GOODREADING, 2017 - 2023

I've been participating in the Goodreads Challenge for about seven years now, and I guess that comes to about 120 - 140 books all told: not an impressive total, and indeed, less than some true bibliophiles read in a single year. This got me thinking, however. How much do we really retain of the books we read? Does a person who puts away a book a week, or 100 a year, or even more, actually remember any of what they read? At my highest pace of book reading, I polished off around 26 full-length books in one year, and realized that a few of them had left no impression upon me at all. I barely remembered a word. Now, some of that may come down to bad writing, or inattention on my part, but it is curious, is it not, what we retain and what we forget?

Here are some of the books that really stand out in my memory over the last seven years, for good or for ill:

Charlton Heston: The Actor's Life 1956 - 1976 -- This is a remarkably readable and beautifully written diary-memoir maintained by Chuck Heston during the full flower and prime of his career. He discusses his personal and acting life in remarkably honest, clear-headed terms, discoursing on fatherhood, marriage, money, travel, politics (both SAG and American), the personalities of actors and directors he worked with, and the fickle nature of Hollywood. He's an arresting writer with a stinging wit and a powerful observational eye, whose strong, rather progressive moral sense is tinged with the rather forboding knowledge that he will become a deeply conservative man in old age -- a prophecy which came true. Should be mandatory reading for every actor and anyone interested in the acting life.

Uprising Everyone's favorite human cyclone of controversy, David Irving, wrote a truly noteworthy account of Hungary's failed, tragic uprising against communism in 1956, which has never come close to being equaled by any English-speaking historian. (Michner's THE BRIDGE AT ANDAU is a cartoon by comparison.) Irving's unrivaled ability to dig out firsthand source material was outweighed only by his ability to make people angry, and he details -- uncomfortably, but even Christopher Hitchens agreed, accurately -- how the Nazi massacre of Jews in the early 40s led to, or accelerated, the popularity of communism among European Jewry, which in turn led to communism in Hungary being perceived as a Jewish concern by its victims, and the revolution of '56 therefore a kind of pogrom. Whatever your take on Irving or his thesis, however, this is a compulsively readable book, meticulously researched, and I failed to detect any actual anti-semitism in it, just uncomfortable facts which stemmed from an even larger tragedy: the Holocaust which preceded it. Given the Israel - Palestine war, itself a result of preceding tragedies, it has a curious timeliness.

Across the River and Into the Trees I have read most of Hemingway's novels and short stories, and this novel, which Charles Whiting once referred to as "a bitter, irrational, cynical book" is...well, a genuine failure. It is so strikingly off key and clumsy that it stands out in my memory as a kind of testament to the fact that even the greatest literay figures are capable of totally tanking it. The story of a dying American colonel just after WW2, embarked in a foolish romance with a much younger woman, it opens strongly, but quickly disintegrates into a sloppy hodge-podge of terrible dialog, childish one-dimensional characters, and Hemingway cliches. (One of the dangers of being famous for your literary style is that you can easily become its prisoner. Hemingway began his career satirizing writers he considered trash, and at this point sounded like someone satirizing him.) Even in the muck of the plot, however, there are flashes of genius, and of fearlessness. It's a bad book, but it's not really a forgettable one.

Beau Geste. Percival Wren may or may not have served in the French Foreign Legion: nobody really knows; but his novel on the subject is certainly a cornerstone of Legion lore. Though overwritten to a numbing degree, it is also beautifully, even gorgeously, prose-written: the story of English brothers who join the Legion to save their honor after being blamed for a jewel theft, it is a double mystery, woven into a grand adventure story set in French Sahara. Though Wren's characters tend toward national stereotype -- the Americans in particular -- it's a lovely novel that examines both English country life in all of its rigid Edwardian morality and silliness (people doing outrageous things for the sake of family honor), and the curious combination of romance and savagery that the Legion (and colonialism) represented.

