Fiction: The Smarting Up Of America

In a cultural moment when we are hearing nothing but bad news, we have reassuring evidence that the dumbing down of our culture is not inevitable.

~Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts

Good news from the National Endowment for the Arts. According to a report it released today, “Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy,” fiction reading increased for adults for the first time after a quarter-century of decline.

A New York Times article about the report stated that for the first time since 1982, which is when the US Census Bureau started collecting data on public participation in the arts,

…the proportion of adults 18 and older who said they had read at least one novel, short story, poem or play in the previous 12 months has risen.

Wooo-hooo! People are reading again.

Fiction accounts for the new growth in adult readers (unfortunately, reading of poetry and drama specifically has continued to decline) and online book reading has gone up (something I personally can’t get into). Also up is reading among younger adults (ages 18-24) and Hispanics. ¡Viva!

Mr. Gioia attributed the increase in part to programs the NEA has underwritten, such as the “Big Read,” which is a library partnership to encourage communities to champion particular books, like The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

He also attributed the increase to things like Oprah Winfrey’s book club and the phenomenon of young adult fiction like Harry Potter or the Twilight Series. (I read the first five Harry Potter books out loud to my daughters and then got hooked and had to finish up the last two on my own.)

Not to put too much of the credit on our shoulders, but I think blogs that encourage reading (see our post “Book Talk – Do You Let Yourself Read” as one of many examples, and “The World According To Mr. Schminda (et al.)” for a list of about 100 must-read classics) have also played a small but vital role. Just peruse some of the links on our blogroll and you’ll see several fellow bloggers reviewing classic works of fiction or otherwise touting books and reading. And these are just a handful of the thousands of literary-minded blogs that have cropped up over the past couple of years.

I know I’m doing my part in countering the dumbing down of America. Right now, I’m reading the first Stephenie Meyers book in the Twilight series outloud to my youngest (one could argue it’s not exactly high literature nor age-appropriate for a nine-year-old, but hey, it took us more than three months to finish The Hobbit last year, and already in four nights we’re one-fourth of the way through Twilight).

Then on my own, I’m reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. (And yes, it is hard to switch between a 17-year-old in Forks, Oregon Washington who’s falling in love with a vampire versus a pair of Jewish escapists/cartoonists in 1930s Prague and Brooklyn.)

What about you? What book or books are you reading in this new year, and have you consumed more fiction of late than in the past? If so, what has compelled you read more?

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The 1970’s — What Was America Reading?

          

Minerva, 1889 – 1890, Roman goddess of poetry, music, wisdom, and warriors (Greek, Athena), bronze sculpture by Norwegian American artist, Jakob H. F. Fjelde, downtown Minneapolis Central Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

 

 

The first black hole was discovered in the same decade that Star Wars was released (and not by Columbo, Charlie’s Angels, or Sonny and Cher). It was the 1970’s, and you were probably wearing Halston ultrasuede or cashmere, leisure suits, platform shoes, string bikinis, and hot pants. Or maybe you were more the Birkenstock type, sporting tie-dye jeans, crocheted vests (think orange and lime green), and bouncy, wide bell-bottoms.

In 1977, there was a world shortage of coffee and prices soared from 50¢ a pound to $3.20 (isn’t it around $12 a pound today?). You might have been playing a lightshow guitar (imitating Pink Floyd), or listening to the Stones, Roberta Flack, the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, Tony Orlando (knock 3 times), or Gladys Knight and the Pips, on your new Sony Walkman.

 

The Beatles broke up, Jack Nicholson flew over the cuckoo’s nest, Harold and Maud were the May/December romance of the big screen, playing next to The Deer Hunter, Deliverance, and Saturday Night Fever. Yes, John Travolta was hot (even before his Pulp Fiction days). So was Billie Jean King, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, and Jesus Christ Superstar (did you see Andrew Lloyd Webber on American Idol?).

If you are under 21 and voted during the 2008 Presidential Primary, you can thank the 1970’s — the voting age in the U.S. was lowered to 18. And Paper Mate introduced a new erasable ink pen, allowing you to wipe out those pesky voting mistakes in a single swipe.

But don’t jump too fast. It was before the age of the hanging chad. The Apple II computer had just hit the market, the first email took a lumbering ride across ARPANet (central backbone during the development of the Internet), and Intel’s first microprocessor 4004 (1971) contained 2,300 transistors (today’s will run 3,000 times faster).

