I think I’ve started to lose my taste. For years, I’ve prided myself on having good taste in books. I have carved my reading material up into different categories and congratulated myself on the breadth and diversity of my appetite as the kind of reader who enjoys serious writers, but still relishes the cheap thrills of crime fiction I buy at the grocery store, the authors and titles calling out to me in their raised metallic fonts. Most of the time, I even manage to eschew academic guilt, notwithstanding occasional backsliding into insecurity and pretension, like the other night, when I was mortified to hear myself telling some poor woman at my book club about how I stumbled across Steig Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at the grocery store, almost a year before it became the companion of commuters and flyers all over the world, as though that extra year made my devouring of the Millennium Trilogy any smarter or hipper than the rest of the herd.
I’ve marked my life out in books, keeping track of my childhood with memories of reading Little Women, the naughty thrill of finding Henry Miller in my local library when I was 15 and, later in life, my awe over the sheer beauty of Toni Morrison’s prose. An anxious and serious child, I kept to a strict diet of the classics, spent my teens with dead white males who wrote “great novels” and made my way through my 20s by reading in every niche Postmodernism has to offer.
However, as time goes on, my taste has becoming increasingly idiosyncratic, almost curmudgeonly, probably the sad result of rejecting objective truth or getting older. (There should be t-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Teenagers! Enjoy your J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath now, while you still know everything.”) Admittedly, this is ridiculous for a woman in her early 30s with so many classics sitting on her shelf with accusing eyes (yes, yes — I haven’t forgotten you’re there Middlemarch and War and Peace). Books are no longer being divided into good or bad and serious or fun. Instead they are now enjoyed and quickly forgotten, a category which includes many worthy well-written books that really should have stuck with me longer, and books that, while not always enjoyable, have stuck with me. When someone asks me how I liked The Kite Runner, a beautiful book that I thoroughly enjoyed while I was reading it, my eyes glaze over. But, if you want to talk about Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna or A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book, the lengthy, difficult and, at times, uneven tomes I spent the last month with, I could talk all day long. The Lacuna was an assignment for my book club and I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to account for why I persevered through all 600-plus pages when most of them had given up somewhere in the first third of the book. (Finishing the book is, surprisingly, not always an asset with book clubs.)
“It’s amazing! How do you find the time,” they ask me, a hint of disapproval lingering in their eyes as they lean back to take a defiant sip of wine.
They always want to know how I can devote so much of my life to books that are, frankly, difficult and frustrating or boring or mediocre. These questions aren’t about smarts; my fellow book club members are insightful, clever readers who can read Booker Prize winners with the best of them and tackled the difficult issues in The Kite Runner with grace and sensitivity.
No, this is about my loss of “good” taste. I finished Kingsolver, despite the remote protagonist and lengthy passages that were uncomfortable to read because the language is so beautiful and she was giving me something I had never seen before. I soldiered through Byatt because I admired the scope of her ambition, the huge cast of characters and broad view of history she tried, and sometimes failed, to convey. I’m becoming hopelessly lost in details, bowled over by a beautiful phrase, a perfectly realized conversation or a writer’s amazing audacity to try something new. As I work my way through this minutiae, I think I might have lost the forest for the leaves on the trees. I’ve certainly lost the ability to talk easily about whether I liked a book or thought it was good. Nowadays, my highest praise is that a book has gotten under my skin.
I find myself in the middle of my twenties (sort of!) still trying to catch up in the classics that many people read when they were teens. I did not start reading till I was 18 and only properly when I was 21. Good taste is a problematic thing for me primarily because I feel that I am still learning to be captivated by literature. Stories sometimes capture me and at times particular passages do; moreover there are books that are well respected that I have struggled with on both counts (cf. Blood Meridian).
Moreover, your description of Byatt suggests that it is not always books but rather authors that get under-your-skin. This is something different; it is a connection with their vision of the world or of their attempts to capture something that we too want to hold. Joyce’s Ulysses was that kind of book for me. I marveled at the complexity and wanted him to readily invite me into this new space he was creating, but he rarely did. It remains an enigmatic and barren book and my struggle with it represents a struggle with him and his reputation; though I should note that there are specific parts which I love, though I a not sure I would read it again if I could go back.
btw, where does Ayn Rand fit into all of this?
