Really? That’s it? That seems awfully…unstructured. Or something. Not sure why that bothers me, but it does. Maybe because it makes it harder to judge whether I’m completing the assignment satisfactorily, and if I can’t judge myself--harshly--what kind of life am I leading? A better one, you say? Sssshhhhhh.
Anyway, here are six random things that come to mind when I think of the word “book”:
1. As a kid, I loved reading more than anything, with the possible exception of my stuffed animals. I read constantly and never went anywhere without a book. My parents actually used to get annoyed by it--my mom was forever telling me that it was a beautiful day outside and I should be out there enjoying it, and my dad was convinced I was going to ruin my eyesight. (I know that my dad’s point has no basis in science, but considering the crummy state of my vision, it’s hard not to wonder. Even so, I’d do it all again.) Speaking of animals, stories about them--stuffed or real, I suppose, but mostly the latter--were my first reading passion. My grandmother had a large collection of Thornton W. Burgess’s animal stories, which were among the first books I ever read. (That page describes them as “charming stories of well-dressed loveable creatures that captivated little boys and girls”, which pretty much sums it up.) I loved reading them over and over whenever I was at her house. That was the beginning of a lifelong fondness for animal fantasy, which I’ve written about before, with Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH being one of my adolescent faves and Watership Down one of my adult ones. But I also liked more realistic fiction, like the dog stories of Albert Payson Terhune (I thought it was cool that he was from New Jersey, and I thrilled when local landmarks like the Palisades turned up in a story; also, even though I adored our German shepherd, Sargent, I totally coveted a collie as beautiful as Lad) and, of course, Jack London. And then there was nonfiction: for several Christmases running, the aforementioned grandmother gave me one of James Herriot’s books from his series that began with All Creatures Great and Small; thanks largely to that series I wanted to be a veterinarian for the better part of my childhood. (That idea was briefly supplanted by the notion of becoming an astronaut, which lasted until I was 13, when it was in turn supplanted by the desire to become a rock star, which lasted until…well, pretty much now.) But my absolute favorite childhood book, without question, was Born Free. I could never hope to adequately convey the depth of my love for that book and for its leonine heroine, Elsa. Even though tigers were my favorite animal, I dreamed, literally, of having Elsa for a friend. Born Free is such a beautiful and amazing story that it seems like it should be fiction, but it’s all the more poignant for being true. I don’t know how many times I read it, but I do know that it’s the only book I’ve ever begun re-reading immediately after finishing it. I just couldn’t stand that it was over. Even today, even now as I’m writing this, just thinking about the ending, when the now-wild Elsa brings her new cubs to meet her human “parents”, makes me choke up.
2. One genre that I loved as a kid but never read as an adult is mysteries. I remember going to the library and walking down the rows of books looking for the skull-and-crossbones logo on the side that was the marker of mysteries. (I also remember being mad that you could only take out five books at a time from the children’s section. I’m telling you, I was voracious. Why can’t I recapture even a fraction of that passion now?) I would pull them out and scan the front flap to see if the protagonist was male or female. I would read stories with boys as the main character--I read all of my dad’s Hardy Boys books--but I definitely preferred books with girls leading the action. One that I clearly remember was by Phyllis A. Whitney and was called The Mystery of the Crimson Ghost--and look, it was set in New Jersey, too, amongst the horse farms in the northwestern part of the state. Another that I’m perpetually trying, and failing, to remember the name of was set on the Outer Banks of North Carolina--one of my favorite places in the world--and featured the ghost of Virginia Dare. I’m always fascinated by anything that has to do with Virginia Dare and the Roanoke Colony in general. Oh, and speaking of the tony northwest of New Jersey…
3. I’ve sold books to several famous--or at least semi-famous--people. The first bookstore I ever worked at, in the late eighties, was Brentano’s, in Bridgewater in Somerset County, NJ. Somerset County and the adjacent counties of Hunterdon and Morris all rank among the top ten wealthiest counties in the nation--basically, a lot of very rich people live in northwest New Jersey. While I worked at Brentano’s, I sold books to John DeLorean and Malcolm Forbes. Some years later I worked at Borders, also in Bridgewater, and there I sold books to Forbes’s son Steve (this was in 1996, when he was running for President) and to the then-governor of NJ, Christie Whitman. Finally, when I worked at Barnes & Noble on Astor Place in Manhattan, I sold books to Kyle MacLachlan. One time Madonna bought some books there, too, but I wasn’t working that day.
