LISTMANIA

LISTMANIA from the "My Reading Life" column in the Record Review, May, 2004

Works mentioned in this piece: Trollope's Autobiography, Kon Tiki, Spy Who Came In From the Cold, Women's Room, Name of the Rose, Reference Guide to Book Censorship, Chocolate War, A Wrinkle in Time, A Day No Pigs Would Die, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Native Son, So Many Books, So Little Time, Autobiography of Malcolm X, Madame Bovary, Beloved, Gravity's Rainbow, Leaves of Grass, Seabiscuit, Cider House Rules, East of Eden, Way We Live Now.





LISTMANIA



Some time ago, I began keeping a list of books I’d read and wanted
to remember. Then forgot to add to the list. I also never annotated it,
so I might have a title and an author, but who could remember what
the book was about? It is easier now that I can go online and Google
a book and I can easily access the local library system to find something
I might want to reserve. So maybe the failed list-keeping and the need
for a written list sort of x’d each other out. Still, I find scraps of paper
and post-its and dog-eared clippings that I carry about and sometimes
I do, sometimes I don’t, remember to look at them when I’m at the library
or in a book shop.

In his wonderful "Autobiography," written in 1883, just a year before he
died, Anthony Trollope observed, “That I can read and be happy while
I am reading, is a great blessing. Could I have remembered, as some
men do, what I read, I should have been able to call myself an educated
man. But that power I have never possessed. Something is always left;
something dim and inaccurate – but still something sufficient to preserve
the taste for more. I am inclined to think that it is so with most readers.”

If it is a list you want to jog your memory or to inspire you, go online to
Amazon, say, and find all kinds of lists. When I wrote a recent piece about
“Chick-Lit” I found a guide to at least 20 novels in that genre compiled
by somebody called “Avid Reader” If you feel like it, you can click again
and discover that Avid Reader’s name is “Vicky”. And so on.

The BBC has a book browser site and its “Reading The Decades” is a list
of about 150 books, spanning 1950 through 1989. It begins with "Kon Tiki"
by Thor Heyerdahl, (1950); "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,"
John LeCarré (1963); "The Women’s Room," Marilyn French (1977);
"The Name of The Rose," Umberto Eco (1980); and so on. The BBC sites
have many more lists plus information about reading groups and book discussion opportunities.

The American Library Association is also a good source of lists,
including lists of books banned in the USA. One such list is taken from the
table of contents of Banned in the U.S.A.: "A Reference Guide to Book
Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries" by Herbert Foerstel,
(Greenwood,1994). Most of the 50 books on this list are young
people’s books and it includes Robert Cormier’s "The Chocolate War,"
Madeleine L’Engle’s "A Wrinkle in Time," Robert Peck’s "A Day No Pigs
Would Die," Maya Angelou’s "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,"
and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain. Many of the books
on Foerstel’s list were most frequently challenged between the
years 1990 and 1992 in schools and public libraries. 60% of the
challenges were brought by parents.

The ALA also has a list of challenged and banned books during the
years 1990 and 2000. This 100-title list includes most of the books
on the earlier list, plus a few new ones including a couple by Stephen
King and "Native Son" by Richard Wright.

Judy Blume, whose work always appears on challenge lists, says,
“It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books
that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all
due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real
losers.” I don’t know about you, but if I think for a minute somebody
is telling me I can’t read something, then I’ll definitely make it my
business to read it.

Writer and editor Sara Nelson’s delectable "So Many Books, So Little
Time: A Year Of Passionate Reading" (Putnam’s, 2003), chronicles a
year dedicated to reading. To begin, she set out a list of 52 books
and then started reading, a book a week. The list quickly came apart.
Life, as she describes it, happened. She says, “In reading, as in life, even
if you know what you’re doing, you really kind of don’t.” Her original
list began with "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," went on
alphabetically to "Madame Bovary," by Balzac, "Beloved" by Toni
Morrison, "Gravity’s Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon, "Leaves of Grass"
by Walt Whitman and so on.

Each chapter in her book describes Nelson’s everyday life through
reading during the year. As an appendix, Nelson includes the
annotated list of books she actually did read which numbered a lot
more than 52, although not all of them made it onto her list. Some
she forgot to list or lost track of.

Sara Nelson also lists what is in “The Must-Read Pile” on her
bedside table. Among the titles: "Seabiscuit," "The Cider House
Rules," "East of Eden," and Trollope’s "The Way We Live Now."

"So Many Books," is, of course, a book I wish I had written myself.
It has just the right blend of life and literature and it speaks to those
of us who are crazy for books and maybe even crazier for book lists.


* * *
Elinore Standard is the co-editor, along with Laura Furman, of
"Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading."
( Carroll & Graf, 1997.)