulitzer Prize winner; howEVer, I am actually not sure if I think it's superb, so far. It's interesting, but not really drawing me in more than any other biography, as you might expect a Pulitzer winner to do. The most interesting thing about this book  so far is how William S. McFeely is the first biographer I've read who actually calls out "great war leadership" for what it is: getting men to kill other men. At first (the earliest chapters in the book) I was excited because I thought he was actually going to go with that thought and try to make people see how stupid and murderous war is, but instead he goes down a different path of kind of making it Grant's flaw that only leadership in war could bring out his talents as opposed to business or politics or whatever he tried as a young man.  I suppose it was shocking enough for some academic writer to actually call a spade a spade (war is senseless murder) and that's why he doesn't really go any further and indict everyone responsible (i.e., people who might be reading his book).

McFeely is totally defensive of (#18) Grant's role in (#17) Andrew Johnson's presidency, and it's interesting to contrast this point of view with the biography of Johnson I recently read that explains what a raw deal Johnson got from the Congressional Republicans in the early days of Reconstruction.

As usual, I continue to see how large the story of slavery and blacks in America looms in the history of the United States, despite how thin of a thread it is in the tapestry of many of my school social studies textbooks. The story of race relations in the U.S. is so not just one thread. It deserves all the study activists try to give it and more.

Other Books, Same Authors

now finished: Other Voices, Other Rooms  by Truman Capote
now reading: Grant by William S. McFeely

Careful readers may recall my first post-War and Peace project on this little Lit Supp blog o' mine.  I suppose you'd have to be something like a careful reader just to even be reading this blog today after so long a hiatus on my part, but that's not the point.  In 2007, I embarked upon my long-contemplated A-to-Z Reading Project, in which I chose a book from one new-to-me author for each letter of the alphabet (apart from my sorry, sorry, I'm SORRY OK Gao Xingjian for 'X' issue). It took a little longer to complete than I had originally contemplated, what with the whole being-in-law-school thing and all, but I eventually finished and then chose my top half, thirteen of those authors that I would like to read again.

The winners were: A-C-D-E-F-I-L-R-S-U-V-W-Y  (runners-up: H & J). I have since read a second book from three of them. After starting with Martin Amis' The Information for the original project, I returned to him and read Money. I was  not that enthralled with Pico Iyer's Cuba and the Night during the project, but was happy to leave his novels behind and delve into his travel narratives with Video Night in Kathmandu -- this was the Pico Iyer I knew I loved from back in my days when we had him on The Savvy Traveler. And I read E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel, which I found as pitch perfect on ever page as A Passage to India, my introduction to him.

Now, here in Phuket of all places, I have lain on a beach and in two days devoured Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms. I am surprised this book is not more famous than it is. I can see why the literary world must have been so excited to have him become one of its darlings a few decades ago. The writing is so good. It's just a marvel. He evokes people in a place and makes you ache for them. This book is also so bold and so saucy, in its way, and you might say a kind of wistful evocation of Capote himself. It's definitely something any of the millennials who think they discovered gender should read. But mostly it's just harsh yet subtle, breezy yet powerful, and naively wicked, much like many of its characters.

There were times I was doing something else during the day and wanted to get back to reading because I was truly worried about what was going to happen to Joel Knox (Samson). (I know, right? As if I could do anything about it by hurrying back to 'save' him - it's already there in the book. Duh. The mind does strange things.)  Capote evoked a sympathy in me that I haven't felt in a very long time. I also have an incredibly vivid picture in my mind of the house, garden, and surroundings of The Landing. Powerful, I tell you.

That's A, C, F, and I revisited. The plan is that after I read these 13 again, I will again whittle it down to a top half and choose six authors, then read a third book by them. Then a final round of three before I select a winner. It's definitely getting harder now to contemplate eliminating authors from the running!

Of course, I also have to alternate with my other reading project, the Prez Bios, in which I am on #18, Ulysses S. Grant. And that is what I am reading now, to be followed by my revisiting Philip K. Dick. 

My Most Read Authors

I love Goodreads for a lot of reasons, and here's one: it created a little link on the side of the "My Books" page with my Most Read Authors. Fun! I clicked on it and was shocked to discover Jane Sorenson at the top. A little known secret about me is that as an adolescent I devoured her series of twelve books about Jennifer Green, in all its ridiculous, born-again-Christian, totally cheese-tacular, intermediate fiction glory. These books were terrible, and yet great, and they taught me all about Haiti.  They are kind of from the Brady Bunch school of kids' art/entertainment. Despite the greatness of the so-sappy-they're-awesome "Jennifer Books," I really was appalled to see Jane Sorenson's name at the top of my list of most-read authors. I realized that although her series had a dozen books, if nothing else I had read at least as many Beverly Cleary and Dr. Seuss books when I was a child but just hadn't rated them on Goodreads. So I promptly went through adding and rating a few more books from those two authors. With no further ado, then, here are my top 13 most read authors:

1. Dr. Seuss & Beverly Cleary  (tie)
2. Jane Sorenson
3. Sandra Scoppettone
4. Elizabeth Berg & Virginia Woolf (tie)
5. William Shakespeare
6. Nelson DeMille & Douglas Adams (tie)
7. Margaret Atwood, Anna Quindlen, Judy Blume & Nick Hornby (4-way tie)

I'm good with the gender balance of the list, but my goodness, it's certainly very white-Anglo-American, isn't it? But, hey, naysayers! Check out all that genre fiction!

