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Compulsory Reading

June 25th, 2008 | Sketch Diary

Okay, I feel bad for Ellen O and anyone else who was out combing th’ convenience store aisles for Entertainment Weekly. I got the go-ahead to post this essay I just did for their 1000th issue. I forgot to mention the best part–my memoir Fun Home is number 68 on their list of “new classic” books from the past 25 years. (There are 4 pages, I’ve tried to put some space between each one so you can tell where each one stops.)

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236 Responses to “Compulsory Reading”

Anna Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Thank you thank you… for making this essay and posting it here.
New classic sounds classy, wondering what else is on the list I better check it out but then I probably end up having more books on my must read list again.
Tina Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Absolutely enjoyable
Suz Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 1:56 am
That is so cool.

Thanks for posting it, AB.
kate mck Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:05 am
sounds like we had much the same reading habits as kids. I actually wore out a copy of Harriet the Spy, from re-reading it so frequently.
Maggie Jochild Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:11 am
I came to E. Nesbit as an adult — never too late. I have all her books and re-read them every year. She’s eternal. As is Oswald Bastable.
Ellen O. Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:19 am
This graphic essay seems to be an odd alter-ego to FUN HOME. Hmm…

Growing up, I must have read _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ five times.

Middlemarch has been on my To Read list for years now. I promised myself that I’d read it in 2008. I’m 100 pages along and still not drawn in. I did finish two Edith Wharton novels though.

I’m curious what books remain endlessly on the To Read lists of other people here.
The Cat Pimp Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:53 am
I have to say I feel nagging guilt because my reading list is stuff like “Kicked, Bitten and Scratched”, “What Shamu Taught Me About Life…”, “Environmental Enrichment for Captive Animals”, “Biological Exuberance…”, and the latest Oprah magazine. My mind’s gone to the dogs, the lions, the giraffes, and self-help…
Farah Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:05 am
How the hell did you know how I was feeling this week? We have a book to write this month, and I am currently trying to “schedule” some time to just sit down and read a book, because I am so sick of reading in bits and pieces.

And yes: all those great classics? Disappeared in the wonderful joy of discovering science fiction and history (non-fic). One day maybe.
Sudro Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Hey, is that the new Harry Potter book? Can I borrow that when you’re done? I can read it instead of the copy of the Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay that a friend loaned me three months ago…
sk in london Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:27 am
awesome essay AB - thank you for sharing it. brilliant!

..and thinking about what ellen O says - which books remain on the To Read lists and also which ones were repeatedly readable?..

growing up..Phantom Tollbooth - could read and re-read that.
….

i imagine there are life-mythic meanings in what really grabs us in childhood… what do our earliest ‘favorites’ tell us about the adults we become? …that kind of thing.

thanks again AB - hilarious and thought provoking as ever
Suz Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:33 am
I justified Harry Potter as basic cultural literacy. All seven volumes, of course. I’m very culturally literate.

Meanwhile, I’ve had the most recent Pynchon and DeLillo’s Underworld on my nightstand for, like, forever.
dzieger Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:41 am
My To Read list has gotten completely out of hand.

From the time I could read proficiently to about age 30, I tore through books as fast as I could get my hands on them. Even at my busiest - such as a period when I was involved in the opening of two new theaters, maintaining a late night weekend gig with an improv group, and getting up a 5 am to bake bagels at a local deli 6 days a week - I wouldn’t let a week go by without getting though at least one novel, even if I had to sacrifice sleep or hygiene to do it.

These days, I’m lucky if I read three new novels a year. I think the cause is some combination of raising young kids and doing too much of my reading on the Internet. I’m not sure why this is more of a deterrent than working a 70 hour week, but there you are.

I’ve given up trying to keep track of new material, much less actually read it. And it’s going to be several years before I can make any sort of progress in filling in the gaps my knowledge of classical literature.

I’m rambling, probably due to sleep deprivation, but what I set out to say was that I am determined to get through at least one Pynchon book before I die, even if it’s doing so that kills me.

Not because I hold his work in particularly high regard — no one has yet convinced me that it’s actually good literature, though I’m open to the possibility.

But I’ll be dammed if I’m going to let the reclusive bastard defeat me. I got through Ulysses when I was 10, dammit. But as an adult, I let myself give up on Gravity’s Rainbow just because after 120 pages I hadn’t noticed any characters or plot. In fact, if anything had happened in the book, anything at all, I hadn’t noticed.

Seriously, what is that #^$%*ing book even about? Am I just not as smart as I think I am, or does the book simply hate us for having the temerity to try to read it?

Okay, I’ve regressed from rambling to ranting. I’m going to go mix myself a NyQuil and Melatonin smoothie and see if I can induce somnia. Sorry for subjecting everyone to the preceding brain dump - but not sorry enough not to post it

In conclusion: I like pie.
Lishevita Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Hmmm… Now I’m wondering if putting this graphic essay on a list of things for my son to read will cause him not to read it.

Nahhhh… Actually, as a parent who home-/un-schools, I find that the way to get my kids to read what I want them too is to just talk about the book in an interesting way. I reference one book while we discuss some other book we’re reading, and that sets off a chain reaction.

I hated reading as a kid, and I didn’t start reading for pleasure until my favorite comics (ElfQuest) came out as a novel. I was shocked the first time I finished that book. I didn’t think I *could* read a novel from cover to cover before that. I always got bored before the end with other books. That’s when I discovered that reading had to be about what I wanted, not about what someone else wanted.

And, yeah, my kids don’t always get into the books that I think they’ll like, but I don’t push, and they don’t *have* to read anything on my list of “classics”. In exchange, they often discover books that they tell me about and I find myself learning from them about what qualifies as a really great book.
Matron Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 4:53 am
My dad tried exactly the same tack with me. At age 11 he spotted me reading Enid Blyton books and suggested Shakespeare, Schiller and Goethe (I am German)instead.

His skilled mix of sarcasm and incredulity that any thinking being could not WANT to read these books, worked like a charm (I am obviously easily impressed). I read Mary Stuart when I was 12, the Shakespeare comedies and the Count of Monte Christo at 13 (I’ll save the tragedies for retirement). Aged 16, when my English was good enough, I moved on to The Lord of the Rings, Pearl S Buck and Herman Wouk.

I now hardly get the time to read anything and when my girlfriend and I travelled around the world a few years ago (I was 35 at the time), I went into every second hand book shop along the way until I managed to re-read every single Enid Blyton book of my childhood. Both my girlfriend and I are complete Harry Potter addicts. I am also rather partial to Artemis Fowl. I sometimes feel that my dad, who died a few years ago, is looking over my shoulder and is shaking his head in disbelief. And then I grin and stick two fingers up to him.

Why? Because sometimes book keep me prisoner just because they are pure and simple narrative. Enjoyment of the process of reading the way it used to be when I was a child and went through 8 books a week.

I think I have long since decided that I do not read books just because I am supposed to, if they bore the life out of me (a sad farewell to Ulysses then). Somebody else’s opinion of what is a good book or a worthy read, doesn’t interest me. I have no problem with reading books that people tell me are “not worth reading” (I am not easily embarrassed into doing or not doing things generally). There are only books that I enjoy and those that I don’t. And by now I feel that I am old enough to know the difference and not to waste time on the latter category.

I am always on the lookout for books that make me sit in my chair and forget everything else. Apart from Harry Potter that last happened to me when I read The Timetraveller’s Wife. I also love weird things: sometimes for the language (Dorian Grey), sometimes for the quirkyness (Die Vermessung der Welt), sometimes for both (Jeanette Winterson’s Gut Symetries)

Life is precious and time is scarce, so if anyone out there has any suggestions for exactly that sort of book (German novels and children’s books welcome), lets hear them.

