Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood Moment and Reason Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Acknowledgements

  A . . . MY NAME IS ALICE

  ACADEMIA: THE JOKE

  ACADEMIC MYSTERIES

  ACTION HEROINES

  ADVENTURE BY THE BOOK: FICTION

  ADVENTURE BY THE BOOK: NONFICTION

  AFRICA: TODAY AND YESTERDAY

  AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION: HE SAY

  AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION: SHE SAY

  AFRICAN COLONIALISM: FICTION

  AFRICAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

  AGING

  ALASKA

  AMERICAN HISTORY: NONFICTION

  AMERICAN HISTORY: FICTION

  AMERICAN INDIAN LITERATURE

  ARMCHAIR TRAVEL

  ART APPRECIATION

  ASIAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCES

  ASTRONOMICAL IDEAS

  AUSTRALIAN FICTION

  BABIES: A READER’S GUIDE

  BALKAN SPECTERS

  HAMILTON BASSO: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  BBB: BEST BUSINESS BOOKS

  BICYCLING

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOVELS

  BIRD BRAINS

  BLACK HUMOR

  BOMB MAKERS

  BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS

  BOYS COMING OF AGE

  BROTHERS AND SISTERS

  FREDERICK BUSCH: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  CALIFORNIA, HERE WE COME

  CANADIAN FICTION

  CAT CRAZY

  CHICK LIT

  CHINA VOICES

  CHRISTMAS BOOKS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY TO READ

  CIVIL WAR FICTION

  CIVIL WAR NONFICTION

  THE CLASSICAL WORLD

  COLD WAR SPY FICTION

  COMPANION READS

  LES CRIMES NOIR

  CUBA SÍ!

  CYBERSPACE.COM

  CZECH IT OUT

  A DICKENS OF A TALE

  DINOSAUR HUNTING

  DO CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN (OR WOMAN)?

  DREAMING OF AFRICA

  ECOFICTION

  ELVIS ON MY MIND

  EPISTOLARY NOVELS: TAKE A LETTER

  ESSAYING ESSAYS

  FAMILIES IN TROUBLE

  FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

  FATHERS AND SONS

  FIRST LINES TO REMEMBER

  FIRST NOVELS

  FLYING ABOVE THE CLOUDS

  FOOD FOR THOUGHT

  GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  GAY AND LESBIAN FICTION: OUT OF THE CLOSET

  GEAR UP FOR GARDENING

  GENUINE GENES

  A GEOGRAPHY OF FAMILY AND PLACE

  GHOST STORIES

  GIRLS GROWING UP

  GRAPHIC NOVELS

  GREAT DOGS IN FICTION

  GRIT LIT

  GROWING WRITERS

  ROBERT HEINLEIN : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  HELP YOURSELF

  HERE BE DRAGONS: THE GREAT EXPLORERS AND EXPEDITIONS

  HISTORICAL FICTION AROUND THE WORLD

  HISTORICAL FICTION FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES

  HUMOR

  I LOVE A MYSTERY

  INTRIGUING NOVELS

  IRISH FICTION

  THE ISLAMIC WORLD

  ISLANDS, DESERT AND OTHERWISE

  ITALIAN AMERICAN WRITERS

  JAPANESE FICTION

  THE JEWISH AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

  WARD JUST: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  KING ARTHUR

  KITCHEN-SINK POETRY

  P. F. KLUGE : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  ERIC KRAFT: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  MARK KURLANSKY: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  LADY TRAVELERS

  LATIN AMERICAN FICTION

  JONATHAN LETHEM : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  ELINOR LIPMAN : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  LOST WEEKENDS

  MAGICAL REALISM

  IAN MCEWAN : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  MECHANICAL MEN , ROBOTS, AUTOMATONS, AND DEEP BLUE

  MEMOIRS

  MEXICAN FICTION

  THE MIDDLE EAST

  MERLE MILLER: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  MONTANA: IN BIG SKY COUNTRY

