Additions to my library: “Beat the Reaper,” “2666,” “How Fiction Works,” “The Sickness Unto Death,” and “A Book of Sleep”

A wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon: getting five books all for me!

I bought two novels (Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell and 2666 by Roberto Bolano), two nonfiction essays (How Fiction Works by James Wood and The Sickness Unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard), and one picture book (A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na). I love A Book of Sleep. Besides being super adorable, as all children’s books should be, the artwork was superbly intricate. But what compelled me to get the book is the owl character. This night owl totally resonates with me and it’s a good book to hug and comfort one’s insomniac mind at 3 in the morning.

I also considered these books but decided not to get them (this time): The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande because I thought the book, although exciting, may worsen my obsessive list making nature; Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell perhaps because I am too ashamed about still not having read the book; The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebeccas Skloot because maybe I am being cheap and waiting for the paperback edition to come out; and All things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly because when I am truly honest with myself, even the prospect of reading this well-reviewed and serious book gives me a headache. Besides, having already chosen The Sickness unto Death, I didn’t want to parent another philosophy book.

Then I noticed that every book I bought that day (with the exception of the children’s book) have some sort of red in the cover. I wonder if those four got picked and not the others mainly because, hmm, the covers match and create a nice visual set. Did I pick my books ultimately based on their covers? The calculations a reader makes when selecting books to buy may be complex (someone should do a study on this), and it is often an unconscious, arbitrary process. But I believe the desire to create an aesthetically pleasing set plays a significant role. A support for this random thesis: there WAS an alternate green cover for Beat the Reaper but I got the red one even though green is my favorite color. And looking back, the books I buy together tend to go together. I like to set new books on my coffee table and just stare at it for a few days, maybe take some photos, before giving them permanent homes on my bookshelf.

Oh but before granting permission to gift myself with new books, I did make a self-promise not to start reading a new book until I finish a book I am currently reading. This, of course, is to avoid reading ten books at once. I read multiple books at a time. I don’t recommend this to everyone, but it works for me with my lack of concentration and promiscuous interests. Also, it gives me the only chance to really commit to and finish reading long books (as defined by me to be any book over 500 pages). Anyway, I finally finished Descarte’s Error and allowed myself to start How Fiction Works.

And what a treat that book is! Admittedly, I wanted to own How Fiction Works more than actually wanted to read it. It’s a pretty petite book and I really like the cover and the font and the paper. But I was afraid such a literary book may be too abstract for me. It seemed like something my friends who major in English and see a metaphor every other word might read. But it’s not! I mean it is literary and academic, but the writing is so clear, so unpretentious and so captivating that you simply cannot put it down. I pick up the little volume meaning to attempt it in bite size pieces, but cannot put it down. The great mystery of fiction unfolds layer by layer with rhythmic writing that never loses momentum. What an addictive little book. I chide myself for not reading it earlier.

Now a little mishap. I do not keep books in little bubble wraps. I believe that a book should be read, and in that process, it acquires character… via little rips, and folds, and smudges. But I still go through the pile looking for the most pristine copy at the bookstore because, oh I dunno, I think a book should acquire personality and become unique only through use as a reading material, a pillow, or an instrument to avoid eye contact in public. So as I was looking for the most perfect copy of some book, I drop the copy I had picked earlier of How Fiction Works. And it was quite an unfortunate drop: the cover folded. Eek! I bought that copy though because 1. I think that’s the right thing to do; but 2. I figured I had already picked it, and so committed myself to that copy. I couldn’t orphan that book even if the store had let me… it was already mine. Since then, the book has gotten other signs of uniqueness. The cover is peeling… and there is a little hole in the back cover, probably acquired as it tumbled around my gigantic bag. But it’s mine mine mine.

Will these books outlive me as children generally outlive their parents?

Children’s books as a refuge.

When reading becomes impossible, I turn to poetry. I let my mind wander over the words, though I am barely grasping what’s going on. Still, I ride the word rhythms over my reading funk. I take cover under the clever arrangement of words until reading becomes feasible.

Recently (maybe it was the holiday blues, I don’t know), the familiar fog descended on my mind, and I couldn’t muster up enough concentration for adult books. Intrusive thoughts wedged themselves between the words, so it as impossible to read Descartes’ Errors that demands my excess focus to be devoted to neuroanatomy recall.

