Real Heroes

I've become a newspaper skimmer these days, checking headlines, reading a few stories and largely ignoring the rest. That I'm reading a hard-copy newspaper at all makes me a dinosaur, so the fact that I'm not always reading every article from start to finish is hardly jaw-dropping news. 

Sometimes, though, an article I only meant to skim draws me in to such an extent that I keep on reading even when I should be doing something else. 

Such was the case last night when, as I was heading to bed, a headline caught my eye: "The Canary." Maybe because I like birds, maybe because the photograph of a mineshaft piqued my curiosity since I spent some time in one last month. 

The article tells the story of Chris Mark, a mine-safety engineer and the winner of a "Sammie" award for excellence in public service. From the sound of it, no individual has done more to keep miners safe than Mark has. Not that he'd tell you this himself. The man is humble to a fault.

No way can I do this riveting story justice; you'll have to read it for yourself. But don't do it leaning over the kitchen counter, as I did. Brew yourself a cup of tea, settle into a comfy chair, and peruse it properly. If for no other reason, read it to remind yourself, as author Michael Lewis says, "how many weird problems the United States government deals with at any one time." And read it to remind yourself that real heroes still walk among us. 

(Graffiti in the Last Chance Mine, Creede, Colorado)

Night Reading

Night reading is one of life's great pleasures. Not just reading before bed, but reading in the wee hours, at times when I'd rather be sleeping.

I don't grab a book first thing. I give deep breathing a chance to work, and sometimes it does. 

When it doesn't, I grab whatever novel or nonfiction tome is on top of the pile and plunge into another world. It's silent and dark, the only illumination supplied by my stalwart little book light. 

Thirty to sixty minutes of reading does the trick — unless I'm unusually frayed or the story is unusually suspenseful. 

Last night, neither of those was the case. I immersed myself in the Brazilian jungle until my eyelids felt heavy. When I woke up again, it was morning. 

Bookmark Revolt

I noticed the telltale threads last night. There was one on the nightstand and another among the bedcovers. No doubt about it, my bookmark was shedding, losing its jaunty tassel. The store-bought item made of laminated pressed violets and violas — such a lovely way to mark my place in the latest journal I'm keeping — is going rogue. 

I'm not surprised at these shenanigans. The bookmark is plainly not pleased with an essay I just wrote, the essay in which I disparage store-bought bookmarks and mention how seldom I use them. In fact, I'm only using this one because my current journal does not have its own built-in bookmark. 

I could repair this marker. I could collect the slender threads and attempt to reattach them. But since I spent much of yesterday tied in knots (see below), I'm unlikely to do that today.

Does a bookmark know when it's been thrown under the bus? Apparently, it does.

The Books Themselves

Last night was my book group's annual book picking, held at a local bookstore cafe. It was fun to meet in person and catch up on news. But as usual, the stars of the show, the books themselves, were in short supply. Since we discuss each book we suggest and pass it (or a description of it) around, this was a problem.

I'd spent an hour or so finalizing my suggestions earlier in the day, printing out a page each for Bittersweet and The Book of Charlie. This was a good move because the bookstore didn’t have the former, a 2022 bestseller just out in paperback, and had to search high and low for the latter, just published and chosen as a best book of 2023 by the Washington Post. 

I’d also printed out the book list of a fellow member who emailed us her regrets at the last minute. The 2022 bestseller Solito was another challenge for the sales clerk to locate, but she finally found one copy.

On one hand, I'm grateful to the bookstore for letting us sit in their cafe and chat for 90 minutes. On the other, I wish the ratio of books to toys and accessories was slanted more heavily in favor of the books themselves.

(No lack of books in this bookstore.)

Weights and Measures

In the book section of yesterday's newspaper an article on feeling guilty about tomes we've never read featured a book I'm finally reading — The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro. 

I found it interesting that the reason given for not reading this one was its weight. "It's just heavy by itself, and that physical weight also weighs on my mind about having to heft it while reading it," John Nash of New Mexico told the Washington Post. 

Tell me about it! I was hefting it last night at 4 a.m. when I couldn't sleep. And I've been hefting it ever since returning from the trip, where every book I read weighed exactly the same, as much as my 7.2-ounce Kindle.

