I have a college friend (Gary Burling) that I correspond with a few times each year. In addition to life updates, we exchange occasional reading and writing excerpts. I wrote a book review (Klara and the Sun) and remarked within the review that I liked the book but did not love it. Gary challenged me to share books that I truly loved, and that got me thinking, leading to an attempt to list my top ten books of all time.
Now here is the thing. I have learned from years of sharing and reading recommendations that everyone has a different preference in books, topics, writing style and the truths derived. I will occasionally recommend books, though with reluctance to force my finds on others. Last year I attempted to compile a list of all the books I have ever finished, an interesting exercise that I should have started a long time before. I have read many library books; there remains no physical record of these, and memory must suffice. Books I have saved lie at rest on bookshelves and closets and piled on dressers and desks with no formal sense of order. Other I have given away to friends and family; most never return. My list has grown to nearly 300 books, and often I remember and add other to the total. Perhaps there are another 100 lost book memories. So how to choose a top ten? My books are a fair mix of nonfiction (biography, history, some sports, natural sciences, and current events). I favor a half dozen fiction writers though, there are many others in my collection. After a lot of sorting and summarizing I narrowed the list from 300 to fifty to 20 to ten.
I worry about the recency effect, “…a cognitive bias in which those items, ideas, or arguments that came last are remembered more clearly than those that came first.” Two of my selections were compiled from this last year of reading, though many go back ten years or many more. What did I leave out? I omitted the classics that I read in my youth, though these have retained their impact over time. The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most well written and consequential books of our shared history. I have a great love for books on science and the natural world, I have read dozens of these. Books like The Origin of Species – Voyage of the Beagle (Charles Darwin) The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen, and The Sixth Extinction (Elizabeth Kolbert) were treasured by me yet did not make the final list. This may be a fool’s errand. Choosing one running related topic, or on history, biography, sociology is like ranking the best NBA players in history, a difficult task. My selections were representative of the best writing I have found, and most impactful to my understanding of the world. I appreciate the stories of people and places, characters that I can relate to, and amazing stories being told. The following summaries are composed of published book commentaries, Wikipedia references and my own observations. Here they are in no certain order, along with a few amazing honorable mentions, that could just as well be included. Enjoy!
Leonardo Da Vinci – Walter Isaacson (Publication date of October 2017) “He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper, and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history’s most creative genius.” Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson paints a portrait of both the artistic genius and the curious scientist. The book goes beyond simply chronicling Leonardo’s life. Isaacson extracts lessons from his approach to life, highlighting the importance of curiosity, observation, and imagination as skills we can all cultivate.
Overall, “Leonardo da Vinci” offers a nuanced and engaging portrait of a true Renaissance man. There a just a few visionaries and cultural icons who challenge and change how we see the world, and who move science and art forward. Having this story told in one volume serves as a reference and more than that, an inspiration for me. Honorable Mention – Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power. Jon Meacham (November 2013)
Beyond the 100th Meridian – Wallace Stegner (January 1954) I became acquainted with the work of western writers when I moved first to California, and later to Colorado, interested to learn about the history of the historical land settlements and competition for water resources. Wallace Earle Stegner (February 18, 1909 – April 13, 1993) was an American novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and historian, often called “The Dean of Western Writers”. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977.
This book is his meditation on the history and future of the American West. Published in 1954, Beyond the 100th Meridian* is his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Wesley Powell, an American explorer, geologist, and ethnologist who is best known for his pioneering expeditions of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. The book follows Powell’s life from his early days as a Civil War veteran to his leadership of the Powell Survey, which mapped the Colorado River and surrounding region. Powell’s surveys played a crucial role in opening the arid lands west of the 100th meridian for settlement and development.
Powell explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of Indian tribes of the American Southwest. He had a profound understanding of the American West, and warned long ago of the dangers economic exploitation would pose to future generations. Powell was one of the first Americans to seriously study and document the cultures of the Native American tribes living in the West. He argued for fair treatment of Native Americans and criticized the government’s assimilation policies. Within the book, Stegner also critiques the often-destructive consequences of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion, balanced against the substantial economic benefits that it brought to the nation.
*The 100th Meridian bisects the States of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas just east of Colorado. In the central Great Plains, it roughly marks the approximate boundary between the semi-arid climate to the west and the humid continental and humid subtropical climates to the east. Historically, the meridian has often been taken as a rough boundary between the eastern and western United States. Honorable mention: Undaunted Courage, Steven Ambrose – Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (January 1996)
The Beginning of Infinity – David Deutsch (January 2012) I grew up with a love of mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences. These interests are reflected across my library of books. Of the many writings I have come across, this volume came the closest to capturing the understanding and awe that underpins the universe surrounding us. The author, David Deutsch, an award-winning physicist argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe—and that improving them is the basic regulating principle of all successful human endeavor. He takes us on a journey through every fundamental field of science, as well as the history of civilization, art, moral values, and the theory of political institutions. That is a lot of ground to cover in a single volume!
