Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The List

I will now attempt to get all Martha Stewart on your ass and convince you of a “good thing.” You will not be required to spend 10 hours folding hand-crafted paper, collecting pinecones, making hand lettered labels on acid-free paper, nor must you raise any fancy chickens. Of course you should already be doing those things. Don’t you love your friends and family? Where’s your holiday spirit? I mean otherwise your holiday decorations and gifts will be so lame. I’ve already started mining the silver I’ll need to make tinsel and the corn field I planted for popcorn balls is coming along nicely.

So put down your pinking shears and pour yourself a cup of homemade hot cocoa and listen to my little story. If you need to make a run to your cocoa farm, I’ll wait. I have always enjoyed reading. But somewhere in college I got obsessed with my own future profession and concentrated my efforts on nonfiction. This happens. There are some good nonfiction writers, but the bread and butter of my field (and I assume countless other professions) is boring. Boring as shit. You read for information, read for references, read to see how you are cited, read for data. It can be interesting in its own way. You learn to read boring shit, learn to write boring shit, and most importantly you learn to like it. At some point I developed an overwhelming desire to read good writing. Just good writing, just words. I had no idea where to start. Sure, there were a few authors I knew I liked- but what about all of the writing I didn’t know if I liked. How do you find it?

I imagine there are many solutions to this dilemma. My solution presented itself when I read a book I thought I’d hate. I decided I wouldn’t like it based only on the jacket art and description. I read it anyway because someone had given me a copy, I was bored, and there it was. I loved it and realized it had won a Pulitzer Prize which made me wonder if all Pulitzer winners were that good. So I decided to read the Pulitzer list thinking I may not actually like all of the books but that it would at least provide a decent sample of fiction writing. I just finished the list (from 1948-2009). I did not enjoy them all, but it was a good thing. You might like it too.

21 comments:

  1. That'll have to wait for sabbatical. I have an equally long list of shit I have to read before the end of the month. I vaguely recall reading because I wanted to, but the memory is old, grainy and in black & white.

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  2. Do we get extra credit for this? Or do we just get brownie points in the great academic wheel of karma?

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  3. Wow. That's a LOT Of books, and some of them are LONG. You, clearly, are not a dabbler (i.e., quitter) in the way that I am. You really know how to commit to a project. I don't think I would ever finish them all, esp. the ones I didn't like.

    But I would be very interested to know which ones you liked the best, Dr. No. Will you share? Or are you going to tell me to read them all and decide for myself which ones I like? Hmmm?

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  4. Proflike: Whew, it took me YEARS (but yeah, I finished off quite a few once sabbatical kicked in)

    Evenshine: You get inducted into a secret society that I can't tell you about.

    GEW: I was VERY tempted to quit a few. But I made this little announcement because I can't help but to want to talk about the experience, so expect a breakdown of the good, the bad, and the ugly sometime.

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  5. Oh come on, Dr. No! You've got to give us more than that! What was great? What sucked?

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  6. Yep, I agree with BS: List 'em! Rate 'em! Give us dirt!

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  7. Hold on! It's a lot of books, I mean there's the ones that sucked, ones that were pulpy, ones I loved, old books, new books, dude books, chick books, who the fuck voted this one prize worthy books, high school english class books, I'm embarrassed I don't like/love this book books, shit. Just hold on, its a lot to think about.

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  8. Now can you tell us? Okay, are you ready now? Have you figured it out yet? Are you ready?

    *pause*

    How 'bout now?

    (Just channeling my inner four-year-old for you.)

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  9. This is actually a very good idea. Curious: how long did it take you?

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  10. I like this idea! Looking at a list makes me realize how embarrassingly few Pulitzer winners I have read. What I really want to do now is work my way through the Hugo (and/or Nebula?) Awards, which strikes me as more guaranteed fun, more manageable, and (most importantly) more likely for me to actually finish before I wuss out.

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  11. The longest book I've read recently is Secret Seahorse. I found the ending a bit predictable, but overall it's worth the read.

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  12. I started reading the Art of War in my lab during incubation's, ect.

    ....SO MUCH FUN....to watch the looks and whispers.

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  13. Prof-like, do you have Secret Seahorse memorized yet? I hear there's an upcoming recital.
    Great book!
    jc

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  14. You finished Secret Seahorse?! I could never make it past the interminable whaling exposition. I have to ask, what was the seahorse's secret?

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  15. 1. Congrats.
    2. You now have a plethora of future blog posts broken down by the category you just listed.
    3. We won't stop bugging you until you rank at least a few of them.
    4. Aren't you glad you told us so that we could bug you?
    5. Can you start a new secret society for people who maybe have read, like, five of those books?
    6. Congrats again.

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  16. ps: my vote for first category to explore: "who the fuck voted this one prize worthy books"

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  17. You're my hero. I can't even finish the Caldecott list. But I *love* GEW's helping me rename my quitting as dabbling.

    I'm with Ink. The first of your dozens of posts should be the wtfvtopw list.

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  18. The Seahorse's secret is that it's antisocial with everything but it's own kind, with whom it's happy to hang. Of course, it's not nearly as overt about it as that damn Hidden Hippo.

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  19. I'm with Ink and Nap! The wtfvtopw List!!! Get crackin'!

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