4. I don’t really have a favorite book. I mean, there are plenty of books I’ve greatly enjoyed, but while I’m OK with saying that Born Free was my favorite book as a kid, there’s no one book I feel comfortable calling, as an adult, “My Favorite Book”. It bugs me a little bit, because I feel like it’s a datum I should have on hand to present to people when asked. Things like a favorite book, or movie, or animal, or ethnic cuisine, or quote from The Simpsons, or Scandinavian footwear, or member of FDR’s Cabinet--what, you don’t have one? What’s wrong with you?--are pieces of information that others can use to quickly get a picture of who we are. Which I suppose is a large part of why I find it difficult to name a favorite, as I know I’m likely to be judged on it, and so concerned am I with how others perceive me that the idea of even trying to choose a favorite anything produces instant intellectual paralysis. (One notable exception: if asked my favorite album of all time, I can confidently reply that it’s the Clash’s London Calling. This is because I not only love the music and the band, but have carefully considered how this pick makes me appear to others and am satisfied with the result.) There are a few books I know I’ve referred to as “my favorite” at least a couple of times: James Joyce’s Dubliners is one, but that’s a collection of short stories, and I feel like one’s favorite book is supposed to be a novel. That also leaves out a nonfiction book I’ve tried on as a favorite, Susan Brind Morrow’s The Names of Things. (I do definitely recommend it to anyone who shares my love for linguistics, travel narrative, and lyric prose.) One novel I did call my favorite for a while in my twenties is Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf; while it passed the “How does this make me look to others?” test, I eventually decided that any book I’d read in translation could not legitimately be called my favorite, because no one has truly read anything unless they’ve read it in its original language, of that I’m convinced. Which brings us to number…
5. I’ve only ever read one book in a language other than English, and I’m inordinately proud of having done so. That would be The Stranger by Albert Camus. Or, to give it its true title, L’étranger--and having read it in French, I always refer to it as L’étranger, because I feel I have a right to, and because I am just that pretentious. As far as French novels go, it’s unquestionably one of the easiest to read, as it’s brief, and Camus deliberately aped the short, “muscular” sentences of Ernest Hemingway. It’s definitely no Hugo or Proust, but I’m still proud of having read it.
6. When I’m sick, I like to read plays. I don’t just read them, either--I put them on in my head. I cast them with people that I know and imagine them fully produced onstage. It’s just now occurring to me that this might be very weird. Anyway, it’s a good distraction when you’re feeling ill. It started when I was a teen--my mom was very active in community and regional theater, and as a result we had tons of scripts and collections of plays on our bookshelves. Also, I was active in the drama program at school and most of my friends were drama kids, so casting was never a problem. Comedies were preferred; specific plays that stick in my head are some of Neil Simon’s early works (The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park, The Star-Spangled Girl, et al.) and Woody Allen’s one-acts “Death” and “God” from his collection Without Feathers. I also liked absurdist plays: Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros is one I remember, and I swear I still recall some of my imaginary blocking for Arthur Kopit’s “Chamber Music”. Kopit is not what you’d call a household name, but he should be just by virtue of having written a play called Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. Also, it has nothing to do with plays, but one book I always loved reading when I was sick was called The Reader’s Digest Treasury of American Humor. It was an anthology that included writers like James Thurber, Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker--classic stuff, mostly from the first half of the 20th century. Over the years it somehow disappeared from my parents’ house, which makes me sad. My favorite story in it was called “Yvonne”, and I can’t remember who wrote it, but it was freakin’ hilarious. I’m going to briefly describe it on the off chance--the very off chance--that anyone knows who the author was, because I’d like to read it again. The narrator lived in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and there was a little girl with a deep bass voice who would stand on the corner of his street and shout, “Yvonne!” endlessly. He naturally became quite curious about who Yvonne was and why the little girl was looking for her. He’d hear her yelling and would try to run down and talk to her, but she’d always be gone by the time he got there. Over the course of the story his sanity slowly ebbs as he becomes obsessed with helping the little girl find Yvonne. Of course that description doesn’t do it justice, but you’ll have to trust me, it was funny.
