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Vantage Point

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The Parthenon in Athens

I was unusually restless today. I started three books and gave up on two of them. The one I continued on was a re-read from fifty years ago, G. K. Chesterton’s All I Survey, first published in 1933. There was a time in the 1970s when I read everything I could find by Chesterton. Today, my shelves hold over a hundred titles of his work, including duplicates. There are few authors whom I enjoy reading so much, probably because he always makes me feel so good. The following is the first paragraph of his essay entitled “On St. George Revivified.”

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living. Without some such contrast or comparison, without some such shifting of the point of view, we should see nothing whatever of our own social surroundings. We should take them for granted, as the only possible social surroundings. We should be as unconscious of them as we are, for the most part, of the hair growing on our heads or the air passing through our lungs. It is the variety of the human story that brings out sharply the last turn that the road has taken, and it is the view under the arch of the gateway which tells us that we are entering a town.

Not My Idea of Travel

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Cruise Ship Traveler “Discovers” Chichén Itzá

I may be revealing myself to be a grouch, but I dislike American travelers who spend the money to visit another country and don’t take the trouble to understand anything of the culture, history, or language of the countries they visit. These are the travelers who, when they ask me questions, get answered in Hungarian.

Perhaps I take my travel too seriously. For instance, when I visited Guatemala in 2019, I read nineteen books on the subject starting in February 2018. Although I frequently hired English-speaking guides at the ruins, I was at the knowledge level of a graduate student in archaeology, with a minor in history and geography.

I keep thinking of a pediatrician friend of mind who went to Europe for the first time with her fiancé and spent only a day or two in each country, just walking around and not even making an attempt to concentrate on the most interesting sights. She wound up marrying the guy and divorcing him shortly thereafter. She felt cheated, having spent so much money and seeing nothing.

It’s like visiting the Grand Canyon and spending all your time walking around the shops and restaurants in Grand Canyon Village.

Looking at the picture above, which was taken from a current American Automobile Association (AAA) travel catalog, I wonder if the young lady standing by the Maya pyramid considered the possibility of sunstroke. Of all the thousands of people who visit Chichén Itzá every day, she was probably the only person not wearing a hat.

Looking more closely at the AAA catalog, I noticed that the ruins are an optional side trip from Cozumel, which is 2-3 hours from Chichén by ferry and bus. The grounds are extensive, as the ruins occupy several square miles. If I had to spend 4-6 hours in transport alone, I would not have much time at the ruins before having to return to my cruise ship. (I spent three days and two nights at a hotel near the ruins on my last trip there.)

Attack of the Januarius Monsters

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Lobby Card for Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters

On January 2 of this year, I posted a blog entitled Januarius 2026 in which I stated my intention of reading only books written by authors new to me. At that point, I mentioned a number of authors I was planning to attempt. It is my sad task to tell you that I read only two of the books I mentioned: Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Worst Journeys: The Picador Book of Travel.

In all, I read twelve books in January. In addition to the two mentioned above, the list included, in order:

  • Peter Cheyney’s This Man Is Dangerous, introducing the character of Lemmy Caution, which was taken up by Jean-Luc Godard in his film Alphaville
  • Ludvík Vaculík’s Cup of Coffee with My Interrogator, A: The Prague Chronicles of Ludvík Vakulík, a Czech novelette about the last days of Communism in Prague
  • Miklós Vamos’s The Book of Fathers, a fat novel about twelve generations of Magyars surviving (or not surviving) two centuries of Hungarian history
  • Stuart Stevens’s Night Train to Turkistan: Modern Adventures Along China’s Ancient Silk Road, definitely a “Worst Journey” to Western China and the Uighurs
  • Marivaux’s Infidelities, an 18th century French play about true love
  • Patrick Marnham’s So Far from God: A Journey to Central America, including Mexico, another “Worst Journey”
  • Chris Nashawaty’s Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy-Stripe Nurses, an entertaining book about the film career of producer/director Roger Corman
  • Edward John Trelawney’s Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author by the man who was on hand for the last days of the two great English Romantic poets
  • Yuri Andrukhovych’s The Moscoviad, a humorous 1990s look at life in Moscow by a Ukrainian who didn’t think too much of Russians
  • George Woodcock’s Incas and Other Men: Travels in the Andes about a trip to Peru in 1956 by a Canadian professor and his wife

Three of the books were from Eastern Europe satellite countries, and they were of a higher literary standard than most of my other selections. The only other book I liked a lot was Trelawney’s Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author, which made me resolve to read more poems by Shelley and Byron this year. I also liked the book about Roger Corman’s films: I’ve often thought that Corman was underrated.

So much for this year’s tidal wave of terror.

Januarius 2026

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Me in My Library in 2004

As in previous years, I have decided during this month of January 2026 to read books only by authors I have not previously read. Yesterday, I started with a bang with Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Underground Railroad.

I have code-named this annual project Januarius. If you look at the early January entries on my blog site, you will find numerous references to Januarius. I like the name because it suggests the Roman god Janus as well as the month of January.

Next on my list is a book edited by Keath Fraser entitled Worst Journeys: The Picador Book of Travel. It contains selections from fifty-five authors on the subject of bad trips, including bad flights, bad roads, war, and other events that can wreck the best-planned journey. My intention is to discover new authors of travel books, travel being one of my favorite book categories. I hope to incorporate at least a couple of my finds in books I read later this month.

Tentatively planned are reads from Pierre de Marivaux, Apuleius, Ariel Dorfman, Péter Nádas, Louisa May Alcott, an obscure biography of the Emperor Tiberius (I forget the name of the author), and Valeria Luiselli. Typically, I finish between twelve and sixteen books in one month. (The joys of being retired.)