Aaron your experience with Joyce sounds very much like my own experience with Joyce. And, yes, something about Byatt’s voice is captivating to me; although, there were long stretches of the book that didn’t work for me or I struggled through. I think I enjoyed reading about her afterwards more than I did reading the book.
Oh, and Rand! I’ve tried two or three times, but, honestly, I don’t know if it will ever happen. Rand tends to get under my skin in a bad way.
Isn’t one Rand enough? I find I can finish about one or two of about anything. I feel an urge to finish books once I start them, but after getting rid of a few thousand books I had read and realized were just sitting in the home library and never to be read again, I’m trying to cut back on some things.
Back in the day, for example, there would be a fantasy novel every year or so. Now, outside the romance novel fantasy genre, there are still about 500 or so published a year. We are losing a common ground and common images.
Yet the amount of commonality that existed in the 70s was still not as great as one would think. I remember in 1973 or 74 thinking about how at five books a day, a two million volume library was going to defeat me.
Heidi,
My most recently finished books were Blood Meridian and The Corrections. I totally feel you.
Oh, I think I like assessing a book based only on whether it got under my skin. I don’t like trying to answer the question of whether I liked a book or not. That’s too black and white a description of an experience that can be so completely engrossing. Some people seem to think you have to like the message or the characters or the style or the conclusion to like the book. There are plenty I am glad to have read that I am not sure I can say I ‘liked’.
And what’s a good book anyway? I’ll admit I try to aim for quality in my reading, and even try to guess whether I’ll want to read the book a second time (never buy a book you don’t think you’ll want to reread is my rule). But I’m not sure I can actually define quality in my reading.
Becky, that is exactly why I’ve been thinking about taste. People kept asking me if I liked certain books and I wasn’t sure what to say. Many of them were worth reading, but not necessarily enjoyable. Others were so brilliant in places that it was worth it to me.
I too am still catching up on the classics. Amazing that I didn’t read Nineteen-Eighty-Four and The Bell Jar until recent years. The remark about the library made me laugh. I can remember reading Judy Blume’s Forever under the covers with a flashlight when I was barely a teen.
I did the same! I was a little too young for “Forever” — maybe nine or ten? I felt so grown-up. There was another one like that for me called “We Hate Everything But Boys” that I read when I was eight. Ha!
Oh, I like this. I’ve seen over the years that our taste in books, art, music, etc changes vastly over time. And even the same books we read as teens are worth another read, because the more experiences we see life through, the more we have to engage with. There just isn’t time to read it all, but that doesn’t seem to have made me more discriminating either! I love that you are just enjoying what happens to come into your scope.
I haven’t finished a lot of books. I’ve started lots of books, but most of them I haven’t finished. They didn’t grip me, or, more likely, I didn’t grip them. For better or worse, if an author can’t convince me in the first hour of the book that reading said book is going to have a profound impact on my life, then I’m not going to make an investment on the next 600 pages, and the book goes back on the shelf or back to the library. That’s just the way it is. I’m not saying its a good thing. In fact, I’m positive that it’s not a good thing. I’m sure there are nuggets of wisdom and beauty that I’ve missed out on over the years because I just didn’t have the patience to get there. But, usually, like most of you I’m sure, between work and family, the only time I have to read a book is the time I make at the end of the day when the kids are asleep and I have the choice to read or go to bed. Sometimes I read. But when the prospect of going to sleeping is more enticing than reading the book, the book usually goes back to where it came from and stays there.
Recently, however, I did pick back up a book that I’d started about a year ago…twice. Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. Finally, it gripped me. I don’t know if reading it means I have good tastes in books or not. But I’m pretty certain that I don’t really care. Sometimes I read Tolstoi. Sometimes I read Dan Brown. Sometimes I read Army Field Manuals. Sometimes I watch Friends. Sometimes I read Doestoveksy or some other author whose name I sure as hell can’t pronounce, like Ayn Rand, but I can spell, and then I watch Friends. Sometimes I read the Bible. Sometimes I watch CougarTown. “Sometimes I sits and thinks. Sometimes I just sits.” Most times, I don’t care.
