Reading Addict

 Staycation. It’s just one of those words that makes me cringe. Maybe it is the idea itself that I find so unappealing. After all, I’m at my house everyday, and there’s so much world to explore in my limited vacation time. “Stay?” That’s for dogs, not for me.  

But sometimes a grand excursion is not in the cards. In that case, a great writer describing an interesting destination or journey is a pleasurable consolation for us who choose to staycate the premises. Here’s my list: 

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. Most anything by Mr. Bryson tops my list – wherever he goes, he reliably notes, with fine writing, the historic, fantastic, and absurd.  The first chapter of Notes also happens to be one of the funniest passages I’ve ever read. 

The Places in Between by Rory Stewart. A former diplomat, Mr. Stewart walked across the most treacherous regions of Afghanistan so you don’t have to. A fascinating account of this remote part of the world. 

Best American Travel Writing series by various authors. Each volume in this annual series is packed with shorter pieces, so you can pop over to India or Italy on your lunch break. 

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. Strictly for American History dweebs, but if you read this book, you will become a history dweeb convert. 

And yet more:  The Crown Journeys series – Bill McKibben, Myla Goldberg, Chuck Palahniuk, Kinky Friedman, Ishmael Reed, Edwidge Danticat, and others. 

Great Plains by Ian Frazier 

The Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India by Rory MacLean  

Enjoy!     

I once worked in a used bookstore here in Tulsa.  Between customers, I ate the peanut butter, crackers, and ramen noodles the owner had stashed behind the desk.  I pretty much worked solely for free books.  By the end of my tenure there I had a pile of b-movie SciFi, Louis L’Amour paperbacks, and some weird, hippie esoteric fare.  I guess it was foolhardy of me to believe the owner would pay me with leather bound American Indian ledgers or his signed copy of Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day.  Rent was due in a week and my dream of becoming the owner’s surrogate son, given a store key, and eventually inheriting the store within a matter of months wasn’t starting to look too promising.  I quit and moved on to Mcjob, one where the customers weren’t nearly as interesting; the boss was a jerk and the tasks menial.  This was a job where dreams go to die.  Where the hope of being content with one’s life disappears as you clocked in at 6:30 a.m. 

Before I left the used bookstore, before my dreams of operating a quaint used bookstore in the quaint midtown area, and before dreams of a Monte Cristo-type escape danced behind my eyes at the soul-sucking Mcjob, the owner handed me a William T. Vollman book and said ‘Nick, let me introduce you to the next great American Novelist.’  Now, the book he handed me was Europe Central, which, while a great novel on its own, certainly begs the question: Can the next great American Novelist not even write ‘American’ novels?

I’m not sure I can tackle that question here, but what I can do is introduce you to Vollman’s vision of America.  Not quite dystopian, and certainly not a ‘picket fence in suburbia’ vision either, Vollman’s Riding Toward Everywhere follows Vollman as he hops freight trains across America, much like farm hands and ‘hobos’ did during the Great Depression.  Part cultural study, part quixotic travelogue (not unlike a more grounded version of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer) and all vintage Vollman.  Riding Toward Everywhere carries all the heft of Vollman’s unique observations, his vision of America while hurtling through the countryside on two rails at 40+ miles per hour, his inimitable take on class, race, and ‘America’ (which means something a bit different to everyone, you know).  You may not find the whacked out bravado Vollman’s known for in his fiction, but his genuine curiosity for a genuinely American experience will not go unnoticed in this splendid non fiction work.

I was born to be a teenager in the 1950s. The fashion, the glamour! I can see myself in neat, pleated skirts or beautiful silk-lined party dresses. Perhaps an eye-catching overcoat to fit over that carefully tailored, tweed look. Or maybe a sleek pencil skirt. OK, to be absolutely honest, I’m entirely too messy, clumsy, and lazy to pull off that tidy, accessorized look. But, hey, I can appreciate the era. Jazz music makes way for the arrival of new rock n roll pioneers…Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and that lady-killer Elvis Presley. And the movie stars at the time! They make me swoon. James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman. What could be better? I can dream all I want, but the fact of the matter is I live in the 2000s. Luckily, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice allowed me, at least for a few short days, to enter the posh world of post-WWII London. 

The strict rationing and haunting atmosphere of war is giving way to the rise of consumerism and excess. Teenagers emerge as a strong social force, trying to find balance between the social expectations of their parents with their own rebellious inclinations. Plot-wise, there’s nothing really groundbreaking here. It’s essentially a typical coming of age story, where our 18-year-old heroine Penelope Wallace unknowingly falls in love with an unlikely fellow, leaving behind the naïveté of her childhood. Penelope starts going to ‘smart dinner parties,’ mingles with a handsome American record producer, takes tea with a kooky aunt and her magician son, hosts picnics in the snow,  and goes on shopping sprees at Selfridges. In short, she starts tasting life for the first time.  

