I’ll never forget the look on her face … beaming through her exhaustion. She told me she stayed up until 4am to finish The History of Love in one fell swoop. I had finished the same book a day before and insisted she read it. I’ll never forget that look on my good friend Kaleen’s face. The look of unearthing a new world — one that would forever stick with her — one she simply *had* to stay up until 4am to unravel completely.
In the same way this image is burned in my memory, I can remember the exact moment I finished each of my most favorite novels. I try to read a book each week and I’ve been doing this for about a decade now. That’s 500+ books and five of them stand above the rest. Five of them that I will reread every single year again and again. The first best novel I read was in 2001 — Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. I finished it while hanging out at my regular coffee shop, The Blue Moon. At my table was a stack of letters I had just finished responding to and a worn journal full of quotes and articles. I had dial-up internet and a juno.com email address. No cell phone and I didn’t even know what digital cameras were. Life was more simple … I owned 5 shirts and 2 pants. I was simpler too.
In 2003 I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His magical realism shook my world and I’ve never stopped thinking about parallel realities or his haunting characters since. Appropriately, I finished this book on a Friday night around 3am in my host family’s house in Quito, Ecuador. I was living there while studying Latin American history and the Spanish language. There I met and became close with the members of a hugely popular band. We toured around the country and long before my professional photography days I was granted backstage access to shoot their shows. I was treated like a rockstar any place we went … art openings, private clubs, everywhere … I led a surreal and unforgettable life while there. A life I cannot imagine in the States. I’m still in touch with my host sisters … Ecuadorian versions of myself. South America is a place that makes my heart ache to think about. I miss it all the time.
In 2005 I finished The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and passed it right to my roommate Kaleen. We lived in an old and awesome house on the near east side of Madison while volunteering at a coffeehouse/music venue/restaurant. We were young, a little crazy, and driven … the people of our community talented and beautiful. We went out every night and threw the best parties (that was all Kaleen — I was never a good entertainer). I was transitioning from college to working life and totally undecided about my next step — Peace Corps, grad school, move away from Madison? Art and Photography were never on the agenda at this point — I was too scared. Those were dark days for me, actually. I’m really fortunate I had the roommates and friends I did at that point. Some of them stuck by me in ways I didn’t deserve. They will always be the closest to me, no matter the 936 or 2,091 or 1,533 or 840 miles between us.
It took four more years to discover another true favorite. In 2009 I finished East of Eden by John Steinbeck while on a roadtrip through the Southwest with Troy. I picked it up at a used bookstore in Sierra Vista, AZ and finished it while staying in Bisbee, near the border. I had short blonde pixie cut hair and a Canon Rebel (just for fun). I loved the desert and every minute in it … for its way of life and beauty, I fell in love with the American Southwest once again. The mountains and long dusty expanses have always felt like home to me.
On December 4, 2011 I finished The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. I’ll be rereading this along with the previously mentioned four novels the rest of my life. Ostensibly it’s about baseball. But really it’s about community, failure, calling, and connection. It’s teeming with the subleties and the layers of the Human Condition. Philosophical without being annoying or trying too hard. It’s magic. In the same way I passed The History of Love to Kaleen back in 2005, I want to pass The Art of Fielding on to you all right now. I’m thrilled to see so many of my friends and followers already ordering and reading it. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Left: me rereading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (circa 2003) & Right: me reading The Art of Fielding last weekend (on my iPhone!).
“There were no whys in a person’s life, and very few hows. In the end, in search of useful wisdom, you could only come back to the most hackneyed concepts, like kindness, forbearance, infinite patience. Soloman and Lincoln: This too shall pass. Damn right it will. Or Chekov: Nothing passes. Equally true.” — The Art of Fielding
