In December of 2016 my friend Randy encouraged me to keep track of all the books I read in 2017 and make some notes on each one. He did it last year and is doing it again and calling it his Book of Books. Well, here are mine.
January
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years of Pilgimage by Haruki Murakami. A quirky work that caught me from the first sentence and kept me curious until the last page, in fact, beyond. Because after I finished the book I can't help but wonder what's going to happen next to Tsukuru Tazaki. Which makes it one of those rare books, for me, that keeps me thinking for days after I've put it down. I had to go back and reread a few poignant passages.
The Hemlock Cup by Bettany Hughes. A good overview of Socrates' times and the progress archeologists have made uncovering and discovering what Athens looked like in the fifth century BCE. Liberally laced with quotes not only from Socrates, from the pen of Plato, but also his contemporaries. Advice from these old philosophers is still pertinent and useful. And it's alway good to be reminded that the unexamined life is not worth living.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami. Semi-surreal short stories. Murakaki's economy of words make some of the passages in these tales diamond-like.
Reread: Demon Box by Ken Kesey. Ah... Good ole Kesey. Got me all fired up thinking about wilder days. Some of the pieces in this collection are pure sparkling gems. I almost forgot how rare and unpredictable his ideas were. He's sorely missed. I dug through some boxes and pulled out Sometimes A Great Notion and put it on my to-read shelf.
Void by James Owen Weatherall. A drier account of nothingness than Krause's A Universe From Nothing, but, still full of thought provoking ideas. Overall a quicker read though. And the quote that "Nothing is Real" is as far away from John Lennon as you can get. Strawberry Fields Forever now has a new twist for me. For a few days I turned that phrase over and over in my mind wondering if it can work two different ways.
Reread: After Ikkyu and Other Poems by Jim Harrison. Found the famous line, "We are more than dying flies in a shithouse, though we are that, too."
And this one, "..knowing the world says no in ten thousand ways and yes in only a few."
Reread. Long Strange Trip
The Inside History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNally. Just flipped through it to try and regain some sort of a sense of adventure and look to the horizon for the summer tour. Mostly because I can't stop listening to Weir's new album. (Actually I bought it on vinyl for Ellie.)
February
On the River Styx by Peter Matthiessen. A very young Matthiessen yet his voice is unmistakeable. Some of the language is dated but true to the times.
American Philosophy by John Kaag. Kaag is hired to catalogue the decaying and moldy library of William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was a Harvard professor and philosopher as well as a friend to the great thinkers of his day at the turn of the twentieth century. The library is up in New Hampshire, secluded, lonely and mouse infected. Kaag finds treasures in the old first editions of famous works by Emerson, James, and Whitman, among many others.
It's also a bit of a love story. Kaag becomes fond of a coworker and his life takes an upward swing. Well written and full of philosophical gems from the greats.
Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch. An odd little novel of an old man weathering heavy rains and floods alone in his remote village cottage. His thoughts turn to natural history. His mind may or may not be faltering.
Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan. Meditations on the environment and the challenges we face. Thoughts on the nuclear issues. Suggestions about renewable forms of energy. Sagan's prose seems so simple but is actually very powerful. The epilogue by his wife, Ann Druyan, brought me to tears.
Conversations with Ken Kesey edited by Scott F. Parker. Ah... Kesey, what a mind; humorous, insightful, probing, confident, inquisitive, bold and original. His influence can not be measured. He started a revolution. He is a student of love. He puts a lump in my throat. We need him more than ever today. His reflections on Garcia are heartfelt. When is someone going to write a fat biography of him?
Autumn by Ali Smith. A entire book full of thought, although I keep rereading one line uttered by the character Daniel. "We have to hope that the people who love us and know us a little bit will in the end have seen us truly. In the end, not much else matters."
As we all should know, love comes in many forms and this unusual love story has a unique tenderness. The writing is rather sparse yet still packs a myriad of ideas.
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton. The story of a long relationship/marriage complete with all the ups and downs. The story is interspersed with short paragraphs which contemplate, almost manual-like, the many sides and nuances of love and acceptance.
Reread. Darkness Visible by William Styron. The obvious reason for going back to this book every few years is to remind myself that there is hope from despair and deepest melancholy.