“They didn’t grip me, or, more likely, I didn’t grip them.” — Well said, Grant. I love that. And, I completely agree with you on high/low art. I like both. I read books that are both and I don’t feel guilty about my pleasures. But, sometimes (a lot lately) I’m gripped by things that aren’t actually pleasurable — at least not the whole way through.
And, I loved “Pillars of the Earth” and thought the sequel was pretty good too. The sheer size of that book can be off-putting, but once I got into, I couldn’t put it down. I read it a few years ago right around my birthday and then we went to Canterbury Cathedral on my birthday and it was cool to look at the cathedral after thinking about them so much.
I agree with Aaron R. that books are me entering an author’s worldview and their characters’ private worldviews, and if it’s a place I find captivating, that calls me back to it, then I want to revisit that author again and again. It’s why I love Kate Atkinson. It’s why I don’t love Ian McEwan, although I can see why I’m supposed to love him. And it’s why I couldn’t quite finish Daniel Deronda. But I also enjoy books that amuse me or entertain me. They don’t have to haunt me to be enjoyable.
As to Ayn Rand, I think it’s hard to enjoy reading Ayn Rand more than once. Her fiction is for illustrative purposes only. The closest she comes to creating an actual work of fiction is We the Living. The longer she wrote, the more her books became lecture notes and visual aids to her theories. I find many of her ideas compelling IRL, but her fiction doesn’t come to life.
Angela — I’m with you on Atkinson and McEwan. And Rand, admittedly, I didn’t make it all the way through “Atlas Shrugged,” but the writing felt very flat to me.
I love this – and would argue for it as a more satisfying way of reading, as you’ve described. Certainly for me, the works of fiction that have made the most profound impression on me have been the ones that have created a connection to the reality of the world I experience. Certainly I’ve become less interested in the grand creations that resemble ‘forests’.
I love short works – a piece that is able to quickly and incisively transport the reader into a world. I also admire longer works that use a journey to bring you to a place where you can appreciate the object more fully. In the end, its always the connection between the text and my ‘skin’ – my physical world, my body – that stays with me most fully. The earthy metre of Hopkins… the real grit of Hemingway.
I don’t often come back to works I enjoyed when I was younger, and get as much from them. Perhaps that’s because my ‘taste’ has changed a lot in the last few years!
I’ve recently fallen in love with short stories again. What are some favorites?
Welllll! I’m particularly interested in the American Short Story – I think the genre paradoxically suits the big West, that’s less about history and more about experience. Have you read Hemingway’s Nick Adam’s stories: ‘Big Two-Hearted River’ really gives this experience of objects. Of course, there’s Raymond Carver’s beautifully physical stories: ‘Why Don’t You Dance’, ‘Viewfinder’ or ‘Gazebo’. If you want something more English, though – I’ve always loved Ted Hughes – his story ‘The Rain Horse’ is earthy and haunting.
If I let go of the whole physicality thing, though – I do have favourites from Borges’s ‘Labyrinth’ and David Foster Wallace’s ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’. There’s a lot to be said for the experience of reading a story within the context of its collection, too.
Oh, I reread “Big Two-Hearted River” for a class this summer and loved it. That story is like a walking meditation, Hemingway carefully and subtly keeps bringing the reader back into the moment, I’ve rarely felt so fully present with a story.
I’ve never read much Hughes or Foster Wallace’s short stories, I’ll have to check those out. And, I agree about reading them in a collection, it is kind of like how a song fits into an album.
A few of my current favorites are “Flowering Judas” by Katherine Anne Porter and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin.
The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas
The Lottery
I think we deserve congratulations whenever we take the time to finish a book of any kind at all. The ease at which I’m captivated by the cheap allure of television never ceases to amaze (or ashame) me. I always feel a little triumphant when I finish the last page of a book, regardless of its purported worth.
