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While summer may be the time to pile up all your beach fiction and read until you’re washed out to sea, for me, it’s the season to read as many “information” books as I can.
No agenda or required reading. Just topics that strike my fancy. Here are some of the best books I found on the shelves at the East Asheville library. Enjoy!
Eating Traditions
The Breakfast Book, by Andrew Dalby, Reaktion Books. 2013, 232 pp.
This exceptional little book, beautifully illustrated with paintings of breakfast scenes from throughout history, comprehensively exams an aspect of my everyday life, and the lives of others around the world, that frankly, I never thought about. The development of the meal that breaks the fast from the night before is fascinating reading, as if you’re looking at cultural histories through a narrow peephole of early morning dining. Recipes included.
Geography
Don’t Know Much About Geography: Everything You Need to Know About the World But Never Learned, by Kenneth C. Davis. Several narrators. Random House Audio, 2013, 13 hours, 10 compact discs.
Pundits complain that American citizens are the most geography-challenged society on the planet. We barely know the capitals of the states in the U.S., much less the difference between widely separated countries with similar names such as Mali, the Maldives, or Malaysia.
In a world made increasingly small by technology, knowledge of geography is one skill that forward-thinking entrepreneurs and politicians need to know. This audio version of the book is an excellent choice for a long road trip, teen to adult.
Gun Control
Living With Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment, by Craig R. Whitney, Public Affairs, 2012, 284 pp.
I love guns. I come from a long line of expert Ohio marksmen from whom I got my bull’s-eye DNA. I pick up a gun, any gun, point it, pull the trigger, and it hits the target smack in the middle. I never talk about my love of guns with my liberal friends—they’re just as polarized as my friends on the right —and both of them presuppose they know my opinion on gun control issues. They don’t. Veteran New York Times reporter Craig R. Whitney has written a superb perspective on the relationship between Americans and their guns. It’s solid but accessible and I wish everybody who blithely argues about gun control would read it.
Mental Health
You Need Help! A Step-by-Step Plan to Convince a Loved One to Get Counseling, by Mark S. Komrad, M.D, Hazelden Foundation, 2012, 264 pp.
Boy, where was this book when I needed it—about ten times over the past as many years. As a writer, and an escapee from Hollywood, I am a firm believer in the benefits of psychological counseling—but getting a loved one to seek help is often an impossible task.
The most important step—getting your loved one to agree to make that first crucial appointment with a counselor—is so difficult for some people that it never happens. This book breaks down the kinds of methods you can use—from simple persuasion to the more radical intervention techniques.
Natural Food
Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat, by Ellen Zachos, Storey Publishing, 2013, 239 pp.
I’ve always had the fantasy that someday I will magically learn how to wander through the neighborhood and find wonderful wild plants to eat. Of course I’m never going to do any such ting, except pick wild berries or buy local honey. If you’re like me, you will thoroughly enjoy the experience of armchair harvesting with this well-organized, beautifully photographed look at 65 plants. It’s a thrill just to know that so many familiar plants can be eaten safely, even if I have a harvest only big enough to garnish a salad. Highly recommended.
Spirituality
Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives, by Julia Cameron, Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2010, 221 pp.
What happens when one of the world’s greatest creativity teachers, whose philosophy is based on a firm faith in God, no longer can find God? In Faith and Will, Julia Cameron takes an unapologetic journey through her “dark night of the soul.” It’s a sobering reminder that even being on the right path is not always enough to see you to the end.
Although Cameron’s The Artist’s Way has sold over 2 million copies and inspired thousands of devotees like me, Ms. Cameron herself, sadly, has never achieved as much success in her own creative work, as she has in encouraging the work of others. How does this disappointment co-exist with her desire to put all her trust in God? As always Cameron writes with a sure voice, one of sympathy and great humanity, helping others learn from her particular and extraordinary journey.
Writing
Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction. Stories and Advice from a Lifetime of Writing and Editing, by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd, Random House, 2013, 195 pp.
Tracy Kidder is a prolific literary journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for his second book, The Soul of a Machine (1982).
Guiding him in both his extensive magazine work as well as his books is his long-time editor Richard Todd. The two have joined forces in this book, demonstrating the inside workings of the peculiar and productive relationship between editor and writer. It’s an insightful, informative book, that all readers—and writers—of nonfiction will enjoy.