Alison, you will just have to decide not to read any comments which include book suggestions, lest we spoil your exposure to world literatur for years to come.
Ian Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:03 am
I’ve never quite been able to get ‘into’ the classics. It’s the same thing - being told I ought to read them. Ok, I read Christmas Carol when I was a kid (though I preferred the Muppet version), I distinctly remember starting “A Tale of Two Cities” and losing patience by the middle of the 2nd page. I desperately struggled with Cider With Rosie at school, but loved the WWI poetry. Ironically, I found out later that a few of those WWI poets were gay. I think I tried some DH Lawrence once at a friend’s house, but I didn’t inhale. On the other hand I liked Beowulf (in translation).

I’m afraid I’m one of those people that stands in the fiction section and looks at the loooong rows of books and has no confidence in what to choose or how to determine whether a book “will be any good”. Yet I read constantly. However, I stick to favourite authors or subjects rather than being brave and branching out.

At the moment I’m reading Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale (about a bipolar artist/distant mother and her family) as fic and the Dead Sea Scrolls in English by Geza Vermes as non-fic. That’s after re-reading HP7 of course!

What are people reading right now? I’d love to know.

Just don’t “recommend” them …
VL Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:09 am
*applause*

The books I was forced to read in the school were mainly the kind of thing that were likely to turn kids away from reading anything at all. So, exactly. Don’t force your kids to read so they may actually like it in the end.
Ian Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:21 am
P.S. Thank you so much for posting this! It’s fantastic!
Alex K Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:56 am
@Ian: Yes. It is fantastic. AB, let me join Ian - and everyone else - in saying “Thank you!”

Torpid. Mmmmm.

“What are people reading right now?” Erm, HARRY POTTER A KAMEN MUDRCU. No, I don’t speak a word of Czech, but with the English original beside me I can pick out the bits that I need to throw (in Czech), for humorous contrast, into a talk that I have to give (in English) this autumn in Prague. Hint for you fellow non-Slavs out there: “KAMEN” is “STONE”.

OK, you wanted what I’m really really reading right now? Jeezo man, make me feel bad! I just finished some bog-roll by Jeffrey Archer. (Well, I was on holiday at the time. And I was in the airport, and I was desperate for printed matter…and I was drunk. And the mean boys were bigger than me, and as soon as I’d bought it they ran away laughing.) But I do fall asleep over Simenon / Maigret every night. He’s kind of canonical, I suppose.

“Canonical”. I’ve never read anything by James Fenimore Cooper. And I glory in my shame.
Aunt Soozie Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Thank you!!! I feel like a junkie who just got a fix… and it was the really good stuff, not cut with any crap! A NEW Bechdel cartoon and in color!?! Yummilicious.
That stuff in the tube that we smeared on our bodies so we could have skin cancer later in life… ah, I remember that well.
I’m just reading Leaves of Grass for the first time ever… I was worried that Bill Clinton would have ruined it for me forever. I was actually embarrassed by my reaction to I Sing the Body Electric… as in, WOW… this is really good! Hey, have you read this? Oh, yeah, I guess you all have…
Mabel Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Damn, that was fabulous!

It made me miss the strip even more…
smutti Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:47 am
The books you read for work are all amazing. I JUST read Persepolis yesterday and now I am craving a good graphic novel.
Mighty Ponygirl Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:52 am
That was such a familiar rant!

I’m a very slow reader–I like to read, and I devoured books as a child, but it takes me forever to get through a book. This is partly due to my dedication to “Canon” — I’m currently about to finish up Horatio Hornblower. Recent reads have included Middlemarch and Rebecca. I’m going to retry Jane Austen after a faulty start with Emma back in college. But these books will take me _months_ to get through.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m thinking I won’t talk about books with friends and family, because it invariably leads to “have you read ____? No? Here it is… read it!” …The pressure! I could spend a month and a half of my life reading something that I’m not really invested in, or I could tackle Jude the Obscure. I wish there were a polite way to turn people down when they try to get me to read their favorite book!
Liza Cowan Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Oh good grief. My daughter’s seventh grade summer reading list from school just arrived yesterday. She has to read (minimum) three books and be ready to do a report on them when school begins. To peak her interest I will have to tell her they are all horror stories.

The thing that got me reading as a kid was insomnia. I wasn’t allowed to keep a light on past my bedtime, so I read the entire Oz series under the covers with a flashlight. And I adored The Five Children and It, and those Childhood of Famous Americans. Just the sight of those orange covers thrills me to this day.
Mouse Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:06 am
We had that card game too?

No idea where it is now. Pretty sure I haven’t read many of the books it listed.
Dr. Empirical Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Thanks for sharing this, Alison! and thanks to the editors of Entertainment Weekly for letting you.

I recently got my tattered childhood copy of The Phantom Tollbooth signed by Jules Feiffer. A charming gentleman.

Twice a year, the local libraries have a fundraiser where they sell off donated books. I can get a shopping bag full for under twenty bucks! That’s my main source of reading material, and it encourages eclectic reading. If a book only costs a quarter, why not pick it up nd try it out? I usually go home with a nice mix of classics and crap, and once something lands on my to-be-read shelf it usually manages to get read. So that’s my secret: Don’t keep a list, keep a shelf!
Suz in HK Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Hey, I just bought a copy of the mag in Hong Kong… you are a genius. Reckon I scored about 50% on half of the other celeb lists in the publication… but love yours.
cheers!
Lucía Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:56 am
oh, how enjoying for a morning before going to college! thank youuu, alison!
this reminds me, last year i got nostalgic and googled the author of a series of books i loved “bomba, the jungle boy”, and i found out the most horrible thing: roy rockwood didn´t exist! he was invented by some book selling company so different people wrote his adventure books!
it really broke my heart, even more than when i found out that lobsang rampa, the one who wrote “the third eye” wasn´t a monk from tibet but a weird english guy who said his cat talked to him and told him the stories he wrote.
Duncan Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I take books with me when I travel. For this summer’s trip to Korea I took, and read, the new Precious Ramotswe book by Alexander McCall; The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein; The Romance of Leonard Da Vince by Dmitri Merezhkovski; Exotics at Home by Micaela di Leonardo; Moderan by David R. Bunch; The Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert; and The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine. On my return home I stumbled on Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader at the library, and read it too. I’m also reading through a series of short books on Korean film directors that I bought while I was in Korea. (And I still had time to blog daily on the candlelight vigils there: http://thisislikesogay.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-another-country.html

Dr Empirical, I keep a shelf too. In fact I keep two of them. It doesn’t help. The books to be read keep piling up. I’m beginning to realize I’ll never read everything, which is painful.

