Summer Reading: Looking at Winston Churchill in all the wrong places

FORTY WAYS OF LOOKING AT WINSTON CHURCHILL is a meta-biography making the point that there is no such thing as objectivity in the genre. If you've got that point, you can probably skip this book.

I was very much looking forward to Gretchen Rubin's Churchill project; a self-described fan, she compares popular ideas about Churchill (that he was depressed, for example) as they have been depicted in different accounts of his life, sometimes making the case for both of them in the same chapter. (For example, one chapter argues that Churchill was a great politician, adept at working with people to achieve his ends; the other argues that he was not very well liked and points out all the times he was ousted and/or lost elections.)

This book made me want to rush to the defense of the biographies Rubin suggests are faulty (none of which I have read, to be fair), but also to point the finger back toward Rubin. If all biographers are fallible, then Rubin's account also lacks perspective in some critical moments, even as she admits that she personally tends toward lionizing Churchill. One of FORTY WAYS' forty chapters (get it?) is just a list of some of Churchill's bon mots, proving that he did know how to turn a phrase, but not much about the quality of his work overall. One is just a factual timeline, another a list of important people Churchill knew, which is great if you want to view him as self-aggrandizing, I guess, but it's not exactly a primary source. More troubling is the chapter titled "Churchill's Imperialism," making the case that he was very invested in Britain as Empire and that that philosophy helped shape his politics. This chapter would be better titled, "Not That He Was Alone At The Time, But Churchill Was Pretty Racist."
It's not a worthless project by a long shot, but if you want to read a biography about biographies I recommend Rick Moody's THE BLACK VEIL. (Note: Rubin is best known for the book she wrote after FORTY WAYS and one I liked more, a little cult hit called THE HAPPINESS PROJECT.) I did get a good laugh out of the chapter on Churchill and sex (summary: he didn't seem that interested, which everyone found or finds weird and tries to find the root cause) and on the tidbit that to keep his estate paid between government positions, one of England's finest historical figures was reduced to writing freelance articles with titles like "Iced Water" and "Is There Life on the Moon?" Profligate hack Churchill -- now there's a biography I want to read.

Fresh out of batteries but they're still making noise

HAMLET'S BLACKBERRY reminded me of two other books I read this year, Nicholas Carr's THE SHALLOWS and Matthew B. Crawford's SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT; author William Powers attempts to do for the modern world's emotional lives what Carr did for the modern brain, then offers philosophical solutions like Crawford's to problems of technological encroachment and digital distraction. That it's such a hybrid doesn't work well in its favor; I liked the book just about enough to finish but didn't get what I was really looking for.

The author contends, based on an essay he wrote as a fellow at Harvard (available here for free), that technology has altered and shaped our lives in ways we haven't even noticed -- which both Carr and Crawford argue -- and holds up seven philosophers to give us guidelines for taking back our lives. These philosophers' arguments, however, are familiar enough from other sources that their application here is fairly obvious. Gretchen Rubin's THE HAPPINESS PROJECT holds up Benjamin Franklin as an example just as Powers does, and it would be impossible to recount how many people in this technological space invoke poor Henry David Thoreau as a model of separation. (I suspect he would have brought his iPad to the pond, but that's neither here nor there.) It did make me want to read more on Seneca and the Stoics -- got any recommendations, primary or secondary?

Since (clearly) this is a subgenre of interest to me, I'm not sorry I picked up HAMLET'S BLACKBERRY, though its most interesting tidbit was contained in the title: While Elizabethan England didn't have the smartphone, Shakespeare and his contemporaries had "tables," little notebooks with pages that could be wiped off if needed so as to serve as a live to-do list or work in progress. (Just picture a slightly greasier Moleskine, it's easier.) As Powers points out, Hamlet even invokes the 'tables' in I.v. after he meets the Ghost:

My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark:

One assumes, of course, that Hamlet doesn't actually have to write down that he's just discovered his uncle is a stone cold killer -- but he had the technology which a generation earlier would have led to him carrying a slate under one arm. Good weapon, inconvenient writing device.

Admittedly, it's possible this book found me in the wrong place. I consider my relationship with my devices to be pretty healthy right now (although writing that makes it so creepy!) and I would have been more open to this book if that weren't the case. I got my own Blackberry earlier this year, and after the initial pitfalls I have established what I think are workable boundaries around it, which I can shift as needed depending on circumstances. I even have a designated no-Blackberry hobby, to the consternation of the friend who once texted me to get me to check my e-mail faster.

I don't think my coping strategies are any smarter than anyone else's in this regard. I was lucky to be a late adopter, to see the behaviors that I didn't want to emulate before I found myself unconsciously performing them. I don't want to trade down, but my own digital cleanup strategy is focused elsewhere. Hey, maybe I should write a book about it.

How to make yourself happy with books

I recently finished Gretchen Rubin's THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, a book whose overall cheeriness and array of applications snuck up on me a little. Rubin admits at the beginning that her life is pretty good overall -- working author, two happy children, nice New York apartment -- but that maybe she didn't appreciate how good it was, often enough.

Being a writer, reading played a part in Rubin's quest for happiness; here are her lessons that stuck out for me (in my words):

Abandon pretension and read what you really like. Rubin loves children's literature, so she decides to make a special effort to seek it out among her other, more "appropriate" reading choices. This decision went hand-in-hand with her choice to only listen to the pop music that she loved, rather than the jazz and classical music she felt she should be enjoying.
Buy the books that matter to you. Rubin describes her joy at finding a collectible set of books she had been looking for, even though her own husband points out that the books will sit on the shelf as largely a conversation piece. I think about something similar when I give away a 'classic' book to make room for something that will never be taught in college courses.
Share it with others. In keeping with her interests, Rubin started a children's literature book club that proved to be such a success she started a second club for people who didn't join the first one right away. (Check the acknowledgments to find out which other 'name' authors were numbered among those club members.)

I largely agree with these rules, although they share the book's bias overall towards the belief that its author has more money than time and the actions that stem from that. As long as I'm here, if I had to spell them out, a few of my own:

Ask people what they're reading. Ask everyone! People who do read are happy to tell you, and the ones who don't (or who act like it's a retrograde question to begin with) set themselves apart right away.
Keep a list. At the end of the year, I always put a list of all (or almost all) the books I read on this blog. But even if I didn't have a book blog, I would still keep that list for myself. It gives me a sense of accomplishment, and it allows me to look back and say, "That was the summer I read ____" and nostalgize a bit.
Stay up late. When I was a kid, the best thing was reading by flashlight and not getting caught, or even sitting downstairs with my dad and not being sent up to bed because I was "just finishing this chapter." Now I can stay up as late as I want, but I still enjoy that feeling of stealing time away from the end of the day.

You're probably here because books make you happy, but what are your rules?