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The Most Influential Books in My Life

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I Read All These Books Multiple Times, Starting at Least Thirty Years Ago

The following is a re-post from ten years ago. I still feel the same way about all these titles.

These are not necessarily the greatest books I have ever read. They are, however, the ones that have most influenced me. Each of them, I have read multiple times, and I first read them all before 1985. I have presented them here in alphabetical order by author:

  1. Anonymous. Njals Saga. Why haven’t more Americans read this book? It tells of a time when Iceland was governed by clans, and justice was crude but effective. It’s one of two Icelandic sagas that have a museum dedicated to them. The Njals Saga museum is in Hvöllsvollur, and I have visited it twice. The other honors Egils Saga and is located in Borgarnes.
  2. Balzac, Honoré de. Old Goriot. How does a young man make his way through life? Balzac’s hero, Eugène de Rastignac, is one of the great heroes in fiction.
  3. Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. Borges has been one of my teachers, having turned me on to so many of the books, people, and places that have mattered in my life. I am re-reading it now for the fifth time.
  4. Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagonia. Maybe not every word that Chatwin writes is true, but even his fictions have lured me to the southern tip of Argentina twice, and soon, for the third time.
  5. Chesterton, G. K. The Man Who Was Thursday. Learn with Gabriel Syme how to see the lamppost from the light of the tree instead of vice versa. Here we are in the world of paradox.
  6. García Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. This is a book I bought at a souvenir stand at the ruins of Chichén Itzá in Yucatán. It showed me that life was magical.
  7. Highet, Gilbert. The Art of Teaching. Originally, I wanted to become a college professor. I never quite made it, but Highet made me wish I had. I first read this book while I was in high school.
  8. Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Another high school read: How does one tread the fine line between genteel poverty and selling out?
  9. Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time. I am reading this now for the third time. I hope to live to read it several times more. Generally, it takes me a decade to re-read all seven novels in the series. When reading it, I am totally absorbed in the world of Marcel.
  10. Strunk, William and White, E. B. The Elements of Style. Strunk & White showed me that good writing is essentially simple and direct. Another classic from my teen years.

I could easily add more titles, but these titles keep swirling around in my head and influencing me.

Some Travelers in the Middle East

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Dromedary Camel

In the heat of summer, I tend to read books written by travelers in the deserts of this world. Here are just a few of my favorites, with an emphasis on older sources.

Charles M. Doughty: Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888)

This is the gold standard. Doughty, a poet and Anglican minister, spent months on the Arabian peninsula at some considerable danger to himself. Interestingly, his book inspired one T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, in his own travels during the First World War. In fact, Lawrence wrote the introduction to my Dover edition. By the way, this is not an easy read; but it is a rewarding one.

T. E. Lawrence: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926)

Read Lawrence’s own account of his attempt at mobilizing the Arabs against the German-allied Turkish sultanate. What are the seven pillars of wisdom? Well, actually, Lawrence never made that clear. He planned to write a more massive work but used the original title for the one he finally published.

Sir Richard Francis Burton: Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madina and Meccah (1855-56)

This one’s a classic. Burton successfully posed as an Afghan doctor and visited the forbidden cities of Medina and Mecca during the Haj pilgrimage, which he describes in great detail. Burton was a linguist and polymath, so he was able to beard the Arabs in their own den.

Freya Stark: Multiple Works

How was a British woman able to travel by herself through the Middle East and still live over 100 years? She wrote over twenty extremely readable books, many of which are still in print today. Check out the list of her works in Wikipedia.

Gertrude Bell: Syria, the Desert& the Sown (1907)

Yes, another of those talented and indomitable British women. This one was well connected with the Foreign Office and had some say in the region’s sad history.

Health

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Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
View all responses

My main strategy is to vary my diet, being sure to include a variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables. I believe that one’s diet should be varied and healthy, with not too much meat. As a diabetic (Type 2), I try to maximize the amount of fiber in my diet.

Heyday Is Over

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The Unmarvelous Marvel Universe

When I first came to Los Angeles at the tail end of 1966, it was the beginning of a Golden Era for people like me who loved the cinema and saw it as an art form that would prevail well into the next century.

