Uncle Ric’s Irresponsible Reading List

I've been an inveterate reader forever. But, over the past too many years, I've been too busy work-reading to sit and enjoy a book. I am fixing that thanks partially to my recent irresponsibility (retirement). Since it was a new year (2017), and I was in Baltimore first-visiting my first grandchild (Norah), I chose a Baltimore tome. Just finished. So--

#1 Role Models by John Waters (autographed and acquired at "A John Waters Christmas" in 2014)

It's an ode to those Waters finds admirable and influential to his life.

#2 Just finished Winter Goldfinch by my friend Jayne Davis Wall (autographed)

It's a Southern novel. Jayne is also a wonderful painter and a friend.

#3 A Pleasant Gale on My Lee by my friend John Morgan (autographed)

It's childhood reminiscences of his life on the Pamlico Sound and Outer Banks. John was an old friend and long-time register of deeds in Beaufort County NC.

#4 Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales, African Edition (autographed by my old friend Ma'at Crook)

It's an anthology of graphic short stories. One is my Ma’at.

#5 Robert Capa — Images of War

A recent gift from a friend with a curious stamp on title page: "Property of the Army Attache Paris, France"

#6 Kinky Friedman —- Armadilloes and Old Lace

Kinky is a genius Renaissance men of our day.

#7 Russian Summer by Norman Spinrad

It was science fiction that made reading a joy for me. Spinrad is an old, old favorite.

#8 Tom Robbins — Skinny Legs and All

My favorite writer on metaphysics and religion, a man of great joy!

#9 Paul Duncan — Stanley Kubrick, The Complete Films

A nice collection of anecdotes and analysis of one of the greatest filmmakers. Includes lots of behind the scenes photos from the films.

#10 Wassily Kandinsky & Franz Marc — The Blaue Reiter Almanac

A classic of modern art from 1912. Kandinsky and Marc invited thoughtful pieces on the emergence of modern artists and their ties to ancient and primitive art.

#11 Leslie Charteris — The Saint in Miami

Kitty picked it up at her Gran’s house a couple of weeks ago. The first of The Saint books I’ve read. Don’t know why, they are similar to James Bond novels that got me through high school, not to mention the ‘60s TV show I was very fond of. Fun, adventure “vacation” reading.

Published in 1940, it was no surprise to find The Saint fighting a Nazi fifth column operation in the USA. Clearly a piece aimed at pushing the US to join the European Allies in the new war.

#12 Paul Hadley Davis — Parallel Allegory

The Story of a Journey Across the Pristine Continent of a Lost Planet

An autographed copy of a novel by a friend. Paul is a musician and (recently) retired university chemistry lecturer. May be considered scifi, but perhaps better perceived as a self exploration our journey through life and its lonely truth.

#13 Mitch Albom — Tuesdays with Morrie

Thank you, Doug Sliker, for making me get off my ass and finally read this sweet, lovely book. I always respected Albom for his sports work in Detroit and his presence on ESPN’s late great “Sports Reporters.” Learning to die teaches you to live.

#14 Randy Poe — Skydog - The Duane Allman Story

One of the greatest guitar players of all time. It’s a story of being driven.

#15 Sam Stephenson — Gene Smith’s Sink - A Wide-Angle View

I have known and respected the author since he was in high school here when I worked for The Washington Daily News. This book is a bit of a surprise to me in that it is NOT (to me) a standard biography. Having not kept myself properly educated, I’m not quite sure if I understand exactly the approach of Sam’s observations on one of photography’s flawed giants.

As best I can figure, “A Wide-Angle View” of the title refers to observing the people who orbited and intersected the life of the great documentary humanitarian rather than just telling stories of what he did. Sometimes they tell you directly about Gene, other times it is their own story which shines a light in a corner of Gene’s world. I find it a satisfying addition, especially if you know a bit about Smith in the first place. Photographers and cinematographers may call it an “establishing shot.” Sam shares many rich tales from Smith’s universe.

Gene Smith’s Sink strikes me as very filmic. It is rather like the documentaries one can see these days in which the film-maker includes himself and his education as an integral part of the production. It’s a great tool for giving the reader a direct experience of discovery. Very satisfying.

#16 Just Down the Road… in Our Own Words

Many oral histories of communities in Gates County, my home. It was collected by the Gates County Historical Society in 2009. Some fun stories, but with more begatting than Genesis.

#17 Kinky Friedman — The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover

With Kinky, just as Lone Star Beer, too much is not enough.

#18 Hugo Ball — A Flight Out of Time

Ball was a founder of Dada. I had higher hopes for this diary. I was rather put me off at finding that in his later years he edited his “diary” to suit his then current bent of finding his way back into the Church. Was looking for more on the Dada movement.

#19 Lonnie A Squires — Tall Tales and Short Stories

Lonnie was one of Little Washington’s creative characters. This is a 1985 collection of stories on Lonnie’s memories and local characters.My copy is inscribed to Louise. “Now chasing ladies is always a ticklish business unless you happen to find one that is not ticklish,” says Lonnie.

#20 Allen Ginsberg — Reality Sandwiches

My relationship with poetry is labored. I love it when I know the poet and can hear the voice—it becomes music. I got this City Lights edition in the ‘60s.

#21 Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin — Armstrong, Collins & Aldrin — First on the Moon

I have always been a huge fan of our space program, so finally getting around to reading First on the Moon (which has been on my shelf for years since picking it up at some fleamarket or junk store) was a real treat. Just enough science, just enough personality—obviously a rah-rah publication for the program.

#22 Thad Stem Jr. & Alan Butler — Senator Sam Ervin’s Best Stories

More conversation than stories. I would have enjoyed it much more if I had a pre-existing appreciation of Mr. Stem. But as it was, I would have preferred more Sam and less Stem.

#23 Mark Twain — Letters from the Earth, Uncensored Writings

One of my two favorite writers pokes a bit at the Biblical perspective.

#24 Juanita Miser Lyerly — Cobalt Blues & Hard Times

An unpublished diary of dying including poems and remembrances of her childhood. Touchingly personal. Her son Bill is a close friend.

#25 Stephen Hawking — The Universe in a Nutshell

New physics is not a simple thing, nor does give one damn about common sense. I’ve seldom reread as many paragraphs as I have in this book. I still don’t understand, but I did pick up an inkling here and there.

#26 Howard R. Garis — Uncle Wiggily Longears (1914-15)

incsribed: “George Hubert Cox Jr, from Mother 1929”

Full of wonderfully hyperbolic prose, it contains 52 short stories of the adventures of an old “rabbit gentleman” with rheumatism. (That’s a fresh tale each week for a year.) I don’t particularly remember the stories from childhood, but I DO remember it as one of my first boardgames.

#27 Ernest Hemingway — The Old Man and the Sea 

(1952 a very early Book Club edition)

A wonderful story that would have been even more so if Spencer Tracey did not pop into my mind’s eye periodically. It was much more positive than I remembered, but maybe I’m just an old man who’s seen the sea.

#28 Peter Makuck — Costly Habits (2002)

A collection of short stories (one of my favorite literary forms) by an old friend and distinguished professor emeritus of English at East Carolina University. His stories, to me, are tales of us grudgingly accepting our own mundane foibles. I see myself in too many of them. Best of all, this collection made me reestablish contact with Peter.

#29 Henri Cartier-Bresson — Scrap Book (2007)

As much as anyone, Cartier-Bresson defined street photography as we know it today — you’ve probably heard of  “the decisive moment.”  This book contains several essays and HCB’s 1932-1946 scrapbook that he used to promote his career as a recognized artist.

Although I find the essays a bit “art babble,” the photography selection and reproduction is outstanding. I enjoyed his lack of respect for a couple of current “rules” of street photography: not making eye-contact with the subject and not photographing the subject from the back. I also appreciated his indecision in choosing the best of similar shots. I’ve always found “The Decisive Moment” rather vague and maybe even misleading. I was happy to be reminded the name of his first major book (1952) bore the name Images à la Sauvette (Images On the Run), it was changed to The Decisive Moment when published in the USA.

#30 Barry Miles — Zappa - A Biography (2004)

Frank Zappa has been my most important musician since I first heard his music in 1967 or so. This biography walks the tightrope of his genius and his hubris. The book is sobering and required relistening to a few albums to restore the idol.

#31 John G. Bragaw — Random Shots (1945)

John Bragaw was a Little Washington businessman and a columnist for The Washington Progress and The State Magazine. I found two copies of it recently going through boxes of old things in a warehouse. I returned one to its original owner and read the other. The volume is a collection of a now dead style of column that relates anecdotes and jokes and personal perspective. I never knew Mr Bragaw, but I remember his company and really enjoyed his daughter Lalla.

The droll writing is mostly enjoyable, but I was struck by the degree that racial “humor” and denigration of the uneducated was still acceptable in the mid-’40s by “polite company.” Maybe I should brace myself for the next few years.

#32 F. Scott Fitzgerald — The Great Gatsby (1925)

As an experiment, I reread The Great Gatsby for the first time since I was in school. I was right, being made to read it in class was a disservice to the book (and probably many others). That is, of course, a rebellious defect in my character, not the educational system. I find it much easier to find meaning in things when I’m not reading it to find its meaning.

A timely quote: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...”

#33 Hans Richter — DADA, Arti and Anti-Art (1965)

This is the book I was hoping for when I was disappointed by Hugo Ball’s diaries (#18). Richter tells us what everyone in the Dada movement was doing across years and the world, not just his late-life noodlings. Dada is the art movement which best speaks to me since I first found it. 100 years after its first life, these similarly insane times times may necessitate its resurrection.