  THE MOON’S MY DESTINATION

  MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

  MOTHERS AND SONS

  IRIS MURDOCH : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  MUSIC AND MUSICIANS

  MY OWN PRIVATE DUI

  NEW MEXICO

  NEW ORLEANS

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  9/11

  LEWIS NORDAN : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  NOT ONLY FOR KIDS: FANTASIES FOR GROWN-UPS

  100 GOOD READS, DECADE BY DECADE

  OUR PRIMATES, OURSELVES

  PASSAGE TO INDIA

  PAWNS OF HISTORY

  PEOPLE YOU OUGHT TO MEET

  PHYSICIANS WRITING MORE THAN PRESCRIPTIONS

  POETRY: A NOVEL IDEA

  POLISH POEMS AND PROSE

  POLITICS OF FICTION

  THE POSTMODERN CONDITION

  RICHARD POWERS: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHIES

  PROSE BY POETS

  PYM’S CUP RUNNETH OVER

  REAL CHARACTERS

  VAN REID AND THE MOOSEPATH LEAGUE: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  RIDING THE RAILS: RAILROAD HISTORY

  RIVERS OF WORDS

  ROAD NOVELS

  ROMANCE NOVELS: OUR LOVE IS HERE TO STAY

  ROMANS-FLEUVES

  RUSSIAN HEAVIES

  SCIENCE BOOKS (FOR THE INTERESTED BUT APPREHENSIVE LAYPERSON)

  SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND HORROR

  SEA STORIES

  SEX AND THE SINGLE READER

  SHORT STORIES

  SHRINKS AND SHRINKEES

  SOUTHERN FICTION

  SPIES AND SPYMASTERS: THE REALLY REAL UNREAL WORLD OF INTELLIGENCE

  SPORTS AND GAMES

  REX STOUT’S NERO WOLFE : TOO GOOD TO MISS

  TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME

  TEACHERS AND TEACHING TALES

  TECHNO-THRILLERS

  TEXAS: A LONE STAR STATE OF MIND

  ROSS THOMAS: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  THREE-HANKY READS

  GORE VIDAL’S HISTORICAL NOVELS: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  VIETNAM

  WESTERN FICTION

  WESTERN MEMOIRS

  WHAT A (NATURAL) DISASTER

  WHAT A TRIAL THAT WAS!

  WILD LIFE

  CONNIE WILLIS: TOO GOOD TO MISS

  WOMEN’S FRIENDSHIPS

  WORDS TO THE WISE

  WORLD WAR I FICTION

  WORLD WAR I NONFICTION

  WORLD WAR II FICTION

  WORLD WAR II NONFICTION

  ZEN BUDDHISM AND MEDITATION

  ZERO:THIS WILL MEAN NOTHING TO YOU

  INDEX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  I love to read. And while I might not absolutely agree with the Anglo-American man of letters Logan Pearsall Smith, who said, “People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading,” I come awfully close to subscribing to his sentiment. In fact, back in the days when I did such things, I needlepointed the quotation onto a piece of canvas. I’ve never gotten around to framing it or turning it into a pillow. Too many books, and life, had my attention, I guess.

  Reading has always brought me pure joy. I read to encounter new worlds and new ways of looking at our own world. I read to enlarge my horizons, to gain wisdom, to experience beauty, to understand myself better, and for the pure wonderment of it all. I read and marvel over how writers use language in ways I never thought of. I read for company, and for escape. Because I am incurably interested in the lives of other
people, both friends and strangers, I read to meet myriad folks and enter their lives—for me, a way of vanquishing the “otherness” we all experience.

  I grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Detroit in a family of readers, although my father only went to school through the sixth grade and didn’t get his GED until he was seventy. My mother, a highly educated woman, was a disastrous combination of fury and depression. She read poetry (especially those depressed poets like A. E. Housman and Philip Larkin) and fiction. (She’s the only person I know of who loved books of fantasy and science fiction with the same degree of intensity.) Mine was a family that today would be labeled dysfunctional. All I knew then was that I was deeply and fatally unhappy.

  It was painful to live in our house, and consequently I spent most of my childhood and early adolescence at the public library. The librarians at the Parkman Branch Library found me books that revealed worlds beyond what I saw and experienced every day. Although I remember very few specific events in my childhood, I have vivid memories of hundreds of books I read and loved during those years. Sometimes I can’t quite come up with the plot, or the names of characters, but I do remember how I was transported when I read them.

  I’m talking about books like The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron; Elizabeth Goudge’s The Little White Horse; Robert Heinlein’s Space Cadet; Red Planet; and The Star Beast; Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field; Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis; The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien; Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays; The Sea is Blue by Marie Lawson; Eleanor Estes’s The Moffats and Ginger Pye; the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace; the books about Beany Malone by Lenora Mattingly Weber; the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome; Evelyn Sibley Lampman’s Crazy Creek; Wait for Marcy by Rosamund du Jardin; Green Eyes by Jean Nielsen; The Casket and the Sword by Norman Dale; David Severn’s Dream Gold; Betty Cavanna’s young adult novels, especially Going on Sixteen; Minnow on the Say by Philippa Pearce; and John R. Tunis’s The Kid from Tomkinsville, among many others. (Just listing them here makes me want to track down the ones I don’t own and reread them.)

  It’s not too much of an exaggeration—if it’s one at all—to say that reading saved my life.

  By the time I was ten years old, I knew I wanted to become a children’s librarian, just like Miss Long and Miss Whitehead, the two main influences on my reading life. And although for a few moments in college I was tempted to go to MIT to study transformational grammar with Noam Chomsky, I’ve never since wavered in my belief that being a librarian is one of the best, and noblest, careers that anyone could have.

  To paraphrase Robert Frost (from “Two Tramps in Mud Time”), my love and my work are one—and I feel extremely lucky to be able to say so. I’ve been fortunate to work in three great library systems—Detroit Public Library, Tulsa City-County Library, and Seattle Public Library—and a wonderful independent bookstore, Yorktown Alley, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which have allowed me to grow as a reader and to share my knowledge and love with other readers. I’m also grateful that I have been given the opportunity to review books weekly on two public radio stations: KWGS in Tulsa, and KUOW in Seattle.

  Whenever I begin reading a new book, I am embarking on a new, uncharted journey with an unmarked destination. I never know where a particular book will take me, toward what other books I will be led. How could I have predicted that reading Richard Bausch’s Hello to the Cannibals would send me on a reading jag about Victorian lady travelers? Or that Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children would lead me to Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre and open up the world of India to me?

  Each time I begin a new book (and any book I haven’t read before is a “new” book), there’s the very real chance that this is a book that I will fall in love with. Some books let me know from the very first sentence that I am in great hands, that this reading experience will offer me pure pleasure. When I began Pete Dexter’s The Paperboy, Ward Just’s A Dangerous Friend, Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend, I had no doubt that I would fall in love with them. And I did.

  One of my strongest-held beliefs is that no one should ever finish a book that they’re not enjoying, no matter how popular or well reviewed the book is. Believe me, nobody is going to get any points in heaven by slogging their way through a book they aren’t enjoying but think they ought to read. I live by what I call “the rule of fifty,” which acknowledges that time is short and the world of books is immense. If you’re fifty years old or younger, give every book about fifty pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding. Keep in mind that your mood has a lot to do with whether or not you will like a book. I always leave open the option of going back to a book that I haven’t liked (especially if someone I respect has recommended it to me) sometime later. I’ve begun many books, put them down unfinished, then returned a month or two, or years, later and ended up loving them. This happened with Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers, John Crowley’s Little, Big, and Andrea Barrett’s The Voyage of the Narwhal.

  Book Lust grew out of my more than thirty years of work as a professional reader and book reviewer, and my ongoing experiences of talking to people all over the world about the books they most love. In many ways this was an easy book to write, because I’ve read and enjoyed so many books that I’ve wanted to tell other people about. The difficulty arose because the more lists of books I made, the more books I remembered that I wanted to include. Having to decide, once and for all, which books belonged here was agony. (Even as I write this introduction, other titles spring to mind—wonderful books that I hate to leave out.)

