For what it's worth, here's what I've been reading. Mostly it’s non-fiction:  things I’ve read for research, and... well, I don’t particularly keep this up to date all that well.  And so you know -- the books listed here are all books I very much enjoyed. Period.

Here's why:

As a writer, caustic reviews give me hives. I know my writing isn't to everyone's taste, and I'd rather someone just stayed quiet about it if they didn't care for my books.... The sad truth is that it's far, far easier to write a bitter and scathing review than to write something complimentary. What I fail to understand is this -- if as a reviewer you truly loathed a book, why did you waste your time finishing it? Surely you'd figured out that the book was a lemon for you after the first few chapters -- why'd you continue to read it?

If I really don't care for a book, in all likelihood I also didn't finish it. I don't have enough time to waste reading something I'm not enjoying, and I will (emphatically) put a book down a quarter of the way through it if it doesn't hold my attention. The books below are all books I've felt rewarded me for the time I spent reading them.

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I just finished reading a book Hania W. gave me over the holidays: THE JESUIT AND THE SKULL: TEILHARD DE CHARIN, EVOLUTION, AND THE SEARCH FOR PEKING MAN by Amir D. Aczel. Hania -- who knows me very well -- realized this was exactly the kind of non-fiction I like to read, and she was right. I was fascinated by the under-story in this: the character of de Chardin, who is a gorgeously flawed person. One could write a fine novel about this. You have a Jesuit priest who is also a scientist, who is writing about evolution and who has found a way to reconcile his faith with what science was telling him, but who -- because his beliefs now were at odds with church doctrine -- was not permitted to publish books and essays on his findings. Yet de Chardin's faith and adherence to the oaths he'd taken as a Jesuit would not allow him to renounce that faith and break away so that he could follow the path his mind was following. He took the rebukes of the powers-that-be; he allowed them to exile him from the Paris he loved to China. There he found new passion with the fossils of the Peking Man -- that was interesting, yes, but again, what interested me far more was another under-story: his long relationship with Lucile Swan. Here again, when he was obviously in love with the woman (and she with him), he could not abandon his oaths and the required celibacy of the priesthood, and so ended up destroying a friendship that was very precious to him. Teilhard de Chardin would be a wonderful novel character: intelligent and conflicted, at odds with himself and the world. I must steal some of that... I would have loved to have seen Aczel examine more closely the contradictions within de Chardin; instead, he skirts that wonderful conflict and makes it only a sub-plot to the Peking Man tale. I kept wanting him to delve more deeply into the psyche of de Chardin, to explore the relationship with Lucile Swan, to give us a more fully developed portrait of the man. Instead, he keeps us at arm's length. That may be due to a lack of source material; after all, Aczel is writing non-fiction and is cleaving as closely to the facts as he can. We novelists don't have that problem. When facts get in the way of story, we'll plow them under... Thanks for the read, Hania!

1492 by Charles C. Mann (Knopf, 2005): I love books that spark thoughts left and right. 1491 is one of those for me. Mann looks at some of the newer research regarding the Americas in pre-Columbus times as well as the first century after contact with the European world, and draws some fascinating conclusions and implications. Mann contends that there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe in 1491, that some of the cities (Tenochitlan, for instance) was far greater in population than, say, Paris, and that its amenities and cleanliness also surpassed any large European city. To Mann, the 'wilderness' that the early Europeans described was anything but. Instead, was a massively landscaped and controlled 'garden' designed to produce the products that these civilizations needed. But the arrival of the Europeans sent plagues running through the native population, disease to which those here had no immunities. Mann suggest that as much as 90% of the population died within a hundred years of 1492, and thus the empty landscape that so many of the early settlers found was an artificial wasteland, a land no longer controlled because there was no longer enough people here to continue to manage and control it. Historical accounts are sued to bolster his arguments: De Soto, for instance, sailed down the Mississippi from somewhere near present-day Memphis to Arkansas in the 1540's with his army (and lots of pigs), and reported back seeing villages placed so closely together that there were "two or three of them to be seen from every one." Yet, when in 1682, Europeans again visited this area (a French expedition, with Rene-Robert, Cavelier, the Sieur de la Salle. La Salle visited the same area De Soto had seen, but La Salle didn't see an Indian village for over two hundred miles. It was empty. I'm greatly simplifying the thesis and the arguments supporting it. Suffice it say that this is a fascinating book, covering everything from the Inca in Peru to the Aztecs in Mexico to the North American city of Cahokia and everything in between. A fascinating glimpse into how civilizations collide and respond to outside contact, and how it may have gone, with lots of room in there for might-have-beens and other explanations, all well-written and argued.