March
Reread. Black Sun by Ed Abbey. Again I return to a story of unbearable loss of love. But somehow, with great anguish, Abbey shows that pain is unavoidable but life (for a while) goes on. It is my favorite novel of his. A slim masterpiece that could only been lived through to be written. Emotion runs deep. My fragile heart shook during certain passages.
The Beauty. Poems by Jane Hirshfield. Metaphors abound in this volume. There is a complexity in her verses that force me to reread each poem several times until I grasp the flow of her thoughts. I was lucky enough to see her read in Ojai several years back with my elegant and late friend, Don French, who studied with Jane. These poems put Don in my thoughts over the last week or so...
A Really Big Lunch by Jim Harrison. A collection of mostly food writings for various magazines. As always Harrison is bold and brilliant. His appetites are strong for the finest that life has to offer whether it be food and wine or friendship and solitude or travel and poetry. And his ability to devour so much and then bring to the page with such force his passions is what makes him the author I reread the most. During the week it took me to read this I was compelled to buy and drink some fine wines, grill local rib-eyes, sip eighteen year old scotch, use extra garlic in everything and walk six or seven miles each morning. A sort of reverse cleanse. But refreshing and restorative none the less.
I also pulled his last four volumes of poetry off the shelf and reread them in reverse order, newest to oldest. Here's a line from each.
Dead Man's Float.
Zona
My work piles up,
I falter with disease.
Time rushes toward me -
it has no brakes. Still,
the radishes are good this year.
Run them through butter,
Add a little salt.
Songs of Unreason.
How can enough be enough
when it isn't?
Saving Daylight.
Lift up your dark heart and sing a song about
how time drifts past you like the gentlest, almost
Imperceptible breeze.
In Search of Small Gods.
Your doubt is only the patina
of shit the culture paints on those in the margins.
I am tempted to carry around with me this summer The Shape of the Journey. I know re-immersing myself in that opus will be rewarding.
The Violet Hour by Katie Roiphe. Accounts of how some famous people have dealt with death when they knew it was coming. We see Dylan Thomas drinking and whoring, John Updike writing poems and Maurice Sendak fading into himself. Freud is stoic. An unusual but moving piece of writing. I forget who said that there are only two stories, love and death.
April
The Greatest Story Ever Told (So Far) by Lawrence Krauss. This book explains how we know what we know so far about why the universe is what it is. A recap of the scientific discoveries of the last hundred and fifty years or so. It's an incomplete story as science will always be. There will always be more to learn as we delve in to the very small world of the atom as well when we turn our eyes to the darkest skies. Which Krause says should give us a feeling of "cosmic humility".
On Going....... The Complete Works of Michel De Montaigne. I dip in to this massive book every few weeks. I started it almost a year ago and it will probably take me another year to finish. But it is highly entertaining and grand in its range of topics. I just finished chapters on Solitude and Sleep.
Reality is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli. Yet another science book about the deep insights that great minds have made about the workings of the very tiny as well as the massive cosmic distances. I never tire of this stuff and I'll admit that some of it goes over my head but I still grasp enough that I'm struck with a powerful sense of wonder about the deepest secrets of nature. Rovelli writes with sharp clarity and his own sense of awe of science's steady progress at uncovering the mysteries of the universe is apparent in every chapter.
Reread. I And My Chimney by Herman Melville. I have to dig in to Herman every few months. If only to remember where I'm from. But, as always, with Melville there is so much more. He wrote this story in Pittsfield about his house in the country. He sits in front of his chimney, which his wife abhors, and smokes his pipe and thinks grand thoughts and despairs that no one cares for his philosophical musings. His line about his distaste for labor always makes me laugh out loud.
Celestial Mechanics by William Least Heat-moon. A favorite travel writer of mine, this is his first nonfiction. It's a rather enchanting story of bad love and the tenuous attachment we have not only to others but to our own fragile existence. The tale tries to balance reason and science with the more nebulous and metaphysical world of witchcraft, dreams and faith. Ideas fly back and forth between the two views. It's also a story about healing both physical and mental. Least Heat-moon writes with a unique charm and eye pointed steadily at the heart.
