truthful books

"Truth is not loved because it is better for us. We hunger and thirst for it. And the appetite for truthful books is greater than ever." - Saul Bellow

I think this is true. I feel this is true. We crave truthful books, books that hold a mirror up to our world, within which we gaze and say, "I recognize that." We may emphasize one word or the other (or all in varying degree):
I recognize that.
I recognize that.
I recognize that.
I know where I am. I know who I am. I know the truth.

the end of the dust jacket

"When I was a ten-year-old book worm and used to kiss the dust jacket pictures of authors as if they were icons, it used to amaze me that these remote people could provoke me to love." - Erica Jong

While I won't admit to kissing author photos on a book jacket, I will admit to staring in wonderment at an author or two's book jacket photo the way one might stare at the yearbook picture of the popular kid in high school, the kid you wish you hung out with, the kid you wanted to be. I suppose dusk jackets will go the way of bookstores at some point. E-book readers don't need dusk jackets. Do they even come with front cover art and author photos?

books and chewing gum

"This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum." - Elbert Hubbard

I couldn't find stats on how much Americans spend on chewing gum, or, for that matter, how much we spend on books. I know, I'm a dork. I actually tried to find this out. Although this sentiment might not be statistically true, it sure feels psychologically true. My lament is not that we don't read, but that we don't read enough good, thoughtful writers.

I spend a lot of time, too much time, in thrift stores and at yard sales. I'm always hunting for books. Sadly, the majority of what I find is utter garbage. Okay, okay, I hear you already. So people are reading. That should be enough. The fact that what they're reading is soulless, pointless, trivial BS shouldn't matter. I can't help but agree with Mark Twain when he wrote, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."

books and writers that make us want to write

"Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer. And long after you've become a writer, reading books others write -- and rereading the beloved books of the past -- constitutes an irresistible distraction from writing. Distraction. Consolation. Torment. And, yes, inspiration." - Susan Sontag

A few books that made me want to write (in no particular order):

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Beloved and Paradise - Toni Morrison
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn
Ellen Foster - Kaye Gibbons
Kate Vaiden - Reynolds Price
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursala Le Quin
Romeo & Juliet - William Shakespeare

Add to this list the short stories of Flannery O'Conner, Edgar Alan Poe, Angela Carter, and Ray Bradbury and the poetry of e. e. cummings, Robert Frost, and Sylvia Plath.

Keep reading, keep writing, and keep the literary faith.

more quotes on the joy of books

"Books are a delightful society. If you go into a room filled with books, even without taking them down from their shelves, they seem to speak to you, to welcome you." - William E. Gladstone

"As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye." - John Milton

"An ordinary man can . . . surround himself it two thousand books . . . and thenceforward have a least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy." - Augustine Birrell

A good book to me is an accomplished literary construction. I am drawn into the story, and the characters become real. They talk to me long after the last page is read. But more than that, I delight in the structure of the book, whether multi-layered or straight forward. Much in the same way I imagine an architect might stand in awe of a remarkably-constructed building. I study its use of dialogue, paragraph construction, chapter structure, literary devices. I want to discuss with others who love good writing an author's command of punctuation, how he or she wields a comma with deft and grace, slices a passage in just the perfect manner with a dash, makes a statement with an ellipsis. When every word counts, every sentence holds together, every scene is a beauty on its own and necessary part of an exquisite whole, I clap my hands and applaud the talent, skill, and passion of the author. Bravo. Bravo.

What is a good book mean to you?

the random read

"If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them -- peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances." - Winston Churchill

I love the anticipation of surprise in the random read. I have a large bookshelf of books I've read, books I want to read, books I think I should own (just in case they go out of print and every copy but the copy I've saved is consumed by rabid swarms of book-eating locus). It's one of my favorite pastimes to flip through a book that's been on my mind. I turn to a page, letting my eyes pour over the words until a passage strikes my fancy. I rarely read more than a page, placing the book back carefully in its proper place. I find great comfort in knowing it will be there for me when I feel the urge to visit it again. I suppose it might be like a foodie stopping by Whole Foods just to walk the isles, picking out an interesting jar of this or that or handling a ripe fruit, taking in a good, long sniff of the produce, and placing it back on the shelf or in the bin. Or the wine aficionado at a wine tasting.

Random reads for your pleasure:

From Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

"'I remember when first I went to Paris, Clutton, I think it was, gave a long discourse on the subject that beauty is put into things by painters and poets. They create beauty. In themselves there is nothing to choose between the Campanile of Giotto and a factory chimney. And then beautiful things grow rich with the emotion that they have aroused in succeeding generations. That is why old things are more beautiful than modern. The Ode to a Grecian Urn is more lovely now than when it was written, because for a hundred years lovers have read it and the sick at heart take comfort in its lines.'"

From The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

"The rain had stopped. The air now drove out of southeast, broken overhead into blue patches. Upon the crest of a hill beyond the trees and roofs and spires of town sunlight lay like a pale scrap of cloth, was blotted away. Upon the air a bell came, than as if at a signal, other bells took up the sound and repeated it."

Time for one more? Yes?
Yes.
Always time for one more.

From Jazz by Toni Morrison

"Girls can do that. Steer a man away from death or drive him right to it. Pull you out of sleep and you wake up on the ground under a tree you'll never locate again because you're lost. Or if you do find it, it won't be the same. Maybe it cracked from the inside, bored through by crawling life that had to have its own way too, and just crept and bunched and gnawed and burrowed until the whole thing was pitted through with the service it rendered to others. Or maybe they cut it down before it crashed in on itself. Turned it into logs for a fire in a big hearth for children to gaze into."

Ah, the random read. Always a surprise and delight waiting in the turn of a page.