By the Book with Belle

This morning I read a New York Times interview with one of my favorite authors Bill Bryson. The Q&A was in the newspaper's By The Book feature (here). As you might imagine the interviewees answer questions about what they are reading, what authors have influenced them, and other bookish inquiries. Past authors have included Sue Grafton, Simon Winchester, and David McCullough plus many many more. (Where have I been that I am just now discovering this column?)

Anyway, as I have no book to report on at this minute, I thought I would interview myself based on the Bryson interview. (I hope that I am not breaking any copyright laws by doing so!)

What books are currently on your nightstand?
I am reading on my Kindle Losing Ground by Catherine Aird and I have a paperback edition of The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald that is gathering dust as it has been there for so long. 

What's the last great book you read?
Carolina Writers at Home is tremendous. A collection of essays by many authors I was not familiar with. And it has these wonderful brooding, sepia-toned photographs.

Which writers, poets, journalists working today do you admire most?
Alexander McCall Smith, Bill Bryson, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins,
Anne Fadiman, Alain de Botton, Michael Dirda, Annie Dillard.

Who are your favorite travel writers and what is your favorite travel book?
Bill Bryson certainly comes to mind. I am sure I would get along with Patrick Leigh Fermor although I have yet to get my hands on any of his books. 

Which genres do you especially enjoy reading?
Mystery, vintage children's books (because my own childhood reading was somehow neglected), the humor of Dave Barry and James Thurber. Books about books.

Which do you avoid?
Anything too violent, romance novels, science fiction, pretentious literary fiction.

What was the last book that made you cry?
The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith. Not that it was sad, but his characters are so touching.

The last book that made you laugh?
Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs. He always makes me laugh.

The last book that made you furious?
Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion by David Brinkley. A lesson in how American political shenanigans never change.

Favorite poems?
"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver. "Forgetfulness" by Billy Collins. Together these two poems could save the world.

Your favorite movie adaption of a book?
To Kill a Mockingbird. I am also very fond of the television productions of Lark Rise to Candleford and Cranford.

Who is your favorite fictional heroine or hero?
I must say that I adore Mma Precious Ramostwe and I hope that somewhere in the world there lives a woman just like her. And of course Nancy Drew set me off to a lifetime of reading mysteries. And I mustn't leave out brave Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Your favorite anti-hero or villian?
Well, I wouldn't call him a favorite, but I sure wouldn't want to meet Oliver Twist's bully Bill Sikes in a dark alley.

What kind of reader were you as a child? 
I was slow to enter the world of books. My second grade teacher sent home a note to my parents that I needed to read more for enjoyment. She would be so proud now!

What childhood books or authors stick with you most? 
The Nancy Drew mysteries and the tales of Mary Stewart and Daphne duMaurier. Also, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink. As an adult I discovered Ms. Brink's The Pink Motel and was swept away by it.

If you had to name one book that made you what you are today, what would it be?
Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck. I read it when I was a junior in high school and it made me want to become a writer. And I did.

What author, living or dead, would you most like to meet?
I can't pick just one: E.B. White for his words, Agatha Christie for her plots, and P.G. Wodehouse for his characters.

What was the last book you put down without finishing?
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray and Little Face by Sophie Hannah. The titles both showed up recently on a list of mysteries to read but I couldn't get into either one. 

Of the books you've written, which is your favorite?
Well, unlike Mr. Bryson, I haven't written any books but as for my over 800 blog posts I would have to choose the ones about my literary adventures (The Grand Southern Literary Tours, One and Two) and my accounts of meeting various authors. 

Whom would you like to write your life story?
Bill Bryson. He would be able to take the jumble of my journals and turn them into a humorous tale.

In Which I Take a Look at the Books That Guided Me Through 2014

This is the time of year when book bloggers and magazines and newspapers are touting their Best Of lists. I, however, am going to take a different slant on my reading for the year 2014.  

Here you have Belle's Book Guide, a look at a few books that especially entertained and guided me through the year.

To begin with, for a total education I could have just read and re-read two books: Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel which covers everything from literature to history to art, and, yes, a few travel destinations along the way, and The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel which offers shelves full of architecture, histories of private and public libraries and their patrons, lost books, burned books, and a community of international authors.

Here are other BOOKS that made up my reading list this year and what they brought to my life:

Beauty: The Southerner's Handbook celebrates the beauty of what makes Southerners Southern and gave me insights into my own below-the-Mason-Dixon line heritage. These were well-written essays collected by the editors of Garden and Gun magazine on everything from sweet tea and barbecue to the Great Southern Novel and the Art of Wearing Pearls.

Anytime I read one of Peter Mayle's novels set in France - this year it was Chasing Cezanne - I know I am in for a sensory extravaganza. He not only paints for me the landscape and architecture of the region but also the glories of food and drink and the pleasures of the table. Delicious.