I like to think I've adapted to the rigors of reading this four-pound behemoth, though. Pillows help. 

Power Broker Workout

I wanted to watch “Turn Every Page” as soon as I heard about it last year. The film about the editor-writer relationship between Robert Gottlieb and Robert Caro seemed smart and funny. Gottlieb’s recent passing at age 92 moved the documentary higher on my must-see list, and last week I finally got around to watching — and rewatching — it.

In fact, I can’t seem to stop seeking out clips of the film and thinking about it. Probably because it takes me back to a time when, as the trailer says, “publishing was a religion.” I came of age in that time, working as a magazine editor in New York, and it still seems like the way things ought to be.

Early on, one of Caro's editors shared a piece of advice, something that would sustain the young investigative reporter, "Turn every page," the editor said, exhorting him to be thorough. Caro did turn every page, and has continued to, searching through every box of documents, interviewing every subject. Now he is 87 and racing against the clock to finish the fifth and final volume of his LBJ biography series.

The greatest effect the movie has had on me is that I'm finally reading Caro's first masterwork, The Power Broker, which won the Pulitzer Prize. For me, the imperative is not turning every page but turning any page. My edition of this tome is 1,246 pages and weighs almost four pounds. Holding it up and reading it is putting my arm muscles through their paces. I'm calling my reading sessions the Power Broker Workout.

Decisions, Decisions

We leave tomorrow for more than a week in Seattle and environs, so the dust is flying. Among the items on my packing list is one that recurs on every packing list: book. The singular is deceptive. Often this means books.

Sometimes I'm dragging school work along.  And I used to pack work reading, which falls into the general category of books. Neither one of those this time.

Today's task is simpler, though not without challenges. Today I need to find a good book to read, as in just read, as in for pleasure. Ideally, it would be a medium-sized paperback. Long enough to last me but light enough to keep my baggage allowance where it needs to be. 

I've dipped into the home library and found House Made of Dawn, by M. Scott Momaday, which I haven't read but have always wanted to. It may come along. Also Crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen, a hefty library book, which I've listened to but not read in hard copy. 

There are still a few hours to think about this. Decisions, decisions. 

(Book packing with help from a young assistant.)

The Space Inside Your Head

I just finished reading a novel I had previously "read" by listening. I approached this as an experiment. Would I catch more of the nuance when my eyes scanned ink on paper? Would I possess the story more fully?

The answer, so far, is inconclusive. While the spoken version brought forth the rhythm of the language, and the voice of the narrator captured its emotive power, the act of reading did what it always does for me: it created a private conversation between the author and me. It's a conversation that seems more completely "mine" when there's no intermediary such a narrator's voice. 

The words of the novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, say it better than I can: "Turn a page, walk the lines of the sentences: the singer steps out, and conjures a world of color and noise in the space inside your head."

Margins as Message

In a retrospective mood after yesterday's blog anniversary, I pulled out an old hard-bound journal and started reading. 

It was summer. The previous fall, I'd accepted an editorial position downtown, my first office job in 17 years, though I hadn't yet extricated myself from writing freelance articles. I had three- to four-hour roundtrip commutes and deadlines when I got home. My daughters were 10, 13 and 16. Every few minutes, I was driving them to band camp or track practice or the movies. 

Still, my first thought on reading the loopy entries from those crazy days was ... why didn't I leave wider margins?  Every available inch was pressed into service. I had trouble reading my own writing. 

It took me a minute to realize the connection, the appropriateness of the typography. The pages were as busy as I was. The margins were the message. 

(Above, some halfway-margined class notes from last week.)

Smart Books?

I was about halfway through Paul Auster's Notes from the Interior when I realized ... I'd read it before. Or at least parts of it. 

Maybe libraries should issue subtle notifications when patrons check out books multiple times. Something like, "Last borrowed November 2016." Nothing as overt as, "Are you completely unaware of the fact that you've already checked this book out, plus renewed it, so there's a good chance you've read it before?!"

I suppose this falls into the category of the"smart" features I often decry. How many times have I joked that I don't want my TV or refrigerator to be smarter than I am? So why should my library be?

Which means ... I'm back to relying on good, old-fashioned, oh-so-fallible human memory.