A very good book. Go read it!

THE SEVEN AGES OF PARIS by Alistair Horne (Vintage Books 2004). I'll admit that I didn't read this entire book -- not from any fault in its writing, but because the period of Paris in which I was interested covered only the first few "ages" of the city. This was a book I was reading mostly for research purposes, but it's well-written and interesting for any person who would like more of the history of one of the world's great cities. Sometimes the focus seems to drift well away from Paris, however, to a general history of France. That topic drift didn't bother me, but if I were looking for Paris-specific information, it might...

THE SEASHELL ON THE MOUNTAINTOP by Alan Cutler (Plume Books, 2003). The subtitle reads "How Nicolaus Steno Solved An Ancient Riddle and Created A Science Of The Earth." Steno was a 17th century scientist renowned mostly for his ability at dissection. However, he was also fascinated by the fossils found high above the sea, images that were obviously sea creatures where no sea -- to historical knowledge of the time -- had ever been. Steno's musing led to the beginnings of the science of geology and the realization that the breadth of historical time was far greater than anyone expected...

GRANDES HORIZONTALES by Virginia Rounding (Bloomsbury, 2003). I love this title, for all its evocative resonance. The subtitle of the book is "The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth Century Courtesans." I loved the sense of peeking into another society's underpinnings and how sexuality operated in that time. Four very different stories of four very different woman, some of whom were contemporaries. A delightful read. And thte book has quite a tantalizing cover...

THE SERPENT & THE MOON by Her Highness Princess Michael of Kent (Touchstone, 2004). I'll be honest. I wasn't sure that I was going to be impressed by a book written by "Her Highness Princess Michael of Kent." But any thought of that dropped quickly away as I started to read. This is well-written history of a turbulent time, and the author manages to bring the characters to life on the pages. I found myself caught up in the story, and wishing more historians had Her Highness's deft touch with words... Read it!

ATHENAIS by Lisa Hilton (Back Bay Books, 2002). I enjoyed this book, almost novelistic in its portrayal of Louis XIV's long-time mistress (whispered by some to be, in her time, the true queen of France) and her life. If you enjoy court intrigue in the setting of Rennaisance France, this is an excellent source book... which is why I was reading it.

COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SUCCEED by Jared Diamond (Viking, 2003). I loved Diamond's book GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL (mentioned below). This one is no less interesting: a view of societies that have fallen apart and vanished in history. Diamond examines the reasons for those collapses, and draws some fascinating repurcussions for our own society in the process. Diamond looks at the Pitcairn Islands, the Anasazi, the Mayans, the Viking sites in North America and Greenland, as well as some current trouble spots. Thought-provoking stuff, even if you don't agree with him -- guaranteed to fuel conversations!

THE LYING STONES OF MARRAKECH by Stephen Jay Gould (Harmony Books 200). If you've read other entries on this page, you know how much I admire Stephen Jay Gould's essays on science. This book is no different: a collection of articles on the subject of natural history, covering everything from the fossil stones of the title to how science works within society. This is his next-to-last collection from his monthly essays in Natural History magazine, which he had been doing for nearly thirty years before stepping down at the turn of the century. Vintage Gould.

THE HOUSE OF MEDICI: ITS RISE AND FALL by Christopher Hibbert (Harper Perennial, 1974). Nicely written history of the famous Medici family of Florence, Italy, following the lineage's fascinating progress through the ages. A nice balance of scholarly research and popular writing, which I admire.

THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN by Simon WInchester (Harper Perennial, 1998). This is, as the sub-title says, "A tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary." If that seems a strange juxtaposition, it's no stranger than the confluence of Professor James Murray, Editor of the OED, and Dr. W. C. Minor, a retired U.S. Officer who murdered a stranger in London, was found to be insance and institionalized in Broadmoor, an asylum for the criminally insane. Minor would become one of the more prolific volunteer contributors to the OED. A fascinating story of two people caught up in a massive undertaking that would consume their lives. The true cetnral character of this book, however, is the OED itself, seventy some years in the making.

LIVES ON THE BOUNDARY by Mike Rose (Penguin, 1989). Another older book, one recommended to me by Donna Qualley, a long-time friend and English professor. The Rose book explores teaching pedagogy, especially that of writing, when dealing with students who are struggling in our educational system. Extremely accessible and well-written, told mostly in autobiographical terms, Rose challenges the labels we put on students and the way the system deals with them, placing them in a spiral of failure. Yet... well, Donna and I will have some interesting discussions on this book, I think.

THE COURSE OF IRISH HISTORY by T.W. Moody and F. X. Martin (Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1995). An older book, but this is a flat-out excellent book on Irish history. I picked it up for research material, and found myself reading it just for the sheer pleasure of doing so. If you have any interest in the history of the Emerald Isle, this is an excellent place to start.

THE UNIVERSE IN A NUTSHELL by Stephen Hawking (Bantam Books, 2001). Now that Stephen Jay Gould is gone to discover the truth of the mysteries of the universe (*sigh*), there aren't too many people left with the unique ability to make the complex vista of science understandable to the 'normal' reader. Stephen Hawking is one of them. This book looks at the current theories of physics in a book that is heavily visual -- if you like seeing concepts as well as reading them, this is the book for you. It's as if Hawking took a program that might have played on the Discovery Channel and put it into book form. The graphics are well done and occasionally humorous. The book is a little 'lighter' than I prefer, but that may be a good thing...

CREATING SHORT FICTION by Damon Knight (St. Martin's Griffin 1997). I've used a few pieces from this book in previous classes on fiction writing that I've taught, and I'm going to use it as the textbook when I teach a short fiction course this fall. Damon's book is a classic, but it still rings true. His advice is cogent and sometimes blunt, and well supported by examples both within and without the sf/fantasy genre. If you want decent advice on crafting short fiction, skip all the other books. Read this one.

AS NATURE MADE HIM by John Colapinto (HarperCollins, 2000). Be aware that this is not fiction, but a true story... Bruce and Brian Reimer were twins. On the day of their circumcisions, a terrible accident would befall Bruce: the Bovie cautery machine used for the operation short-circuited against a clamp, and Bruce's penis was literally burned off. (Yes, I had an involuntary grimace on reading this scene...) A fateful decision was eventually made by the parents: they would raise Bruce as Brenda... What follows is a fascintating psychological and medical thriller. Brenda, despite never being told that she wasn't born a girl, despite being raised and dressed and responded to as a girl, despite counseling and hormone therapy once she reached puberty, despite being touted as a living example of successful gender reorientation, was never happy as a female. By the time she reaches puberty, she is rebelling against her parents and the doctors, and will eventually abandon all pretense and become David. A fascinating story of gender and biology.

THE COFFIN QUILT by Ann Rinaldi (Gilliver Books, 1999). A historical novel (with a touch of magic realism) about the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys in the 1880s, told through the eyes of Fanny McCoy, who goes from age seven to fourteen through the book. I found this book immediately absorbing and compelling, well written and researched. Denise also found the book interesting for another reason -- her ancestors on her father's side were peripherally involved in the conflict...