            

In the 1970’s Annie Hall was all the rage, along with Club Med, the VCR, streaking (yes, I tried it), and Pet Rocks (move over Sony the Pug!). Patty Hearst wielded her first machine gun, Son of Sam ran loose in the streets, Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, murdered 1-2 million people, and the Ohio National Guard shot and killed 4 college students at Kent State during an anti-war demonstration. Doesn’t that just blow your mind?

In the Me Decade, Elvis died of an overdose. So did Sid Vicious and Jim Morrison. Life and Look magazines were defunct by the end of the decade, along with cigarette advertising on TV, the draft, the VW bug (so they thought), and the Vietnam War. There was a recession in 1974 on top of an oil crisis in 1973 (what’s changed?). And TV would never be the same: Bonanza ended after 14 years; Gunsmoke after 20; and Ed Sullivan called it quits after 23 years.

You don’t see that kind of longevity in 21st Century media. Nor would you ever see televised daily proceedings of a national debacle like Richard Nixon and Watergate.

 

The world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in England, CAT-scans were introduced, the Heimlich maneuver perfected, and popular 70’s culture was buzzing with new words and phrases:  Murphy’s Law, Pro-choice, pumping iron, Punk rock, Rubik’s cube. Don’t rock the boat!

Money, money, money — 180,000 Americans were millionaires by the mid-70’s, an average hospital stay would set you back $81 a day, and a First Class postage stamp was 6¢ (Airmail, 10¢). The Metropolitan Museum paid $5.5 million for a Diego Velázquez portrait, while the Susan B. Anthony dollar took a political nosedive.

Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post in the 70’s, and Cosmopolitan blossomed with Helen Gurley Brown at the helm. But literature (and a few oddball tomes thrown in for good measure) still boomed under the watchful eye of Minerva, Roman goddess of poetry and wisdom.

You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read. You can also tell a lot about a culture. In the 1970’s, here’s what America was reading.

  

1 9 7 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

FICTION

1. Love Story; Oliver’s Story, Erich Segal
2. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
3. Islands in the Stream, Ernest Hemingway
4. Travels with My Aunt, Graham Greene
5. Rich Man, Poor Man, Irwin Shaw
6. Wheels; Overload, Arthur Hailey
7. The Exorcist, William P. Blatty
8. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
9. Message from Malaga, Helen MacInnes
10. Rabbit Redux, John Updike
11. The Betsy, Harold Robbins
12. The Winds of War, Herman Wouk
13. Jonathan Livingston Seagull; Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Richard Bach
14. The Odessa File, Frederick Forsyth
15. My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
16. Captains and the Kings, Taylor Caldwell
17. Once Is Not Enough; Delores, Jacqueline Susann
18. Breakfast of Champions; Jailbird; Slapstick: or, Lonesome No More!, Kurt Vonnegut
19. Burr; 1876, Gore Vidal
20. The Hollow Hills, Mary Stewart
21. Evening in Byzantium, Irwin Shaw
22. The Drifters; Centennial; Chesapeake, James A. Michener
23. The Matlock Paper, Robert Ludlum
24. The Billion Dollar Sure Thing, Paul E. Erdman
25. Watership Down, Richard Adams
26. Jaws; The Deep, Peter Benchley
27. The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth
28. The Fan Club, Irving Wallace
29. I Heard the Owl Call My Name, Margaret Craven
30. Ragtime, E. L. Doctorow
31. The Moneychangers, Arthur Hailey
32. Curtain; Sleeping Murder, Agatha Christie
33. Looking for Mister Goodbar, Judith Rossner
34. The Choirboys, Joseph Wambaugh
35. The Eagle Has Landed, Jack Higgins
36. The Greek Treasure: A Biographical Novel of Henry and Sophia Schliemann, Irving Stone
37. The Great Train Robbery, Michael Crichton
38. Shogun, James Clavell
39. Humboldt’s Gift, Saul Bellow
40. Trinity, Leon Uris
41. A Stranger in the Mirror, Bloodlines, Sidney Sheldon
42. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien
43. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough
44. How To Save Your Own Life, Erica Jong
45. Delta of Venus: Erotica, Anaïs Nin
46. War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk
47. Fools Die, Mario Puzo
48. Scruples, Judith Krantz
49. Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
50. The Dead Zone, Stephen King
51. The Third World War: August 1985, Gen. Sir John Hackett, et al.
52. Smiley’s People, John Le Carré