Not Bad For A Human Lance Henriksen is one of the most prolific actors of the last 50 - 60 years. I doubt most people know his name, but few would fail to recognize his weather-worn face or deep, gravelly voice. In this incredibly enjoyable autobiography, he takes us through his remarkable and inspiring life, in which a tragic boyhood, a vagabond gypsy period, and a failed stint in the Navy ended up producing a first-rate actor whose gentleness, thoughtfulness and positivity inspire everyone around him. He's worked with everybody and done everything, from huge franchise flicks to TV series to "alimony movies" he'd rather forget. Yet Henriksen puts on no airs; he bears no grudges; his basic philosophy is that the world has enough shitheads in it as it is, there was no need for him to join their ranks. I met the man once, and he is no phony. He lives it. Great book. Great guy.

An Accidental Cowboy If you grew up in the 80s, you know Jameson Parker from either SIMON & SIMON or John Carpenter's rather cerebral horror movie PRINCE OF DARKNESS. In this mesmerizing little book, Parker examines how he, a well-educated, well-traveled, successful actor with rather happy go lucky nature, ended up improbably abandoning Hollywood to become a California ranch hand. Shot twice by a lunatic over a trifling dispute, Parker struggled with chronic depression, suicidal ideation and severe social anxiety, and found in cowboy life a therapy that saved his life. A beautiful examination of modern American Western life, dying traditions, the effects of PTSD, as well as a personal memoir, it is beautifully written and constructed almost like a suspense story or mystery novel. I was so moved by this book I e-mailed Parker to congratulate him, and he kindly responded with his thanks.

Foundation I finally got 'round to reading Isaac Asimov's original FOUNDATION trilogy, and I confess that I now get just how deeply he influenced almost every science-fiction writer who came after him, either directly or indirectly. While Asimov certainly has his limitations as a novelist, and his characters tend toward the paper cutout type, the story he tells is awesome in both scope, ambition and imagination. The story of the downfall of a vast galactic empire, its heroes are not swashbuckling rebels but fugitive scientists who believe they can predict the future and ultimately save it. Cerebral but fast-paced, combining intrigue and strategy with anthropology and sociology, it hits its strongest stride in the second volume, but is largely enjoyable and remarkably imaginative the whole way through.

Asylum - Carly Rheilan is a somewhat reclusive English novelist whose long career in social work produced this quietly masterful mystery-suspense story about African refugees living in prison-like conditions in London, and the people who try to help them...or exploit them. Not at all a story I thought I'd like or be interested in, it slowly weaves a tale about human trafficking, the after-effects of tragedy, the plight of refugees, the difficulty of cultural interchange, and the ways man-made systems (criminal and legitmate) can crush the human spirit, which is deeply moving and occasionally even funny. Its protagonists are flawed and relatable, and its villain, Christmas, is probably the most terrifying depiction of a pure sociopath I have ever encountered in a novel.

King of the Gypsies Bartley Gorman V was a bare knuckle boxer known in the traveling community as The King of the Gypsies, going more or less undefeated over 60 brutal, no-quarter, illegal matches over many years. This book is his riveting autobiography, the story of a proud, thoughtful man, an English gypsy who took up the gypsy bareknuckle tradition of his forebearers (Tyson Fury, current heavyweight champion, is a relation) and unapologetically embraced the violence, pain, jealousy, intrigue, money, glory and woe that followed his assumption of the crown. Fascinating, funny, and tragic, part biography, part bareknuckle boxing history, and part exploration o Traveler culture, it is the story of the ultimate outsider -- a gypsy -- who dove headfirst into the ultimate outside profession: barekuckle boxing.

My Wicked, Wicked Ways Errol Flynn was and is a synonym for degeneracy: the phrase "in like Flynn" is a specific reference to his prowess with the ladies. But buried beneath all the screwing, drinking, philandering, adultery, perversion and selfishness was a man with a surprisingly incisive mind, a surprisingly skillful pen, and an eyebrow popping backstory, who came to understand, and to regret, that he wasted his life and his talent making increasingly derivitive swashbuckler movies and cultivating a reputation he was addicted to, but despised. Flynn's autobiography is lengthy, and full of cons, hustles, seductions, crude pranks, alimony payments, and bad behavior, almost to the point of tedium and occasionally to the point of disgust; but it's also the story of a man humbled by life, who discovers looks, money, fame and women cannot fill the void in his life. Before his premature death, he had become a novelist, documentary film-maker, pilot and yachtsman, and was plainly trying to escape the self-built prison in which he lived.

