Remember signing up for the library summer reading program?
This is something that many American children do. When I was small, I was able to go to the public library by myself on my bike starting in about 1st grade, and I was determined to begin with the As in fiction and read all the way through. Every week I took out seven books, and every week I returned for more.
When my kids got to be 7, I granted them permission to get their own library cards and start going to the library by themselves. My daughter, naturally cautious, asked a friend to come over so that they could walk to the library together. My son, a few years later, was off like a shot. I received a voicemail on my cell phone from a dear friend who noted: "Just saw him heading down Xenia Avenue by himself. If this is fine, ignore the call, but if not, I thought you'd want to know." I assured her later that as long as she saw him on the stretch between our house and the library, that was fine. Anything further was off limits and I'd appreciate a phone call!
I was reminded of library reading programs, and the joy of public libraries, when I ventured to the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia recently. They have renovated one of the reading rooms, and it is beautiful.
More importantly, there are three levels of open stacks. Lots of books to choose from, even more than at some of my favorite used book stores, and all for free.
My children and I love libraries. We went to several while we were in Seattle (the "new" Rem Koolhaas main branch, but also the majestic old University Branch). What a treat on a warm summer day, to disappear into a huge old building (or a huge new building), grab a book, find a chair, and explore for a while. Libraries with great staffs are even more alluring; at the Central Seattle library there were "staff picks" so intriguing that I could definitely have spent a week, or a month, getting to know these readers' tastes and investigating new authors I'd never heard about. There was also a "consultant" who will ask questions and then design a whole personalized reading project for any patron. Now that's a great way to spend the summer.
As the summer draws to a close, though, it seems time to take stock. I think I only read one book from the category I generally designate as "crap books" -- one I found on the "newly published" shelves at the Free Library. No need to go into detail here, but while well-written, this contemporary novel of a family enabled me to do something I can't remember ever doing: I kept returning to it, plowing through and sometimes staying up a bit later than I might, but whenever someone came into the room with a better idea (a walk, a chat, time for dinner, whatever), I was able to put the book down in the middle of a sentence. Not "wait until I finish this paragraph / page / chapter" and then half an hour later I still haven't put it down. So that was a unique experience for me! The book -- by a woman who had won some kind of new writer's prize from Amazon -- detailed a family rent by divorce and its ensuing complications, including a child who becomes anorexic and an uncle with Asperger's. Again, not bad, but a book I may forget quickly.
In contrast, I loved Philip Roth's American Pastoral and will think about some of the characters and scenes for years to come. The voice differed considerably from Portnoy's Complaint (which I read in May), but I will put both books on my favorites list this year. Andrea Barrett's newest, Archangel, like all her work, featured linked stories, some of which took me back to some of her other books (including the one about the tuberculosis sanitarium which I liked so much a few years ago, The Air We Breathe). This book was virtually perfect, and I had to stop and put it down after each story to think. The stories are not in chronological order, and they sometimes have titles that continue to resonate when you are done. What I like best about her work is that her interests and mine really don't overlap (natural history, science), and yet I feel fascinated about her topics, from paleontology to medicine to genetics to polar exploration -- topics I almost never consider, but which become compelling when I'm in her worlds and which seem to offer all kinds of possibilities.
The only non-fiction book I've ever read that gives me the same sensation as Andrea Barrett's fiction is Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch. Despite my own perhaps narrowing perspectives over the years, these books about the natural world are utterly comprehensible and yet never condescend to me, and remind me that a true humanist needs to consider science too, not just art. This too was part of a summer project -- my "summer of reading about Darwin," declared for the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species in 2012 (see the Darwin 150 Project to explore that anniversary further). A couple of Darwin biographies, including a great one for children that explored his relationship with his wife -- a Christian whose religious sensibilities he feared offending by publishing his findings -- and this Pulitzer prizewinning book that follows researchers retracing Darwin's travels and experiments.
That, too, would be a great summer project someday: reading Pulitzer prizewinning books. Maybe I would find more non-fiction to love. This year, in addition to some new and some favorite American and English authors, I also read two books by Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche. I have yet to write about them -- but that will wait. It was great to immerse myself in a world of names that were so foreign to me -- good practice, among other things, to remind myself of how hard it is for my students to remember Russian names, figure out how to pronounce them, think about a culture they know very little about.
In the meantime, I'm sad that my kids no longer sign up for the library reading programs -- but they got to the point where they could get through the requirements in record time, and they reaped plenty of amazing prizes as well, from t-shirts to visits to amusement parks to cash cards.
I don't know if I will have time to finish the last book on my list this summer (I had to jettison a few already, and they are in a stack, waiting for next year -- it's good to plan ahead). At the Free Library I grabbed Valerie Martin's newest novel, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste. Confessions of Edward Day (2010) was amazing, and I felt honored that she agreed to read from it at my Chekhov conference that December.
Mary Celeste opens in the 1850s on shipboard, and I do hate boats. But summer reading, and summertime generally, is about stretching yourself. I sailed on not one but two ferries this summer, and I survived to tell the tale. In contrast (or in parallel with another sea voyage I remember, from Italy to Greece, more than twenty years ago), the woman in this novel spends the first several days utterly seasick. I'm only about half a chapter in, though, and she's already getting her sea legs.
