Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason Paperback – August 12, 2003

BOOK AFTERGLOWREVIEW: Pearl, Nancy. More Book Lust: 1000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason. Seattle, Sasquatch Books, 2005. I picked up Nancy Pearl's original book to discover the fiction I may have missed over the last number of years. I had not paid much attention to fiction. I did find a few novels and short story collections that I may read, ---and thank you. I also discovered that there were serious omissions in Ms Pearl's lists of books. I bought the second book in hopes that she might have included the works I thought were missing, but did not locate them. Therefore, I will supply a few titles she might have listed. INDIVIDUAL WORKS For WWI fiction, I thought Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End was the standard bearer, but it does not appear in the book lust lists. It is interesting to note that the work used to be a trilogy under the name given above, but now there are four books as part of it. Ah, things change, ---and it has been decades since I even looked into Ford's work. (The fourth novel, making it a tetralogy, is not equal in quality to the first three.) There have been so many other wars each with its own pathos that the mind tires of it. But Paul Fussell (a WWII veteran) said that WWI had a special sadness, as chronicled in his work The Great War and Modern Memory, advised to read by Ms Pearl. (By the way, if you have ever wondered what no man's land was like - the area between the trenches of the allies and the Germans in WWI - Fussell tells you in his book. I will let you discover it.) For Science Fiction, I thought A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. was at the top of every S/F list, but Pearl overlooks it. It is the story of the reformulation of civilization in the American Southwest after a nuclear catastrophe. It mixes theology and American political theory in a potent brew. In the Science Fiction genre, Brian Aldiss's Greybeard must be mentioned. The premise of the story is that children stop being born in the world. The resulting society in Britain and on the planet together with the eventual final resolution is spellbinding. A movie should be made from this book. Ms Pearl describes Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness four times in her first book, but not another of his novels. As fine a work as is Heart of Darkness, I think Conrad's Nostromo is nearly its equal, ---or close enough in quality to read. The death of Decoud, the Latin-American liberal patrician, is one of the best sustained literary passages in the English language. He dies from solitude, a devastating commentary on modern civilization. The book gives us an insight into the minds of our South American cousins. I have long admired the treatment by Robert Graves of the book called The Golden Ass. It is a translation into a novel of the book known as The Transformations of Lucius Apuleius, an ancient collection of Milesian tales from Cappadocia, once part of the Roman Empire but now in Central Turkey. It is considered by some to be the primary proto-novel. The treatment of the Cupid and Psyche legend is precious. The book functions as a cautionary lesson for men not to get involved with magic, as it is the prerogative of women. Graves' book has recently been reissued. The very title of the book, The Starched Blue Sky of Spain, indicates its ambience. That is the perfect description of the Spanish azure. It is Josephine Herbst's book of memoirs of the early decades of the 20th century. I believe Nancy Pearl should have included The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo. The author is Japanese but wrote his book explaining the tea ceremony and its philosophical and cultural implications in unique English that is wistful and heart-felt. Kasuzo's book is number 189,165 on Amazon's rankings, and might have been listed for that reason alone. It is a cult book and on Kindle. I would suggest you read the late 19th century book by Henry Adams titled: Democracy, an American Novel. You will discover that American politicians were as thorough sleazebags then as now. The novel is rather wooden in its character development, but I consider that to be a perfect delineation for politicians and those they associate with, and not a flaw of style. I cannot understand why Ms Pearl failed to mention the Spanish poet and writer Juan Ramon Jimenez. He is not a writer from a past century, but modern, ---and died in 1958 in Puerto Rico where he had gone to escape the Spanish fascists of Franco's time. His book, described as prose poems, translated into English as Platero and I, is the story of a man who takes a journey with his burro to find out about life,---and discovers that his donkey is smarter than he is. You must admire the mind of a man who would admit to it, even in a humorous way. Jimenez won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1956. For a book much different in subject matter, read Sweet Zen by Cherie Huber. I have read D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, Walpola Rahula, Batchelor, Herrigel, Cleary and other writers on secular Buddhism, but Huber's book has a special quality that makes Zen personal, even emotionally intimate. You might want to read Huber's other Zen books on depression, death and dying and other subjects. (You can find them at Borders.) For all you romantic lovers, I would advise you to read Love in the Western World by Denis de Rougemont. De Rougement considers romantic love to be a pathology, and with historical proof, as he is a scholar. Only a Frenchman could write such a work, and I hasten to add that I have a French-Canadian connection. The most serious omission by Nancy Pearl of books that should be read is Eagle in the Snow, by Wallace Breem. It is an historical novel. The historical facts are that in the late 4th century CE the Roman Empire was crumbling. Stilicho, the Romanized Vandal, was master of the Roman army in the West. He was protecting the core of the empire in Italy, and did not have the time, personnel or funds to guard Lower Germany and Gaul south of the Rhine. Various barbarian tribes were threatening to invade across that great river and extinguish civilization. Breem, for his novel, makes the premise that Stilicho appoints a Roman legate, Maximus, from Britain (where the legionnaires are melding into the local population by intermarriage while maintaining Hadrian's Wall), as commander of Roman forces to build an army from local resources to keep the barbarians north of the Rhine. The book is the story of how Maximus constructs his legion together with his cavalry general, Veronicus. It is a case study of Roman military genius, and involves the wife of Veronicus and includes a cameo episode of a captured blonde German maiden that is priceless.Historically, in 405 CE the Rhine froze solid and about 180,000 Vandals stormed over it, wiping out by sheer mass of numbers the remnants of the Roman guard that was stationed there. (This chaotic force went on to sack all the cities of Gaul and Spain and crossed into North Africa where they made St. Augustine and his milieu miserable before sort of dissipating in the African heat.) In the novel, Breem describes