Abbreviated reading list for 2009

For the last two years I have selected a dozen books to be my "must-read" choices for the year. It has worked well, allowing me to look forward to one particular book each month, and giving me time to read other books I see or hear about, too. Often the twelve books I've chosen have inspired me to look for other books by the same authors, or more books on the same topic.

Here's my reading list for 2009:


1. What's So Great about Christianity?" by Dinesh D'Souza. I've read several books and many articles by Mr. D'Souza and found them all thought-provoking. This looks like it will be good.


2. A World Lost by Wendell Berry. This past year I read three books by Wendell Berry and am now an unabashed fan.


3. The Story of Edger Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. Long before Oprah picked this for her book club, I read a review in the Sunday newspaper book section that made this novel sound very interesting. I bought the book and then tried to convince our local book club to read it. We will read it this year. I can't wait.



4. Waiting for the Weekend by Witold Rybczynski. Everything I've read by Mr. Rybczynski has been good enough to recommend and loan to other readers.



5. These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer. In my opinion, Georgette Heyer is the only worthy successor to Jane Austen. Her Regency novels read like Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, and Emma without being second-rate sequels.




6. Fishing for Gold: The Story of Alabama's Catfish Industry by Karni R. Perez. I saw this at PaperBackSwap and requested it. I know nothing about it, but I grew up near the Auburn University Fisheries and knew quite a few international students through the years who came to Auburn to learn how to "grow fish" for their homelands. It looks odd, but interesting.


7. 1700: Scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller. Last year I read London 1945 by Maureen Waller and I enjoyed it and started looking for more of her books.



8. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. While Penny and I were on our spinning trip last fall I read a review of this book in USA Today. The next day we went to a book store and I bought it. The trick will be waiting to read it.



9. First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps by Victor H. Krulak. This book by General Krulak has been in my "to read" pile for a couple of years. This is probably a book I should have read as a young Marine bride. Better late than never!



10. A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World by Nicholas A. Basbanes. I love Nicholas Basbanes's books. What could be better than reading about books and reading?



11. The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder. I bought this last year as one of Joan's science books, but I really wanted to read it myself. (That's one of the bonuses of homeschooling.)


12. The American Senator by Anthony Trollope. Trollope was a contemporary of Charles Dickens. His books are generally set in the country rather than the city, and they are social and political commentaries with usually a romantic story thrown in. His novels are lighter and generally happier than anything by Dickens.

Waiting for the Weekend

I chose Waiting for the Weekend by Witold Rybczynski as the April book for my 2009 reading list.

While I did start reading it in April, I just now finished it. It was not as gripping as several other of Mr. Rybczynski's books that I've read and it took me a few chapters of reading before I was really interested in the subject matter: the weekend. Leisure time isn't a subject one generally wants to spend much time or energy contemplating, unless one is planning the activities for the weekend - and that's where the book gets interesting.

What I take for granted was not always in existence. The two-day weekend of Saturday and Sunday is a very recent innovation. Various nations and cultures throughout history have had holidays, festival days, and religious celebrations, but typically those particular days had their own rules and activities. The idea of a day or days to what one wants - or choose to do nothing - is modern and was helped into being by a confluence of several things - at least, Rybczynski makes a good argument for them: the Industrial Revolution; labor unions; the automobile as personal transportation; and solitary reading.

"The privatization of reading has been called one of the major cultural developments of the early modern era. It was also a milestone in the history of leisure. Solitary reading is the ideal vehicle for individual leisure. The reader can do something--or nothing. He can pick up one book or another. He sets the pace, reading uninterruptedly or leafing through a book at random, letting his imagination free to make what connections it will. Reading requires long periods of calm--at the comfortable rate of two hundred words a minute, it takes about fifteen hours to complete a typical novel. Reflection, contemplation, privacy, and solitude are associated with reading books. And withdrawal. Both withdrawal from the world around one, from the cares of everyday life, and withdrawal into oneself."

This book ended better than it began - sort of like the weekend after the work-week.

These Old Shades

One of the books on my reading list for 2009 was a novel by Georgette Heyer, These Old Shades.

Unlike previous novels by Heyer that I've read, this one was set in France, rather than England. It involves a dissipated duke, intent on revenge, and a case of mistaken - or possibly, changed - identity. I found it somewhat similar to some of Shakespeare's comedies with touch of Pygmalion.

Good diversionary reading for summer.

The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change

On my 2009 reading list I accidentally posted the 2nd edition of this book as the one I was to read. My copy of this book by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark and British science writer Nigel Calder is the first edition, The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change.

This was the best non-fiction book I read last year. It's interesting and understandable for the non-scientific lay-person (and it has pictures and graphs!).

From the back cover:

"A deftly written and enjoyable read, The Chilling Stars outlines a brilliant, daring and undoubtedly controversial new theory that will provoke fresh thinking about global warming.

As prize-winning science writer Nigel Calder and climate physicist Henrik Svensmark explain, an interplay of the clouds, the Sun and cosmic rays -- sub-atomic particles from exploded stars -- seems to have more effect on the climate than man-made carbon dioxide.

