My Reading in 2020

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.