From Werner Haftmann’s postscript: “One thing [the Dadaist and Richter] regarded with uncompromising seriousness: the autonomy of the self. Every spontaneous impulse, every message from within, was therefore greeted as an expression of pure reality. Every possible artistic technique suited his purpose of provoking these impulses. Absolute spontaneity, chance regarded as the intervention of mysterious and wonderful forces, pure automatism as a revelation of that store of hidden reality within the individual over which consciousness has no control — these were the techniques which opened the way to a more comprehensive view of the relationship between Self and the world. The artist was free to turn either toward visible, logically explicable objects or ideas, or completely away from them; but he was free above all to come face to face with himself.”

#34 David Foster Wallace — Infinite Jest (1996)

I must be a low-brow. I had heard the praises and McArthur Genius embrace of David Foster Wallace, so I bit off the big candy bar of Infinite Jest. I read it all (okay, I skipped some of the footnotes) over several weeks, two library renewals, a hurricane, and the removal of my gall bladder. I found some parts breezy and easy and other parts laborious and plodding. He is very effective writing the mind-view thought trains of obsessive/depressive personalities. What it ended up seeming to me was a large scale experiment with several writing styles—an uncompleted, abandoned exercise.

Don’t misunderstand, I actually have a quite accepting attitude about form (style) over function (content). I love those cars with HUGE wheels. I enjoy Cam Newton’s outrageous post-game fashions. I love outrageously ugly cameras and cars. There are some interesting writing styles in the book, though I find them inconsistently so. And, most disappointingly, all the style was for naught. I felt tossed about among personalities and communities – treading water and never going anywhere.

One other striking impression — the hopelss unhappiness of many of the situations and characters. Was this an autobiographical cry of horror from Wallace? Is Infinite Jest just a 1000-page suicide note?

#35 Thomas Jefferson — The Jefferson Bible

Jefferson, a man of the Enlightenment and a Deist, believed that Christ’s teachings had been obscured by the organized church. Many have shared that belief. In his later years, and after discussing this project with several friends (especially Joseph Priestly), Jefferson finally did the job himself.

He sat down with copies of the New Testament (in English, French, Greek, and Latin) and cut from it the words of Jesus and the parts he considered factual. He pasted them in a book and had them bound. The supernatural contents of the Gospels were deleted. The Beacon Press edition I have includes some remarks on its place in history and only the English entires.

#36 F. Roy Johnson — Tales from Old Carolina

Traditional and Historical Sketches of the Area Between and About the Chowan River and Great Dismal Swamp

This is an oldie from 1965, which I think Mom gave to me one Christmas. It’s full of tall tales and history from my home, Gates County, NC. Gates County has long been a no-man’s land crammed in between the Virginia state line, the Chowan River’s swamps, and the Great Dismal Swamp. It has long been a place people disappeared to—Civil War deserters from both sides, runaway slaves, loners, and criminals. A place where people had to be tougher because they were living off the grid, and and law and order were sketchy at best.

The book is a pleasurable mash-up of BS and historical truth. I learned some things, laughed a bunch, and even saw a few names I knew. There are still more than the normal number of characters connected to Gates County, and it’s still largely off the grid. Hell, today, there is only one stop light in the county.

#37 Roland Penrose — Man Ray

An artistic biography of Dadaist/Surrealist Man Ray by his friend and fellow Surrealist Roland Penrose. A nice overview of Ray’s career with lots of his works included. Man Ray was extremely versatile (photography, painting, drafting, sculpture, ironic readymades) and is an old favorite of mine and a close friend of my very favorite artist — Marcel Duchamp.

“A playful slip of the tongue can arouse doubts about the illusion of reality and the reality of illusion, and the objects of Man Ray are the products of a game in which he delights to tease out all-too-rigid belief in reality.”

#38 Stephen Kirk — First in Flight - The Wright Brothers in North Carolina

This 1995 book focuses on the time the Wright Brothers spent on the Outer Banks doing their research leading to manned, powered flight. It’s a lovely portrait of the feel and look of the Banks in the days before bridges and strip malls. It’s a story filled with local names that are familiar to this day. It’s a story of personal relationships and local lifestyles. My next trip to Nags Head will include a visit to the Wright Memorial with a much better appreciation for what I am seeing.

#39 Mike Schafer & Joe Welsh — Streamliners, The History of a Railroad Icon

From the 1930s through the 1960s rail passengers were treated to stylish streamlined trains, some with staggeringly beautiful art deco lines. It was the day of fine dining two level lounge cars, of sleeper suite cars, of Vista-Domed sightseeing cars built to appreciate America’s natural beauty.

#40 Angus Konstam — Duel of the Ironclads (USS Monitor & CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads 1862)

This book focuses more on the production and politics of the budding ironclad vessels than it does on the battle itself. What I really love the book for is its many illustrations, both modern renditions of the fleet’s individual craft and photos and illustrations from the time.

#41 Anthony Boucher (editor) — The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction (Eighth Series)

This discard from the NCMH Patient Library was published in 1959, about the time I started reading science fiction. No wonder I got hooked. This collection includes Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Brian Aldiss, CM Kornbluth, and others. Science fiction short stories are known for their humor, surprises, and disrespect for reality.

#42 Douglas LeTell Rights — The American Indian in North Carolina

This 1947 book gives a good overview of the movement of the Tar Heel State’s indigenous population. There’s a little of everything here about their games, arts, habits, and fate.

#43 Stephen Jay Gould — The Flamingo’s Smile, Reflections in Natural History

This is a 1985 collection of essays on the science and development of natural selection. Gould was one of the best known big thinkers in science at the time. Listening to him reinforces a feeling that I’ve had for some time that science may satisfy many of the predilections of humans for religion. It may just make a useful, substitute for supernatural religions.

#44 C. Wingate Reed — Beaufort County, Two Centuries of Its History

This 1962 self-professed “amateur” history of the county gave me some insights into the early history of my adopted home’s region, especially place names and the relative importance of local regions. It would have been more enjoyable and worthy of respect if it were less flagrantly a “white” perspective.

#45 Salvadore Dali — Dali on Modern Art

Other than Dali repeatedly restating over and over that modern art had played itself out, I really didn’t get much of a message from this 1957 diatribe. While it’s a lovely book, I would have gotten as much from reading the French version which is the second half of the volume.

#46 Lewis Carroll — The Story of Syvie and Bruno

Sylvie and Bruno are far from Carroll’s best known characters, but they share the silly word play and twisting the meanings of words Carroll so loved. It’s a book for our times with a casual perception of reality and disregard for words and their meanings. Despite this, Bruno is a thoroughly enjoyable misfit. It was first published in 1904, and this is a facsimile copy of the 1926 edition. The typesetting was an added joy.

#47 Alfred Stieglitz — Camera Work, The Complete Illustrations

This magazine was the pivot point for photography becoming it’s own art form. Stieglitz produced 50 issues from 1903-1917. It included carefully produced copies of the Photo-Secessionists (who I greatly admire and enjoy) as well as works by new artists including Picasso, Cezanne, and others. This volume includes ALL the pictures and select bits of criticism and speculations on art.

I found this bit in a review, by Sadakichi Hartmann, of a children’s art exhibit held at the Photo-Secessionists’ Gallery 291. It strikes me as something of a summation and goal of my principle of photography:

“With the majority of grown up folks the pursuit of art is an engrossing occupation. It leaves but few opportunities for real pleasure. Children draw without a special purpose. There is no responsibility prompting the performance, and no concession to make. It is purely an amusement, the pleasure of a moment. They reveal themselves without hesitancy. They do not attempt to flatter or idealize. Fond of startling contrast and glaring colors they see things vividly and express them strongly, genuinely, without subterfuge. And the honest humble toil of these little draughtsmen to put the plainness of appearances into calligraphic epigrams is due to the purity and alertness of their vision. Every new object they encounter, every incident of life they witness is an event full of curiosity and wonder. Every new record on their retina amounts to a conquest. Wherever they look, life is a book of revelations, and their faces turn with unwonted expression and eager expectancy. They are romanticists by force of this fervency to receive impressions; adventures in reach of some golden fleece, even if it is only a stick of candy, the thin sheet poster of the coming circus, or an apple purloined from a neighbor’s yard.”

#48 Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon — Preacher (Book One)

I have not read a graphic novel (that’s a slick, well-bound, long-form comic book) in years. I saw Preacher when I was in Brown Library the other day. I knew the title as a TV show and had enjoyed the series, so I picked it up. I was a serious comic fan when I was younger, and clearly still enjoy the genre. I’ll be grabbing more of the series from the library soon. The story is iconoclastic, the art is splashy dramatic, and the feel of the volume is exquisite.

#49 Kurt Vonnegut — Bagombo Snuff Box

Previously uncollected short stories from my favorite writer-grabbed off the shelf at the Brown Library hoping it was something I had not read. I later remembered the stories, but read them again any way. I guess it’s time to just reread a few of the novels.

I’ve always loved short stories. From Vonnegut’s own introduction: “... a short story, because of its physiological and psychological effects on a human being, is more closely related to the Buddhist styles of meditation than it is to any other form of narrative entertainment. What you have in this volume, then, and in every collection of short stories, is a bunch of Buddhist catnaps.”

#50 Tom Robbins — Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

Reading this one made me realize that my favorite authors seem to be quite skeptical of organized religions (and most other organizations now that I think of it). He’s fierce and funny and mystical. There may be one or two more of his I have not read.

#51 Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon — Preacher (Books Two through Four)

Four down, two to go of the graphic novel turned TV series. My books all seem to share similar themes right now. Soon time to break out.

