-
Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library
Do I? I have an entire shelf in my office, behind me right now, devoted to dictionaries, writing reference and process books, my thesaurus, a quotation book, as well as my New York City guides like
Manhattan Block by Block and
Not for Tourists Guide to New York City. I have my French/English, Hebrew/English, Russian/English, German/English, Italian/English dictionaries as well as my 501 French Verbs. I have my trusty Webster's which I still prefer to using an on-line dictionary. I am not a very good speller so I turn to it several times a week and it makes me smile. I'm not sure why, probably because it is so familiar. I have my classic Strunk and White
The Elements of Style, yellowed
with age and the more recent
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon - a more humorous take on a guide to grammar. I also have numerous writing process books which comfort me to have close at hand -
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg,
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and Charles Baxter's
Burning Down the House (which I supposed is really more lit crit) are some of my favorites. I have saved my favorite reference for last - a wonderful dictionary recommended by Mrs. Sahl. Mrs. Sahl was a retired school teacher from Boston who tutored me for the SAT and in any class in which I was having a bit of trouble in my last two years of high school. She was big on recommending books - I remember reading Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair with her. But her finest recommendation was
The Dictionary of Foreign Terms in the English Language by David Carroll. I used to feel that if a Latin phrase appeared in a book I was reading that the italics simply meant 'keep going, you're not meant to understand this.' No longer. Now I could look up
ex post facto, jus regium and not only Latin phrases - Schadenfreude, from the German, and Juggernauth from Hindi are there too. I
t includes terminology used in law, music, and science as well as colloquial expression that might be quoted in books or erudite conversation, or common words from other languages that have made it into English. It cost me only $4.95 at the time and was well worth it.
Bernard MacLaverty's Cal - 150 pages that are as densely packed with passion and tension as any I've read in Dostoyevsky or Hardy. The 19-year-old title character lives in Northern Ireland. A Roman Catholic, he is hounded and physically attacked by the Protestant Orangemen. His friends have joined the IRA in response to the violence with which they are threatened. Cal finds the violence too much for him. The struggles of nations would not be important if they didn't effect the lives of individual people. This book is about the converging of conflicts political and personal - the political and religious struggles of an oppressed people, a first great passionate love, and the dilemmas of a sensitive and thoughtful teenager as he makes the moral choices that are going to shape his whole life. I felt deeply the greatness of these struggles as I read. Read my full rave here.
This book has everything - love, suspense, moral conflict, social criticism, psychological acuity, and crack writing. It is pitch-perfect on the a fast-paced, ostentatious, brutal beauty of Rome. Lambert's writing is rich with observations both interior and exterior that imbue character and place with clarity and instantaneous complexity. This novel, though entertaining to read, is an unambiguous critique of the moral hypocrisy that infects the powerful and the nature of crime which combines an abuse of power with the dehumanization of innocent people. Read my full rave here.
Molly Fox is a celebrated actress - a woman who delves deep into what makes up a 'self.' It is her profession to create characters from that knowledge through the medium of her self. Yet, when it comes to letting others truly know her, she does not. 'Can we ever know another?', this novel asks. The Irish novelist Deirdre Madden fashions a deep and beautiful book on this potentially abstract musing that is redolent with the pain of the distance we have from all others - even those we love most - and simultaneously rich with the rewards of the communion we can make through long acquaintance. She is particularly good at using the processes of the actor and writer to reflect on the ways we can inhabit the inherent contradiction of knowing another, but the mechanisms are so integrated with the events of this narrative that it is difficult to reveal them without ruining your reading of this book. This book is a powerful work of art with an undisturbable sense of wholeness. Read my full rave here.
The struggle to keep the champagne bubbling when it's gone flat is the action filling Evelyn Waugh's 1930 satire Vile Bodies. Stephen Fry's brilliant film adaptation, Bright Young Things released in 2003 captures the feel of a breathless, manic party. Jim Broadbent, Stockard Channing, Peter O'Toole, Simon Callow, Stephen Campbell Moore, Emily Mortimer, James Mcavoy, Imelda Stuanton, and Fenella Woolgar are some of the beautifully cast actors who maintain an understated hysteria, if you can imagine understated hysteria. The love that director and cast have for these characters is what impresses me the most. It would be so easy to show us how vile these people are - how silly, how louche, how fey - but instead they love them to death. Raveworthy. Read my full rave here.
Tell Me Everything by Sarah Salway . I opened this book last night and didn't stop reading it until I had finished it. The nearest voice I can think to compare Sarah Salway's to is Lorrie Moore's, and coming from me that is a big compliment. In it Molly experiences a few breaches of trust as a young woman that leave her seriously wounded. She closes down and protects herself by eating. When we meet her she has become one of life's castaways, seriously overweight without a job, a home, or any sense of herself. She meets five people - Mr. Roberts who gives her a job, Mrs. Roberts, Tim - a man of mystery, Liz - a librarian who recommends French authors, and Miranda, a hairdresser. With these relationships she begins to reclaim herself. The story is full of perfectly wrought descriptions, complex observations of human pain and fantasy, and cogent storytelling. Read my full rave here.
4 comments:
You post reminded me that I forgot to mention my Sanskrit to English to Hindi Dictionary!
My BTT post!
Bird by Bird has turned up in a number of answers now. I love the title. I'll have to look it out.
Got the new edition of Elements of Style with illustrations. Along with all the writing handbooks and dictionaries are my Lonely Planet travel guides! :)
I really do think I need a copy of The Dictionary of Foreign Terms in the English Language. Thanks so much for your recommendation!
Post a Comment