The Secret of the Old Clock

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene (1930)  This is the first of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, and it introduces the girl detective and her world as she attempts to find the missing will of a recently deceased man in order to help the rightful heirs. As with the Hardy Boys “author” F.W. Dixon, Carolyn Keene is a pseudonym, and 23 early Nancy Drew books were written by Mildred Wirt Benson. Also, as with the Hardy Boys, the early books went under a wholesale revision process, starting in the late 1950s, in order to update them for a new audience. I haven't read enough of the original text vs. revised text Nancy Drew books (as I have with the Hardy Boys) to have an opinion about which I prefer, though based on this one, I perceive the earlier incarnation of Nancy, like the Hardys, as bolder and more anti-authoritarian than her revised version. Adults, particularly the social climbing antagonists and small town police, are portrayed as buffoons. You hear about the offensive racial stereotypes in the older books, and until this one, I'd really encountered much besides the derision, somewhat, of the servant class, but there is an entire chapter here with a comically portrayed “negro” watchman who had been lulled away from his post by the criminals and alcohol. Nancy scolds the man, but then shows some compassion, too—though is clearly disapproving. Much of this story is fairly dull, with Nancy mulling over possibilities and the mystery mentally, but when there is action, as with Nancy's run-in with some hardened criminals, it puts her in real danger and is quite harrowing.

Nine Lies

Nine Lies by Randy Russell (2013)  This is a book I wrote (published only at Kindle store)—so I know it's a little weird to have it on my book list, but I wanted to try to read it with an open mind after some time had passed (I finished it in 2012 or so). I am happy to say I liked it a lot. I work really slow sometimes, and other times really slow—and that was the case here. There are 10 stories and some I started as far back as around 1990. Over the years I did a lot of revision and finally worked them into something I like. The stories all work together in a way, so even though they are stand-alone pieces, I feel like they work together to make something that is closer to a novel than a collection. The themes are: love, mortality, work, addiction—all the usuals—and it's 100 percent fiction (for the most part). In a way I'm happy to say I am not the same person as the person who write this; I feel personally close to it, but I also feel that I've moved on.

The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970) This novel focuses on some African-American kids and their families in Lorain, Ohio—I guess the time period is post-Depression. This is near where I grew up, as well as my parents, who were kids around the time of this story—so I was interested to get the feeling of that, having heard accounts of that time period from them. This story involves incest and cruelty and racism and extreme poverty, and is told from multiple points of view. The writing is so good it is consistently a pleasure, despite some very sad and depressing subject matter. This got me thinking about the incidences of racism in my school, growing up, and even more about people's hardships and kids' cruelty, much of which I witnessed. And it got me thinking more about something I've been thinking about a lot lately, how I have been conscious of and critical of racism, unfairness, bullying, and cruelty though much of my life, while not really feeling anything about it. Why is that?—I suppose it has to do with falling on the easy side of luck and privilege—and it doesn't make me feel so good to only be realizing this now, as an old man. Anyway, as upsetting and sad as some of the events in this book are, it is powerful art and a pleasure to get enveloped in.

The House on the Cliff

The House on the Cliff by Franklin W. Dixon (1927) This was the second volume of the Hardy Boys series, and the story some consider to be the best—and it is a pretty good one, about “dope smugglers” (opium, from the Orient) led by the vicious and goofily named Snackley—who murdered old Felix Polucca in order to use his house—which sits atop a cliff on Barmet Bay, with a secret passage down to a hidden cove below—as the HQ for smuggling operations. At one point the Hardys and their dad, Fenton, are captured and things look grim; the criminals are planning on handing them over to cohort and Chinese smuggler Li Chang to take them on his ship back to China. “But we don't want to go to China!” Joe laments, to which Frank reminds him that most likely Li Chang will just toss them overboard once they're on the high seas. It's actually quite chilling, even knowing there are still hundreds of volumes to follow this one. The ending of this book is full of action, but for me, kind of boring. My favorite parts of Hardy Boys books are the odd adventures and weird, sometimes digressive sub-plots and details, which are more frequent in somewhat later volumes.

The Mad Scientists' Club

The Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley (1965) This book collects some stories that appeared in Boys' Life magazine, along with a few more, into a paperback book offered through Scholastic Book Services, through which we would regularly get to order and buy books while in grade school—always a high point for me. The illustrations, by Charles Geer, are a big part of the book—romantic, messy, expressive line drawings. The club is a group of six boys who like to invent things, which leads them to some nutty adventures; among them: a fake sea monster, a dinosaur egg, a flying man, a hot air balloon, and a haunted house. This was one of my absolute favorite books as a kid. There is one illustration (for a story where they're trying to recover money hidden in an old cannon) where they're out at night in this local park—and there is a statue of a soldier there—and every time I see an old statue in a park—like one near where I live, illuminated by a street light at night—I get the strong memory of this illustration... and this story... and this book. A spell had been cast that has never subsided.