#52 Tom Robbins — Villa Incognito

“It is what it is, you are what you it, and there are no mistakes.” 

“Pla-bonga. Play-bonga. Pla-bonga.”

#53 Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon — Preacher (Books Five & Six)

Finally finished the series. Mostly worth the time, but, meh...

#54 Bland Simpson — The Inner Islands, A Carolina’s Sound Country Chronicle

A lyrical exploration of North Carolina islands around the sound side of the continent’s second largest estuary. In this book, you’ll find academic history, some geology, geography, more than a few tall tales, personal remembrances from the author and other characters of the Tarheel shallows. It’s an enjoyable voyage, indeed.

#55 Mary Norcott Bryan — Echoes From the Past (1921)

(An 1921 inscribed copy to Theodora Grimes Rodman, daughter of General Bryan Grimes, neice of the author, and Kitty’s great grandmother)

This book felt rather odd in its chipper recollections of dark, dark history. She talks of her wonderful memories and attachments to her mother who seems to have frequently sent her away to boarding schools. She bubbles over listing her many beaus and suitors (reporting first great love at age 10). She speaks much of the high society with which she mingled and the joy of the slaves on the several plantations where she lived.

I finished this book about the time a friend showed me this perspective: <https://youtu.be/dOkFXPblLpU>

It all fit so perfectly.

#56 John Steinbeck — Cannery Row (1945)

Frankly, I picked this up because it is high on the list of Kitty’s and my favorite movies. This is an example of movie and book meshing well for me. I loved the characters in the movie, and their voices and faces melded well with the reading. The writing is rich and warm and wonderful, matching with the voice of the movie’s narrator John Houston. Steinbeck is another of those writers who fairs MUCH better when read for pleasure and not for class assignment. The book has wonderful, rich imagery. Sweet Thursday, another of Steinbeck’s short novels, (shares the same characters and was adapted in the same movie) is on its way to Brown Library. I am looking forward to it.

#57 John Steinbeck — The Moon is Down (1942)

The story of the occupation of a small town by a foreign army, I have often seen this called a rallying cry for resistance. It seemed to me, though, that it better serves as a warning to would-be invaders who charge into other countries or areas confident of their superiority. Regime changers and later day imperialists of all stripes would do well to take this novel to heart. Domestic politicians may well find some direction here also.

#58 John Steinbeck — Sweet Thursday (1954)

Finishing this Short novel makes me feel makes me homesick for the place.

“Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the bastard Time. The end of life is now not so terribly far away you can see it the way you see the finish line when you come into the stretch and your mind says, Have I worked enough? Have I eaten enough? Have I loved enough? All of these, of course, are the foundation of man’s greatest curse, and perhaps his greatest glory. What has my life meant so far, and what can it mean in the time left to me? And now we’re coming to the wicked, poisoned dart: What have I contributed in the Great Ledger? What am I worth? And this debt they can never pay, no matter how hard they try. It piles up ahead of them. Man owes something to man. If he ignores the debt it poisons him, and if he tries to make payments the debt only increases, and the quality of his gift is the measure of the man.

“Doc’s greatest talent had been his sense of paying as he went. The finish line had meant nothing to him except that he had wanted to crowd more living into the stretch. Each day ended with its night; each thought with its conclusion; and every morning a new freedom arose over the eastern mountains and lighted the world. There had never been any reason to suppose it would be otherwise. People made pilgrimages to the laboratory to bask in Doc’s designed and lovely purposelessness. For what can a man accomplish that has not been done a million times before? What can he say that he will not find in Lao-Tse or the Bhagavad Gita or the Prophet Isaiah? It is better to sit in appreciative contemplation of a world in which beauty is eternally supported on a foundation of ugliness; cut out the support, and beauty will sink from sight. It was a good thing Doc had, and many people wished they had it too.

“But now the worm of discontent was gnawing at him.”

#59 Emily St. John Mandel — Station Eleven (2014)

I was not looking for an apocalypse tale, but this was a suggestion from a friend AND in the library. My real world is apocalyptic enough. But, this one held together very nicely, not spellbinding or cliff-hanging, but plenty of rich little surprises that kept me looking forward to the next chapter. Its end left just enough optimism to keep it from hurting. Thanks, Barbara.

#60 Nick Harkaway — Tigerman

I’m not looking for media that feature comicbooks in their theme, but they seem to be looking for me. Picked this book up in the Bristol Public Library gift shop last month. At $2, what’s the risk? It was a wonderful surprise. Highly recommend it for mild scifi with interesting characters. I’ll read more by this guy.

#61 Nick Harkaway — Gnomon

An overwhelming piece of work. I am Gnomon.

#62 Tim Stafford & Carolin Wright — Still Inside, The Tony Rice Story (2010)

A rather idiosyncratically constructed biography of the Bluegrass guitar genius. Inscribed by Tony to a friend of mine.

#63 Noeleen McIlvenna — A Very Mutinous People, The Struggle for North Carolina, 1660-1713 (2009)

This book was revelatory for me. It changed the way I regard my roots, my home, my history, myself. Until now, each history I’ve seen mentioning northeastern North Carolina has portrayed us as a backwater of criminals, shiftless layabouts, and runaways. According to McIlvenna, the residents of the Albemarle region were indeed there to get away—get away from attempts to shape the colonies into the same system we fled in Britain. Through clever political maneuvering and outright fighting on occasion, the independent, freedom-searchers came to this backwater to set up their own free system of living. The thing they most disliked was the thought of was continuation of the class-based system whereby “nobility” leached of the work people inhabiting the lands they owned. Their thinking and intentions were those of the Quakers and Levellers who were part of the forces which brought down Charles I. Years of struggle in the northeast ended in defeat as North Carolina was brought down (not for the last time) by greedy landed gentry to their north and south.

“Albemarle’s Levellers ultimately failed to prevent the rise of an intolerant, hierarchical, slave society in their midst, but they nevertheless should not be dismissed or forgotten. On the contrary, those two generations successfully built a society of free and equal people—government of, by, and for the people—peacefully coexisting with Native Americans, should proudly enter the annals of North Carolina history a sign of the possibilities of the colonial period and of the big principles ordinary seventeenth-century people held dear. A full century before Virginia’s planters gazed out their windows at people they had purchased and praised liberty, North Carolina’s hardy, rough-hewn farmers had not merely articulated but gallantly fought for their right to democratic, representative self-government.”

THANK YOU, Willie Phillips for making sure I read this. It was an inspiration.

#64 JRR Tolkien — The Fellowship of the Ring

I don’t know how many times I’ve read Lord of the Rings. Sometime early in high school, I heard about the trilogy. My memory is of seeing an article (I think in Saturday Evening Post) about its growing cult following in colleges. “Frodo Lives.” I anxiously awaited the Ballentine paperback edition that came in 1965. That was my first reading. Those paperbacks are long lost, or loaned, or perhaps lurking in the bottom of some long unopened box in my attic. The copy I am currently reading is a hardback first printing of the second edition from 1966. It is the one I asked my mother to get me for graduation. It is much worn and more loved. It gets better every time I read it. It always reawakens my love for the printed page and the windows of the mind that it opens.

#65 JRR Tolkien — The Two Towers

I’m now two-thirds of my way through my umpteenth reading of Lord of the Rings. It really is better every time I read it. I am reminded that I find Merry and Pippin much more interesting characters than Sam and Frodo.

I only recently learned that Tolkien was VERY unhappy about the story being broken into three volumes. He insisted that it be a single volume, but the publishers had spent so much money on typesetting the huge manuscript, breaking it into three separate volumes was necessary for them to assure making their money back.

The Shadow grows — onward to volume three!

#66 JRR Tolkien — The Return of the King

Finished my umpteenth reading of The Lord of the Rings. It was just as good as ever, maybe even better. It still chills me at moments. I went straight into most of the appendices this time — I usually don’t. Enjoyed them much more this time.

During this reading there was a kerfuffle for Stephen Colbert waving off  The Hobbit as inferior to the trilogy. I have always shared that opinion. His comment was timed perfectly, however, to make me realize how much I missed the dwarves as a people in this book. One representative of that people is not enough. And, I doubt I would feel that way without the influence and beauty of The Hobbit.

The bindings of my 1967 edition are getting worn now and require more care in reading. I spot more typos and errors in this first printing of the second edition. I wouldn’t change a thing about these friendly imperfections that have ridden with me through more than five decades of an interesting life made better by its pages.

#67 Timothy B. Tyson — Blood Done Sign My Name (2004)

There are times this book almost feels like talking to myself. A North Carolina kid knows something is wrong and takes years to glue the bits together and see through the projection our society presents. Over time, he realizes and shares with the reader his discoveries, realizations, and epiphanies about the lies society and ourselves accept to manage life in an unequal world. It was nice to see Gates County drift through the story. “Woke” may be a bit tattered and old these days, but beats the hell out of blissful ignorance. I’m embarrassed I had not read this sooner.

#68 David Sedaris — Naked (1997)

One of the funniest men on earth. I first heard him years ago on NPR and later found that he was raised the neighborhood where I worked in Raleigh. He is a priceless story teller whose voice is easily heard in everything he writes. If half of what he writes about his childhood is true, child protective services may STILL check on him weekly. His own self-discovery in these stories tilts a mirror toward each of us.

#69 Larry Niven — N-Space (1990)

One of my finds from Brown Library’s annual book sale. Sc-Fi has kept me reading since I was a child. Who needs normal when you have people like Larry Niven around? Niven’s worlds always stay true to science (which never made them dull); even while their technology was not yet possible, they followed the rules. This collection of essays and short stories was great fun. Few writers have built worlds more exotic than Niven. Read anything you see by him.