 

 

 

1 9 7 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

NON-FICTION

1. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex but Were Afraid To Ask, David Reuben, M.D.
2. The New English Bible
3. The Sensuous Woman, “J”
4. Better Homes and Gardens Fondue and Tabletop Cooking; Better Homes and Gardens Blender Cook Book; Better Homes and Gardens Home Canning Cookbook
5. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, William Morris
6. Body Language, Julius Fast
7. In Someone’s Shadow; Caught in the Quiet, Rod McKuen
8. The Sensous Man, “M”
9. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown
10. I’m O.K., You’re O.K., Thomas Harris
11. Any Woman Can!, David Reuben, M.D.
12. Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer
13. Eleanor and Franklin, Joseph P. Lash
14. Wunnerful, Wunnerful!, Lawrence Welk
15. Honor Thy Father, Gay Talese
16. Fields of Wonder, Rod McKuen
17. The Living Bible, Kenneth Taylor
18. Open Marriage, Nena and George O’Neill
19. Harry S. Truman, Margaret Truman
20. Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution, Robert C. Atkins
21. The Peter Prescription, Laurence J. Peter
22. A World Beyond, Ruth Montgomery
23. Journey to Ixtlan; Tales of Power; The Second Ring of Power, Carlos Castaneda
24. The Joy of Sex; More Joy: A Lovemaking Companion to The Joy of Sex, Alex Comfort
25. Weight Watchers Program Cookbook, Jean Nidetch
26. How To Be Your Own Best Friend, Mildred Newman, et al.
27. The Art of Walt Disney, Christopher Finch
28. Alistair Cooke’s America, Alistair Cooke
29. Sybil, Flora R. Schreiber
30. The Total Woman, Marabel Morgan
31. All the President’s Men; The Final Days, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
32. You Can Profit from a Monetary Crisis, Harry Browne
33. All Things Bright and Beautiful; All Things Wise and Wonderful, James Herriot
34. The Bermuda Triangle, Charles Berlitz with J. Manson Valentine
35. Angels: God’s Secret Agents, Billy Graham
36. Winning Through Intimidation; Looking Out for #1; Restoring the American Dream, Robert Ringer
37. TM: Discovering Energy and Overcoming Stress, Harold H. Bloomfield
38. Sylvia Porter’s Money Book, Sylvia Porter
39. Total Fitness in 30 Minutes a Week, Laurence E. Morehouse and Leonard Gross
40. Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon, Theodore H. White
41. Roots, Alex Haley
42. Your Erroneous Zones; Pulling Your Own Strings, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
43. Passages: The Predictable Crises of Adult Life, Gail Sheehy
44. The Grass ls Always Greener over the Septic Tank; If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries–What Am I Doing in the Pits?; Aunt Erma’s Cope Book, Erma Bombeck
45. Blind Ambition: The White House Years, John Dean
46. The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, Shere Hite
47. The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate, Leon Jaworski
48. The Book of Lists, David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace, and Amy Wallace
49. The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, Carl Sagan
50. The Amityville Horror, Jay Anson
51. Gnomes, Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet
52. The Complete Book of Running, James Fixx
53. Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford
54. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon
55. Faeries, Brian Froud and Alan Lee
56. The Muppet Show Book, the Muppet People
57. The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet, Herman Tarnower, M.D., and Samm Sinclair Baker
58. The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise, Nathan Pritikin and Patrick McGrady Jr.
59. White House Years, Henry Kissinger
60. Lauren Bacall By Myself, Lauren Bacall
61. The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong

             
Study In Light, downtown Minneapolis Central Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, April 24th, 2008

-Resources:  1970’s Bestsellers List from Cader Books, Writer’s Dream Tools, and The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library

-related to posts: The 1950’s – What Was America Reading?, The 1960’s — What Was America Reading?, and Book Talk – Do You Let Yourself Read?

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The 1960’s — What Was America Reading?

