It seems to me as natural and necessary to keep notes, however brief, of one’s reading, as logs of voyages or photographs of one’s travels. For memory, in most of us, is a liar with galloping consumption.
• F.L. Lucas
I am a liar. I promised that my next post would be about authors who inspire me, but I’m not feeling inspired to write that one even though I’ve started pulling the books together. That’s one of the challenges of completing any kind of assignment—required or self-imposed: Sometimes you just don’t feel like doing what you ought to do. This an ongoing creative challenge and it’s the reason that I like to have multiple projects in progress. When I want to feel productive, I can generally find something to work on, even if it’s not the moment’s primary task.
Here’s what I’d rather do today: There are two stacks of recently purchased books next to the bed. I’ve started Post-It®-ing them, but I also want to post them so that I can track their entrance into the house. Ten years from now, I’ll know that in the last two weeks, these are some of the books I’ve bought at thrift stores:
• Terry Brooks (1986), Magic Kingdom for Sale. This is at least the fifth copy of this book I’ve purchased. I’ve given my other copies away to reluctant readers. I don’t usually like fantasy books. I couldn’t make it through J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, for example. I hesitate to even mention this in print since I don’t want to incur the wrath of those who love his books. I’ve tried to read Tolkien, but I just don’t care. This may be because my favorite kind of reading is non-fiction and elves and dwarves and fairyfolk and mythical and magical creatures and other kinds of fictional oddities just aren’t appealing. No matter.
I still use Brooks’ book as the basis of an assignment that asks students to design their own magic kingdom. In the book, a Christmas Wishbook the protagonist gets in the mail offers a “Magic Kingdom for Sale,” promising that “[a]ll of your fantasies become real in this kingdom from another world. . .Escape into your dreams, and be born again” (p. 6). All this for a mere million dollars.
I’m pretty sure I love this book because Disneyland is my hometown, the one place that’s remained largely unchanged since my childhood. I can’t go home again, but I can go back to Walt’s fantasy world and find my memories there. Fantasizing about your very own magic kingdom is a lovely way to while away an hour or two.
• A. Parody (hmmm, I’m a bit suspicious about this name) with Stephen Blake and Andrew John (2003), Shite’s Unoriginal Miscellany. This little gem includes odd lists, useless facts, and disgusting information, and is an altogether amusing piece of timewastery featuring, for example, a list of toilet-related euphemisms. Next time you have to go, you can “go to the library, your private office, to Egypt, into retreat, to explore the geography of the house, to check on the scones, to pay a visit to your uncle, to pick a rose, to see your aunt, to visit the old soldier’s home,” or. . . ; all these and more can be found on page 93.
As a quotation collector, I especially appreciate this one from page 114, although I do think that the promise of “memorable movie lines” is hyperbolic: “Once they were men. Now they are land crabs,” from 1957’s Attack of the Crab Monsters. Since I also collect breast-related information, I’m delight to know that twenty-seven percent of female lottery winners hid their winning tickets in their bras (p. 144). But enough teasing. I’m sure you want to read this one for yourself.
• Cooper Edens (1979), If You’re Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow. Children’s books often delight me and this lovely little book offers up multiple tidbits of unusual advice: “If you find your socks don’t match, stand in a flower bed.” I can imagine using this book as the inspiration for a collaborative bookmaking activity.
• Wendy Kaminer (1999), Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety. Social critic Kaminer’s essays about what people believe and why they believe it continues to be meaningful more than a decade after it was written. As I think about recent political “debates,” I appreciate this from page 228: “Every argument is thought to have only two sides. A debate consists of one side saying ‘Is to’ and the other side insisting ‘Is not.’ So, when millions of Americans went on-line, they were well prepared for a cacophonous world of half-finished thoughts and interrupted expositions of ideas.”
I want teachers with whom I work to know what they believe about teaching and learning, but I also want them to be able to situate those beliefs in a larger context. This can be difficult for them to understand. “If it’s what I feel, why do I have to explain it?” some of them ask. But we are awash in a sea of information, much of it specious, inundated daily by wave after wave of potential influences. Exploring beliefs deeply and thoughtfully helps insure that we won’t simply take a position and be unable to support it. Educators who must make countless curricular content and delivery and assessment choices while also successfully managing classrooms must know what they plan to do, but they need to know why as well. The rationale matters (and it should be a rational one).
• Jack Frost, a novelization by Jennifer Baker (1998), based on the screenplay by Mark Steven Johnson and Steven Bloom and Jonathan Roberts. We have a family tradition. Every year on Christmas eve, we go out for pizza and see a bad movie. One year, Jack Frost was our choice. I like Michael Keaton, but what I really like from this film is one of my favorite quotations ever: “There’s no dad like a snow dad!” Who wouldn’t want this book for their collection? Oh, you, snarkypants? Your loss, I assure you.
Oh, dear. I’ve scarcely diminished the stacks.
What books have you purchased—or wanted to buy—lately? And are you keeping track of what you buy?
Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.
• Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta, “Book Buying”
Shelf Analysis 