Tales of the Jazz Age F. Scott Fitzgerald is rightfully referred to as the spirit of his era, and this collection of stories proves it. Running the range from the fantastic to the comic, the pathetic to the tragic, it showcases both his talents, his range of interests, and his proclivity for both portraying the silliness and the vulgarity of his time and his awareness that it was silly and vulgar. "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz" is a work of genune imaginative genius and drips with sarcastic joy about the evils of greed and materialism, but the sadness of "The Lee of Happiness" is difficult to shake, and the ending of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is haunting.

Crosses in the Wind This is the only book I've ever read about how an army at war cares for its dead. Written by William Shomon, who commanded a Graves Registration company during WW2, it is a terse, well-written, diary-like account of his service in France and Germany in WW2, from D-Day to the end of the war and after. Fascinating, moving, and respectful, it describes in detail the enormous lengths the U.S. Army went to locate, identify, and bury its dead soldiers. He describes the rituals by which bodies were recovered, washed, examined, fingerprinted -- and if necessary, X-rayed -- before burial. He describes the way the cemetaries were built, right in the middle of the war. And he describes life in the field, which included being bombed by the German air force, shelled, and so on. This is a genuinely important book, and speaks volumes about the fundamental humanity that underlay a vicious war.

The Bridge on the River KwaiMost people have seen the pic movie. Not as many have read Pierre Boullet's novel from whence the movie was drawn. And they should, because it's one helluva book. Although set in WW2, it is really a novel about pride, duty, and ego, specifically as it manifests in a battle of wills beteen a sadistic but desperate Japanese POW commandant charged with building a bridge with slave labor, and a snobbish, pathologically inflexible British colonel who is theoretically his prisoner, but in other ways both his master, his nemesis, and his willing minion. Boullet is a fine writer, but he's also a smart one, smart enough to get out of his own way and let the reader draw the morals from this complex moral tale, in which a man is so blinded by honor he willingly commits treason.

The Poetry of William B. Smith Arguably the scariest-looking actor in the history of Hollywood, the dark-eyed, muscle-bound, coarse-voiced Smith looked like he killed and ate babies for breakfast and enjoyed every second of it, and that was usually the sort of characters he played. Monsters. Brutes. Baddies. My God, he was the only man manly enough to play Conan the Barbarian's father. In real life he was more interesting than any fictional character: hall of fame bodybuilder, expert martial artist, stuntman, linguist, UCLA professor, NSA intelligence operative...and poet. This rather prosaically titled book lays bare the soul of a man who was almost incredibly thoughtful, ingenious and complex: patriotic, antiracist, fascinated by life and its ironies, imaginative in the extreme, unnerved by the impositions age were making on his body, plagued by fears, all of it comes out in these poems. While he's not uber-talented technically, he makes up for this with passion and sincerity. It's less a book of poems than a tour through his mind, and what a tour it is. They don't make 'em like Smith anymore.

I could go on, but I think this is a good sampling of some of the most memorable books I've read in the past six or seven years. I deliberately left out most of the history books, because I read so many of them in comparison with everything else that they deserve their own blog; I also left out Joseph Heller's Now and Then, one of the three most boring books I've ever read, because while the memory of the boredom is real, writing even a brief review would cause me to pass out over the keyboard. All I can say about that bowl of sawdust is that it's a warning never to write a memoir if you admit you lack any sense of sentimentality about your past. Anyway, and in closing, I'd like to add that it is impossible for me to think about some of these books without remembering where and how I read them: Heston's diaries, for example, very definitely belong to my back yard in Burbank -- the gate by the orange tree. Flynn's autobiography, in contrast, was the first book I read when I first moved back to York, and I had to lie on a beanbag in my living room to read it because at the time I had no furniture. I opened this ramble by asking if people really retained what they read, and I close it by asking if they, too, remember books not merely in terms of the books themselves, but the slice of life they collect from us when we read them?