the desperate tactics of the legion to stave off the masses of barbarians in the freezing weather but without avail. It ends with Maximus, after the battle, with his sword hand cut off, ending his own life. Eagle in the Snow is a superbly tremendous historical novel. I do not understand why it has not been made into a movie. It would be a great time for a movie of it now when the West is threatened by another inchoate force, radical Islam. (Francis Ford Coppolla should make the film.) AUTHORS I had mentioned Robert Graves above but you should read more of him. He considered himself a poet and a poet only, but was forced to write other works to feed his poetry habit. These works, known as historical novels, but which he called his "historical reconstructions" are all of them treasures. Nancy Pearl mentions the two works on the Roman Emperor Claudius: I, Claudius and Claudius the God (made into a BBC TV series in 1976) but other of his novels include: Homer's Daughter, a development of Graves' idea that the true author of the Odyssey was a woman; Hercules, My Shipmate, on the journey of the Argos; King Jesus, about events in the Mideast 2000 years ago (Graves also wrote a ponderous tome about the New Testament with the scholar Joshua Podro, The Nazarine Gospel Restored, but I am not advising you to read it); Watch the North Wind Rise (called Seven Days in New Crete in England), a utopian novel placed on the island of Crete; and many others including two novels about Sergeant Lamb, a British noncommissioned officer in colonial America. My personal favorite is Count Belisarius, the life of the great general of Justinian the Great who re-conquered Italy from the barbarians. (I appreciate this work because of my personal background, and because the Byzantine Empire has vanished almost completely from the consciousness of Westerners, both European and American.)Robert Graves was advanced for his time. I stated his claim that the Odyssey was written by a woman, and he recreates what he imagines to have been her life in the novel Homer's Daughter. In his Sergeant Lamb books, he writes of a Native American tribesman whom we would call "homosexual," and who was accepted by the members of the tribe as a naturally occurring phenomenon. In Graves' novel of the voyage of the Argo, the introductory character Ancaeus, the helmsman, is a Pelasgian from the island of Samos, a descendant of a people native to Greece before the arrival of the Greeks, and who believes in the religion of the Triple Goddess, an ancient matriarchy. This is to his regret, unfortunately, because after that great voyage when he returns to Samos he is banned from it by the Olympian Greeks, as a worshipper of the nymph. At his request, he is released onto a small island in the Mediterranean still ruled by the matriarchy. But the ruling goddess has him killed by the island worshippers of the Triple Goddess who are savage goat men because Ancaeus is considered to have been corrupted by his life with the Greeks. The only facet of Graves' books that might put you off is the periodicity of his sentences. His sentences are long and complex. He wrote before the cinema, TV, modern journalism and the Internet claimed our attention and when readers could settle down on a long winter's night and really get into a book. (You will get into his prose style, soon enough. Conrad writes in a similar style.) Nor should you miss reading The White Goddess, a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth), which Graves called his poetic lexicon. (The white goddess changed to a black goddess sometime later.)By the way, while exploring the works of Robert Graves read the poems of Laura Riding with whom he lived for a while. They are collected in a thin paperback. Riding's poems are very difficult and much under-appreciated. Someday poetry will regain a structure and intelligence, and Riding's poems will be seen as the jewels that they are.I had also mentioned Brian Aldiss, and his great S/F novel, Greybeard." Aldiss was part of the "New Wave" of British S/F writers, after the originals such as Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, A.E. Van Vogt, and others. It is an "old wave" now, though, as it started in the 1960s-70s. He has written many other S/F books (read his Report on Probability A), straight novels and memoirs. Aldiss is still writing.I will tell you about Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. His mother was English and his father was a patrician from Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka). His books interpret the East to the West, and include Buddhism and art. Read The Transformation of Nature in Art. Coomaraswamy's writings on Oriental textiles are still used in art schools. Coomaraswamy was a colorful man, and collected Borzoi hounds and mistresses. He had a position at the Museum of Natural History in Boston, and died in 1947 when he was preparing to enter a monastery in the Himalayas. (He was a Buddhist, and perhaps the hounds and the women became too much for him.) He is someone for you to explore.Finally, I will advise that you read the works of Frithjof Schuon. He wrote on the metaphysics of comparative religion, first in German, then in French and then in English in the same refractory dense prose. He had much to say about Islam and its esoteric expression in Sufism, and this may be his relevance for today. He is exceptionally difficult to read, and I am not certain how I got through many of his works. (I was younger when I read them and had more patience with authors.)Schuon made the most perceptive statement about the tribal peoples in the American continent that I have ever read. He said that they lived in a sort of paradise that was fated to fall.SPECIALIn parting, I will mention one more book that Nancy Pearl could have listed for the perusal of speakers of English.One of the advantages of going to book sales is that you can find books that you would not normally buy and even be interested in, but since the cost is usually one dollar, it is irresistible to buy them and keep them around the house,---and maybe read them on a dull night. This is how I discovered and brought home as a treasure, The Nature of Women: An Encyclopedia and Guide to the Literature, by Mary Anne Warren. (Published in 1980 by Edgepress, Inverness, California. ISBN 0918528070.) I read the entire 701 page reference book, entry by entry from ABBOTT, Sidney...to ZARETSKY, Eli right through the radical feminists who want to main men with surgery and chemicals to control their aggression (you can imagine), and including the substantial reference sources at the end,--- over about three years. I found the book to be terrifically informative, and believe that no man, woman, person of alternate sexuality or beast in the modern era should be without its insights and perceptions. The book has never been revised, to my knowledge, and so is unique in that what you see is what you get, ---something that I have rarely found to be the case with women. (I could not resist it.)ENVOIThere is no end to books. They make an indefinitude. I have not told you all I know about them because a lustful lover of either (or any) sex never reveals all he, she or whatever knows so that ardor is kept at fever pitch.(TRC 08-17-09)