I'd better sign off here and get back to my reading before summer really ends.
This is something that many American children do. When I was small, I was able to go to the public library by myself on my bike starting in about 1st grade, and I was determined to begin with the As in fiction and read all the way through. Every week I took out seven books, and every week I returned for more.
When my kids got to be 7, I granted them permission to get their own library cards and start going to the library by themselves. My daughter, naturally cautious, asked a friend to come over so that they could walk to the library together. My son, a few years later, was off like a shot. I received a voicemail on my cell phone from a dear friend who noted: "Just saw him heading down Xenia Avenue by himself. If this is fine, ignore the call, but if not, I thought you'd want to know." I assured her later that as long as she saw him on the stretch between our house and the library, that was fine. Anything further was off limits and I'd appreciate a phone call!
I was reminded of library reading programs, and the joy of public libraries, when I ventured to the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia recently. They have renovated one of the reading rooms, and it is beautiful.
 |
| Philbrick Hall -- note book stacks to left! |
More importantly, there are three levels of open stacks. Lots of books to choose from, even more than at some of my favorite used book stores, and all for free.
 |
| Seattle's University Branch of the Public Library: across the street is a great old movie house -- two treats in one locale! |
As the summer draws to a close, though, it seems time to take stock. I think I only read one book from the category I generally designate as "crap books" -- one I found on the "newly published" shelves at the Free Library. No need to go into detail here, but while well-written, this contemporary novel of a family enabled me to do something I can't remember ever doing: I kept returning to it, plowing through and sometimes staying up a bit later than I might, but whenever someone came into the room with a better idea (a walk, a chat, time for dinner, whatever), I was able to put the book down in the middle of a sentence. Not "wait until I finish this paragraph / page / chapter" and then half an hour later I still haven't put it down. So that was a unique experience for me! The book -- by a woman who had won some kind of new writer's prize from Amazon -- detailed a family rent by divorce and its ensuing complications, including a child who becomes anorexic and an uncle with Asperger's. Again, not bad, but a book I may forget quickly.
In contrast, I loved Philip Roth's American Pastoral and will think about some of the characters and scenes for years to come. The voice differed considerably from Portnoy's Complaint (which I read in May), but I will put both books on my favorites list this year. Andrea Barrett's newest, Archangel, like all her work, featured linked stories, some of which took me back to some of her other books (including the one about the tuberculosis sanitarium which I liked so much a few years ago, The Air We Breathe). This book was virtually perfect, and I had to stop and put it down after each story to think. The stories are not in chronological order, and they sometimes have titles that continue to resonate when you are done. What I like best about her work is that her interests and mine really don't overlap (natural history, science), and yet I feel fascinated about her topics, from paleontology to medicine to genetics to polar exploration -- topics I almost never consider, but which become compelling when I'm in her worlds and which seem to offer all kinds of possibilities.
The only non-fiction book I've ever read that gives me the same sensation as Andrea Barrett's fiction is Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch. Despite my own perhaps narrowing perspectives over the years, these books about the natural world are utterly comprehensible and yet never condescend to me, and remind me that a true humanist needs to consider science too, not just art. This too was part of a summer project -- my "summer of reading about Darwin," declared for the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species in 2012 (see the Darwin 150 Project to explore that anniversary further). A couple of Darwin biographies, including a great one for children that explored his relationship with his wife -- a Christian whose religious sensibilities he feared offending by publishing his findings -- and this Pulitzer prizewinning book that follows researchers retracing Darwin's travels and experiments.
That, too, would be a great summer project someday: reading Pulitzer prizewinning books. Maybe I would find more non-fiction to love. This year, in addition to some new and some favorite American and English authors, I also read two books by Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche. I have yet to write about them -- but that will wait. It was great to immerse myself in a world of names that were so foreign to me -- good practice, among other things, to remind myself of how hard it is for my students to remember Russian names, figure out how to pronounce them, think about a culture they know very little about.
In the meantime, I'm sad that my kids no longer sign up for the library reading programs -- but they got to the point where they could get through the requirements in record time, and they reaped plenty of amazing prizes as well, from t-shirts to visits to amusement parks to cash cards.
I don't know if I will have time to finish the last book on my list this summer (I had to jettison a few already, and they are in a stack, waiting for next year -- it's good to plan ahead). At the Free Library I grabbed Valerie Martin's newest novel, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste. Confessions of Edward Day (2010) was amazing, and I felt honored that she agreed to read from it at my Chekhov conference that December.Mary Celeste opens in the 1850s on shipboard, and I do hate boats. But summer reading, and summertime generally, is about stretching yourself. I sailed on not one but two ferries this summer, and I survived to tell the tale. In contrast (or in parallel with another sea voyage I remember, from Italy to Greece, more than twenty years ago), the woman in this novel spends the first several days utterly seasick. I'm only about half a chapter in, though, and she's already getting her sea legs.
I'd better sign off here and get back to my reading before summer really ends.
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