My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

My Reading Life is Pat Conroy’s love song to the books that made him the writer he is today.  It is also a love song to the people who introduced him to these books—his mother, his high school English teacher, the irascible owner of his favorite book shop, along with countless friends with whom he has shared books and talked about books.

The vignettes are sometimes poignant, sometimes funny.  One of my favorites is the story of how he was ousted from an Adrienne Rich poetry reading at his first ever writers’ conference.  He had gone to get coffee for his group of friends, and when he returned, carefully balancing the coffee cups, he didn’t notice he was the only male in the audience until they started hissing at him.

He tells other stories about the experiences that made him a writer—for example, he feels a desperate need to portray the family abuse he was forced to hush up as a child—alternating with chapters on the books that formed him and are still among his favorites today, such as War and Peace, Gone with the Wind, and Look Homeward, Angel.

Never having read Conroy before, I was amazed at his passionate prose.  He has an endearing way of launching into a high-flown sentence, then adding a self-deprecating little shrug at the end.  For example, he writes poignantly about his lonely boyhood as the child of a military family and how books provided his only solace:  “Before I’d ever asked a girl out, I had fallen in love with Anna Karenina, taken Isabel Archer to high tea at the Grand Hotel in Rome, delivered passionate speeches to Juliet beneath her balcony, abandoned Dido in Carthage, made love to Lara in Zhivago’s Russia, walked beside Lady Brett Ashley in Paris, danced with Madame Bovary—I could form a sweet-smelling corps de ballet composed of the women I have loved in books.”  I must say he made me want to read the books he praised.  Several of his favorites are favorites of mine as well, and I found myself saying, “Yes, yes!” as he praised so eloquently books that have been formative in my own life, such as James Dickey’s Deliverance, which Conroy called “a palace of light for a white-water river of words.”

To anyone who loves books, I say, “Read this one.”  Even if his tastes are different from yours, Conroy’s passion for the written word will take you by storm and leave you remembering why you love to read.

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Best ‘New to Us’ Books in 2012: Dan B.’s Picks

Now that we’ve shared some of our favorite new books from 2012, we’ll also tell you about some of our favorite “New to Us” (older) books that we each discovered this year. Again, different library staff will take turns blogging about 5 of our favorite “New to Us” books from this year. Here are mine:

Somewhere in Heaven by Christopher Andersen
This is the fascinating story of Christopher and Dana Reeve’s lives in front of, and away from, the cameras. Chris, a graduate of Julliard and a huge star after Superman, returned to Williamstown, MA  each summer for their theater festival, and it was there that he met Dana, a singer and actress, who became the love of his life. The story continues with their touching courtship, eventual marriage, blending families, and Chris’ horrible paralyzing accident. Through it all, Dana’s devotion to Chris never wavered for an instant, and she helped him with his physical therapy, their profuse charity work, and raising their son. Read my full review.

Dauntless by Jack Campbell
John Geary was a soldier in the first battle of a war that has been raging for the last century. He’s also the sole survivor who held off the Syndicate forces and escaped into a hibernation pod that was just now rescued from oblivion by the flagship of the Alliance fleet. Now “Black Jack” Geary, a man returned from the dead who became a legendary hero, must find a way to lead the Alliance after they lost the latest battle very badly. He must also deal with the culture shock of being thrown a century into the future. Read my full review.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Eighteen year old Wade Watts escapes his life in this dystopian future by plugging into the OASIS, a virtual world where anyone can be anything – given enough credits. The reclusive inventor of OASIS, James Halliday, has died and left a video will in which he states that whoever can solve his 1980’s themed riddles to find three keys and unlock three hidden gates to find his “easter egg” will gain his fortune and control of OASIS. Wade is one of millions of hunters looking for the egg, including several friends, but so is the evil mega-corporation IOI – and they’re using every cheat code they can. Read my full review.

Among Others by Jo Walton
I usually need a lot of action in a story to get me hooked and to really enjoy it. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate character development and ideas. But, that’s why I’ve had a hard time trying to describe this Hugo & Nebula Award winning novel and explain why I really liked it. It’s about Mori Phelps, a 15-year-old girl who ran away from her insane mother in Wales and is now in boarding school in England thanks to her estranged father’s family. There’s also magic, faeries, libraries, and books – oh so many wonderful science fiction & fantasy books!

