Both Eyes Book Blog

Here is my response to this week’s Booking Through Thursday:

The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch … what kind of reading do you want to do?

When the weather is bad, I like to read books in which the weather is also bad.  This might sound strange, but to me it adds to the atmosphere.  Reading about stormy weather during the summer just reminds me that summer will be over soon.

The other thing I like to read during winter weather is dark, heavy stuff.  January especially calls out for depressing plots and doomsaying nonfiction.  Gloom goes with gloom.

Now, I live in Northern California, where our winter blahs just mean rain, wind, mud, and the occasional flooding incident.  The temperature rarely descends to freezing.  Last week I saw some daffodils blooming, shortly followed by a robin perching in a tree.  I guess if I’m going to read American Pastoral I’d better do it before spring comes!

Oh, dear!  We almost got through the month without a list of books that won’t be available for sale at a bookstore near you.

Spawn with the Wind – Atlanta is burned by a caped revenant who misses his girlfriend.

The Lost Cymbal – An orchestra simply cannot play the same song over and over one more time until someone tracks down its missing piece of percussion equipment.

Mid-flight’s Children – Flight attendants forcibly re-seat two scampering children on a long international journey, mistakenly placing one in coach and one in first class.

The Count of Monte Crisco – A prison escape through some very narrow plumbing fixtures using the family’s patented cooking grease.

Going Vogue - A notorious political celebrity discusses her beauty regimen and why conservatives have room for women only when they are extremely photogenic.

I finally stumbled across Eva’s fantastically thought-provoking post on A Striped Armchair encouraging us to read more books by people of color.  I had so much to say I had to write my own post, though I’m a week late and everyone is probably so over this topic already.

First, total respect goes to Eva for writing a controversial post and wading into the fray.  I know what it’s like to post something well-meant and find tempers flaring over it.  I also happen to be somewhat obsessed with race issues.  I’ve lost a close friendship because I refused to drop a discussion over bigotry, I’ve risked my job to protect a black kid from being falsely accused of shoplifting, and I once confronted two big rednecks on the bus about making ethnic slurs.  I have a chip on my shoulder about discrimination and I simply can’t keep my mouth shut on this issue.

To me the big questions that arose from this discussion are:  What does privilege mean?  How can we tackle it through our reading?  What are we missing out on?

Bigotry is possibly the ugliest thing there is.  I’d rather die, and I mean that quite literally, than find that I had taken unfair advantage of someone through an unearned privilege.  That being said, it ain’t so simple.  How do we know for sure what race someone is?  By her name?  By his photo?  Because her book is explicitly about an ethnic experience?  Because of the efforts of his marketing team?  I hope I don’t sound facetious here, but one of my closest friends in college was “half Puerto Rican, half Persian.”  What is she?  If she wrote a book and I read it, do I get double sensitivity points?  If someone like, say, the inestimable Malcolm Gladwell looks white, does it therefore mean he has never suffered any ill effects from race issues?  What is he, exactly?

Eva reinforces her point over and over in the comments to the Reading in Colour post, that the race issue has nothing to do with economics.  I respectfully disagree all the way through to my bone marrow, and this is the real point to my post.

Any author published in English is the recipient of the privilege of education.  Where are the books by the illiterate?

My family has been poor for as many generations back as we can trace.  I know from bitter personal experience what it’s like to go hungry, live in substandard housing, and be suspected of stealing because I looked scruffy and fit the profile.  Poverty does matter and it matters at least as much as skin color, because poverty is inextricably intertwined with access to education.

Now I’m gonna go there.  One of the reasons we privileged white people don’t read as many books by people of color is that there just aren’t as many.  And the reason for that is that we privileged white people have better access to education and we receive more encouragement to develop our literacy.  It’s not fair but that’s how it is.  Those of us who grew up poor know there’s a lot of peer pressure in the blue collar world against reading and pursuing intellectual interests.  “Oh, you think you’re better than us.”  I would say that anyone who has published a book has had similar support in developing an interest in reading, and is therefore more privileged than all those dirty little sub-literates out there, regardless of color or nationality.  I would also say that anyone who can speak with the language and accent of the dominant culture, in whatever nation, has got a golden ticket.  If it weren’t for books, I’d most likely be a stripper just like my auntie.  If I could have had children, I would most likely have an apartment full of different kids by different dads and I’m sure I’d be on food stamps.  My nerdy fixation on literature made me instead into the person I am now, a vulgar, pretentious social climber who married into money.  Books are the sine qua non of privilege.

*quick subject change – breathe - then we’ll be right back*

My teenage posse came over for dinner last night.  We were all lit up with excitement over Alicia C. Simpson’s new cookbook, Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food, partly because of the recipes but mostly because she’s black.  Veg*anism is perceived as very white, and believe me while we welcome everyone, we’re ecstatic to find POC who are interested in veg cuisine.  In fact I will go on record as saying, if you are a person of color and you want a free vegan meal, contact me and I’ll invite you over any night that would fit your schedule.

