2013 Reading List

Happy belated New Year!  Here you will find descriptions of all the books I read in their entirety last year.  It wasn't as good a reading year for me as was 2012, so whereas I simply listed the largely enjoyable 2012 list in the order I read them, I will group the 2013 list by the degree of enjoyment.  Not that the less enjoyed group of books was bad... (I did finish them).  It's just that for varying reasons I don't think they are universally good recommendations.  Either I enjoyed them but most people won't, or I hated them but others might like them, or in a few cases they really are just bad.  Within each group, the order is mostly still chronological rather than a ranking.

Books I Recommend

1)  The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare: One of the lighter, more entertaining Shakespearean plays in which I don't think anyone dies!  A lot of classic archetypes like the woman using a test to determine which of her suitors is worthy of her.  The play is especially interesting when looked at from the perspective of antisemitism and how the Jewish characters are portrayed.  I believe I read somewhere that this play was quoted and referenced in later years by people who sought to vilify Jews.

2) The Tempest by William Shakespeare: Another of Shakespeare's better comedies.  I read and saw this one performed, and both experiences were pleasant.  This was the last play he ever wrote, and if you read the last monologue with this in mind it seems to be a farewell speech not just by the main character but also by Shakespeare himself.  

3) I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb: I am a big fan of longer, character driven stories, which this is.  In simple terms it is about a man who must continue to live his life despite the struggles he faces, the biggest of which are a schizophrenic twin brother coupled with a personal need to always be the strong one in the family.  

4) Doubletakes by various authors and compiled by T. Coraghessan Boyle: A collection of pairs of short stories by thirty different writers.  I would personally recommend Barthelme, Bender, Coover, Davis, Gaitskill, Moore, O'brien, Saunders, and Wolff the most, though nearly all works within are of significant value.  

5) Pricksongs and Descants by Robert Coover: a very post-modern collection of short stories with extremely unique structure, style, and subject matter.  Examples include "The Brother," a re-telling of the story of Noah's ark from the perspective of someone who doesn't get on the ark or "The Babysitter," which changes perspective every paragraph to the point where you lose track of which events are actually happening and which events are fantasies.  

6) Animal Farm by George Orwell:  This was one of three re-reads for me this year.  It is the tale of the first ever farm run by animals for animals, and it is meant to parallel the rise and failure of Communism in Russia.  

7) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: This is the tale of George and Lenny, two buddies seeking work during hard economic times.  It's got some great commentary on loyalty and loneliness.

8) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: My favorite book of the year, this is the tale of the common German soldier during World War I.  Great depictions of how value systems change as a result of extreme circumstances.  Unique in its focus on the side that eventually lost.  Amazing scene of terror and survival when the main character gets lost in no man's land and can't tell which side is his and which is the enemy's.  

9) Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis: A series of letters from a senior demon to a junior demon concerning the best ways to go about corrupting souls.  Some great commentary on faith, good vs. evil, and relative goodness/evilness.  

10) Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller: portrayal of a man (and his family) set on greatness, on the American Dream, on being liked by everyone, on starting with nothing and becoming something.  He is set on this, and teaches them to be, but is starting to realize failure.  Is the fault in himself or in a society that misled him?

11) Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman: A re-read of one of my favorite 2012 books, this is a collection of very short stories in each of which time functions in a unique way.  For full review go here: http://uglinessandinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/02/einsteins-dreams.html.

12) Othello by William Shakespeare: The tale of a man tricked into jealousy and violence as a result of his own insecurities.  I recommend this mainly because of Iago, one of the best literary villains ever.  He is such an ingenious asshole who is enemy to all but perceived as the truest of friends.

13) Seeking Common Ground by David Tyack:  This book provides a history of education in America and a strong examination of what a truly democratic education should look like vs. what our education system actually looks like.  Of particular interest to me were chapters 3 and 4 concerning the challenges of educating diverse populations.

The Rest of the Books:

14) King Lear by William Shakespeare: My least favorite Shakespeare play because who are you supposed to empathize with?  Every main character is a terrible, overly flawed and unlikable person.  The best character doesn't even get a name.  He is simply called the Fool, and he disappears halfway through.  

15) Henry V by William Shakespeare: It's got some famous lines, but mostly it's just boring.  Henry goes to war, the French underestimate him, and he wins despite terrible odds.  That's all that happens.  

