Reading

When I was a high schooler looking into colleges, I remember receiving a postcard from St. John's College, a small liberal arts school with campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe.  Beside the dual campuses, what struck me about St. John's -- a school that I never considered attending -- was the postcard that listed what books students should read by the end of each year in college.  I was intrigued because the list had so many classics that I realized how many books there were that I needed to read yet hadn't even thought about picking up.

So in high school, I picked up such classic authors and Plato and Tolstoy and read them.  Sure, I'm a nerd, but I was also an athlete in high school.  I doubt many of the other guys on the teams were reading what I was reading; only the guys in Math Club or the National Honor Society were reading those books, and there weren't many athletes in either group.  I even bought Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World, which I still have.

This began a lifelong love affair with reading.  I can't claim to read one hundred and fifty books a year like Donald Fehr, formerly the lead attorney for the MLB players' union and now the lead attorney for the NHL players' union, famously claimed (he must be Evelyn Woods' son, since he would seem to have no time to read after all the meetings, document reviews and negotiations in which he was involved).  I guess I'm a voracious reader, since I regularly read when I'm in the bathroom or when I pump gas -- which has elicited a comment or two from other drivers.

But there is so much to read, so little time.  Karen thinks I'm a candidate for a twelve-step program, only she can't find the program in which to enroll me.  She's asked me to get keep only those books that are my friends, only to hear that I consider all my books my friends.  In truth, I do get rid of books.  She doesn't see the utility to keeping books once I read them.  In response, I actually use them as reference, either for things I write or to settle arguments I have.  Some books I keep aside from all the rest simply because they're the best books I've ever read.

I keep an alphabetical (by author) list of all the books I own, the vast majority of which are hardbound.  Pared down after a flood and a couple of moves, the list totals some fifty-eight pages.  After awhile, I also started keeping track of what books I read.  There are those people who enjoy books so much they reread their favorite tomes, sometimes every year.  I don't have the time.  There's allegedly a Supreme Court Justice who loves Jane Austen and rereads her novels every year.  I say there are too many good books out there to spend the time rereading those books I enjoy above all others.  So my list of read books runs on about fifty pages, now with the readings broken down by month and year.  I also kept a list of the books I loaned out to friends; keeping the list is one thing, getting the books back is quite another.

A thumb drive on which I kept the list recently was broken so I had to retype the thing.  Fortunately, I had an old copy of the list printed that allowed me to recreate the list with a lot of typing.  As I typed it, I noticed some interesting things:

The year I read the most books was 2007, when read seventy-nine.  This was in a three year stretch when I read seventy-three (2006), seventy-nine (2007) and then seventy (2008).  I give the credit to the Metra commuter line in Chicago for ferrying me back and forth to work, which is what allowed me to read so much.

After I got out of school, I noticed a decline in the number of classic books I read and an uptick in the number of non-fiction that I read.  I've always tried to blend different genres each month, mixing in military history, Irish history, sports, biographies, travel, Spanish history, contemporary fiction, espionage, law-related books and some classics here and there.  For example, in March, 1993, I read A Life on the Road by Charles Kuralt, Story of the Irish Race by Seamus MacManus and Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.  I'd try to read certain things at historically significant times, such as Columbus and the Age of Discovery by Zvi Dor-Ner in 1992, the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus.  I read Rome, 1960:  The Olympics That Changed the World by David Maraniss while I was in Italy.  I told you I was a nerd.

I try to start the year off right with good books.  Every January I line up books I think are going to thrill me, and sometimes I get it right.  Other times not so much.  This year, I read Extra Virginity:  The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller and Joe Rochefort's War:  The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway by Elliot Carlson and Rear Admiral Donald Showers, then read On the Map:  A Mind-Expanding Exploration of How the World Looks by Simon Garfield.  I'm about to finish 13 Hours by Martin Zuckoff and Shirley Jones' autobiography.  So far, it's been a good start.

As I mentioned, I keep track of books that blew me away.  Looking back at my list, I see that some years I get shut out of truly excellent works.  For example, the years 1993, 1994, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2013 and 2014 were lean years for great books.  Conversely, 2005 and 2010 were good years, each with four top books, but 2012 (of course) had seven great books.

There are a couple of other passages of note.  In 1996, the list becomes scattered after May because of our Mother's death.  I was adrift, and my records reflect that.  I also lost track of the books I read when the thumb drive broke.

Because of all the reading I do there are people who regard me as brilliant.  I'm not brilliant.  What I am is somewhat well-read.  But doing all this reading has made me aware that not only am I not brilliant but that there are so many books out there I have yet to read.  Two that come to mind immediately are The Federalist Papers and Gulliver's Travels.  Every year I say I'm going to read them and every year they get set aside.  I also know that no matter how much I want to read it, I will never read Ulysses.  I just can't get past the first couple of pages.  If I were brilliant, I could read Ulysses.

Reading isn't for everyone, but it should be.  It opens the mind, allows travel vicariously and informs one of things that one didn't know.  Some people listen to audio books (I can't), and even that's better than not reading.

I truly can't imagine a life without reading.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles