Rules for Reading

I am currently reading a novel. The next book sitting on my shelf is Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower. I always read one work of fiction followed by one work of non-fiction. In fact I've done if for so long that I dislike stepping out of that system. If I am reading a novel and another novel comes along that I have really been wanting to read, it is a wrenching decision to pass on it because I'm supposed to read a non-fiction book next. My other habit is that in the mid-winter, after Christmas and into the quiet cold days of January and February, I always tackle some massive classic work that I've been meaning to read. In the past few years I've read Don Quixote, Ulysses, and The Tale of Genji.
I've read biographies before of people like Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln and other famous self-taught men. They often have these systems set up for themselves, systems meant to keep them disciplined as much as to ensure that they are well read. In the end, I don't know if such a system detracts from the joy of reading, or if it enhances its value. I know I learn more when I make sure I read quality non-fiction between my readings of quality fiction.
Another thing I've often heard people discuss is how much of a book they will read before deciding they don't want to finish it. Some people read as few as ten pages, while some say that once they've begun a book they finish it, come hell or high water. There have been a few times I've stopped reading a book with only one chapter to go -- just too tired of the tepid prose or obvious plot twists or tedious 'observations.'
What do you think? Do you have a system for what you read? Do you have rules about what to read, or how much, or anything else?

Power outage

As of today, the Webster Library is still without power because of the recent storm so we'll be closed until it comes back up.

Update (Sunday) : The power is back on. Due to the enormous backlog of returned items, we've decided to stay closed today, but the Library will open at the normal time, 9:00 a.m., on Monday morning.

The Reference Librarian Interview

In which I interview myself:

Q: So what do reference librarians like to read anyway?

A: Don’t know. Me, I like to read history almost exclusively.

Q: Why is that?

A: Don’t know. Personally, I’m more interested in what actually happened than in what some northeastern college English major thinks should have happened.

Q: When did this start?

A: Early 90's, I guess. Back then, we had the old automation system here which required someone coming in to run system back-ups. That involved someone coming in after hours to start the back-up and change these massive, old-fashioned reels of magnetic tape periodically. The whole thing took about an hour. I was working here part-time at the time and that was basically my job.

So I’m there one night with nothing to do but watch the tapes spin around and I think I’ll go get a book to read. Don’t remember why I was thinking of Hungary at the time but I selected A History of Hungary by Dennis Sinor(which is still in our collection), started reading it over the next several days, and was absolutely fascinated. From then on, I was hooked.

Q: What kinds of histories do you like to read?

A: Almost anybody’s. I was seriously into the history of the Balkan region for a while and read just about everything I could get my hands on about it. Then it was American history, Russian history, back to American and just about everywhere in between. I was a keen Arthurian for a while, exploring the history of post-Roman Britain. And I love histories of France particularly if French historians write them.

Q: Why?

A: I don't know. I just enjoy French historians more than most. They seem to be a lot more objective than historians from other countries. When some of them write about France, it always seems to me that they do it with a certain detached bemusement.

Anyway, I’ve read three general histories of the Viking period and enjoyed each immensely. And all of this has, from time to time, led me to explore even older sources. Icelandic sagas, translated source material, and things like that.

Q: Do you have a favorite?

A: My favorite history is actually a biography. The Raven by Marquis James, the biography of Sam Houston. I’ve read it four times and I’m not tired of it yet. Not only is it a biography of the man I consider the most interesting in American history, it’s also a wonderfully written, engaging story. I’ll probably read it many more times befort it's all over.

Only Scout is Scout

There’s this ‘famous’ librarian named Nancy Pearl who is a frequent contributor to NPR. She’s always offering up one book list or another, and they’re usually pretty good. The other day she recommended the book The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. It’s probably a good book, Tartt’s books are usually well received. But the main character in The Little Friend is a young girl named Harriet whom Nancy Pearl compared to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird and to Frankie in The Member of the Wedding.

I don’t like facile comparisons with the most memorable characters in literature. Every woman in a Civil War novel is not Scarlett O’Hara, even if the setting is the same. Every tight-fisted businessman is not Ebenezer Scrooge, even if he does experience a soul-saving epiphany by the story’s end. And every clever, spunky little girl is not Scout, or Frankie.

