Apologies, you will not find the meaning of life* in this post, it’s just I didn’t want the title to only be ‘Books.’
'...there are no definitive opinions or reviews, a reader is simply changed inside. They’re aware of the change and somehow better for it, but the adjustment cannot be measured or described.'
(Scribbled in a long ago notebook, I know it was about a book, the title of which has been lost to time)
I am not from a bookish family. I never remember seeing my parents reading a book, purposely visiting a bookshop or talking about books either to me, amongst themselves or to friends or family. We did have a 'bookshelf' though, that randomly moved to different pieces of furniture over the years. The books on it remained fairly static, from as far back as I can remember, they have not been subtracted from and only once or twice been added too, and have survived two immigrations (USA) and countless apartment and house moves.
Never one for buying a book, reading it and then repeating, I always had books to read sitting on my ‘shelf’. It has expanded recently, for me, to a worrying level, the number of which I will not disclose. I want to keep the number of books ‘to read’ out of mind, believing that in doing so, it will always remain a task that is doable. Some may laugh and wonder what all the fuss is about. Others may be driven to a state of high anxiety, trying to fathom how I can live in the shadow of this teetering tower that, surely one day, will topple and bury me in a tomb of signed first editions, paperbacks, chapbooks, comics, and dust. The length of our ‘to read’ list is as personal as the books we have on them.
I am not a book snob. I don’t think I could tell anyone they shouldn’t read a particular book. I have read Harry Potter and Dan Brown, pleasures I am to feel guilty about, apparently. I’ve never regretted the escapism they brought but will admit feeling a little remorseful about the time devoted to reading them which I could have used to read something else.
Over the lockdowns I didn’t read as many books as I planned but I began to walk more and listen to books (walk and book). One of those books was the The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller. I love hearing about other peoples’ relationships with books, how they have endeared and ingrained themselves into multiple facets of readers lives. Another was In Praise of Walking by Shane O’Mara which I listened to, funnily enough, while walking and opens with a description of a walk he had taken in Belfast near to my usual morning route.
I’ll ignore the argument, ‘is listening, reading?’ That is too much philosophy, "If a tree falls..." balls for me. I predominantly divide reading and listening into:
Read (literary) fiction
Listen to non-fiction and comedy
It is a personal preference, a way to absorb what is offered by these different genres.
Here are some thoughts on a few books, out of the multitude I have read, that have left their mark. They have not been read in years, some in another lifetime it feels, so these are memories and feelings filtered by time.
The main character in 2019's Knives Out is Harlan Thrombey! The film, with its large mansion and list of suspects, each with a little bit of motive, is certainly an homage to this great little book.
How can you not love that cover?
Choose Your Own Adventure, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators.
Looking at the book covers from childhood is the only time that I miss my younger self, miss the secrets I had and the imagination that, then, could bring to life anything I wanted.
They also conjure up the Elmhurst public library where I first discovered them. I could go back and visit the place, boarding a plane to New York, make my way to Grand Avenue, cross Queens Boulevard and up to 51st Avenue. But we know that library would not be as good as the one that exists in my memory, with its ethereal quality and ability to create, cajole and fool us. I also mean this literally, as the library was demolished in 2006, rebuilt, and reopened in December 2016.
Click on the images for more information on the Elmhurst Library.
The Library, back then, wasn’t very large but I loved the tunnels created by the floor to near ceiling bookshelves. I would leave the ‘young reader’ section to just walk around amongst the books, up and down these tunnels and barricades of books.
I remember going there one afternoon on my own to sit in a small basement with several others to watch a Universal Monster Matinée, Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolf Man. My favourite was Dracula with Bela Lugosi, the movie flickering on a pull up screen as the projector spun softly behind us. Some of you will remember getting a folded and stapled A5 catalogue from your school which you could then use to purchase advertised books at a reduced cost through the school. I remember getting these both in America and here, the release of these was always an exciting time for me. This was how I came to own Dracula by Bram Stoker alongside Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, which the second school I attended while living in New York, requested we purchase for class. Around 8 years later I read Dracula, finding to my dismay that it was in American English (of course).
A while back I bought ‘Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey’ for nostalgia purposes, it was the ‘choose your own adventure’ book that I had borrowed from the library and read the most. Over the years I had bought, read and kept nearly the whole range of the Three Investigators books but in 2000, moving into a one bedroom flat and about to get married, space was at a premium, so I got rid of the box that had been filled with the ‘Investigator’ books. A decision I have regretted, at times bitterly, over the years.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
There were hardships that I remember from childhood - not enough of this, not enough for that, things were tight enough that I recognised them but there was never the oppression of poverty faced by Jurgis and family.
