The question of the day is, if I and everyone who knows me vanished into thin air, would any one random person be able to decipher who I was, what I believed in, and what made me tick based solely on the books found on my bedside table? I’d like to think so. I’d like to think that said random person would take one look at my stash of reading material and think to him or herself: “Now there went a Renaissance Woman; a lover of literature; a lover of life, a lover of love itself! A modern day Yoda she must’ve been.”
But in all reality, the only thing the books I have piled beside and under my bed probably say about me is that I love to read. Oh, and that I’m really bad about returning loaners. They can, however, be easily classified into the following categories:
1. My Deserted Island Books: The Power of One; The Princess Bride; and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. These are the books that, if I were to be stranded on a deserted island by myself and could only have three to read over and over again for all eternity (or until a random fishing boat passed by and rescued me) I would choose to have. They are, in fact, the only books I’ll go into any detail about in this entry.
I read The Power of One for the first time in 1993 and have re-read it more times i
n 17 years than any other book. The title, I’m sure, has turned off many a potential fan by sounding like a self-help or religious/spiritual book. It is neither. It is a fictional novel about a boy in South Africa who grows up to a welterweight boxing champion. I could not do it justice by describing it in a few short sentences so suffice it to say that it is, quite simply, masterful. Oh, and it has the best damn ending of any book I have ever read.
The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman,.jpg)
is second on my list of favorite reads. Most people I know saw the movie and loved it (as did I), but have never read the book. Believe it or not, it’s even better. Cleverly written to sound like an abridged addition by Goldman of a book written by one S. Morgenstern (who doesn’t exist), The Princess Bride is pure, unadulterated, unpretentious and unapologetic literary entertainment at its finest. It’s about as modern day a classic as they come and I cannot wait to read it to my own kids.
n 17 years than any other book. The title, I’m sure, has turned off many a potential fan by sounding like a self-help or religious/spiritual book. It is neither. It is a fictional novel about a boy in South Africa who grows up to a welterweight boxing champion. I could not do it justice by describing it in a few short sentences so suffice it to say that it is, quite simply, masterful. Oh, and it has the best damn ending of any book I have ever read.The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman,
.jpg)
is second on my list of favorite reads. Most people I know saw the movie and loved it (as did I), but have never read the book. Believe it or not, it’s even better. Cleverly written to sound like an abridged addition by Goldman of a book written by one S. Morgenstern (who doesn’t exist), The Princess Bride is pure, unadulterated, unpretentious and unapologetic literary entertainment at its finest. It’s about as modern day a classic as they come and I cannot wait to read it to my own kids.The Five People You Meet in Heaven is an impossibly beautiful story
about an 83 year old man who dies a sudden and gory death and goes on to the Great Beyond, not to meet his Maker, but to meet the five people who had (in some cases, previously unbeknownst to him) defined his life while he was still on Earth. The book is small, literally - about 4 X 6, and not long (less than 200 pages, which would be more like 120 in a normal-sized book), and can be easily read in an afternoon. An afternoon, a day, a week, a month, would be too short, however. Because the story is so compelling, so touching and so beautifully written that when you read the last page, you’ll find yourself starting over – because you can’t stand to have it end.
2. Airport Reads: Everyone knows what these are – the books you buy in the airport store when you realize you have 5 hours on a plane with absolutely nothing to read. Half the money you spend will be on trashy gossip mags (after all, you don’t know any of these people so you could give a rat’s ass about appearances), and the other half will be on a novel or autobiography that you know nothing about and probably would never otherwise buy. As a general rule, I don’t like autobiographies and cannot STAND silly romance novels by Barbara Bradford or Danielle Steele. I do, however, dig spy and crime novels. Although I usually finish these kinds of books during my long plane rides and leave them wherever I happen to have been travelling to, I do have a couple left on my bedside table (Extreme Measures and Tsar).
