Welcome to the third of my four Top 40 at 40 lists: forty books that have held special meaning for me at one time or another in my life. Like the other lists in the series, it is almost as long as a book itself.The Early Years
1. The Hobbit (1937) by J. R. R. Tolkien.2. The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) by J. R. R. Tolkien. Dad read the Tolkien tetraology to me in its entirety before I had finished kindergarten. His Gollum—and the one I hear in my head—sounds like Peter Lorre. I read the books for myself when I was in third grade and again in sixth grade, when Rusty Ruggia and I did an illustrated book report on them (the orcs I drew looked like gorillas). At some point in her Life Before Steve, Mari had sampled Tolkien, but hadn’t inhaled. At my urging she gave it another go and became almost as big a Tolkien toker as I am. She dug The Hobbit, but when she started The Fellowship of the Ring, she was very skeptical about the prospect of a Middle Earth journey that did not include Bilbo. Frodo and Sam ended up winning her over. I read the whole series again in anticipation of the release of Peter Jackson’s filmed version. My favorite scene in the series is the one in which the Fellowship comes across Balin’s Tomb in Moria. 3. The Fabulous Flight (1951) by Robert Lawson. The concept is wonderful: a tiny boy constructs a cabin that can be strapped to the back of a friendly gull who will fly him across the seas; but it is the drawings that make this classic a stand out.
The Elementary School Years
4. A Wrinkle in Time (1962). by Madeleine L'Engle.
5. Sounder (1969) by William H. Armstrong, and James Barkley. I read A Wrinkle in Time, Sounder, and Pride of the Yankees: the Lou Gehrig Story in rapid succession when I was in fourth or fifth grade. That’s three memorable tear-jerkers in a row.
6. The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956) by C.S. Lewis. The sequels didn’t reach the standard set by the the first book in the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and I was sorry to see the older children, Peter and Susan, eventually bow out. But it was nice to be afforded multiple entries into this alternative universe, which gave some hope that there was fantasy life beyond Middle Earth.
7. Secret of the Unicorn (1943) and Red Rackham's Treasure (1944) by Herge. I met Tin-tin at an independent bookstore when we were vacationing at the Morrison’s cabin in Taos. That, Paydirt! (an NFL football board game) and Nerf in the yard (especially the Staubach to Pearson bombs) were highlights of the trip for me. I also read my first Perry Mason on that trip. When we went back a year later, I got another Tin-Tin fix. I love the cliff-hanger at the end of the Unicorn.
8. The Giving Tree (1964) by Shel Silverstein. I played Boy and Holly Hodgkins played the Tree in “Love,” the Godspell-like dramatic production Dad put on at Central Christian in Fort Worth. The story is touching if you think about it from Tree’s perspective, but Boy is really kind of jerk.
9. The Book of Lists (1977) by David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace. And I’m still listing today.
The Junior High and High School Years
10. Watership Down (1972) by Richard Adams. Surprisingly dark account of the adventures of a gang of migrating rabbits.
11. The People's Almanac (1975) by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace. The internet before there was an internet.
12. The Family of Children (1979), ed. Jerry Mason. A collection of photographs of children in various moods and stages of life, ranging from the tragic to the joyous. The first birthday present I gave to María José. We recently gave a copy to Emilio’s babysitter, Emily.
13. Diary of Adam and Eve (1904-1906) by Mark Twain. Sheryl and Ray Fancher read excerpts to our junior high youth group at First Christian in Wichita Falls at the Sex and Sexuality retreat. One of my favorite all-time lines from a book: “Wherever Eve was, there was Eden.”
The College Years
15. Please Understand Me (1984) by David Keirsey. Introvert/Extrovert; Sensing/Intuitive; Thinking/Feeling; Judging/Feeling. A personality classification system that beats horoscopes and palmistry even if some academics do question its scientific value.
16. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) by Ernest Hemingway. Read it the summer before I went to Spain to begin my junior year abroad. Hemingway's Spain promised romance, adventure, and heartbreak and I would got a little bit of all that there.
17. The Sheltering Sky (1949) by Paul Bowles. The Let’s Go guidebooks recommend Paul Bowles to those who travel to Morocco and my Moroccan adventures inspired me to read everything I could find that he had written. Bowles makes Morocco sound like a very dangerous place and that added drama to my travels there.18. The World According to Garp (1982) by John Irving. I saw the movie before I read the book. When I was told that John Irving had studied at the Institute for European Studies in Vienna when he was in college (as I did), I read Setting Free the Bears, his first novel, which is set in Vienna. I ended up reading everything else he wrote up through The Cider House Rules. Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire are my favorites. My favorite line from Garp poignantly combines tragedy with humor: “I mith him.” 19. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) by Milan Kundera.