Oh, I love the cheap allure of television too! :)
I like the economy of this piece. I am never accused of compact insightful comments. I never tell a story without so many asides you would be confused if I hadn’t chosen different voices for every character. I tend to have the viewpoint of a stand up comic. Finding everything funny and tragic at the same time, this must be a specific disorder, just can’t name it. I love the part of this essay that explains that to let something under your skin you must give up something to make room. I like this idea. I have learned today. Thank you.
Thank you!
I had the same crisis when I was early on in my English major. I grew tired of reading books that purported to be brilliant classics, and were nothing more than the observations and (usually) tedious, uninteresting antics of people. I grew tired of being told to present an author’s opinions as truth, and real truth as my own opinion.
My solution was to stop reading fiction altogether. I considered it a fast. I would read novels again when I had a good grip on how to appreciate their virtues as virtue, and their weaknesses as weakness. Delight in that which is not delightful is the easiest way to kill any ability to appreciate beauty. As much as I love to read, refusing to read was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Interesting Paradox. I also studied English and I can completely relate to the frustration of not liking something that you are supposed to like. And, having to write about something, even something you love, can sometimes wring all of the pleasure out of the experience. However, one of the things I love about reading is getting into the heads and lives of other people — finding common ground, but also finding places that are very different.
I like some non-fiction, but, honestly, I would probably always rather read a novel. Something about the suspension of disbelief really helps me get into a place where I can really consider and empathize with different ways of being, an experience I find very expansive.
I’m really interested in this idea of ‘getting to a place’ where fiction can get under our skin. Does it take a certain number of pages – or a certain amount of time – before this can happen for you, Heidi (and others)? This is a journey that I want to understand more about – because I wonder how it applies to the way we construct personal narratives, every day. For those of us who don’t get time to read – is the ‘story’ we construct more like a short story, or a novel? And do those who write ‘novelistic’ (long, connected, uninterrupted, historicising -?) personal narratives find more satisfaction in their experiences in life, seen through that lens?
I suspect that this experience of finding ‘very different’ places is the experience of finding places within our own mind that resonate. Like stepping outside after a day at the office, it’s a breath of fresh air, and offers new perspective – but it’s nothing more disconnected than a new chapter in our own mind’s story.
Well said. For me, there is the continued joy of finding my humanity shared with someone else.
The thing about getting under my skin is that it happens at all different times and in different ways. I always give books a good 50 to 100 pages because sometimes it takes a while for the story to build in me.
Hello Heidi, and all who’ve come to read. Thank you all for your comments and insights.
I suspect that having taste is similar to having sanity — unless one strongly doubts it then one probably lacks it, or so I’ve heard. From my perspective you all clearly have a great deal of taste. A sensitive and discerning taste that only comes from having tasted many things. I personally aspire to a refined taste in books and other media but have spent far too much of my youth just wanting to be absorbed in the thrill of Stephen King.
As with Grant, I’ve finished far too few of the books I’ve started. But I’ll one-up you Grant. I also own far more books than I’ve ever begun to read.
For me, the relevant part of taste is to have touched and possessed certain books. What I read I don’t read for taste so much as for a dose of whatever I need in a moment. It’s a thrill. A re-enforcement of ideas. An answer to a question. The idolatry of a mood.
I do love to read. My first memories of reading are of billboards and shop signs The first book I ever loved was Cowboy Andy. The day I die is the day I no longer read. That is taste enough for me.
Oh, I wish I could remember the first book I read! I only remember the first chapter books I read, which were a series of biographies of notable presidents and other famous people in my elementary school library. They were fat and bright orange, I can still remember the smell of them. I didn’t read about one president, but I read about all of their wives, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell — all of the women in the series.
Could be that the memories of reading are among the sweetest! And funny how these memories remain accessible long after so many other memories have been lost.
I loved those little biographies and read everyone my library had.
Nicely done.
I lean toward Jessica. As a child, I couldn’t read enough. As an adult, I find reading for pleasure so . . . pleasurable that I feel a little guilty partaking when I know there are other things that require my concentration, which seems in limited supply. Little by little this is changing. Can’t wait to go through your stacks with you.