BookMark, Minneapolis Central Library, downtown Minneapolis, through the rain, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Time for another decade of bestselling books. At the end of the 1960’s, gas was 39¢ a gallon, a 1962 Jaguar XKE would set you back $4,500, and James Bond in Goldfinger grossed $23 million at the box office. Twiggy was big (I just saw her flash by the TV screen last night on America’s Top Model), along with hiphuggers, bellbottoms, collarless Nehru jackets, and cashmere turtlenecks.

People were buzzing about Foster Grants, Duncan yo-yo’s, new math, Dolby noise reduction, macrame, K-Mart, the Twist, the Chicago 8, draft dodgers, Teflon, and St. Louis’s Gateway arch, the world’s tallest monument.

The American 60’s were turbulent, violent, optimistic, free loving, and slow moving. If it was your generation you were either hip, jock, rock, or nerd. If it wasn’t, well, it lives on in the mythology that surrounds it.

The 60’s were big enough to hold Capote, Sontag, Kesey, Plath, Robbins, Baldwin, Ginsberg, Puzo, Hailey, Vonnegut, Nin, Miller, Didion, and Vidal. You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read. You can also tell a lot about a culture. In the 1960’s, for better or worse, here’s what America was reading.

1 9 6 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

F I C T I O N

1. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone
2. Franney and Zooey, J. D. Salinger
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
4. The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck
5. The Reivers, William Faulkner
6. Dearly Beloved, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
7. The Shoes of the Fisherman, Morris L. West
8. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour–An Introduction, J. D. Salinger
9. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré
10. Up the Down Staircase, Bel Kaufman
11. The Man with the Golden Gun, Ian Fleming
12. Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
13. All in the Family, Edwin O’Connor
14. The Adventurers, Harold Robbins
15. The Confessions of Nat Turner, William Styron
16. The Chosen, Chaim Potok
17. The Exhibitionist, Henry Sutton
18. Airport, Arthur Hailey
19. The Salzburg Connection, Helen MacInnes
20. The Tower of Babel, Morris L. West
21. Preserve and Protect, Allen Drury
22. Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
23. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
24. The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
25. Naked Came the Stranger, Penelope Ashe
26. The House on the Strand, Daphne du Maurier
27. The Love Machine, Jacqueline Susann
28. Myra Breckinridge, Gore Vidal
29. Christy, Catherine Marshall
30. The Pretenders, Gwen Davis

 

           Minneapolis Central Library, looking straight up, through the rain,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture
by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by
QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

1 9 6 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

N O N F I C T I O N

1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer
2. The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater
3. I Kid You Not, Jack Paar
4. Between You, Me and the Gatepost, Pat Boone
5. Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book
6. Calories Don’t Count, Dr. Herman Taller
7. Sex and the Single Girl, Helen Gurley Brown
8. Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck
9. The Joy of Cooking: New Edition, Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker
10. Security Is a Thumb and a Blanket, Charles M. Schulz
11. I Owe Russia $1200, Bob Hope
12. Profiles in Courage: Memorial Edition, John F. Kennedy
13. In His Own Write, John Lennon
14. Reminiscences, General Douglas MacArthur
15. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
16. A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, Jim Bishop
17. How To Be a Jewish Mother, Dan Greenburg
18. A Gift of Prophecy, Ruth Montgomery
19. A Thousand Days, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
20. The Making of the President, 1964, Theodore H. White
21. How to Avoid Probate, Norman F. Dacey
22. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
23. Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, Phyllis Diller
24. Misery Is a Blind Date, Johnny Carson
25. Death of a President, William Manchester
26. Edgar Cayce–The Sleeping Prophet, Jess Stearn
27. The Weight Watcher’s Cook Book, Jean Nidetch
28. The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull
29. My Life and Prophecies, Jeane Dixon with René Noorberger
30. Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, Linda Goodman

 

 

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, August 30th, 2007

-Resources:  1960’s Bestsellers List at Cader Books, Writer’s Dream Tools, and The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library

-related to posts: The 1950’s — What Was America Reading?, The 1970’s —  What Was America Reading?

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The World According To Mr. Schminda (et al.)

In her post Thornton Wilder & Bridges, guest writer Teri Blair said this about Mr. Schminda, her former teacher:

Years ago, I was given a reading list by my 11th grade English teacher. I was in the college prep class, and the list of 100 or so books were ones he wanted us to read before we graduated from high school. It wasn’t just his idea. He told us a committee of English professors had compiled it. These books were considered the bare-bones-minimum to have read before we darkened the first door of a collegiate hall.

