Reading One Book One Hundred Times

I read with interest a piece written by Stephen Marche and published in The Guardian this past week. In it Mr. Marche states that there are two books that he has read at least one hundred times. 

The first is Shakespeare's Hamlet full of murder and madness. The second is P.G. Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves full of merriment and mirth. The first he read for his dissertation and the second for his amusement. 

He calls this centireading and writes about the process: By the time you read something more than a hundred times, you've passed well beyond "knowing how it turns out". The next sentence is known before the sentence you're reading is finished. 

Here is the link to the original article if you would like to take a look.

Of course, this got me to thinking of books that I have read multiple times. There are not that many. And are there any - or even one - I might be willing to read one hundred times?

I went to my shelves.

The first one that I saw that I might consider was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It is so beautifully written and the characters are so dear and I have read it at least three times so I would be on my way.

Or what about 84, Charing Cross Road? That one by Helene Hanff I have read at least five times. Then there is On Writing Well by William Zinsser, a fine treatise on writing non-fiction that I have read four or five times at least. 

But three or four or even five times is a far cry from one hundred. I must say that I feel a tiny tingle of excitement considering the prospect of choosing a book and reading it over and over. I think it would have to be a small book - 200 pages or so. Or perhaps I could find a book with a mere 100 pages and read it one hundred times.

84, Charing Cross Road fits that bill at 97 pages. My copy of To Kill a Mockingbird is 323 pages, and my third edition of On Writing Well runs to 238 pages.

Knowing my fondness for essays, perhaps I should consider the Essays of Elia, by Charles Lamb. I have a copy that contains the original twenty-eight essays first published in 1823. If I read an essay a day I could finish the book in that number of days which means I would have read the book thirteen times by the end of a year. I can't do any more math but I still would be a long way from one hundred.

How long before I grew weary of the words? Would I even live long enough to read a book that many times? If I read the same book once a month it would take me over eight years to reach my goal.

Would you care to chime in on this? Is this idea just too weird to even contemplate? If you would attempt to read one book one hundred times, what would it be? 

Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair?

My Grand Southern Literary Tour traveling companion Rose and I managed to go to two fairs today. The first was the State Fair where we looked at quilts, cakes, watercolors and photographs, painted china, sculptures, and decorated Christmas trees until out knees and feet gave out.

Over lunch, somehow one of us mentioned the book fair held this weekend at an historic home here and off we went. Much more dangerous than riding a roller coaster on the midway.

I ran into two fellows that I had worked with in an independent bookstore in the '90s. A couple of years ago and after a good fight, that bookstore went the way of so many, but these guys were still in the business. One has always had a used book and out-of-print concern going and the other buys remainders. They were helping out at this book fair and it was great to see them again.

I have been to the public library's twice-a-year book sale many times. It has gotten very big and tiresome. Too many tables, piles, boxes, and people. Today's sale was quite manageable and of course within the hour I walked out with a stack.

Here is the haul:
One Man's Meat by E.B. White which replaces my paperback edition and is #8 on my List of 10. It is inscribed to: Ruth Ferguson Smythe - For Christmas 1944 - From Fred. I hope she enjoyed it.

The Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb and a copy of Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and his sister Mary Lamb. I had just written about them here. It seemed fortuitous that these two books were for sale.

Another hardback to replace my paperback copy of The Art of the Personal Essay edited by Phillip Lopate. This is a very thick book, some 777 pages, and very difficult to read in paperback form. I actually recognize the inventory sticker; this book came from my former bookstore. Yikes. The date: 1994.

Two others are new to me: My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell and The Writer Observed by Harvey Breit.

Mitchell was a newspaper man in New York City from 1929 until 1938 when he went to work for The New Yorker.  This is a collection of feature stories and articles from his newspaper days. They were originally published in book form in 1938. My very clean, crisp edition was published in 2001 and contains the original stories and some additional ones as well. Just my cup of tea.

Breit was on the editorial staff of The New York Times Book Review. His book is a collection of 60 of his weekly "Talks With -----" columns. It was published in 1956. Here are interviews with T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bowen, Dylan Thomas, Christopher Morley, and Angela Thirkell. There are also interviews with many I have written about on Belle, Book, and Candle: Hemingway, Faulkner, Thurber, Robert Penn Warren, and Aldous Huxley.

Treasures all.

I guess I know what I will be doing this weekend.

The Unfuzzy Lamb

Charles Lamb
aka Elia
1775-1834

Anne Fadiman bemoans the fact that reading the essays of Charles Lamb, aka Elia, has gone out of fashion. And this from her essay on him entitled "The Unfuzzy Lamb" in her collection At Large and At Small that was published in 2005. I hate to think that even fewer people are reading him now seven years later. Maybe Ms. Fadiman and I are the only ones left.

If you love essays as I do, you will be as familiar with the name Elia as you are with Michel de Montaigne.

Lamb, born in 1775, did not have a charmed life, Fadiman writes. His sister Mary lost her mind and killed their mother, what he called "the family tragedy", when he was 21. He spent the rest of his life taking care of her and working as a clerk in a mind-numbing job that he hated and at which he was not really very good.

He began his career as an essayist to make money for Mary's keep as occasionally she would have to go back to the mental hospital for a while.  He wrote for five years - 1820-1825 - for London Magazine. When he retired from the East India House he retired from writing as well.

But what he left us, Fadiman writes, are 52 witty, sometimes dark, but always entertaining comments on books, witches, roast pig, ears, chimney sweeps. Nothing seems to have escaped his notice.

It has been a few years since I read with relish Essays by Elia, but you can be sure that I will be joining his company soon. Thanks to Anne Fadiman, fan extraordinaire.