THE UNABRIDGED JOURNALS OF SYLVIA PLATH edited by Karen V. Kukil (Anchor Books, 2000). If I didn't already know that Sylvia Plath was a troubled young woman, I'd have figured it out from these journals. Alternating between wild optimism, beautiful passages of clean, precise prose and morose depression, these journals are an interesting glimpse into the private thoughts of one of America's literary icons. Very interesting. Very disturbing

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy (HarperPerennial, 1994). In terse and intense prose, Ms. Grealy give an account of growing up with a severely disfigured face. Her right jaw removed due to a cancerous tumor, she tells of the chemotherapy and the sequence of failed operations, as well as her reactions and the reactions of those around her. Unlike many who might have told similar tales, Ms. Grealy never descends into morbid self-pity, but instead weaves a skein of emotion into her work while at the same time (almost in contradiction) maintaining a distanced yet compassionate sense of observation. Ms. Grealy examines the character of her earlier self with the same care and passion that an accomplished novelist brings to their fictional characters, and there is a very story-like quality to the piece. An extremely interesting and well-written book!

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier (Plume/Penguin, 1999). If you're familiar with the 17th century painter Vermeer, you may also be familiar with a painting of an enigmatic young woman with a blue and yellow scarf over her head and a pearl earring. Chevalier has written a novel around a fictionalized character who is the young woman in the painting. In the novel, she is a maid in the employee of the Vermeer family, and Chevalier has crafted a fascinating portrait of her own, bringing to life a time and place in beautiful, spare prose. I'd highly recommend this -- very well done!

THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin, 1992). Okay, yeah, this is hardly a new book. And it's one I've read, oh, a dozen or more times already. But for my birthday, Denise bought me a new(er) edition of the trilogy, an all-in-one volume, with over fifty paintings by Alan Lee. Re-reading the trilogy was a delight--Tolkien isn't the world's best prose stylist, and his characters (especially the human ones, oddly) can tend toward the cardboard end of the spectrum, but the scope and majesty and complexity of this world more than make up for the author's shortcomings. It was wonderful to soak myself once more in the lore of Middle Earth, to revisit all those familiar places: Rivendell, the mines of Moria, Fangorn, Lothlorien, Rohan, Gondor and Mordor. And the paintings: oh, my! The watercolors by Lee are wonderful! His vision of Middle Earth is true to the book, and his skill as a painter is extraordinary. I was vastly pleased to find, looking at his Web site, that he's involved with set design for the live action LOTR movie. If they can translate his vision to film, the background, at least, will be good.

SECRETS & LIES by Bruce Schneier (John Wiley & Sons, 2000). Schneier has -- like Barbara Tuchman, Stephen Jay Gould, or the late Carl Sagan -- the unique ability to take esoteric material and explain it to a general reader in such a way that it sparkles and gleams and comes alive. This is a rare gift. Believe me, I read enough non-fiction of this type to know just how rare it is. Schneier's own particular area of expertise is cryptography and computer security. SECRETS & LIES is an overview of security within a digital world, written not for the programmer but the general reader. This is wonderfully written, and bristles with ideas. It will make you think, and I recommend it highly. Go get it!

HITLER'S POPE by John Cornwell (Viking, 1999). This book is a searing, unsympathetic indictment of Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII during the period of WWII. Pius XII remained conspicuously silent regarding Hitler's "Final Solution" for the Jewish people, even when the Jews of Rome itself were herded into a train and transported to Germany, and Cornwell lays out a pattern of anti-semitism and sympathy for Germany that existed in Pacelli long before his ascension to Peter's throne. As a former Catholic, this book made me feel angry and disappointed in the leadership of the Catholic Church both then and now, and even more furious that Pius XII has already been beatified. Pius XII, if even half of what is outlined in this book is true, was a seriously flawed and all too fallible human being, not a potential saint at all.

