Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse - a biography has made you love an author more?
I can think of two examples of biographies that brought me closer to authors, and happier to love them. What Fresh Hell is This by Marion Meade took me beyond the legend of Dorothy Parker. I always knew that she had been witty and had been part of the glittering, witty world of the Algonquin Round Table. I had no idea that she had been involved in the trial and executions of Sacco and Vanzetti.
I always have loved the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Prayer to Persephone always makes me cry.
PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE
Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,--Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, "My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here."
Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford brought me into her brave, fragile, daring, glittering, heartbreaking world, with details about her mother, her sisters, and her strange, sad relationship with her father. Yes, I loved her more after I read this book (and What Lips My Lips Have Kissed by Daniel Mark Epstein, which I liked but did not love). (And yes, I wonder what would she have thought about her page on Facebook?)
Today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S.Yes!
I am grateful for -
Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?
Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?
In spring, I also love to read about other people's gardens, and to look at pictures of other people's gardens. Celia Thaxter, for example, whose garden was painted by Childe Hassam, both gardened and wrote, so she's a goddess. Emily Dickinson loved her gardens and infused her poetry with flowers and plants.
Here’s something for Valentine’s Day.
Have you ever fallen out of love with a favorite author? Was the last book you read by the author so bad, you broke up with them and haven’t read their work since? Could they ever lure you back?
Okay, even I can’t read ALL the time, so I’m guessing that you folks might voluntarily shut the covers from time to time as well… What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?
Sometimes I find eccentric characters quirky and fun, other times I find them too unbelievable and annoying. What are some of the more outrageous characters you’ve read, and how do you feel about them?
One of my favorite quirky, eccentric characters never actually appears in her eponymous novel, Swann, by Carol Shields. Mary Swann's eccentricities as a poet, and her bloody death at the hands of her brutish husband, are dissected by the literary and academic ghouls who are exhuming her life and work and preparing for the first literary symposium about her. Each of the ghouls is, him/herself, eccentric -- the soul-eater biographer, the librarian, the publisher -- and all evidence of the existence of poor Mary Swann disappears as they mince, chop, and bludgeon her work as thoroughly as her husband did her body.I was not surprised by the statistic. As a librarian for almost thirty years, I have seen how reading habits have changed. Where once, patrons would stagger to the circulation desk with a dozen books to check out, now they have three or four. Where once, we would have to buy a dozen copies of the latest bestseller, now we buy three or four. Perhaps, some of this trend can be attributed to the online booksellers, whose deeply-discounted prices make it more attractive to buy a best-seller than to wait for 3-4 weeks to get it from the library. More likely, people who once were casual readers have become less likely to read for any of a million reasons - I won't bore you with my cynical list of possibilities.
One of the details in the MSN article caught my attention - the notion that women are less likely than men to read biographies . I won't generalize from myself, since I'm a fiend for biographies, especially if they're about literary or intrepid women. (I'm itching to read the new biography of Gertrude Bell, for example.) I will generalize from my women friends, though - they (we) all read history, biographies, science, all manner of nonfiction, and we discuss amongst ourselves.
Another detail - or omission - from the article made me wonder whether the survey included audio books. I've seen discussions and debates on whether audio books count as "reading" - for example, check out this excellent post by Moonfrog and the comments below - and I've been rather surprised by some of the conclusions. For the record, I think that any medium that lets you absorb the author's words qualifies as reading - and I wonder who amongst the scoffers would tell, say, blind people that they aren't reading their "Books on Tape."
So, do my friends and family read as much as I do? Friends, yes, but wouldn't you expect that we'd choose friends whose passions complement our own? In fact, some friends astound me with the number of books they read, especially since they also knit amazing things, create and sustain splendid gardens, raise excellent children, work time-intensive jobs....Would that I had the energy and time-management skills to keep up with them!
(Family - not as much. Alas.)