3. Loaners: As some of my friends know, I’m terrible about returning books that have been loaned (read: not given) to me – and certainly never in pristine condition (I’m a compulsive and admittedly, shameful, dog-earer). The one thing I will say is that, with very few exceptions (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – a book with a title so annoying and obnoxiously long that I gave up on it out of principle after a few short pages), I will read almost anything recommended to me by a friend. If they loved it, surely it’s worth exploring. And the beauty of loaners is that oftentimes, you’ll end up reading something you may otherwise never have picked up yourself. Examples of such books that are currently on my bedside (and have not yet been returned to their rightful owners) are Angela’s Ashes; Extreme Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; The Traveler; and My Friend Leonard. A couple of others (Blink and The Tipping Point are also loaners but will be classified separately).
4. “Things That Make You Go Hmmm” books: A few months ago, while my husband and I were staying overnight at our place in San Francisco, I picked up an old copy of Freakonmics that some guest had left behind at one point or another. By the time Jess woke up a couple of hours later, I’d read half the book. And boy, was I was hooked. I couldn’t put the damn thing down. Within an hour, I’d finished it and within another couple of hours, I was on my way to Barnes & Noble to buy the sequel, Super Freakonomics. These are the books I call “The Things That Make You Go Hmmmm” books. 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, The Tipping Point and Blink, three of the 25 on my bedside table, are other examples of such books (the latter two being ones that were loaned to me by a friend that will likely never be returned). These are the books that you can find yourself commenting on out loud while reading (“Fascinating!”, “I had NO idea!!”) and can always count on as conversation starters at dinner parties (“Hey, did you KNOW that, statistically speaking, most drug dealers live with their mothers??”).
5. Chick Books: I’ve already stated that I hate cheesy romance novels. Cannot stand them. The chick books that I have on my bedside table are different (with arguably one exception: Dear John). The ones I have are more "Sex in the City” type novels (The Devil Wears Prada) than they are Danielle Steele type novels, and are books about women that most men I know would never be caught dead reading (A Woman Alone). Another one I’d add to this list, but no longer have because I loaned it to someone and never got back (payback’s a bitch) is Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, it’s cliché and yes, it was a bit on the obnoxious “Woman Power” side, but I dug it nonetheless.
6. How To’s/Enlightenment: As a general rule, I don’t usually read “how to” or self help books, and when I do, I usually stop reading them half way through (which may explain a lot, if I were self-enlightened enough to admit it). I do, however, have a few that have stayed on my bedside table (The Little Big Book for Moms; Getting in the Gap: Making Conscious Contact with God Through Meditation; Raising a Daughter; Reading Rescue 1-2-3; and The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands), not necessarily because I haven’t read them, but because they are important enough to keep within arm’s reach, just in case…
7. The Good Ol' Fashioned Stand By: The oldest book I have on my bedside table is The World’s Greatest Letters. It’s a first edition printing of a book published in 1940 and I found it several years ago at a garage sale. The hard back cover has faded, it has a distinctive musty smell to it, but despite its age, is unmarked and undog-eared (even the likes of this chronic dog-earer respected it enough to use a book mark). As the title suggests, the book is a collection of letters, some famous, some obscure, written by people ranging from Alexander the Great, to Lord Byron, Voltaire, and Leon Trotsky. Some of the letters are about wars and (then) current events, many are about love and undying devotion, and some are about seemingly nothing in particular. I have not read them all despite the fact that I’ve had the book next to my bed for several years. But I have read most. I keep it, not because it’s a thrilling, awesome read, but because, like The Power of One, The Princess Bride and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, it’s always there when nothing else will do.
about an 83 year old man who dies a sudden and gory death and goes on to the Great Beyond, not to meet his Maker, but to meet the five people who had (in some cases, previously unbeknownst to him) defined his life while he was still on Earth. The book is small, literally - about 4 X 6, and not long (less than 200 pages, which would be more like 120 in a normal-sized book), and can be easily read in an afternoon. An afternoon, a day, a week, a month, would be too short, however. Because the story is so compelling, so touching and so beautifully written that when you read the last page, you’ll find yourself starting over – because you can’t stand to have it end.2. Airport Reads: Everyone knows what these are – the books you buy in the airport store when you realize you have 5 hours on a plane with absolutely nothing to read. Half the money you spend will be on trashy gossip mags (after all, you don’t know any of these people so you could give a rat’s ass about appearances), and the other half will be on a novel or autobiography that you know nothing about and probably would never otherwise buy. As a general rule, I don’t like autobiographies and cannot STAND silly romance novels by Barbara Bradford or Danielle Steele. I do, however, dig spy and crime novels. Although I usually finish these kinds of books during my long plane rides and leave them wherever I happen to have been travelling to, I do have a couple left on my bedside table (Extreme Measures and Tsar).
