The Reader's Shelf Adventures in Reading: Bibliomemoirs, September 15, 2011
Sep 15, 2011
Adventures in Reading: Bibliomemoirs
The quest for all readers is dual purpose: to uncover the treasures of the book about to be read and to find the next link in their personal reading chain. In searching for new titles, readers discover books in gloriously serendipitous ways, from reviews to wandering crowded stacks. Sometimes titles are unearthed by fellow treasure hunters, bookies who share with us their reading lives—and reading lists. Gathered here are such guides, gazetteers to the greatest trips of all.
In Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home (Profile, dist. by Consortium. 2010. ISBN 9781846682667. pap. $15.95), novelist Susan Hill details her reading journey, sparked by the search for her copy of E.M. Forster's Howards End, which was lost somewhere in her house. During her hunt, she created a list of 40 treasured books—from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse—that she would reread throughout one year. Hill's charming and delightful ode to her collection invites readers to explore their own bookshelves.
Books: A Memoir (S. & S. 2009. ISBN 9781416583356. pap. $14) traces Larry McMurtry's bibliophilic collection from the original 19 books given to him by a cousin to the roughly one million titles he has owned in his life as a bookseller. His rich memoir details the author's grand passion for reading, which was influential in developing his literary tastes and shaping his life as a writer.
When she was in grade school, Alice Ozma and her father, a school librarian, decided to embark on a read-aloud project, which would last more than eight years. Their adventure is captured in her heartfelt and uplifting memoir, The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared (Grand Central. 2011. ISBN 9780446583770. $24.99). Ozma depicts these special times between daughter and father, the books that they enjoyed together, and the deep, lasting bond that developed as a result of this daily commitment.
Based on the books she read in a women's studies course during her undergraduate years at Barnard, Stephanie Staal's ideas about feminism changed drastically when she entered the "real" world of balancing a career, marriage, and family. Reading Women: How the Great Books of Feminism Changed My Life (PublicAffairs: Perseus. 2011. ISBN 9781586488727. pap. $15.99) recalls the author's attempt to refocus her feminist ideals and beliefs by auditing a similar course at Barnard once again. In the class, she rereads classic texts by Simone Beauvoir, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Betty Friedan, and other feminist authors and discusses them with new professors and women (and men) of varying ages. Through this revisiting, Staal makes sense out of her evolving life.
In this enthralling collection of essays, My Reading Life (Nan A. Talese: Doubleday. 2010. ISBN 9780385533577. $25), author Pat Conroy vividly describes the impact of books on his life. He outlines his childhood as a military brat, the son of a brutally abusive father, and how moving from city to city affected him. He talks of his mother and the great love of reading (and libraries) she instilled in him. With insightful commentary and a style that makes one want to pick up the titles he is discussing, Conroy reflects on the books that were major influences on his life, his love of poetry, his relationship with author James Dickey, and his wide-ranging friendships in the literary world.
Another grand reader—and great commentator—celebrates the power of reading in a compelling and inspiring memoir, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading (Harper: HarperCollins. 2011. ISBN 9780061999840. $23.99). After the untimely death of her sister, Nina Sankovitch exhausted herself in a bid to outdistance grief. Three years later, she decided to attempt to heal by taking a year off from work to read a book a day. Woven into the remembrance of Sankovitch's reading year, an account full of treasures eloquently described and considered, is the story of her immigrant family and her journey through bereavement.
In a rather different kind of book journey, The Night Bookmobile (Abrams. 2010. ISBN 9780810996175. $19.95), Audrey Niffenegger crafts a dark and fantastical graphic novel about the way books (and other reading matter) shape and mark our lives. Illustrated with a fine hand, startlingly juxtaposed uses of text, and moody colors, this is the story of Alexandra, who stumbles upon a bookmobile while walking one night through the streets of Chicago. Entering the bookmobile, she realizes that it contains all the books that she's ever read, from Pat the Bunny to Women in Love. This discovery changes her life and suggests ways in which reading does so as well.
This column was contributed by freelance writer April L. Judge, The Reading Group Girl. She lives in Morris Plains, NJ, and is Director, West Caldwell Public Library
| Author Information |
| Neal Wyatt compiles LJ's online feature Wyatt's World and is the author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (ALA Editions, 2007). She is a collection development and readers' advisory librarian from Virginia. Those interested in contributing to The Reader's Shelf should contact her directly at Readers_Shelf@comcast.net |
