Patricia, I'm 69 and read A Wrinkle in Time in1965. I still consider it the most life changing book I have ever read. Read it with an open heart and the mind of a ten year old!
Always, always, always "Moby-Dick." I've read and re-read it multiple times, and return to it every few years. It's going to get me through the heat and humidity of this Nashville summer — but with new inspiration, since I just returned from time on Cape Cod (awash in whaling history and "Moby-Dick" lore). p.s. Tip... If anyone needs a little convincing on tackling it, Nathaniel Philbrick's slim little volume "Why Read Moby-Dick" is a delight.
I have not read "Moby Dick", perhaps it was because "Billy Budd" was required reading for Junior year honour's English in high school. LOL. I did read Nathaniel Philbrick's "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" a few years ago. I have not see the movie version. It was fascinating!
IMHO high school's too soon to read either of those books.😏 (Yes, "In the Heart of the Sea" is splendid — and Melville was definitely aware of the Essex tragedy! Also, Owen Chase wrote his own book in 1821 — which Philbrick definitely relied on.)
Demon Copperhead is the first modern novel I've read in years. It deserved the Pulitzer prize that it won last year. You'll laugh at Kingsolver's turn of phrase and you might cry, too. It's a riff on David Copperfield and a masterful one.
Also, Dorie, when I broke my tibia and fibula and was laid up for weeks, I watched every episode of Frasier and got out of my own head for a little while every day.
I don’t know if this would appeal to you, Dorie. But David McCullough’s biography of Harry Truman had a great impact on me. It is not necessarily a flattering biography, but it is a truthful one. I like the book as much for the craft of biography as the subject. He got beneath the myth that Truman was sort of a hapless political convenience for FDR. He was ready for the moment when it came. I might be a tiny bit biased because Truman lived in a building kitty corner from the one where I lived in DC. There was no official VP residence the way there is now, so Truman walked from the Kennedy-Warren to his office, in all kinds of Washington heat and humidity. Didn’t have a driver, didn’t even hop on the bus.
My husband and I had started reading Proust with a book group several decades ago. We got past the first 700 pages or so, but then some of the members of our group moved away, the group disbanded, and we didn't keep on reading it. Then, one day maybe a dozen years ago, my husband came home from work one evening and declared that he was going to try again, from the beginning, and he asked me if I wanted to read it with him—not a small ask!! We made a deal: we would each read 10 pages a day independently, every day, until we got all the way through. This approach made it doable. It also meant we didn't have to give up reading other things at the same time. Reading a daily "dose" of Proust was like a meditation. Sometimes we discussed it; sometimes we didn't. But we kept each other on track and stuck with it. It took us about 10 months to read all of Remembrance of Things Past, and I can honestly say we both found it immensely rewarding. We've read many more books in tandem this way since then. I highly recommend it!
I would reread Middlemarch. It is such a great book, by a trailblazing woman author (George Eliot). I read it for the first time when I was commuting by bus, figuring the longish ride would give me time to chip away at a mammoth tome. The first hundred pages are a hard slog (lots of exposition) but, happily, it turns into a real page-turner after that.
I LOVE the inspo to "read a book bigger than you" idea--thank you for sharing!
When it was the the 100th of James Joyce's Ulyssess I "read" it with a lot fo help from two different podcasts that went through it page by page, and with the inspiration of The Paris Bookseller in the forefront of my mind. I also took on Don Quixote, in the same way, with the emotional support of podcasts. Neither did I "finish" but I got a pretty good idea. Also, so Pere Goriot by Balazac, which I'm still "working on."
All that being said, I enrolled in a course on Literary New York: The Upper East Side at the 92nd Street Y with the great Adam Gopnik that starts next month with Eidth Wharton and covers several important works that I managed to miss, so I'm really excited about that. Check it out! xoxoxo Erica :)
Interesting to think of a podcast to accompany reading - kind of like a book club, but not. I have not read Ulysses nor Don Quixote (Ulysses interests me more), but I have read Pere Goriot, it's was my first Balzac novel. And now, I'm going to look into the course at the Y. I would listen to Adam Gopnik talk about how paint dries - he's fascinating! Thank you, Erica - xoD
Hi Amy! The two I listened to for Ulysses were Friends of Shakespeare & Company Read Ulysses and Frank Delaney’s Re: Joyce
For Don Quixote I actually took an online course with James Luzzi from Bard (if I’m remembering correctly) and BBC Radio culture in our time episode about DQ. Turns out DQ was a very silly fellow, lol.