Reread. Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein. Did I pick up this slim volume on the wonders of aging because I'm feeling old and needed encouragement? Or is it because I'm thinking of going to Greece? Regardless, it's an enjoyable quick read that left me desiring a more simple and uncluttered life as preached by the stoic Epicurus.
On going. Journals Volume II by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Another book that's been on my night (and morning) stand for quite some time now. A few years in fact. And I plug away at it randomly. I have a feeling that when I finish it (if ever) I will turn back to page one and start over.
May
Worlds End by T.C. Boyle. Astounding.
Trajectories by Richard Russo. A few short stories two of which I've read before. But even rereading Russo is rewarding. He is the master of comic dialogue. Even when being serious he can make me laugh out loud. Think about that.
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. Recommend by T.C. to give me an idea of how to be more raw in my own stories. Very visceral sentences that could only be written by someone who lived the life of addiction and recovery.
Men Without Women. Haruki Murakami. A book of stories with Murakami's usual themes of loneliness, lost love and strange connections. His prose is elegant and quirky at the same time. Every story resonated with me in different ways. I felt very connected to many of the characters. One story in particular seared me in a very deep way. I had to read it quite slow. I'll let you figure out which one happened to me. Although I weathered the situation differently.
The Short Stories. Ernest Hemingway. Another recommend book to help me focus on style. Several of these I've read long ago in high school lit classes but I had forgotten about Hemingway's sharp focused dialogues. His characters remain serious and stoic in my mind. There is more pathos than humor in these pieces.
June
Ptown by Peter Manso. Vignettes about this most fascinating of towns as well as one of my favorites places. So for me the stories are full of old haunts. Manso has a sharp eye for detail and writes from a position of familiarity. His appreciation for that quirky haven is evident throughout these pages.
The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge by Abraham Flexner with a companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraff.
Two articles on the importance of pure scientific thought for its own sake. The idea that theoretical research often pays off far in the future and its consequences are often unintentional side effects is fascinating.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Wonderful essays that illuminate our understanding of the universe. Tyson writes with focused intelligence yet makes mind boggling concepts understandable. And he has a grand sense of humor. The idea that after the laws of physics everything else is opinion gives me endless space to ponder. And his fear that perhaps we may forever be kept from certain understandings (like dark energy) because the universe evolved in such a way as to make that knowledge unavailable to our vision is a wild idea!
One Man's Meat. E. B. White. You can't grow up in New England without a fair amount of exposure to the brilliance of E.B. White. I owned his Collected Essays before I even went to college. We read Charlotte's Web in grade school.
From his farm in Maine he sent dispatches to the New Yorker full of everyday wisdom and gentle humor. He had an eye for what seemed at first to be simple observations but often proved to be much much more. As he does here.
"Evidently it is not bleak times but the intimation of bleak times ahead that makes a man's spirits sag. There is no word in the language for end-of- summer sadness, but the human spirit has a word for it and picks up the first sound of its approach."
July
Cattle Kingdom by Christopher Knowlton. A splendid history of the rise and fall of the great cattle drives. Lots of stuff I didn't know. Well written and interesting. The West is always more grand and strange when studied closely. An enjoyably read.
The Life of Saul Bellow. Zachary Leader. This is volume one of two. It's meticulously researched and written with great passion for its subject. Leader has a wonderful grasp for Bellow's world and obviously a deep understanding of his work. His insights into Bellow's thought process is both honest and compassionate. Volume two can't come soon enough for me. Leader inspired me to reread some of my Bellow favorites. But where to start?
The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness and Joy edited by John Brehm. A wonderful collection of poems leaning toward Buddhist themes. The joy section was particularly uplifting.
Night Cadre poems by Robert Hunter. Yes, that Robert Hunter.
Desire denied
for the good of love
may have been love itself,
though each of these things
is made small by naming.
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow. An earlier Bellow story about a son and his relationship with his father. Wilhelm, the son, may or may not be having a breakdown. He's certainly on shaky ground. Money is a point of contention. The question of how does one realign a ship adrift looms large. Bellow never fails to provoke deeper meaning from relatively ordinary events.
August
Reread. The Raw and the Cooked by Jim Harrison. When ennui looms I reach for Harrison. He gives me the jolt I need to restore my energy and appetites.