The Beginning of Infinity paints a bold picture of a universe brimming with limitless knowledge waiting to be discovered. Deutsch explains the conditions under which progress – which he argues is potentially boundless – can and cannot happen. Accepting our fallibility, that our explanations are always provisional, is crucial for the creativity that leads to continuous progress. He argues against pessimism and cynicism, advocating for an optimistic view that all problems, even seemingly intractable ones, are rooted in incomplete knowledge and solvable through further explanation. The book also steps back to take a view of philosophical questions about knowledge, reality, and human potential. It is a challenging and inspiring read for anyone interested in the nature of knowledge, science, and human progress.
I carry this quote from the book around with me: “Optimism …says there is no fundamental barrier, no law of nature or supernatural decree, preventing progress. If something is permitted by the laws of Physics, then the only thing that can prevent it from being technologically possible is not knowing how.” A dense yet fascinating read on physics, technology, culture, and creativity.
Today We Die a Little! The Inimitable Emil Zátopek, the Greatest Olympic Runner of All Time – Richard Askwith (May 2016) I love everything about running, and racing. My readings on the topic range from the science of running to historical biographies, and a few offerings of fiction. For a decade after the Second World War, Emil Zátopek – “the Czech locomotive” — redefined the sport of distance running, pushing back the frontiers of what was considered possible. He won five Olympic medals, set eighteen world records, and went undefeated in the 10,000-metre race for six years. His dominance has never been equaled. His training regimen pushed well beyond the boundaries of known methods, picture running hundreds of track repeats and miles of training runs in heavy boots through deep snow, and you get the picture. The author Richard Askwith developed the biography through extensive research from archives within the Czech Republic, interviews with people across the world who knew him, and unprecedented cooperation from his widow, fellow Olympian Dana Zápková.
In the darkest days of the Cold War, he stood for a spirit of generous friendship that transcended nationality and politics. Zátopek was an energetic supporter of the Prague Spring in 1968, and for this he paid a high price. After the uprising was crushed by Soviet tanks, Zátopek was expelled from the army, stripped of his role in national sport, and condemned to years of hard and degrading manual labor. It is the humble excellence of this man’s life that draws me to his story. And from him my favorite running quotes: “When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn’t matter. Am I tired? That doesn’t matter either. Then willpower will be no problem.” And “we are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to enjoy something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.” Honorable mention: Chasing the Hawk: Looking for My Father, Finding Myself – Andrew Sheehan (September 2001)
The Signal and the Noise – Nate Silver (January 2012) Math and statistics, I love this stuff from way back in my high school and college classes. The author of this book built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance and predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth. He solidified his standing as the nation’s foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. In this book, he examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. The most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.
Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball to global pandemics, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. What lies behind their success? Are they good – or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really, right? I loved the sections on weather forecasting, he explained that forecasts tend to over-estimate the probabilities of bad weather, to some degree because they will attract less criticism if the actual weather is less than expected. And that the forecast for weather ten days out is equally accurate as taking today’s weather and using that for the forecasted date. Another reason that I do not look at race forecasts a week ahead. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, these insights are an essential. I think about the concepts covered within this book every day, when I see a weather forecast, or an election poll, or a sporting event win probability, or even a series of surprisingly accurate predictions. Such great stuff!
The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson (September 2010) This book chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.
Wilkerson captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. The Warmth of Other Suns is a remarkable account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. What struck me was her ability to paint portraits of humanity, whether routine or hardworking, striving so hard to move up the economic ladder and provide for their families. And a remainder that we are all blessed in our current lives. Honorable Mention: The Unwinding – George Packer (May 2013)
Canada – Richard Ford (May 2012) Such a great novel. “First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then the murders, which happened later.” So begins Canada, the unforgettable story of a boy attempting to find grace, Dell Parsons, whose parents rob a bank and fracture his life into a before and an after, crossing the threshold that cannot be uncrossed. After his parents’ arrest and imprisonment, Del and Berner, his twin sister, face a blank future of foster care and social services visits. Berner, willful and burning with anger, runs away to California – orphaning Del completely. Amid his abandonment, a family friend intervenes, spiriting Del across the Montana/Saskatchewan border. There, in a dilapidated town floating in the sea of the Canadian prairie, he is taken in by Arthur Remlinger – an enigmatic, charismatic man with a dark and violent past.
Undone by the calamity of his parents’ robbery, Del struggles under the vastness of the prairie sky and the stark, unforgiving landscape to realign his sense of self and his perception of the parents he thought he knew. He moves forward on an inexorable collision course with the slow-simmering violence trembling just beneath Arthur Remlinger’s cool reserve. Canada is a profound novel of boundaries traversed, innocence lost and reconciled, and the mysterious and consoling bonds of family. I was drawn first to the writing, descriptions of cold dark winters and small-town life, and then the story of a young man trying to find his place in the world and resolve his past.