I don’t keep a list, but I’m working on the “classics” — a tricky concept anyway. I’ve read all of Shakespeare, Marlowe, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, some Frances Burney, a fair number of Virago Modern classics … I pretty much taught myself literary modernism in junior high and high school, going on my own through much of Faulkner, Hemingway, Lawrence, Joyce, Steinbeck, Cocteau, Gide, Pound, Eliot, Cummings, and so on. (I got a good grounding in Golden Age science fiction then, and in the 70s I got back into it via the mostly female sf writers who revitalized the field, plus Samuel Delany and a few others.) I’ve finished two volumes of Remembrance of Things Past, but forgot to stick another one in the suitcase this year. I’d like to get to George Eliot and Dickens, Cooper, and more of Cather.
julissa Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I really enjoyed that. you did a really good job with the color
--MC Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I’d always hoped I’d bottom out at simony, but I see that I’m closer the center than I’d hoped .. sure, my DJ bag is full of books, but they’re all Dashiell Hammetts, I’m writing an essay on the Continental Op ..
I hope you’ve doubled back and picked up E. Nesbit. Have you read “Don’t Tell The Grown-Ups” by Alison Lurie? She put me wise to Nesbit, and to so much else.
Kate L Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I had the opposite experience - I would read the library books my father read, after he was finished with them. That’s how I read Jan Morris’s biography in the early 70’s. Hmmm… was Dad trying to tell me something?
Kate L Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 11:05 am
…Oh, and kudos on how A.B. graphically portrayed the effects of a Catholic childhood!
Susan D Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Anyone looking for a way to annoy your friends? Go to goodreads.com and list all the books you have read. Rate those and send email reminders to all your friends.
It doesnt help having a partner who is a librarian that lets her friends, also librarians, send me their posts/emails.
Carry T Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 11:49 am
How I wish that I had known there were others like me when I was growing up! And I’m not talking about other lesbians. I was the odd duck in my family with the reading, my mother would actually take books out of my hands and tell me to play with the other kids. I didn’t like those kids!

Thank you for sharing your essay, it reminded me of how much I loved reading and how much I miss it these days.

Oh, and Susan D? I just got on GoodReads and *have* been having fun annoying my friends!!!
Patience Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Very cool to see the reference to the Childhood of Famous Americans Series. I too read the entire series (or at least every one that my elementary school library owned) and recently purchased an old copy of _Babe Didrikson, Girl Athlete_, which I read with great joy (and self recognition) as a young girl.
grrljock Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Thanks for sharing the strip. You look like Tintin in the first panel. And speaking of, Captain Haddock was my favorite character of the series (though I did enjoy Thompson and Thomson’s pratfalls). Oh, and that reminds me of the time my high school classmates got their hands on an x-rated Tintin ripoff. I declined to join them, because I prefer to have my memories of Captain Haddock (Blistering barnacles!) unsoiled.
Dr. Empirical Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
One of my favorite books from the black&white comics boom of the ’80s was The Trouble With Girls. One running gag was that the titular hero, Lester Girls, was forever trying to read Steinbeck’s The Red Pony, but kept getting interrupted by ninjas, natural disasters, or supermodels breaking into his house and wanting to have sex with him. At one point he gets shipwrecked, and is shown frantically running up and down the beach, waving his arms in the air and shouting “Does the pony die? Does it?!”

After that, I simply HAD to read The Red Pony. I was so enchanted that I’ve since read every word John Steinbeck ever published, including letters and journals. Great stuff.
Ed Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Sudro, I saw you post before and your post gave enough clues to who you were, so i knw we attended UMASS together. That said, you should definitely read “Kavalier and Clay.”

Who am I to talk? I’ve been trying tor ead “Gone with the Wind” for twenty years now. Still cannot make it past the barbecue.
devoted Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
It is scrumptious to see your work in color, Alison! This is a great strip and really beautiful. I am as dazzled as Dorothy in her technicolor Oz, though that is a clear reference of a movie take on a book!

My problem with reading is that I find myself so absorbed in a book it is really hard to stop to do elemental things like wash, go to sleep, eat, go to work, etc. I find I want to climb inside the covers of the book and just live there. This has meant lately a certain tendency toward children’s books or books I have read before (no being gripped by the plot for the latter, brevity for the former). I am noticing all these paeans to Harry Potter here and it makes me want to… uh… point out, not recommend–my favorite British fantasy children’s book author, Dianna Wynne Jones. Since I had my son & have really had no time to read anything more complex than the NYTimes (and Alison, of COURSE) I have been gobbling up her books, and I think they are ravishingly funny & silly and far superior to HP. For all of you, by the way, who eschew Jane Austen because she is (somewhat) canonized, give her a try. She is so funny & readable and better than even the best movie made of her work will imply. My guilty non reads? War and Peace and The Iliad. Yikes!
Anonymous Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
OMG, thanks for posting! It’s really bizarre how I identify with this on multiple levels- I was constantly reading in elementary school (I even used to get in trouble for reading in school- that is, reading under my desk when I was supposed to be doing something else) and my teachers always used to tell me that I could get lots of extra credit if I would just write reports on them, but nothing doing- I didn’t want anything to interfere with the pleasure of reading.
This also especially rings true in light of the fact that I have a huge heap of Ph.D preliminary exam readings at home that I have been loathe to touch.
The fact that Orwell’s allegory was lost on you as a child also reminds me of a peculiar thing that happened in second grade- we had a theatre troupe come to our school and ennact _Animal Farm_, complete with animal suits. Obviously, none of us got it because we had no idea what Communism was- we just thought it was a play about a bunch of animals.
You’re looking more like Harry Potter than ever, BTW!
Donna Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Matron Says:

Life is precious and time is scarce, so if anyone out there has any suggestions for exactly that sort of book (German novels and children’s books welcome), lets hear them…

So then:

Anything written by Lorrie Moore. Which Brings Me to You by Steve Almond and Julianna Baggott.
Small press short story anthologies ( I’m constantly discovering new writers who are amazing).
Right now - among other things - I am reading a book of essays and stories by Poe Ballantine.
Alice Adams, Miranda July, Suzanne Rivecca (she’s only published a few short stories but her talent - in my opinion - is off the charts).
Anonymous Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Oh, I forgot- also, most of the most valuable information I ever attained about sex was from reading the “forbidden shelf” of my Mom’s library (which I don’t think was actually really forbidden- I image she was tickled that I was reading _Our Bodies, Our Selves._) I also learned stuff from the various trashy adult novels from the seventies in her collection, but OBOS helped me find my clit, a discovery for which I am eternally grateful.
Donna Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I don’t think being told to read something has made me not like something. Maybe I was not in the mood for that particular book at that particular time, so maybe I went back to a book if I felt that I didn’t extract everything I wanted to at the time I was required to read it. The stars did align for me on one “classic” though, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. One of the most treasured memories from my entire four years of college was my feelings for that book.
rusty Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I just read– and loved– The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.
K Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Oh, the joy of reading books you’re pretty sure your parents wouldn’t approve of. I recall surreptitiously reading The Catcher in the Rye when I was ten and Neuromancer the next year - both of which my teacher mother had left lying about. (I’m pretty sure a student must have lent Neuromancer to her. Not her sort of thing.) I’m not sure anyone would have objected to my reading Catcher, but I thought they would at the time.

My mental block is with modern mimetic novels. Especially the ones that everyone’s talking about. I know that Shakespeare or Dickens or Amelia Opie isn’t going to provide me with much opportunity for social discussion (unless I want to look like a show-off), and neither is fantasy and SF, unless I pick my audience. But somehow I find it much easier to get down to classics or SF than the mainstream stuff (which I still enjoy when I do get around to it). Maybe it’s a case of not wanting to join in with everyone else…

We had the Cities of Europe card game. “Have you got Mont-Saint-Michel?”
Suz Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Pynchon, for dzieger:

1. Yes, GR has a traditional plot. It’s mostly in parts 2 and 3– you’re just meeting the players and learning who they are in part 1. (Part 4, well, things fall apart, the center cannot hold and all that.)
2. Check http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_grsumm.html for chapter summaries as you go. The deadpan style makes it very easy to miss major plot points. (It also makes it very easy to miss the humor.)
3. Use the character references linked at http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page (they’re by last name, pretty much) to keep track of who these people are and where you’ve seen them before– it matters. The page-by-page references there are good, too.
4. Truth be told, I’d never have gotten through GR if I hadn’t read V first. They’re not directly related, but by reading V I learned how to read Pynchon.
5. Take it slow.
6. Have fun. If you’re not finding it funny, put it down and try again some other year.
Nana Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
OOOh that’s sooo cool!! thank you very much. I had already been pounding the streets of Berlin in search of a decent newspaper kiosk selling “entertainment weekly”–in vain…
Dale Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Reading this and “Fun Home” reminds me that I need to start on some classics. Can anyone recommend some good classic novels?
Rosa Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Beloved?

