December 26, 2010
I am happy report that I have fulfilled the last of my 2010 New Year’s resolutions, which was as follows: “Read one book every month of the year. The book must be unrelated to my work as a public health professional and social worker. I have 12 months to read 12 books, not really one a month.” This may seem like a modest commitment to most, but I wanted to make sure I made a commitment that I knew I could keep – the cornerstone of any good resolution. I also finished graduate school not so long ago and was hoping to restore the intrisic reward that reading used to provide — before it was spoiled by volumes of required reading on topics such as “logistic regression methods” and “the psychosocial aspects of hair braiding.” I thoroughly enjoyed most of my books for the year and will be making the same basic commitment for 2011 with one minor change — I will be committing to 300 pages a month. I noticed as time got crunched I picked books for their short length over my desire to read them. It was easier to knock off a 150 page book rather the 500 page one I preferred to read.
Please feel free to comment and make your own recommendations.
So here it is, my 2010 book review:
January – Death with Interruptions (As Intermitências da Morte) by Jose Saramago (2009) pp. 256 
I started off the year with a beautiful novel about death taking a holiday from one country and one unwitting musician. As death takes a break it causes major disruptions for the country and itself. This is well-written magical realism literature translated from Portuguese. It is an intelligent manipulation of the Christian afterlife story written by a Nobel winner. I found the three-page paragraphs (typical, it seems, of some South American novelists) and non-conventional punctuation distracting and questioning the translation. It turns out death did not take a holiday from Tias, Spain this year. Saramago died there in June 2010.
February – Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins (2000) pp. 464. 
Hands down, my favorite author. This is not my favorite book of his, but thoroughly entertaining nonetheless. How can one not enjoy a novel that includes Peruvian shamans in the jungle, an eccentric grandmother, and erotic encounters with a nun? What I love about Tom Robbins’ work is how he uses the most irreverent events to illuminate practical spirituality. He is a master of magical realism, although this novel is one of his only not to use it. Fierce Invalids is Robbins’ Lolita, as his main character wrestles with his attraction to his junior step-sister. For classic Robbins I recommend Jitterbug Perfume, an epic that addresses immortality through the eyes of Pan, perfume, New Orleans, and pagan Europe.
March – One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) by Gabriel García Márquez (1967) pp.383. 
I picked this one up at an ecolodge during our honeymoon in Costa Rica. This was a perfect read for a hammock in the Central American jungle. It tracks a family in South America across many generations. What has lasted in my mind about this book is the impact of colonialism and banana republics on South American villages, as well as the impact of family secrets. This is a politically righteous story challenging legacy of American and European plunder. I also really enjoyed the some of the characters, my favorite being the eccentric magic-trading alchemist who blows in from the traveling circus. The translation was superb. I always worry about losing puns and poetry in non-English literature, but this one either captured the Spanish beauty or makes up for it with liberties in the English version.
April – Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (2008) pp. 304. 
An interesting compilation of the conditions for excellence. This books reinforced my impatience for anything but history or literature, but did provoke some interesting thoughts. What has stuck with me is the idea that 10,000 hours (about 10 years) of practice leads to mastery. It forces me to ponder what, if anything, have I mastered after nearly 33 trips around the sun. This made for excellent subway reading in NYC — 15 minute snippets with little continuity.
May – Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952) pp.127 
This was my first attempt to hit some classics. At 127 pages it was low hanging fruit that got me back on schedule in one night. The man’s struggle with the fish is epic and well-worn by many a reveiwer. What I was pondering for days was the boy’s loyalty to the man despite the barriers to their friendship. The image of a boy feeding an old man out of love and fondness is what has lasted.
June – The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris (1979) pp. 920 
This was unquestionably the highlight of my year of reading! This book has inspired me, informed me, challenged me, and has me questioning why I haven’t done more with my life. It is the first in a three-part trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt. (The final installment was published this year — 31 years after the first book, partly because the author took eight years off after publishing this book to be Reagan’s personal biographer.) It tracks TR’s meteoric assent to presidency. Born into NYC high society, TR did not waste his privilege as he moved up through various political offices until he was he was sworn in as president at age 42. This dude hardly slept and was a ferocious political tactician. What is most amazing to me is that the “Father of American Conservation” killed thousands upon thousands of animals. He started hunting at an early age and became absorbed in taxidermy. Philosophically TR and I differ on certain policy positions, but his extreme appetite for life is incredibly inspiring. The book is astoundingly well research with some 140 pages of citations and notes. Remarkably, it was written by a man who immigrated to America, I think, eleven years before publishing it. I will absolutely be reading Theodore Rex, Morris’s second book about TR’s presidency. I also would like to read The River of Doubt about his near fatal, post-presidency year in the Amazon with his sons. I happened to buy this book on a cross-country road trip during a stop at his namesake National Park in the Dakotas. If you are at all interested in political biography, read this masterpiece.