  You will notice that many of the books I recommend are out of print. If you have a hankering to read them—and I hope you do—check at your local library, which, even if it doesn’t own the book, will likely be able to borrow it from another library for you. Or take advantage of the power of the Internet in locating out-of-print books. (One result of working on Book Lust is that I’ve spent a lot of time—not to mention money—purchasing books that I realized I just had to own.)

  So get yourself settled in a comfortable chair, grab a pen and paper, and enjoy yourself as you read through this book. Incidentally, I’m sure you’ll be horrified about books I’ve left out or overlooked. I’d love to hear what books you think I should have included, or which books I could as easily have omitted, in your opinion. Sharing the books you’ve loved is one of the great pleasures in reading. You can reach me by email at nancy.pearl@ spl.org.

  One of the most wonderful paragraphs about the joys of reading is in “How Should One Read a Book?,” an essay in Virginia Woolf’s collection The Second Common Reader. She writes:I have sometimes dreamt . . . that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.

  It’s an honor to share some of my favorite books with you. I hope some of them will become your favorites, too. Let me know.

  Acknowledgments

  This book could not have been written without the help of many people, including everyone I’ve greeted over the last umpteen years by asking whether they’ve read anything good lately.

  I am grateful to my editors at Library Journal for allowing me to adapt some of The Reader’s Shelf columns that I edit and/or write for them, and more specifically, to the following contributors who have given me permission to adapt their columns for use in this book: Andrea Kempf (Czech It Out; Balkan S
pecters; China Voices; Japanese Fiction; Polish Poems and Prose; Cuba Sí!); Jennifer Baker (King Arthur; Not Only for Kids: Fantasies for Grown-ups; African American Fiction); David Hellman (Grit Lit); Chris Higashi (Passage to India; Historical Fiction Around the World; Prose by Poets; as well as for her thorough vetting of this book in manuscript); and Jennifer Young (American Indian Literature).

  A big thank-you, also, to David Wright, not only for advice about noir fiction, but because he always had just the right word for me; Susan Fort, for suggesting the “A . . . My Name is Alice” and “Physicians Writing More Than Prescriptions” categories; Neal Wyatt for “Romans-Fleuves” and her part in “Romance Novels: Our Love Is Here to Stay”; Jennifer McCord for the other part of “Romance Novels: Our Love Is Here to Stay”; Jay Raman for introducing me to the South Sea Islands books; and Millie Loeb for the idea behind “Pawns of History.”

  Thank you to Libraries Unlimited for allowing me to use some particularly felicitous language from my books Now Read This: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1978–1998, and Now Read This II: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1990–2001.

  Thanks to the wonderful people at Sasquatch Books: Gary Luke, Susan Quinn, Gina Johnston, and Sarah Smith, for loving the book, and to Phyllis Hatfield for her editing talent.

  And I am grateful beyond words to my husband, Joe, who makes my reading life possible.

  This book is dedicated to my granddaughter Sarah Lakshmi Raman, who I hope grows up loving to read, but not too much.

  A . . . MY NAME IS ALICE

  I once heard Anna Quindlen answer the question of what authors she most enjoyed reading by saying that, basically, she read “the Alices.” I realized then that one could have a most enjoyable binge reading these Alices: Alice Adams, Alice Elliott Dark, Alice Hoffman, Alice Mattison, Alice McDermott, Alice Munro, Alice Walker, and first-time novelist Alice Sebold.

  Alice Adams, an elegant writer of both short stories (which frequently appeared in The New Yorker magazine) and novels, wrote about the lives and emotional upheavals of women. Some of her best books include Caroline’s Daughters, After You’ve Gone: Stories, Superior Women, and my favorite, her first novel, Families and Survivors. There’s an excellent cross section of her short works in The Stories of Alice Adams.