The Eleventh Commandment

I like to think of myself as a reasonable person. Easy to get along with. Nice. I like to think of myself as...not flexible, exactly (I am by inclination a creature of habit), but at least not rigid. There are, however, a some human behaviors that I find absolutely unacceptable, that fill me with unmitigated and unrelenting but not unreasonable, in my opinion, rage. The chronic misuse of the words “less” and “fewer,” particularly in grocery store express lanes, for example. And the apparent inability for restaurant workers across the country to understand that “no onions” means no onions. People who talk on their cell phones during movies, plays, concerts, and other public performances also. But the thing that enrages me as nothing else can is when people break the eleventh commandment: Thou Shalt Not Write In Library Books.

Although I am not inclined to forgive any infraction of this rule, there are varying degrees of seriousness. A few marks or margin notes made in very light pencil can be erased, after all. The occasional, almost imperceptible dot made with a ball-point pen is perhaps not too bad. But marking your place with little stars is over the line--God made bookmarks for a reason--and underlining whole passages is absolutely out. The grossest offense against the eleventh commandment, however, is surely the use of the fluorescent yellow highlighter. No highlighter is acceptable, of course, but somehow the fluorescent yellow highlighter seems to imply an extra touch of obnoxious self-involvement, disregard for others, and contempt for the sanctity of the commonly held resource that is the lending library.

The worst highlighter offense I’ve ever encountered came last year in a copy of The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture that I checked out of the Mansfield Library at the University of Montana last year. I settled myself on the couch in my living room with a mechanical pencil, a large stack of blank 3x5 note cards, a fully charged iPod and a mug of blueberry tea and cracked open the book in its red library binding. I was expecting to spend a nice afternoon conducting research for my master’s thesis and getting lost in Wendell Berry’s delightful prose. But someone else had been there before me: every page bore the garish marks of yellow highlighter. That previous student (or, I shudder to even contemplate, professor) had apparently not understood the distinction between writing in a book one has bought and intends to resell and a book someone has borrowed. A book that does not belong to you. And I wondered if that other student was really as arrogant and self centered as his or her treatment of poor Wendell implied. Was he (or she) really so broke, lazy, rude or stupid that he (or she!) was unwilling to buy the book outright, or to at least to employ the time honored combination of photocopying, post-it notes and index cards that has served the university student so well for so long? If the library stands for all the good things that civilization and culture can achieve, the selfishly defaced library book stands for all the failures of the human race to live up to the library’s potential.

I was reminded of yellowed copy of America recently while perusing a copy of Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every mood, Moment, and Reason that I had checked out of the Multnomah County Library. I’m not normally a fan of “list” books--more often than not I find them disappointing. Indeed, not long before checking out Book Lust I’d read Cinematherapy: The Girl's Guide to Movies for Every Mood and found it unoriginal and sometimes uninformative--more style than substance. But I was intrigued by the table of contents in Book Lust so I gave it a shot and was pleasantly surprised by it. Finally, here was someone who, it seemed, had the same kind of reading “moods” that I did, who understood that sometimes you want to read books that are evocative of a certain place, time, or feeling but may seem to be otherwise unrelated. Here was someone who understood how serious readers read!

So I was pleasantly surprised by the content. I was unpleasantly surprised by the book itself. Someone, or possibly several someones, had taken it upon themselves to go through the book with the ubiquitous yellow highlighter and a blue ball-point pen, marking books that, I suppose, they have either read or would like to read. I found it all terribly upsetting. After all, I would have assumed that the kind of person who would pick up Book Lust in the first place would be a serious reader, too, someone who loves books, and libraries, and who understands how to treat books borrowed from another reader. But clearly I was wrong: either I have been inclined to thing too well of readers, or books about the love of books can attract even those who do not, themselves, love books the way I do.

Having enjoyed the contents of Nancy Pearl’s first book so much I’ve started in on its sequel: More Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason. It’s blessedly free of highlighting, but then again, it hasn’t been in the library system very long--it’s probably only a matter of time before it resembles its older sister. I can’t prevent that. But when I go to make my notes on More Book Lust, you can be sure I’ll be doing it the old fashioned way: with pencil, post-its, and a few blank white 3x5 index cards.

To Drive the Cold Winter Away

I think the hardest thing about living in a tropical climate would be the lack of seasons: how do you know what to wear, what to eat, what to read? In the same way I crave sweaters and soups in winter, my literary choices in the winter months also reflect a definite seasonal taste. In winter I crave mysteries, preferably historical in nature and impeccable in execution, fantasies of fairy tales and epic quests, and novels imbued with the sensibilities of ancient tragedies and gothic tales--interior worlds of slowly mounting tension and inescapable fates.