This piqued the interest of several readers — myself included — and we asked to see the list. Teri generously reproduced it from mimeographed pages carried with her since high school. So, without further ado…(drumroll)…and in no apparent order except that which made sense to Mr. Schminda et al., here is…

THE “95 BOOKS” LIST
Provided by Teri Blair

JOHN STEINBECK
          THE GRAPES OF WRATH
          CANNERY ROW

HERMAN MELVILLE
          MOBY DICK
          WHITE JACKET
          TYPEE
          OMOO

WILLIAM FAULKNER
          LIGHT IN AUGUST
          INTRUDER IN THE DUST

MARK TWAIN
          PUDD’NHEAD WILSON
          CONNECTICUT YANKEE

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
          THE DEERSLAYER
          THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

WILLA CATHER
          O PIONEERS!
          MY ANTONIA

ERNEST HEMINGWAY
          A FAREWELL TO ARMS
          FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
          THE SUN ALSO RISES
          ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
          THE GREAT GATSBY

THORNTON WILDER
          THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY
          OUR TOWN

THEODORE DREISER
          THE AMERICAN TRAGEDY
          SISTER CARRIE

FRANK NORRIS
          THE OCTOPUS
          MCTEAGUE

STEPHEN CRANE
          THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE
          MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS

WALTER VAN TILBURG CLARK
          THE OX-BOW INCIDENT

JOHN HERSEY
          THE CHILD BUYER

DANIEL KEYES
          FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

OLE ROLVAAG
          GIANTS IN THE EARTH

WILLIAM BARRETT
          LILIES OF THE FIELD

SINCLAIR LEWIS
          MAIN STREET
          ARROWSMITH
          BABBITT
          DODSWORTH
          ELMER GANTRY

EDNA FERBER
          CIMMARRON
          GIANT
          ICE PALACE

UPTON SINCLAIR
          THE JUNGLE

OWEN WISTER
          THE VIRGINIAN

NORMAN MAILER
          THE NAKED AND THE DEAD

HERMON WOUK
          THE CAINE MUTINY

HARPER LEE
          TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
          UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

LORRAINE HANSBERRY
          A RAISIN IN THE SUN

OLIVER LAFARGE
          LAUGHING BOY

THOMAS FALL
          THE ORDEAL OF RUNNING STANDING

PAUL ZINDEL
          THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON
          MARIGOLDS

JAMES AGEE
          A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

ROBERT PENN WARREN
          ALL THE KING’S MEN

JEAN MERRILL
          THE PUSHCART WAR

JOHN KNOWLES
          A SEPARATE PEACE

DALTON TRUMBO
          JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN

MICHAEL CRICHTON
          THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN
          THE TERMINAL MAN

ARTHUR CLARKE
          2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

RAY BRADBURY
          FAHRENHEIT 451

NEVIL SHUTE
          ON THE BEACH

PAT FRANK
          ALAS, BABYLON

MARGARET MITCHELL
          GONE WITH THE WIND

BETTY SMITH
          A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

RICHARD WRIGHT
          NATIVE SON

RALPH ELLISON
          THE INVISIBLE MAN

HAL BORLAND
          WHEN THE LEGENDS DIE

LEONA RIENOW
          THE YEAR OF THE LAST EAGLE

HAMLIN GARLAND
          SON OF THE MIDDLE BORDER
          DAUGHTER OF THE MIDDLE BORDER

EDITH WHARTON
          AGE OF INNOCENCE

JACK LONDON
          WHITE FANG
          CALL OF THE WILD
          SEA WOLF

CARL SANDBURG
          REMEMBRANCE ROCK

PEARL BUCK
          THE GOOD EARTH

RICHARD H. DANA
          TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
          HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
          SCARLET LETTER

JESSAMYN WEST
          THE FRIENDLY PERSUASION

ALDOUS HUXLEY
          BRAVE NEW WORLD

SAUL BELLOW
          THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH

ARTHUR MILLER
          THE CRUCIBLE

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
          CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
          A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

WASHINGTON IRVING
          THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
          RIP VAN WINKLE

EDGAR ALLAN POE
          THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
          THE RAVEN

BRET HARTE
          SELECTED STORIES OF BRET HARTE

SHERWOOD ANDERSON
          WINESBURG, OHIO

J.D.SALINGER
          THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

LANGSTON HUGHES
          SELECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES

JAMES THURBER
          MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES

EUGENE O’NEILL
          BEYOND THE HORIZON


Postscript
In a brief email exchange about her former teacher, Teri said:

Mr. Schminda is retired now, but lives in the same small town where he taught English to high school juniors. He whet my appetite for good books, and it was more than passing on the list of classics to read. He was thrilled about literature and authors.