Only, it didn’t. The great Hollywood directors sputtered out with films that were pale copies of their best work. There was John Ford’s 7 Women (1966) and Howard Hawks’s Rio Lobo (1970). On the plus side, there were the French cinéastes of the Nouvelle Vague, including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and Agnes Varda. And, across the Pacific, the Japanese were making great films which I have never tired of watching.

It was in 1968 that Andrew Sarris published The American Cinema:Directors and Directions, 1929-1968. It was a revision and expansion of an issue of Film Culture that came out several years earlier which I had photocopied while I was at Dartmouth College and which I always kept at my side.

But other things were happening. Hollywood was sputtering out like a volcano in its final throes. The film distribution companies were run by yahoos who insisted that people of my frame of mind were out-of-touch elitists and what the filmgoing public really wanted was Thoroughly Modern Millie and the Marvel Universe.

In the course of several decades, there was a dribble of good films from Hollywood and abroad, but mostly an avalanche of mediocrity. At the same time, it was getting harder to see the films I loved. I recorded hundreds of films on VHS videotape—but then videotape died. I switched to DVD, but now I am beginning to encounter “laser rot.”

I have in my library a number of volumes that are over a hundred years old. Unless they are destroyed, they will be readable for at least another hundred years. Such is not the case with films. The media on which they are stored has to be changed every few years because of the rate of change in the digital world.

So I have concluded that it will be difficult to be a film lover. Yet I almost never see current Hollywood film products in theaters. Sometimes on HBO or Showtime, but never at a cinema.

Fortunately, my books are still quite readable; and I am diving into them voraciously.

“People Who Do Things”

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American Poet and Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Here is a funny poem from Dorothy Parker, whose work I have hereto ignored but now begin to see the light:

Bohemia

Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses’ necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!

Fantasyland

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Young American men lead a rich fantasy life. It is not enough to be a macho beast: One also has to look like one. In fact, the look is more important than the reality. All one has to do is get the appropriate tattoo, wear intimidating facial hair, drive a 4×4 pickup truck, and hang out with other macho wannabes at the appropriate meeting places.

I became ever more aware of this tendency when I reached an age which would make any macho pretense ridiculous.

As I drive the highways of Los Angeles, I see all around me vehicles for which the owners put up huge amounts of money—not for any realistic expectations, but to belong to a “fantasy league” of young men pretending to be tougher and more suave than they could ever be in real life. They want the street cred of a Danny Trejo while subsisting on Honey Nut Cheerios.

I don’t have any street cred. When I was young, however, I would love to have been thought of as a real dude—rather than a real dud. At least, living as I do is cheaper than trying to shore up a false image.

South Bay Greek Festival

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Fountain at St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church

Between Memorial Day Weekend and early October, there are several Greek festivals in Southern California. Typically, Martine and I visit the following Greek Orthodox churches during festival time:

  • St. Nicholas in the San Fernando Valley
  • St. Katherine in Redondo Beach
  • The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Long Beach
  • Saint Sophia Cathedral near downtown L.A.

The best things about these festivals are the Greek food, usually cooked by very competent Greek housewives—accompanied by some excellent pastries. The other thing is that the clergy at these festivals do an excellent job of proselytizing the visiting crowds.

Today, for instance, the Protopresbyter of St, Katherine’s, Father Michael Courey, is an expert on icons and gave an excellent slide presentation entitled “Byzantine Iconography” in the church sanctuary.

Although I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, I find myself drawn to the Greek Orthodox church for a number of reasons, not least among which is the excellent food. I even used to attend the Greek cooking demonstrations at St. Katherine and Santa Sophia conducted by Pitsa Captain and the late Akrevoe Emmanouilides.

Waiting in Line for Greek Goodies

I know that ethnic-oriented churches have their difficulties staying afloat these days, but St. Katherine’s seems to have found the right formula: good food, interesting music and dance, and very competent marketing. It also helps that the Greek Orthodox church allows for married clergy (but, interestingly enough, only unmarried bishops).