Cold Comfort

In class we take turns leading discussion on the various works we're reading. Next week, in our penultimate class, I will lead again. Only this time, the works I've been assigned — by Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze — are theoretical to the point of unintelligibility. 

I spent some time yesterday poring over the 1600-page literary theory anthology, dutifully underling and checking what seemed to be the relevant passages. But I have no idea if they're truly relevant. 

It's embarrassing! I mean, this is not the theory of relativity. This is something that, at least on the surface, I should be able to understand. 

But one thing I've been reminded of often these last few months is how little I know. And, when I'm not on the hook as I am this week, I take comfort in that. 

An Obit a Day

Sometimes, the best way to start the morning is by reading an obituary. Not just any obituary, though. It needs to be one like that of Arthur Riggs, 82, who with a colleague, Keiichi Ikatura, developed synthetic insulin. Riggs died March 23. 

I learned that Riggs and Ikatura developed a genetic technique that led to the first human-designed and human-made gene that would function in any organism. This paved the way for the creation of synthetic insulin, a "lifesaving development for millions of people with diabetes," the Washington Post said.

Before this discovery, people with diabetes relied on insulin from cows, which had a high rate of allergic reactions. The synthetic insulin avoids this risk.

Dr. Riggs lived in the same house for 50 years, drove "modest cars," said the obituary ... and quietly gave away much of the money he earned from royalties on patents — $310 million — to the institution he helped to found. The name of the institution: the City of Hope. 

(Ikatura and Riggs in 1978. Photo courtesy City of Hope.)

Gallimaufry

I picked up the book because I know the author and enjoy reading his work.  The title bewildered me until I looked inside and saw this definition: "Gallimaufry: a confused jumble or medley of things." 

Joseph Epstein's latest collection is all of that. There are essays on baseball ("Diamonds are Forever"), Julius Caesar ("Big Julie") and the author's defense of the Comic Sans font. Reading this plump and happy book is like devouring a hot fudge sundae smothered with whipped cream. It's fun and filling and a bit of a guilty pleasure (the latter because Epstein recently angered the PC police).

I read Epstein because he's brilliant; because he's a dinosaur, an essayist in the model of Orwell, Hazlitt or Montaigne; and also because he was my teacher long ago. Our first assignment was to come up with our favorite word. Mine was "rhapsody," which captured a moment in my youth when I was young and romantic and could still play the Brahms pieces known by that name. His was "deliquesce," which means to melt away but which he admired, he said, because it contained the word "deli."

Which brings me to the humor and low-key erudition in his work. Epstein, for all his knowledge, does not flaunt it. He's clear,  cogent and refreshingly honest. He makes me remember what it was like to read and write before the age of Great Divisions. 

All of which is to say I'm enjoying Gallimaufry immensely. Maybe by the time I've finished reading it I will have learned how to spell it. 

Doing the Reading

Finding the balance point for this new phase of life is not going to be an exact science, I can already tell. I crave big blocks of time but am also terrified by them. I tremble at not having enough to do, then compensate by piling on too much.

For instance, I continue to try and do all the reading for class, even though it can be an insane amount. Last night, for instance, I realized that there's an entire book we're supposed to read for today.

In my mind are the words of my children. "Mom, you don't have to do all the reading." Wise words from people who, as I recall, were taught that they should do all the reading. 

But as with so much of life, relationships shift, patterns change, wisdom develops. 

And tonight, I will go to class at least slightly ... unprepared. 

Reading and Weeding

The reading and weeding I did yesterday seem worthy of a post. The reading was for class, a chapter called Biology and Ideology. It was about Social Darwinism, eugenics, the values with which science can be laden, the ways science can be used. 

I take notes as I read, because it helps me concentrate and remember. Reading a chapter takes a while, then, as I jot down the main points and attempt to digest them. 

Which meant that I was ready for the weeding when it came. I was ready to swing my arms and pull out great fists full of stilt grass, toss it over the chicken wire fence. The motion freed my limbs, loosened my brain.

Wouldn't it be nice if every day held a perfect combination of mental and physical work? I'm not saying mine did yesterday. But it was close. 

(No picture of weeds handy; here's a shot snapped on the way to class.)

In Praise of Clippings

This morning's newspaper included an article about books on D.C. I did what I do with all helpful articles I think I might want to read again — pulled it out and saved it. 

