How Times Have (Not) Changed

While digging around in my e-mail the other day I found a list of 10 favorite books which I'd written about three years ago. I only vaguely remember having written the descriptions that came with them, mostly that I didn't find the list that hard to pull together -- ah, callow youth! I ought to do this every year, such was my surprise and delight at finding it.

I like to think that my list of favorite books is ever shifting; at the same time, seven of the 10 books on that 2006 list I would still defend as being favorites, and I'm not sure when that would change. Here are my thoughts on the other three:

Bookmarked: Reinaldo Arenas, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS
What I wrote at the time: "An astonishing and heartbreaking memoir about nationality and freedom, from a gay dissident writer persecuted by Cuba's Communist government."
What I'm thinking now: As a comparative lit concentrator in college*, I took a lot of Spanish lit courses, and this was a salute to one of my favorites. I was really moved by it at the time, but I would have to go back to it to allow it back into the category of greats. (Read it first, but there is a great adaptation as well starring a pre-Anton Chigurh Javier Bardem.) Perhaps I don't trust my tastes in Spanish because I feel this way about a lot of books I read in the language, though the ones I have made the time to re-read have largely stood up. Of the ones in translation**, I recommend Carmen Laforet's NOTHING, if you have to read it in English (she says, assholically).

Bookmarked: Judith Kogan, NOTHING BUT THE BEST
What I wrote at the time: "What better way to write about passion and desperation than, as in this work of creative nonfiction, profile several students and student groups at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music?"
What I'm thinking now: I still really like it, but I think it was more of a right-place-right-time read. The book made its mark on me in high school when I was deeply involved in performing music (although let's be clear, I was never on the conservatory track let alone Juilliard-bound). Its reporting is great but not ground-breaking; it has some very awkward scenes where you get the feeling the author is pressing the subjects or situations for a particular point she's trying to make. Still, if you love music or studies of the 10,000 hour rule, you will probably enjoy it.

Bookmarked: Bill Bryson, THE LOST CONTINENT
What I wrote at the time: "It's the rare travel book that takes place in the U.S. and can look at it unsentimentally***; perhaps it took this long-time expat's meandering road trip to reveal the explosively funny and the painfully true about America."
What I'm thinking now: This is a placeholder because I couldn't make all 10 books Bill Bryson books. Not really, but seriously, I love this book, I love all Bryson, and at the same time don't know how I would decide among them if pressed today. It would probably make the top 3 along with NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND and A WALK IN THE WOODS, and be my most often re-read of those three, but beyond that it's just how I'm feeling that day. (Incidentally, Bill, your last travel book was published in 2002; time to get back on the road.)

What are some books that used to be your favorites?

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* Brush your shoulders off.
** If you really want to hear me carp on, buy me a drink and ask me about the state of Spanish literature in English translation. It's my personal grassy knoll.
** Dear Firefox spell check: Justify to me why this is not a word.