Blackout & All Clear by Connie Willis
These two novels form one award winning story from Willis. Time traveling historians from Oxford suddenly have their schedules altered and trips to the past cancelled for no known reason. Three such travelers, Michael, Polly and Merope, mysteriously become trapped in the past while observing the events of World War II. Willis does a fabulous job of putting the reader in the midst of history and letting us know what daily life was really like for Londoners during the Blitz, or the Dover area fishermen during the Battle of Dunkirk. A wonderful mix of time travel and history with plenty of suspense.

Best New Books of 2012: Janet L.’s Picks

What do a clerk in a 24-hour bookstore, a snake-handling faith healer, a man walking 500 miles to visit a sick friend, a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail and Richard Burton have in common? (And it doesn’t involve marrying Elizabeth Taylor.) Rather, they all figure somehow in my five favorite books of 2012. My reading tastes are eclectic, but I read more literary fiction and mysteries than anything else. Language, atmosphere, setting, and believable characters are all important to me.  – Janet L.

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
Marshall, North Carolina, has a new church, the River Road Church of Christ in Signs Following. It’s led by a charismatic preacher, Carson Chambliss, a man with a talent for snake handling. Stump Hall, a young autistic boy, witnesses something at the church that leads to tragedy. Sheriff Clem Barefield is determined to find out what happened, no matter what the consequences. This is Cash’s debut novel and it’s a beauty; gorgeous writing, believable characters and gothic overtones. Recommended for readers of Ron Rash, John Hart and Tom Franklin.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Harold Fry is surprised to receive a letter from Queenie Hennessey, who is seriously ill and has written to say goodbye. They were friends once, but parted in strained circumstances. Mild mannered Harold is so shocked by this news he behaves spontaneously and begins a 500 mile journey by foot to say goodbye to Queenie, convinced she will not die as long as he is walking. Recommended for readers of Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Berg and Anna Quindlen.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
I adored this book. It has a likeable narrator, Clay Jannon, who clerks in a mysterious bookshop run by the fascinating Mr. Penumbra. The theme of Old Knowledge (books) vs. Internet knowledge allows the author to slip in scenes at Google, a museum dedicated to knitting overrun by children, arcane information about fonts, and a computer whiz who made a fortune creating realistic 3-D versions of breasts. This book is fun. It’s the kind of book that made a reader of me, the kind of book that keeps me reading, the kind of book I can’t wait to tell people about. Recommended for readers of Jasper Fforde and Terry Pratchett.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Hunched under a too heavy backpack quickly nicknamed Monster, Cheryl Strayed begins a real life journey along the Pacific Crest Trail that is spiritual as well as physical. Her plans for her hike are soon revealed as inadequate (who knew water weighed so much?) and she must improvise as she goes along—much as we all have to adjust in life when our best laid plans go awry. I found Strayed’s account of her hike riveting, profound, hilarious and suspenseful. Recommended for readers of Jeannette Walls, Jon Krakauer and Dave Eggers.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
It’s 1962 and Pasquale Tursi, owner of the Hotel Adequate View in Porto Vergogna, Italy, is immediately smitten by Dee Moray, an American starlet who arrives at his hotel fresh from the set of the movie Cleopatra. Their story (with a supporting appearance from Richard Burton) connects to present day Hollywood and the career of Claire, assistant to legendary producer Michael Deane. Walter creates a truly romantic story that underscores his theme of how life and art intersect.

The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde

I don’t usually write about sequels in a series, but the new Thursday Next novel is the best in the series since The Eyre Affair, so I just had to write to let you know how great this book is. Jasper Fforde‘s writing style is such that he fills in enough for a new reader to be able to enjoy the story and get some of Thursday’s background. Of course, you’ll likely get more out it if you’ve read the others, but I think readers could jump in and start with this newest one, and then go back and read the others.