We live in a digital era, but you wouldn't know that by looking at my files. They are stuffed full of newspaper and magazine clippings, everything from recipes to book reviews to especially fetching columns I want to read again. They are messy and unwieldy — but essential, too.

I could find the same articles and bookmark them on my computer. But there's something to be said for the physical presence of the article itself. For the touch of the paper,  complete with ripped edges and, sometimes, with notes I scribbled in the margin. 

Clippings are outdated, I suppose. But I keep them around. They are tangible reminders of the ideas they hold. 

Bedtime Stories

The voice is melodious, measured, often accented. The intoned words are taking me out of myself, out of the self that tosses and turns when it awakens at 3:30 or 4:20 a.m.  They are shifting my thoughts, turning them toward the drama of others. They are reminding me that the world is large. 

In my arsenal of sleep-inducing weapons I have a new favorite: Audible. I had tried using the recorded books program to this purpose more than a year ago, when I first discovered it, but I had not yet figured out the "Sleep" feature, which allows you to set a timer for anywhere from five minutes to 120. On that occasion, I lost about 30 minutes of the book and had quite a time finding my way back to the place where I lost consciousness

But now, I can set the timer to 10 minutes, certain that, even if I do fall asleep before it runs out, I will easily find my way back. No light to flip on, no pages to fumble through. The darkness of the bedroom preserved. I can plug in, listen to, and drift off as someone reads me ... a bedtime story. 

The Walking Listener

For the last year I've been ambling not always silently and not always with music in my ears but sometimes with words in there too.  Thanks to the gift of Audible, I've walked to novels and meditations and nonfiction explications of our current economic woes. 

One day a neighbor stopped me on the street. I took out my ear buds to hear what she was saying. "You must be listening to a book," she said. 

I wondered how she could tell. Did I have a furrowed brow of concentration? 

She could tell because she does, too. There must be some sort of aura we walking listeners give off that only other walking listeners can see. 

We chatted for a moment before going on our separate ways, at which point I put my ear buds back in and discovered that since I'd forgotten to push pause, the narrator was now several "pages" ahead of where I'd stopped. Just a small problem for the walking listener. 

Free Books: Going Fast

Today, our public library returns to virtual and curbside pickup only. Since summer we've been able to enter our branch (fully masked and separated, of course), to browse the stacks and check out the new fiction and nonfiction sections. We could find our next great read. And often (at least in my case) serendipity was involved. I didn't go hunting for The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. But there it was, languishing in the new fiction section.

So much do I count on these library visits, that when I heard the news of the closure late Friday, I added another to-do for Saturday: get over to the Chantilly branch and get some books. Apparently, many folks had the same idea. By late morning the parking lot was filling up and people were dashing from building to car, bundles of books under their arms. 

A woman with a clicker monitored our arrival, to keep capacity to Covid rules. She reminded me I could only stay for 30 minutes. That was fine; I only had 10. 

But I made a beeline for the new section, and got right to browsing. There was Patti Smith's Year of the Monkey, a memoir that's been on my list for months. I grabbed John Bolton's The Room Where It Happened, too. It  seems a little passé by now, but I'll give it a try. 

Into my arms went books on artificial intelligence and mindfulness and the works of Walt Whitman. If a topic seemed down my alley at all, it made the cut. 

When I left the library there were five souls waiting to get in. Free books — there's nothing like 'em.

Reading for Pleasure

For some reason that I can't quite fathom, my parents gave me The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy when I was about 14 years old. It was a  strange choice for a kid, but it turned out to be a good one for me. I soon discovered a taste for Wessex folk, and for the moors and dales Hardy described so beautifully in his tales. 

Of course, Thomas Hardy novels aren't always a barrel of laughs, and they probably made a quietly dramatic teenager even more so. But the affinity remained, and now the idea of settling down with The Mayor of Casterbridge or Tess of the D'Urbervilles is almost akin to picking up a book of fairy tales, so closely do I associate them with my youth, when reading was pure pleasure.

I'm recapturing a bit of that pure-pleasure reading this week, dipping into my new holiday books. It's a feeling Hardy would agree with. "No one can read with profit," he said, "that which he cannot read with pleasure."