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  • Books Worth Re-reading

    “This is the worst story I know about hocuses. And it’s true.”

    This is the first line of Sarah Monette’s Melusine, the first of four books [0] in her Labyrinth series, a decadent tale of magic, murder, betrayal, and unearned loyalty, all limned in exquisite pain.
    Lois McMaster Bujold once remarked that she develops plots by imagining the worst thing that could happen to her characters, and then making it happen. Monette took that idea to another level, delivering us two brothers. Felix, a powerful wizard of the ruling class, and his younger half-brother Mildmay, the most notorious cat burglar in the city.

    What draws me to this story is the way Monette reveals her characters to us not only through their actions and circumstances, but also through their flinches, their scars, their past traumas, and their vulnerabilities. Each backstory slowly unfolds through hints and subtle references. Each new scene is rich with symbolism and meaning for the characters, and through them, for us. The reader is drawn into each brother’s viewpoint in turn, until by the end of the first book you weep when they weep, despair when they despair, feel their shame and rages and relief as if is your own. Felix’s descent into madness and visions; Mildmay’s isolation from those around him; half understood motivations stemming from fully realized fears.

    It sounds depressing, but it isn’t. Their journey isn’t so much to Fight the Bad Guy, although there is that, too, as it is to conquer their own heartbreaks. We’ve all been there, it’s part of being human. That raw, unfiltered, unbowed humanity is what makes the books compelling enough to read and re-read over again.

    [0] The others are The Virtu, The Mirador, and Corambis.

  • Call of the Sea

    Jan de Hartog’s Call of the Sea grabbed me from its first words, and it was almost impossible for me to put it down.

    After I finished it, I tracked down every single one of his books and read them more or less in the order of publication. de Hartog was nominated for a Nobel Prize for literature, and yet, like other fine writers from mid-century, he is largely forgotten today. de Hartog’s first book Captain Jan was written in Dutch, and like Conrad, de Hartog switched to English and never again wrote a novel in his native language, and like Conrad, de Hartog is a proven master of the English language.

  • Ask a doctor…

    Several years ago I was talking to a friend. He had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and I was curious if this qualified him to endorse any particular worldview as the most credible.

    “So what’s your favorite philosophy?” I asked him. He laughed.

    “That’s like asking a doctor what their favorite medicine is.”

    For the rest of this essay I will be discussing my favorite book.

    There have been different books in my life that were extremely meaningful to me at specific times: Immediatism by Hakim Bey, The Hip Mama Survival Guide by Ariel Gore, George by E.L. Konigsburg, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher. I’ve loved reading books since I was small and since it’s been almost thirty years since I was small I’ve had plenty of time to read quite a few.

    If I had been asked this question at the age of five I likely would have said Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola. It is the tale of a man who messes with magic forces and is forced to pay the price. This book taught me that there are serious consequences for breaking a promise and that one should not fool around with other peoples’ stuff. At fifteen I might have told someone that Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer was my favorite book. This is the perfect book for a precocious high schooler since it is full of jobless ex-patriots lounging around and drinking and reading it really made me believe that living an interesting life was a possible vocation. My outlook changed when I became a parent and at the age of twenty five I almost certainly would have answered The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. This book is about grand adventure but it drew out of me a sadness that I couldn’t step in the same water twice. Once I chose my grand adventure, I could not go a different way or start over.

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  • Time Again

    “Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.” ~ Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams

    As I type this, it’s my present and I’m writing to you in the future about my past. You will read this in your own ‘present’, which will still be my past, so I am traveling in time. Or at least my words are.

    I’ve often thought my favorite book was supposed to be  a classic SF tome like Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land or Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars. I’ve read and loved them both multiple times (and discovered connections between the two), but Lightman’s book affected me more than they did. I’ve read Einstein’s Dreams, essentially a meditation on Time, by Alan Lightman a dozen times since it was recommended to me (and others) by the writer Mark Waid at a comic book convention in Kansas City sometime in the 90s.

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  • (s)

    Q: What’s your favorite book?

    A: I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds that it suggests there can be a singular answer

    Q (amended): What’s your favorite book(s)?

    Long A: Ahhh, now that’s more like it! See what magic can occur with the addition of two parentheses and an ‘s’?

    There are many, many books that have inspired me throughout the years. I took this assignment as an opportunity to reminisce about my experiences with the stories I’ve read throughout my lifetime that have shaped my current tastes and proclivities in fiction, as well as my own style of writing. The exercise was a fun trip down memory lane, and it was surprisingly enlightening for me, as well.

