I like to read.

Title: Rashi
Author: Elie Wiesel
Genre: Non-Fiction, Judaism

This small little book was a joy to read and deeply frustrating at the same time. A joy because Wiesel’s deep affection for Rashi is plain to see. A joy because Rashi the person and his influence on Judaism are so fascinating and rewarding to read about. Frustrating because the book really just barely scratches the service on Rashi and his contributions to Jewish scholarship. You can’t read this book and not be hungry for far more information about Rashi and his Torah and Talmud commentaries.

I realize that I only have 14 more books to read before I reach my goal of reading 45 books in 2009. I think I’ll scope out what I want those final 14 to be this weekend.

Title: The Whuffie Factor
Author: Tara Hunt
Genre: Non-Fiction, Business

This is one of those books that was kind of wasted on me but I think it’s good and will definitely recommend it to people. Why was it wasted on me? Because I already kind of live “The Whuffie Factor.” Open, transparent, trying to do well by doing good, being a good community member, etc, etc. I live the social media lifestyle (for lack of a better term) so there wasn’t a lot of new information in this book for me.

Title: Columbine
Author: Dave Cullen
Genre: Non-Fiction

This is the most fascinating non-fiction book I’ve read in a while. It’s about a horrible subject but it gives such insight and understanding to both the mythology and reality of the Columbine school shooting that it was hard not to get just completely sucked into it. I read the whole book in two days.

I didn’t have a lot of ideas about the Columbine shooting but I did have a few, that the shooters were outcasts who were bullied for example, that all turned out not to be true. I want to tell you the most interesting things I learned in this book and the things that it has me thinking about most but I want you to be able to read it for yourself. Seriously go read and then come back here so we can discuss it.

Title: The Promise
Author: Chaim Potok
Genre: Fiction

This is the first Chaim Potok book that I didn’t absolutely love. I enjoyed it, but I just didn’t love it. I read it just as quickly as I read other Potok books and I was just as engrossed but now that I’ve finished it I’m not as sad that I’m done. That being said I’m thinking about the book a lot now that it’s finished so, love it or not, it’s clearly left me with a great deal to think about and that, typically, is the mark of a good book. 

Title: Gilead
Author: Marilynne Robinson
Genre: Fiction, Loved

My rebbetzin recommended this book. It’s sort about a family of ministers in Iowa. It’s sort of about a dying man. It’s sort of about agnosticism and belief. And it’s sort of about nothing. It’s a book with beautiful, profound prose and beautiful profound sentiments and I enjoyed it very much.

Title: Miriam’s Kitchen
Author: Elizabeth Ehrlich
Genre: Non-Fiction, Loved

What a fascinating book this was. On its surface this is the story of a woman transforming her kitchen into a kosher one and the rhythm of her family’s life into an observant one. Deeper it’s a story about making life more meaningful, a deepening of the understanding of ritual, connection to family and community and also it’s a cookbook of sorts. That’s a lot for one book to take on and this one did it beautifully. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the role food plays in our lives and families and anyone interested in personal stories about spiritual journeys.

Title: The Road
Author: Cormack McCarthy
Genre: Fiction

This was the first book I read on my new Kindle. Exciting! Truly I wasn’t sure how I was going to take to the Kindle, I didn’t buy one for myself because I love actual books so much. But I received a Kindle for my birthday and have found myself enjoying it very much. I usually have three books going at a given time (typically one fiction, one non-fiction and one religious book) and when I go just about anywhere I need to take those three books with me. I mean, I never know which exactly I’m going to be in the mood to read when I get to the coffee shop or on the plane. Kindle makes that process so much easier, it also makes reading in line, reading in the waiting room at the doctor’s office and all those kind of places easier and more flexible. It’s kind of awesome.

I’d been wanting to read The Road for a while but never got around to buying a copy. And then they started working on the movie. That was all the nudge I needed. I have to read the book before I get any visuals from the movie stuck in my head and I’m really glad I read this. The pictures McCarthy creates from words are incredibly vivid and have great impact.

Title: Little Bee
Author: Chris Cleave
Genre: Fiction

I enjoyed this book just fine but ended up walking away from the experience of reading it a little disappointed. Why? Well, the book jacket built up some serious expectations. It reads:

We don’t want to tell you too much about this book!

It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it.

Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:

It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.

The story starts there, but the book doesn’t.

And it’s what happens afterward that is most important.

Once you have read it, you’ll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don’t tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.

It was a very enjoyable novel but I don’t have the urge to tell everyone about it and the “magic” of the book, as it were, was in the writing, not in the supposed “shocking” moment of what happened on the beach. I would have probably enjoyed the book even more if the book jacket didn’t try to convince me that there was a deep, deep shocking secret that knowing it would completely ruin the book. I could tell you what the secret is and I don’t think it would decrease your enjoyment of the book that much at all.

Title: My Name is Asher Lev
Author: Chaim Potok
Genre: Fiction, Loved

This is the second Chaim Potok I’ve read recently and I’ve got to say I’m a serious fan. It’s not just that I enjoy the peek inside the Hasidic world I’ll never see for myself (though I do enjoy that) it’s also that Potok’s books are just so….readable. They’re readable without being dumbed down or simplified or superficial. They’ve got emotionally complex characters with interesting plot arcs and yet, for me, they read like beach books; I fly right through them.

My Dad bought me a Kindle for my birthday, I wanted my first book purchased for the Kindle to be the sequel to My Name is Asher Lev, called The Gift of Asher Lev but that book isn’t available for Kindle. That’s ok, I’ll buy the physical book and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it every bit as much as I have the first two Potok books I’ve read.

Title: The Farm
Author: Wendell Berry
Genre: Poetry

Title: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
Author: David Foster Wallace
Genre: Non-Fiction

These are two tiny little books, not really books at all. The Farm is a long poem bound into a beautiful limited edition (1500 copies) book and This is Water is a commencement speech that David Foster Wallace gave. I read both of them yesterday though and spent a great deal of time thinking about each of them so I decided that, together, they count as one book read.

The Farm is quintessential Berry. It’s the poem that one of his most famous quotes comes from

And be
Faithful to local merchants
Too. Never buy far off
What you can buy near home

I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re either a Wendell Berry person or you’re not. Oh nearly everyone can agree with his basic principles but either you can get lost in his poetry and prose or you can’t. You either love that he writes long hand and uses a typewriter or you think it’s an affectation. I, clearly, am a Wendell Berry person. His work, and yes, this poem in particular, speak to me. It reminds me of my childhood, both real and imagined, and it inspires a vision of a kind of adult life that I would like to live. No, I don’t want to move back to the farm and only make my life and living there but there are many aspects of my life that I can be more connected with the land and nature and my community. This poem is a reminder of many ways in which I can be better.

Despite great ambition and initial commitment I have faltered in my quest to complete Infinite Jest. Infinite Summer is a great concept and I deeply and sincerely wish Infinite Jest resonated with me. It would be one thing if I didn’t enjoy it but found it meaningful but I neither enjoy it nor find meaning in it so it’s going on the shelf. That being said I could see the flashes of brilliance in Infinite Jest that everyone talks about when they mention David Foster Wallace. So, in a compromise with myself, I decided that if I was shelving Infinite Jest then I would read some of DFW’s non-fiction in its place. This Is Water is the first (A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is on deck). A couple choice quotes from This Is Water will probably let you know whether you want to read it or not, I think you should read it but that’s up to you.

This is not a matter of virtue — it’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hardwired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

..I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is probably just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people actually have much harder, more tedious or painful lives than I do, overall.