Books: May

Books bought:
Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux
Mormon Country by Wallace Stegner
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg
Remembering Laugher by Wallace Stegner

Books read:
Wherever I Wind Up by R.A. Dickey
Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner

I started the month with Dickey, hoping for some inspiration to get through finals. Pitching is a thinking profession and the best baseball books are by pitchers- Jim Bouton's Ball Four and Bill Lee's Spaceman. I wanted insight and eccentricity from Dickey, for his writing to dance like his knuckler.

The book is as cliched as my last sentence. Dickey studied literature before playing baseball so the text is writerly. Occasionally, something fun emerges: "You can't let yourself get beaten by anything but your best pitch- you have to dance with the girl you bring. I bring Ms. Knuckleball to every party."

After finals, I got to take my mom to my favorite bookstore in the East Village and lined up my shelf for the summer. The Theroux will be handy if I get wanderlust at my desk downtown. Mormon Country is a hardback first edition, probably worth something, but not the Stegner I'm most eager to read. I've never read Catch 22 although I'm sure I've lied about that before.

My brain was too broken to make any progress in Catch 22, so I picked up a copy of Remembering Laughter, Stegner's first novel, at Housing Works. Ima just say this now: Wallace Stegner is my favorite writer of all, ever. I love Raymond Carver and I've really enjoyed getting to know Mary Karr and James Baldwin these last few months. What Stegner does is something different- he tells us what his characters are thinking, but he does it by describing the life around them, and he does this in the American West. He tells the stories of families and lifetimes. He tells me the story of where I'm from and where I'm going. Go get yourself a copy of Crossing to Safety, and then Angle of Repose.

Remembering Laughter is Stegner's first book, published as a novella in 1937, about Scottish immigrants in Iowa at the turn of the century. A farmer and his wife develop some land and earn enough to send for the wife's sister. The sister arrives in Iowa, falls in love with the farmer, and the novella turns miserable and Edwardian. Stegner reveals an intricate network of emotional structures between the characters, but always by showing them through their farm chores and housework. I'm ruining this book with my words- it's really good.

I'm about to start How Sex Changed, assigned to me by Milo. I haven't read nonfiction in ages and I'm excited to read something real and closer to my life. Without the epic commutes, it's unlikely that I'll average the book/week pace I've kept over the last year. Honestly, I'll be happy if I can read all 10 pages of "Howl,"with help from coffee and the shade of my backyard, by July. Tough months for reading.