My favorite quotes from the book: “What I know is, you have a better chance in life-of surviving it-if you tolerate loss well; manage not to be a cynic through it all… to connect the unequal things into a whole that preserves the good, even if the good is not simple to find. We try, … We try.” …“She was an artist. She held opposites in her mind.” I know a person like this. …“Life’s passed along to us empty. We have to make up the happiness part.” Honorable Mention: The Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving (September 1981) Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier (January 1, 1997)
Life after Life – Kate Atkinson (March 2013) What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula’s apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can — will she?
Truth be told, I am attracted to books that consider alternative lives, or alternative paths in our one life. Ursula learns from each of her past lives and becomes a better and more complete person despite the sufferings and losses that she endures. This book captured me from start to finish.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers (February 2000) This is the memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother, it was Dave Eggers debut publication. The book chronicles their unconventional life in San Francisco, navigating grief, financial struggles, and the challenges of raising a young child. Eggers employs humor and sharp wit alongside raw vulnerability, grappling with his evolving roles as brother, guardian, and struggling adult. Their makeshift family unit faces disapproval from relatives and societal norms, forging their own path amidst immense personal turmoil.
The book explores themes of love, loss, family, survival, and the complexities of forging one’s identity in the face of extraordinary circumstances. Eggers deals openly and honestly with the profound grief of losing both parents at a young age. He utilizes humor and satire to cope with difficult situations, offering a unique perspective on loss and resilience. The memoir chronicles personal growth and self-discovery as he grapples with adulthood and the unexpected responsibilities thrust upon him. The narrative challenges societal expectations of family structures and roles, highlighting the struggles of unconventional families. This is another story that I found to be extremely well written, with a captivating storyline, even more because it is a memoir. Dave Egger has gone on to write several more books and collections of short stories. I have read all his subsequent novels, enjoying them all, though some I have loved more than others. Honorable mention: What is the What – Dave Eggers (October 2006)
11/22/63 – Stephen King (January 2011) On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination, a thousand page tour de force. King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history. Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to revisit the events of Harry Dunnings youth, and more consequentially, to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
Another example of a book about alternate histories which are my favorite types of stories. The suspense and plot of this book, building toward a different future was amazing to me.
Honorable Mention: The Corrections Jonathon Franzen (September 2001)
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver (October 2022) Wow, easily in the top five books that I have ever read. It held me in its spell from start to finish. I learned so much. About place and time, mountain and rural economies, small towns and big cities, the scourge of synthetic drugs that still holds us in its grasp, the tragedies of the public foster care system, friendship and loyalty and love. And through it all family in its various forms. How families can mold you and nurture you and defeat you and rebuild you through their bonds. And how to be a good hearted and faithful person through it all. The characters are fictional though they all resonate, as do the landscape and the seasons and the challenges of coming of age, with no anchors to protect those who need it the most. It is about adapting and surviving within an often-desolate landscape; somehow remaining optimistic and emerging as a terribly scarred but still essentially positive soul.
June and Emma and Ms. Peggot and especially Angus, and all those who supported Demon throughout his journey. He rode so close to the cliff but never quite over, though I thought it might not end well. And then finally a soft landing, with potential for the future success finally within reach. Such a sweet ending, happiness found together, with Agnes / Angus; she “set her cap for one fellow in particular.” Kingsolver is an incredibly observant writer and shows us the world as others live in and see it. To a small degree I can better understand the nature of the land and the people and the lives they live, desperate yet loving, lessons for all of us.
My Antonia – Willa Cather (Published in 1918) I find books from a variety of sources and collect reviews and quotes and snippets of material fill up and overflow from my collection folders and stuffed into my commonplace book. I remember some 35 years (circa 1988) ago coming across an essay entitled Class Action by the historian David McCollough (now recently passed), A historian’s counsel to graduating collegians. An excerpt from that essay is what pointed me to the book, finally bought and read so many years later.
The book was written exactly 105 years ago. Yes 105 years ago. Willa Cather writes this story from the perspective of a third person narrator (a fictional character Jim Burton), though in fact Willa Cather herself was a contemporary and acquaintance to Anna Sadilek (renamed as Antonia, or Tony) in the book. The book tells the story of Antonias family’s arrival on the plains of Nebraska, her growing up on a rural farm and in the railroad town of Red Cloud (Blackhawk), managing through cold and drought and the labor of hired work, but also sweetened by the play of youth and the bloom of growing up and becoming an adult, with a spirit that never dims. A positive outlook on the small blessings of life. The writing is both mundane and sublime, with passages and words that touch through the power of their descriptive force. It reminds us of the spirit of those who settled our rural America. The book reaches out through the sharing of this quiet, powerful story; the great writing stays with you.
““Winter comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie…. The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify – it was like the light of truth itself. When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said; “this is reality, whether you like it or not. All of those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what is underneath. This is the truth. “it was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer. “ See my full book review: http://ekt.fvs.mybluehost.me/10000daysreadwriterun.com/reading/book-reviews/my-antonia/
