Read a Book!
Most of the books I’ve read have been recommended to me from someone else. And so, these are my book recommendations for you. These books are all non-fiction, but that doesn’t mean they are dry and boring. Every book here, in my opinion, are page turners that will keep you up at night just to finish “one more chapter.” With each book listed, I have added a brief description and some personal commentary. Let me know what you think. And recommend a book for me!
Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller.
I was standing in an olive oil store that was precariously holding on to the mountainside in Old Jerome, Arizona, when the store manager, a woman who appeared to be about my age, walked up to me and asked, “You familiar with extra virginity?”
Seemed to me like an odd pick-up line, especially with Laura hanging on to my arm, but, hey, Old Jerome is the bone yard of rusted and old, broken, free-spirit hippies where I suppose anything can happen, so I answered in my typical dumb, knot-head male response, “Whaaa?”
Extra Virginity covers the history of olive oil, including the medicinal as well as its culinary and non-eating uses, an overview of the black market, and the inside story of the doctored “lamp oil” sold to clueless Americans.
After reading this book you’ll never look at, or taste olive oil, the same again.
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston.
After almost 30 years of working for the same municipality, it felt it was time to leave. I was itchy to move on, but the job market was in a slump, and I was getting very antsy. Then I found this book and almost quit my job to move to Honduras to look for “lost” pre-Columbian cities. Thankfully I came to by senses, but sometimes I still think…
Preston, who among other things is a writer for National Geographic, wrote about an expedition he was part of to look for the legendary “City of the Monkey God” in the jungles of Honduras. In this modern-day Indiana Jones-type adventure, he comes face-to-face with armed outlaws, poisonous snakes, and contracted the parasitic disease leishmaniasis.
Next expedition, count me in!
The Falcon Thief: A Ture Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird by Joshua Hammer.
There are times when you hear of someone that is so repulsive you can’t stop learning more about that person. In this case it’s about Jeffry Landrum, a smuggler of endangered raptors in the lucrative business of supplying chicks to mostly Arab falconers. Lendrum’s downfall started with a single slip-up caught by a janitor at the Birmingham International Airport in England. From then it became a chase around the world to catch this guy. Along the way the reader will learn about falconry and the underground business that make people like Lendrum take great risks.
Really, you won’t be able to put this book down.
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.
Who ever said history was boring? Destiny of the Republic is about the assassination of President Garfield (Or was it murder? And if so, who really killed him?). While Representative James Garfield was attending the 1880 Republican National Convention in support of the party’s presidential candidate, the other attendees decided to make Garfield the Republican candidate instead. He went on to become the 20th president of the US.
Four months into office, Charles Guiteau non-fatally shot Garfield. If this happened today, Garfield would have been patched up and back at work a couple of weeks later. But a lot was happening back then in the medical field. Mix in power struggles among his doctors, incompetence, politics, and newly emerging scientific breakthroughs and you have a true story that will rival any suspenseful crime drama.
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.
Earlier this year I attended an evening with David Sedaris at the Hanover in Worcester. Funny guy. I bought one of his books and stood in line forever for him to autograph it. The first thing he said to me was, “Do you know anyone who has transitioned?” I replied that I thought I did. Then he told me he “liked my hat.” I started to wonder where this conversation was going. Before another word left either of our mouths, he handed me my book with his signature in it and started talking to the next person in line. What the hell was that all about?
Sedaris has been accused of compositing multiple people into one character in his narratives, exaggerating events, and generally making it difficult for fact checkers at the New Yorker and other publications of his articles to list his work as nonfiction.
But Sedaris says it is all true, it’s just that he is making his narratives less confusing for the readers. Either way, he’s written some engaging stuff.
The Puma Years: A Memoir by Laura Coleman.
It has been a difficult 2021. I was trying to manage two independent teams in several departments so there would be no COVID19 crossover infections. I was also wearing myself out with my own personal struggles. I needed a psycho-social moratorium (a period of time where I didn’t have to talk with anyone). So, I decided to spend five days at an ecolodge in the rain forest of El Yunque National Park in Puerto Rico. Just before I left a colleague handed me The Puma Years to read during my trip.
I seriously thought of exchanging my return ticket to Massachusetts for one to Bolivia after reading that book. Like the author, I too wanted to work in the Amazon with crazy, idealistic people caring for rescued wild animals from the illegal pet trade, including pumas. Once again, I came to my senses before I got to the ticket counter. Okay, maybe not quite back to my senses, but I did return to the world of a scheduled workday and am still wishing I was in the jungle working with pumas.
One Day in December: Celia Sánchez and the Cuban Revolution by Nancy Stout.
My mother was once a guest of Fidel Castro. Well, not really. Saying it just makes for a better story. She was visiting my uncle who was a Navy officer stationed at Guantanamo in the late 1950s. When Batista’s government fell to Castro, a no-flight order was imposed which gave my mother an extended vacation at the Navy base. So, she was staying in Cuba, which sort-of made her one of Castro’s guests. Let’s just say I’ve heard stories, and for the life of me, I cannot understand why we have such an antagonistic relationship with Cuba while at the same time cozying up to a host of worse thugs and despots from around the world. But I digress…
Nancy Stout gives us the history of the Cuban Revolution through the actions of Celia Sánchez, a major player in Fidel Castro’s inner circle. Through 10 years of research, and with an unprecedented access to records and other research materials, Stout wrote a riveting account of the revolution (both good and bad) and about the character of Sánchez and why she is still revered on the island today.
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
You should be writing in your books, highlighting beautifully written sentences, setting off inspirational sections, jotting ideas in the margins, and scribbling on the pages anything else that comes to you while reading. If you want a pristine book, buy a copy, and put that on the shelf of your books that you’ll never read again, but keep the marked-up one close for easy access.
My friend Valerie lives on the west coast. She is an artist. We have our own private book club - just the two of us. We share books on birthdays and Christmases, then sometimes we talk about these books or write back and forth about them.
I had read Art & Fear, a book about the challenges and the rewards of creating art (“art” is used loosely in this book to mean music, painting, writing…) and immediately thought Valerie would love this book. So, I bought it for her birthday in 2020. Last Christmas she sent a copy of this same book back to me which included a reproduction of all her written notes in the margins, the highlighted parts that “spoke” to her, and whatever commentary that came to her when she read the text. I learned a lot about myself from the authors’ words, and I learned a lot about Val from her scribblings on the pages. This book was a double blessing to us.
Madeleine L’Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life compiled by Carole F. Chase.
Madeleine is a writer’s writer. She was a woman who stood for what she believed in regardless of what her critics said about her. In 1962 her book, A Wrinkle in Time, was published after being rejected by at least 26 publishers. It went on to become a hugely successful book and is still popular today, almost 60 years later.
L’Engle, a deeply spiritual writer, has had her books banned by Christian schools and libraries, shunned by Christian bookstores, all while secular critics claimed her work was too religious. Years past her death she is still selling books and inspiring kids and… wait…what are the names of those who rejected her work, banned her books, and criticized her writing? Can’t remember? Neither can I. You get the point. L’Engle rocks!
This compilation is dripping with inspiration for writers. She weaves in her own spirituality throughout her advice: “Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.”
Madeleine L’Engle was disdained by American mainstream evangelicals and criticized by snobbish, lemming-type literati. Yet she persevered and continued to write from her heart, inspiring generations of readers and writers. How could you not love her?