So Many Books, So Little Time
Page 20
American Sphinx. Okay, this was a skim-only, but given that it’s by Joseph J. Ellis, who was discredited for lying about his Vietnam service, I wanted to be sure to tell the truth.
Appendix C
The Must-Read Pile, as of 1/1/03
Some things never change—and some books never seem to leave the must-read pile. Here’s a snapshot of what’s waiting for me beside the bed, now that I can read with no deadlines.
Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand. What’s the matter with me? By now, hundreds of thousands have read the paperback, and my hardcover has barely been cracked.
The Cider House Rules. My friend Adrian was shocked that the only John Irving I can remember reading is The World According to Garp.
The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope. I guess I feel heartened by my successful adventures with all those “old books.”
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. I picked it up on the summer reading table at Barnes & Noble last summer. It’s been here ever since.
The Pursuit of Alice Thrift, by Elinor Lipman. To judge from my earlier Lipmania, this is one novel I’d bet I’ll get to.
From Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas L. Friedman. Because my ignorance just isn’t forgivable anymore, especially not now.
1See Appendix A.
2Then again, what do I know? I just heard that Crow Lake was chosen for the Today show book club. But here’s one reason I love Mary: she didn’t call me up to gloat.
3My affectionate title for a slow, dense, but still wonderful book by Joseph Heller, which he chose to call Something Happened.
4You may have noticed that nowhere in this discussion, and nowhere in this book, do I opt to pick up a book of poetry, a fact for which I feel mildly guilty, especially since both my mother and my sister have written in that form and I’ve published a couple of translations. In fact, it’s coming back to me that I did read some poems by Stephen Spender around the time of the terrorist attacks, and there was one particular verse from the work of W. H. Auden that was making the e-mail rounds. But even more than nonfiction, poetry seems “homework” to me. Intellectual laziness or product of the typical American education? You decide.
5A lot of the names I’ve been using are real, but this one’s not. It was changed to protect the ignorant.
6As a meet-your-idol experience, I’d say this one rates pretty high. At least I didn’t mumble incoherently, the way I did the one time I met Joseph Heller—what can you say to the guy who invented the concept “Catch-22”?—or the time I was introduced to Arthur Miller. Looking into the face of the creator of Death of a Salesman, I could think only two thoughts: (1) Great play! And (2) What was Marilyn Monroe really like?
7I stole this title from the late painter and musician Larry Rivers, who used it for his autobiography, a book so frank and hilarious that it’s now impossible for me to like any other celebrity memoir.
8Just kidding about the “great writer” bit. See “Great Expectations.”