20. Ferdydurke (1937) by Witold Gombrowicz. I was introduced to Kundera and Gombrowicz in the course on East European literature that I took when I was in Vienna, and during my senior year at TCU I asked Dr. Loud to supervise an independent study project that would require me to read everything these two authors had written. I used one of the papers I wrote for that course in the application materials I sent to the University of Chicago. I love the way Kundera combines fiction and essay. He is a master of the genre. But the absurd outrageousness of Gombrowicz’s sense of humor speak to me. I love the studied silliness of the "Preface to the Child Runs Deep in Filibert" chapter in Ferdydurke.
21. Slaughterhouse Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut.22. Mother Night (1961) by Kurt Vonnegut. During my senior year, I read pretty much everything Vonnegut had published. Mother Night is my favorite, partly because of this memorable line: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”
The Expatriate Years
23. Immortality (1990) by Milan Kundera. For some reason, I accidentally read some of the chapters in this book in the wrong order. Because Kundera’s chapters tend to be self-contained units that derive little of their power from narrative drive, it didn’t really matter.
24. Midnight's Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie. I turned to Rushdie when the Ayatollah issued a fatwa against the author of The Satanic Verses and was delighted to find an author with such a prolific imagination.
25. Memorias de Fuego (1982-1986) by Eduardo Galeano. María José turned me on to this, the only foreign-language text on the list. I used it as a vocabulary enrichment tool and drew pictures of the new words I came across, some of which made their way into the pages of The Madrider. I appreciate Galeano’s efforts to link the histories of exploited peoples and rebellious heroes in North and South America.
26. Gulliver's Travels (1726/1735) by Jonathan Swift. In anticipation of a possible return to grad. school, I read the Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Great Authors from cover to cover, pausing along the way to pick up some biographies and important novels along the way. I learned about my taste in classic British literature in the process: Thomas Hardy and George Eliot got a thumbs up. Thackeray got a big thumbs down. The gold medal, though, goes to Jonathan Swift, whose hilarious abuse of the human race puts him in a pantheon beside Mark Twain, and Kurt Vonnegut.
27. Professing Literature (1989) by Gerald Graff. The best advice I got about where to apply to graduate school came from TCU professor of religion, Claudia Camp, who recommended that I find a scholar I’d like to work with and then apply to the school where they are currently employed. When Mari and toured the American South in the summer of 1992, I located Professing Literature and Literary Theory (see below) on the shelves of the Emory University bookstore and soon thereafter Jerry Graff and Terry Eagleton became the scholars I dreamed of working with. Five years later, Jerry Graff comes to Tulsa, Mom and Dad turn out to see him, put in a good word for me, and I establish e-mail contact. The next summer Lisa and Dad and I visit the University of Chicago and learn that Eagleton will be a guest professor in the master’s degree program Graff is running there. I apply, get a tuition break and in the fall of 1998, Eagleton and Graff represent two-thirds of my fall trimester. As a course line-up, it was the highlight of my grad school years.
28. Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983) by Terry Eagleton. Memorize this book from cover to cover and you'll have the equivalent of a quality education in English. I trust Eagleton as much as any writer I know.
29. Friday Night Lights (1990) by H. G. Bissinger. An illuminating examination of an Odessa Permian High School football world that shaped the two years of my life (and left a scar on my chin and broke the tip of the middle finger on my left hand).
30. The Woman with Two Vaginas (1995) by Denise Duhamel. I’m not a big fan of poetry, but I am a fan of Denise Duhamel’s poetry.31. Beyond the Culture Wars (1993) by Gerald Graff. Has done more than any other text to shape my view of education.
The Grad School Years
32. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (1981) by Joseph M. Williams. One of the most valuable aspects of my passage through the University of Chicago was my encounter with the Little Red Schoolhouse, the University of Chicago writing program founded on principles of composition articulated by Joe Williams. Now my inner-Joe Williams offers counsel on almost every sentence I write.
33. Sensational Designs (1985) by Jane Tompkins.
34. West of Everything (1992) by Jane Tompkins. I appreciate the tools of literary analysis that Jane employs in both of these lively, forcefully argued studies of American popular culture. The first defends popular American female novelists of the 19th century that the American literary establishment has traditionally dismissed; the second criticizes the misogyny and anthropocentrism of Western films and dramas which Jane cops to enjoying in spite of herself. West of Everything is the kind of book I’d like to write on the subject of educator-hero films.
35. The Trouble with Principle (1999) by Stanley Fish. The course on Liberalism that I took with Fish in the fall of 2000 was based on this text. It was one of the highlights of my grad school years. As a result of taking this course, I no longer identify myself as a “liberal.”
36. Clueless in Academe (2004) by Gerald Graff. I watched this one grow, was given a generous tribute on the acknowledgements page, and scored my first publication critiquing one of the excerpted chapters!
37. They Say / I Say (2006) by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein-Graff. Knowing this text frontwards and backwards greatly improved the quality of my teaching experiences.
38. Nice Work (1988) by David Lodge. I originally came to Lodge for Morris Zapp, a fictional character based on Stanley Fish, but I have returned to Lodge for his intelligent exploration of the inner life of academics like the feminist theorist who is one of the two main characters in this novel.