The Terranauts by T.C. Boyle. Love and shenanigans at Biosphere II. Only from the mind of Boyle could such a tale of oddly unpalatable characters be invented. Many laughs and squirms and twists await the reader. I powered though the pages not wanting it to end.
September
Science in the Soul by Richard Dawkins. A collection of essays mostly about the joy to be found in being a scientist. Dawkins' passion for finding out and living with what is true shows us how full of rewards life can be. Contemplation of the wonder and magnificence of nature can certainly be a lifelong pursuit.
Reread. The Challenge of Things by A. C. Grayling. My favorite modern philosopher. His books burst with wisdom. You could pretty much use his oeuvre as a guide to living a meaningful life. His short pieces cover everything from religion to economics to science. He has such a broad range of subjects that it is stupefying. I often reach for his books when I find my day dull or uninspiring and need a boost to help me focus on life's more salient themes.
Herzog by Saul Bellow. I finally got around to this one. From the Berkshires to NYC to Chicago grand ideas are on full display in this masterwork. Suffering, the painfulness of happiness, trans-decendence, death, entropy, the responsibilities that come with suffering and finally some sort of unbalanced acceptance of one's self imposed predicament. All that and so many more profound ponderables are found in these pages. I almost feel like starting it over. Or maybe getting on a Bellow kick and rereading some of my favorites.
Reread. And So It Goes. By Charles J. Shields. Just the last few chapters.
The sadness of Vonnegut's last year is heartbreaking. Such a voice. Shit, we could sure use him today. I hold hope that my later days will not hold such misanthropy and I'll be able to maintain a more exalted view of existence.
A Book of Quotations. Shakespeare. Fun to flip through and be reminded that his well is immeasurably deep.
Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Reread. Sundog. Jim Harrison. I needed the flow of Harrison's thought for a day or so. Something to spark my imagination. Or give me a touch of understanding. To wit:
"It is difficult but necessary to accept the truth of what we are in our loneliest moments."
October
Talking To My Body Poems by Anna Swir translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan.
Listening to the flow of the Polish language, even in translation, brings me back to Aunt Vir's kitchen on Berkeley Street when I was so very young. Sunday mornings after church watching her cook enormous meals for uncle Joe while dad had a beer. The smells of that kitchen are vivid. Kielbasa, golumpkis, potatoes, all cooking on the stove. When I was very young she still cooked with wood. My mouth waters as I write this.
I have guests. A visit of
Weariness with Love's Ritual,
A Mocking Glance of Eternity and
Disgust.
Galápagos. Kurt Vonnegut The only Vonnegut book I had never read so I finally picked it up. The line that haunts me that came toward the very end of the book.
"And then, one day, life just wasn't worth living anymore."
A line only Vonnegut could toss off so nonchalantly. But it's frightening and I hope that it is a feeling that never overcomes me. Ever. As I believe it finally did to Vonnegut and as it has to many others, many many others. A feeling that is probably as common dirt.
Contact by Carl Sagan.
Sagan is a master of explaining complicated science in easy to understand language. This is an interesting story full of bright characters who live with deep emotion.
"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
Woolgathering by Patti Smith. Reflections of childhood and ideas about how we understand our selves. What inspires us? Usually something almost no one else notices. Most times we are more private than not. Patty touches me in a very unique way. Even her prose is poetic.
November
Leonardo Da Vince by Walter Isaacson. A massive biography. I saw Isaacson speak at the Arlington theater a few days before the book came out and was able buy it there and have him sign it. I then lugged it around the country for a few weeks and immersed my self in Leonardo's remarkable world. Isaacson is a fabulous writer of biographies. He's a brilliant researcher and seems to truly love the work. As he admitted in his talk. At the end of the book he writes of ways we can emulate Leonardo. He stresses that we should never loose our childhood curiosity. Another lesson is that science can be full of beauty and art is made more wondrous by having a greater understanding of the subject.
Not only a very entertaining book but one full of thought provoking ideas..
Devotion by Patty Smith. Some pieces on writing and a short story of a young ice skater. It's a haunting and dark story. How types of passions can be scary whether you're focused on one or it is aimed at you. ...
"Suddenly he pressed her against the wall and she experienced in horror the potential bliss of unrequited desire."
