excerpts.

As a little homage to Mr. Hornby, this brief is about what I read last month and how I've been duly influenced.  I initially went to Barnes to buy my brother The DaVinci Code so that he could read it on our upcoming New Years trip and succumbed to the double-threat Siren's song of the desire to be reading (which is very different from the actual desire to read) and the hedonistic gauntlet of books on display while walking through the aisles trying to find Mr. Brown's book.  I actually went twice.  I found The DaVinci Code on the first try, no problem -- 30% off post-Christmas sale, front and center -- but was hooked by The Polysyllabic Spree on my way out, hamstringing myself with past reading of Fever Pitch, High Fidelity (and of course the movie), and About a Boy (movie to be seen) and having heard some NPR review of the book. I couldn't remember exactly what it was about -- I thought it was a book of short stories -- but when I got it home I was pleasantly surprized.  It's about Mr. Hornby's struggle with reading the books he buys which for most readers, as he rightly points out, is difficult, since there're always more books bought than read.  The little subtitle/jacket blurb reads “a hillarious and true account of one man's struggle with the monthly tide of the books he's bought and the books he's been meaning to read“ and “a collection of fourteen months of his essays from the Believer magazine.“ 

I went back to Barnes the next day because I had to have what I thought would be good island reading material: Francis Fukuyama's State Building, after having seen the author talk about it on CSPAN2 (which is fast becoming my favorite channel).  On my way to the checkout, there stood in the orgiastic gauntlet of words, a newly translated edition of Swann's Way, by Marcel Proust and I had to have it -- never mind that 1) I have at least two copies in the house already, and at least one back at my parent's house where the bulk of my books live, and 2) I've never actually read all the way through it, since it puts me to sleep and I nod off remembering things past. The Now Habit arrived by post -- a book tangentially recommended to me by a friend's friend's wish list. So, stocked up with such great books, I was ready to lay on the beach and read some stuff in a week or so. 

The chapters are short and engrossing in The Polysyllabic Spree so, by the time I'd touched down in Chicago, I'd read it all. It was fruitful and I was satisfied. It made me feel better about reading, which can sometimes feel like “wasting time“ sitting there while the world screams by at an ever quickening pace. There's great insight into what Mr. Hornby considers Literary Novels and the visceral connection that the written word can make in one's life, in particular, his.  I learned a bit about autism through the books he read (his son is autistic) and about the clique or community of authors and publishers that he's in.  Authors, editors and publishers that he know would send him books, asking him to read and review them because they were 'just like' his own work, his brother-in-law (who's a writer) would send him a book, etc. None of the personal touches or the community seemed contrived or exclusionary -- it's as if he was inviting me in to take a look at how strange “they” really are, even while he's part of the whole thing.

I started State Building and got quite into it, but it's dense and layered, mostly because it's Mr. Fukuyama's lectures in book form and its academic pace is ever so slightly different than the jaunty anecdotal and reflective tone of the previous book read.  By the time I got to my island destination, I was only partially through the first chapter.  Over the next few days, I read some, but the island has its own rythym, more for sand castle building rather than state building. I put it down and picked up The Now Habit, which is a self-help book about how not to procrastinate.  It opens with a bunch of profiles of procrastinators which is quite fun to read, since there're lots of points of identification with the characters, and it goes on to say how wonderfully they stopped procrastinating, so there's character development and a happy ending, multiple clinical cases over.  Whee!  I never knew reading self-help books could be so helpful to my very self. I got through half of it and felt really, really guilty for putting it down, which I think is partially the objective of the book.  I read State Building on the planes back, which is impressive for me, since my super power is Sleeping on Planes.  I don't normally split books or try to juggle more than one or two books at a time - it's an additional layer of intellectual hubris I'm really not ready to admit.  I will, though, make grandiose promises and fill up my bookcases.

This month, I'll finish up State Building and The Now Habit and maybe even start Swann's Way, which I carted out and back into the United States.  I brought back A Barthes Reader, edited by Susan Sontag, because it was staring at me from my college bookcase during my brief stay in Chicago and I'm a sucker for my postmodern past.  Stray threads.