39. March (2005) by Geraldine Brooks. The surprises in this fantasy about the Civil War experiences of the father of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women were enhanced by my knowledge of the character’s original model—Louisa’s father, Bronson—who figures large in my dissertation-in-progress.40. This Land is Your Land (2002) by Woody Guthrie and Kathy Jakobson. Emilio and I have enjoyed exploring Woody’s lyrics and Kathy’s illustrations on a nightly basis.
Earlier this week, the Swiss-based New Open World Corporation (NOWC) announced the winners of a worldwide vote for the New Seven Wonders of the World:
7. Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro (see photo at left)
Seven Wonders of the World That I Have Seen
Seven Wonders I'd like to See Before I Turn in My Passport:
When we got up on the sixth, we discovered that our Comcast Triple Play--phone, TV and internet service—was out of commission. We were then none too pleased to learn that the understaffed Comcast repair team could not fit us into their busy repair schedule until Sunday, when they promised to drop by some time between 8 a.m. and noon.
After Mari dragged me away from the stevesforty blog (see the new link at left), I picked up the gang in a rented I-GO and headed to Evanston. Lunch at Chili's--a birthday hamburger for me and chocolate molten dessert--then grocery shopping at the World Market. Emilio (who loves car rides) fell asleep on the way home and we spent the balance of the afternoon preparing the house and yard for the arrival of Jack, Julie, Nathaniel, Fernando, Lisa, Bob and Hillel (see video above). It was the first time any of them had met each other (except for those who were married to each other or were of the same genetic family).
Well, this day is off to a great start. Lisa and Dad called early this morning (any time before 10 a.m. is early for me) with directions to this amazing blogsite. I have been wallowing in it ever since, but my specially dressed son (see photo at left) and my wife are now reminding me that the birthday show must go on. I look forward to more reading, but we're headed out now, care of our friends at I-Go. I want to thank all of you who have participated in this labor of love, though, especially Dad and Lisa who did the heavy lifting.
The forty folks listed here are turning forty with me this year (I’ve got less than 24 hours left as a thirty-something). Most of the athletes are retired, of course; those that are not have a slight whiff of the geezer about them (Kenny Lofton, say). Some of the actors seem to be on the downside of their careers (Laura Dern?), too, but others are on the rise (Miranda Otto) and some are at the top of their game (Will Ferrell). The writers seem like newbies. My considered decision not to pursue a career as a professional athlete is looking pretty good now.
The Newspaper Staff:
Class Clowns:
Oscar-winning lead actors (male):
2. Miranda Otto
The One-Time World Record Holders (in the 100 meters):
1. John Smoltz (see photo at right). Cy-Young award winner, 9-time all-star--including this year--with a 202-142 lifetime record is the only pitcher in MLB history with more than 200 wins and more than 150 saves. Lifetime ERA: 3.27.
In the Boxing Ring:
Welcome to the third of my four Top 40 at 40 lists: forty books that have held special meaning for me at one time or another in my life. Like the other lists in the series, it is almost as long as a book itself.
4. A Wrinkle in Time (1962). by Madeleine L'Engle.
14. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain. The episodes involving the King and the Duke have always been my favorites. One of good things about Jerry Graff is that he indicates enthusiasm for a plan by quoting from the book: “If that don’t fetch them, then I don’t know Arkansaw!” The best edition of the novel is the one Jerry and Jim Phelan edited, which includes critical readings of the text. My favorite critical reading of the novel, though, "What's funny about Huckleberry Finn?" , by Sacvan Bercovitch, is not in the Graff-Phelan edition.
16. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) by Ernest Hemingway. Read it the summer before I went to Spain to begin my junior year abroad. Hemingway's Spain promised romance, adventure, and heartbreak and I would got a little bit of all that there.
21. Slaughterhouse Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut.
30. The Woman with Two Vaginas (1995) by Denise Duhamel. I’m not a big fan of poetry, but I am a fan of Denise Duhamel’s poetry.
32. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (1981) by Joseph M. Williams. One of the most valuable aspects of my passage through the University of Chicago was my encounter with the Little Red Schoolhouse, the University of Chicago writing program founded on principles of composition articulated by Joe Williams. Now my inner-Joe Williams offers counsel on almost every sentence I write.
35. The Trouble with Principle (1999) by Stanley Fish. The course on Liberalism that I took with Fish in the fall of 2000 was based on this text. It was one of the highlights of my grad school years. As a result of taking this course, I no longer identify myself as a “liberal.”
38. Nice Work (1988) by David Lodge. I originally came to Lodge for Morris Zapp, a fictional character based on Stanley Fish, but I have returned to Lodge for his intelligent exploration of the inner life of academics like the feminist theorist who is one of the two main characters in this novel.
39. March (2005) by Geraldine Brooks. The surprises in this fantasy about the Civil War experiences of the father of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women were enhanced by my knowledge of the character’s original model—Louisa’s father, Bronson—who figures large in my dissertation-in-progress.