This time, however, I didn’t turn to poetry. Instead, a children’s book provided shelter and allowed me to keep reading.

The book was Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. It wasn’t my intention to read this book to weather the storm. I pick up the book because I felt guilty. Guilt can be the only motivator when you are in a funk and I was feeling particularly guilty about being a terrible reading role model to the sixth grader who lent me this book weeks ago. I figured I should demonstrate that books—even the lent ones—get read and perhaps more importantly, returned.

The sophisticated and intricate plot pulled me in. I was intrigued by the caricatured yet still three dimensional characters. Then at the end, when the sorrow of the character became too palpable, the tears came, at first slowly in a dignified stream, then in an uncontrollable cry. Getting a good cry over the piles of misery that young protagonist faced actually made me feel better.  And in some simple yet clear words in this children’s book, I felt encouraged to confront the complexities of life.

Now I am back to reading “grown up books.” But I am getting more and more hooked on children’s books. There is something really immediate and urgent about the plots in children’s books. They provide a wonderful refuge when reading becomes hard or when you just want a concrete plot. So poems and children’s books: they are my refuge and they keep me reading even when reading is impossible.

A new reading year…

I have written 2010 enough times today to show me the power of a habit. Of all things I want to establish when I am still young enough to think about “the rest of my life,” I want to have a deeply ingrained reading habit. So as I obsess about that once again this year, I have made the following New Year’s Literary Resolution:

Instead of fitting reading into my life, I'll fit my life around my reading. This is not because reading is the most important thing in my life, but because the latter approach will more likely give me both, the reading and the living, than the formal one.

I said something like this back in 2009. Nothing makes me happier than to swim in words, yet I often find the literary air thin throughout the year. Here I go again, trying to live a literary life…

Happy Reading Year everyone! Be sure to set a literary resolution, perhaps one a little more creative and doable than mine…

I bought a book…

… called It’s a book.

This is an adorable picture book by Lane Smith that so accurately captures a reader’s love for books as well as a reader’s anxiety over the current status of books as an endangered species.

I am not sure how much a four year old would love this book, but I do so so so very much! Yesterday when I got the book, I went around the house hugging it. I was hugging this book, and also all books. I love the varying smells of different paper and ink combinations, the swoosh-swish sound made when you turn a page, and the fonts both elegant and serious.

I am displaying this sturdy hardcover picture book on my shelves. I stare at the cover that says “It’s a book.” This is a simple statement of fact of course, yet this also is what any bibliophile squeals when they locate a book, especially one he or she is fond of: “It’s a book. It’s a book! It’s a book.”

reading in public: Read what you want, including the weeks-old New York Times Magazine.

Reading the New York Times Magazine on the train has been an indispensible element of my Sunday routine. I first flip through the entire magazine, to the chagrin of whoever happens to sit next to me, to whet my reading appetite. Then I settle into my reading, starting from the very beginning with “The Way We Live Now” column. When I start to lose my concentration, or get antsy, or feel like briefly acknowledging the presence of the other people on the train, I look take a look around. In particular, I love to spot a fellow reader, especially a fellow reader of The New York Times Magazine.

I can’t resist checking which article the other person is reading. I am really just curious to see if at this moment, two strangers who happen to coincidentally be on the same car of the train, reading the same publication, are also reading the same article and possibly pondering the same ideas. But I must admit, if the other reader is on one of the longer pieces in the middle of the magazine while I am still enjoying the short weekly columns in the front of the magazine, I somehow feel behind in my reading. And if I happen to read the New York Times Magazine on a Monday or, gasp, a Tuesday, I feel a bit like a reading delinquent on display, a complete slacker who does not deserve to so effortlessly receive Virginia Heffernan’s witty column every week.

Then yesterday, I spotted another weekday New York Times magazine reader on the bus. I soon realized, after my compulsive checking of the article she was reading, that she was reading, not this past Sunday’s, but last Sunday’s magazine! I felt slightly superior, I am shamed to say. But then I realized that this lady does not care what anyone thinks of how much she is behind in her reading. She is proudly flopping the large thin papers of the two-week old magazine. I don’t really care either! I am going to read my super old periodicals in public too. Thank you brave lady who let life get her somewhat behind on her reading!