It’s easy to understand my body’s cravings for warm clothing and hot food in the coldest months of the year, but what accounts for the cravings of my mind? Maybe it’s pure escapism--the desire to fall into world other than my own. Recreated worlds that provide glimpses into a past that are already come and gone. Fully created worlds that exist only in words on a page and images in the mind. Interior worlds that delve deeply into the human heart.

Or maybe it’s just the weather: winter where I live generally means rain, and lots of it, for a long, long time. The kind of weather that practically begs you to make a cup of tea and settle on the couch with a book and a blanket. The kind of weather that provides the moody atmosphere that fits best with mysteries, quests, and quiet horror.

Whatever the reason, I find myself once again in winter reading the kinds of books described above. This week I finished both The Serpent on the Crown and The Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters. I’ve been working my way through Peters’ Amelia Peabody mystery series lately--about half rereads and about half new reads. I’ve enjoyed them for years, and I wish I could say that I’ve read them responsibly in order, but sadly, though I did read the first three in the order in which they were written, since then I’ve been seesawing back and forth between the two extremes of the series. Mostly, I’ve read whatever has been most available at the library. What that’s done for me, though, is to give me a different kind of appreciation for the series than I’ve had for anything similar before.

The short way to describe the series is to say that it concerns a family of English archaeologists in Egypt in the early twentieth century, but to leave it at that would be to do the series a disservice. The books (thus far) span some twenty or thirty years, encompasses the shift of British society from the Victorian era to the roaring twenties, chronicles World War I and the twilight days of the British empire, and describes the birth of scientific archaeology. Added to which the books are funny, well written, and thoroughly charming, And if certain aspects of the series lack a certain freshness for longtime readers (the continual need to reintroduce and re-describe the key player in each book, for example) the series still stands on its own, both as a mystery series and as a multigenerational historical saga, and if neither of the two books I’ve just finished qualifies as my new favorite in the series, both of them were thoroughly enjoyable. What now for me and Amelia Peabody? The Deeds of the Disturber and Seeing a Large Cat, of course.

I didn’t finish The Ladies of Grace Adieu this week: I’m savoring it. When I read Susanna Clarke’s most excellent Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell last winter, I plunged right in and read with abandon. I even hand carried it onto and airplane last December because it was too large to fit in my carryon. (Incidentally, should you decide to travel with Jonathan Strange, might I recommend the mass market paperback and not the trade paperback? Just a suggestion.) But with a book that topped out at over eight hundred pages, I didn’t feel much of a need to pace myself. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, on the other hand, is a mere fraction of that length, and must be doled out slowly. I find Clarke’s work to be not only delightful but utterly impressive, detailed and lovely. Her book and stories read like a collaboration between L. Frank Baum and Jane Austen, and perhaps the most impressive thing about them is that although you can tell how much work must have gone into the construction of both books, you can’t see it. Added to which Ladies may be the most delightfully designed book I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in recent years; everything, from the type used to Charles Vess’ wonderful illustrations to the construction of the cover, everything evokes the feeling of the old Oz books I read as a child--books that had belonged first to my mother, or sometimes even my grandmother. The kind of books they just don’t make anymore. Such details make Ladies a pleasure to read, both mentally and physically.

And what tales of danger, wonder, adventure and amazement will I be embarking on this winter’s week? Added to the two new Amelia Peabodys on the docket are Laurie R. King’s Locked Rooms, Carola Dunn’s A Mourning Wedding, and maybe even Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Plus a few other things, if my library holds come in.

2007: The Year of the Book

Every year, inspired by a local newspaper columnist, I vow to keep a faithful record of all the books I read in the coming year. It's the only resolution that I make every year, and one I've never managed to keep. Two years ago I did managed to keep a current list through March, but at that point I was reading my way through I series I was embarrassed by--books I'd read, but fear of being mocked by high-minded literati types prevented me from admitting to them, and if the list wasn't going to be honest, there didn't seem to be much point.

But in the grand tradition of New Years, I have decided that this year will be different! This year, I will keep track of my reading habits, and to make sure I do, I'm putting my list out there in public for all to see. Those interested in the books themselves can watch the complete list compile here at LibraryThing. You'll also be able to search my list from here, and to see the most recent books I've entered. And at least once a week (sometimes more, but never less) I'll be posting here at Anno Libri with updates about what I'm reading, what I think of it, and other matters related to the reading, writing, and general love of books.

Because I hoped to start this project with a fairly clean slate, I've been working hard the last couple of days to finish up most of my 2006 leftovers, so although I'm usually in the middle of five or six books at one time, at the present moment, I'm only reading three: The Lion in the Valley and The Serpent on the Crown, both by Elizabeth Peters, and The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke. I'll be blogging more about them (and about any other books I may start) later this week.

In the meantime, what can you expect from me this year? High Literature and pop fiction, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, and yes, perhaps, the occasional guilty romance. Fiction, nonfiction, books that defy description, and everything in between. This is my year, my life, in books. Welcome to it.