Books I bought at Faulkner House in New Orleans

I was in New Orleans last weekend for a wedding and went to the wonderful book store Faulkner House. K. and J. introduced me to this place a long time ago, but I hadn't been back in years. I was delighted to find it still stuffed with new fiction and old classics -- most in lovely hardcover editions -- and of course an extensive selection on books about New Orleans and Louisiana.
I selected two books. The first was the new Michael Lewis book, Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood. Lewis is best known for writing about business and baseball, but he's also a native New Orleanian. (He attended the prep school Isidore Newman.) His new book is about navigating the rocky shoals of contemporary fatherhood. This normally would not be my cup of tea, but Lewis is one of the few living writers who makes me laugh out loud, so I picked it up. Gen Xers will appreciate that his wife is Tabitha Soren, formerly of MTV News. So far, it's a funny, light, sweet book. We'll see if it gets deeper as I approach the finish.
The other book was a bit more meaty: A lovely, small hardcover of Walt Whitman poetry from Everyman's Library. I picked it because it included the poem "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing." Here is the full text for your reading enjoyment. I think he really captures the majestic beauty of the trees, which have a meditative effect on me as well:

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it and
twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana
solitary in a wide in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.

Three excellent books about reading

The most excellent class of Adult Services, a.k.a. Reader Advisory, has come to an end. I loved everything about this class, which taught the art and craft of librarians recommending leisure reading to adults. Besides reading some great books for my book talks -- see my book talks on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Book of Chameleons -- I also read some great books about reading. Here's a recap of three of my favorites.

Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading Libraries and Community, by Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer. I love the old saying, "In God we trust. All others must bring data." This book brings the data on reading research, providing empirical evidence gleaned from recent studies on why people read, how they become proficient readers, and how they select books. The key point for me is that people who are skilled readers "speed through stretches of text with apparent effortlessness." For children, "well-designed phonics instruction" is best, and being read to aloud is crucial. Adults should be encouraged to engage in sustained long-form reading in whatever genre or style they prefer, because reading begets more reading.

The Reader, the Text and the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work, by Louise Rosenblatt. If only I had heard of Louise Rosenblatt when I was in college, back in the early 1990s during the heyday of literary theory. Back then, you could read any old book you wanted and then say it was either reifying cultural hegemony or subversively troubling societal norms. In retrospect, these were interesting intellectual exercises, but it also seemed silly to argue that a reader could find any meaning she wanted in a given text. Rosenblatt, on the other hand, acknowledges that readers bring their own assumptions and beliefs to a text that they read, but she also says that the author has a particular meaning she or he is trying to convey. Two human beings are involved in the transaction between author and reader, and you can't theorize away the intentions and motivations of either party. This reminds me of author Zadie Smith's metaphor, that the relationship between author and reader is akin to the relationship between a composer of music and the musician who sits down to play the work.

Great Books for High School Students: A Teacher's Guide to Books that can Change Teen's Lives, edited by Rick Ayers and Amy Crawford. These are seven essays written by teachers who describe the particular experiences they've had teaching novels to high school students. The essays are personal and subjective, and fascinating reading. I thought the essay about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, was particularly good, showing why it's such a challenging book. The teacher wrote about how her students had strong but very different reactions to the book's depictions of slavery and race. Then there were the efforts of other adults to stop her from teaching the book. I also thought the teacher revealed that she wasn't quite as emotionally prepared as she thought she was to teach a book that raises all the sensitive issues that Huckleberry raises. It was a good essay, very personal and honest and grounded in real-world circumstances. The other books teachers wrote about include Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison; Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison; Oresteia, by Aeschylus; Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya; Reservation Blues, by Sherman Alexie; and The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien.

Reading vs. doing

One of my favorite blogs is Zen Habits. It's about living a simple life, being organized, and getting things done. So it's right up my alley.
The blog's author, Leo (hey, that's my dad's name!), has a great post last week on reading vs. doing. He says reading is great and can teach you things, but you actually have to put whatever it is you're reading about into practice.

So reading countless self-help articles and books are great — I’ve written a few myself — but remember that it’s only the first step.
You have to put the personal development posts away, get away from the computer or book, and start doing it. Today.
Only in doing it will you actually learn.

Read the whole post for yourself.
I think he's onto something really important. Reading is wonderful, but it's not the same as direct experience. Leo is talking about self-help and organizational books here, but I think it applies other emotional contexts as well. Good food for thought.