A Book List

 

This post had its conception in a sentence that kept hammering away in my brain after November 6.  "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?"

Gestation and birth came in two more sentences, the first of which was something like "What were they exposed to, living with, pondering, reading??  A person is what they soak their brain in."  (Or pickle, I suppose...)  I experience my world through books.  We read when we eat, the both of us.  (That was a condition of courtship, by the way.)  Books are such a good way to find out, answer questions, open up what's been closed and discover what's true.  Safer than almost anything, they keep your brain working.  Alas, alas, no matter how justified, how good-feeling, or even how natural (!), biting snarky comments and cutting witticisms just aren't the best way of getting a lesson across to most people.  Take it from the wife of a professor: punishment does a poor job of teaching.  (As I've said: alas!!)

The second sentence was a much harder concept to articulate, but here's my try:  "What if I knew someone, from that far horizon of otherness, would sometime (any time, now or forever), wander by my blog and be inspired by this list?"  It's a long shot but right now I feel like that's about the only shot I have.

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Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) by Ray Bradbury.  Although my cover is from the movie, I strongly emphasize the book, NOT the movie!  It's here not because of its title but because it is family fare for Halloween, a seasonal tradition for me.  One paragraph leapt off the page:

        "Have I said anything I started out to say about being good?  God, I don't know.  A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help.  But if, half an hour before, you spent just ten minutes with the fellow and knew a little about him and his family, you might just jump in front of his killer and try to stop it.  Really knowing is good.  Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least.   You can't act if you don't know.  Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff." -- page 146 [bolding mine]

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    Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938).  I happened to be reading this British beauty (which I've always loved) after Bradbury.  While the book is famous for its vivid sense of a haunting spirit -- a major character dead before the book opens -- what seems relevant to me now is its portrayal of how to deal with a seemingly powerful yet ultimately unsavory person.

I put up a book list at the start of the pandemic: here.   It so feels like that again:  A long darkness stretches before us, full of dangers unguessed-at.  Contacts, reassurances, reachings-out-&-touchings of friends are what we did then:  stowing away the good times against an unknown future.  But some things today are Not like pandemic was then.  This time we have an end date.  Also, we know we're not alone:  That election was Not a landslide.  It was amazingly close, a razor's-edge win.  "By a nose."  And we know, oh yes, so much more about the vulnerabilities of certain old white men.

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The Two Towers (1954) by J. R. R. Tolkien.  I'm including this one solely because of the description of Saruman's Voice.  Can there be anything more appropriate --!!?!

Wooops just realized there's more than one twin tower here,... unintentional, folks,...

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102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn (2005).  I'm including this one because it is a first-rate example of non-fiction that is as compellingly un-put-down-able as fiction.  Also, it uncovers the roots of certain controversies of the event, a breath of fresh air, badly needed.  I present it as supporting evidence to my claim of living through books.  I'VE NEVER SEEN THE TOWERS FALL, even now:  aye, it's true!  I don't own a TV.  With books like these who needs it?!  A first-class job of even-handed research and explanation, made more meaningful by my finding out about the National Bureau of Standards (National Institute of Standards and Technologies), which carried out analyses on pieces of the towers afterwards.  My father's career was at the Bureau.  If you only read one book on 9-11, this is it.

FEAR, by Bob Woodward (2018).  Impeccably researched, soundly documented, Woodward's probity needs no introduction from me.  I've always felt that his 2 masterpieces in the series (FEAR, RAGE) should've been followed by a third, appropriately titled (by me) MADNESS.

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Educated, a Memoir, by Tara Westover (2018). 

Westover's is the crown jewel of this small selection.  The book is astounding on many levels.  If it's a repeat from my earlier list it's because I recently re-read it, a sure sign of its turning into a deserving favorite.  It opened up a world I truly knew nothing about.  It always makes me wonder how the heck she found the courage to escape. 

Unlike my earlier post, this one could go on quite a ways with Kindle e-books.  I'll settle for listing some of my collection that come to mind:

Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon (2024).

Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump (2020).

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (2011)  Not political at all, I just finished reading it and could not put it down!!  Serious science fiction (which stood me in such good stead during the pandemic).

Breath and Deep by James Nestor (2020 and 2014, respectively).  Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, repeat repeat.  I really like 'em and they've changed my life, so there.

The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton (2020).

The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin (2007).  If you've ever wondered what went on in the Supreme Court.

A later addition is a couple of long, non-Kindle, 'actual paper' books which have given me great insight into historical American Republicans and Democrats:  The Emperors of Chocolate by Joel Glenn Brenner  (1998), especially the part about the strike at Hershey towards the end;  and Hawaii by James A. Michener  (1959), especially the later part about the sale of Gregory's and the Democrats coming onto the islands.  I may not know "what they were thinking," but Hawaii helps in giving me much more of a guess.

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After all that, I hardly need re-recommend Heather Cox Richardson, historian and online commentator.  But I will.  At first I found her too overpowering but times have changed.  I welcome all such sources, even if, like a gas lantern, sometimes things hiss and use up the oxygen.