It makes it easy to get someone interested in a book we like if we can say it’s like another book everyone knows, or the characters are like characters they know. But we need to be careful. Nobody, really, is like Scarlett O’Hara, or Ebenezer Scrooge, or Scout or Frankie. That’s why these are such memorable characters, and why the books they animate are among the best ever written. If you start reading a book with the idea that you are about to experience something as powerful as To Kill a Mockingbird, or Gone with the Wind, and it turns out to be just another well-written book – enjoyable, but clearly not a classic – it will only disappoint.

I believe Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend is probably a good book, like most of her books. There are suddenly requests on it again, even though it’s almost four years old. Maybe people will find that Harriett reminds them of . . . someone else they know. I hope they like it.

Have you ever been referred to a book because it was like something else, but it turned out to be nothing like the supposed precursor? Or at best a derivative imitation?

The Future of Reference

Since I’m a real Reference Librarian^TM, people constantly ask me whether reference books have a future [Nobody has ever asked you that. - Ed. Would it kill you to just play along? - Me]. I’m not at all sure that they do.

If you went to college, you know how much your textbooks cost you. And there’s a good reason why. Were Publishing Company A to put Early Medieval Russian Archaeology on the general market, the chances are that they wouldn’t make very much money. That’s because on a cold winter evening, no one has ever thought that sitting by a roaring fire with your lady friend, a really good Pinot Noir and the latest findings in Russian archaeology is all that romantic.

It’s the same with reference books. Not that many people buy the Oxford English Dictionary for pleasure. Nobody has ever looked forward to the end of a tough work day when they could curl up under a down comforter with a bourbon-and-soda and the latest Contemporary Authors New Revision. And there isn’t a book club on the face of the earth that has ever wasted its time sipping coffee, nibbling on cookies or cake and discussing the scintillating contents of Book Review Digest.

I think that publishers are starting to realize that there’s a market for this information(libraries) but that it’s probably a small one and getting smaller by the year. So they’re faced with a choice. Publish hundreds or thousands of copies of their reference books and see most of these end up in someone’s fire somewhere. Or publish their information electronically and charge people or libraries to access it.

The latter does two things. It saves publishing companies the expense of the materials with which to publish a book, typesetting, marketing, book placement in stores, etc. And it assures itself of an audience that is keenly interested in what it has to sell. If Library A gets a lot of questions about early medieval Russian history, than Early Medieval Russian History Online might be something that library would be rather interested in.

And the fact that they can charge a lot more for computer access to their information than they ever could get from the sale of one book is just icing on the cake.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We are close to finding out whether that long and resonant name will be one to remember or just another flash in the pan. Young Ms. Adichie set many readers back on their heels a few years ago with her stunning (perhaps autobiographical?) novel Purple Hibiscus. It was the story of a teenaged Nigerian girl torn between her devotion to her strictly Catholic father and her grandfather, who still practiced an ancient animist religion. All set during political upheavals in Nigeria, the story had it all -- great characters, an interesting setting, absorbing personal conflicts, a plot that moved constantly forward, and the wonderful overarching symbol of purple hibiscus growing in wild profusion in the family's yard.

It's interesting that I didn't really understand what a symbol of youthful rebellion the purple hibiscus was until I recently re-read Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. In it he makes the point that cultures on all continents have had an appreciation of the beauty of flowers, what he calls a 'floriculture,' except for Africa. Africans, for many of whom subsistence is still a way of life, can't afford to extol flowers. As Pollan notes, when Africans write about flowers, ' . . . it is with an eye to the promise of fruit, rather than of the thing itself.' Thus Adichie's purple hibiscus is understood as frivolous, wasteful, and rebellious.

Purple Hibiscus was three years ago. Adichie's second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, is due out soon. It deals to an even greater extent with the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960's, and should put this young author's skills to the test. I await it with glee.

It also serves to remind me how much I count on authors from all over the world to keep me in good literature. Perhaps there was a time when you could read only the books written in your own country and consider yourself well read, but I fear that time has long passed. I probably read as many books in translation from authors in Europe, Asia, Africa and the rest of the world as I do books written in the United States. I’d be interested to hear what authors other people like to read in translation.