O'KEEFFE & STEIGLITZ: An American Romance by Benita Eisler (Penguin, 1991): amazon.com doesn't seem to offer this book for sale. A shame, as it's a very interesting biography of the relationship between two of the icons of early twentieth century American art. Both of these two artists have been favorites of mine for a long time, well before I was aware of the linkage between the two of them. Eisler's book is very well written and well researched, and I found her foray into the personal lives of her subjects fascinating and involving. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in O'Keeffe, Steiglitz, or the NY art world of the 1920s. My only quibble is that the author at times attributes feelings and agendas to the characters that may or may not be true. For instance, when O'Keeffe travels to Taos in 1929 with Beck Strand, the wife of photographer Paul Strand, it is apparent that O'Keeffe has a sexual relationship with Beck, with Mabel Dodge (with whom they stayed in Taos) and with Dodge's husband, Tony Luhan. O'Keeffe writes letters to Steiglitz and the various other participants that do more than hint at these affairs, and Eisler then attributes to O'Keeffe a "refined cruelty to certain betrayal," an "impulse to wound" and an "unmistakable whiff of revenge." She is also puzzled the fact that Mabel Dodge doesn't confront O'Keeffe's affair with her husband openly, but instead "deflected her jealousy." Not having read and studied the source material, it's presumptuous to say this, but I wonder if a lack of experience with open relationships may have blinded Eisler -- I suspect it's entirely possible that these relationship were known and accepted by those involved, and thus O'Keeffe's letters were hardly infused with the "glints of sadism" that Eisler imagines.

That quibble aside, this is an excellent book. Find a copy! Read it!

I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF by Bill Bryson -- This is a delightful book. Bill Bryson, born and raised in Iowa, lived for 20 years in England, and has returned to the United States. The book is a collection of newspaper articles Bryson wrote after return, a wonderfully wry and twisted reflection on American culture. Bryson has a wit sharp enough to slice bread, and a self-deprecating edge that makes it all work. Some of these columns are observations I wish I'd written -- what greater praise can I give him? And -- I must say -- this is a wonderful "bathroom book": lots of short pieces... <g>

THE ART OF FACT edited by Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda -- Hmm.... I haven't made an entry in here in quite some time. It's not that I haven't read any books, though. In fact, I've read several, but as stated above, this space is for books that I found exceptionally interesting/valuable/well-written, not for those which were either average (which isn't bad) or mediocre (which is) or perfectly awful (in which case, I didn't finish them). It's been a bit since I've read something I wanted to put in here, and THE ART OF FACT has broken the string. This is a collection of non-fiction essays billed as "A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism." That's not a particularly exciting sub-title, but the book is flat-out excellent. The selection of material and authors is first-rate, and I enjoyed each peice in the book, along with the introductory material. If you like well-written journalism, pick up this book!

STONES FROM THE RIVER by Ursula Hegi -- Another recommendation of Sharon's, and the book I read to and from and while in Ireland -- long plane flights are shorter with a book. Sharon told me that this was "one of the best books I've ever read. It's going to be a classic." I'm not quite so tempted to deify the book, but it was very good. STONES FROM THE RIVER is the story of a Trudi, a young girl who is a zwerg (dwarf) in the Germany of Hitler's time. The book is touched with hints of magic, especially with Trudi's character. The writing is occasionally magical as well.

ANGELA'S ASHES by Frank McCourt -- My sister said I had to read this one before we went to Ireland. This is an autobiography of McCourt's childhood: from his first few years in new York City, through the family's emigration back to Limerick, Ireland, to his eventual return to the States at 18. The poverty and conditions McCourt describes in the book are positively Dickensian, and more startling in that they take place in the '30s and '40s. His view of Ireland is paradoxical, both sentimental and harsh at the same time, and his writing style is touched with the ghost of James Joyce. I enjoyed the book quite a bit, and I'm looking forward to his continuation of the tale in his next book, 'TIS.

GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL by Jared Diamond -- Wow. Simply... wow. If you're interested in the sweep of history and the ultimate causes for why history played out the way it has, Diamond's book is a must-read. The author looks beyond the proximate causes of why the Europeans were the ones who conquered the Americas rather than the other way around -- those proximate causes being the title of the book -- back to the ultimate reasons why various societies progressed in the way they did. This is an utterly fascinating investigation with some startling premises well-supported by history and Diamond's lucid reasoning. I found this book to be insightful, enlightening, and thought-provoking and highly recommend it.

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