Reassessing the List

Sean,

per our conversation about the future of the List, I think you're right. I don't feel comfortable advocating books for inclusion in advance of having read them, even with the 'classics' (although those are usually a safe bet). From a practical standpoint, I think it is necessary to have A list, if only to have a guide of books to read each year, but that doesn't have to be synonymous with THE List. Hopefully, this will allow us to read potential List books, but I think I've found more books I want on the List from my random selections than those we had originally planned to include.

One such example of this is the book I'm currently reading, Reinventing Knowledge. I highly recommend we include it in the List, as it is essentially a history of the List; specifically, the making and preservation of the Western Canon. I'm only halfway through, but definitely imppressed; in addition to the subject matter, it's well-researched, and (to me) even more importantly, well-written. It's a thick little book - 275 pages with only six chapters and a conclusion, but I honestly have a hard time putting it down. If I wasn't stealing time to read right before bed (and losing sleep because of it), I'd have finished the book already.

I'll write a more through review of Reinventing Knowledge later, after I finish it, but it's the type of book I want us to include on the List. And I discovered it the way we probably will most List books - by trolling the history section of my library. I added it to my personal reading list only because I thought it would be interesting reading for a project on knowledge management I'm doing at work. At the time, I was looking for Boorstin's The Creators, another in his series with The Discoverers, which was recommended by many for the List. I think I've told you, but if not, The Discoverers bored me to tears. I could not make myself read it, and I am definitely a completionist when it comes to reading! The Creators is still tentatively on the List plan for this year, but I don't expect it to make the final cut.

I have to dig out my reading list from last year since it has my final notes, but I think that I'll continue this year much the same as I did the previous one - reading anything that catches my fancy, and trying to include as much of the List's planned entries as possible. At the end of this year, since it will mark the end of the first 'era' of the List, you and I should sit down and review 10-30 books for inclusion in years 1&2 (I am counting them as a unit, so averaging 15 books a year, not 60 total). In the mean time, this is what I'm reading:

Reading 2009

Non-Fiction
Trivium- Joseph
Royal Nonesuch- Phillips
Ideas that Conquered the World
Discover Your Inner Economist
Fifth Discipline- Peter M. Senge
Future and Its Enemies- Postrel
Cyberprotest- Dahlgren
Reckless Mind- Lilla
Living High and Letting Die
Always On – Baron
Future Imperfect – David Friedman
Distracted – Jackson
Cognitive Diversity – Scott Page
Inventing Human Rights - Lynn Hunt
Crowd-Sourcing
This Is Your Brain on Music
Reinventing Knowledge
Farewell to Alms
Bottom Billion
Hackers and Painters

Fiction
At Swim-Two-Birds
Bangkok 8
Evidence of Things Unseen- Wiggins
Devil Wears Prada
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
Middlesex
Acts of Faith- Caputo
27th City- Franzen
Passage
Last Cavalier- Dumas, trans. Lauren Yoder (carry over from last year's reading)
Carry On, Jeeves

The List (potentially)
A Brief History of Time
A Little History of the World - Gombrich
A World History - McNeill
An Urchin in the Storm
Art of the Novel- Milan Kundera
Big History
Biography: A Brief History- Nigel Hamilton (carry over from last year)
But Is It Art? – Freeland
Clan of the Cave Bear
Critical Mass – Ball
Curtain: Essay in Seven Parts- Milan Kundera, trans. Linda Asher
Golden Bough
History of God
How to Read a Book - Adler
How to Read and Why - Bloom
I Have Landed Introducing Aesthetics – Kul-Want
Perennial Philosophy – Huxley
Power of MythReligions of Man
Six Great Ideas – Adler
Story of Us Humans
Ten Geographic Ideas that Changed the World
The Creators
The Overflowing Brain
The Rhetoric of Fiction
The Stuff of Thought
Varieties of Religious Experiences
Walking on Water- Jensen
What Good Are the Arts?- John Carey
Your Inner Fish

Other/Additional (as in, will/*should* be the last to be read)
One Economics, Many Recipes - Rodrik
Origins: A Memoir - Amin Maalouf
Ethical Shopping - Young and Welford
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism - Baumol
Not Buying It
Letters to a Young Activist
Bad Modernisms- Mao and Walkowitz
Peasants, Traders and WivesAnthropology, Development, and the Post-Modern Challenge- Gardner and Lewis
Plowshares and Pork Barrels- Pasour
I Write What I Like- Biko
Africa Unchained
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
When Things Fell Apart - Robert H. Bates
On Being Certain
After War
Love the Work, Hate the Job - David Kusnet
Enterprise 2.0
Momentum
Everything Is Miscellaneous
Groundswell
Fear and Trembling - Kirkegaard
Wikinomics

Book Lust; Sean's Version

So I long ago promised something resembling an introduction to my taste, and I suppose I need to offer some sort of frame of reference for my comments and contributions. I’ll update my Amazon Wishlist eventually, but for now, you’ll just have to be satisfied with a brief overview of my favorites and current reads.