Sticky Fingers by Joe Hagan. A biography of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone. Lots of dirt and stuff I didn't know. But there was a time, the seventies and eighties, for me, when Rolling Stone was our Internet for all things rock and roll. Every issue for us was a gem. It was how we learned about new albums and concert tours as well as what our heroes ( Neil, Bruce, John, Paul, George and Ringo, Santana, Clapton, the Stones, the Allman Brothers..... Et al. ) were up to. We anticipated every delivery and at the radio station I worked at, the copies were treasured as much as the albums that were stacked on the tall shelves. Well written and it was hard to put down.
December
The Honest Truth. Dan Gemeinhart. Lent to me by Ellie, it's a book she read for school. Ellie is eleven and this, I thought, was a rather sophisticated story of a boy who is sick with cancer and runs away to climb Mount Rainer. Scattered through out the story are clever haikus that if you're not paying attention easily slip by. I enjoyed the challenge of finding them where I didn't expect. When I was eleven I didn't even know what a haiku was never mind a piece of poetry. At that age my reading was limited to magazines like Boy's Life and Field and Stream. Around that time Isabel, my grandmother, brought back for me from a trip to California The Yosemite by John Muir but it would be several years before I got past the pictures and finally read it.
Here's a quote and a haiku;
"All this stuff happens, all these little moments go flying past, and then they’re gone. And then you’re gone."
Dark day spent alone.
Pacing, crying, thinking hard.
Somewhere a lost friend.
The Boy Who Ran to the Woods. Jim Harrison. Was thinking about giving this as a gift so I wanted to reread it so I remember the nuances of this fine story. Thinking about nature's healing power is always appropriate.
Heart of the Land. Essays On Last Great Places. A collection of pieces about Nature Conservancy projects. It's an older book that I came across on a closet shelf. So I just reread a few chapters to give myself a sense of balance after weeks of travel to busy cities. I needed to reorient my brain. I picked a few essays by Rick Bass, Phillip Caputo, William Kitterage, (who I once met at the UPS store) Jim Harrison, Peter Matthiessen, Thomas McGuane, and Terry Tempest Williams. All solid and heartfelt writing. I think I'll keep this book our for a while and peruse the rest of over the next few months as I need to think about where to retire. Ha!
Quotations of Benjamin Franklin. Good ole Ben, by far my favorite founding father. Who else but Franklin would be bold enough and smart enough to take an axe to Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence? And Jefferson agreed the changes were for the better. Franklin's wisdom was boundless; statesman, philosopher, writer, skeptic, scientist, bon vivant, consigliere, and well... You could argue that if he were slightly younger he could have been our first president. He was respected for his intelligence almost as much as Washington was for his bravery and grace. Almost...
My favorite quote, "The way to see faith is to shut the eye of reason."
Two books I also highly recommend are Walter Isaacson's brilliant biography as well as Benjamin Franklin Unmasked by Jerry Weinberger.
Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire and Voltaire a life by Ian Davidson. I read these at the same time. I've always been fascinated by what little I knew about Voltaire but the only book of his I had read was Gods and Human Beings.
Great authors are alway quoting or referring to his work so I figured I'd finish off the year learning more about him. The Davidson book is quite lively and gives a great account of the way Voltaire lived his life as a poet, play-write, crusader for the wronged, lavish party thrower, businessman, philosopher, and thorn in the side of both the royalty of the day as well as organized religion. This book is not a critical study of his work but it is a chronicle of Voltaire's long and full life.
The Philosophical Dictionary is Voltaire's collection of essays on everything from Christianity to fate to bible stories to pride to miracles. It's a great book packed with ideas. Of course at the time is was banned by the church and the government. But it was quite popular with the people. Voltaire worked on it for years revising each new addition. He's particularly hard on the inconstancies found in the teachings of the Catholic Church and the hypocrisies of of the clergy. He is no less harsh on justice system of France at the time. He says,
"It is hardly possible to read history without conceiving a horror of mankind."
So there, for what it's worth, is what I did for intellectual stimulation these past twelve months. Did I learn anything? I think so. I might have even made slight improvements to how I live my life. Time will tell. Today I'm going to decide on my first book of 2018. I have six new books on my desk to choose from. It may take me an hour or so to choose. Here goes....