I’m not afraid to say I’m a giant nerd and part of my interest in racial harmony comes from reading science fiction as a kid.  It’s hard to express the deep-seated longing we geeky white kids have to be able to claim a multi-ethnic, diverse group of friends – partly because we’d be glad to have any group of friends.  We can’t have actual space aliens, so hopefully at least we could have human friends with different linguistic and culinary backgrounds… and especially a mix of shapes and colors.  Sci fi like Star Trek has a pretty sound record for promoting diversity in the workplace and unself-conscious integration.

So anyway, what are you?  I’m a Scots-Irish/Portuguese white trash slum kid, but I’m also a lower-upper-class college-educated woman married to an aerospace engineer.  In some ways we’re all prisoners of our backgrounds.  In my mind, the main reason to sit and read is to expand our consciousness, which is necessary for each of us if we’re going to make a difference in the world.  We need to realize that we’re reading whatever particular type of book because it resonates with us, and that very fact should lead us to try to read something different than normal.  It makes us better people.  First we sit around reading (which helps nobody), then we have big huffy circular discussions (which helps nobody), then we start thinking obsessively about a subject (which helps nobody), and then all of a sudden we find ourselves donating to an organization like Kiva.org or volunteering in a local literacy program.  (Which I plan to start doing this summer, and yes, according to my research it mostly services non-native speakers of English).  It’s similar to how mushrooms suddenly spring up – first the conditions need to be right.

Yes, we should be conscious of our reading choices, partly because it makes us better people – more educated, more open-minded, more patient and generous with others, more socially conscious – and partly because it directs economic support to less privileged cultural areas.  There’s a ripple effect, and each author who finds an audience adds to a rising tide.  So it’s tremendous and wonderful that we make an effort to read books by authors of different backgrounds, particularly POC.

That being said, sitting around reading a bunch of fiction by anyone is only one way to accomplish the goal of a world that has fully healed from the savagery and stupidity of the past.  I would say to you that we also need to push ourselves, and push ourselves with All.  Our.  Might. to read current events, history, and other nonfiction, educate ourselves about social concerns, and do whatever we’re able (through volunteering, running for office, donating money, or anything else) to make this a more just world.

Plus it’s just more interesting.

If I hadn’t seen this, I wouldn’t have believed it.  Presumably it’s meant to be used with a stationary bicycle.

At the bargain price of $14.99, no wonder it’s out of stock!

I saw this on Rob Around Books and thought I would try to turn it into a meme.  Most likely we each have our own particular reading rules, and I’m sure we’ll all learn from each other’s habits as they unfold in their glorious idiosyncracy.  Without further ado, here are my personal rules of reading, the rules that allowed me to read 500 books in a year without losing my mind.  (Or…?)

1. ABAB – Always Bring A Book.  It’s important to bring a book everywhere, and also to make sure there’s enough left of it to last in case of unplanned delays.  Naturally one would never put oneself in the position of going about bookless, not voluntarily at any rate.  One might sooner go without clothes than without something to read.  In a pinch, one can use the book to cover up anything that might raise objections from the populace.
2. No Spoilers.  The delight to be gained from encountering a book completely free of expectations, with no foreknowledge of the plot or characters, can hardly be overstated.  Book jackets must be shunned.  Book reviews must be skimmed with care to blur past anything that would indicate any spoiling details.  Above all, one must avoid standing within earshot of any 14-year-old who blurts out the major plot point of the fourth Harry Potter novel before one has read that far.
3. Be Realistic.  One must accept one’s schedule for what it is, acknowledging that it is scarcely possible to read more than 30 hours during the work week and unlikely that more than 20 will be available over the weekend.  It is possible to develop a fairly accurate estimate of how many pages or books one may read over a day, a week, and so on.  The realism comes into play as one gazes at one’s TBR stack and yields to the insight that it represents several years of work – assuming no new book ever flaps an enticing page in one’s direction.
4. Keep Records.  Once one has recovered from the violent fits of weeping occasioned by the realization that only a scant few thousand books can be enjoyed properly in one lifetime, the necessity of record-keeping becomes obvious.  A list of Books to Be Read must be maintained, and one must adhere to it tenaciously, ruthlessly.  Life is too short to waste on second-rate books!  If, on some blessed day, a book should be published that appears more attractive than another on one’s list, one must sigh and cross off the less worthy book.  Or simply sleep less and read both.
5. Exploit a Local Library.  A library does more than house thousands of delectable books.  One may place requests for books that others are reading, and it is even possible to request books from other libraries near and far.  Most likely one can choose out-of-print books, or volumes that would exceed one’s budget – a much more practicable method than selling plasma whenever one needs something to read.

What I couldn’t remember could fill a book, one written by a ghostwriter.