16) The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare: My second least favorite Shakespeare play.  Few likable characters, though unlike King Lear you don't have to endure any of them for very long.  Also it's just really cheesy.

17) Safe House by Chris Ewan: Sort of a mystery thriller.  Enjoyable at the time, but I've already forgotten most of what it was about.  

18) These Things Happen by Richard Kramer: This is about the son of a gay man whose best friend has also just come out of the closet.  It's about love in spite of unusual family structure.  It starts out strong but drags toward the end.  

19) The Lightning Thief by Rich Riordan: kind of poorly written young adult fiction about the half-mortal children of gods.  It reads quickly, but too quickly.  I was never invested enough to stop as a result of some meaningful thought or emotion to be contemplated. It's all plot.  The first of a series that did not compel me to read the second.

20) The Magicians by Lev Grossman: sort of a more angst-y version of Harry Potter.  A teenager find out he has an aptitude for magic and gets into a super secret school for magicians.  But magic doesn't prove to be all fun and fantasy.  It's a lot of hard work.  The story is really more about growing up than about magic-- but not in the "Oh man, I went through that" kind of way. It's more like, "Man this kid sure whines a lot." 

21) Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov: Most of my colleagues hated this book because it seems to suggest that teaching is a procedural thing easily broken down into steps that can be applied to any student body.  However, it does provide some helpful and detailed strategies for accomplishing very specific goals within the classroom.  It's kind of like a teacher's playbook.

22) Whistling Vivaldi by Claude M. Steele:  This book details the very interesting topic of stereotype threat by using the very boring style of in-depth step-by-step description of research methods.  Stereotype threat is a situation in which a person perceives that they are being stereotyped and as a result of their anxiety about this they end up feeding into the stereotype.  Super interesting concept, but you can read just the beginning and end of the book and you'll get the gist.  The middle is mostly pedantic fine-tuning of research strategies.

23) The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: The psychological tale of how one sin weighs on the lives of three different people.  This book has value and probably belongs on the other list, but it just seems too predictable to me.  I am probably just over-saturated after having spent a month and a half teaching it to students who mostly hated it.  If you like character-based, in-depth examinations of souls and value systems, this book is a good choice for you.  

24) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz:  A lot of people really like this book, but it just didn't do it for me.  I found myself a lot more interested in the narrator, Yunior, and in the historical details about the Dominican Republic than in the actual main character Oscar or anyone in Oscar's family whom the story surrounds.  I didn't get what was wondrous about his life.  He didn't seem to do much of anything with it, and then when he finally does try to do something he gets beaten to death.  There's probably something metaphorical or allegorical going on there that I'm missing.

That's it for this year.  As always there were several books I read part of that were not included in the list.  If you want further details on any of the books or want to recommend me something, please do so.  Peace.

From He Who Sees and Feels

To She Who Lives

Eyes lit up

Like a Jack-o-Lantern

With all the glory

Of a much-loved holiday

And the story—

The story of who did this

And why…

And what happened

Leading up to it?

And the fire, the passion,

The glow, the aura—

The thing that makes children’s guts

Flutter with anticipation

And laugh with glee.

But these eyes are better than those

For they contain twenty-five years.

They contain turmoil and victory

And joy and sadness

And life.

They move with wonder

And widen with surprise

And belong to the land of the living

Rather than some plucked and mangled fruit.

They see and they seek and they see some more

And are all the better for it

As are we—

For in the looking,

In the process of it all,

There happen a great many things

Regardless of whether

What’s sought is found

For the seeking is the finding—

For all is good and all is worthy

In the eyes of one who knows

Why they’re looking.

To She Who Builds

A deck takes shape

Behind my childhood home

Where the crumbling patio used to be

And a woman looks on with satisfaction

And pronounces it good, this transaction—

For on it she will sit

With the fruits of life’s labor:

Two twenty-somethings

Home for the holidays,

Or a trio of long-known souls

Drinking glasses in hand

And smiles at the ready,

Or a dog who runs slower now

But wags her tail just as fast,

Or a small group of worshipers

Supporting and praying,

Some leaving, some staying—

All loving and saying,

“This is it, my friend,

And it is enough so don’t worry.

Though the memories may wander

Or shrivel and fizz,

It has not been in vain.

No life that loves is.”

To She Who Touches

A framed photograph hangs

On the white hallway wall

Next to several others.

To an outsider they may tell a story

Just as easily as they may not,

But were we to enter the image itself

Then turn one hundred eighty degrees

We would see a young woman,

Face concealed, hand on a trigger,

Looking and waiting—

Waiting for what?  I don’t know,

Perhaps a secret of the trade:

The lifting of a chin or

The picking up of a breeze or

The accentuation or elimination

Of some shade of contrast or

Some gut feeling that things are right

Or beautifully wrong or

Simply, mysteriously, incomprehensibly

Beautiful.

Such a person remains concealed—

For self-revelation is not written

Into the job description;

And yet

Such a person’s touch is felt

When the lonely are comforted

Or when the happy feel gratitude

Or when the forgotten are remembered.

When feuding friends realize

They’ve made it through worse,

When friends who’ve lost touch

Pick up the phone,

And when weary lovers rediscover

All those little things they love,

The young woman is at work—

And neither they nor she

May realize the extent to which

Their lives have linked,

But we might just if only

We could enter the image

And look around.

To He Who Ventures

A man sits in the passenger seat

Perhaps wearing a baseball cap

Or perhaps cap-less,

Wind tousling his hair,

Or maybe the window is up?

I am not sure, for I am not there.

No, this man has left me

Or rather we’ve parted ways healthily,

Each on a journey of our own now

Connected as family are,

But apart as are those

Who must yearn.

It is never too late

To get a fresh start

And all things are good

With ‘yes’ in your heart—

The future be damned!

It’s not even real.

Instead let’s travel, let’s love,

Let’s explore, let’s listen to the crickets,

Let’s watch the snow fall, let’s tell stories,

Let’s do all the things

We always said we would.

The Compass is Either Spinning or Non-existant

The intensity of experience
Is often too much--
Or near enough to it
To make one lose touch,
Lose faith, lose track,
Get lost at sea...
Where most things are subject
To chance and relativity,
And thoughts are exchanged
For mindless activity--
And also as easily...
A sea-storm of thought
Induces paralysis.

So in such stormy times
When currents are strong--
Of this situation
I provide this analysis:
Whether riding the waves
Or getting beaten down,
You face three choices:
Learn to swim,
Hold your breath,
Or drown.

Identity and Its Effect on Worldview

Most people form their identities in significant part through their membership and association with various groups (such as white people, Christians, students, doctors, parents, Democrats, soldiers, sports fans, etc.)  They build self-esteem through associations with these groups and often through the exclusion of non-members/ disassociation from members of groups to which they do not belong.  This occurs because people who share our views tend to support us in these views and people who hold differing views tend to challenge what we have believed up until this point.  So in general we befriend those who make us feel comfortable and right, avoiding those who make us feel uncomfortable and uninformed.

I reject this.  I find value in befriending people who are different from me because I can learn more from them.  It is an endeavor that requires much more effort, of course, because of the difficulty of finding a middle ground, a common interest that will help ignite passionate discussion and eliminate awkwardness.  It is more valuable, though, because it promotes open-mindedness to the possibility that there is more out there and that these yet undiscovered things can be good rather than feared, hated, or viewed with contempt.

If you surround yourself only with like-minded individuals, you will have a lot of fun and live quite comfortably.  But you will never be challenged and you will never grow.  You will never change the world because you never dared to take a real look at it.

What to Do When the World is Ending

If I knew the world would end this week, I’d propose to someone special.  If they said no, I’d keep proposing until somebody said yes.  I’d quit my job, then travel cross country seeing all of the people that I miss and all of the places I haven’t made it to yet.  If there’s still time after the U.S.A. I’d plunge down into Central America.  I’d try to speak Spanish again.  I’d sky dive.  I’d go streaking.  I’d drive really fast.  I’d do all the things that are often dismissed for being too risky or too time consuming or too expensive.  They are this way when you have time, but when that luxury is taken, other luxuries become available—the luxury of not needing to plan ahead.

If I knew it was all ending, I’d still write.  I’d still sing.  I’d still hike through the woods on sunny days and go for jogs on rainy ones.  I’d drink more coffee and less beer because I want to be alert for oblivion.  I’d still try to be friendly and helpful to all people.  I’d still read, though I might choose shorter works.  I’d keep doing all the things I already love because true love doesn’t change even when everything else does. 

And if a week passed and we were all still here—if two weeks, three weeks, a year go by and the world turns out to not be finished after all—I don’t think I’d be disappointed.  I wouldn’t be regretful.  The world would be intact, as would I, and those two facts alone are worth celebrating.  Plus there’d be pictures and memories: me in freefall, me in a sombrero, me hugging my best friend, us pushing my car to a service station, someone saying yes, someone saying thank you. Yep, I think things would be just fine.  I’d smile and pay my speeding tickets, then see about getting my job back.  I mean, hey, I only quit because the world was ending.  Surely they’d understand. 

But even if they didn’t, I’d be okay.  Because I’d still have skills and drive and integrity and the support of my loved ones.  And time.  Lots and lots of time. Yeah, if handled the right way, the end of the world is a win-win situation.

“But wait a minute!” you might say.  “You left out all the bad stuff that’ll happen.  If the world’s ending, people will go crazy.  They’ll throw off their inhibitions and start doing all this bad stuff because they know they won’t have to suffer the consequences, at least not for very long.   They’ll riot, rape, steal, and destroy.  They’ll destroy everything because it’s all going down anyway.  How will you do all that stuff you want to do when things are so dangerous?”  But that is not the world we live in.  I reject the idea of a world where everyone is just one step away from being a sociopath. 

Sure, some people might make that choice. But what if we don’t?  What if we choose not to reach for weapons?   What if those who were holding weapons put them down?  What if the time before the world ends is the most peaceful in human history?  Is it such a crazy thing to ask?  To just let go of conflict and enjoy the last week of existence?  And if this is a crazy thing to ask, what does that say about us? Are we so full of hate that we can’t wait a week for our enemies to die along with us?  They have to go now?  If this is our mindset, then we are deserving of destruction. 

This piece seems to have taken a turn towards the negative.  Things usually do when the world is ending.  Watch any disaster movie.  But the question I’m putting forth is: Why does it have to be that way?  The world is what we make of it.  That’s true now, and it’ll be true at the end.  So let’s make something good. 

She Really Did Mean To

Penelope Hunt really did mean to paint when she got home from school that day.  On the way home she had purchased three new canvases and eight fresh bottles of paint and her head was so chock full of ideas that it was almost too much for her to keep focused on the road because man, what her teacher had said was so inspiring and made her want to inspire others so that they too could feel the way that she felt!  But when she got home, Tommy called her to go out and he was the first boy she ever let touch her and he was very popular and handsome and he had a scholarship to a good school so she didn’t want to let him down because he was what her mother called “a keeper” and given that her father had run away on them, a keeper sounded like a pretty good thing so she went out with Tommy and ended up staying at his place really late so that when she got home she just collapsed into bed and slept for like twelve hours.      

            When Penelope woke up the next day she had a 103 degree fever, nausea and a headache, so she spent pretty much the whole weekend laying in bed watching the TV her brother moved into her room for her and vomiting into a bucket telling her mother to please not cook her any food because it only made it worse.  By Monday she felt good enough to go to school and a good thing too because it was finals week and she was so close to graduating with a perfect GPA and now was no time to mess it up on account of some silly illness.  So she hit the books hard, both in school and out of school, eating and studying simultaneously, only stopping occasionally to sleep or go to the bathroom or talk on the phone with Tommy, and not painting because she had turned in her final for art already so that she could focus on the harder classes, and it paid off too because she aced all her finals and graduated at the top of her class.  So then it was time to focus on writing her valedictorian speech and on preparing for the summer marketing internship her uncle got her which started a week after graduation, and soon enough graduation happened and her speech went great and she was invited to all the popular kids’ graduation parties, then she started her internship which was challenging yet rewarding and in July she lost her virginity to Tommy and was very convinced she was in love with him but then he dumped her in August and she spent much of that month on the couch watching TV and thinking of excuses to keep from having to go to work.