One of the books we read the year he was my teacher was Moby Dick. I remember him pacing up and down the aisles between desks waving his paperback in the air and talking about Captain Ahab. He got fired up thinking about the adventure of the whale hunt.

When we read The Grapes of Wrath, I was desperate to go to Oklahoma and retrace the steps of the Okies fleeing the dust bowl. I wanted to know and love books as Mr. Schminda did. We all had to do an in-depth study of a writer; I picked James Weldon Johnson, my friend Pam chose Stephan Crane, and Sherri’s was John Steinbeck.

Mr. Schminda told us that we’d have to write one paper after another once we got to college. He told us by the time we left 11th grade he was determined that we’d know how to write term papers. We wrote and wrote and wrote. And when I got to college, thanks to his instruction, I knew how to write.

Thanks, Teri, for sharing Mr. Schminda with us, and thank you Mr. Schminda for inspiring Teri and countless others with your passion for reading and writing.

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The Church Of Hobbit

Mrs. Rhodes Finds A Hobbit, doodle © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

Mrs. Rhodes was my tenth grade English teacher at Valley High School. She was petite, with small ears, and she wore her long graying hair swooped up, often in a giant bun or thick braid.

In my mind I see her at the front of the class wearing a crisp white cotton shirt and a long denim skirt. She doesn’t sit at her desk so much as stands in front of it, stands with leather moccasin loafers and talks with arms flying in the air. She speaks of the genius of the written word. Then she says, “Class…,” says it in a nasally voice that draws out the word, “Claaasss…, it’s time to open our books and read.”

She walks in fast steps around her desk, pulls out the chair and drags it in front where she’s been standing. Sits down, opens her book to the page where we left off last session, and begins reading. Out loud, as if we are first graders.

The funny thing is, I remember nothing about The Hobbit. That’s the book she read out loud to us. I can’t remember if she assigned or read any other book. The only memory I have of Mrs. Rhodes is her reading The Hobbit, and the only memory I have of The Hobbit is Mrs. Rhodes reading it.

We open our books to the page she tells us. We cradle our copies with our arms, drop our heads inside our cradles, then sneak glances at one another. We know what’s coming. She starts reading. Her voice gets small and childlike. She reads slowly, much more slowly than we track in the page. For this reason I close my eyes and listen only to her voice. It floats in the space around us, but not loose and unanchored. It fills the room. There is depth in that voice. There is history and generations. She’s carrying something forward, passing it on. All this I detect in the stillness of the room, silent except for Mrs. Rhodes’ small singular voice.

And this is what I remember most. Always, the voice cracks. It wobbles and weaves, eventually stopping altogether. I don’t want to open my eyes. I beg in my head, Keep going, just keep going. Silence. A classroom full of 15-year-olds, some giggly and high, some asleep, most shuffling, moving waffle-stompered feet on the dirty linoleum. I look up. Mrs. Rhodes is fixated on the page, tears falling now. She doesn’t look at any of us. I can tell she is composing herself. She takes a wadded Kleenex and dabs her nose. Then she continues.

I want to recall what happened to the hobbits that made Mrs. Rhodes weep. Did someone die? Were they tortured? I tell myself I will re-read the book, perhaps read it out loud to Dee. Maybe I’ll cry, too. I cried at the end of Watership Down when Hazel was old and slipped away to the heavens. The emotion welled up from nowhere, it seemed, and I tried to keep it in, but in my trying it became big and full and caused me to tremble so much that Dee lifted herself from my side so she could turn and look at me. Was it the same for Mrs. Rhodes? Did she fall so headlong into the story that she couldn’t help but cry when the characters she loved slipped away?