With witty dialogue and quirky, memorable characters, Eva Rice has written not just a book, but a lovely and engrossing world. So while it may not be high-brow Literature (but really, who wants that all the time?), The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets absolutely sparkles. It’s well-written, guilt-free fluff.  Gourmet cotton candy. A great summer read. 

Anyone who’s followed this blog knows my love for Cormac McCarthy and knows how over the past year I’ve become a big Spaghetti Western fan.  Well, Novella Carpenter might as well pull up a chair and sit with my all-time favorite macho-masculine-tough guys.  Novella is the author of the latest book I read, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.

It doesn’t appear the ‘Green Revolution’ will be going anywhere anytime soon.  And really, that’s fine with me.  American car companies have vowed to make cars with better gas mileage, the Smart Car has made the trip over from Europe so you can now see them driving our streets no matter how hopelessly out of place they look next to a GM Yukon, sustainability organizations are cropping up all over the country…It’s really nice to see this movement catch on with such fervor.  But my favorite aspect of this new revolution is the community gardens ‘sprouting’ all over the place.  Seeing kids and adults alike clearing out rusty metal scraps, old hot water tanks, tires, and other detritus from abandoned lots can’t help but bring a smile to my face.  But did you know there are some people in this country, some crazy zealots out there who are taking this one step further.

Case in point: Novella Carpenter.  This nomadic, hippie generation offspring works an operating farm in an abandoned lot next to her house. In the ghetto of Oakland, CA no less.  That’s right, in one of the worst neighborhoods on the Left Coast, this strong, young, able woman is raising crops, chickens, pigs, heck she even has a bee hive for honey, while not two blocks away drug dealers command city corners and gun shots ring out nightly.  Now, I started a garden last year.  Sure, I have tomatoes, onions, green beans, and peppers in a small 8x12 patch in my backyard.  I can make some salsa here and there; I compliment my dinner with some fresh green beans.  I have onions to last me until December 2012, but did it ever cross my mind to take it a step further, become totally sustainable with meat, fresh eggs, and a bee colony?  Ummm….no.  And you know what else I found out?  It’s not just Ms. Carpenter.  Urban agriculture is all the rage in some areas around the country.  In Queens, NY there is an urban farm.  The best part?  These new farms get the community involved.  Most of them have volunteer and education programs.  Kids that live in a food desert can actually work the soil and see where their produce comes from.  Truly amazing!

Note: After emailing Novella to gush and awkwardly tell her how cool I think she is, she told me that she and another urban farmer from the Oakland area are coming out with a book next June. In the meantime, be sure to also check out Brian Halweil’s Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket and Carla Emery’s The Encyclopedia of Country Living :An Old Fashioned Recipe Book. 

Most people believe that librarians have read, and like, all the great classics. Once I was helping a young woman choose an item from a high school generated list.  Her choice was whatever was the shortest.  Her mother wanted her to choose a really good book.  As we went down the list I was questioned about every title.  “How long is it?” the student wanted to know.  “Will she like it?  What’s it about?” asked her mother.           

All the way down the list I did the best job I could of answering their questions.  “Yes, Animal Farm is very short.  No, I really don’t know what Madame Bovary is about.” Sadly I realized that although I could produce a length for nearly all of them, I really couldn’t say what nearly any of them were about. 

My normal predilection is for books with lots of ‘sploden’ (i.e.: exploding); mature adult situations, complete and utter nonsense, or a lot of action.  I like stories where everyone dies horribly and civilizations crumble so that the survivors have to learn to survive with no indoor plumbing, or where serial killers play cat and mouse with a determined detective. Books that have built entire other universes, complete with different social mores, more (or less) moons, and bizarre, but useful body parts.  

This has put me at odds with some choices in our monthly Book Club. When it was announced that our next choice was going to be The Great Gatsby, I whined to myself- “Do we have to read THAT? It’s going to be sooooo boring!”  I’m pretty sure I didn’t whine too much out loud, being a professional and all, but I still didn’t want to read it.

Like those high school students putting off reading the classics until the night before their paper is due, I put off the reading as long as I could.  Finally I got the CD, as I thought that maybe a narrator with a good voice would help.

The first CD had me horribly on edge.  Although it was a good narrator, I hated waiting for something, really anything, to happen.  Second CD, same as the first.  “Is this never going to end?” I asked myself.

And then, somewhere in the third CD, I had an epiphany.  There was no plot.  There had never been a plot, and there was never going to be a plot. As soon as I accepted this truth and let go of my need for it, I began to really enjoy the words.  Fitzgerald’s beautiful lyric words and concepts suddenly began to appeal to me.   I started hearing the way his sentences flowed and how he used such beautifully descriptive phrases, as well as the gentle humor in places. I still hear some of the phrases in my head…few can turn a phrase like F. Scott Fitzgerald. So, nobody ‘sploded’…it was still a good read.

I haven’t run out to read all the classics, but I do read outside my comfort zone more often.  The Great Gatsby taught me one truth about myself:  I’m a sucker for the English Language.