    I will skip over some of the required reading all children that love books will have read. Things like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, or C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, or Madeleine L’Engel’s A Wrinkle in Time. I read them. Of course I read them. And they inspired me and affected me like they did millions of other readers. But that also means that waxing rhapsodic about these books would be an exercise in repetition that I’m loathe to pursue.

    So, what are some stories that not everyone has read, that still profoundly affected me throughout my life?

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  • I simply remember my favorite book…

    My favorite books all enter into the category of those that make me weep hysterically (except maybe everything Douglas Adams ever wrote, which only promote the tears after hysterical laughter.  Maybe I should say books that promote hysteria!). But for today, I’ll go with my favorite novel by a living author:  Galatea 2.2, by Richard Powers.

    My first reading of Galatea 2.2 came during my freshman year of college;  I found the book by wandering the library bookshelves and pulling something that looked interesting off, a practice that has introduced me to most of my favorite writers.  Later, I would discover that the head librarian was also a fan of the relatively unknown Richard Powers; hence, the library including all his works in their otherwise scanty recent fiction collection.  With the book’s ample treatment of the history of literature, it instantly hooked this budding English major.

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  • Once Upon a Time…

    When asked what my favorite book is, I mentally sifted through several. But my favorite of all books? One single book that enthralled me as a child, travelled with me no matter how many times I moved, and defined me as both a reader and a writer? That was an easy choice, once I weeded through all the books that came after.

    I don’t know where my copy of The World’s Best Fairy Tales came from, but judging by the careful cursive and muddy check marks penciled onto the index pages, I couldn’t have been more than seven. It’s likely I’ve had it even longer. Today, I would never write in a book. Blasphemy! But the fact that it was only on the table of contents (checking off which ones I’d read and which ones I wanted to read again) and that it was done in pencil shows even as a child I didn’t want to wreck the beautiful book.

    There are hundreds of stories in it. Many are so obscure that most people have never heard of them. And the ones people do recognize are not the versions they’re familiar with. I walked the lonely halls of the Beast’s castle with Beauty, exploring the rooms filled with birds, colored paper, musical instruments, and yarn. I wept when the prince didn’t return the love of the Little Mermaid and she turned to sea foam, and I waited, breathless to see what the tiny glow from the Little Match Girl’s flame would reveal.

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  • Not My Favorite

    I don’t have a favorite book.

    You don’t believe me?

    Well, maybe I just haven’t found it yet.

    Don’t get me wrong, though. I have books that I have read over and over, I have books that captivated me so much I plan to read them again as soon as possible, and I have books that I read again at various times throughout my life to see what new things I can glean from them after new life experiences.

    But how could I choose a favorite?

    Choosing a favorite book also says a lot about a person. Maybe that is why I am reluctant to commit. What would it say about me as a writer if I chose something bad? Or pretentious? Controversial?

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  • Putting the Man in Superman

    Cover to The Man of Steel #1. Art by John Byrne. ©1986 by DC Comics

    When asked to name my favorite book, I usually rattle off the same three or four by my favorite authors. Or I might mention the best book I’ve read in the past year. And then there’s Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which is the only novel I can remember reading more than twice. But my favorite books have always been comic books.

    Over the years, the Superman stories have meant the most to me. The character of Superman is iconic, and his S-shield is recognized around the world as a symbol of hope. He fights for us. He rescues us. He helps us in our hour of greatest need.

    He can outrace as speeding bullet. He can fly. He can punch through steel. But the stories that mean the most to me are the ones that focus on his greatest strength: his humanity.

    You see, when Superman was originally created, he was more alien than human. His true nature was alien, and he was able do all those amazing things because he was from the planet Krypton. But to use his powers to help his adopted planet, he needed to disguise himself as one of us. That word “disguise” is an important one. Because he didn’t see himself as Clark Kent. That was merely a mask he wore to pass as human.

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  • A Life of Beauty and Regret

    Moment of honesty here: I love to read, but rereading . . . not so much.

    One reason for this is that I tend to be a slow reader. My default speed is apparently set at “savor,” and there doesn’t seem to be a lot I can do about it. Not if I want to retain any of what I’m trying to absorb.

    Another thing that factors into my one-and-done philosophy is that I buy into the idea that there are so many books but so little time. I have this mild phobia about the sheer number of books I would like to one day read. I know that list is only going to continue to grow, and there is no possible way I will ever get to the end of it. As a result, there aren’t a lot of literary reruns in my life.

    I’m pretty sure I can count my number of rereads on one hand, and I might even have a finger (and perhaps a thumb) left over. But my favorite on that short list is A Witness to Life by Terence M. Green.

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