Normally, I don’t care if the book I am reading is 5 months old, 5 years old, or 50 years old. Granted news get old (and possibly irrelevant), I would enjoy my magazines and newspapers a lot more if I could just relax and ignore the imposing date printed on every page. A great lesson just in time: The New York Times last Sunday has already turned December-sized. It is thick with great holiday content like the fat book review and a holiday T-magazine. The date, especially on the Sunday paper with its surfeit of feature articles, shouldn’t be considered an expiration date… but a starting one.

And if that fails, I guess there is always reading these periodicals on a screen (e-reader, tablet pc, smart phone: take your pick). Then no nosy fellow commuter like me will be able to figure out if you are reading the current or the past edition of this or that publication, or if you are just starring at a blank screen to avoid making eye contact with people.

Letting go.

I had a major decluttering session last week and I came upon (one of) my dusty magazine racks. The old piles of New York Times in my navy blue IKEA rack symbolizes my naive belief that I can read, well, everything.

More words pour out daily, and a reader cannot keep up. It’s shocking and overwhelming to consider the amount of words that pour out each second, especially at a spiraling rate increase thanks to Twitter and such.

This is my shameful secret: I have “collections” of old periodicals—newspapers and magazines--that I can’t get myself to throw out because I haven’t quite “finished” with them. Of course I also have shelves and shelves of books I haven’t quite “finished,” but for some reason, it’s much more acceptable to have words bound in books than words bound in periodicals. But when all my piles of periodicals came together to an overwhelming heap of words I can only choke on, came crashing down was the belief or the desire to get through them all. So I decided take my first step to a manageable reading environment by throwing out the oldest pile, umm… I mean collection, of New York Times sections.

I am also trying to accept the fact that some things have to be left undone so that I can make room for new things, ya know, cut my losses. I figured that’s the grown up thing to do. So well, after I took a deep breathe (because it was a difficult decision but also because I did not want to breathe in the dust that soon would fill the room), I started making a paper recycling pile out of the old New York Times sections I would never read in full.

Initially I felt great! I was getting rid of a huge nagging burden (I think every one of my weekly to do list mentions something about attacking my periodical backlog… and it was never joyful to put that item on my list). I felt so free, free to fly over to current issues of nyt, vanity fair, in style, and huffington without feeling like I am cheating on the old issues that have been faithfully and patiently waiting for me. Adios yellowing hardening newprints.

But as I went further back into the past, I started getting nostalgic, which really proves that things get harder to throw out the longer you hold on to them, because with shared history, items become memory.

It was fun to go back in time though. I got to re-experience the New York Times the way it was a few years ago. Go back a couple of years, and the “Metropolitan” section was “The City.” The actual dimensions of the papers were larger. And is it just me, but did the New York Times Magazine contain more memoir like pieces than now?? In my decluttering/time traveling session, I got to relive some events that were vivid and hazy at the same time. For instance, there were Obama and McCain on the front page of 09/07/08 paper and Michael Phelps on the front page of 08/17/08 paper. But my journey ended on January 6, 2008, the earliest paper kept by me.

The recycling truck came and left with my really really old newspapers. I think I truly did the right thing for myself, even if my grandchildren won’t be able to see Obama selecting Biden to be on his ticket.

Whetting my appetite for children’s books

I know last August was a time when readers of children’s novels were eagerly anticipating the release of Mockingjay, the third and final installment of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. As for me, I generally dismissed children’s novels… until I read a pretty cool one last summer that got me hooked on children’s novels. When you reach me by Rebecca Stead was a very fun summer read. I don’t generally read Sci Fi (although I am really dying to read “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy), and honestly, I didn’t even know the book was going to be very  Sci-fi.

I read a nice review in the New York Times book review that made me want to read the book. Then I forgot all about it until a sixth grader lent me the book. I looked forward to the puzzle and a story about growing up in nyc. I loved the fact that it was such a New York City story and enjoyed how all the characters were so well developed. The abstract topics were balanced well by the ordinary concerns of a teenager involving friendship.

This book makes me want to read Young Adult books (well, maybe not the ones about cliques and vampires). I realize that children’s books can have a well written and sophisticated storyline. And it’s nice to read a short, concrete, digestible book once in awhile, a book you can read in one subway ride. Too bad today is the official first day of autumn and I feel compelled to read more serious books.