Ha ha, I'm ALL ABOUT hand holding! That's what teachers are for! I remember when I figured out that I don't have to do yoga on my own, I can have a guide/take a class/follow a video. Whatever it takes, that's what I say! :)
I always go back to Maya Angelou when I need some distance from my own life. Maybe even the first of her autobiographical series, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. Her life was so drastically different from mine, and she never let it defeat her. She had a profound effect on my own life.
I used to be a voracious reader but with lots of time dedicated to family illness, I had no energy left. For some reason I felt the need to get back into it and start with a huge book. I chose Middlemarch by George Eliot. It's not the usual genre I'd choose, but I'm looking forward to immersing myself in the Victorian life. Feel better!
I reread Middlemarch a year or so ago with two of my dearest friends. Definitely one of my top reads of my life. I have it as an audiobook too, so I think I will listen to it after I finish my current listen: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson. She writes excellent historical fiction. I also recommend her The Summer Before the War. The Hazelbourne book is post-WWI and then the other is right before it.
But here is the book that changed my life and introduced me to WWI, 40 years ago: Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. I have read it several times.
The first hundred pages of Middlemarch are tough (lots of exposition plus locking into the English language of another time). But if you stick with it, you will be rewarded handsomely.
Hi Dorie! Thank you so much for this post! Ironically (?!) I just finished Black Swan, a nonfiction book that is way bigger than my brain at least. One of the wonderful themes of the book is how much we don’t and can’t know about life, the future, and what is going to happen. (History happens in jumps, not steps) The author seems to have a particular agenda against financial planners 🤣. The whole thing to me is wildly and weirdly comforting. Maybe all those people around me who seem to have everything figured out really don’t?! I love your spirit and style and grace. Thank you so much for what you do. And thanks for the reminder to make madelines! Shawn
I'm usually equal parts wary and envious of people who seem to have everything figured out. Usually they don't and I know they don't - who could, really? - but I still envy their assurance. Shawn, thank you for your sweet thoughts and thank you for being here - xoD
“Reflexions” by Richard Olney. He is one of my idols and the period he lived in Paris was fascinating. He unfortunately died before the book was finished, but one of his brothers finished it for him.
I have “butted heads” with Ulysses several times to no avail and it now sits resignedly in the shelves.
I might add, “Swanns Way” goes down much easier in French, á mon avis. I cannot claim to have read it in its entirety because, petit secret - c’est pas vraimenet si intéressant!
Merci mille fois, chère Christina. If you are interested in Olney and that period, you might enjoy Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr. It's not about Olney (although, I can't trust my memory, but I think he appears in it) but it's about people who were important to him, Julia Child, MFK Fischer and James Beard - xoD
I just finished Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. A great, giant of a book, and I lived in it as I was reading it. Once you finish, there are two more books in the trilogy, but you can stop with one if you have other things waiting. I had read Wolf Hall twice before, but it was all new. So many characters, places, political points of view, allies and enemies. I highly recomment it
I read so much Borges in college and have some of the newer translations now. back then my brain worked so well and was full of information but maybe I should see if I can still follow some of Borges. What an amazing writer!
Indeed, Pat. Borges was great in my 20s, but bewildering as I got older as I could never find the time to stop and really digest his prose. Just too busy now. To be put off 'til retirement, I suppose? 🌸
At age 78 I am reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Last year I read A Wrinkle in Time.
Patricia, I'm 69 and read A Wrinkle in Time in1965. I still consider it the most life changing book I have ever read. Read it with an open heart and the mind of a ten year old!
Always, always, always "Moby-Dick." I've read and re-read it multiple times, and return to it every few years. It's going to get me through the heat and humidity of this Nashville summer — but with new inspiration, since I just returned from time on Cape Cod (awash in whaling history and "Moby-Dick" lore). p.s. Tip... If anyone needs a little convincing on tackling it, Nathaniel Philbrick's slim little volume "Why Read Moby-Dick" is a delight.
Cindy, I love the addition of the "convincing" volume. Thank you! xoD
I have not read "Moby Dick", perhaps it was because "Billy Budd" was required reading for Junior year honour's English in high school. LOL. I did read Nathaniel Philbrick's "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" a few years ago. I have not see the movie version. It was fascinating!
IMHO high school's too soon to read either of those books.😏 (Yes, "In the Heart of the Sea" is splendid — and Melville was definitely aware of the Essex tragedy! Also, Owen Chase wrote his own book in 1821 — which Philbrick definitely relied on.)
