WHIM AND CHANCE

FAVORITE BOOKS READ IN 2003

By Laurie Meunier Graves

When it comes to reading and reviewing books, it is a well-known fact among family and friends that I am a rake at both. I have no organized system, no intent; my choices are dictated by whim and chance, by pleasure and interest. Therefore, I seem to be unable to confine my reading to books published in 2003. I roam through various years and genres with nary a thought for consistency, and this is certainly reflected in my list of favorite books read in 2003. Yet, in a way, there is a strange kind of unity to my list. Reading by whim and chance often leads a person down a delightful, synchronistic path that, in the end, is more connected than first supposed.

To make the list even quirkier, my list of favorite books includes ones that were not reviewed in Wolf Moon Press Journal. While reading a book takes time, reviewing a book takes even more time. Some of the books on the list were read at night or in spare moments between the review books. Naturally, before I started reading these books, I had no idea I would like them so well, and there is a strong likelihood that they will be reviewed in 2004.

Here, then, is my list of favorite books read in 2003.

MADAM SECRETARY: A MEMOIR by Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward

Ms. Albright’s life as a refugee, student, wife, mother, volunteer, teacher, diplomat and finally secretary of state is both mind-boggling and instructive. Madam Secretary is crowded with incidents and names—World War II, the fall of communism, the conflict in the Balkans, Ed Muskie, Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Bill Clinton. The list goes on, and in the middle is Madeleine Albright, an indomitable woman with extraordinary energy, intelligence, ambition, will, and most importantly, compassion. The book, at 512 pages, is swept along by Ms. Albright’s brisk, no-nonsense voice. When she writes that the international community has “a responsibility to help societies endangered by natural or human-caused catastrophe…because it [will] make the world more stable and peaceful, and because it [is] right,” we can’t help but long for the days when Ms. Albright was secretary of state.

ANOTHER THURSDAY by H. R. Coursen

I do not have a poetic mind, a failing of which I am all too keenly aware. Despite this shortcoming, I was completely captivated by H. R. Coursen’s book of poetry, Another Thursday. Mr. Coursen moves back and forth in time—from ancient Greece to Bing Crosby and Jeanette MacDonald—to provide a portrait of a life that is rich in interest and meaning. Best of all, his use of language is beautiful, and his poems are crisp and clear.

REPORTING THE UNIVERSE by E. L. Doctorow

This slim volume (125 pages) is a collection of essays that cover an astonishing amount of territory. Mr. Doctorow weaves in details of his personal life with reflections on literature, imagination, religion, September 11, philosophy, and, of course, writing. The title comes from a quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The writer…believes all that can be thought can be written…In his eyes a man is the faculty of reporting, and the universe is the possibility of being reported.” To the jaded reader of the twenty-first century, this sentiment might seem somewhat naïve and more than a little grandiose. However, Mr. Doctorow reminds us just how important it is to have the freedom of “reporting the universe,” and how in an “absolutist theocracy,” that freedom is denied. Mr. Doctorow uses Al Qaeda as an example of a group that wishes to prevent people from reporting the universe, but he quite rightly reminds us that Al Qaeda is not the only group that would take away this freedom. Unfortunately, the urge to restrict and dominate thoughts and ideas is very human and cuts across all cultures. Fortunately, we have writers such as E. L. Doctorow who are brave enough to oppose such restrictions.

THE THIEF LORD by Cornelia Funke

This fantasy novel for young readers has exactly the right, if somewhat standard, elements to create a compelling story. There are the orphaned brothers, Prosper and Bo, who are on the run from an evil aunt and uncle. There is the gang of street children, also orphans of one kind or another, who rescues Prosper and Bo from the streets of Venice, described so vividly that the city almost becomes another character. There is the enigmatic leader of the gang, the Thief Lord, who takes care of the children but disappears for long periods of time. Add a sympathetic detective, a photographer, as well as a carousel with magical powers, and you have a book that keeps a reader up until two in the morning. (Yes, I admit it. I couldn’t put The Thief Lord down until I had finished it.) Moreover, the combination of loneliness, neglect, and adult cruelty gives the book a sad, haunting tone that makes it truly memorable.