At the end of the month, I will post a list of the “new” authors I have read and their books. Stay tuned to this spot for the latest developments.

My Halloween Reading

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At the end of September, I set myself a program for reading several appropriate ghoulish, ghastly, and horrifying titles in honor of my favorite holiday, Halloween. You can read about my intentions here.

Of the ten books I ended up reading last month, five were appropriate for the season:

  • Ann Radcliffe: The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents
  • Joyce Carol Oates: Cardiff, by the Sea
  • Thomas Ligotti: The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein and Other Gothic Tales
  • Edgar Allan Poe: The Portable Poe
  • Ray Bradbury: The Halloween Tree

They were all pretty good. Not surprisingly, I thought the Poe was best, followed by the Bradbury. That was a surprise, as it was written for the juvenile market, but I enjoyed every minute of it. The Ann Radcliffe was a hoot, as the British tended to think that nothing was spookier than Catholicism, (Maybe it was that thing about the Holy Ghost.)

I liked the Ligotti book because it was a fun way to revisit all the high points of the genre. Cardiff, by the Sea wasn’t technically a Halloween novel, except for the fact that everything Joyce Carol Oates is a bit on the spooky side.

Preparing for Halloween

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British Gothic Novelist Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)

Usually, I spend much of the month of October each year reading gothic or horror fiction. I have already started reading Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797), after which she quietly stopped writing and spent the last twenty-six years of her life as a private person. I have fond memories of reading her novels The Romance of the Forest (1791) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).

Also, I will inevitably read one of Joyce Carol Oates’s underrated gothic novels or collections of short fiction. Other possibles are Thomas Ligotti and Robert Aickman. And I will certainly re-read some of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories.

In November, I will write a post detailing with gothic/supernatural/horror titles I have read.

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.

Pain(e)sville

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Writer Harlan Ellison (1934-2018)

He’s from the same part of the world from which I hail. Painesville, the county seat of Lake County, is some 30 miles northeast of Cleveland. He has been called a science fiction writer, a designation which he (rightfully) hates. It’s more speculative fiction, with an emphasis on the short story form.

The man from Painesville was known for being something of a pain. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times remarks:

Over the years, Ellison has been described as fiercely independent, vengeful, sardonic, opinionated, confrontational, foul-mouthed, petulant, infuriating, defiant and a general all-around nuisance—as well as engaging, gregarious, funny, fastidiously organized and generous to his friends.

By his own measure, he was “a hard pill to swallow.”

He is gone, with all his objectionable behavior, but his stories remain. And they are well worth reading. I suggest you try one of the following collections:

  • I have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1967)
  • The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969)
  • Approaching Oblivion (1974)
  • Deathbird Stories (1975)
  • Shatterday (1980)

You might also want to try reading the sci-fi story collection he edited in 1967 entitled Dangerous Visions.

Although he will be remembered as much for being a prickly character as a brilliant writer, I think that over time the latter will replace the former in the estimation of readers.

Summer Is Icumen In

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The Malibu Pier at Sunset

It’s not quite here yet, but it’s coming. Lhude sing cuccu … or whatever. Summer has its moments in Southern California. Mostly, it’s just hot.

This time of year, I like to read works by William Faulkner (this summer, I’ll tackle his Collected Short Stories) and travel books about Arabia and India (I’ve already begun Charles M. Daughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta, Volume I). Then, too, I will read the Travis McGee novels of John D. MacDonald and some Icelandic detective stories.

I will drink ungodly amounts of iced tea. I know it’s a powerful diuretic, but it does moisten the palate. This summer, it will mostly be the Ceylon loose tea from Ahmad of London. After the autumn equinox, I’ll switch to Darjeeling (when I need a lift) or Baruti or Ghalami Assam.

When it gets too hot, we’ll have a picnic lunch at Chace Park in the Marina and revel in the cool sea breezes, which typically die within a few hundred feet of the shore.

I will sleep without covers at night, usually with the window open. I will have to listen to all the dysfunctional car alarms, the patron’s of the bar across the street, and the cursing and moaning of all the street people.

In the end, it’s doable. One thing I will not do is travel—unless I could afford a flight to Alaska or Patagonia. The desert will be blisteringly hot, and we are surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert.

Agenbite of Bookwit

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I find myself rereading books more often, sometimes by design, but more often by accident. For instance, I am reading the L.A. Central Library’s copy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010. As I started reading it yesterday, I noticed the same light pencil marks I used to mark passages. “A kindred spirit,” was the first thought that crossed my mind. Then, when I loaded Goodreads.Com, I noticed that I wrote a review of the book in 2023. The stray marks were, in fact, mine. A kindred spirit, indeed!

Here are the books that I have reread so far this year, with the ones I have accidentally reread marked with an asterisk:

  • Lawrence Durrell: Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea (the last three volumes of The Alexandria Quartet)
  • Lope de Vega: Fuente Ovejuna
  • Tom Bissell: Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia *
  • Joseph Wood Krutch: The Desert Year *
  • César Aira: The Famous Magician *
  • Clifford D Simak: A Choice of Gods *
  • Georges Simenon: Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse
  • Carlos Castaneda: Tales of Power

The funny thing is that I have enjoyed the rereads as much as the first-time reads, even when they were accidental.

I keep a log of 99+% of the books I have read since 1972. When I choose a book to read, I don’t always check the three data files—one a PDF and the other two Excel spreadsheets—which log all several thousand books I have read in the interval. Sometimes, I notice when rereading a book that I have somehow changed in some small or large particular.

For instance, I used to be a big fan of Jules Verne, even some of his lesser-known works. But when I reread From Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon a few years ago, I was disappointed. Perhaps I’ll reread 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea—my favorite among his works—to see how it plays now.