Reading

Talking about books and writers.

Make me care. I dare you.

/ lynnkanter / 3 Comments
Photo by David McSpadden

Photo by David McSpadden

Over the years I’ve read and cherished many books that speak directly to my interests. A brief glance at my bookshelves reveals a few examples.

Fiction

  • People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
  • American Woman by Susan Choi
  • The Hours by Michael Cunningham
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  • Is This Tomorrow? by Caroline Leavitt
  • Sleep Toward Heaven by Amanda Eyre Ward

Nonfiction

  • Notes from No Man’s Land by Eula Biss
  • Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
  • Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
  • The Temple Bombing by Melissa Fay Greene
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
  • The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

It was easy for these authors to woo me as a reader. They wrote about topics in which I was already intensely interested.

But the kind of literary seduction I love most is when writers, through the power of their words and ideas, force me to care about issues or stories that hold no intrinsic attraction for me.

You made me love you. I didn’t want to do it.

The novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is one example. Thomas Cromwell? Henry VIII? Meh. But her writing drew me in immediately, and I devoured all three books in the series. Other examples include the novel Doc by Mary Doria Russell, the biography Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, and pretty much anything ever written by John McPhee.

Recently I’ve encountered two nonfiction books that fall into the category of literary seductions.

My latest literary seductions

One is Home Fires by Donald Katz. (Yes, audiobook lovers, that Donald Katz – the one who founded Audible.com. He had a distinguished career as a writer before he got the crazy idea that people would buy audiobooks over the Internet.)

At first glance I thought: 640 pages that chronicle four decades in the life of a Jewish family in America? No thanks; I have a Jewish family of my own. But in fact the book is riveting, and illuminated much about the decades of social and political upheaval everyone my age has lived through.

Another seductive book is The Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson. The fact is, I don’t care about the soil (although I like to eat – and breathe). I come from generations of apartment dwellers, and I have never gotten the hang of gardening. But Kristin’s sparkling writing and clear, persuasive case compelled me to care – and made me understand both the promise and the stakes of what she called “our great green hope.” Full disclosure: Kristin is a friend of mine. But I read and loved her first nonfiction book, Stalking the Divine, (another seducer) long before I met her.

Why are we talking about this anyway?

I started thinking about this question of books you end up loving despite yourself because of a minor controversy I’d been hearing about on Facebook and Twitter. Apparently some guy wrote an article about how attractive 42-year-old women are. Many women writers thought the article was hilarious, and not in a good way.

If you held a contest to find a topic I would pay good money NOT to read about, the question of how middle-aged men perceive 42-year-old women would be a sure winner. The only way to make me care about it less would be to fold in something about sports or the stock market.

Yet I read an essay by a writer named Julie Checkoway that was a response to the original article, and her essay was so funny, wise and beautifully written that I’m still thinking about it, days later. Her essay may not qualify as a full-fledged literary seduction, because I still have zero interest in the original article or the kerfuffle it sparked. But I am grateful that the utterly boring controversy led me to discover her as a writer.

Guilty pleasures

Have you been seduced by a book that at first appeared totally unsuitable for you? Do tell.

 

 

A quote to savor

/ lynnkanter / Leave a comment

“… that dark grope toward truth that lies at the heart of being human.”

This resonant quote is from The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle by Sara Wheeler. In my opinion the phrase can stand on its own, but it is excerpted from Wheeler’s longer description of the Solovki islands in the White Sea.

For me the phrase has meaning that transcends its context. It has haunted me since I read it a few years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if it means something different to each reader.

A quote to savor on a Sunday afternoon.

Photo by CubaGallery


Photo by CubaGallery

The first line – Revealed!

/ lynnkanter / 3 Comments
Three sharp red pencils.

Let’s begin.
(Photo by Horia Varlan.)

Last week I invited folks to identify ten novels written by women, based only on the first line of the novel. Many people identified several of the novels, but no one knew them all. (Neither would I.)

Here are the answers

1. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish onboard.”

Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

2. “They shoot the white girl first.”

Paradise by Toni Morrison

3. “It began the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel.”

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

4. “That night when he came to claim her, he stood on the short lawn before her house, his knees bent, his fists driven into his thighs, and bellowed her name with such passion that even the friends who surrounded him, who had come to support him, to drag her from the house, to murder her family if they had to, let the chains the carried go limp in their hands.”

That Night by Alice McDermott

5. “Dear God, I am fourteen years old.”

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

6. “Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, the lack of a smell, that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew well had all smelled distinctly.”

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

7. “’Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ said Mrs. Ramsay.”

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

8. “I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old.”

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

9. “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.”

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

10. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

And the winner is…

Jan Elman Stout identified the most books: six of the ten titles (numbers 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8). She will be the proud owner of Egg Heaven, a collection of powerful and haunting short stories by the award-winning writer Robin Parks.

The book will be published October 1. You can preview it here. Congratulations, Jan!

 

The first line

/ lynnkanter / 4 Comments
Photo: jason-denys

Photo: jason-denys

They say the first line of a novel is supposed to tell you all you need to know about the book and the reading experience ahead of you. (Is that true? Beats me. You know how they are always going around saying things.)

But it did make me think. And what I thought was: Let’s have a contest!

 A contest!

I’ll list the first line of ten novels I loved. Let’s see how many of the novels you can identify based only on the first line. Of course, you could simply google the lines and figure out all ten, but where’s the fun in that?

There’s a prize

The first person who correctly identifies the most titles will win a copy of Egg Heaven, a collection of gorgeous short stories by the award-winning writer Robin Parks. It’s the first book that will be published by Shade Mountain Press, which a month later will publish my novel. Egg Heaven will be available in October; you can preview it here.

The first lines

1. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish onboard.”

2. “They shoot the white girl first.”

3. “It began the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel.”

4. “That night when he came to claim her, he stood on the short lawn before her house, his knees bent, his fists driven into his thighs, and bellowed her name with such passion that even the friends who surrounded him, who had come to support him, to drag her from the house, to murder her family if they had to, let the chains the carried go limp in their hands.”

5. “Dear God, I am fourteen years old.”

6. “Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemelu liked the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, the lack of a smell, that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew well had all smelled distinctly.”

7. “’Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ said Mrs. Ramsay.”

8. “I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old.”

9. “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.”

10. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Here’s a hint

These are all women writers.

The deadline is Sunday, June 8. Ready? Guess.