J. Peder Zane

First I will have to cop to a certain proclivity for top ten lists and also for the tabulation of points based upon an item’s appearance on those lists to make other top ten lists. Then if you make those top tens the favorite books of 125 contemporary authors, you have me hooked. This is a nice book to pick through at your leisure over time, otherwise reading list after list could become rather maddening. After the author’s lists, a synopsis of each book appears in the order of its popularity from the top tens. There are 544 books listed which let me know two things. First--many books appear on multiple lists and second-- despite that, I still found a treasure trove of books that I have never heard of and am now crazy curious to find. For example, MAN’S FATE by Andre Malraux, IMPRESSIONS OF AFRICA by Raymond Roussel, THE WAR OF THE NEWTS by Karel Capek, AUTO-DA-FE by Elias Canetti and several more. The somewhat redundant appearance of certain books reflects that most of the authors were Western, white and predominantly male—that is a drawback. I would also have liked some archival work referencing writers no longer with us and the books they liked and referenced during their careers. Possibly another book. And of course it is quite difficult to read this book and not be inspired to create my own list:
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
MOBY DICK by Herman Melville
TWICE TOLD TALES by Nathaniel Hawthorne
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston
DEAD SOULS by Nicolai Gogol
CATCHER IN THE RYE by JD Salinger
SHIP OF FOOLS by Katherine Anne Porter
GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

And of course I cheated by putting eleven. Before you judge me, try it yourself.
… (mer)

I can't think of a superlative for “Remarkable Reads: 34 Writers and Their Adventures in Reading,” edited by J. Peder Zane. This book, however, is all about superlatives. Bebe Moore Campbell writes about the most memorable books she has read, Frederick Busch writes about the most dangerous book he has read, Robert Morgan about the wisest, Charles Frazier about the most tempting, Lee Smith about the most luminous, and so on.

The chosen books are fascinating, as are the superlatives and the essays explaining how those particular superlatives apply to those particular books. Many of the books are classics, or at least books you are likely to have heard about. Among these are E.M. Forster's “Howards End,” Doris Lessing's “The Golden Notebook,” J.D. Salinger's “The Catcher in the Rye” and Boris Pasternak's “Doctor Zhivago.” Other books may be new to most readers, such as “The Tarahumara” by Antonin Artaud and “Confessions of Zeno” by Italo Svevo.

The superlatives don't always mean what you might think they mean. When Eric Wright calls “Howards End” the classiest book he has read, what he refers to is the novel's focus on the British class system of the time. Perhaps the most interesting thing Wright has to say is his observation that all the great children's books by British writers, from “The Wind in the Willows” to the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, were written by middle-class writers for middle-class children. All those references to nannies, cooks and housemaids meant little to children in lower classes. (Of course, they mean little to today's middle-class children, but those children still love the stories.)

Possibly the book's best essay (there's my superlative) is the one in which Nasdijj describes “To Tame a Land” by Louis L'Amour as the saddest book he has read. He doesn't mean he shed any tears while reading it. Rather he means the novel is what he terms "cow manure." Nasdijj has worked as a cowboy and knows something of the history of the West, and this novel, he says, "kills even the shadow of truth." It describes "a picture of a place that never was and a time that never happened." He says he and other modern cowboys would sit around campfires at night and make fun of Louis L'Amour novels. That is sad.… (mer)

I love reading. I like making lists. I like finding out what books are considered quality literature and checking my reading against those recommendations. Clearly, this book is ideal for me.

The way the editor created his list was by surveying contemporary writers about their top ten choices. While many of the writers protested that such a list was an impossibility, they still sent one in. The editor then assigned a number to each book on the list, ten points for the top book chosen, ranging down to one point for the book on the bottom of the list. He totaled the points, and chose the ten books that received the most of them. Voila - a top ten lists of favorite books chosen by contemporary writers. The method is admittedly flawed; it's too subjective, we don't know how the editor chose his sample of participating authors, and the criteria for what makes a book a favorite can vary wildly from one person to the next. The editor actually acknowledges several of these points in one of the essays at the beginning of a book. He also explains that this list is meant to inspire more reading in literature rather than be a decree to read the particular titles described, and that while it is not conclusive evidence of anything, it is suggestive to see similarities and differences in reading choices among a broad set of people.

How can you make a whole book out of one list? With a lot of other corresponding lists! The book starts with two essays to establish the purpose and the meaning of the top ten list; they also describe the selection process. Then, the top ten list is presented on one page, simple and in a rectangle outlined in strong black lines. After this, the editor presents the top ten list of every individual author who responded to their survey, with a brief description of that writer's works. This way, we can see all the books that were considered brilliant but didn't quite make the cut. Following this section of lists is the longest division of the book, a bibliography of all the books mentioned in the preceding lists, with a brief synopsis for each one. Finally, in a short section at the end, the editors had fun with some data analysis. They created new lists from the information they procured, using different sets of criteria for each one; for instance, top ten mystery choices, or top ten books of the eighteenth century.

As I wrote earlier, I enjoyed reading this book. The fun of reading what other writers consider great literature. The enjoyment of perusing various lists. The enticement of all of those wonderful books that I haven't read and need to. I particularly liked the top ten list and the new configurations at the end of the book; the list of every individual author was enlightening, but monotonous. The biggest portion of the book, the bibliography, is also too much. I understand why the editor included it, and it certainly sparked new interests for me in books that I have never heard of, or books that I have always meant to read but never have, but the section was too long and repetitive and greatly slowed the reading pace. However, this only matters to people who obsessively read the entire book. If the majority of readers refer to this book as a reference, neither of these complaints will detract from the book's enjoyment. Certainly, the benefits of the materials collected outweigh the personal irritations, and I recommend this book for all fellow bibliophiles.… (mer)