Thursday Next lives in an alternate universe that resembles ours, but with a few significant differences. Time travel is routine, cheese is an illegal substance, and books & literature are taken very, very seriously. Thursday is a literary detective who was semi-retired when the government disbanded SpecOps, a group of highly specialized police forces. But now they are reversing their decision and reinstating the various SpecOps agencies. Thursday is invited to meet with her old boss and thinks she’s about to be offered the job of head of Literary Detection, but instead she’s offered the cushy job of Chief Librarian for the town.

The new job may sound cushy indeed, especially when one considers that libraries in this world have budgets large enough for an employee spa, an executive chef, and armed security to hunt down overdue books, but Thursday’s life is anything but. Aside from having to learn the ins and outs of librarianship, she also has to deal with the evil mega-corporation Goliath trying to replace her with automatons, her son’s discovery that he will murder someone this week in his letter of destiny, and that same day Swindon is scheduled for a smiting by the Almighty. The book covers Thursday’s life over the course of one incredibly busy week, and we get to know her family better than we have before. Will Thursday be able to defeat Goliath’s attempts to replace her with a creation of their own? Can she help Swindon avoid being smited?

Bibliophiles and library lovers will enjoy this book with Fforde’s British wit and obvious love of books. A couple of quotes from this book really made me smile, including this one from Thursday’s first day on her new job, “Do I have to talk to insane people?” “You’re a librarian now. I’m afraid it’s mandatory.” One that is less humorous, but more touching, is the author’s dedication: “To all the librarians who have ever been, ever will be, are now, this book is respectfully dedicated.”

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The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs

When I was bored as a kid my parents would give me a letter from the World Book to read. I was fascinated by the amount of stuff that you could find out, especially really weird stuff, and could waste several hours looking through the books. So when this book arrived, I knew I would have to read it.

A. J. Jacobs decides that the best way to make him feel smarter around his family would be to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from start to finish. Part of his motivation is to outdo his father who started to read it but never made it past the A’s. Of course, most of his friends and family don’t believe he will finish it, but this only adds to his determination. As he reads, he finds out many things both trivial and important. Part of the fun in the book is the sheer randomness of the topics he is reading about, and how he can relate it to what is happening in his life. Much of what he reads is unrelated to anything at all, though. And the stranger, more obscure, or more morbid the fact is, the more Jacobs is interested in it.

The author also becomes interested in how knowledge, facts, and learning relate to intelligence. He meets with professors to discuss methods and theories of education. He also becomes engrossed in the cross word puzzle world, joins Mensa, and competes on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. One of the most important things Jacobs learns as he progresses is how annoying inserting unwanted facts can be. Friends and family start to avoid him at parties, and the author starts to notice their eyes glazing over as he wanders off topic. Finally, his wife begins to fine him a dollar for each time his trivia is unrelated to the topic they are discussing. Jacobs organizes his book from A to Z (Aa – Zywiec) so you can follow him through the set as well as the year. Readers of all ages will enjoy this book and may even learn a thing or two. It’s kind of sad to know that the habit of picking up the encyclopedia and browsing is going away, though. This year the Encyclopedia Britannica announced they would no longer be putting out their printed volumes. They will only be available online in the future. Luckily, you can access this resource through the library’s Research page, by clicking on OneSearch.

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Best ‘New to Us’ Books of 2011: Lynn W.’s Picks

Not surprisingly, my Best New to Me list is a reflection of my Best of the New list.  My leanings toward mysteries, historical and literary fiction, and memoirs are represented here, too.

The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas
Dallas is a Colorado writer who makes that state come alive in her historical novels.  Mattie Spenser is a young Iowa wife whose new husband, Luke, the town catch, has a passion to head west shortly after their wedding, leaving all they know behind.  After an eventful journey by wagon, Mattie and Luke construct a soddy and he begins breaking ground for planting.  However, Luke soon makes several lengthy trips away and Mattie begins to suspect he is involved with a girl from their Iowa hometown.  How she handles this information, makes friends in need while he is gone, and manages their baby’s birth in his absence make for a very human story, told simply and from the heart.