The Last Tycoon

The Last Tycoon (1941) F. Scott Fitzgerald's last novel, about a Hollywood producer, was unfinished at the time of his death. It always seems tragic that there is a book, or other work, unfinished at the time of he author's death, but on the other hand, isn't it more tragic that a person is not working on something at the time of their death? I guess it depends on the person, their relationship to their work, maybe their age (Fitzgerald was on 44). The writing in this book feels like that of a young, vibrant person, for sure, and also very contemporary and immediate—though at the same time, kind of cold—not totally letting me in the door—maybe that's because I knew it was unfinished? There are cultural references that date it, of course, but the feeling of the writing is that of right now. I have no idea why that is (just good writing?) but it's worth trying to figure out. This makes me think I should read The Great Gatsby again. I read so many books over, which I love doing (did someone say “reading is rereading?”) but still, there is so much I haven't read, I feel kind of weird about it. Some people never read a book twice, and some people read some books over and over throughout their life. I can't remember when it was I read Gatsby, but it was long ago, and I need to read it again.

Abandoned Books - February 2017

Every so often I should offer an explanation (inquiring minds want to know!) about books I've started reading and abandoned. It's not something I feel at all bad about—and sometimes intend to go back to the book—but since they were on my reading list, I feel like mentioning them. The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (2015) by John Seabrook is promising, but just too vast and detailed for me to want to read all of right now (I'm not good at “skimming” or reading parts of books). The same is true for Ten Restaurants That Changed America (2016) by Paul Freedman, which is a massive history of these ten restaurants (the book is the size and weight of a cinder block). It would (will eventually?) take me a year to get through. It's an especially great resource if you're interested in one of the restaurants profiled—I may pick it up again just for the Howard Johnson's section. I was reading At the Earth's Core (1914) by Edgar Rice Burroughs for possible inspiration for my novel, Frisland (in progress) but it was just way too bizarre. I'm not going to go into details, but believe me—or maybe read it!

Double Trouble for Rupert

Double Trouble for Rupert by Ethelyn M. Parkinson (1958) This is an early collection of stories by my favorite kid's book author, Ethelyn M. Parkinson—apparently stories she published in the 1950s, 11 of them, collected in this paperback, published by Scholastic Books Services. I'm sure I got my first copy when we had those book buying days in grade school, where we'd get a catalog and select the books that looked interesting, order them, and then get money from parents to pay for them. It was exciting and one of the early things that made me love reading. Pretty much every story here has to do with some type of childhood anxiety that's resolved by the end of the story. Rupert Piper is a regular sixth grade kid, curious, mischievous, figuring things out. He's got some like-minded chums, and is at odds with his teachers and the girls in his class. For the most part, not as interesting and weird as later Rupert Piper volumes (more stories, and some short novels), but this book is pretty easy to find, plus it has really good illustrations by Mary Stevens, including a pretty classic cover of Rupert relaxing, eating a huge sandwich.

The Lost Art of Reading

The Lost Art of Reading by David L. Ulin (2010) is subtitled: “Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time.” I'm not sure what led me to this book, but right away I got into it; it felt like talking to a friend about books and reading—something I wish happened more often, since it's my favorite thing to think and talk about. It's essentially an extended essay about where literature is in this time of increasingly fragmented ways of engaging (well, c. 2010, or so, which isn't really so different than 2017). He talks about ebooks and reading on the screen vs. reading actual books—just his observations, how he feels these things evolving. Mostly, though, for me, the book is a kind of inspirational mediation on how important reading and literature is to him—a “quiet revolution”—as well as some other people he quotes from—and it's often very much in line with how I feel, and it gives me hope in a very deep way.

Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015) As a young kid at some point I thought about my family history, why there is no record or memory of it, kind of blithely imagining wanting to cover up a romantic past of cartoon pirates plundering for our fortune. Then later I thought, maybe we were from criminals. But only recently had it occurred to me that this relative wealth and comfort in which we live is a direct result of genocide and exploitation of slave labor, not very long ago. The more you learn, the worse it gets, and climbing into a hole of anesthesia only works for so long. As human beings, we are thinkers, constantly weighing what we've learned with what we've always felt, and as thinkers we are in continuous evolution. I believe that anyone will find something in this book that changes the way they think, to some degree, if not a lot. The book is written in the form of a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his young son, and much of it is fueled by anger inspired by experiences, including his upbringing in Baltimore and later the murder of a friend by the police. There is much to not feel good about, but ultimately I found the book inspiring because there is poetry in the honesty and direct closeness you feel with his grappling with the knowledge of atrocity along with inspiration from the beauty still evident in the world. Also, it led me to read James Baldwin's essay, “On Being White . . . and Other Lies,” which, if you haven't read it, makes a useful preface to this book.