Let me point out, first of all, that the best resource for my book current booklust can be found on my Facebook Visual Bookshelf, which is tracking every book I’ve read/am reading/want to read here in China, or rather, since June of 2007. The tracking includes books I’ve borrowed from friends or my cohort, Mike’s bookshelf. It also keeps you posted on the unread books on (only) my bookshelf, and the books I’m working on at any given moment. As of this entry, it shows me as currently reading Songbook by Nick Hornby (finished since I wrote this entry), A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths, Walking On Water by Madeleine L’Engle, and A Beginner’s Guide to the World Economy by Randy Charles Epping. I’m also registered as in the middle of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, but I haven’t so much as glanced at that book in months. As a matter of course and commitment, I’m also “currently reading” The Bible.

Seeing as how Mike has turned the Visual Bookshelf into a competition of sorts, I can guarantee you it will be updated frequently. The reads I’m most looking forward to this year are mostly from my bookshelf since I can’t count on getting home by 2009. I’m really excited to read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, and I’m thinking I’ll take on The Brothers Karamazov if I can fit it in. More generally off this list, my favorite authors in no particular order are Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. I probably ought to add Leo Tolstoy to that list after falling completely in love with both War & Peace and, so many years ago, Anna Karenina.

Anyhow, soon I'll also post my Movie Lust and Music Lust, but I didn't want to flood the blog. Catch you later.

-S

History According to Tolstoy

I apologize for my absence, life has kept me quite…occupied. I'm going to strive to update one of my four blogs at least once a day,from soonish on out, I promise. For that kind of consistency, I'm going to need to make sure I can get ahead of myself, writing-wise.

Since I last posted, I've finished War & Peace, How to Read a Book by Adler, and How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Foster and I've started A Sideways Look at Time by Griffiths. But first, let me talk about War & Peace. After finishing, War & Peace feels like an immense accomplishment. The last 100 pages are quite taxing but after finishing it, I absolutely believe it belongs on Year 1 of The List—more as a starter case than anything else, I think. You see,this first year is about "How to Use the List: Theories and Thought Exercises," and so M and I (by far mostly M) have struggled to look for books that will enlighten one on the meaning of reading and to a certain extent, life and time in general (aren't the two synonymous on some philosophical level?).

War & Peace is both. What is the meaning of reading for enrichment if not to accomplish a thorough reading of a masterpieces such as Tolstoy's War & Peace. Moreover, Tolstoy's historical theories are worth considering in the grand scheme of learning how to use The List. His idea is basically this—history as written by historians is fatally flawed because in his view, it generally fails to take account of the conditions of the general population. For Tolstoy the history that matters is that of the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs and every other myriad families fumbling their way through "history." Too often historians give account only of events or the personal conditions that lead historical leaders/"great men" to do whatever they do. Such accounts are insufficient, and we lose sight of the brave soldiers who brashly charge into action, the "historically" insignificant motivations of a man to be a mid-level government decision-maker, or the morbid interloper who ruins romances and lives out of revenge,spite, or hedonistic malevolence.

Is this true? I think the story makes a good case, if not an unnecessary argument altogether. But what an enjoyable way to read it—and what a great way to kick-off a 20+ year long examination of humanity's artistic history.

Read it already.


- S

The Case for Literature

To be honest, I’m not sure how to react to “The Case for Literature” (the essay, not the book). Perhaps it’s because it’s “conceit” is stated simply as a matter of course or fact, and argued so clearly that I find it hard, and/or pointless to argue with him. The only thing I really firmly disagree with him on is a pretty blatant hypocrisy in paragraph 35 (or around there). Gao makes the specific point that “The writer is also not a prophet.” Yet he spends much of the remainder of the essay prophesying (especially in paragraph 37). Perhaps he wasn’t speaking of “prophecy” in the context of public appearances (such as this Nobel Prize acceptance speeches) and only in their work—but I think that he ought to have been more careful or clear about what he meant by that.

I don’t disagree, I don’t think the writer is a prophet at all—as he seems to point out, his or her works are simply vehicles for personal views and emotions, and the audience digests it as it will, but if a man is a prophet, and that man is a writer (take the case of F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby), then it doesn’t preclude the notion, only intention.

Anyhow, for me, the piece left little reaction room—and while we don’t really have the readership yet to vet a good public discussion of the relevant issues that arise from the essay, here were some of my lingering conceptual questions:

Why are literature, art, and music so often censored? What makes them so dangerous?

