All for the books

I bet everyone reading this could write her or his own edition of ONE FOR THE BOOKS, Joe Queenan's memoir of the reading life. With all the idiosyncrasies and curmudgeonry included, this book spoke to me as a reader even when I violently disagreed with him (which was often). It's great fun to accept or dispute any kind of book-related judgment; why else am I hear?

As I learned from Queenan's memoir CLOSING TIME, he grew up in working-class Philadelphia toting his paperbacks on the bus to and from horrible factory jobs and dreaming of a way out. That doesn't give him any sympathy for people who never read, but sometimes I got the sense of him reading and acquiring books as the creation of a wall between that old time and the present -- a bulwark of knowledge no one can take away from him. Queenan has primarily worked as an essayist (in sort of a pop culture-y P. J. O'Rourke vein), even producing several books of his own, but ONE FOR THE BOOKS doesn't cover that ground, instead beginning from the realization that all of us must have one day, that we won't have time to read all the books we want. Not even close, not even a little bit.

Among Queenan's pronouncements covered in this book: He hates e-books and all things digital. He will gladly fling aside any book that doesn't please him, except when he stubbornly decides to commit to the end (well, that one sounds familiar at least). He's ruthless about giving books away, except for the ones he compulsively re-reads every year. In that vein, he's definitely a re-reader, and a man who clings to books he may never actually get around to reading -- but only certain books. He hates most books given to him as gifts, especially the well-meaning ones. Heaven forbid you try to relieve him of the tomes he associates with the years he lived in Paris as a young man, even the ones he can no longer read in French (or the ones he never got around to, then or now). And while he mildly despairs of his son's taste in reading material, he's still pretty pleased the kid takes after his old man.

I'd put ONE FOR THE BOOKS right up there with Anne Fadiman's books on reading, Stephen King's ON WRITING or the Nick Hornby Believer essay collections. I have more in common with this 62-year-old man than most people I know. Queenan may hate the above company, but he'd get used to it.

SWEET TOOTH: Sometimes I swear these men are out to get me

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You know, it's funny, when I make my summer reading lists I don't often consider how all the books are related (apart from the most obvious connections). That LEAN IN and SWEET TOOTH sat next to each other on my list this year was just a coincidence and on their faces seemed to have nothing related. But the deeper Ian McEwan's 1970s spy chronicle delves into the more disorderly aspects of the espionage organization, the closer it resembled an example of an extremely sexist, dysfunctional workplace -- only one whose business is the business of state.

The spy in question, Serena Frome, is recruited from Cambridge to join MI5, after puttering around a little aimlessly with a math degree and a secret flighty penchant for books. A woman with little ambition other than to live in London rather than with her parents in their small village, Serena becomes involved with a professor who recommends her to a position at MI5, something she sees as fraught with excitement and mystery by the simple token of not being able to discuss her rather pedestrian filing and secretarial work. Then, unexpectedly, she is recruited for an operation called "Sweet Tooth," a sort of back-door propaganda program aimed at providing stipends to up-and-coming writers with anti-Communist leanings without them knowing that the government was behind it all.

Finally, some real spy stuff! Only, Serena's election for this program is primarily based on the fact that she is young, female and charming, the opposite of the cartoon MI5 agent. Serena herself doesn't think it will work as much as they do:

"I felt obliged to make some form of intelligent objection. ‘Won’t I be like your Mr. X, popping up with a checkbook? [The target] might run at the sight of me.’

"‘At the sight of you? I rather doubt it, my dear.’

"Again, low chuckles all around. I blushed and was annoyed. Nutting was smiling at me and I made myself smile back.”

If you're sensing a relationship beyond patronage, you are not wrong. Serena vets a Thomas Haley, a professor of no great fame toiling along on some short stories, and chooses him for the program. Then they embark on an affair, and things get really complicated.

Although Serena is trusted to run her own operation (or so she thinks), in the office she is given no favors from this designation; if anything her workload increases, because she is keeping tabs on Haley in addition to doing all the filing and paperwork. Her only male friend in the office drops her soon after and then comes back to give a big mansplainy speech about the business of spying because she has the nerve to be hurt that they hung out and he never mentioned he was engaged:

“’Are women really incapable of keeping their professional and private lives apart? I’m trying to help you, Serena. You’re not listening. Let me put it another way. In this work the line between what people imagine and what’s actually the case can get very blurred. In fact that line is a big gray space, big enough to get lost in. You imagine things—and you can make them come true. The ghosts become real. Am I making sense?’

“I didn’t think he was. I was on my feet with a clever retort ready, but he’d had enough of me. Before I could speak he said more quietly, ‘Best to go now. Just do your own work. Keep things simple.’”

Soon, Sweet Tooth consumes Serena's life; Haley is her only source of human interaction, after her best friend is let go from the agency (whose arc itself was really interesting and which I could've used more of) and she moves in with a bunch of unfriendly girls with seemingly "normal" jobs. Her roommates, after all, are just another group of people she risks discovery from.