            Then it was August 20 and it was time to go away to college which was new and exciting enough to pull Penelope at least partially out of her slump and get back to her usual overachieving ways so she packed up, got in the van with her mother and brother, and drove the three hours it took to get to what would become her new hometown.  She brought along her clothes, her computer, three towels, two sets of bed linens, a hygiene kit, a set of dishes and utensils, the textbooks she was able to locate on EBay, a backpack, a case of Ramen noodles, her iPod, and two framed photos (one of her best friends at prom and one of her family from their last vacation), but because dorm rooms are small and Penelope had an unknown roommate on whom she wanted to make a good impression by not infringing upon her side of the room—because of this the three still-blank canvases and the unopened bottles of paint were left behind.  

            She started as an undecided major but her internship experience and her roommate Clara’s own interest in the field influenced her to major in marketing which she did and committed to and was great at, completing the four year program in three and a half years, landing a solid job afterward, and moving in with her then-boyfriend Donald whom she eventually married and stayed with.  And in all this time there were many occasions where Penelope experienced a desire to create art, but it wasn’t until she was pregnant with her first child that she felt that same rush of inspiration she had felt way back in her last weeks of high school.           

            It happened when they were deciding how to decorate the nursery and she had the idea of painting each wall herself with a scene from a famous children’s story.  She spent weeks drawing up sketches, buying the necessary supplies, and talking to experienced painters about the specific considerations for such an endeavor.  But right when she was ready to begin painting, somewhere in the middle of the third trimester, she went into early labor and gave birth to a tiny but healthy baby boy whom she loved dearly and named Adam, and the exhaustion that only new mothers know combined with a particular knowledge of the psychological effects of exposure to certain colors and the worry that paint fumes would be dangerous to her premature baby, Penelope decided to just put up some blue wallpaper instead because wallpaper doesn’t generate fumes and because blue is supposed to be soothing.

            It’s been said that once you have kids, your life is no longer yours; it must be devoted to them.  This was true for Penelope.  She did have her own life, but she also ended up having four kids, for whom and with whom there was always something else to be done all through their early years into their teenage years and college careers, all the way through to when they started having their own kids, her grandchildren, one of which is me and it wasn’t until she got the shakes real bad and was diagnosed with the disease (four months the doctor gave her) that she again felt that intense inspiration to make art that would change people.  

            I was still a kid and she was living in our guest bedroom at this point when one day, a week or so after the diagnosis, two men arrived carrying an enormous wall-sized canvas.  “Upstairs, please!  First door on the right!” she told them.  When they had left, she sat us all down and told us that she was going into her room to paint and that no one under any circumstances should disturb her.  She then had me carry several jugs of water and a giant box of granola up to her room.  These I sat next to her table where already gathered were several sketching pencils, two stacks of paper, and a plethora of paints and brushes.  She then kissed me on my cheek and gently pushed me out of the room, shutting and locking the door behind her.  Over the next week I caught sight of grandma only three times as she crept from her room to the bathroom and back, but on the 7^th day I literally bumped into her as she turned the corner of the hallway.  She was startled, and dropped several of the sketches she had been carrying, which I then picked up and handed back, admiring her work as I did so.  When I handed her the pile, she promptly walked downstairs and threw every last sketch into a lit fireplace.  “I am finished,” she said.

            Penelope never re-entered that room and it remained locked for the rest of her life, two months as it turned out, which was spent mostly on our living room couch.  When she passed, she left a note telling us all that she loved us and that the key was in her left pocket.  At this point we were all pretty broken up and hoping for some inspiration, so we hastened to her room to behold what she had done with her week of laboring on that canvas.  What we found was not a detailed illustration of her life or a portrait of her closest friends and family.  Nor was there some trite maxim scrawled out in big bold letters.  None of the scenes from the childhood stories she had so long ago sketched out made it on.  There were no epic battles, loving embraces, abstract allegories, or beautiful landscapes.      

            No, what we discovered was eighty square feet of white canvas.  It was blank… or almost blank.  After closer inspection I discovered, way down in the bottom right corner where the author’s signature would be, an inscription. It read: Try Harder.

           

            My family argued for a while about exactly what this meant and about what we should do with this giant canvas, our grandma’s artistic legacy, which was taking up an entire wall of our guest room.  I don’t really remember what all they talked about as I was still fairly young and a lot of it went right over my head.  But back when I was picking grandma’s sketches off the floor for her, I actually hid one when she wasn’t looking, and I still have it to this day.  It’s quite good.