Demon Copperhead is the first modern novel I've read in years. It deserved the Pulitzer prize that it won last year. You'll laugh at Kingsolver's turn of phrase and you might cry, too. It's a riff on David Copperfield and a masterful one.
Also, Dorie, when I broke my tibia and fibula and was laid up for weeks, I watched every episode of Frasier and got out of my own head for a little while every day.
Kinsolver is such a good writer! Thanks for the rec, Ellen - xoD
I don’t know if this would appeal to you, Dorie. But David McCullough’s biography of Harry Truman had a great impact on me. It is not necessarily a flattering biography, but it is a truthful one. I like the book as much for the craft of biography as the subject. He got beneath the myth that Truman was sort of a hapless political convenience for FDR. He was ready for the moment when it came. I might be a tiny bit biased because Truman lived in a building kitty corner from the one where I lived in DC. There was no official VP residence the way there is now, so Truman walked from the Kennedy-Warren to his office, in all kinds of Washington heat and humidity. Didn’t have a driver, didn’t even hop on the bus.
Micki, I love you - have for a long time. Thank you for this and the wonderful sum-up - xoD
😘
I loved Truman also, but the McCullough book for Dorie might be “The GreaterJourney”
Off to find out more about it - thank you Katherine - xoD
I second this suggestion. The Greater Journey is a delight, and it will resonate with you both here and especially when you’re back in Paris.❤️
I’d like to suggest anything and everything by Amor Towles. His writing is beautiful, elegant and magical. And the story telling is wondrous.
Couldn't agree more! During the time I read A Gentleman in Moscow, the real world disappeared - xoD
My husband and I had started reading Proust with a book group several decades ago. We got past the first 700 pages or so, but then some of the members of our group moved away, the group disbanded, and we didn't keep on reading it. Then, one day maybe a dozen years ago, my husband came home from work one evening and declared that he was going to try again, from the beginning, and he asked me if I wanted to read it with him—not a small ask!! We made a deal: we would each read 10 pages a day independently, every day, until we got all the way through. This approach made it doable. It also meant we didn't have to give up reading other things at the same time. Reading a daily "dose" of Proust was like a meditation. Sometimes we discussed it; sometimes we didn't. But we kept each other on track and stuck with it. It took us about 10 months to read all of Remembrance of Things Past, and I can honestly say we both found it immensely rewarding. We've read many more books in tandem this way since then. I highly recommend it!
Off to tell Michael all about this - thank you!! - xoD
Have you read the newly published Proust works that were only recently discovered? It’s sitting in my Amazon cart….
Are you referring to Les Soixante-quinze feuillets (The Seventy-Five Folios)? No, we haven’t. Sounds intriguing.
I would reread Middlemarch. It is such a great book, by a trailblazing woman author (George Eliot). I read it for the first time when I was commuting by bus, figuring the longish ride would give me time to chip away at a mammoth tome. The first hundred pages are a hard slog (lots of exposition) but, happily, it turns into a real page-turner after that.
Thanks for the warning - and thanks for chiming in to the conversation with the other Middlemarchers - xoD
Oh, how I love Middlemarch!
Hi Dorie!
I LOVE the inspo to "read a book bigger than you" idea--thank you for sharing!
When it was the the 100th of James Joyce's Ulyssess I "read" it with a lot fo help from two different podcasts that went through it page by page, and with the inspiration of The Paris Bookseller in the forefront of my mind. I also took on Don Quixote, in the same way, with the emotional support of podcasts. Neither did I "finish" but I got a pretty good idea. Also, so Pere Goriot by Balazac, which I'm still "working on."
All that being said, I enrolled in a course on Literary New York: The Upper East Side at the 92nd Street Y with the great Adam Gopnik that starts next month with Eidth Wharton and covers several important works that I managed to miss, so I'm really excited about that. Check it out! xoxoxo Erica :)
Interesting to think of a podcast to accompany reading - kind of like a book club, but not. I have not read Ulysses nor Don Quixote (Ulysses interests me more), but I have read Pere Goriot, it's was my first Balzac novel. And now, I'm going to look into the course at the Y. I would listen to Adam Gopnik talk about how paint dries - he's fascinating! Thank you, Erica - xoD
Ditto: Gopnik!
"I would listen to Adam Gopnik talk about how paint dries..!" I'm in that same club!
Right, about Adam Gopnik? So true! xoxo
I would love to try your podcast approach with Ulysses and Don Quixote. Which podcasts did you listen to? Thank you!
