DUSTY TOMES REVISITED

The rule in my house is simple: I only buy a book if I think it’s just about a sure thing that I’ll read it more than once. Otherwise, I limit myself to what’s available at the local library. Still, I make purchase mistakes from time to time–like this book, a great idea ruined by execrable writing–but those wind up being recycled at Half Price Books.

There are plenty of books I’ve read over and over, however, and I never seem to tire of them. Following are my picks of books to read over and over again.

• Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon by Joe Queenan: This is simply one of the funniest books I have ever read, or expect that I ever will read. Queenan is a first-class professional sourpuss, a writer with the gift for seeing the cloud behind every silver lining. His story of his descent into pop-culture purgatory, and his inability to free himself from same, should serve as a Distant Early Warning for anybody who’s thinking about having lunch at the Olive Garden. His other work is great, too, (well, except for My Goodness, which totally stank of a quick cash-in) but there’s something magical about seeing a top-shelf writer engage in recreational character assassination.
• The Blood of the Lamb by Peter de Vries: Talk about chilling. de Vries gets no love from contemporary irony-soaked readers, which is a shame, because the man was doing Jon Stewart before Jon Stewart was even born. While his more sarcastic works like Slouching Towards Kalamazoo or The Mackerel Plaza (source of the the most pointed barb ever aimed at Modernist religion, the Rev. Andrew Mackerel’s claim, “It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that He need not even exist in order to save us;” sadly, I know many preachers who would agree) usually get what little notice de Vries can muster any more, The Blood of the Lamb may be the ultimate example of how humanity is forced to relate to the Almighty. The novel’s protagonist loses everyone and everything important to him in life except his eleven-year-old daughter. Eventually, she contracts leukemia. He prays for a miracle and gets it–but then she dies of a nosocomial staph infection. TOne of the truest lines ever written comes next: “There comes a point in every person’s life where they’re faced with a choice between the foot of the cross, or the barrel of a gun.” If you can get through the depression and angst, you wind up enjoying Don Wanderhope’s spiritual journey.
• The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ As the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology by Jurgen Moltmann: Along the same lines as the previous book, The Crucified God is an important work about God’s failures. Moltmann rips into the optimistic nature of North American Christianity by lifting up the nature of Christ’s abandonment on the cross, and pointing out that true Christian faith begins not in “claiming the victory” but in accepting one’s share of the defeat. To me, the aspect of the faith that I’ve always had the most trouble with was understanding why Jesus had to die in order for sins to be forgiven–couldn’t an omnipotent God simply decide to wipe the slate clean? Moltmann answers in a surprising way: by denying the omnipotence of God, at least in the way that that omnipotence is usually understood. Easter Sunday I get, but I never understood Good Friday until I read this book.
• Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There by David Brooks: It’s hip to hate on David Brooks right now, but the man knows how to track a cultural trend. This book details the rise of $5 coffee and $13,000 refrigerators in exploring how what once was countercultural became throughly mainstream. Brooks also points out the very real status/wealth disconnect that many “elites” face–you know their names and their faces, but you wouldn’t want to try to live on their paychecks. A must-read for anybody interested in current cultural affairs; i.e., everybody.
• Made In America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson: If you love words and language, you need this book. Bryson examines how American English has changed from Colonial days to the present time, exploding conventional wisdom about both our language and our history (the Puritans let unmarried couples sleep together? “Ye” as in “Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe” was actually pronounced “the” and never “yee”?) page by page. His material on Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address alone would make this a great read, but that’s only a few pages in a book overflowing with fascinating information. His earlier book The Mother Tongue: The English Language and How It Got That Way is less essential, but still interesting. Bill Bryson is the Jay Farrar of non-fiction authors: willing to lavish amazong detail on a small but illuminating detail.
• Believers by Charles Baxter: I’m going to keep pimping this book until somebody out there tells me they’ve read it. Baxter is amazing, capable of creating complete characters with just a few lines. The first story in this book, “A Kiss Away,” is the tale of a young woman, new to the city, who meets a kind man in a coffee shop, begins a romantic entanglement with him, then learns that he may or may not have a history of domestic violence. And Baxter just leaves her twisting in the breeze, never conclusively answer question “will he or won’t he attack her?”–because if she doesn’t know, why should you get to? That’s the kind of writer Charles Baxter is.
• The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell: Poetry is not for wimps, and especially not this poetry. Kinnell stares down the maelstrom of 20th-century violence and tries to reconstruct a new world, one that will be safe for him, his small children, and all humanity. The images Kinnell uses are swirling and disparate, ranging from star-crossed lovers to soldiers in Vietnam attempting to wipe out villages. This is a book that will stay with you for a long time after reading it–if you can get through it, that is. Like I said, it’s not for wimps.
• Living More With Less by Doris Janzen Longacre: One of the touchstones of the “voluntary simplicity” movement, this (now-outdated) book serves as the prophet’s call to overly-materialistic American Christians, pointing out how the continual quest for “faster better more!” leads to spiritual deprivation and erodes a sense of community. Longacre even takes careful aim at the church itself, with its emphasis on buildings and programs over faith and spirituality. Reading this book is like reading Walden without Thoreau–less eloquent, but the merits of the simple life shine through, and by the end, you’ll be ready to burn half of everything you own. A new edition would really be welcome, though–difficult, since Longacre passed away some time ago. The companion cookbook is not for anybody who didn’t grow up on Midwest farm cooking, I fear.