Sorry, just kidding. Though Beloved is awesome, and of course all of Morrison’s work is pretty canonical at this point. But I think Song of Solomon is more approachable anyway, and it’s definitely less gory.

I have the same hatred of anything I’m “supposed” to read, but luckily when I was in school nobody ever tried to make me read anything by white women other than Virginia Woolfe, or writers of color of any gender, so when I laid hands on their work it was free reading. And now that I have a kid, I’m rediscovering all the kids novels I skipped while I was busy sneaking smut & sci fi out of the library in my pre-teens. Plus a *lot* of great YA stuff written since then.

Thank you for posting the comic, Allison! I’m going to track down a copy to give to my favorite children’s librarian.
Bre Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I read Animal Farm when I was too young for it as well and it was all lost on me, though I did think it was an exciting book about talking animals. I re-read it later on to enjoy it much more, same with Watership Down.
sk in london Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
mmm, a signed copy of The Phantom Tollbooth… nice…

and smutti check out Palestine, Blanket, Maus and We Are On our own… all incredibly drawn/written graphic novels… god (father of you know who) knows there must be so many more but these are some that have really touched me in my reading.

just read The Legend Of Colton H Bryant.
cried on the top of the double decker bus.
heart breaking.
Ian Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I was very competitive with my siblings about reading and wanted to read everything my sister (who is 8 years older than me) read rather than “age-appropriate” books. Therefore I skipped over things like “5 Children and It” and “Treasure Island”, etc. So recently I’ve started reading them and discovered “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett who is a very interesting woman and it’s a wonderful read. The way she describes the excitement and therapeutic value of getting things to grow is just spot on and struck a strong chord with me at the moment.

My favourite as a child was a story about an Anglo-Saxon warrior who fought for Harold Hardrada and his battles with the Danes in the North and William Conqueror in the South. It was so exciting but I’ve no idea what it was called or who it was by.
cb Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Ian - was it Hereward the Wake?
Ian Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
No, I don’t think so cb. What I liked about it at the time was that it was all written from the point of view of an ordinary axeman in Harold’s army. There was nothing special about him, he was just a soldier. I’ll check out Hereward though.
ready2agitate Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I never finished 100 Years of Solitude, about which I still feel badly (I read at least half in 1993, so that’s how long I’ve felt bad about it). But if Alison hasn’t read Beloved, then I don’t feel quite so bad (wank). (I just made that up: “wank” means something said teasingly, kind of bratty-like. Nothing to do with gaming, I assure you ;))

Has anyone else read “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss (who lives in Park Slope)? I just loved it. Oh my, I can’t wait to go back and read all these entries. How fun, reedy reedy people! (I mean, “read, read, people!”)
Jana C.H. Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Saith Devoted: “I find myself so absorbed in a book it is really hard to stop to do elemental things like wash, go to sleep, eat, go to work, etc.”

Yep, that’s me, all right. Fortunately my cat doesn’t care that I haven’t vacuumed the carpet in two months, though I did get the vacuum cleaner out of the closet a few weeks ago. That’s a step in the right direction, eh?

The Iliad? Well, you have to be into that sort of thing—which, it so happens, I am. For the more casual reader I suggest Herodotus. He really knows how to spin a yarn! And there’s always Ovid or Lucian if you want something your parents won’t approve of.

I did manage to read War and Peace, once. Some years ago Seattle Opera produced the operatic version of War and Peace as their big summer event. At the end of the preceding season, the woman who usually sat next to me, knowing me to be a reading maniac, asked if I was going to “re-read” War and Peace over the summer. I didn’t dare mention I’ve never read it. So, I did read it over the summer, and enjoyed it, too. If you like Lord of the Rings (the book, not the film), you’ll find nothing to intimidate you in War and Peace. But it did not send me off on a Russian novel binge.

Truth to tell, I generally prefer history to fiction. It’s so much more exciting than anything anyone could dream up. When something amazing happens in a novel I just think, “Yeah, the author just made that up to fit.” But when it happens in real life… Wow! (I also confess to a weakness for trashy science fiction, particularly Star Trek novels, but that’s another kettle of lutefisk.)

There’s an interesting article in this month’s Atlantic Monthly on the decline of book reading. The thesis is that reading on the Internet, hopping from link-to-link, shortens one’s attention span, making it harder to get absorbed in a book for hours on end, even when one has time available. I think there’s some truth to it, though counter-examples will abound among followers of this blog. One of the reasons I prefer dead-tree reading is physical: lying pale and torpid on the sofa with a book is relaxing and comfortable, while sitting in a desk chair reading a screen and clicking a mouse for an hour leaves me with aching back, shoulders, and wrists. After a session on the web, I need to lie down with a book for a couple of hours, just to recover.

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith JcH: Some people drink, some people gamble, some like whips and chains– I buy books.
cybercita Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
dale:

classical novels to read?

i loved tess of the durbervilles by thomas hardy and all of jane austen but especially sense and sensibility and pride and prejudice.

i also really enjoyed the razor’s edge, the moon and sixpence, and of human bondage by somerset maugham, and carrie by theodore dreiser.

if you haven’t read little women, the secret garden, or a little princess, i suggest you do so at once.
siena Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
people have recommended jane austin to me so many times that i don’t even pretend that i’ll try anymore.

on the other hand, i’ve found that it is actually possible to overcome the hump of having a book recommended and actually read and enjoy it, although it takes a certain extreme level of humility and discipline, to be executed only out of devotion to those you love the most. i managed to read “the plague”, despite its placement on my mom’s list of books i must read, which she gave me for christmas one year (the list, in addition to the book), and it did become one of my favorite books. same for M.F.K. Fisher, who my friend just gave me for my birthday, after a year of telling me i had to read her.

…on the other hand, i am definitely sending my mom the link to this page, and hopefully she’ll finally get the message to stop telling me to read russian novels.
siena Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
also, for parents -
when i was little and my mother was trying to get me to read books i might actually enjoy (but still refused to read), her trick was to start reading them aloud to me, just until i was hooked and had to finish reading the book. this was embarrassingly effective.
Sophie in Montreal Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I was the same type of kid, and was lucky enough to be left alone by my (otherwise very dysfonctional) parents. Now I make a living as a literary translator, and when I’m done I can’t wait to snuggle up with a good novel… a rather hopeless case.

Alison, are you familiar with Daniel Pennac’s work? He’s a former teacher who is very militant about the right _not_ to read, and has even written a book about it, aside from his famous Malaussène series.
Here’s an article about the English version.
I forbid you to read this!
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1933210,00.html
shadocat Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
My school banned “Catcher In The Rye”, “The Scarlett Letter” and “Go Ask Alice”, and I promptly read them all.
shadocat Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Jana-ha, another lettle of lutefisk, you old Norskie, you.
Sophie in Montreal Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
By the way, the link in the Guardian article is broken, the page where you can download the poster for “The Rights of the Reader” is here:
http://www.walker.co.uk/The-Rights-of-the-Reader-9781406300918.aspx
katemck Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
oh, yeah, “Go Ask Alice.” I forgot about that one.
Banned = read.
Anonymous Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Hey AB, Is “Interpreter of Maladies” just for comedic effect, or have you actually read it? I think it is a beautifully written book.
Ellen O. Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Here’s another link to the “Rights of the Reader” poster in case you are having trouble seeing it. Hope it works.

http://www.walker.co.uk/UserFiles/file/Rights%20of%20the%20reader/NYOR_ROTR.pdf

I’ve always felt bad skimming paragraphs, but I’ve begun doing so lately, especially when reading a non-engaging book for my book group. This way I can still be part of the discussion.