SEDUCTION AND BETRAYAL: WOMEN AND LITERATURE by Elizabeth Hardwick

The New York Review of Books sent me Seduction and Betrayal as a thank-you gift for subscribing, and I think it is safe to say I have never received a better complimentary book. Ms. Hardwick, one of the founders of the New York Review of Books, writes so well and with such intuition and imagination that she shakes the dust from literary criticism and makes it shine. As the title suggests, Seduction and Betrayal is a collection of essays about literary women, real and fictional. Among the women Ms. Hardwick writes about, there are the usual suspects—the Brontës, Sylvia Plath, and Virginia Woolf—as well as two not-so-usual suspects, Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Carlyle. As is the case with all good critics, Ms. Hardwick gives us new literary insights and helps us see the familiar in a different light. For anyone who loves literature, this book is an essential addition to the personal library.

DRINKING COFFEE ELSEWHERE by ZZ Packer

I first read the short story  “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” a few years ago in the New Yorker, where Ms. Packer was featured as a debut writer, and I was immediately impressed by her skill as a storyteller and the beauty of her writing. (I reread the ending several times just for its sheer resonance.) Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered that  “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”, along with other short stories, had been published in a book using the same title as that wonderful story. In the book Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, the stories are not interrelated, yet there is a grim unity to them. For the most part, the protagonists are young African American women who must deal with the burdens of society. While they haven’t been completely broken, they aren’t exactly triumphant, either, and what remains is a stubborn but sad endurance.

THE TWO TOWERS and THE RETURN OF THE KING by J. R. R. Tolkien

I am not ashamed to admit that I am a Tolkien enthusiast and have been since I was eleven years old. I have read The Lord of the Rings trilogy, of which The Two Towers and The Return of the King are a part, at different stages of my life, and each time I have found something new in these books. The Two Towers and The Return of the King continue the story started in The Fellowship of the Ring, with the two hobbits, Frodo and Sam, on a mission to destroy an all-consuming evil ring of power. The breadth and scope of Tolkien’s writing never fails to amaze me. He combined myths and archetypes with the personal; explored the nature of good and evil in ways that were both complex and compassionate; and invented a fantastical world, Middle Earth, that at times seems more real than our own.

SIX MYTHS OF OUR TIME by Marina Warner

In these secular times, you might be tempted to conclude that the old myths and tales don’t apply to modern society. However, you would be wrong. In Six Myths of our Time, Marina Warner shows how these old myths still have meaning in today’s world, and paradoxically, how we twist and change them to suit our current needs. (A perfect example of this is the new movie version of Peter Pan, which discards the original dark tones of death and betrayal and raises sex from the background to the foreground.) Six Myths is composed of six short essays that were originally aired in 1993 as radio talks on the BBC. The essay titles provide wonderful glimpses of the richness of these pieces—“Monstrous Mothers: Women Over the top”; “Boys Will Be Boys: The Making of the Male”; “Little Angels, Little Monsters: Keeping Childhood Innocent”; “Beautiful Beasts: The Call of the Wild”; “Cannibal Tales: The Hunger for Conquest”; and “Home: Our Famous Island Race.”

HERE IS NEW YORK by E. B. White with an introduction by Roger Angell

Originally published in 1949 as an article in Holiday magazine, Here is New York was republished in 1999 in book form. With the introduction, it is only fifty-six pages long, but what it lacks in length is more than made up for in style and content. Mr. White, in his inimitable, breath-taking way, wrote of the New York of fifty years ago, when the city was in the middle of a heat wave. As Mr. White describes this time before air-conditioning, he also hits on what it is that makes New York such a singular, extraordinary city, as true today as it was in 1949. If Here is New York were only this, then that would be enough. But Mr. White had bigger things on his mind than a mere description of the city. The book ends on an extraordinary and indeed even shocking note of presentiment that seems to anticipate the attacks of September 11 and then shows us the means for averting such tragedies. How many writers could accomplish this in less than fifty pages? 

 

5 1/2" x 5" 2008 Wolf Moon Calendar just $10.00 each
More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2008 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines