Something Different: A List of Books For My Friend Jenny

My dear friend Jenny Z asked me to make a list of books that have inspired me over the years, books that I am passionate about recommending for one reason or another, to her book group at her local Unitarian Universalist Church. Here's what I came up with after a couple of edits, but before I edit it down to a proper 2 to 4 pages. 

To A God Unknown and Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

By the time he set out on a cross-country trip with only his standard poodle, Charley, as company, John Steinbeck was already a Great American Author. He'd made his living writing stories about the American people. In 1960, he decided he needed to actually go and meet more of those people, and traveled with the questions, "What are Americans like?" and “How is America changing?” Travels With Charley is a memo from a time, and an America, much different than our own, yet some of the same problems encountered by Steinbeck, such as racism, are still a plague on our nation. Travels With Charley is less a travelogue and more a novel that Steinbeck forged through real conversations and observations. It'll inspire you to take a road trip and adopt a “real” dog “not one of those little yappy things,” as Steinbeck said.

To A God Unknown was a revelation to me when I read it on the advice of a bookstore owner (The Couth Buzzard Bookstore on Phinney Ridge in Seattle, RIP) who was amazed that I counted Steinbeck as one of my favorite classic lit authors, and yet I’d never read this gem from his canon.   The Bard of America, as Steinbeck was nicknamed, is never more evident than in the poetic prose of To A God Unknown. There were sentences that made me weep, and paragraphs that destroyed me for knowing that I would never be able to create something so gorgeous with my own pen (or Blackhawk pencil, which is what Steinbeck wrote his novels with, longhand, on legal pads).

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

There are people who assume that Albom’s works are like old 60s B movies, fun and interesting to watch, but ultimately cheesy. These people haven’t really read his books, or given them a chance. I found the Five People You Meet in Heaven when I was contemplating why my life had taken a couple of left turns that I’d not seen coming, and why I was having to suffer through monumental changes not only to my career, my body and my environment, but why I was here in the first place…what was my ultimate purpose? The protagonist of this book dies, and meets up with five people in the afterlife whose lives he changed dramatically, just by being himself. Like a heavenly Twilight Zone episode, this book will make you think about how important all our lives are, and how interconnected we are, whether we realize it or not.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

Ove, a Swedish widower, has lost the will to live, mainly because without his beloved wife to temper his misanthropy, he’s finding it hard to suffer the fools around him in his neighborhood and community. However, while he’s planning his suicide, a new neighbor asks for his help, he rescues a disreputable cat and circumstances catch him off guard, until he finally goes from feeling like he’s useless to being a well-loved community curmudgeon who helped others and cares for them.  

The Story of Arthur Truluv is similar to Ove, except Arthur isn’t as grumpy and sour as Ove, but he’s also feeling all at sea as a widower. However, once a starving pregnant teenager pops into his life, and his nosy neighbor lady decides to move in as well, Arthur’s life takes a dramatic turn for the better. Finding purpose and happiness in helping others is a major theme in these two books, and both point to the desperate need we have as we grow older for human connection and purpose.  Seniors are often considered disposable in our society, and these books show what a mistake it is for people of all ages to not utilize the wisdom and capabilities of our elders.

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah and Born With Teeth by Kate Mulgrew

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born With Teeth

We know Kate Mulgrew for the strong women she's played—Captain Janeway on Star Trek; the tough-as-nails "Red" on Orange is the New Black. Now, we meet the most inspiring and memorable character of all: herself.

I met Mulgrew when I was all of 22, a senior theater major at Clarke College, where Mulgrew briefly attended, and I was riveted by her tales of stage and screen celebrities and actors and crazy rock icons like David Bowie. When asked the one thing we could do to become better actors, Mulgrew responded “READ. Read everything you can get your hands on, and learn from your life, mistakes and triumphs, both.”

True Colors, the Nightingale and The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

True Colors is the story of a woman who is a disabled veteran of the recent wars in the Middle East. This is a POV we rarely see, of a woman’s struggle in and out of the military, dealing with a husband and family, as well as a disability.  The Nightingale is also a novel that has a women’s POV, in this case it’s two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. The Great Alone is a unique story of a teenage girl (who was born the same year that I was) growing up with an insane, abusive father and a beautiful but weak and broken mother during the 1970s in rural Alaska. The terrifying choices that the teenage protagonist and her mother must make to survive shine a light on how women and children deal with domestic violence, and how women’s lives are considered less valuable by the government and the courts than men’s lives. Hannah’s books excel at showcasing the female experience and POV.

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. This is one of those books that make you feel glad to be alive and sensate.  Each essay exploring the five senses is rooted in science, but enlivened by Ackerman’s wonder at the beauty of the human machine.

The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

This book shines a light on a forgotten POV of World War II, the women and children who were medically experimented on in Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Though the story is fiction, it is inspired by the story of a real life survivor of the concentration camp.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore is a non fiction story detailing the horrendous effects of radiation exposure on young women’s bodies, (Women who were employed as luminous watch-dial painters, and were told that radium was a healthy substance to ingest from their paintbrushes) and she spares nothing in relaying the intense emotional suffering of their friends and families during subsequent medical investigations and court battles. This book isn’t an easy read, but it is an important one because it shows the results of corporations valuing money over human lives, more specifically, the lives of women.

Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip

McKillip is another author who can do no wrong, mainly because her prose is gorgeous and satiating, and reading her books is a luxurious experience for writers who love fine wordsmithing.  I’ve been reading her books for over 40 years, and she never disappoints.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This book destroyed me when I first read it 10 years after it was published in 1976, when I was a teenager. I cried for days. Then I read it again when I was in my late 20s, and it still left me sobbing. This is what makes a classic novel a classic, in my opinion, if it has the power to move people 50 plus years after it was published just as easily as it did when it was new. The crux of this book is that what makes us intelligent isn’t always what makes us good, compassionate people.

Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindberg

I read this book when I was 19, embarking on my college career, and floundering at life. It was a revelation of calm, intelligent perspective, though it was about a woman many years my senior. I read it again when I turned 50, and got a different nuance from it then, having had a life of experience, career and family to look back on. Though the book is over 50 years old, it contains timeless insights into what it means to be a woman.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin

People assume that gender identity is something of a “new” concern, a hot topic for young people of today who are wondering about what their role is in society and how it fits in with how they feel about their birth gender on the inside, and whether that matches their outsides. When I read The Left Hand of Darkness as a teenager in the 70s, it blew my mind, because few people were talking about gender identity (at least in Iowa) at that time, and fewer still were even aware of the word transgender.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon incorporates a host of elements that could each sustain a thrilling read, it’s a historical mystery with a romantic sub plot woven throughout a book that is about books and the love of words and literature and freedom. There’s even a secret “Cemetery of Forgotten Books” that claims to have a copy of every book ever written in its cavernous walls. This is the kind of book that will stay with you long after you read every glorious paragraph, made all the more amazing because it’s been translated from Spanish to English and retained every ounce of lyricism.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Truman Capote’s true crime masterpiece is a classic for good reason. It is largely credited with igniting the trend of narrative nonfiction, particularly in true crime, and is lifted by Capote’s skillful storytelling and chilling, beautiful prose. What truly makes In Cold Blood such a compulsive thriller, however, is Capote’s clear fascination with murderer Perry Smith.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
The German poet Ranier Maria Rilke wrote a series of 10 letters to a 19-year-old cadet, who sought the poet's advice on his own literary career. In the letters, Rilke explores the ingredients for a good, authentic life. His words of wisdom and intelligence have stuck with me for a lifetime.

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
Even if you're not a writer per se, you will still feel your confidence as a creative person surge when you read this slender volume of wonderful advice from the master of the short story (and social science fiction) Ray Bradbury. His first compilation of short stories that were written in the 50s, 60s and 70s is full of works that were often ripped off by other writers for use in their book series (such as a story he wrote about a vampire family who are discovered by a young girl who falls in love with one of the vampires, thereby exposing them to the world. There's a war with werewolves and a host of other similarities to Twilight, except Meyer's prose is horrible, while Bradbury's is the opposite.) and his famed works such as the Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 continue to be classics of the science fiction genre. But Bradbury's enthusiasm and love of wordsmithing will fill you to bursting with the urge to grab a pen or keyboard and jot down those thoughts and ideas.