Literary matters

There’s this thing going around Facebook—you’re supposed to list ten books that have “mattered” to you. No specification on how they matter, but of course the challenge is to pare the list down to just ten.

Well, here’s mine:

Eye Deep in Hell: Trench Warfare in World War I, John Ellis.

This was my introduction to the First World War. I don’t even know why I read it that summer, but it was my WTF moment, such a vivid description of the ghastly life in the trenches that it sparked my concentration in New Military History, with a particular focus on mass warfare of the first half of the 20^th Century. When people ask me for recommendations on what they should read to “learn” about that war, Eye Deep in Hell is it.

The Periodic Table, Primo Levi.

This is the book that goes with me if I’m ever sent into exile. It’s possibly the most beautiful piece of writing I’ve ever encountered. Levi was a chemist in Turin; in 1943 his life was interrupted when the Germans occupied the part of Italy not held by the Allies, and he was sent to Auschwitz, where he was a slave laborer in I.G. Farben's Buna plant. He wrote many books, novels, essays, etc., but The Periodic Table is the one I keep returning to. It’s a series of autobiographical short stories, each one tagged to one of the chemical elements. The one I love the most is “Iron”; Levi’s friend Sandro is my ideal of how a good life is lived.

The Odyssey, Homer.

I read The Odyssey in high school, and we basically jumped joyfully into the whole sea-cruise-from-hell thing. It seemed so full of panache, and adventure, and had that happy ending where Odysseus shoots all those sons-of-bitches suitors. And his dog remembers him. After 20 years, which made the dog about 25 and remarkably long-lived. TO was my introduction-in-depth to Greek mythology, and archetypes and all that stuff; I enjoyed it. But by the time I got to college and read The Iliad, I was considerably less inclined to put up with chapter after freaking chapter of a monumental testosterone-powered whizzing contest, amongst both the mortals and the gods, especially when the butcher’s bill is so high. I could hardly wait to move on to Aeschylus, where Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon. Good riddance, I say.

The Joy of Cooking, Irma Rombauer.

Long before there was the Internet to ‘splain the fine points of roasting lamb or making meringues, The Joy of Cooking was my go-to reference. In retrospect, I think I may not have actually made a whole lot of the recipes in the book, but I certainly consulted the daylights out of it when I was looking for technique. Eventually it was superseded to some extent by Julia Child. And then, of course, YouTube. But it goes with me everywhere, because—hey, it’s just the classic.

The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

TWITW is the prototypical buddy story; Rat and Mole are about as good a pair of friends as you’re ever going to find, inside and outside the pages of a book. Yes, they have to deal with that whackjob Toad, and with the Weasels—don’t we all? Rat and Mole make me think it would be a good thing to go messing around with boats, even though even the thought of being on the water renders me queasy. Every year at Christmas I reread “Dulce Domum”, because this is what the spirit of the season is.

Pictures of Perfection, Reginald Hill.

I’ve already told you how much I love Reg Hill’s police procedurals about Dalziel and Pascoe; this is my favorite. It’s so…daft, so delicate, so delicious. And watch out for the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la.

The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten.

My BFF gave me this, and I read almost the entire book on my flights back to LA from Seoul. I loved the wit, earthiness and perseverance Rosten described in the Jewish peoples. The understanding it gave me proved foundational when I was studying 18^th, 19^th and 20^th Century European history, and it was also helpful in navigating the executive stratum in film and television production. I read, reread and consulted JOY until my copy literally fell apart. I sort of felt I should give it a Viking funeral, because it gave heroic service to my careers. However, I don't like the idea of burning books.

Lives of the Noble Romans, Plutarch.

This is a holdover from a college humanities class on Ancient Rome. The thing that impressed me about Plutarch was that he wrote about his subjects with a certain degree of honesty. The one I remember was Cato the Elder, whom Plutarch held up as an example of a man dedicated to the civitas; even though he was really tight with a denarius, and when his slaves became too old to work, he turned them out to fend for themselves. I carry it around in my car in case of breakdown, or for doctors’ waiting rooms where the only entertainment they have is a TV set to daytime talk shows or sporting events. Plutarch is way better than anything on TV.

The Art of War, Sun Tzu.

I laugh every time some ninja rockstar self-styled techno-business-innovator next-big-thing guru spouts some sound bite and attributes it to Sun Tzu. As opposed to them, I’ve actually read this book, and understand its implications for a lot of arenas. I’ve also read Clauswitz’s On War, which has applications to the business world as well, but for some reason the gururati haven’t latched onto that one yet. One of the big challenges for implementing some of the precepts in TAOW is that they’re predicated on understanding yourself, understanding your surroundings and understanding your enemy. Most people can’t manage that first step.

The Long Good-bye, Raymond Chandler.

It’s not the first Chandler I ever read, but it’s my favorite. (Okay, there’s a line from his short story “Red Wind” that pretty well blows away everything ever written about LA, but this is the best of his novels.) I bought my copy for 90p at a news stand in Gatwick Airport the night before returning to the US from my bicycle trip through France and Spain. I had no money and nothing to do until the Laker Air flight to LA the next day; TLGB got me through. Look, Chandler had me at the opening line: “The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.”

What's on your list?