She always made it through the crying; it never lasted long. Then she’d get to an exciting section. Here her voice drops to a whisper, as if we’re alongside the hobbits in the woods, crouching under bushes. If she speaks too loudly she’ll give away our position. Someone in the class snickers, one of the vatos who’s had enough. She immediately stops, snaps her head up to see who’s making fun.

“What is it?” she asks. He shakes his head, says nothing.

“Don’t you believe? They’re real, you know.”

She looks from him to each one of us, looks deeply with her blue eyes, imploring. You can tell she’s pleading, You believe, don’t you?? There is desperation in that room, in that teacher. Each person she looks at in turn looks down.

She wants us to believe the hobbits are real, like fairies or spirits. Real like this moment. This life. We are not in Literature. This is religion, spirituality. We’re either believers or we’re not. When she gets to me I hold her gaze. Not because I’m a believer. I don’t know what I am. I’m lost, but I’m not about to let this poor woman be alone in the world.

Where are you, Mrs. Rhodes? What ever happened to you? I know nothing about the book you had us read, nothing except this recollection of you and me and the class. Why didn’t it dawn on me before what you gave to us? I thought you were crazy. Maybe you were. But you believed with all your heart in something at a time when I believed in nothing and no one. You touched me, left me with one of the few imprints I have from that time of walking through halls stoned and apathetic.

Thank you, Mrs. Rhodes, for leaving me with faith.

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Julio Iglesias Does Books

We weren’t readers in my family. Well, except Dad. He read books like In Cold Blood and Hawaii (which, at 937 pages, was too big for me to ever want to take on). Mom read The National Enquirer.

Why, then, is it so hard to come up with my list of all the books I’ve loved before…who traveled in and out my door…?? Probably because I’m not talking just the books I’ve loved before. I’m having to come up with a list of the ones that had the most impact on my life.

Well, here goes:

1. There’s the small red book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales that Aunt Sophie gave me when I was born. It sat in my room lonely and mostly unread. I don’t ever recall anyone reading a book out loud to me, so where I got my love of books from, I don’t know. But I have to imagine that somehow this little book of mostly scary fairy tales affected me, most likely through osmosis, and taught me something about the power of story.
2. Naked Came I by David Weiss. Another book I never read, but it sat on Dad’s bookshelf in the den. I remember always wondering what it was about. If nothing else, this book awoke in me a desire to read (even if it was only to discover who in the book was naked and why).
3. My Summer Diary, author unknown, published by Scholastic Books. Gift at age 12 from one of my older sisters. Started me writing.
4. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Seventh grade, Miss Fiske, Valley High School. My first real inkling of what I was up against being female.
5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tenth grade, Mrs. Rhodes, Valley High School. She cried through most of it, insisted the hobbits were real (can’t you see them?!?), and much as I was embarrassed for her (because in tenth grade you’re embarrassed by every nothing much less a teacher weeping in front of the entire class), she showed me that books were magic.
6. Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi. Everyone in my little gang of high school “heads” read it and passed it around. We hung out at an abandoned corral-slash-slaughterhouse near the river (at least, we called it a slaughterhouse for dramatic effect) getting stoned and freaking ourselves out about Charles Manson.
7. Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. Read it as an undergraduate at UNM. That whole experience–the book, the author, Chicano Studies, studying at the university–opened my eyes to the beauty and pride of being Chicana. 
8. Cien Anos de Soledad by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I bought this book–the Spanish version–when I moved to Spain in 1986. It took me almost a year to read it. Then I came back to the U.S. , read the English version, fell in love with magical realism and everything else by Garcia Marquez (but especially Love in the Time of Cholera). 
9. Watership Down by Richard Adam. I read this book for the first time recently and out loud to Dee. We both loved it. It had an impact because: one, she still loves for me to read out loud to her; two, what beautiful prose, especially descriptions of nature; and three, hours of lying in bed being present with my daughter.
10. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood. Elizabeth reminded me about this one. Explained why growing up was so painful.

Others I loved: Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado, The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, In the Time of the Butterflies and How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, In Cold Blood and To Kill A Mockingbird, Unless by Carol Shields, and the list goes on. Oh, I know I’ve not separated out fiction and non-fiction, but a memoir that first made me fall in love with the genre: Looking for Mary by Beverly Donofrio.

 -from Topic post: Ten Slam Dunks.

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The 1950’s — What Was America Reading?