Who are your most read authors?

Honest Abe, Rail-Splittin' and Constitution Splittin' (but not nation-splittin')

now finished: Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years by Carl Sandburg

next up: The Beach by Alex Garland

So, Abraham Lincoln: a benchmark, it would seem, in my prez bios project. I mean, Abraham Lincoln is a president that other people read bios of, even people who aren't doing a wonderfully dorky read-a-bio-of-every-president-in-order-to-see-where-we-went-wrong project. That means I had a lot of choices, for the first time since Thomas Jefferson, but we settled on the Carl Sandburg.



Have I mentioned that it was originally published in six volumes?  This is one big bio. You can find just The Prairie Years or just The War Years, but I opted for the all-in-one combined volume that Sandburg himself abridged from the six volumes. It was very in depth, and I definitely feel that I spent a great deal of time with Lincoln and learned more about the Civil War than I ever came close to doing in my history classes over the years. I mean, there just isn't time to focus that deeply (unless you're a history major) as Sandburg did in researching and really becoming one with Lincoln's life.


The book has a strange style: it's a little folksy, like Lincoln himself, in relating the anecdotes of Lincoln's way with people, always able to smooth a ruffled feather or talk to anyone or get done what he wanted done without ever strong-arming people or even sometimes letting them realize they were being persuaded to give Abe his way.


Of course, nowadays it's all the rage to reconsider Lincoln's greatness by comparing him to the evil, monstrous, tragic-joke-of-a-president Dubya, because both kind of tossed habeas corpus to the wind during their wars. It's an interesting comparison (I first studied it intensively in my Foreign Affairs and the Constitution class in law school, so it's no surprise to me) but I'm not sure it's exactly spot on.

At any rate, though, the Civil War sure was a bloody mess.

I really, really hate how inevitable so many people thought it was. There should have been some kind of human decency that rose above the sectional slavery struggle. Look, I understand the need to adhere to the Constitution. And I understand that Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan, aka presidents numbers 13, 14, and 15, basically did not solve the slavery issue because they disliked it but understood legally that they "couldn't" do anything about it under the Constitution.  And it was true, in its way, that the Constitution protected slavery in the South. But then, simply, the Constitution was flawed. OK? It was flawed. It needed to not protect slavery, just as countries and governments and constitutions and leaders today should not protect slavery (including human trafficking!) or oppression. And the idea that Lincoln (and Grant) knew they needed to open up wholesale slaughter of the Confederate soldiers (also, of course, leading to slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers) in order to stop this evil from happening is just so tragic, so...so...Hiroshima of them.

WHEN will there ever be a generation that stands up and says war is murder, and war is wrong, and we are going to solve our problems in a different way?  WHEN will we have a leader do that?

It certainly isn't our Nobel Peace Prize winner, Obama.  And my god it was not that lunatic clown murderer from Texas before him.

I agree with the man who so eloquently stated in the documentary The Good Soldier that the generation that finds a way to solve problems peacefully will actually be the "greatest generation."

And then, at the end of the horrible war, after so many have suffered so much, the night of Lincoln's death makes for one of the most gripping episodes I have yet read in any president biography.Well done, Carl Sandburg.

Finally, Abe Lincoln. Is he great?

now reading: Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years by Carl Sandburg

So I'm reading this bio of Abraham Lincoln, as I continue along with my prez bios project (reading a biography of every president in order to see where we went wrong, a project that was obviously started during the Dubya administration). I realize that for some people Abraham Lincoln has been "next" ever since I finished Thomas Jefferson, or possibly James Madison, since many of us tend to give little thought to the likes of Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, or Zachary Taylor. And, let's not even get started about Millard Fillmore, who is solidly in my top three along with James Madison and my boy, JQA. (That would be John Quincy Adams).

But you see, if you don't read a biography of every president in order to see where we went wrong, then you might find yourself reading a book about ol' Abe without any idea what Franklin Pierce (#14) and James Buchanan (#15) did in the decade before the Civil War. I must say that reading these presidential stories has been even more interesting than I thought it was going to be. The early-to-mid 1800s are a seriously incredible time in U.S. history, with so much going on, and HUGE problems to solve, and so many potentially mad events on the horizon, and the presidents are fascinating.  I have found my study of Abe enhanced by knowing the details of what came before.

I am totally not prepared to launch into any slavery diatribe right now, but my god was that a problem for the nation. Very few saints in the whole ending-slavery thing. For example, Lincoln: not a radical abolitionist. He was much more concerned with keeping the union together, etc., at least as president. It is interesting to read about the folksy, humorous, humble man, as presented by Carl Sandburg. Obviously most of us know Carl Sandburg for his poetry, but he dug deep and spent years creating this six-volume portrait of Lincoln, which he then himself abridged into a six-in-one 800-page volume (that I am now reading).

Obviously, I know how things are going to end, but it is nonetheless a gripping saga getting there.