These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I listened to the audio version of my favorite childhood book.  It was just as richly evocative of prairie life in the 1880s Dakotas as I remembered:  the year round impact of weather on life in town and on the claim, the closeness of family where there are few to rely on, our unchanging human nature with its love of friends and petty jealousies intertwined, no matter how small the society. You CAN go home again, at least in books; I’m glad I revisited These Happy Golden Years.

Traveler by Ron McLarty
A mysterious shooting incident in Jono Riley’s childhood comes back to intrigue him when his old friend Cubby informs him his sister Marie has died suddenly.  She and Jono were making snow angels in a field when she was shot in the arm when they were kids and the shooter was never found. Now, decades later, the bullet, not removed from Marie, has “traveled” and pinched an artery, causing her death.  Jono, an actor who supports himself bar-tending in New York City, returns home to Providence, Rhode Island determined to find the shooter and bring him to justice.  Just as in The Memory of Running, McLarty tells his tale in everyday conversational English, but delivers a punch with his plotting and character development.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard
Jody Linder lives in the house her father was murdered in twenty three years ago, the same evening her mother disappeared.  Small town Kansas is pictured with superb descriptions of the surrounding ranch lands, the hierarchy of society, and Jody’s reactions as she contemplates the thought that perhaps the wrong man was convicted of her father’s murder. The convicted man is released from prison and returns to Rose, Kansas to find the real guilty party.  The twists and turns of the plot and the real guilty party’s reactions to the investigation will keep you on the edge of your seat and Pickard’s prose will simply amaze you, as most readers don’t expect such wonderful writing in a mystery.

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
Truth be told, this is the only book by Conroy I have read and I found it very engaging.  Conroy’s favorite books can be surprising, Gone with the Wind, for one, but he explains how or from whom the book came to him, what was happening in his life at the time, and the book’s meaning for him.  In his chapter about War and Peace, Conroy’s enthusiasm and appreciation for Tolstoy and his masterpiece are almost enough to entice one into attempting to read it. The final chapter, Why I Write, is full of savory sentences like this one:  “Here is what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence:  I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer’s heart.”  Enough said.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Nina Sankovitch

Nina Sankovitch divides her life into two parts:  before and after the death of her forty-six year old sister, Anne-Marie, to whom she was very close.  As she approaches her own forty-sixth year, she realizes she must stop running from the grief, stop immersing herself in constant activity in an attempt to forget.  She decides to make a year-long plunge into an obsession she shared with Anne-Marie:  reading.  She will read a book a day for one whole year, using books not as “an escape from, but an escape into, life.”

Not content to simply read one book a day, she also resolves to write a blog about each book to add to her website, ReadAllDay.org, which she established in order to encourage adults to read every day, as we encourage children to read every day.  Even with the demands of a husband and four kids, she sticks with it and revels in every minute of it.  She chooses books about one inch in thickness because she finds that about 300 pages is the right amount for her to read in one day.  She only gives a book ten pages to hook her; if she isn’t riveted by then, she lays it aside and chooses another.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is her record of this total immersion of herself in other lives and other characters, in an attempt to understand her own life and her own character.  As she journeys with these others in their attempts to make sense of their lives, so she is slowly able to make sense of her own experiences.  She realizes the important role of memory in keeping her sister close, though she can no longer be with her in body.  Night after night, reading by lamplight in her overstuffed purple chair, she does indeed live into life, not escape from it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this journey myself.  It reminded me of what a powerful effect books have had on me throughout my life.  I relived my schoolgirl days when I used to read from morning to twilight under a tree in my back yard, surrounded by all my books (for some reason it was important to me that they all be there, like well-beloved friends I couldn’t leave behind).  I remembered how I used to pore for hours over the Scholastic Book Services catalog, carefully making my choices, and how excited I was when they arrived and my teacher handed them out (I usually ordered more than all my classmates).  I remember the first time I sat up all night reading a book, as a teen, so immersed in The Hiding Place one Friday night that I don’t even remember looking up till I saw steaks of dawn across the sky outside the window.