It was the 1950’s. Gas was 29¢ a gallon, cigarettes 25¢ a pack, a hospital stay was $35 a day. The Franklin National Bank in New York issued the first credit card, and the World’s first shopping mall in the U.S. – Seattle’s Northgate Mall was built. The First Grammy Awards happened, RCA’s Color Television sets hit the market, and the films, On the Waterfront, All About Eve and An American in Paris were released.

Marilyn Monroe and her husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller were pretty big. So were Peanuts, Mad Magazine, Jonas Salk, James Dean, Fidel Castro, Rosa Parks, Billy Graham, the Korean War, and Israel invading the Sinai Peninsula.

In the decade of blazers, bermuda shorts, saddle shoes, and sack dresses, writers like James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lillian Hellman, William Burroughs, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, Maria Irene Fornes, Gary Snyder, J.D. Salinger, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and Dylan Thomas were all doing their thing.

People change and grow. Countries have lives and spirits that change and grow. Would you say America is still in its adolescence?

You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read. You can also tell a lot about a culture. In the 1950’s, here’s what America was reading.

1 9 5 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

F I C T I O N

1. From Here to Eternity, James Jones
2. Return to Paradise, James A. Michener
3. The Silver Chalice, Thomas B. Costain
4. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
5. Giant, Edna Ferber
6. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
7. The Robe, Lloyd C. Douglas
8. Désirée, Annemarie Selinko
9. Battle Cry, Leon M. Uris
10. Love Is Eternal, Irving Stone
11. The Egyptian, Mika Waltari
12. No Time for Sergeants, Mac Hyman
13. Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis
14. Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
15. Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan
16. Peyton Place, Grace Metalious
17. Eloise, Kay Thompson
18. The Tribe That Lost Its Head, Nicholas Monsarrat
19. The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir
20. Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, Max Shulman
21. Blue Camellia, Frances Parkinson Keyes
22. The Scapegoat, Daphne du Maurier
23. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
24. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
25. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
26. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
27. Exodus, Leon Uris
28. Poor No More, Robert Ruark
29. The Ugly American, William J. Lederer and Eugene L. Burdick
30. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D. H. Lawrence

1 9 5 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

N O N F I C T I O N

1. Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book; Betty Crocker’s Good & Easy Cook Book 
2. How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling, Frank Bettger
3. Look Younger, Live Longer, Gayelord Hauser
4. Washington Confidential, Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer
5. Better Homes and Gardens Handyman’s Book; Diet Book; Barbecue Book; Decorating Book; Flower Book
6. The Sea Around Us, Rachel L. Carson
7. The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version
8. U.S.A. Confidential, Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer
9. Tallulah, Tallulah Bankhead
10. The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale
11. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Alfred C. Kinsey, et al.
12. Angel Unaware, Dale Evans Rogers
13. This I Believe, Edward P. Morgan, editor; Edward R. Murrow, foreword
14. How to Play Your Best Golf, Tommy Armour
15. The Saturday Evening Post Treasury, Roger Butterfield, editor
16. Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
17. The Family of Man, Edward Steichen
18. How to Live 365 Days a Year, John A. Schindler
19. The Secret of Happiness, Billy Graham
20. Why Johnny Can’t Read, Rudolf Flesch
21. Inside Africa, John Gunther
22. Year of Decisions, Harry S Truman
23. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, concise ed., David B. Guralnik
24. Etiquette, Frances Benton
25. Love or Perish, Smiley Blanton, M.D.
26. The Nun’s Story, Kathryn Hulme
27. Kids Say the Darndest Things!, Art Linkletter
28. The FBI Story, Don Whitehead
29. Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing, Robert Paul Smith
30. Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, Jean Kerr
31. The Day Christ Died, Jim Bishop
32. ‘Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Pat Boone
33. Masters of Deceit, Edgar Hoover
34. The New Testament in Modern English, J. P. Phillips, trans.
35. Dear Abby, Abigail Van Buren
36. Inside Russia Today, John Gunter
37. Folk Medicine, D. C. Jarvis
38. Charley Weaver’s Letters from Mamma, Cliff Arquette
39. The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
40. Only in America, Harry Golden

 

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

-Resources: 1950’s Bestsellers List from Cader Books, The Literature and Culture of the American 1950’s

-related to posts:  The 1960’s — What Was America Reading?, The 1970’s — What Was America Reading?

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