I wrote elsewhere:
Still, I got a Kindle last year, and I when I’m reading on that, nobody knows what I read. I find that I read a broader range of books now, because I now read books that I’d never actually admit to reading, that I wouldn’t be caught dead holding on a subway or in line at the DMV — like cheesy self-help titles or books on how to handle specific issues in marriage or books on exercise. The sad truth is that, for all my bluster, I was never really touting my own reading choices in spite of what other people thought. No, I was choosing specific titles, because I cared that people believed that I didn’t care.
And so, in certain parts of western culture, there’s this aspect of pride that comes with reading, and I think that’s a great thing, even if I have mixed feelings about participating in it. Our book choices say things about who we are, just like the clothes that we wear and the words that we choose — maybe even like the car that we drive. And with time, I’ve realized that my own book choices reflect my own overriding personal ethic, which I articulate to others as “Never let ’em see you sweat.”
DKL, great story.
You’re right that our reading material can say a lot about us. I used to be really anxious about my reading material saying I was smart or grown-up. Now, I’m not so worried; although, I’ll admit that a little part of me wouldn’t want to read Dan Brown or Steig Larsson on a commute or in a cafe. But, the truth is, I like reading some Dan Brown or some Steig Larsson. Like Grant said, sometimes you want to read Tolstoy and sometimes you want to watch Friends, or read a Friends-equivalent.
DKL, something is wrong, I’ve found myself agreeing with you much too much recently. This too.
Welcome aboard the crazy train, Stephen!
With DKL in mind, what does it mean that I just downloaded Lolita to my Kindle? And would you read this book in all it’s hardcover glory at your place of work?
Lolita is fantastic. Anyone who thinks its something to be wary of is someone who hasn’t read or doesn’t understand it. Enjoy!
BTW, I have a friend who hypothesises that Kindles will eventually have a screen on the back to show other people what you’re reading. As DKL pointed out before, a lot of the reason for reading the ‘classics’ is to be seen to be reading them. :) It performs a social function.
Having said that, I’d love to get a Kindle. They’ve just come right down in price… maybe Christmas!
Matt, I’d totally read Lolita in the open!
Alright, I’m convinced. I’m currently obsessing over the feeling I’m getting in the approach to reading this book. What raised the question for me in the first place was that a redditor in Reddit’s books forum recently posted about getting a letter of reprimand from her employer after being observed reading Lolita while on break at work.
That’s insane and can only be from a supervisor who doesn’t really know anything about the book, which is actually deeply moral.
“That’s insane …” +1
Ah, books. So much trouble for those who never read them. :D
It’s not porn or even erotica unless you share an unholy attraction to little girls. Nabokov is a brilliant writer. I had a tough time with Lolita. The writing is superb, but it’s a lot of time to spend in the head of this frequently funny but ever creepy pedophile.
I would read it in the open. Let me know what you think, Matt. Of course, me reading it as a woman might provoke a different response than you reading it as a man.
Rebecca and hawkgrrrl, I’d only read it in the open around folks who are entirely ignorant of Nabokov or folks who appreciate Lolita. Though there is a certain feeling of belonging to an elite class of extra-morals. :P I take solace though in the fact that I loved Sting’s “Don’t Stand” when I was a kid. Back when innocence allowed me to operate within the mystery of what exactly Nabokov had to do with an otherwise fantastically thrilling notion of teen sexuality.
A recall making a brief attempt to determine just who Nabokov was, when I was a kid. I failed back into mystery, not having had access to Wikipedia. Just as well.
Wonderful post. I didn’t come into being a reader until after college. In high school, it was my younger sister’s “role”, and in college my head was too full of science. I’ve really enjoyed going back to my AP English reading lists – though I’ve not often enjoyed the books. It’s been fascinating to take an objective look at what was considered “good literature” and what was required to have under your belt before you could consider yourself an accomplished reader. And it’s been an entertaining journey to discovering what my own personal taste must be. Like others, I’m not sure if it’s the author or the story and characters that holds me – it seems inseparable. I’ve noticed that when I want to come off as widely read and obscure, I tout my love for Potok – I’ve read almost all of his. But if I’m being honest, my favorite light reads come from Orson Scott Card – but like DKL, those are the ones I read on a Kindle :) Now that I’ve whittled down the book lists that help me participate competently in conversations and book groups, I’m reading to broaden my perspective – by reading as far outside my own as I can. What I enjoy most now is pulling myself as far in one direction as a book can take me, and then looking back at myself from where I went.