This conclusion stems from Svensmark's research at the Danish National Space Center which has recently shown that cosmic rays play an unsuspected role in making our everyday clouds. And during the last 100 years cosmic rays became scarcer because unusually vigorous action by the Sun batted many of them away. Fewer cosmic rays meant fewer clouds and a warmer world.

The theory, simply put here but explained in fascinating detail in the book, emerges at a time of intense public and political debate about climate change. Motivated only by their concern that science must be trustworthy, Svensmark and Calder invite their readers to put aside their preconceptions about man-made global warming and look afresh at the role of Nature in this hottest of world issues."

I read this book the first week in December, then saw this article in The Telegraph while the Copenhagen climate summit was going on. It made me even happier that I'd decided to read The Chilling Stars.

Did I mention that this was my favorite non-fiction book this year? I'm recommending it to everyone as a must-read.

The American Senator

Anthony Trollope's book, The American Senator was my final selection for my 2009 reading list. It was probably my favorite novel read this year.

The title is a bit misleading. It refers to one of the characters, but not the main character. However, through the eyes of this visiting American senator Trollope is able to gently ridicule some British habits and customs of his day. I think the title was appropriate - the senator's wonder and astonishment provide a good bit of the comedy in the story.

The main story is of a woman, Arabella, looking for a suitable husband. She is ruthless in her quest, yet the reader is also made to feel sorry for her. At the same time, another young woman is trying to avoid marriage to a nice man, suitable for marriage, but not suitable for her.

Trollope deftly weaves the stories together, keeps the reader engaged and amused, and ties it all up neatly in the end.

I love Trollope.

First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps

First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps by Victor H. Krulak was on my 2009 reading list.

It's a brief, very readable history of the USMC, with more emphasis on the struggles the Marine Corps has faced to survive as a separate military entity than on the early years. Krulak gives an insider's view of the various attempts by the other branches of service to absorb or eradicate the Marines, but his writing isn't whiny or full of fault-finding.

Made me proud of my Marines.

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

Elizabeth McCracken's memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination was on my 2009 reading list. I read it back in the summer and enjoyed it.

Yes, it's a sad book. The writer met a man, married him, lived happily, got pregnant - and the baby was stillborn. That's sad. But her thoughts and actions made sense, and she wrote well. Thankfully, it is not a long book. Otherwise it might be too hard to read.

I was glad to find out that she's since had two more children, and they are alive and well.

1700

1700 by Maureen Waller was on my 2009 reading list. I read it, but I did not like it. It was nothing like London 1945.

Nasty, brutish, and short. That about sums up life in London in 1700. Immorality and excesses of every kind imaginable contributed to disease and crime. At the end of the book I was amazed to think that anyone survived such a cesspool long enough to father successive generations. It was a very depressing book.

If you want to read a book by Maureen Waller, skip this one and read London 1945 instead.

Fishing for Gold: The Story of Alabama's Catfish Industry

I found Karni Perez's book, Fishing for Gold: The Story of Alabama's Catfish Industry by accident while browsing PaperBackSwap one day. I requested it and put it on my 2009 reading list.

It is an interesting and thorough history, and I recognized some of the names of the people who pioneered the industry in Alabama, and those at Auburn University whose research aided the farmers. Would anyone else read this book? I don't know. I'm not a fisherman, nor am I a farmer, but the book really was more of a story than a compilation of data. It reminded me of Wendell Berry's fiction.

From the chapter, Reflections:

"Alabama's catfish industry has some unique qualities. For one, it is family-based. Alabama's farms are operated typically by the farmers rather than by hired managers. Farmers and family do much of the work themselves. This has strengthened the Alabama industry because the farmers care about their work and about making it succeed."

"...[T]he farmers want to continue living in a rural environment, on the land that, in many cases, has belonged to their family in a tradition of farming... Consider, for example, what one West Alabama farmer expresses: 'I loved the site where the ponds were built. I liked being down there. We were on a running creek with a little sand on it. I'd grown up in the prairie, and I was fascinated with the site. And I've always loved water, so I liked the idea of these vast areas of water. Back then, a ten-acre pond was a tremendous body of water, and I loved seeing that.' "

"Farmers working the land on which they live develop a knowledge of the land and a relationship with it, a feeling for the natural conditions... [A]n experienced farmer can probably walk out of the house in the morning, smell the air, and know how much his fish are going to eat. Living in rural areas, they also possess an independence and resourcefulness that comes from having dealt with and solved all kinds of problems on the farm from day to day."

(This next part struck me as something with which Wendell Berry would agree.)
"Second, Alabama's industry is also community-based. Fish production, processing, and sales all take place generally in the same communities. The farmers tend to live within a close area and see each other frequently. Most appear to be active in their communities. Often they are friends, go to church together, go to school functions together, play ball together, and watch their children play ball together. Members of the small farming communities generally know much of what their neighbors are doing. Researchers have found that word-of-mouth is a primary way in which ideas and information travel in agrarian communities, and when a farmer made money with his ponds or increased his acreage, the word spread quickly."

"Benefits occur when an industry is anchored solidly within a community. One such benefit is the informal resolution of conflicts and problems that might otherwise be disruptive and destructive to both the industry and the community. Years of associating with each other as peers in a variety of contexts tends to result in a certain level of trust."