In paragraph 33, Gao says that "The writer cannot fill the role of the Creator so there is no need to inflate his ego by thinking that he is God." What about Tolkien? I’m not a fan of The Lord of the Rings or its universe, but Tolkien worked hard to developan entire mythology around his work, and in fact, that was his intention. In that sense, could Tolkien be considered God (or rather, A god?)?

In paragraph 58, Gao says that “it is actually not the challenge of the writer to society but rather the challenge of his works." This brings to mind the classic Gandhi quote, "we must be the change we wish to see in the world." Can’t a writer consciously challenge the world intrinsically in his works? Is it really an either/or proposition?

Anyhow, a dry piece, but accordingly essential. I can’t wait to come home in April and get a hold of the other readings for this year!

-S

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

I took a break from reading W&P to read Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Like a Professor (perhaps hoping that it would improve my reading of W&P - that remains to be seen).

I actually have very little to say about this book, other than I loved it. Of the books I've read so far, of the books that I will read for the List, this is definitely one of the most enjoyable.

The chapter list is fairly comprehensive. While, as he notes, the topics covered aren't exhaustive, they would give anyone a good start into the realm of literary understanding and criticism. Each is accessible, providing thought-provoking but recognizable examples to learn from and digest. I haven't read most of the books he discusses but he has made me look forward to reading them (although, really, it's not hard to do that).

The chapters are self-contained units, but Foster takes care to use the same sources through several chapters, and reference previous themes he has discussed to build a more complete picture of the work.

At the end of the book, he includes an exercise for practice (A Test Case), but participation is obviously optional, and since I read it at 11 last night, I didn't bother, and still learned a lot.

My one quibble is I don't agree with him at all about Song of Solomon. The imagery he discusses are there, but I think the novel's character development is sufficiently flawed to negate its potential.

Foster is engaging and helpful, and is definitely one of my favorite English professors I've never had. This book is the best of English class with none of the worst (like homework, or even really reading the numerous texts he references). I would thoroughly recommend this to anyone attempting a project like the List, or even just anyone wanting to get the most from their reading, and pop culture more broadly.


- M

Tapestry

I think that the thing I love most about War & Peace is probably the richness of variety in the characters. There is a VAST range of personalities, motivations, attitudes, desires, and needs on display. Consequently, relationships as they are portrayed in literature are taking on whole new meanings for me. Indeed, it will be hard to ever look at a typical fiction's relationship dynamics ever again without feeling some hollow ring of sadness that Tolstoy is not writing it. I think this comes from the characters seeming to be in such relief against a theater that most authors find inaccessible. I think in the end, Tolstoy just committed to his story and his characters in a way few authors do (dare I say, "can"?). One would have to commit to this level in order to lay out such a staggering array of people and such a sprawlingly lengthy work. Every time I pick it up, I think "this is what it takes to commit and this is what happens when you do." In the end, I suppose that's the real root of my love affair with War & Peace. I do love the characters and the stories, and I'll discuss them more at length--but Tolstoy's commitment is inspiring and rewarding.

So this entry was short and rambly. I'm a rambly kind of guy. But not short. So you can usually expect me to be rambly. But if you see me, I won't be short. It was written in a cab at 12am. What do you want?

-S

An Introduction

Hi, all, and welcome to The List.

My name is Sean and I live in China. So as I noted in the other half of the The Awesomeosity Project (TAP)—Blogworthy, if you are ever reading an entry where I seem like I’m not trading in the same cultural currency you are, then it’s because I’m not.

For me, The List is an especially bold undertaking, since I’m going to have a hell of a time getting the books I need for it—reading material on-demand in China is out of the question at this point, so I have to rely on a planned trip home in May, meaning that I’ll be far behind on the novels. In the meantime, I’ve started tackling the only fiction that’s on The List for Year 1: Tolstoy’s War & Peace, so you can expect some posts on that soon, and Mariel has been generously sending me the essays as she obtains them, so I can also keep up there.

In the meantime, for me, The List is not so much about a sense of accomplishment as it is about the absolute drive to know everything. Of course I don’t expect to obtain omniscience, but if you were to look at my Facebook profile under interests, you would find the intentionally ubiquitous word “everything.” And it’s true. So as far as my minor contributions to the literary content of The List goes (I’ll probably have a lot more to say once we start working out the Music and Movies part), I’m much more interested in literature that operates as a mirror of the human experience and a repository of collective knowledge and the simple necessities, such as The Odyssey. Music and Movies will also reflect that interest as well, I hope.

And that’s my biography pertaining to my participation here. I hope you all join in, and if you’d like to contribute, either to the blog or a view on some media that should be added to The List itself, please contact us at our addresses listed on the side.

I’ll post again by Tuesday with something resembling my Booklust 2008. ‘Til then, happy reading!

-S