But What If We're Wrong?

But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman (2016)  This book is subtitled: “Thinking About The Present As If It Were the Past”—its basic premise, more or less—is a lot of speculating about how people in the distant future will see the time we are living in now. In my first year of college I had a class called “Current Topics in Astronomy” and the professor started out by saying that 90 percent of the stuff we would discuss will be proven wrong. I don't think I'd ever heard something like that at that time and I still think about it. This book goes into a lot of speculating about everything from science to pop-culture, mostly in a pretty easy to understand and often pretty breezy and humorous way. I had a lot of fun reading it, and it made me look at lot of things differently. It doesn't feel like anywhere near the last word on this subject, of course, but it's a great way to get you thinking in this direction, which I think is important for people to do, to some extent. If nothing else, it's strangely more comforting than disorienting, at least to me. I'm someone who is aways going around talking about stuff like how I think future society will look back at us and see the plague of automobiles as one of the tragedies of the 20th century, so yeah, this is kind of the book for me, but I think anyone who likes to think about things will like it.

The First Bad Man

The First Bad Man by Miranda July (2015)  There were a few points while reading this novel that I could have just not gone back to it, just because of the extent to which it made me squirm; sometimes it's hard for me to look at human beings at all, much less under a microscope. I kept going back because I wanted to. I won't elaborate on details, because really, the less you know before reading this the better. It doesn't hurt, either, that it's written with the precision of short story, and there is a story, surprisingly twisty and turn-y as a really good mystery, and it's satisfying. And in the end, as hard as the human beings depicted here—some of them—were to love, I loved them.

The Tower Treasure

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon (1927)  In the late 1950s the publisher of Hardy Boys books started revising them to make them more up to date, so when I read the books as a kid I read mostly revised editions. I didn't discover this until I was in my thirties, and decided to reread them all in their original editions, which are much better written, and in many cases a lot weirder. When Leslie McFarlane wrote The Tower Treasure (he was the ghostwriter for the first 16 books, plus some later ones) he had no idea they would become the iconic boy detectives and not just one more of many, many kids' adventure books. Most of the Hardys' characteristics are in place in this first book, but it's much more meandering. An early chapter goes into great detail about a prank pulled by their friend, Chet Morton. Later there is a long episode about the boys confounding the police. A huge difference between the early books and later versions is that Chief of Police Collig and the Hardys have little respect for each other. It's fun noting these differences, but also it's interesting how contemporary the books, written in 1927, actually feel. Also, how well written these early books are; there is a real sense of desperation involved with solving this mystery, and the consequences of failing, and the writing overall, I maintain, rises above the level of pulp adventure stories to literature.

All The People

All The People by Stephanie Barber (2015)  This book is a collection of 43 short pieces (of prose writing) though I'm not sure what best to call them (I don't like the word “pieces” to be used for writing). I read them the way I read poetry, taking a necessary break between each one. Most (but not all) are first person, and they all have a strong sense of the individual doing the talking (or in some cases, referred to). They are very much like individual portraits, as a strong sense of the person is evoked with each, but each one also creates a narrative—though maybe, in most cases, implied—and maybe continued in your own mind, more than described. At one point it occurred to me that they reminded me of paintings, in that many create a much larger world than what is on the page. A postscript suggests “Vade Mecum” as an alternate title, and I needed to look up that Latin term, which is used to describe a kind of reference book that a person might carry with them (which then becomes dog-eared and soiled, which, in a book, is equal to love). But which more literally means (I think) “go with me”—maybe apt for this book, which asks you to visit some people who may be unlike yourself, and some places that may make you uncomfortable, though at the same time might find wonderful.

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step At A Time

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step At A Time by Jeff Speck (2012) As someone who doesn't own a car, bikes a limited amount, and pretty much walks most everywhere I go (when not with someone else), walking and the city I live in is something I think about as much as I think about anything. This book was really engaging to me—I don't usually read entire non-fiction books, just parts, or do a lot of skimming, but I read it cover to cover, kind of feeling in the company of a friend with a similar passion. It was weird, when I got to the last chapter I started feeling like I had some problems with it, maybe knowing it was coming to an end, or maybe it was getting less specific and more into the realm of politics, or maybe more complex issues like WHO are the people we're talking about—the people in cities, some who care about other people more than others. THAT subject is bottomless and endless and important. But most of the book was more about the specifics of urban areas, the relationships of structures to modes of transit to the people using them and living there. A lot of what he says is reinforcing things I always think about, so that's nice, but even better I learned some new things and was forced to think about some very specific problems and solutions in different ways, because some of the things he proposes seem counter-intuitive at first. I could go more into the particulars, but then I'd be re-writing the book. I hope all city planners check this book out, and are aware of his ideas here. I might actually re-read this book at some point, or else go further with similar reading he refers to.