SWEET TOOTH takes its time getting going but I was riveted from about 75 pages in, particularly at the contrast between the cloak-and-dagger spy work and the often dreary, sometimes hostile office environment. The feminist implications of her place in the agency, at a time when women were still relegated to the clerical side, bleed over into her work as Serena tries to read the expectations for her to succeed as an agent, knowing the odds are stacked against her. Of course because it's McEwan, you can expect a giant Whoa of a conclusion that you'll want to reread and a twist I found cruel but somehow fitting.

Summer Reading: A Few Reasons Why Men Should Read LEAN IN, Too

I thought the coverage around LEAN IN, Sheryl Sandberg's business book on feminism and leadership published earlier this year, was ubiquitous till I talked to a man who'd never heard of it. Being seen reading it was common enough among my social circle -- 20 and 30somethings, primarily career-minded, urban, left-leaning. And women. Sure, a subtitle like WOMEN, WORK AND THE WILL TO LEAD and an author known for being a trailblazing Silicon Valley COO due to her gender is probably going to pull in a disproportionate number of female readers -- as well as Sandberg's topics of work-life balance and mentorship. It should be clear why those topics don't just apply to 50 percent of the population, but while I was deeply ashamed not to have read it around the time it came out, my male interlocutor was able to ask "What's LEAN IN?" with no embarrassment. Here are a few talking points I used to convince him to read it:

• The company man is dead, long live career planning. LEAN IN advocates that workers find ways to improve their companies' policies but also not be afraid to walk. Back when a breadwinner might stay at the same institution for a whole career, questions about role- and job-changing were much less common. Now most Americans can expect to switch companies, roles, even careers, not just those who might be planning for taking leave to start a family.
• Better leadership helps everyone. One argument for increasing women's participation in the work force which I had never heard before LEAN IN was to treat women stopping out like a brain drain. If 50 percent of the top talent in a given work situation is at risk of having to resign or stop out, that is a huge loss to the people who stay behind, not just those who leave. 
• Mentees need mentors. Sandberg devotes special attention to the important roles both male and female mentors can play in helping women advance their careers. Men could be in the position to help a female colleague out, or be mentored by one (and accept that help gracefully) -- reinforcing her importance at the office. This could be especially important in the type of company where a woman's day-to-day coworkers are all women, but upper management is disproportionately male. 
• Passive paternal parenting is for "Mad Men." The family structure of breadwinner-father, caregiver-mother has been essentially defunct for decades as most women in America (75%) work outside the home, and 40% are their households' primary breadwinners. Men are now expected to fully participate in parenting, and that's great, because just as with better corporate leadership, they have skills and talents to offer that shouldn't be ignored just because of their gender. LEAN IN's admonishment to pick a spouse who will be a good parent is a little uncomfortable to an unmarried person (I mean, how can you tell?!) but at least asking for, and getting, an active parent as a partner is well within reach.

Summer Reading 2013: Land Of The Free Edition

Reading list, activate:

Ian McEwan, SWEET TOOTH
Sheryl Sandberg, LEAN IN
Stacy A. Cordery, JULIETTE GORDON LOW
Joe Queenan, ONE FOR THE BOOKS
James Jones, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY
Robert Caro, THE POWER BROKER. I had it on last year's list and never got around to it, but this year I give myself no choice! I believe I may be more successful this year in general since 85% of my books are in lockup storage and it may be a while before I can get a library card.
Isabel Wilkerson, THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS -- One Book One Chicago selection for 2013
Jeff Chang, CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP: A HISTORY OF THE HIP-HOP GENERATION
Herman Wouk, MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR
Yael Kohen, WE KILLED: THE RISE OF WOMEN IN AMERICAN COMEDY
Samuel Butler, THE WAY OF ALL FLESH
Henry James, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE

Ancient history

One of my goals for this summer is to decide what to do about this mess. I attempted to purchase this blog's domain name from the person or entity who is currently parking on it (not the .ORG, they seem nice enough) and boy, if someone could laugh over e-mail that person or entity laughed at my pitiable offer.

I hate to make sacrifices on the altar of cleverness and personal significance for unimportant reasons. (Let's not even talk about the time I had a great idea for a blog called The Pioneer and the first person I mentioned it to said "Like The Pioneer Woman?" Nope, wait, never mind.)

GIF Reaction Friday: Rob Sheffield On Karaoke Edition

I have been an unreasonable champion of Sheffield's first two memoirs, LOVE IS A MIX TAPE and TALKING TO GIRLS ABOUT DURAN DURAN. His third, TURN AROUND BRIGHT EYES, will be out in August, at which time it will Jell-O wrestle Chuck Klosterman's new book (also due out this summer) for the title of Most Likely To Be Tucked Under A Hipster's Arm On The Way From The Beach To The Bar. (That fight will be emceed by our pal Nathan Rabin's new book YOU DON'T KNOW ME BUT YOU DON'T LIKE ME, mandatory reading out June 11.)

This seems like an appropriate time to initiate the Summer 2013 tab. It's hard to be sad when something so exciting is at hand.