I might not have read Beloved if my book group hadn’t chosen it. Eventually I re-read it for grad school, then taught it in Women’s Lit. Each time, I understood it a little better.

I’m currently reading Helen Humphrey’s work. One of those “should I savor it or gobble it right up” dilemmas.
Dr. Empirical Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Jana, have you ever caught the Too Much Coffee Man opera?
http://www.tmcm.com/comics/webcomics/tmcm080414

Dale,

Steinbeck: Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden
Hemmingway: The Old Man and the Sea
Twain: Roughing It (not as crafted as Huckleberry Finn, but funnier!)
Ferber: Giant
Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Kerouac: Dr. Sax (On the Road is more famous, but I like this one better)

All gripping, entertaining books that one can read in public without embarrassment.
shadocat Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Oh, I just remembered; My parents made me do an extra year of catechism studies when they found I was reading “Portnoy’s Complaint”. My classes didn’t keep me from reading “Goodbye Columbus” though.
The Fatigues Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I remember my mother reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett to me and my sister when we were little kids. I still find that story very touching, so I would recommend that to the casual reader who havent read it.

By the way, Shadocat, I’m from Norway and I find it somewhat peculiar that most of us hate lutefisk. Especially from kettles, not fresh in lefse.:)

“In order to be a good writer, one must also be a good reader.” Reid Baer

This memoir was fab, Allison.
The Fatigues Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Dr. Empirical, I would like to recommend another Steinbeck-book in addition to those: The Winter of Our Discontent.
Had me satisfied. In case one hasnt read it.
shadocat Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
that was supposed to be “kettle of lutefisk” and I’ve never eaten any that I’ve liked.

Maybe if I didn’t have to look at it.
Catherine Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
This is wonderful. I saw myself as a child, as a parent, and my children and granddaughter in it. Great stuff.
Suz Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Cuckoo’s Nest instead of Sometimes a Great Notion, Dr E? Why? (Not trying to be rude, just curious.)
sillipitti Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 12:30 am
OK, AB, why is your file on Flickr named for the genus of the Jujube tree? I never thought jujube was anything more than weird-tasting oblong candy!
ready2agitate Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Anyone else unable to put down The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver? I loved it.

Duncan, scared ‘a you, girlfriend! (Actually, scared a a lot of you’s!)

Don’t love him, but found Ian MacEwan hard to put down - real page-turners. But then again, mainstream.

Um, and for about 20 years or so, I only read women writers. Part of changing my diet after the first 18 years of reading almost only men. I’m guessing I’m in some company here in that regard. I read a few male Latin American magical realist and revolutionary writers during this period, however. Now I read whatever tickles my fancy (although still often, it’s women).
Alison Bechdel Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 8:11 am
This is such a great conversation!
Dr. Empirical Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I like the playful use of language in Cuckoo’s Nest, Suz. Great Notion, while a fine book, isn’t quite as much fun!

One other point I’d like to add to this conversation: Don’t be afraid to own your trash! There’s nothing wrong with loving Star Trek novels, or Steven King, or even (he shudders) Vampire Romance Novels. Just don’t let it be the only thing you read!
ksbel6 Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:01 am
The first book I remember reading several times is The Mad Scientist Club…I think I was about 10…then came Terry Brooks and The Sword of Shanara. If you like Michael Chabon, Summerland is awesome and my 10 year old daughter absolutely loved it also. My current favorite author is Neil Gaiman (he also has several good kids books out)…but I’m currently reading Bonk by Mary Roach which is not only very interesting, but very funny…and Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon.
Mighty Ponygirl Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Has anyone else here read Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson?
Ellen O. Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Yes– Housekeeping was stunning. I haven’t read her new(ish) one yet though.

Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Anne Tyler, Julia Glass, Jhumpra Lahiri, Sarah Waters, for pure pleasure (though The Namesake was disappointing.)

Fanny Howe, Selah Saterstrom, Helen Humphries, Rebecca Brown, Amiee Bender, A.M. Homes, Kent Haruf for craft and language and inspiration.

I’d never read any Marge Piercy (even though she was on my “you should read this” list) until Gone to Soldiers, which I found surprisingly inviting and captivating.

Authors and books I swear (really) I’m going to read someday: Rikki Ducornet, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, House of Dawn by F. Scott Momoday, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, anything by the big Russian authors.

And on and on and on.

And this is just the fiction.
Scotia Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Great essay, Alison! I know I’ve asked this before, but were we born at exactly the same moment? Harriet the Spy, Phantom Tollbooth, the Childhood of Great Americans series (They had their own little row in the back of our school library, and I went there to hide when I skipped out of gym class; it took them months to figure out where I went). Did anyone read Edward Eager (Half Magic, Knight’s Castle, Magic by the Lake)? I really loved him a lot.

I actually turned out to be a high school English teacher, so I get to reread classics all the time. Last fall, however, having never taught anyone younger than 10th grade, I found myself a long-term sub in a 6th grade class. Since I had no idea of what to do with them pedagogically (aside from making them read and write, which in the long run is all an English teacher can ever do), I read Harriet the Spy aloud to them (it’s an all-boys school). They LOVED it. The collective gasp of horror when Harriet’s mother tells Ole Golly she’s fired made my semester. They all got their own spy notebooks and started writing comments on each other. Some of the boys rushed out and got The Long Secret, which kind of freaked them out.

My plans for this summer: Anna Karenina and the last two Pallaser novels (The Prime Minister and The Duke’s Children).
Maggie Jochild Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:55 am
ksbel6, Blue Highways led me to River Horse and PrairyErth also by Least Heat Moon. Of the three, PrairyErth is the one that comes up in my thoughts at least once a week.

I read Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott whenever they come out with a new book (not nearly often enough). Ditto John McPhee, Barry Lopez, Sue Hubbell, and Wendell Berry.

I also read what are called mysteries but often are examples of the best fiction around these days: Laurie R. King (both the lesbian detective and the Mary Russell series), Martha Grimes, Elizabeth George, P.D. James, Ruth Rendell.

Every six months for sheer entertainment I re-read the Chanur Series by C.J. Cherry; Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson; everything I’ve got by Maira Kalman; and the Frances and Richard Lockridge mysteries (yes, they were drunks but the Siamese cats are great, the description of the period is extraordinarily good and the whodunnit is enduring).
--MC Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Stephen King? He’s on the Big List of Books from EW .. for his book on writing. I’ve recommended it before, and I’ll say it again, it’s a good book. Half tutorial, half mea culpa, as he writes about how he lost the plot due to his drug and drink habits. It’s a rare book on writing in which the author will discuss his coke nosebleeds, but there you have it.
Maggie Jochild Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 10:19 am
MC, you’re right, I highly recommend King’s book on writing. Also Bird by Bird by Lamott, and Starting From Scratch by Rita Mae Brown (much better how-to than her mysteries).
Pam Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Another voracious reader here. I tried to read Huckleberry Finn when I was too young for it. Came back as a young teen and loved it. Though I grew up reading all the science fiction and fantasy I could get my hands on, I now find it much easier to get interested in non-fiction. When a novel can immerse me so deeply I read all night and come up for 4 am, it’s such rare event, I feel grateful.

