Before 2020 started, I thought it might be possible to read
some of the books on my bookshelves that had gone unread. I didn’t anticipate
adding thirty-five more books to my account at LibraryThing, which now stands
at 1,028. The bookshelves in my office are now overflowing, with some shelves
containing two rows of books, one row in the back and one row in the front.
Out of those thirty-five books added to my account at
LibraryThing, two of them were ones that I already own but had forgotten to
catalog. Another five were gifts. All but three of the remaining twenty-eight
were purchased secondhand, either from Half-Price Books, library sales, or one
of the merchants who lists books at Amazon.
During the year, I read more poetry than I had in previous
years. I have been more productive in my own writing and have been reading
poetry at the same time. While my reading has included several modern poets,
such as Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Hayden, I have also been reading the work
of Ruth Stone, Sharon Olds, Dorianne Laux, Billy Collins, Tony Hoagland, Walter
McDonald, Robert Wrigley, and Don Stinson, a friend from graduate school.
I exclude the books of poetry that I have read from my total
for the year, largely because I find myself returning to books of poetry, and my
designating something as read often means returning that book to the shelf. Books
of poetry are stacked near my bed because I cannot yet move them into my home office
and add them to one of the bookcases containing contemporary poetry.
During 2020, I read nineteen books, mostly nonfiction but
seven novels, too. There was a reference in Maxine’s Gordon’s Sophisticated
Giant to Wardell Gray and his death in 1955. Maxine Gordon adds that Bill Moody
in Death of a Tenor Man “speculates about what might have happened.” That
reference led to my reading all seven Bill Moody novels containing the
character Evan Horne, a jazz pianist who assists the police in solving a crime
in each novel.
These Bill Moody novels are suspenseful and all-consuming. I used to read
them during lunch, in the bathroom, before sleeping, and I sometimes even put
aside my own work in favor of reading a few more chapters. Moody wrote a couple
of other novels in his lifetime. Within his novels about jazz, he attempts to accurately
depict the life of a jazz musician by describing live performances and studio work. The narrator is fully acquainted with both well known and lesser known jazz musicians, some of whom I had not heard of before, such as Clifford Brown
and Hank Mobley. I have tried to get my son interested in Bill Moody by giving
him a copy of
Looking for Chet Baker, but he hasn’t found the novel as
absorbing as I did and hasn’t yet finished it.
Maxine Gordon’s
Sophisticated Giant, a memory and biography
of the jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon, is an attempt to provide, in the words
of Farah Jasmine Griffin, the “historical, social, and political context” of
events in Dexter Gordon’s life. Farah Jasmine Griffin wrote the Forward. Maxine
Gordon devoted a large portion of her life to this book by completing her
undergraduate degree and earning a graduate degree in history before she began
writing the book. I wasn’t aware of Dexter Gordon’s time in prison and the
unnecessarily harsh drug laws in California in the 1950s. Although Dexter
admired those changes that the civil rights movement brought about in this
country, he was much happier living in Europe from 1962 to 1976, for he had
found an audience that truly appreciated him and his music. Well-written and
insightful, Maxine Gordon's book is one of the better examinations of jazz in
this country.
My reading Bryant Simon’s
The Hamlet Fire during the
previous year led to my reading two books he mentioned--Ellen Ruppel Shell’s
Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture and Ann Vileisis’
Kitchen Literacy:
How We lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back,
which reveals the role that advertising and packaging has had in making
processed food more appealing during the 20
th century.
My interest in the American West, particularly during the 19
th
century, resulted in my reading Terry Mort’s
Thieves Road, Mari Sandoz’
Cheyenne
Autumn, and Paul Vandevelder’s
Savages & Scoundrels: The Untold Story of
America’s Road to Empire Through Indian Territory. Vandevelder devotes a lot of
attention to the Treaty at Fort Laramie in 1851, which played a role a few
years later in Lt. Grattan’s contribution to the first Sioux War. Vandevelder
also reveals the problem that the writers of the Constitution had made in not
addressing this country’s relationship with the Native people and how that
lapse contributed to so many problems in this country, beginning with President
Jefferson’s desire to remove the Native people from those states that made up this country at that point.
Another interest of mine is weather. As a senior in high
school and a military dependent who attended high school at an air force base
in England, I participated in the work study program and worked at the base weather
station during my last semester. Working in the afternoons seemed like a better option than sitting in
classes in which (at that time) I had no interest. To this day, weather continues to fascinate me. This fascination is reflected in my reading, too, because I often turn
to books containing nonfiction accounts of severe storms. This year my reading
consisted of
Ten Hours Until Dawn and
58 Degrees North.
Within the nonfiction I read, I often turn to memoirs. Paul
Zimmer, who is known primarily as a poet, describes events from his life and
his retirement in
After the Fire. He participated in the nuclear bomb tests in
Nevada during the 1950s, and that experience contributed to his decision to
become a poet. William Kittredge describes his love for where he has lived in
Oregon and Montana in
Who Owns the West, a collection of essays. It is
difficult to understand his need to drink, however. I had forgotten
that much of
Owning It All is about his drinking. Bill McKibben describes his
efforts to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and to encourage universities and
businesses to pull their investments from American oil companies in
Oil and
Honey.
In my teaching, I often have my students read essays about
the risks associated with plastics, food dyes, and chemicals in cosmetics. Some
students come away from this reading with the realization that our government
exists to serve the corporations. It is up to the individual to educate
himself/herself and to make conscious decisions about what to eat and what to
purchase. McKay Jenkins in
ContamiNation: My Quest to Survive in a Toxic World
addresses the chemicals that we risk exposing ourselves to in his personal
account of how he went about learning what threatens his health, the health of
his wife, and the health of his children. It is a book that should be read and
reread.
I am hoping to buy fewer books during 2021. I know I said
that before. No one has yet enrolled in my classes for Spring 2021, and I may
not be teaching this coming semester. Out of necessity, I will probably be
reading more of my backlog--that is, those books on my bookshelves that I have
not yet read. My wife and I will also be devoting attention to the press that
we have created. Our first magazine will be coming out in March, 2021.