Great books and the characters in them have impacted my life just as much as many real people have.  I think a whole book every day might be too much for me, since I like to savor a book for several days after I finish it, reliving the great scenes, mulling it all over and deriving new meanings from words that remain in my mind.  But, like Nina, I know that a great book is a great teacher and friend, and now I have a new reading list to get started on!

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March by Geraldine Brooks

Since I first read it as a child, I was enraptured by Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.  The story of four young women growing up during the American Civil War has been a much read classic for years.  Many of you have probably read it, but did you ever wonder about the man that left his “Little Women” behind?  Geraldine Brooks did.  Her novel, March, focuses on Mr. March, the father of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, who left his wife and daughters behind in Little Women to serve in the Civil War.

Alcott presents Mr. March as the benevolent, yet distant father, who sends letters home offer advice and love yet little information on the war that surrounds him.  In her novel, Brooks looks at the experiences of Mr. March away from home and at war.  Entering the war as a Union minister, March is a witness the horrors of war that he is unable to write home about.  Delving into the past and the present, Brooks gives readers a heart-wrenching view of one man’s struggle with his ideals and the war that challenges them.

After March is caught in a compromising positions with a woman from his past, he is assigned to work with contraband slaves at a plantation.  When the plantation is attacked, March falls ill and is transplanted to Washington to a hospital.  Here Brooks’ novel meets up again with Alcott’s.  Marmee takes over as the narrator as she travels from home to the hospital to nurse Mr. March back to health.

As a child reading Little Women it had never really crossed to consider the impact of the Civil War and the role that the March’s played in the struggle.  This novel is a moving, powerful piece that examines not only the horrific war, but also its tole on families and the men who fought.  Beyond his physical injuries, the emotional and mental toll the war takes on Mr. March can only be seen as similar to Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome seen today.  Though the historical aspects of the novel are interesting, it is the shock look at both the horror and beauty of humanity during the war that make March such a powerful read.

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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Many people kept telling me to read this book, that it is wonderful, “You really should read it”.  Every time I would read the description I felt unenthused. It just did not seem interesting. Boy, do I like to be proven wrong!

People of the Book is delightful—intriguing and enlightening. I love books and I love books about books, so there was no way I could not love this book. People of the Book follows the Sarajevo Haggadah backwards in time from its re-discovery in post-conflict Bosnia to its mysterious creation hundreds of years earlier. The Sarajevo Hagga…what? Brooks is skillful at illuminating worlds not known to everyone. Even though I was in college during the Bosnian War, I was sadly ignorant of the conflict. But as it is with so many deeply seeded religious and cultural conflicts, it is too easy to shrug your shoulders,  look away and watch another episode of the latest reality show. People of the Book touches on many facets of history from the Bosnian War to World War II to the Inquisition and more. Brooks give a real face to the conflicts that are both external and internal.

The tales Brooks weaves are beautiful, heartbreaking, and compelling as they connect people not just to this sacred text but very tenderly to one another and all of this despite differences in beliefs and motives. This is one of those books that will make you a better person for having read it.

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My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

I think Pat Conroy is the best American storyteller currently writing.  I had the pleasure of hearing him speak recently.  He tells his stories as well as he writes them.  All his stories, and in fact, the signature events of his life, revolve around reading.

My Reading Life is a memoir of the people, places, and especially the books, which have influenced Conroy’s life.  Each chapter is something of a short story.  Many are funny, some are very sad.   The first set of books he ever owned was the complete works of William Makepeace Thackeray which he found, when he was seven years old, while dumpster diving.  He was delighted with the find; his friend Gary wanted a chest of doubloons.  Thousands of titles have graced his shelves since.

Conroy writes candidly about the people who have influenced his reading and his writing.  His mother encouraged and directed his reading, while his father denigrated reading and his efforts at writing.  Some teachers and librarians fostered his passion for books.  Others thought little of such pursuits.  He traces all of these experiences with clarity and wit.

Early in his writing life, Conroy made the decision to read at least 200 pages a day.  He has maintained that ambitious schedule for decades.  He reads widely and deeply.  Describing his expectations of a writer, he says  “I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food and drink, because a writer has possessed me, crazed me with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next.”  I want the same, and that is exactly what Pat Conroy gives me.

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