The working conditions described, I hope, now only exist in the pages of this book. Sawdust, meat, blood and entrails are not, as far as I am aware, swept up into our cans of food anymore but with zero hour contracts, enforced overtime and widely reported stories involving staff from major worldwide retailers feeling obligated to work through breaks, our own modern ‘jungle’ exists.
This book so impressed my teenage self that I began to think of tattoo designs for Jurgis’ name. The motivation being that I would have a visual reminder that whatever job I had at the time, and whatever job I would have in the future, would be nothing like what Jurgis endured.
I had not thought of the book as an historical novel before but that’s largely what it is - a gut wrenching account of poverty and exploitation in the Chicago meatpacking plants of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It went some way to kick-starting the revolt against greed, corruption and modern slavery in the food industry at the time and is a telling reminder that we cannot rest in our efforts to resist those who seek to profit from enforced labour.
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
Recently I watched a biopic, of sorts, recounting the life of JD Salinger. It got me thinking about re-reading books as Catcher was one of those rereads that profoundly let me down.
I am amazed how much influence timing can have on a book. That the right book, read at the right time, can resonate with us so much it elevates our experience and memory of it.
The first time I read ‘Catcher’ I was in awe. Like so many others, I was Holden. I got it. Just about everyone else was a phoney. It spoke to me and I lived and breathed between the words and lines of that book.
And then I reread it, in my 30’s.
My god, Holden was an ass.
I was no longer the same as him, feeling the things he felt. I didn’t sympathise with him. I fucking disliked him. I had changed, Holden hadn't. The book was no less an artistic achievement but what I put into the book was different and what I got out of it was also.
I reread it wanting to feel the way I had the first time. What I didn’t realise was that was an impossibility. I was incapable of reading the book the way I had before, incapable of experiencing the same thoughts and emotions I had before. But in my disappointment, I learned that I had moved on, become a different person. I was no longer reflected in Holden because Holden was static, I wasn’t.
My memory of reading Catcher for the first time lives in exactly that, a memory, and memories can be moulded later to fit the way we want or need to feel in the present.
My recollection of ‘Catcher’ is one of elation and then disappointment. A little like how many things in life play out.
I wonder what my third reading will be like?
The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson
Was the first book about addiction that I read. A selfishness, an inability to cope, and a want easily succumbed to, in defiance of reason, so accurately described was more frightening than any zombie movie, and they scare me, I saw Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ at 10 years of age.
Don’s willingness to walk into destruction was zombie-like, but one of those new hyper-focused, virus zombie’s. His singular aim, to fulfil a single demand without consequence, was fascinating in the appalled, can’t take my eyes away, car-crash sense and was described vividly and brilliantly in this book.
Digging the Vein by Tony O’Neill
Though a book with an addicted lead character, Tony’s was different, certainly in style, but also in what it conveyed about addiction, which was as brutal and self serving as ‘Lost’ but forgiving as well, I think.
This book would have stood out for me regardless but the fact that I have become friendly with the author, mostly through correspondence, is a bonus I did not expect. We have met twice, once in New York and once in Belfast. When the third rolls around, as I am sure it will, I’ll be as much fanboy as friend.
For me, ‘Digging’ certainly sits within the tradition of great first novels. It felt immediate, as if every word must hit the page or disintegrate. The book has great pace as you rush along with the chaotic, nameless narrator and are given a real sense of his cravings.
This book also saw me through a few plane journeys, no mean feat, as I have to medicate to even look at a plane. An honourable mention must go to Don’t Skip Out on Me by Willy Vlautin for the same amazing achievement.
The Pawnbroker by Edward Lewis Wallant
All good books have the power to transport you and Wallant’s book places you front and centre to witness Sol’s current soulless situation and his horrifying past as we see glimpses of the holocaust played out in his memory. The book I remember is near unputdownable. Vivid, heartbreaking and redemptive, not for those that carried out atrocities but for those that survived them, which is the purpose of the book.
You Get So Alone by Charles Bukowski
Taught me that not all poetry was Heaney and Hewitt, which my ‘know it all’ 18 year old self, disliked. My friend handed me the book in the school library. The one I hid in the back of to read books and sleep - I worked two midweek nights in a bar - I remember the sleeps, I remember the books, I remember the large soft chair beside a radiator. The librarian, to me a kind woman, maybe as I was the only pupil that checked books out and returned them, would wake me if I fell asleep and had missed the bell for class. I was only two years at the school, it was a grammar, I came from a secondary, I had no business being there and left without getting my A-levels, but I did get Bukowski.
This is just a short post that was fun to think about, write and which you can take nothing from whatsoever, but, if any of this sounds familiar, do check out the books and the audiobooks if you haven’t already.
I listen to a lot of podcasts, too many to list, but given the content of this post I have to mention Backlisted, one of the best book podcasts out there.
*Scientifically proven in 1979 to be 42.
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