When I pick up a book like this, I look for two kinds of lists: those in which I have an interest but no knowledge, and those that are my areas of knowledge. I use the latter to gauge my trust in the former, and I have to say I was mildly disappointed with the lists about which I am knowledgable, such as Academic Satires and Historical Fiction, which neglected to mention essential authors and books. That tells me that the other lists, those in which I have no first-hand knowledge, will probably get me started but will be neither authoritative nor complete.Secondly, I was not enamored of the format, which devotes approximately one page to each topic and is set up as commentary with book titles in bold face type. There are a wide variety of topics, from Australian Fiction to Epistolary Novels and Pawns of History, however there is usually no information about the year of publication. The general commentary is interesting but inconsistent, while the sentence devoted to each recommended work is helpful and informative, as if a friend in a hurry was telling you about the item.This is a fun book and it will get you started in areas of interest to you; however, for a more comprehensive and authoritative list there is The List of Books (sadly out-of-print and dated, but available used) by Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish and, for a guide to specific authors, which are covered idiosyncratically here, you might try About the Author by Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner.The book concludes with a good index that lists all of the books and authors mentioned.This will not be your most valuable guide to other books, but it will be useful.

This is a unique type of "book review" list as the author categorizes books under unorthodox headings (such as "armchair travel", "first lines to remember", "boys coming of age", etc.) I enjoy this guide as a read in itself. She devotes a paragraph or so to a title, or author and has sections on one author titled "too good to miss". Her taste is not exactly mine as she tends toward the romantic and mystery genres and, it is my opinion, disregards more serious classic writing. For example, I really enjoy Richard Ford's novels (The Sportswriter being one)and she doesn't even mention him. There are so many books and a limited amount of space so that is understandable. What I really appreciate about this book is that she has led me to some books I never would have considered -and I really enjoyed just giving myself up to her recommendation. She also includes a list of best novels from each decade of past century and this list is worth reading through as an experiment in widening one's reading scope. Author is a retired librarian who you -can tell -really loves books.

As an avid reader of fiction, I find that I frequently exhaust all the books by a particular author and am left wondering what to read next. Book Lust definitely helped me to identify some new authors and books to try. It is broken down into 175 different categories; rather than be based on mood as the title suggests, the categories are mostly based on very specific genres--eg, African American Fiction (further divided into male and female), Canadian Fiction, Memoirs, etc. (some categories are given particularly amusing names, such as Elvis on My Mind, Gear Up for Gardening, and Take Me Out to the Ballgame). Particular authors are also highlighted various "Too Good to Miss" entries. You will certainly find plenty of reading suggestions, but don't expect much detail about each individual book--at times the books are simply listed. Also, you may be disappointed to find that some of your own favorites do not make the list (no Maeve Bincy under Irish Fiction?). Overall, however, this is a worthwhile read for booklovers like myself.

As someone who is always on the lookout for new books, this is a great starting point. It divides into sections and has a written section on each topic, telling you a little about the books recommended. Nancy Pearl is a librarian and knows her stuff. the only down point is that some of tHE books I fancied are rare and hard to get hold of from my own library or even off amazon!

I have bought a few of her recommendations, but they didn't thrill me like I thought they would. Perhaps it's because the book is so biased towards American literature.Come on Nancy, don't be so parochial, It's a vast world of literature.

If you have a subject you would like to read more about there is a good possibility that Pearl has some recommendations in 'Book Lust' or 'More Book Lust'. A wealth of recommendations with something for just about everybody.

Great book, lots and lots of new and old authors to peruse.Very pleased with the book,J. Meeuwis