#70 John Feffer — Frostlands (2018)

An opportunity for a healthy future requires sacrifice and passing the baton. The author has an important message burning in him and an outline of a good sci-fi novel. I wish he had spent more developing the plot and characters and less preaching.

#71 Ricky Jay — Jay’s Journal of Anomalies (2001)

Ricky Jay was renowned for his card tricks and was perhaps the best sleight of hand artist of our time. He was also an actor who appeared in television and motion picture. He may, in the end, be most remembered through his talents as a historian and researcher of magic and its sister entertainments. Over a period of six years, he published a scholarly newsletter on sideshow-type attractions and exhibitors. In a total of 16 editions he explored flea circuses, human flies, diet hoaxers, cheating at games, and various other hustles and hucksters. The history is rich with illustrations from the 18th-19th centuries, its main concentration in history. The collection is great fun and a study for our current times.

#72 Ken Kesey — Sailors Song (1992)

A sheer JOY of a book. Rich lovable characters, a slow rolling pace, a certain ‘60s frivolity. It’s an excellent companion to Steinbeck’s Cannery Row & Sweet Thursday (which draw an homage in the the story). They share many of the same wonderful story attributes. One of the best things I’ve read, period.

#74 John Cage — A Year From Monday (1967)

A few people ARE an art work; their ideas, their teaching, their interviews and letters; their very lives, and the wake they leave. Marcel Duchamp, Frank Zappa’s Conceptual Continuity, Buckminstser Fuller. John Cage is such an artist. Known for his music, his thinking and wandering examination of the world was as important. Many of his works draw your mind inside them with a knowledge of their creative inspiration, he embraces raw chance, he reimagined the place of time and silence and the environment in his compositions. He used many of the same techniques in producing lectures and treatises, often combining those principles into typography and and arrangement and presentation. The pieces in this collection from the ‘60s are of a period when he spent much contemplation and exercise envisioning a world of plenty and sharing of material comfort across the globe. He stretches one’s mind.

#75 Richard Kostelanetz — Maholy-Nagy, Documentary Monographs in Modern Art (1970)

Laszlo Maholy-Nagy brought The Bauhaus to America. An architect, sculptor, painter, photographer, but most especially a teacher philosopher. One of the greats of the first half of the 20th century, the Holy Mahagony championed uniting the arts to service of people and spreading the benefits of the Industrial Revolution and its offspring to the whole population. He was a champion of industrial design and technology. With his use of preexisting communications and production infrastructure remotely producing work he foreshadowed Andy Warhol.

#76 Tom Carlson — Hatteras Blues, A Story from the Edge of America (2005)

A history of a family industry (the off-shore sport fishing Fosters) of North Carolina’s coast, Carlson plays a personal perspective to talk about change, adaptation, and creation; a personal and personable fish tale filled with fish tales. On the negative side (not the fault of the book or author), its reminders of the changes to our Outer Banks over my own memory did reinforce that tourism is perhaps the dirtiest and most destructive our our industries. Change is inevitable, adapt or die in misery.

#77 Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee — Inherit the Wind (1955)

Reading a play is so streamlined. It’s stripped of all the frou-frou and lace. It cuts straight to the conversation and action. You move quickly and surely without distraction or delay. There are only so many acts an audience can stand.

I don’t remember if I first saw this as a movie or read the play. I was in high school or junior high. A treatment of the Scopes Monkey Trial, regrettably, it’s as powerful and relevant today as then.

    “Something happens to an Also-Ran

    Something happens to the feet of a man

    Who always comes in second in a foot-race.

    He becomes a national unloved child,

    A balding orphan, and aging adolescent

    Who never got the biggest piece of candy.

    Unloved children, of all ages, insinuate themselves

    Into spotlights and rotogravures,

    They stand on their hands and wiggle their feet.

    Split pulpits with their pounding! And their tonsils

    Turn to organ pipes. Show me a shouter,

    And I’ll show you an also-ran. A might-have-been,

    An almost-was.”

#78 Michael Leroy Oberg — The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand (2008)

Yea, most of the history we learn is pretty white. Oberg tries to reconstruct how English visitors and settlers were likely perceived and coped with by North Carolina’s native people. Unsurprisingly, the English do not come off too well. I especially appreciated Oberg’s descriptions of the probable social organization of the Native Americans of the time. Oberg hypothesizes that the local Algonquians first tried to work out a partnership with the interlopers until they found them lazy, unpredictably blood-thirsty, and too much of a drag on their resources and health. They then withdrew and left the English to their own meager skills. Maybe the ugly American Tourist actually originated in European colonization.

#79 Stanislaw Lem — The Chain of Chance

This is more detective novel than Lem’s usual sci-fi fare. The reader is given the case files and the solution comes together slowly as the central character reenacts the actions of one of the victims. Kept my interest, but not the strongest thing I’ve read lately. I guess I prefer crime stories with the old fashioned hard-boiled dicks and chicks.

#80 Clyde Edgerton — Raney (1985)

My first reading of Edgerton. It’s about time I guess. Edgerton has a gift for writing conversation. He also knows country folk. Raney is set in 1975, but seems to this Tarheel country boy more like ‘55-65. It’s the inner conversation of a young rural woman pushing on her cocoon. Kept me in enough smiles at the conversation and tales that I was able to enjoy the book despite not really liking the character. It was Edgerton’s first book. He was born in rural Durham County (the opposite of urban Durham), studied at UNC-Chapel Hill in the '60s, and taught at Campbell and UNC-Wilmingon.

#81 Jack Black — You Can’t Win (1926)

No, not that Jack Black. The author tells the story of his life in the outsider class of hobos and petty thieves in the early 20th century. This guy was a helluva writer, really knows how to spin a tale. The characters are wonderful, and the texture of the life he paints is fascinating. He ended up going straight and becoming an advocate for criminal justice and prison reform. This was William S. Burroughs’ favorite book.

#82 James Lee Burke — Robicheaux (2018)

Thanks to the excellent recommendations of some froggy friends, I grabbed this one from the Brown Library. What a wonderful read with rich characters and action and mystery and plenty of woke Southerners. It rolls rapidly and does not waste a lot of time tying up loose ends. It won’t be the last I read by Burke! My only complaint was getting a library copy that was previously used a corner-folding SOB who is too damn lazy to use a book mark.

#83 Thomas King — The Truth About Stories, A Native Narrative (2003)

“The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.”

Cultures underestimate/ignore the importance of oral history and story telling. We build our selves and lives and culture, and tell ourselves about who and what we are, from and by the stories we tell and hear and learn. Is it perhaps that being white is not our downfall, but being children of Abraham?

#84 Charles M. Hudson — Conversations with the High Priest of Coosa (2003)

Fictionalized history can work okay even though it rouses its own set of problems. This volume assembles what historians have learned about the belief system of Native Americans in the southeastern United States and fleshes it out. The Coosa confederacy inhabited much of the Blue Ridge in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The fictionalized conversation is between a Spanish explorer (priest) and the local holy man of the Coosa. The holy man relates the stories his people use as the framework of the philosophy of self and community and living. These are the stories that they teach their children and which they celebrate in their lives. It is not the framework I learned (nor probably you), but it seems equally capable, and maybe superior in ways, at constructing a viable approach to a satisfying and loving life.

#85 Walter H Hunt — A Song in Stone

This book, a pre-publication copy, landed on my office desk in 2008. It got lost among my shelves in that turbulent and eventful year at work. I refound it in clearing some shelves a few weeks ago. Maybe I’m sorry it was missed so long, but more likely it is fortunate that it came around when I could sit back and enjoy it. A little sci-fi, a little mysticism, a little history, and a good dose of Freemasonry’s precursors makes this a book a very welcome fit for me. It is quite well written and carries us along on an adventure that entertains, yet offers lessons and clues for living an introspective, growing life. A man drops into the 14th century on a mission without warning, on a mission he did not ask for, and understands even less. Rather like the way we all drop into this world. I think that likely is a key to the beauty of this novel. Highly recommended.

#86 Dan Weatherington — The Seventh Gift of God (2008)

Dan was a dear friend and fellow Freemason. He was an avid writer and thinker and educator. He is the only professed Deist I’ve known. He passed away a little more than a year ago. This little book is a way he recorded what he felt about the the metaphysical. He couches it in the story of a the death of a man and his introduction to the wonders of the workings of the world when he is welcomed on the other side by an old friend. He confronts strict Biblical teachings as I suspect Dan did throughout his life. I know Dan did not regard this as a literal truth of the afterlife, it is only an educational vessel, but I hope his welcoming was as warm. He sure deserved it.

#87 James Lee Burke — House of the Rising Sun (2015)

Thank goodness Darrell Allison introduced me to James Burke. My god, this guy is one of the most beautiful writers around. I don’t like flowery prose, but DAMN, this guy paints a picture with his words that go down easy. Two of the last three books I’ve read featured the Holy Grail and without me looking for it. Go figure. Only my second Burke book, but feel safe saying, try anything from him.

#88 Aldous Huxley — The Doors of Perception/Heaven & Hell (1953-56)

Huxley was an early advocate of the value of hallucinogens. These essays favorably describe and explain the use of mescaline and LSD. While completely accurate, the formal ‘50s style of the writing and the necessarily clinical approach made this a DNF (Did Not Finish) for me. I guess reading philosophy just is not for me.

 

#89 Chuck Klosterman — Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2004)

Klosterman has glorious pieces and insights in this collection, but the beat of popular culture is relentless. After the moments of glory though, I am left with the reminder of how hollow is pop culture and celebrity. The references I don’t understand make me feel a bit out of touch and old. The bits I do understand sometimes make me feel as shallow as the topics. The fact that it is 15+ years old further exacerbates the reminder of how fleeting is fame and relevance. In the end, the constant reminders of how meaningless pop culture is sort of makes one wonder why we bother to read or write such books. Frustrating...

#90 Berkeley Breathed - Flawed Dogs (2009)

As a long-time Bloom County fan, I expected to enjoy this book. I did. It's the saddest, happiest book I've read in a long time. It is simultaneously tearful and hilarious. It even has Breathed's wonderful illustrations. It's written for 8-12-year-olds, the point my development seems to have stalled out. As a fellow flawed dog, I loved it.

#91 David Sedaris --  Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

Everything I read by David Sedaris I HEAR in his voice. That suits me just fine. He is maybe the best neurosis commentator of our time or any other. His Raleigh upbringing means occasional shared experience. He's disrespectful, self-centered, and angry in just the proper proportions. 'Tis the season for his "Little Elf" story from NPR. You really should listen:

https://shortcut.thisamericanlife.org/#/clipping/47/281?_k=8gi2mj

#92 Charlotte Perkins Gilman — Herland (1915)

As sick as I am with the way old white men have screwed up the planet, I figured a social protest story about an all female utopia by an early 20th Century feminist was a shoe in to satisfy. We got off to a good start with a more modern than expected writing style and a slight science fiction flavor. Things did okay as we got teases of upcoming explanations of how the women-only society operated and some on point criticisms of the conceits of the current. It slowly unraveled as its assumptions about feminine versus masculine showed themselves dated, and I recognized that it was written during the heyday of the Eugenics craze. Then, neither fish nor fowl, it rather drifted off into forgettability...

#93 Neltje Blanchan -- Eastern Birds Every Child Should Know (1907)

Life stories of birds are an old form. Appearance and behavior of popular birds are described in prose, especially in this period, in flowery anthropomorphic style. In 1907, the birds, even small songbirds were under assault as game as well as decoration for ladies' finery. The save-the-birds message is clear in this book aimed at teaching children an appreciation of the beauty, fascination, and usefulness of everyday birds. I enjoyed learning some of the old common names of birds (thistle bird: goldfinch; French mockingbird: brown Thrasher; Crested Tomtit: tufted titmouse; Tree mouse: white-breasted nuthatch), some phrases to describe bird songs, and where some names came from (wax wings because the red spots on their wings resemble sealing wax on long ago letters.) I was bothered by reading in two straight books from the era quotes that "the poor will always be with us." But, the volume is a lovely reminder of the beauty of feel and form that a book can be to the hand and eye.

#94 Corbitt Lee — The Different Way

My oldest friend recently sent me a novel he wrote strictly for retirement fun. He sent me the first pass with little or no proofing. I had lots of fun breezing through the alternative near-future story of an underground society/family seeking quiet and privacy. It was an interesting premise with enough action to make me plunge on. It taught me the importance of formatting and editing and simultaneously the importance of not letting formatting and editing distract you from enjoying a good story. That’s a difficult lesson for a retired editor. I expect to see more good stories from him, as well as this in a slicker version.

#95 James Enyeart — Bruguiere, His Photographs and His Life (1977)

As interested in design as photography and painting, Francis Joseph Bruguiere was an innovator of the early 20th century. Though he never fully adopted any of the popular movements of arts of the day, his work was popular with the Photo Secessionists and his work anticipated the Surrealists. His range is incredible including experimental abstract light modeling in both still and motion pictures. He composed for early light organs which made light shows around 1930. His multiple exposures went past those of most image makers who experimented with the technique He was a true and under appreciated pioneer who died in 1945.

#96 John Ringo — Ghost (2005)

Sex and guns, overpowering machismo on parade. An overwrought version of a Gordon Liddy wet dream. Fox News fantasy.

#97  Louise Clarke Pyrnelle — Diddie, Dumps & Tot; or Plantation Chiid-Life (1882)

One of my very favorite teachers was Mrs. Godwin in fifth grade. One of the things we loved about her was her reading sessions on many afternoons. We’d all quiet down and maybe put our heads on our arms and relax late in the afternoon, and she’d read to us. This is the book I remember. Her son tells me that the book came from Mrs. Godwin’s mother and had been in her family. This is the only time I’ve read the book myself.

The book is a collection of episodic stories of the childhood of three little girls on their family plantation. Each has her own slave with whom they spend their days. They have a large house staff who care for them. All the stories are told in dialect as was popular at the time (see Mark Twain). The white and black children all speak in dialect, with the uneducated slave children hardly less well spoken. The stories strike me as sweet and charming — paternalistically, but not cruelly racist. Ms Pyrnelle’s father owned a plantation for some years of her childhood before selling it not long before the Civil War. BUT, when we read her notations, we are told that slaves had it great and loved their masters and were well cared for, that they preferred being kept because they were not as capable as white folk. She seems to want us to hear that her people were loving and did what that did, at worst, in ignorance.

It, as many other experiences through my life, set me to remembering my youth. My world was systemically racist, complete with “white” and “colored” water fountains and bathrooms (anything but equal). I knew that people were not treated equally and that it was not right. It was merely a fact of life. My personal participation was not something of which I was aware. In retrospect, I see. Too often, we plead, “I wasn’t being a bad person. It was just the way things were at the time.”  When do we stop minimizing our transgressions and start trying to repair our societal and personal shortcomings?

#98 Colson Whitehead — Zone One (2011)

This is a more literate approach to the zombie apocalypse. Whitehead, a Pulitzer & MacArthur Award winner, is wonderfully talented. His prose is a pleasure to read, rich and smooth and stimulating. The story here seems about survival, not optimism. I take his bigger message to be that we are here to survive for our time, but the end is always the same for each of us and for all life.

Through a series of circumstances, I was reading two of his books simultaneously, at least starting a second John Henry Days (from 10 years earlier) before finishing the first. It was an odd experience. I found the books interplaying or chording or rhyming with each other. I even easily imagined the central character as the same person in both. Both were journeyman writers of modest talent. Both were on paths intersecting a fate we don’t learn.

Oddly satisfying thanks to his sumptuous talent with the written word.

#99 Colson Whitehead — John Henry Days (2001)

A commentary on pop culture? A study of the individual will and need to triumph in spite of the system? A story of how little things mount to make big things and resolve into little things and freedom? Again, Whitehead  (a writer of GREAT talent) uses an African American writer of middling talent surviving day-to-day as the central character. Worth every word read. I’ll read more of his treasures.

#100 Charles W. Chesnutt — The Marrow of Tradition (1901)

Historical fiction is not new. This novel from the time dramatizes a list of characters who carry the facts and flavor of the Wilmington NC race riot of 1898. I don’t think this insurgent overthrow of local government by armed white supremacists was mentioned in my NC history classes as a kid, but I confess to not being the best history pupil. The game is the same today, though the political parties have reversed—white people face sharing power and respond by trying to oppress the participation of others. Usually the mobs are smaller now, and the oppressors are business suited and uniformed — but the efforts are as strong as ever. This volume contains a large collection supporting historical materials which are of varying interest. It’s a valuable read for its reiteration that the song may change, but the tune remains the same.

#101 Gerald M Futej (editor) — Climax No. 9 and the Moore Keppel Survivors (2021)

West Virginia has been a leader in preserving its railroad history. This is the story of one important rescue and restoration of a 1919 steam logging/coal locomotive. I came to the book after I was approached for pictures of Washington NC's Ole No. 7 which spent years in Havens Gardens Park. Old No. 7 worked the same jobs and lines as the train whose story is told in this book. Nine pages in the book are focused on Heisler No. 7 including many photos of her in operation during the '40s and '50s. The book was tremendously educational to me and a real joy, packed with photos and new information. More information on this and other West Virginia historic trains: Greenhill Station Productions, 1376 Greenhill Ave., West Chester, Pa, 18380. I'll post a gallery of photos of Ole No. 7 being packed to leave Washington and include a bit of its story.

102 Sylvia Nasar — A Beautiful Mind (1998)

The story of John Nash, mathematical genius and mad as a hatter for much of his life. This is an entertaining read, but also a much more academic work than I expected (48 pages of citations). A fascinating man and story of how science works. I was surprised that such a straight piece of history would inspire a popular movie, especially one which worked so well. I must say though that spending so much time in the life of a person with so much mental disturbance is a little destabilizing.

#103 Alan Watts — Joyous Cosmology (1962)

Alan Watts was probably the the West’s most effective teacher of Eastern philosophy. Then, along came the hallucinogens of the 1960s. It was a perfect encounter of a new experience finding perhaps its best equipped communication outlet. Watts already had the knowledge to perceive and share the effects, meanings, and uses of the effects.

#104 Carl Sagen — Contact (1980)

A pretty standard scifi work: decoding alien message, reevaluation of religious/spiritual philosophy, combative conflict of old system versus new, movement toward world government, adventure into the unknown. All by a man who loved science and sharing his wonder. Very pleasant read.

#105 E. Annie Proulx — Accordion Crimes (1996)

Proulx follows a hand-built accordion for many years, from the old country to the new as it moves from one star-crossed owner to the next. The story explores the dissatisfaction and racism of several immigrant populations as they find their new identities in the USA. Is it possible for a country to find a quiet satisfaction when all its roots are in people who were unhappy enough with their lot in life to pick up and transplant themselves to unsure and hostile places? Do our misfit roots doom us to be a nation of rage and dissatisfaction and distrust?

#106 B. Catling -- The Vorrh

This is a very odd piece of chance, metaphysics, mystery, and dark places. Got it at the library book store in Bristol VA without knowing it was part of a trilogy which I will now need to hunt down and complete. Yea, it was plenty good enough to go to that trouble.

#107 David Sedaris -- When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008)

Picked this one off the mantelpiece of the Airbnb we used when we spent the summer in Tennessee with  new grandson Miles. You never go wrong with Sedaris. One of the funniest people writing in the world today, he is one of the authors (mostly poets) whose voices I hear when I read them.

#108 Steven Erikson -- The Devil Delivered (2012)

Neither fish nor fowl novellas. The three are contained in this collection have little in common so far as story matter. Each has a very different personality. Erickson does demonstrate a knack for creating strong, Paul Bunyanesque characters that I find attractive. "The Devil Delivered" is a tale of the planet turning a post-apocalyptic corner. "Revolvo" is an occasionally disorienting drop into an alternative culture tending toward idiocracy. "Fishin' With Grandma Matchie" is a boys VERY tall tale of what he did last summer. I',m anxious to see what he does with a full length effort.

#109 B. Catling -- The Erstwhile (2017)

This is the second volume of Catling's Vorrh trilogy. As with most trilogies, I suppose, the second book is easier to crawl into. Familiar characters and themes await re-ignition. Revelations, partial answers to old mysteries, rendezvous with fate, new questions, and veering personalities in previous knowns are all here. Getting volume three is a cinch decision with this unique excursion into "history."

#110 Catherine T. Carter -- Ghost Tales of the Moratoc (1992)

This volume is a little jewel of a book.. Its formatting, text choices, paper, binding all go to gather to make a book that is thoroughly a joy to hold. Of course, that's not enough reason to buy a book. But, the stories Catherine Carter has collected from the banks of the Roanoke River more than justify it. Her writing style is relaxed and regional. Her academic respect for their sources is professional and appreciative. Her story choices are varied. This is just a completely enjoyable book.

#111 B. Catling -- The Cloven (2018)

Finished Catling's trilogy on the mysteries of the planet's soul and its Garden of Eden ancestral home in a dark forest of Africa. The forces entangle men and women around the world. Science and myth merge and writhe in the miasma. Fascinating characters and concepts. Don't expect firm answers.

#112 James Lee Burke -- A Private Cathedral (2021)

Action, attitude, imagery, adventure. You can always count on Burke to deliver when you are looking  for a good, fun read.

#113 Susan Croce Kelly text, Quinta Scott photos -- Route 66 (1988)

Maybe nothing says America better than a paved highway. And when it comes to the yen for the highway, nothing says it like Route 66, America's 20th century Santa Fe Trail. This book traces the spotty, slow promotion that brought the dream of a highway from Chicago to Los Angeles to fruition. It's an interesting story of businessmen and promoters making something big happen. Quints Scott's lengthy photo essay captures last glimpses of many of the service centers and tourist traps of the old highway. Her works rivals Walker Evens.

#114 Quentin Tarantino/Elmore Leonard -- Jackie Brown (1997)

This is the Jackie Brown screenplay Tarantino wrote from Leonard's novel. I have not read a screenplay in years and thoroughly enjoyed it. The style is SO different. Sparse, but rich descriptive language. It has space to breathe. Now I've got to watch the movie again. It's one of my favorite Tarantino films.

#115 Gillo Dorfles -- Kitsch, The World of Bad Taste (1969)

Art is in the eye of the beholder. So is kitsch.

My first real experience with with kitsch was 1968 in the High Chamber, a group of dateless guys (I was a member) watching Dr Paul Bearer on Saturday nights on the fourth floor of UNC's Ruffin dorm. Bad sci-fi and horror movies were roundly grilled and every possible double entendre and stupid faux pas of the screen was explored and celebrated. (Yes, MST3K ripped us off.) Bad art can be wonderfully enjoyable, making life richer, bringing smiles and fresh air to a stuffy world. Dorfles manages to exercise enough philosophical expertise and lingo to drain it of every drop of entertainment value. The best thing about the book is the wonderful collection of bad art in carries. The book is an exceptional example of the dangers of taking oneself too seriously, the sin Dorfles seems intent on attributing to the creators of kitsch.

#116 Erin Morgenstern -- The Night Circus (2011)

What a wonderful, magical book. I suppose it would have to be about magic. Plenty of intrigue, mystery, unique characters. There are forces unexplained and a circus one could only wish for. Morgenstern's style is simple and elegant. I found this one the old fashioned way, wandering the aisles of the library browsing by covers. I was surprised to see an old online friend mentioned in the acknowledgments. I recommend highly. 

#117 Zach Powers -- First Cosmic Velocity (2019)

An interesting alternative history of the space race with the premise that Russia, lacking an effective heat shield for re-entry, was making their early flights with a twin in the capsule and one on the ground to pretend to be the triumphal returning Cosmonaut. The story includes little international intrigue, fewer secret agents, slim technical toying, and hardly any Americans at all. It's all about the emotions and machinations of the characters, a good study of living the long lie and recovering.

#118 Elmore Leonard -- Road Dogs (2009)

Reads like a screenplay. Rich characters, dialog heavy, minimal setting, moves at the pace of a Tarantino conversation. When I read the screenplay of Jackie Brown, I noticed that the story was from Leonard. That's when I realized I had never ready ANY Elmore Leonard. I'm fixing that more soon.

#119 Tim Dorsey -- Naked Came the Florida Man (2020)

It's easy to tell Tim Dorsey is a newspaperman and a columnist. I can see it in his style. He's got a trove of color (historic stories and trivia) to be called on. He's acquainted with the many and varying cast of community characters. He weaves them into an amalgam of fact, fiction, and fantasy. His work is highly entertaining just as the best newspaper columnists I've known. Writing a column is the toughest job I know. Only the strong (and twisted) survive, especially if they're having to turn out local news at the same time. Dorsey is a prolific and wonderfully entertaining writer.

#120 Elmore Leonard -- Djibouti (2010)

My second by Leonard. This one added international intrigue - African pirates on the high seas. Great characters as usual, a little less dialog driven than Road Dogs, but still good reading. Have also, thanks to tips from friends, picked up the TV series "Justified." 

#121 Adam Powell -- University of North Carolina Basketball (2005)

Basketball from the beginning at UNC, 1911 through 2005. It's ALL there; the crappy years, the championship seasons, the coaches and players who made the Carolina Blue what it is. Rather pedestrian treatment, but all that is Tarheel basketball is there.

#122 Emily St. John Mandel -- Sea of Tranquility (2022)

This lady can write. She spins a good tale that keeps you turning pages for the next action without ever bogging down in technical details and gadgets. SiFi that's not just for cowboys.

#123 Colson Whitehead -- Harlem Shuffle (2021)

I keep trying to grab artists I don't know when I go to the library, but am frequently seduced by writers I have only recently discovered. My last two books are repeat authors for me. I have not been a bit disappointed. Whitehead creates a rich world with textured characters. Yea, I'll read a fourth by him.

#124 Michael Cunningham -- A Wild Swan and other Tales (2015)

Exquisite modern twists on fairy tales. The frequent use of second person in the stories really changes the tone and point of view to modern, socially maladjusted lessons in loneliness and malice.

#125 Edward Ashton -- Mickey 7 (2022)

An entertaining enough piece of "space opera" exploring the Ship of Theseus paradox. Space colonizing humanity utilize a specialty profession of disposable humans who perform suicidal jobs and are replaced by computer assembled and printed duplicates. What happens when a replacement (Mickey 8) is inadvertently generated before the previous version (Mickey 7) has died?

#126 P. G. Wodehouse -- Mr. Mulliner Speaking (1929)

The Douglas Adams of the Roaring '20s & English aristocracy? Wodehouse was one of the funniest, wittiest men who EVER lived. Mr Mulliner was one of his most frequent subjects, a man who had innumerable family stories of dozens of nieces, nephews, and other relations who were subject to the most outrageous of misadventures, misunderstandings, and luck (some good, some bad).

#127 Steve Israel -- Big Guns (2018)

Ex-congressman Israel's parody of the politics of guns should be uproariously funny. And, I guess it is. It's just hard to laugh when reality daily raises the ante on stupid. The rightwing especially continues to skew further and further from reality while insisting that the rest of the world is sinking into anarchy. It's not a bad little yarn that shapes the book, but I can't smile at the foibles of a system that continues to spawn mass killing of children and innocents and can only muster thoughts and prayers in response.

#128 Elmore Leonard -- Raylan (2012)

I love Leonard's conversation-built tales. I picked this one from the local library (Brown) after finishing the TV series "Justified." Taken on its own, it plays like the regular Leonard. But because of my recent immersion in the television version, I had a lot of trouble breaking its spell over my mental pictures. A fresh regard for the story kept being squashed by memories of screen personalities and events. Such are the hazards of screen adaptations.

#129 David S. Cecelski -- The Waterman's Song, Slavery & Freedom in Maritime North Carolina (2001)

I wish I had been a better history student. I also wish they had taught history differently. I've enjoyed reading books about my own area and once suppressed stories of what happened in our state and country. Perhaps I suffered worst in the image I learned of my own native region, northeastern or Tidewater North Carolina. I grew up thinking of our home (I was raised in Gates County and now live in Washington NC) as an underdog, poor, backwater with nothing to offer and less going on. The history we were presented was just that. We were hardly a blip in any school lesson we learned.

Cecelski has opened much of North Carolina's under-told story. This book explores the huge importance of African-Americans in the water trades of the eastern part of the state. Such jobs as fishing and piloting boats conferred much more freedom and access to a cosmopolitan lifestyle not enjoyed by farm hands and house servants. It gave them contacts with abolitionists and free blacks from all around the world. They helped man the Underground Railroad (which ran east in North Carolina Coastal Plain) which following the rivers and ports that were the lifeblood of this part of the state and nation. It ran down the rivers and to the coast where there were ships bound for free states and other countries. The Pamlico River, sometimes nicknamed "The Alley," and other similar waterways in the region were arteries of the Underground Railroad. Astonishing depth is added to our home in this work. Thanks, David!

#130 Ruth Emmie Lang -- Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance (2017)

This first novel from Lang could, by a cynic, be boiled down to "Relationships can be tough if you were raised by wolves." I enjoyed it much more than that. It's an interesting study in seeing the world differently than everyone else - living from an alternative perspective - on how simplifying life can complicate it.

#131 Joe R. Landsdale -- Edge of Dark Water (2012)

Edge is a good chase tale seemingly set (though not specified) in the Depression South. There are familiar characters to rural Southerners central to the story (and maybe a little stereotypical) who carry the story well enough to make it fun. It struck me as filmic. Maybe that's because Landsdale wrote the story of one of my cult fave films - "Bubba Hotep." Look it up.

#132 Chuck Palahniuk -- Make Something Up, Stories You Can't Unread (2015)

The subtitle is fair warning. Many of these stories are not for the depressed or weak. A thing I find wonderful about short story collections is the quick insight they offer into an author's psyche. You can see them experimenting with themes that haunt them. Are they are trying to exorcise these demons, are probing for an effective tool for exploring some shadow that peeks around the corners of their consciousness, or toying with a concept for a larger work? Palahniuk's tales are often deeply dark and worth the discomfort if you dare.

Noteworthy quote: "What she loves most about Home Shopping Network is that it doesn't have commercials."

#133 Dexter Palmer -- The Dream of Perpetual Motion (2010)

Fear of change and loss of control drive this vaguely claustrophobic steampunk tale. While technology drives the story, its strength is in the personality studies of the antagonists of the story. Secondary to the burrowing into our fears of lost possibility, is a study of a man driven to reorder the world due his his own inability to understand it. Sound familiar, Zuck?

#134 Tamara Shopsin -- LaserWriter II (2021)

A spring breeze of a read. This is a tale of a New York City Apple repair shop in the early '90s. A cast of characters are reeled off in short paragraphs, some following all through the story, others but a flash on one page. It's a wonderful flashback to the glory days when early Apple adopters were a band of creative think differenters. If it had only been set in Apple's corporate Garamond of its early manuals...

#135 Clyde Edgerton -- The Night Train (2011)

Edgerton's South sways and flows through conversation and atmosphere unconfined by stiff rules of punctuation. The ring of truth and personal memory permeate it. Night Train is a rich wade though the lives of two friends, music makers, one white one black, that offers perspective without heavy moralizing. Yet the flavor of mid-20th century North Carolina is conscious of the revolution of integration that was changing our rural lives.

#136 Bill Morris -- Saltwater Cowboys (2004)

A joyful frolic in the politics of the coast featuring a guy who has friends on both sides and sees both sides of the arguments about fisheries and environment. There's familiar locations and actions from Cape Lookout to Raleigh with lots of characters I'd almost swear I knew. Makes me want to head further east.

#137 Colson Whitehead -- The Nickel Boys (2019)

Whitehead has yet to miss so far as I can tell. (This is my fourth of his novels.) This story is tough on the psyche; almost as tough as it should be in its tale of society's at best disregard, at worst active destruction of an underclass. This tale of old style orphanages/reform schools and the part they played in maintaining and reproducing the behaviors they claimed to eliminate.  

#138 John Darnielle -- Wolf in the White Van (2014)

Start from a current isolated life and shadowy past events. They are slowly uncovered. We are drawn deeper and deeper into the life. The whirlpool coils into itself, and we see that the swirl is all there is -- no start, no end, only a frustrated, lonely existence which cannot understand or even see its own self consumption.

#139 Dan Choan -- You remind me of me (2004)

So many unhappy, maladjusted people dragging each other down. I've got to read something more positive. This book is not without art and skill, but it's relentless and largely hopeless. Time for me to grab some non-fiction at the library.

#140 Alan Lightman - Probably Impossibilities, Musings on Beginnings and Endings (2021)

Lightman's place in the world seems to be as a crossover guy between the worlds of science and philosophy. Dewey Decimal put him in the science realm of the library.  While I see the value of this book, it really did not fit my own sweet spot as it steered my more into Spinoza and Socrates more than Feynman and Dyson. There were certainly lots of things to be learned here, I just happened to be looking for more science and less history of philosophical thought.

#141 Eric F. Long, Mark A. Avino, & Dana Bell -- In the Cockpit (2007)

High-end, large-format photography of the cockpits of historic aircraft anchor this "snack" history book. All the craft are in the Smithsonian's collection and are featured in a tricked up piece of high-style book packaging (padded cover, pseudo-aged, steampunk flavor) that was surely a Smithsonian Museum souvenir. Love it, I'm sometimes a sucker for style over function, and this is one. Each plane gets a two- or four-page spread with current in the museum photo of the cockpit interior, period action photos, and a written historic capsule. It's a fine reminder of seeing some of them on touring the museum, one of my favorite places. AND it taught me things about the history of flight.

#142 David Cecelski -- A Historian's Coast, Adventures Into the Tidewater Past (2000)

Cecelski gives much to northeastern North Carolina, a place much more often exploited, abused, and derogated than honored. These tidbits of history are from a series of articles for Coastwatch, a series I remember from the 1990s. With a refreshing respect, they bring places and people few of us know, often including contemporary writings and photos from the participants.

#143 Geraldine Brooks -- People of the Book (2008)

What a wonderful book! Detective work, science, and inventive fiction create a mystery story and history (part fact, part fiction) for a unique book of religious art, taking a modern-day Bosnian intrigue all the way back to its possible origins in 15th century Spain. The patterns of history repeated in cycles to the advancement of little - simultaneously despair and hope.

#144 Carlo Rovelli -- Seven Brief Lessons in Physics (2014)

I've always loved "new" physics, reading lay texts since I was a kid. I've watched it grow and change. It's exquisitely unreasonable and surprising. The stretching and bending of trying to wrap my head around it is a real pleasure. This little collection by an Italian physicist is one of the most intuitively satisfying explorations I've read and will certainly re-read it before long. I sure do miss you, Mike Lahana...

#145 Tom Wolfe -- A Man In Full (1998)

The new journalism, in which literary styles play a part in a reporter's story, is a creature of my age. Tom Wolfe is one of the early all-stars of the form. I was not surprised to read this novel of his and find that it feels like an in depth, long-term researched piece. It could easily have been long-form journalism. The central character is difficult to like, as are many of the other players. Despite this, the plot was engrossing and held me to the end. Wolfe was a titan.

#146 Jeff Wilson -- Guide to North American Diesel Locomotives (2017)

This is a nice basic text on the development and adoption of Diesel power in America's railroad industry. It features plenty of how-it-works and who-made-what-when. It's a good basic education on modern locomotives. Makes me a more knowledgable railfan.

#147 Hubert J. Davis -- The Great Dismal Swamp, It's History, Folklore and Science (1962)

This book is petty typical of local interest books. The Great Dismal is a striking and formidable character in its region. From the early '60s, this book has a little history (mostly dates of commercialization by white folks), a little natural history, and a few folktales.

#148 Henry C. Bridgers Jr -- East Carolina Railway, Route of the Yellow-Hammer (1973)

Thanks to my friend Rob Cuthrell for making sure I found this old book at the Brown Library Book Sale. East Carolina Railway ran from Tarboro to Farmville and eventually to Hookerton. It was willed into existence by Henry Clark Bridgers. It ran from 1897 to 1966 when its trackage was taken over by Atlantic Coastline. It's a charming story of tenacity and blissful ignorance.

Why Route of the Yellow Hammer? When Bridgers found that they couldn't make money running a full train to Hookerton twice a day, he bought some old trollies from northern cities and ECR's country genius Master Mechanic George Watson added gasoline engines to them to run passengers on low traffic days, making sure passenger service was available. The sound of them running through the countryside was said to be remarkably like the the call of the woodpecker-like northern flicker whose old timey name was yellow-hammer.

#149 Kent Carroll & Jodee Blanco -- I, John Kennedy Toole (2020)

What do you do for a biography of someone who achieved no fame until years after his death at an early age. Such was the predicament of the authors. Their solution was to take the sparse memories and correspondence they could find into a novelization padded out with best guesses. While one would hope for more, we must appreciate the insights and glimpses of personality. John Kennedy Toole was the author of A Confederacy of Dunces which he wrote 11 years before his suicide. It was published 12 years after his death thanks to the passionate pushiness of his mother and being championed by Walker Percy. It was the second piece of fiction to win a posthumous Pulitzer. Dunces should certainly be on your read list.

#150 Billy Carter -- Pamlico (2001)

I enjoy these "old fart tales" books, especially when they're done by someone who tells a good enough tale with writing skills. Billy Carter has the skills to pull it off. His stories are of the place that is my adopted home of 40+ years, and focuses on a part of it I have treasured -- the river. A good read, thanks, Billy.

#151 John M Carter -- Trails of the Past (1977)

Another "old fart tales." The author is from the Blue Ridge, living his 90+ years in the intersection of the hills of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. His life as a coach, educator, and outdoorsman fill the pages. It was loaned to me by a friend for its tales of bear hunting near Roper. Advice learned here: If you plan to write your memoirs, wait until your 90s. There are fewer witnesses left.

 

#152 North Carolina Literary Review -- The Black Mountain College Review (1995)

Black Mountain College, that 1930s-'50s miracle of progressive education, has fascinated me since I heard of it back in the 1970s. As a fan of alumni and faculty such as, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Motherwell, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef Albers, Aaron Siskind, et al., I had to know more. One of the arts of Black Mountain I paid too little attention to was writing. Now, with this extensive collection of memories and writings of those pioneers, I have a start and a guide to get me going.

As a bonus, this issue of NCLR contained a survey of Eastern North Carolina fishing communities by David Cecelski, one of my favorites for NC history. "A World of Fisher Folks" includes many sources and a few exerpts from historic pieces. AND, there are two poems that make pictures in my mind by my old friend Peter Makuck!

#153 James Lee Burke -- Wayfaring Stranger (2014)

The prose is up to Burke's usual good, rich read. But it's not one of my favorites so far. Maybe I'm more a fan of the Robicheaux crowd than the Holland family.

#154 F. Scott Fitzgerald -- "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" and other Stories (1920-22)

I picked this one up at least partially as a make up for the avoidance and laziness I showed to Fitzgerald in my school days. Time to give him a fighting chance. This collection offers some shorter stories. His style was easy enough to negotiate. But, I really am left with real questions about his attitude toward the rich. Most of his work seems to be focused on them. But, for the life of me, I'm not sure if he admires them so much that it's all he's interested in or if there is some satirical attack on the upper class crowd that is too subtle for me to appreciate. 

#155 Irvine Welsh -- The Acid House (1994)

Waist deep in the edge of society, slackers and junkies fill many of these dark stories. The collection is a taste of Clockwork Orange and good dose William Burroughs. Oh, and it's largely written in dialect, so it can be tough to read especially since it's mostly in Scotland. Imagine reading Uncle Remus if he had a Scottish brogue. Interesting writing styles and quirky stories and characters.

#156 Glenn Lawson -- Troubled Waters (1990)

The struggle to protect the Pamlico River and Sound is not a new one. Lawson follows the fight in the '80s to clean up a dying fishery. I remember the fight well. Lawson talked to those who were in the forefront of the efforts on both sides. I regret that the struggle continues with the same slow results. Lawson's conclusions: corporations have one interest, increasing profits and share price. We should never expect them to help willingly if it costs them money. Environmental rules will never save us if government is unwilling to enforce them. Citizen pressure and elections are the only thing that can work. It takes us all to shout louder than the paid lobbyists.

#157 PG Wodehouse -- Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

Formerly owned by Main Street Buddha Miss Lucretia Hughes and acquired by me from a Brown Library sale forty years ago, several Wodehouse volumes have been a joy. Wodehouse has a fixation on the ruling class. I MUCH more prefer his sarcasm to the fawning over similar subject matter by F Scott Fitzgerald. Wodehouse reminds me a great deal of Douglas Adams in his style and sound.

#158 John Kennedy Toole -- A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)

I often feel there must be someone likable in a story to make it engaging. Confederacy of Dunces always reminds me that's wrong. There is no likable character to be found here, only the several guilty and the innocent bystanders. This wonderful black comedy of mayhem and self-satisfaction. This is a multi-read for me over the years. Even the swampy atmosphere of New Orleans where it all takes place is not enough to mug the sweat inducing characters of this wonderful book. The story of the book getting published often distracts from the wonder that is this one-time-wonder author's creation, but I leave you to Wikipedia to learn that. Uncle Ric's List #149 is a bio of the author [https://home.cartersxrd.net/reading-list.html].

#159 Alex Robinson -- Tricked (2005)

Graphic novels came after my time as a serious comic fan, but I enjoy one from time to time. I usually lean toward comic classic forms such as fantasy/sci-fi. This time though, I stumbled across a more literary style. Tricked treads the oft used course of following multiple characters as their paths cross and divert each other toward a climax. It follows a slumping rock star hoping for a comeback. Career criminals, average folk with little dramas, stalker fans, and lunatics all roll toward a violent clash.

#160 Old Comic Favorites: Darby Conley -- Get Fuzzy The Dog is Not a Toy (2001) & Bill Watterson -- Calvin & Hobbes Something Under the Bed is Drooling (1988)

One of the many things I miss about real newspapers is comics, a tried-and-true medium for a morning smile without requiring an attention span. Two of my all-time favorites were Calvin  & Hobbes and Get Fuzzy. Little smiles and having the reunion with old friends was satisfying.

#161 Special Prosecutor's Office -- United States of America vs Donald J. Trump

I read this after hearing several authorities refer to the high quality of the legal writing in the indictment. I'm certainly no authority, but I must say this prose has a simple, straightforward, clear pop. The plot of the story is laid out in unmistakable terms and order. The tale is clear to all who have eyes to see. Marvelous.

#162 Christopher Paolini -- Fractal Noise (2023)

Gosh, it was good to shove my head in a good sci-fi romp again. Fractal Noise was just what I needed. It is both immense and tightly focussed, telling the story of a short expedition that marks humanity's first contact with extraterrestrials. Characters tackle grief, personal drive and goals, fear, and duty. The action is slow but constant. It started as a short story the author couldn't quite make what he wanted. It became a novel, that is a prequel to his larger world-builder novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. I think what most impresses me is the comfort level I had in the story WITHOUT feeling there was something in the larger story that I had to know. I'll probably have to read that now anyway;^)

#163 Owen King -- The Curator (2023)

I enjoy an occasional fantasy book. The Curator has its secret world behind the facade of a real world. I enjoyed most of the path this one takes. There are interesting notions, images, and themes, with two simultaneous dramas including many of the same people as well as others we never meet. Sometimes there's too much input adding too little value to the story for me. Pretty bleak in outlook.

#164 Sarah Vowel -- The Partly Cloudy Patriot (2002)

Public Radio's "This American Life" has introduced me to more essayists than any other source out there. Among my favorites first heard there is Sarah Vowel. Her voice is unmistakable as is her highly personal perspectives on history in both writing and vocal delivery. She is simultaneously funny and educational, specializing in rooting out fresh details of events we think we know. You'd be hard put to find a learning experience more fun.

#165 Steve Martin -- An Objective of Beauty (2010)

Steve Martin is one of the funniest men around, a talented musician, AND a novelist. Martin’s story follows its protagonist, an aspiring art dealer, as she uses her talent, luck, and assets to wind her way toward the top of the business. A very nice read that slips by with twists and interesting characters and a tale of building a living instead of a life. It also seems a pretty good view of the business of art and collecting.

#166 Edward Ashton -- Antimatter Blues (2023)

I usually stay away from series books. But, I readMickey7 not too long ago and enjoyed it, so what’s to lose in sticking my toe back in the same pool? Not a thing;^) The book answered the promise of the first Mickey7 novel. The plot is a romp with the slightly off kilter Mickey with enough alien speculation and sci-fi hardware to satisfy the genre. Enjoyable, again, and after all, fun is what we pursue.

#167 Rick Rubin -- The Creative Act: A Way of Being (2023)

On picking up The Creative Act, my picture of Rick Rubin was musician whisperer. He produced well-respected recordings and coaxed fresh life for “blocked” artists. Now, I place him in the company of Alan Watts and Ram Dass as Eastern philosophers who have unique Western voices. While Creative Act is about adjusting your behavior to improve your inventive tap on the world, it is readily adaptable to living a more satisfying life.

#168 Seanan McGuire — Lost in the Moment and Found (2022)

I don’t know what this genre is called, but I’ve become rather infatuated with it. You’re in a world that seems familiar, but it functions with different reality rules in place. There are mysterious organizations at work in dark corners, magic is accepted, the unexpected is around the corner. I seem to have stumbled into a much larger series of books that I may have to sample more.

#169 Neil deGrasse Tyson & Lindsey Nyx Walker — To Infinity & Beyond (2023)

Some have a knack for sharing their love of what they do. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s love is science, and he is today’s best known pop scientist. This exploration outward deals with cosmology and the way space is constructed and behaves.  There’s lots of basic knowledge here for novices, but also newer concepts and fresh expressions of older theories. It’s a nice volume for those who want to know more about those things moving through the sky and why.

#170 Pauline Butcher — Freak Out! Life With Frank Zappa (2022)

My favorite musician since about 1967 has been Frank Zappa. Pauline Butcher was maybe four years older than me when she “discovered” Zappa. She was sent by a secretarial service in England to do some typing and transcribing to Zappa’s hotel. Frank took a liking to her, and offering her a job in LA. Her fascination with him, the possibility of getting to work in the US, and looking for other opportunities led her to take the job. Her diary of her time in the Log Cabin and Laurel Canyon offer the most relatable stories about Zappa and his community I’ve read. There are tons of stories that add to the Project object. Admirable work. The book is the recently enlarged edition.

#171 Braiding Sweetgrass — Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013)

Kimmerer is a botanist/ecologist of Native American heritage. Her love of plant science and the old oral traditions of her forefathers and mothers have found common ground in her thinking and teaching. She notices old habits and traditions are often supported by science when examined closely. The western religious tradition sees the Earth as Man’s to exploit is at odds with the Native American belief that Man is here as a part of the Earth, and he is to care for and play his part in maintaining the Earth. She sees science as supportive of these teaching, but sees science as lacking the story telling principles that could help help our understandings of its meanings. I have long thought that science has the makings of a perfectly useful life philosophy or religion, so I find her methods quite pleasing.