Since I’m currently trying to prune my reading list, I’d rather not add to yours, except to second the recommendation of Diana Wynn Jones.
Aunt Soozie Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I found the library a very exciting place. My friend Ann and I discovered the Diaries of Anais Nin when we were in maybe 8th grade… we thought we were so evil… and mature… reading them. I also loved reading the dictionary, which completely amused my mother.

Duncan, do you read quickly? Constantly? or both??
I can’t imagine getting through all of those books during a trip, well, I don’t know how long you were in Korea but it would take me a year to get through that list!!

Maybe if I shut down my computer…. or read online….
Aunt Soozie Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Slightly off topic but the woman who won this year’s Beaver Queen Pageant was absolutely wild and out of control and… she’s a children’s librarian in her real life. (that made it just a bit easier to relinquish my crown)
A photo of her in the competition http://www.beaverlodgelocal1504.org
Ginjoint Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Lately, I’ve been reading children’s literature, for some reason. I have no idea why. Thanks to everyone for all the good leads! As for the more adult stuff, I loved Housekeeping (the movie’s great, too), but The History of Love, I just couldn’t get into.

ready2agitate, I was the same way about female writers after I escaped high school, where it was all men, all the time. I still definitely read more women than men, but I’m not so focussed on that.

Someone mentioned Marge Piercy - we read Woman on the Edge of Time in my first Women’s Lit class, and it opened this white girl’s eyes to just one minority experience. Also, the sci fi aspects were quite cool.

The Poisonwood Bible is on my list. As for owning my trash, one of my favorite books is The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It’s about a boy who “flips” from this world to a parallel one in order to save his mother, and the goodness and nastiness he encounters along the way.
Ian Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I’m not sure if I was taught it or not, but I seem to have garnered the rather OCD-esque habit from childhood that if I pick up a book I have to finish it before I read anything else and not to finish is to admit failure. If I read more than one thing at a time my life turns to chaos. It was a real shock to the system when I got to Uni to find out that no one reads academic texts from cover to cover, only bits of them. It felt like cheating …
Ginjoint Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Also? Thanks Alison for posting this strip. Very generous. I laughed at the suntan/burn part - growing up in the ’70’s, I partook in that as well. Part of what I loved about summer was the time to go to the library for pleasure - stepping from the heat and humidity of the outdoors into the cool, quiet interior, with the delicious smell of the books. Ahhhhh….
Leda Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Wonderful, I had given up hope of seeing EW piece as I’m in the UK!

Phenomenology of Spirit? Cripes! The staff in my university Philosophy department are still arguing over that one in their Hegel reading group. Of course they’ll argue over anything…..

But books and reading god how I love them. My parents never really pressed any books on me (but strongly encouraged reading) and we were free to read anything we liked from their vast collection, (Oh yes, I remember Our Bodies Ourselves and the bit about what lesbians do in bed….) and it was an approach that worked. Me and my brothers and sisters all read for pleasure and books are always popular presents. My brother-in-law works for Faber which is great as I get my hands loads of new books and the Faber ones are always so beautifully designed as well.

An amazing book that my brother-in-law passed on was The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall. It is set in Cumbria in the UK, in the not to distant future and is about an army of women who rise up when the government begin to control the reproductive and other freedoms of the population following economic and political collapse due to shortage of fuel. Its similar ground to the Handmaid’s Tale but what I found so compelling was how brilliantly Sarah Hall describes what it might be that would make you prepared to kill and die yourself in order to disrupt and attempt to overthrow a dominant power, i.e. not just a process of politicisation but an immediate response which is to fight. I personally have never read anything where this is explored in women, and its not always comfortable reading but it gave me so much to think about, not least my own assumptions….. and if that’s not the definition of a good book then I don’t know what is!

And there are other reasons why readers of this blog may well enjoy it…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carhullan-Army-Sarah-Hall/dp/0571236596
amyfaith Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
AB: Thanks for transporting me (so many of us!) back to our quirky, bookish childhoods! I, for one, would spend *all* day, on saturdays, at our small-town library, polishing off entire authors and genres (Bobbsey Twins and Happy Hollisters, anyone?) in the process. And when I got sleepy, I’d just lay down on the couch in the childrens’ area and nap. In public. Regardless of who else was around. And all the librarians loved me (I suspect, because they had all been quirky, bookish kids themselves!).

Aunt Soozie: I could lose myself in the dictionary for ages as a child too - and it must be genetic. Two years ago, my son found a used, but still in good condition Merriam-Websters Collegiate on an outdoor rack at our local used bookstore and begged my husband to buy it for him (and, yes, he did know how to use it). A month later, on the first day of Kindergarten, he INSISTED that the book go into his backpack, because he would DEFINITELY need it for “big kids school”. Two weeks later, the school moved him up to first grade
(These days, he’s gone slightly more down-market, ever since discovering Calvin and Hobbes compilations - which he uses pretty much as training manuals. sigh…)

A question: I deeply loved a book called Mistress Masham’s Repose (by T.H. White), which I dug out of an elderly neighbor’s trash can when I was about 7 yo. However, I have NEVER met anyone else who knew this book - has anyone out there ever read this?
Ian Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
@amyfaith: you mean Calvin & Hobbes *isn’t* a manual for how to live your life? Except I no longer throw slushballs at girls who are smarter than I am.
Cate Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Alison, I did find this on the shelf, but I’m so glad to see it here too. What struck me about this conversation is that I’m oddly fine with not “tackling canon” anymore — I love how much different things that fit into “canon” resonant with different people. (That said, I think that any child who doesn’t read Harriet the Spy is missing something fierce ;-)).
Elf Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
When we moved to Britain three years ago, we went through a massive book cull–the shipping charges for our 10,000+ books would have been prohibitive. We got it down to about 3000… and it was hard, in one way, and easy in another. I held every book I owned in my hand–the yellowing Scholastics from fifth grade, the Ray Bradburys from high school, the stacks of wonderful novels gleaned from seven years working at Borders–and asked myself, “Will I ever read this again?” Seven times out of ten, somehow, the answer was no. Either I’d read it once (or never finished it) and been made replete, or it was one of those books that I’d read over and over and knew deep inside that I’d never have enough of. Pathetic, in a way, to have kept so many children’s novels (Joan Aiken!) and discarded so many classics of adult literature… and horrible to consider all the no-doubt wonderful novels which I’ll never have time to read in however many years are still allotted to me. But it’s supposed to be about pleasure, not duty. That which we are obliged to do is rarely at the top of the list of what we’d like to be doing. So–merci, mais non to Eliot and Dante and anyone on the Nobel list… I’ll be busy re-reading Armistead Maupin for the twelfth time and Mary Renault for the twentieth and Robin McKinley and Robert Heinlein and Anne McCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley for the umpteeth. Literature is an art, and I am an art-lover–and I gravitate, whether in a gallery or a bookstore, towards what I love. No guilt, no repercussions, and no looking back.
Nurse Ingrid Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Rock on, bookish dykes and dyke pals!

I’m with Jana C.H. in that I prefer truth to fiction. These days I mostly read memoirs (Augusten Burroughs’ latest is on my bedside table at the moment), essays/cultural criticism (especially the so-called “New Atheists”), and my most guilty pleasure, true crime.

There is actually some really well written true crime out there these days, in the fine tradition of “In Cold Blood.” I suggest “Halfway Heaven” by Melanie Thernstrom, “Party Monster” by James St. James, or “The Red Parts” by Maggie Nelson.

Novels I actually did love, and read again and again: “Geek Love” by Katherine Dunn, “White Noise” by Don DeLillo, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. And I was a late convert to “Pride and Prejudice;” my wife is a huge Austen fan and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It was amazing.

My favorite author of all time will always be Douglas Adams. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” changed my life when I was fourteen, and I don’t even know how many copies I’ve worn out since then.

Finally, to the childhood hall of fame, I will add E.L. Konigsburg for “The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and “Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth.” And I, too, was an Edward Eager fan, Scotia!

Oh, and all you “Harriet the Spy” fans know that Louise Fitzhugh came out as a dyke, right?
Ellen O. Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
For those who say they prefer truth to fiction…. Fiction is full of truth.
Perhaps you mean you prefer facts to fiction.
Of course, non-fiction selects, pares, and reshapes facts all the time.

I love the blur of it all.

And I loved “The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” too.
--MC Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Amyfaith, I think a copy of “Mistress Masham’s Repose” is currently on our bookshelves — I hope so. I may have to go out and get a copy, if not, because you’ve piqued my interest — I know I had one for a while, but now I can’t remember if I’ve read it or not!
As much as I loved “Harriet The Spy” when younger (and she initiated me into the cult of Notebook People, and I still write in them to this day), I turn time and again to her later book “Nobody’s Family Is Going To Change”, which reminds me of my own messed-up upbringing, and that I turned out all right despite it.
Michelle Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Wonderful comic. Very amusing. As a voracious reader myself, the ‘pale,’ and ‘torpid,’ panel was most poignant.
liza Cowan Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Amyfaith - I adored Mistress Masham’s Repose. Childhood favorite. Great illustations, too. I also adored his Once And Future King series.
cybercita Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
i just recommended mistress masham’s repose to a little girl i know who likes to read. one of my all time favorites!
Jana C.H. Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
An anecdote from my youth:

When I was in my early teens, my mother read one of those “Learn About Your Family” tests that still show up in women’s magazines. This one suggested that all the members of the family draw pictures of the other members of the family; it was supposed to tell you something about how each viewed the others. This was the Sixties, so the test-writer’s assumption was that everyone would draw mom in the kitchen. Not us, despite the fact that my mother was a full-time housewife and an excellent cook. Every single member of my family drew my mother sitting in her favorite chair with a book in her lap.

My brothers and I all read for fun, and my brothers have to some extent converted their wives to the practice. That’s the way to get kids to read: by example. We weren’t given any guidance on what to read, either, though I do remember having Balzac’s “Droll Stories” taken away from me when I was 11 or 12. I wouldn’t have understood them anyway.

By the way, twenty or thirty years ago, my mother realized she just didn’t feel like reading books by men any more, so she pretty much quit. She figured by that time she’d read her quota.

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith Martha F.H.: Ovens are for baking, not for cleaning.
maker Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
i really like the colors. i suppose working in color is a bit of a departure from the usual. you pulled it off really well.
April Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Super. Thanks ever so.
Emma’s lists cracked me up too.
Kate Evans Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
When I was in high school, my mom was reading Fear of Flying and laughing and laughing. I asked her if I could read it. When she finished it, she just handed it over. That’s the best kind of adult support of a young person’s reading we need more of!
Duncan Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Aunt Soozie, I read spasmodically. I’ve slowed down a lot this year, for some reason. Partly because I was blogging a lot.

I’m a fast reader, though, particularly of fiction. I’m also lucky in being able to read in moving vehicles. I read Miracle at Speedy Drive (McCall Smith) on the plane to Korea, finished it in a couple of hours. I read The Hakawati on the flight back, which took most of the trip. It’s very readable. I kept thinking, Well, that’s enough, I’ll stop for a while. Then I’d think, What the hell, and continue reading.

I was on vacation in Korea, so I had lots of free time. My friends work during the day, which left me on my own to read and write. (In past years I’ve used my trips to read things like The Tale of Genji, which took a couple of weeks, or Lord of the Rings.)

On the other hand, I just finished reading Raymond Williams’s The Country and the City, an amazing work of literary history by a great scholar. I started reading it about three years ago, put it down (not out of boredom or dislike — it was more because I found it overwhelming, one of those books that really speak to me), and didn’t pick it up back up until last week. Reading this book made me want all the more to read more ‘classic’ writers, and I’m about to start The Mayor of Casterbridge. But it also alerted me to a book called Brother to the Ox by Fred Kitchen, a farm worker who became a writer in the 1930s, which I’m going to get from the library tomorrow. So many books, so little time. But as a confirmed bachelor who doesn’t watch TV, I have more free time for reading than most people.
shadocat Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
What about Vonnegut? I devoured everything he wrote—and William Kotzwinkle? Wasn’t “The Fan Man” terrific?
Deena in OR Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Ah, childhod books. Oh, my, yes…the Childhood of Young Americans series! I still remember vividly the Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Juliette Low, Jane Addams and Thomas Jefferson entries.

Also…the Encyclopedia Brown and Danny Dunn series, all of Louisa May Alcott, anything Beverly Cleary wrote, the Roald Dahl canon, the “Little House” books (Grandmamma had the boxed set, and I read it every summer…). Also, any periodical that my parents set down within my reach By junior high, I’d moved on to biographies and historical fiction. Babysitting clients had a set of “the Great Books” with a complete works of Shakespeare in them. I plowed through the comedies after I’d put the baby to bed. There was a lot of bad “modern” teen fiction out there in the early ’70’s. I managed to read a fair portion of it. Oh, and also (as a seventh grader) “I’m OK, You’re OK”, for some reason. I read the novel of “The Princess Bride” long before it was a movie.

As an adult, I’m still a periodical junkie. Also…Laurie R. King (all of her stuff…), Alison of course, :), Louise Erdich, Harry Potter (gotta keep up with the kids, ya know…) I’ve tried James Joyce countless times, and just can’t read him for some reason. I’m rediscovering Jane Austen, George Eliot, and many of those wonderful books that I never got around to earlier.

A fun one that my son turned me on to? “The Gospel according to Biff.” Not for the easily offended, that one.

Oh, and then there’s the “duty reads”. A relative by marriage is the ghostwriter for the Jessica Fletcher “Murder She Wrote” books.(And ghost wrote that late sixties scurrilous classic “Coffee, Tea or Me?”.) So our family reads those out of loyalty.
Bodark Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I’d forgotten all those Childhood of Famous Americans books; I got on a jag and read dozens of them in 6th grade, and because they were all written/censored the same way, they later all kind of blurred together, becoming one big Horatio Alger-kind of story where the bright kid works hard and makes a bundle..which one was Mark Twain, George Pullman, Florence Nightengale? Who could remember?

Breaking away from suggestions of cutting-edge literature, for the hopelessly reading backlogged I suggest Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. You don’t read it cover to cover, you put it in the bathroom and read a page or two at random when, er, time permits. John Aubrey’s Brief Lives is good for this, too.
Dr. Empirical Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I don’t pay conscious attention to the gender of authors I read, but I do find I read a lot more men than women. Surprising, since I have a lot more women as friends than men. Still, I never got into the Brontes or Austen, and the George Eliot I recently read struck me as Dickens without the vivid characters. Harriet the Spy never spoke to me, either. To each their own.

I find Marion Zimmer Bradley every bit as sexist as John Norman, and I can’t read either of them.

I read a lot of science fiction & fantasy, and I find that all too much of the woman-authored stuff has the female protagonist loudly proclaiming her ability to do anything a man can on every page, until I want to tell her to shut up and DO IT already! If there are those who find that empowering, they’re welcome to it, but I’ll seek my entertainment elsewhere.

Still, there’s Margaret Atwood, Anne McCaffery, Patricia Mckillip, Diana Wynne Jones, Katherine Dunn, Kate Wilhelm, Connie Willis, Edna Ferber and Dorothy Parker, off the top of my head without getting up to check spelling.
Suz Says:
June 26th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Childhood favorites that I haven’t seen mentioned yet– Anne of Green Gables series. Witch of Blackbird Pond. A whole bunch of Judy Blume and Norma Klein. The All of a Kind Family series.

Now, I tend to go for either modern canon or everyone’s-talking-about for fiction, plus miscellaneous nonfiction (McPhee, Tracy Kidder, and so on) and travel lit.
Maggie Jochild Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 1:23 am
MISTRESS MASHAM’S REPOSE! I, too, thought I was the only one. Reread it regularly — it’s an old edition, with fabulous illustrations. T.H. White, how can you miss? (And, figures, Liza, you and I share that as well.)

Yes to Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Donna Parker, The Five Little Peppers, The Tuckers, Freckels and Girl of the Limberlost, and all the great stuff by Troy Nesbit (he was a radical Socialist activist, did you know that?) Ginger Pye, Pinky Pye, The Bully of Markham Street, and The Hundred Dresses — deep thinking about classism for kids. The Green Knowe series, Swallows and Amazons, Sounder, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, And Now Miguel, plus all the Born Free books. Plus, bless my Aunt Sarah, the Villagers of Chelm.
ready2agitate Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Yikes I have to get up early tomorrow morning and I’m looking at a slideshow of the Queen Beaver pageant and I don’t even know what I’m looking at! (altho it looks like awesome fun ~ Aunt S. are you in the pix?)

Ellen O., I forget, you’re not in Boston are you? If so I have a copy of “Wide Sargasso Sea” (Jean Rhys) to borrow you. While thinking of women writers of the other Americas, how about Simone Schwarz-Bart, Paule Marshall, Edwige Danticat, Julia Alvarez, Cristina Garcia….

How do you get your book titles to italicize Ginjoint & others?
Maggie Jochild Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 2:22 am
R2A, the itals are standard HTML — only trick is don’t forget to turn them off after, which I do too often.

I can’t give you the symbols here because they’ll be read as code. But a google search will give them to you.
Alex K Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 2:47 am
@amyfaith / MISTRESS MASHAM’S REPOSE: Still in print; brought back, with the Fritz Eichenberg illustrations, through the N Y REVIEW OF BOOKS. A delight of which (along with GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES) I regularly make a house gift or Christmas present.

Years after I first visited Malplaquet, the dictionary and phrase-book (”…the only copy in existence,” said the Professor modestly) delighted me unexpectedly with White’s research and cleverness. Somehow or other I’d picked up an omnibus of Swift’s Works, and had come to the Treatise on Polite Conversation. What did I find one fop saying to another but “Odd-so! I have broke the hinge of my snuff-box!” A phrase which, in the Lilliputian, I am sure Maria got perfectly by heart.
Fräulein Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 4:47 am
Oh yes, Suz, Anne of Green Gables! All of them!

Scotia, you will love Anna Karenina. It is the most wonderful book and the neat thing for me was that it grew with me…the first time I read it I was all “Kitty” but then later it was all “Anna”. An amazing book.
Dr. Empirical Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I love how the message of Alison’s strip was Don’t Make Lists, and we’ve all responded by making lists.
Alex the Bold Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Absolutely, the best panel of the whole thing is of you sitting in a chaise longue slowly burning like one of Ron Popeil’s “Set it and forget it!” rotisserie chickens.

Just a perfect bit of 1970s. Alison, I love you to little bits.
cybercita Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 9:50 am
speaking of childhood favorites, has anyone here read any janet lambert? particularly the jordon novels.

{maggie, i own copies of ALL of gene stratton porter’s novels!}
--MC Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Maggie — you may have portmanteaued Troy Nesbit with E. Nesbit — word is that “Troy Nesbit” was a house name for a series of Western adventures published by Whitman in the early 60s — and E. Nesbit and her husband Hubert Bland were founders of the British Fabian Society –
Andrew B Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Alison is back to one of her favorite themes, our need to define ourselves in opposition to others without utterly alienating ourselves from them. My favorite panel:

- What’s it about?
- A magical bird girl who lives in the jungle.
- That’s the most boring thing I ever heard of.

Captures childish obstinacy perfectly.

The one place where the coloring bothered me is that Alison’s pale and torpid younger self looks torpid, but not pale. Other than that, it looks ok to me.

Completely off topic, but is Roz Chast’s latest New Yorker cover an instant classic or what? Wasn’t there some talk of Alison getting her stuff in the New Yorker at one point?
JaymeBright Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 10:39 am
You know, I always meant to make a list of classic books to read but never got around to it; I always worried that the books my teachers and peers deemed incredible would be a disappointment to me for some reason…or worse, that the books would be infinitely better than anything I could write and put me off my much-beloved track to becoming a master of english studies and an author, eventually. I didn’t even get halfway through 1984 at the point I was most motivated. I feel like a failure, actually when I think that conventional literary classics don’t excite me like perhaps they should…Lately I have been swept up by the writings of Chuck Palahniuk and have encountered Albert Camus’ “The Fall” while on a search to find something the least bit similar. Maybe there’s something there.
Millie Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 11:47 am
This was wonderful! It took me a loooooooong time to get into reading- my dad set up a schedule of children’s books that I should have liked ( based on toys I loved at the time) but it felt like just more homework. It took a long time for me to find the balance for myself (still working on it- I hardly ever touch non-fiction unless it’s work related).
Ian Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Nothing can beat the pleasure of sneaking some contraband literature from your parents’ bookshelves and reading it under your blankets by torchlight.
Jana C.H. Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Alison, thanks to your strip I have just started re-reading Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Boswell is a delight: sexist pig, arrogant elitist, and so full of human failings that one can’t help but love him. The Life of Johnson, however, is only for the hard-core. Normal people (as opposed to weirdos like me) are better off with the Tour of the Hebrides and the London Journal. This is the kind of non-fiction that has novels beat all hollow.

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith James Boswell: If venereal delight and the power of propagating the species were permitted only to the virtuous, it would make the world very good.
Ellen O. Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Okay, so I know I’m over-contributing this week, but how to response to people who suggest very popular books that I have no intention of reading. For example. _The Red Tent_ and _Eat, Pray, Love_?

I was briefly in a discussion group that loved _The Life of Pi_ while I thought it was manipulative, shallow and disjointed. (Though the discussion of religion was interesting.) I dropped out of this group because the books lacked, for me anyway, backbone.

When my writing students or friends in here in Boulder swoon over best-selling drek like _Tuesdays with Morrie_ and tell me since I’m a writer I must read it, I usually smile weakly. Do I have to read something just to prove its not something I want to read?
Alex the Bold Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
You know what I’m wondering? People can make arguments in support of Stephen King (his writing book is brilliant, there’s a scene in there that had me laughing so hard — something about a trick his brother pulled on him involving poison ivy for toilet paper — I thought I was going to start coughing up blood) or whatever “trash” writer they want, and they can always come up with something redeeming about the books in question: the dialogue crackles, or the plot is engaging, or, well something.

But, what is it that attracts people to real, true dreck (e.g., Tuesdays with Morrie)? Is it narrow personal experience? Some need to self-degrade?

And, on that vein, if you were trapped on a desert island with only one book, which one would cause you to walk into the ocean?
Anonymous Says:
June 27th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I’ve never even visited your site before, but I followed a link here and I enjoyed this strip so much I bought your book off of amazon immediately.
Julia