Hi Amy! The two I listened to for Ulysses were Friends of Shakespeare & Company Read Ulysses and Frank Delaney’s Re: Joyce
For Don Quixote I actually took an online course with James Luzzi from Bard (if I’m remembering correctly) and BBC Radio culture in our time episode about DQ. Turns out DQ was a very silly fellow, lol.
Thanks so much! I read War and Peace and Moby Dick (finally!) with the help of a website called A Public Space. Clearly I need some hand-holding!
Ha ha, I'm ALL ABOUT hand holding! That's what teachers are for! I remember when I figured out that I don't have to do yoga on my own, I can have a guide/take a class/follow a video. Whatever it takes, that's what I say! :)
https://shows.acast.com/friends-of-shakespeare-and-company-read-ulysses-by-james-joy
https://www.ulyssesguide.com
I always go back to Maya Angelou when I need some distance from my own life. Maybe even the first of her autobiographical series, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. Her life was so drastically different from mine, and she never let it defeat her. She had a profound effect on my own life.
Just lovely. Thank you, Betsy - xoD
I used to be a voracious reader but with lots of time dedicated to family illness, I had no energy left. For some reason I felt the need to get back into it and start with a huge book. I chose Middlemarch by George Eliot. It's not the usual genre I'd choose, but I'm looking forward to immersing myself in the Victorian life. Feel better!
I reread Middlemarch a year or so ago with two of my dearest friends. Definitely one of my top reads of my life. I have it as an audiobook too, so I think I will listen to it after I finish my current listen: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson. She writes excellent historical fiction. I also recommend her The Summer Before the War. The Hazelbourne book is post-WWI and then the other is right before it.
But here is the book that changed my life and introduced me to WWI, 40 years ago: Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. I have read it several times.
A book that changed your life ... it's what we search for. Thank you, Allyson - xoD
The first hundred pages of Middlemarch are tough (lots of exposition plus locking into the English language of another time). But if you stick with it, you will be rewarded handsomely.
Middlemarch has been on my list for a long time. I hope that it brings you much pleasure - xoD
Anna Karenina is one of my favorite books to get lost in.
YES!!! xoD
Hi Dorie! Thank you so much for this post! Ironically (?!) I just finished Black Swan, a nonfiction book that is way bigger than my brain at least. One of the wonderful themes of the book is how much we don’t and can’t know about life, the future, and what is going to happen. (History happens in jumps, not steps) The author seems to have a particular agenda against financial planners 🤣. The whole thing to me is wildly and weirdly comforting. Maybe all those people around me who seem to have everything figured out really don’t?! I love your spirit and style and grace. Thank you so much for what you do. And thanks for the reminder to make madelines! Shawn
I'm usually equal parts wary and envious of people who seem to have everything figured out. Usually they don't and I know they don't - who could, really? - but I still envy their assurance. Shawn, thank you for your sweet thoughts and thank you for being here - xoD
“Reflexions” by Richard Olney. He is one of my idols and the period he lived in Paris was fascinating. He unfortunately died before the book was finished, but one of his brothers finished it for him.
I have “butted heads” with Ulysses several times to no avail and it now sits resignedly in the shelves.
I might add, “Swanns Way” goes down much easier in French, á mon avis. I cannot claim to have read it in its entirety because, petit secret - c’est pas vraimenet si intéressant!
En prenez soin!
Merci mille fois, chère Christina. If you are interested in Olney and that period, you might enjoy Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr. It's not about Olney (although, I can't trust my memory, but I think he appears in it) but it's about people who were important to him, Julia Child, MFK Fischer and James Beard - xoD
I just finished Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. A great, giant of a book, and I lived in it as I was reading it. Once you finish, there are two more books in the trilogy, but you can stop with one if you have other things waiting. I had read Wolf Hall twice before, but it was all new. So many characters, places, political points of view, allies and enemies. I highly recomment it
I started Wolf Hall at the wrong moment in my life. Perhaps I should try again. Thank you - xoD
Jorge Luis Borges. One of those writers that leaves me in complete disarray, and seduces me with delicious words and phrases. 😵💫😵💫💛💛
Dany, what a perfect desciption of what Borges does - xoD
I read so much Borges in college and have some of the newer translations now. back then my brain worked so well and was full of information but maybe I should see if I can still follow some of Borges. What an amazing writer!
Indeed, Pat. Borges was great in my 20s, but bewildering as I got older as I could never find the time to stop and really digest his prose. Just too busy now. To be put off 'til retirement, I suppose? 🌸
The Diary of Ann Frank and To Kill a Mockingbird. Not big.but huge.
"Not big. But Huge." Perfect description of these important books - xoD