Observation: Reading books such as Delight by J.B. Priestly and A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries by Thomas Mallon remind me to slow down and take a good look at everyday pleasures and to be mindful of recording them in my own journal. Also, dipping into the wacky worlds of  Dave Barry (You Can Date When You're Forty) and Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods) and reading their close observations and experiments with life keep me from taking things too seriously.

In Still Writing by Dani Shapiro, I observed a writer at work and also felt as if I had spent time with and gotten to know a new friend. Her look at her own writing practice with its perils and pleasures is a must-read for anyone looking to jump start her creative life. 

Obfuscation: Of the over one hundred books I read this year more than 40 of them were mysteries/suspense/thriller novels. I do love a puzzle. These were books ranging from the old school Agatha Christie's The Body in the Library to the new school world of Tim Hallinan's witty burglar Junior Bender. It takes a clever author to hide clues in plain sight and yet keep me guessing.

Kindness: Unlike the murder and mayhem found in the books above, kindness and good spirits abound in The All-Girls' Filling Station Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg; the ever delightful 84,
Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff; and, my favorite of the year, The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink. In each of these books the kindnesses of strangers and the affection of the characters for each other (including dogs and blue jays) encourage one to just Be Kind.

Simplicity, Solitude, Silence: There are a dearth of books telling me how to pack more into and organize every nanosecond of my days. I, however, prefer to live a life with broad margins. I aim to leave time between activities - whether chores and errands or the more contemplative ones of painting and writing. Here are the books that inspired me this past year: Shelter for the Spirit by Victoria Moran; two by Elaine St. James, Simplify Your Life and Living the Simple Life; and the first two 'shells' (her chapters on solitude and simplicity) in Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea.

For the complete list (to date) of my shelf full of books for 2014, browse here.

Now, what books guided you through the year?

How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors Edited by Dan Crowe and Philip Ottermann

So many of us Bookish Ones love to read about writers and catch glimpses of the places they work. We want to make pilgrimages to their homes and visit literary sites. We wish to stand next to a favorite writer's desk. Browse his bookshelves. Breathe in the atmosphere of the room where she created. 

I have written before on books that feature writers and their desks: The Writer's Desk (here) and Writers of the American South (here).

But this book, How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors edited by Dan Crowe and Philip Ottermann, is a closeup look at what objects authors keep on their desks or in their studies or on their walls that spur their creativity. It is about the talismans they hold close at hand for inspiration...or luck. 

The editors asked sixty-seven writers to respond to the following question: 

Can you think for a minute about which object, picture, or 

document in your study reveals most about the 

relationship between living and writing, and then 

send it to us? 

What the editors ended up with, and what are presented in such an attractive, graphically-designed book, are short vignettes written by the individual writers musing on their choices.

For Alain de Botton it is his entire desk that runs along two walls of his office in London and is "a good five meters of solid Canadian oak." The size, he writes, enables him to spread and pile books and papers without "generating a feeling of chaos."

American novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt writes about the metal ring of seven keys containing the label "unknown keys" written in her father's hand. They are a reminder not only of her father but of the act of unlocking the "dream spaces of fiction."

British novelist and journalist Will Self  jots down ideas, observations, and bits of dialogue on yellow Post-it notes and sticks them on the wall. Notice the plural. The accompanying photo in the book shows not just one or two, but hundreds of the little yellow squares covering his study walls.

Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife) keeps on her desk a small, white plaster saint's head that she bought in San Francisco. It reminds her "to believe that eventually the words will come out right."

Joyce Carol Oates writes that she is surrounded by numerous works of art in her study. Her favorite piece, though, is the above portrait of her that was done by Gloria Vanderbilt.

Oh, this is an extremely fascinating book. It doesn't matter that I am not familiar with all of the authors as each story is a treat to read. The photos and graphics leave no question that creativity abounds not only with the authors writing about their inspiring bits and bobs but also with the designers of the book.

I have already paged through the volume many times and tend to dip in and out of it. It comes with its own red ribbon bookmark which is helpful for these random readings. I still have two more renewals before my library will call it back home. The book appears to be out of print but, as always, it is available somewhere online or maybe I will be lucky enough to find it at a secondhand book shop.

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

How Proust Can Change Your Life

by

Alain de Botton

If you have heard of Marcel Proust raise your right hand. If you have read his In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) raise your left hand. How many of you have two hands in the air? Just as I thought. Like many of you, I only have my right hand up.

But now, after reading Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, I am ready to take steps so that I can proudly raise both hands should those questions be put to me in the future.

Sometimes we just need to know what things are about and this is where de Botton is a big help.  His book gave me not only information about this eccentric Frenchman, but also a sampling of his writings so I have a heads-up on what I would be getting into in reading his seven-volume novel - which eventually came to contain more than a million and a quarter words. 

The volumes were published in between 1913 and 1927. The final three volumes were published posthumously.  

I learned that Proust was from a well-to-do family, was a bit of a momma's boy, had asthma, was known to wear a fur coat at the dinner table, was generous with his friends, and spent the final years of his life writing in bed. The one time he did go out, his last, he caught a chill which turned into pneumonia and he died. He was 51.

Employing generous quotes from Proust, de Botton takes a look at friendship, romance, food, books, suffering, grief, and art. Along the way the reader learns from Proust how to open one's eyes, take one's time, and notice what others miss in their hurry to get on with life.

After reading In Search of Lost Time, de Botton promises:  

Our attention will be drawn to the shades of the sky, to the changeability of a face, to the hypocrisy of a friend, or to a submerged sadness about a situation which we had previously not even known we could feel sad about. The book will have sensitized us, stimulated our dormant antennae by evidence of its own developed sensitivity.

In the past, I have been put off reading Proust for I was intimidated by the novel's length and wandering, weaving sentences. And I wonder if I really want to read Proust's work or read more about Proust. Perhaps, from what I have read, they are the same. 

But, in search of the former, I find that Amazon offers a Kindle edition (translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff) of all seven volumes for $2.99 or on Amazon.co.uk for £1.53. How handy it will be to have M. Marcel Proust in my back pocket.

In Which I Binge on Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton

(this photo was published in The Telegraph 

but no photographer credit was given)

I have been binge-reading the writings of Alain de Botton. After re-reading The Art of Travel (which I wrote about here) and thanks to my public library and my Kindle I have downloaded and read four of his insightful books one right after the other. And I am working on number five with number six in the queue.

It has been quite a journey.

De Botton is a philosopher of everyday life. His books take a look at architecture, religion, literature, work, art, travel, the news. He asks the reader to reflect on the classic principles and lessons in these areas which have worked and can continue to work in our current lives. What do we want from this building, this book, this painting?  What can we learn from them? Are they doing us any good?

After this whirlwind of heady reading I feel as if I have had an entire four-year education. I am sure I am much smarter than I was when I began this affair.

In order, here are the subjects I have been exploring thanks to Alain de Botton:

The Architecture of Happiness (2006)
I read this in preparation for a weekend trip to Columbus, Indiana which is somewhat of an architectural mecca not an hour's drive north of me. Mr. de Botton's thoughts on how our buildings and spaces - their beauty or their soullessness - affect how we feel and thrive offered me a way to look at the halls and walls that I was viewing. 

Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion (2013)
I learned quite a lot about the ways that institutional religions have been successful in educating their practitioners, building communities, instilling guidelines to a moral life, and their acknowledgment of the value of spending quiet times on retreat. In this book, de Botton wonders how the secular world can make use of institutional religion's ways and wisdoms without accepting their 'supernatural' beliefs. 

The News: A User's Manual (2014)
Atlthough I don't spend much time with either printed or broadcast News, I appreciate his suggestion that there might just be a way of presenting the multitude of tragedies, natural disasters, crimes, political and world events in a format that enhances our lives instead of just scaring us or leaving us feeling uncaring. Even our focus on the lives of celebrities can be useful if only we were shown lives that were thoughtful and well-lived. Think Socrates instead of Paris Hilton.

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009)
This is my favorite after The Art of Travel. Mr. de Botton examines the lives of modern workers.  He stands with the guy on the tuna boat (guaranteeing you will never eat tuna again), hangs out with a skyscraper full of accountants, visits a convention for inventors, talks with an artist who has painted the same tree over and over in season after season, and walks along with an inspector in the land of giant electric pylons noting their strange beauty. Fascinating.

How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel (1997)
I am currently reading this and, as always with Mr. de Botton, I am learning more than his titles suggest. He examines the French author's maddening and brilliant ways and ideas and gives us suggestions on how we might benefit from his life and writings. Chapter titles include How to Suffer Successfully, How to Take Your Time, How to Read for Yourself, and How to Be a Friend. A delight.

On the top of my reading pile:

The Consolations of Philosophy (2000)
Having exhausted the library's e-book collection of Mr. de Botton's works, I got hold of a solid copy of this book which offers solutions to modern day problems through philosophers such as Socrates, Seneca, and Montaigne.  

I find Alain de Botton to be a wonderful companion. He has a sly wit, a comfortable style, and an attention to odd details that I so enjoy. I like the way he uses photos to illustrate the text in his books. He can write a list of dazzling and surprising examples like no other. He makes me Think.

I don't believe I have ever just read one book after another by any other author in this marathon-like way. And to my everlasting delight, I find that there are many videos available, including two of his TED Talks and various documentaries based on his books, on his website (alaindebotton.com). 

To my chagrin, I find that he was in Louisville in March as guest on the Kentucky Author Forum and I totally missed him. Fortunately, though, that interview is available online as well here and I was able to see and listen to him up close.

I still have at least two more books of his that I want to read: Art as Therapy and A Week at the Airport. Binge, binge, binge.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

The Art of Travel (2002) by Alain de Botton is an education in itself.  If you are thinking it is all about how to pack your suitcase, how to breeze through customs, or how to take a cruise and not get seasick, you would be wrong. 

Instead, the book is filled with art, literature, personal experience, poetry, architecture, and adventure. 

I love a book like this.

Pleasing to read, full of information, and just the right size to carry with you on your travels - whether real or armchair.

Mr. de Botton opens each of the five sections of the book with a personal experience about a place he has visited. Thereby we swoop from Barbados to which he escapes from a dreary British winter to England's Lake District and on to Madrid, Provence, and Amsterdam. Our trip also includes musings on the banality and the sterility of airports and motorway rest stops. 

His travel guides, though, are not Baedecker or Fodor but instead the lives and works of, among others, poets William Wordsworth and Charles Baudelaire, artists Edward Hopper and Vincent Van Gogh, author Gustave Flaubert, explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, and art critic John Ruskin. 

Oh, this book, that takes a look at how we travel and why we travel and how perhaps we could get more out of our travels, is a delight. The author examines the disconnect between the promises of the glossy travel brochure and our actual experiences upon arrival at our destination. And how we let someone or something - tour guide or researched tour book - take us to sites that we really have no interest in whereas we might do better to follow our own curiosity. Or how a certain fictional character, Joris-Karl Huysmans' Des Esseintes, found that sitting in a British pub in Paris offers the same atmosphere and experience as a rowdy pub in London without ever having to pack a trunk. 

Yes, I can highly recommend The Art of Travel whether you are preparing for a trip around the world or simply settling in to your armchair. 

Look Homeward, Asheville

Thomas Wolfe home in Asheville, North Carolina.

Circa 1908

I am going on a little trip to Asheville, North Carolina. It is a cozy town in the Blue Ridge Mountains full of arts and food and shops and a castle. Or what passes for a castle in America: The Biltmore Estate, the enormous home built in the late 1800s by George Vanderbilt II, grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. It has something like 250 rooms and acres upon acres of farms, gardens and vineyards.

But I am not going there this time. 

I am just going to poke around the shops and galleries and, you know me, a couple of bookstores. It will be nice to be in the cool mountains for a couple of days.

Also on my agenda is a visit to the home of Thomas Wolfe which is located just a few blocks from my hotel. I have visited it before. At that time it stood as the original boarding house (oddly enough named Old Kentucky Home) that Mr. Wolfe lived in when he was a young man and used for the setting of his novel Look Homeward, Angel. The structure standing today is pretty much a replica as the actual house and many of its original artifacts were extensively damaged by fire (arson) in the late 1990s. 

I know I should be taking a copy of Mr. Wolfe's book but I am not. Instead I will pack my Kindle (I am currently reading Agatha Christie's A Body in the Library) and one hardcover book: The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. I bought and read this book when it first came out in 2002. It not only takes on travel - why we go places and yet are likely to be disappointed once we arrive - but art, biography, history, architecture, and philosophy. Heady stuff. I look forward to reading it again. I like that it has pictures of many of the paintings and places that Mr. de Botton discusses. 

I do believe it will be the perfect traveling companion.

Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be

This is Jonathan Letham - he with the neat bookshelves in yesterday's entry - quoted in Unpacking My Library:

I hate lending, or borrowing -- if you want me to read a book, tell me about it, or buy me a copy outright. Your loaned edition sits in my house like a real grievance. And in lieu of lending books, I buy extra copies of those I want to give away, which gives me the added pleasure of buying books I love again and again.

I surely understand the idea of a borrowed book sitting as a grievance. I have one I borrowed from a neighbor, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, that rests on my bedside table that, honestly, I do want to read, but have just not gotten around to beginning it. I really must give it back.

As for lending books, even though I now have a library lending kit of my own (see it here), I may have learned my lesson. Oddly enough, of all the books that people have borrowed - and never returned - there are two that I wish I still had. I lent Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña to a college dorm mate. Never saw it again. I doubt if I would even want to read it now, but still its loss rankles. Talk about keeping a resentment!

The other book was an early edition of Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan. I have since replaced it with a later edition, but I would like to have my first purchase back on my shelves. Well, just because...

I have one book that I read as a library book, The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. I loved it and bought a copy of to give to a relative. I don't know if she ever read it or not - she said she did but she was prone to saying the nice thing which is different from the true thing. She eventually gave it back to me. I am glad to have it.

Is there a book you have borrowed and never returned that 'sits like a real grievance'? Or are your grieving the loss of a book that you lent to a someone?