For a now-decreasing segment of the population, the Beatles are a cultural reference point we share. We grew up learning to twist to “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” or teaching ourselves to play instruments by mastering the licks and leads on their records. Our parents hated their innovation (My mom snapped off the car radio in the middle of “Hey Jude” when I was 9 moaning, “What will they be playing when you’re in high school?”) but couldn’t deny the brilliance of the words and music. We didn’t care what they thought and we didn’t understand the source of the brilliance; we just accepted the Beatles when the band existed and missed them after the group broke up. Almost eleven years after the breakup came Shout, the first book that put the band and the phenomenon they created into a kind of historical/sociological context. The book would have sold well if it had been published six months earlier: it’s an interesting, well-crafted book and there was a ready audience of hard-core Beatle fans. Instead it came out in the aftermath of John Lennon’s murder, when much of the world seemed to be grieving and it sold like hot-cakes. Shout didn’t…
Many people read the Bible throughout their lives. It teaches and comforts them and never becomes tiring. I like that kind of relationship with a story, where the characters are so developed and the narrative so strong that the book reveals different strengths as you re-read it at different points in your life. I suppose the book I’ve had the longest relationship with is Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I first tried reading Jane when I was in junior high, too young to understand most of it. The part I did understand was the child Jane of the first nine chapters. Here was a fearsome little girl, capable of attacking a bully or standing up to adults when necessary. Since I didn’t have the nerve to do either, I loved the little hellion and cheered her on. I didn’t really understand her friendship with the gentle Helen Burns (like Jane, I have too much original sin to identify with the saint-like Helen) but I was sad to see her go, with an exit that still gives me a chill. Imagine waking up next to a corpse! Teens and twenties are high times for romance and that’s when I dwelt in the…
I may not believe in fate but I do believe in Serendipity, that sunny-natured cousin between Destiny and Coincidence. I’ve benefited from too many “happy accidents” in my life to believe otherwise. My “best friends”, my husband, my home and my career all appeared when I was ready to find them, usually long after I had quit looking. Some of the books I love presented themselves the same way but the first time I recognized this was when I found, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I was around twelve, a bit old for the book’s target audience, but I was looking for a story to enchant me, preferably set in England and very cheap because I didn’t have much spending money. Even at that age I’d learned that the cheapest volumes in any bookstore are usually on the classical shelves and that is where I found Joan Aiken’s tale of an alternate England where James II sits on the throne and people shoot attacking wolves from moving trains. “Wolves” is a thrilling and well-paced kid’s book and very Dickensian in its execution. The heroes were sympathetic and believable, the villains are terrifying and the characters had the most evocative names:…