Books for 2009

I strongly believe that the number of books one reads in a year is less relevant than what one remembers of them by the end of it. So, what do I remember of my reading for 2009?

I read more fiction and narrative than usual, so vivid images and characters remain in my mind: A childlike man rowing a boat on a lake as he imagines his own magical and unsupportable reality, and another lying injured and exposed on an arctic plateau for months. A woman whose impetuosity is polished by faith into courage as she suffers from the echoes of a youthful indiscretion. Because much of my fiction this year had a Norwegian or Scandinavian setting, I imagine scenes of sunlight slanting wanly on snowy mountains in winter, tiny isolated villages in which the women knit and the men ski and cut wood, with echoes loneliness and paganism.

As for the non-fiction I'm realizing that it takes a lot these days to make a light, topical book like In Defense of Food or Under Pressure memorable for me. I've been reading this type of book for so long now that many of the principles in them are running together. They are good principles, but these books often originate as good journalistic essays which are then expanded beyond their scope and don't satisfy as full-length books. Still, they usually read fast, and I like the genre that tries to make some sense of modern life in its current iterations, so I will continue to look for good examples. I wonder, though, how much our present publishing practices are to blame for watered down topical non-fiction.

Paul Johnson's history books, despite being 1000 pages each, are never an example of watered-down writing. Johnson's strength is presenting broad themes amidst thousands of details and biographical anecdotes. From A History of the American People I remember in particular the image of Thomas Jefferson at his desk as President, available to take on any and all visitors. That is about as clear a picture of how our country has changed during its history as any I can imagine.

And then there are the classics. I always try to read a few each year. Some of them were hard to get through in doctors' waiting rooms or in between homeschooling and homemaking, but even if they aren't "fun" at the time, they leave an impression that is worth the effort. Most of them should be read again, but realistically, I know that not all of them will be.

I had to take the end of Augustine's Confessions one sentence at a time. It was almost pure philosophy, but produced a state of mind that was clear and appreciative of every elementary aspect of existence.

Shakespeare is, well, Shakespeare. Seeing his plays produced in Central Park is one of the highlights of our summer, so one or all of us usually reads the featured play. This year I'm really enjoying my new HEM CD of the songs from Twelfth Night, as performed in the Delacorte Theatre production this summer. And CZ is playing them on her fiddle and new Irish flute. Last night we got to talking about how so many of the song lyrics in this comedy are about mortality. Thinking about the whole scope of life while the play leads up to a wedding is surprisingly invigorating and moving, not morbid.

What I appreciated most about The Education of Henry Adams was his first person accounts of the events and people of his time, related not from the 30,000 foot perspective of history, but seemingly as they were unfolding. (This was not actually the case, because he wrote the book many years after the most of the events, but his descriptions are still fresh.) His philosophy seemed cynical, more obscure, and was somewhat lost on me. I read up on it in Wikipedia, but it didn't interest me as much as the historical vignettes.

I was startled at the transparent arrogance and childishness of James Watson in The Double Helix. People should read this book only if to realize that famous scientists aren't always the superheroes that we make them out to be. But I learned a something about chemistry, too.

Uncle Tom's Cabin wasn't about an obsequious slave as I'd been led to believe. It was about a man with strong Christian faith, but the writing was almost so sentimental as to detract from Tom's piety. I read this book only out of solidarity, because CZ had to read it over Christmas for a class. But I'm glad I did, because I had misunderstood the book.

And then there's I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which makes the excellent point that people should probably carefully consider what their motives are in dating when they're nowhere near ready to marry. I could hardly get through the intensity of Harris's writing; It makes me glad I'm not twenty-one anymore. But the longer I live, the more I thank God for my husband and also realize that Harris is basically right.

Here's the full list. I have decided to make this a yearly tradition, because it gives me somewhere to put the list that's usually growing on my sidebar during the year:

All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes, Kenneth Myers (second time)

An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The Lord of the Flies, William Golding

In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan

Confessions, St. Augustine

Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino

Chance, Joseph Conrad

Montaigne, Selected Essays, "On the Education of Children" (not whole book)

Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath, Sigrid Undset

Keeping House, Margaret Kim Peterson

Mindset, Carol Dweck

Dumbing Us Down, John Taylor Gatto (second time)

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife, Sigrid Undset

Under Pressure, Carl Honore

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross, Sigrid Undset

Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew Crawford

Nightbirds on Nantucket, Joan Aiken

A Room with a View, E.M. Forster

The Education of Henry Adams

Distracted, Maggie Jackson

The Birds, Tarjei Vesaas

Do Hard Things, Alex and Brett Harris

For the Children's Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Memoir on Pauperism, by Alexis de Tocqueville (booklet)

A History of the American People, Paul Johnson

We Die Alone, David Howarth

Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper

Hundred Dollar Holiday, Bill McKibben

ISI Student Guides, various authors and lengths

The Snoring Bird, Bernd Heinrich

I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Joshua Harris

Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Double Helix, James Watson