Book Art

This week's Booking Through Thursday references Nina Katchadourian's brilliant Sorted Books project, with the challenge to create our own. I've loved these ever since I first saw them, so here are a few of mine.

Niche

This week's Booking Through Thursday meme asks:

There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.

What niche books do YOU read?

This may come as a surprise revelation, but I love to read antiquated etiquette books and have a small collection, seen below.

The Amy Vanderbilt is from the early 1950s; the Emily Post is a 1940 edition of the 1922 book; the Lillian Eichler Watson, at the top, is 1948, and when I bought it, the clerk at the used book store called over the rest of the staff to show them that somebody was actually buying it. Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior hails from the late 70s, making it the most interesting of the three in certain ways (it's surprising, at this date, the kind of knots people tied themselves into to avoid the political baggage perceived to be carried by the perfectly functional title "Ms."). Judith Martin is unquestionably a humorist before all else - it's just delightful.

Etiquette books are wonderful for skimming. With a few flips of the page you can discover the proper attire for groomsmen and chambermaids, how to word an invitiation to a dinner party without dancing, when the roof is an introduction (and when it is not), and whose bouquet you should be holding when you receive the guests at your debutante ball (often, those given to you by the closest male relative who sent a small enough bunch to comfortably hold in one arm while you shake hands).

They also have a charming cast of characters used in the case studies. Mr. Worldly and Mrs. Wellbred and Miss Stranger, and whatnot. Eventually you get attached to them, and feel sympathy when Mr. and Mrs. Oldblood have to announce the postponement of their daughter's wedding to Mr. Bachelor.

People - the sort of people who boast about always speaking their mind and not knowing which fork to use - dismiss the body of formal etiquette as the behavioral equivalent of so much Victorian silverware, rules invented for no reason but to broaden the social gap. But you can't get there from any proper reading of the source material, which holds aloft the guiding principles of decency and good sense. I wish we still had that, rather than the senseless quabbling over when to hold the dollar dance at your wedding reception (hint: never).

Fifteen Sticky Books

Booking Through Thursday offered an interesting prompt today: “Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

These are the first fifteen that came to mind - and I was surprised by how near to 15 minutes it took - with a bit of commentary. I did notice that, in many cases, my connection or ongoing response to the book did have a lot to do with the circumstances under which I initially (or subsequently) encountered it. I'm not sure what that means, other than perhaps serving as a corollary the "no two people read the same book," principle.

1. Animal Farm - George Orwell One of the first really rapturous reading experiences that I recall - I read it through twice in one sitting one summer in high school.
   
   
2. 1984 -George Orwell I should clarify that I'm not an Orwellian socialist (nor a socialist of any other flavor), merely a high admirer of his style. At the same time, I've never been tolerant of youthful idealism (this was even more true when I was high school- and college-aged) so I always found the back story compelling - I love the fact that disenchantment can be so powerful as to yield that much vitriol and that much beauty at the same time. Incidentally, in real life Orwell and I share a surname, and if I ever have a male pet, he will be named Eric.
   
   
3. Girl Meets God - Lauren Winner This is one place I frequently turn to when I feel most isolated in the world of faith, and is probably one that I read at exactly the right time. I love this gal.
   
   
4. The Chosen - Chaim Potok I seriously doubt that Potok intended his themes to lend clarity to Christian eccumenical-cultural issues, but they help, enormously, nonetheless.
   
   
5. Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder A mysterious stranger befriends you to teach you all about the history of philosophy - it may not be every 14-year-old girl's dream, but isn't it yours?
   
   
6. Surprised by Joy - C.S. Lewis Christian apologists who hold up Lewis as an example of rationalist conversion need to look closer. I can't help but love this man as he presents himself here.
   
   
7. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame My first favorite book.
   
   
8. Perelandra - C.S. Lewis Paradise Retained. I'm a big advocate of the Space Trilogy, and love the spiritual cosmology Lewis created.
   
   
9. The Oresteia - Aeschylus "Evil for evil is no impiety." It sounds pretentious, but it's true - this made Western Civilization click for me, in the sense of starting to actively see how many ways the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian philosophical dichotomy has us all looking at the world with crossed eyes.
   
   
10. What Do You Care What Other People Think - Richard Feynman Feynman published several volumes of memoir, and though this one is less energetic than others, it's compelling in its own way. A good portion of the second half recalls the investigation of the Challenger explosion, which is interesting but occasionally bogs itself down. More moving is the story of his relationship with his first wife, which you can't help but feel like he consciously avoided in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. They were childhood sweethearts; he married her knowing she was dying of tuberculosis; she died in a New Mexico sanatorium while he was working on the Manhattan Project.
    
    
11. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde High literature? No, but this is just one of the funniest things out there.
    
    
12. The Epic of Gilgamesh The language is riveting in any translation I've encountered, and I can't help but think about it any time I see lapis lazuli.


13. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte My main impression was that the characters were good and bad in the way that real people are good and bad. No mean accomplishment.
    
    
14. Candide - Voltaire I have a soft spot for oozing satire. There are passages I feel gripped to read over quite regularly.
    
    
15. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen A prime example of the "circumstances of encounter" principle I mentioned in the introduction. Among other things, it's the first book I read when I first moved to Massachusetts for my first professional job. Austen in January became a tradition for the years I lived there.