3. Loaners: As some of my friends know, I’m terrible about returning books that have been loaned (read: not given) to me – and certainly never in pristine condition (I’m a compulsive and admittedly, shameful, dog-earer). The one thing I will say is that, with very few exceptions (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – a book with a title so annoying and obnoxiously long that I gave up on it out of principle after a few short pages), I will read almost anything recommended to me by a friend. If they loved it, surely it’s worth exploring. And the beauty of loaners is that oftentimes, you’ll end up reading something you may otherwise never have picked up yourself. Examples of such books that are currently on my bedside (and have not yet been returned to their rightful owners) are Angela’s Ashes; Extreme Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; The Traveler; and My Friend Leonard. A couple of others (Blink and The Tipping Point are also loaners but will be classified separately).
4. “Things That Make You Go Hmmm” books: A few months ago, while my husband and I were staying overnight at our place in San Francisco, I picked up an old copy of Freakonmics that some guest had left behind at one point or another. By the time Jess woke up a couple of hours later, I’d read half the book. And boy, was I was hooked. I couldn’t put the damn thing down. Within an hour, I’d finished it and within another couple of hours, I was on my way to Barnes & Noble to buy the sequel, Super Freakonomics. These are the books I call “The Things That Make You Go Hmmmm” books. 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, The Tipping Point and Blink, three of the 25 on my bedside table, are other examples of such books (the latter two being ones that were loaned to me by a friend that will likely never be returned). These are the books that you can find yourself commenting on out loud while reading (“Fascinating!”, “I had NO idea!!”) and can always count on as conversation starters at dinner parties (“Hey, did you KNOW that, statistically speaking, most drug dealers live with their mothers??”).
5. Chick Books: I’ve already stated that I hate cheesy romance novels. Cannot stand them. The chick books that I have on my bedside table are different (with arguably one exception: Dear John). The ones I have are more "Sex in the City” type novels (The Devil Wears Prada) than they are Danielle Steele type novels, and are books about women that most men I know would never be caught dead reading (A Woman Alone). Another one I’d add to this list, but no longer have because I loaned it to someone and never got back (payback’s a bitch) is Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, it’s cliché and yes, it was a bit on the obnoxious “Woman Power” side, but I dug it nonetheless.
6. How To’s/Enlightenment: As a general rule, I don’t usually read “how to” or self help books, and when I do, I usually stop reading them half way through (which may explain a lot, if I were self-enlightened enough to admit it). I do, however, have a few that have stayed on my bedside table (The Little Big Book for Moms; Getting in the Gap: Making Conscious Contact with God Through Meditation; Raising a Daughter; Reading Rescue 1-2-3; and The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands), not necessarily because I haven’t read them, but because they are important enough to keep within arm’s reach, just in case…
7. The Good Ol' Fashioned Stand By: The oldest book I have on my bedside table is The World’s Greatest Letters. It’s a first edition printing of a book published in 1940 and I found it several years ago at a garage sale. The hard back cover has faded, it has a distinctive musty smell to it, but despite its age, is unmarked and undog-eared (even the likes of this chronic dog-earer respected it enough to use a book mark). As the title suggests, the book is a collection of letters, some famous, some obscure, written by people ranging from Alexander the Great, to Lord Byron, Voltaire, and Leon Trotsky. Some of the letters are about wars and (then) current events, many are about love and undying devotion, and some are about seemingly nothing in particular. I have not read them all despite the fact that I’ve had the book next to my bed for several years. But I have read most. I keep it, not because it’s a thrilling, awesome read, but because, like The Power of One, The Princess Bride and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, it’s always there when nothing else will do.
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