July – The Prince (Il Principe) by Niccolò Machiavelli (1532) pp. 113 
Another attempt at becoming more versed in primary source classics. I felt an obligatory pull to read this political thesis. I appreciated it for its historical value and illumination of 16th century Europe, but I was at times repulsed by the cunning manipulation. Machiavelli is famous for his articulation of the shadow of power – how to get it, keep it, and use it. I needed a few showers when I was done.
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August – Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969) pp. 215. 
When picking out a movie my wonderful wife often says, “I need a movie that can hold me.” Translation: I would like to feel deeply and be moved. No fluffy, superficial, sophomoric, shallow, wimpy garbage. I want something that can touch some new place of human existence — and it probably should be messy. If you are looking for a book that can “hold you” then this is it. And I don’t mean hold you in a cuddly, warm way. I mean hold you in a World War II bombing of Dresden kinda way. This was my first dip into the Vonnegut waters and I will be back. I enjoyed his potent writing style with no wasted words, but lyrical, indelible, and often eccentric imagery. The style of writing is most impressive as a story about a lifetime told linearly through flashbacks as the protagonist is experiencing them. Based on Vonnegut’s own experience at one of the most horrific events of WWII, the bombings of Dresden, I am left with a feeling of great fortune for the relative peace of my generation and the buffer from war I personally have enjoyed.
September – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979) pp. 215. 
This was a book I had and did not finish as a younger man. I should have remembered why. It has not aged very well. Bad British humor is not resilient on my palate. It is poorly written with shallow characters, I think I just prefer my sci-fi on the screen. This 215-page book took me nearly a month to finish because I rarely could read more than 10 pages at a time without drifting into sleep. On the bright side, for the month of September I had many dreams of space travel and floating through foreign galaxies.
October – Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999) pp. 198. 
This book can hold you. One of my favorite movies of the last decade has been The Namesake. It is about the struggles of modern day American youth born of Indian immigrants. It is a really moving story about identity and the value we place of cultural history. Jhumpa Lahiri wrote The Namesake. The Interpreter of Maladies is an earlier collection of short stories which won her the Pulizer. Most stories do not have “happy endings” and track Indian-Americans through the struggles of trying to fit into American culture. I liked it because I learned more about the experiences and culture of India while getting keen critiques of my American culture. Good, not great.
November – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. (2003) pp. 226.
This wins my award for the most clever book of the year. The entire book is written in first person from the perspective of an autistic teen. He cannot tell lies (or write fiction) because of his autism but wants to write a murder mystery, so he writes the story of actual events as they are happening while tracking down the killer of his neighbor’s dog. The actual author must have had a lot of fun writing this. It also must have taken incredible discipline and creativity not to use metaphor (another impossibility for autism).
December – Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block (2008) pp. 240. 
Another reinforcement that I shouldn’t waste my precious life energy reading anything but literature and history. But for a book about community building, self-improvement, and creating more abundant cultures, it does not get much better than this. It is a “how-to” guide for creating more vibrant, connected, and meaningful communities. Block challenges many conventional social structure in a practical fashion. He believes the fear-based media machine takes us out of community and in turn demands with have leaders that disempower the masses. Without charismatic leaders we are forced to take responsibility for our neighborhoods. Leaders then become conveners. His thesis has some serious limitations when it comes to social welfare and population health, but he holds a sweet vision for creating an active and alive local tribe. I will definitely be returning to this book for references and thought-provoking questions. (Questions are the best way to commence a community gathering).
The book I put down: Power Vs. Force by David Hawkins (1995) pp. 310. 
It is amazing a book could be so utterly irrelevant just 15 years after publication. What is more amazing is that people actually believe what Hawkins is throwing down. This is really bad research couched as empirical evidence for the self-help crowd. I could not bear wasting my time after about 75 pages. This guys claims to have quantified scaled values of consciousness using muscle-testing. Yep, muscle-testing as the answer to world peace. This book is a shining example of why many researchers and modern social scientists have a problem with alternative healing techniques and approaches. David Hawkins is giving us a bad name and should be stopped.
A good recommendation list: In my unending quest to understand and improve the experience of the masculine, I found an interesting website recommending the best books for men. I really like the list and will probably use it this year for a few more. Here it is: The Art of Manliness
What are your thought about these books or your books of 2010?