the life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing

the life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing by Marie Kondo (2014)  This book almost lost me because I first was skimming it, and looked at the part about books. Marie Kondo says she only keeps about 30 books (and with books that had some really great phrase, tore that page out and discarded the rest). If you feel like I do—that books are to some degree sacred objects—that attitude is kind of rough! Obviously people are all different, and what is most important to them varies. So I tried to keep an open mind and read on. Her point about keeping books you will never read, and never touch, even, since it's squirreled away on a shelf, is a good one. I like her idea that you should get out all of your books and actually handle them all, and keep the ones that spark joy. That is really the basis of what she says to keep and discard in general, and that is good advice. Overall this book was really helpful and inspirational to me, to try to dig out of my borderline-hoarder nightmare apartment. Her take on clothing is especially helpful. The major thing I changed after reading this was to start folding my socks, rather than balling them up—generally treating my socks better—because for me, if there is one item of clothing that has that kind of sacred quality that books have, it's socks.

All About Love: New Visions

All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks (2000) She calmly goes through every wrinkle and variation of anything anyone has ever referred to as “love” since the beginning of time and creates a kind of model for living. While I learned some things reading this book, it's stuff I feel like I need to learn again (and probably again and again)—you don't just easily assimilate things this elemental by reading a book, at least not reading it only once. I feel like I personally am far from being able to live up up to her ultimate model of someone who is really exploring what love is in an evolved and healthy way. Maybe I'm getting closer. Reading the book definitely moved me closer, but I don't know if I'll ever get there, at least not in this lifetime. Anyway, here's a quote from the book I was compelled to copy down: “To be loving is to be open to grief, to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending.”

Mystery of the Desert Giant

Mystery of the Desert Giant by Franklin W. Dixon (1961) is number 40 in the Hardy Boys series, originally published in 1961, making it very much one of the “new ones”—as it was originally written well after they had started revising the old titles. I will not read any Hardy Boys after number 40, and this one is pushing it, and it's not very good. I mainly re-read it for nostalgia, because I remember having a positive reaction to it as a kid. The interesting thing about the story is the Hardy Boys are investigating the disappearance of a man near the Native American desert “Blythe Intaglios” at the Arizona/California border, which are figures etched into the landscape, only able to be seen by them in their small plane. These things really exist, and you can now find them with satellite maps, so that would have been especially cool when I was a kid. I guess at that time I wasn't entirely sure if they were real or made up (same as the Hardys!)

Patience

Patience by Daniel Clowes (2016) Having read most of what Daniel Clowes has published since the Eightball comics, I was a little alarmed by the ending of Patience. Was this a happy ending? Was I feeling let down by that? Which made me think about happy endings. Why do I like the stories, and movies, with bummer endings? Well, I don't so much, necessarily, it's just that, of course, “happily ever after” always feels false. I suppose since a story has to end—while the world goes on—I like endings that come across as true to how I feel about life; feelings which are generally ambiguous, complex, and often disturbing, and about learning something crucial but then being more confused than ever. Patience is big and loud, fast moving, fun, and the bright colors are almost blinding. You get caught up in the narrative and can't help but charge along, wanting to see what happens next and how it's all going to turn out. But as bright and bold (and often very funny, and odd) as the book is initially, please note that the closer you look the darker it gets. Once you reach the final page, you will definitely enrich your experience by going back and rediscovering a lot of the details; the color yellow, the recurring eye injuries throughout the story; random bits of dialogue and thought that say more than they seem to. Clowes often likes to hide almost microscopic clues in his stories, both in words and images. I ended up finding some things I didn't see the first time through that were very disturbing indeed. Eventually I'll go back and read it again, and I'm confident I will enjoy it even more the next time. No doubt I'll come across something hidden that changes my entire take on the story. And I'll still feel like there is more to discover.

Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (1973) I read this book when I was in high school and I still think about it, so I thought I'd re-read it. Not disappointing! It's set in the future when there are various space colonies (Moon, Pluto, Mars) and exploration ships. An alien spaceship makes its way into the solar system, heading for the Sun. It's like a 30 mile long metal cylinder and a party make their way inside it to explore. It's spinning, to create artificial gravity, and there's an entire landscape inside, complete with light source and ocean. The best thing about the book, to me, is the imagining of this landscape and world in there, and then the exploration and discovery of increasingly weird stuff, little by little. Apparently a few people have tried to get a film off the ground, including Morgan Freeman. I've read that he wants to keep it true to the spirit of the book, where it doesn't try to explain everything. I imagine, however, that the big companies who would have to finance a fairly expensive project like that would want to turn it into a horror movie with shit jumping out at you, scores of gruesome deaths, fights, chases, good vs. evil, and a sappy explanation of it all. Maybe it's best if that never happens.