I’m excited to see what’s on your shelves.
“What I enjoy most now is pulling myself as far in one direction as a book can take me, and then looking back at myself from where I went.”
Well said, Corktree.
I like to have two or three books going so that I can shift back and forth as the mood strikes me, unless I’m reading something really gripping that I can’t put down. I recommend The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin for a fun, quirky read. I also really enjoyed Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno…very funny coming of age novel. As for my reading choices, I still try to tackle a few classics every year but I allow myself some just for the fun of it entertainment too. And I don’t apologize of feel guilty about it. Not one little bit.
Oh, and I have to share this fabulous quote. I wish I’d written it. It was posted at the front of my son’s high school English class – “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” – The History of Boys by Alan Bennett.
Great quote!
Alan Bennett wrote a great little book called “The Uncommon Reader” about the Queen of England coming across a little lending library on her palace grounds and taking a book our of a sense of duty and politeness and then becoming transformed as she becomes a great reader. I loved it!
Wow, Rebecca. What a great quote. I can relate to feeling that way.
Heidi, that series of biographies were my favorite as well. I can stll picture them on the school library shelf and recall the anticipation of choosing the next one. I too loved reading about women- Abigail Adams, Babe Didrickson. What that says abou my taste in books, I’m not sure :-)
So cool! I’ve never met anyone else who read those. I read them all — Dolly Madison, Mary Todd Lincoln, but Abigail Adams was definitely my favorite of the presidents’ wives. I also love Sojourner Truth.
I’m admittedly a book snob.
There are so many good books out there I just don’t see that I have the time to waste reading ones that are subpar.
I love books. I love the feel of books. I love reading about all sorts of random topics. I have thousands of books and am generally reading 15-20 at a time depending on my mood at the minute. It would certainly be more convenient, but I will never get the same satisfaction out of reading them on a computer screen.
Perhaps it’s the limited nature and ‘mortality’ of books that allow us to have love affairs with them. There’s something about a worn paperback that seems very affirming of my humanity, when I’ve spent twenty hours or so with it. It breaks its back for my pleasure, and absorbs the oils from my fingers. I could say the same about the mortality of a C90 cassette – especially when I’m faced with a moment of tragedy, its interior pointlessly chewed by an unforgiving machine.
Hardback books seem to be more suited to ‘good taste’ and ‘classics’. They’ll outlast me. I’ll leave them on the shelf, most times.
How many times have you walked into someone’s office or house/apartment for the first time and sized them up according to what you see on their shelves?
(or am I the only one who does that?)
I’m totally conscious of the fact that people do that. The books that I keep front and center are as follows:
Brodie’s No Man Knows My History,
Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature,
Palanhniuk’s Fight Club,
Kirkpatrick’s Dictatorships and Double Standards,
Dicken’s Bleak House,
Russell’s An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth,
Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style,
Metcalfe’s New Approaches to the Book of Mormon,
Emily Post’s Etiquette,
Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments,
and a full shelf of Merriam-Webster reference books.
All the books in hardback, of course. (And I’ve read all of them, except the Merriam-Webster reference books, which are for using rather than reading.)
What does that tell you, Heather? And what books do you display?
‘Fight Club’ in hardback? That just seems wrong!
You’re gonna have to at least break the spine and crease some of the pages… :)
@DKL, I think that tells me that you read a lot more high brow stuff than I do. ;)
What’s on my shelf? Depends which shelf. On *my* shelf, right now you’ll see recent stuff like The Help, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (haven’t read this yet), Half the Sky (currently reading), Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail, HisPANIC: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the US, Committed (Elizabeth Gilbert), and the latest Jodi Picoult book.
Brent’s shelf is full of popular press business books and short story compilations.
OUR shelves have an assortment of church books–various translations of the Bible, a couple copies of Revisiting Thomas O’Dea’s The Mormons (because Brent has a chapter published in it), Rough Stone Rolling (haven’t been able to make it through this one yet), the McKay bio, numerous Carol Lynn Pearson books. We also have copies of some of our favorite children’s/YA books and a ton of Spanish picturebooks.
Heather, is Fight Club high brow? If you look deeper on my shelves, or go through the boxes and boxes of my books that have been relegated to the basement, you’ll find a broader mix. 30+ translations of the Bible, nearly every book Bertrand Russell published, a dozens of books on philosophy, a bunch of Mormon studies titles, several books on how to dress by Alan Flusser, every book ever written by Ann Coulter, Home Depot’s Home Improvement 1-2-3, a bunch of books extolling the advantages of vegetarian or near vegetarian diets, Good Eats: The Early Years, the compilations volume of Brian Bendis’s Ultimate Spiderman, a bunch of Frank Miller compilation volumes, and a bunch of books of C programming and software development life cycles.
Andy, sadly, my hardback copy of fight club is in terrific shape, except for the occasionally underlined passages, like, “Chloe was the genuine article. Chloe was the way Joni Mitchell’s skeleton would look if you made it smile and walk around a party being extra special nice to everyone.” or “It used to be enough that when I came home angry and knowing that my life wasn’t toeing my five-year plan, I could clean my condominium or detail my car. Someday I’d be dead without a scar and there would be a really nice condo and car. Really, really nice, until the dust settled or the next owner. Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. Since fight club, I can wiggle half the teeth in my jaw. Maybe self improvement isn’t the answer. Tyler never knew his father. Maybe self-destruction is the answer…. what you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women.”
(Sorry there are so many typos in my comments; I’m used to posting on my own blog, where I’m free to post a comment and edit the typos out of it later. Plus, I transitioned from the Dvorak keyboard layout back to more common QWERTY layout last January, and though my speed is back to what it used to be, I find that I’m still making many more errors. Oddly, many of them aren’t related to key accuracy, but they seem to be related to phonetics, like I find that I’m much more likely to conflate “your” and you’re, or type “half” instead of “have.” Someone’s probably done a study on this somewhere.)
I had never considered that somebody would size me up according to the books or movies on my shelves. I don’t own many movies and I sold most of my books before our last move and bought an e-reader. I gave away most of the other books I couldn’t sell. I didn’t want to cart boxes of books around the country anymore every time the army decided it was time to move.
Heather – ditto.
I even tell them I am doing it.
Yep. I go straight for the bookshelves and CDs, my version of peeking in the medicine cabinet.
I looked at my bookshelf and the ones that jumped out at me were
last years copy of Ogden phone book
Improvised munitions black book volume 2.
The Beast by A.E. van vogt
Crow Killer: the saga of liver eating Johnson by Raymon W. Thorpe Jr. (inspirational story)
Some Iraqi military manuals (one of which the cover is made out of wrapping paper with Elmo from Sesame Street on it, hilarious)
U.S. Air Force survival manual from 1969
Light a last candle by Vincent King
1980’s MAD magazines
engine rebuild and automotive books
some old copies of Weird Tales
Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Over the Top by Arthur Guy Empey (forgot to take that one back to the library 15 years ago)
Dunwich Horror and others: the best of H.P. Lovecraft 1963
Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi
When I got to Lovecraft all the rest made sense. Brilliant!
Hey – great write-up. We are huge fans of Ayn Rand / Atlas Shrugged here too – so much that we re-created the chain link bracelet that Hank Rearden made from his first batch and tried to give to his wife. It’s named the Liberty Bracelet – take a look at http://www.libertybracelet.com. With each purchase we’re donating to the Campaign For Liberty so we had a feeling you’d enjoy it.
If you’re interesting in posting an entry about the Bracelet or let us write about it for you, we’re happy to hook you up with the “Friends and Family” coupon for them! Please write an e-mail if you’d be down, we would be very thankful.
Anyway, cool site – we joined your RSS feed now so we’ll be checking in regularly!