3 posts tagged “19/ read one book a month”
I've just finished my first monthly reading. "The Last Editor," by Jim Bellows. It was, to say the least, a pleasure.
He recounted his last fifty years in journalism. He was a pit bull, always the underdog and always fighting the big guy. His papers (and other endeavors -- save for his work with Entertainment Tonight) came to some crashing end, but all he could recount about them was the joy and excitement of being in the midst of the struggle.
And he sounded like one g-ddamned good editor. Someone who inspired the ranks. Who had the energy and passion to know when and how to go get the story.
Now, I don't have a lot of experience chasing stories, or getting anyone else to chase them, but I so identified with Bellows' character that I finished the book convinced I could start my own newspaper and gather just the right people to make is something really special.
That makes the book, and Bellows, more than a pleasure. It makes it an inspiration. It makes me curious why it would take a book to uncover that kind of self-confidence, but maybe that's the kind of thing I'll just let be.
For anyone else who likes newspapers, or just likes reading good yarns (Bellows has plenty -- he was drugged by Ku Klux Klan members early in his career, to name just one), I'd recommend picking up "The Last Editor." You may find Bellows strays a little into some self-adulation, but maybe that's not so bad for a man who often thought of himself as the little guy in the room. It sounds like he earned any praise that's thrown his way, even if it's by him. And anyway, by the end of the book, that fades into the background. It did for me anyway. I was left simply admiring a man who, when he wrote the book at 80, was still looking for the next hurdle to leap over.
I've always enjoyed books when I've read them, but I've rarely thought to pick up a book for no other reason than to read it -- I'd say about 95% of what I've read has been assigned.
As someone who once claimed to be a writer, that's slightly shameful. And if I stop and think about it, my writing has seriously waned in the years since I graduated college ... the last time I was assigned books to read on a regular basis.
Just about any reading will fulfill No. 19. As long as it's a book, it can be technical, fiction, auto-biographical, historical. Whatever. Just as long as I read it.
"But I do know that the joys in life are not in the destination but in the unsought surprises along the way." -- Jim Bellows, The Last Editor
This quote from Bellows comes in the introduction of a book he co-wrote, covering his 60-odd years in the newspaper industry. And it came only a few minutes into the first book I picked to work my way toward No. 19 on my list, Read one book a month.
It was like a little fortune.
I'd had no right to expect No. 19 to do anything other than fulfill itself plainly. I planned to start picking through the books Patrick has collected. But today I found myself unexpectedly on my way to my favorite little coffee shop downtown (working my way through No. 22: Spend one evening or morning a week at a coffee shop); and I found myself walking the somewhat long distance just as I also needed to (I'm afraid there is no eloquent way to put it) use the bathroom; and I found that I was passing the library at just the moment I was thinking I couldn't go any further.
The smell of the library reached the sidewalk, before I even neared the door. These places smell a certain way. And it's not just the books. Barnes and Noble does not smell like a library. Maybe it's the plastic and glue that goes into preserving the book covers.
But smell, as it always does, brought back distinct memories. This time of reading stacks of children's books (flipping through them, more like it; I never was a big reader). And it occurred to me that I haven't used a public library since middle school. High school at the latest.
It also occurred to me that if I was heading to the coffee shop, I'd be in a great place to start diving into No. 19.
So I walked up and down the aisles of the Knox County library (being reminded that the organization in libraries is much broader than in Barnes and Noble; that Dewey's decimal system is the key to truly finding what you're looking for). I was overwhelmed by the sea of books. I picked up a few but wasn't intrigued enough to read past the first paragraphs.
As I was heading toward the door, I saw The Last Editor. It caught my eye; I laughed at the idea of plunging into a book about newspapers when the industry is in such poor shape. But the early part of my career was as a copy editor and working with editors of all stripes who were energizing or maddening or inspiring. All three sometimes.
So I picked it up. And I walked to the front desk and filled out the paperwork for a Knox County library card. (Starting July 22, they'll offer their feature film DVDs for free! And I'll be able to keep a book for three weeks before having to renew it!)
What a spark. What an unexpected new thing to reveal itself. It's made me wonder if all (or at least many) of my 101s will provide me these little surprises.
I walked from the library to my coffee shop and found myself in a mood to notice things all along the way. I won't go into the details, because they would be too dull to relate, but I had a distinct sense that, as watchful as I am by nature, I was seeing things that I had never noticed.
So far, The Last Editor is a good read, and Mr. Bellows is an inspiration. Here's to 1,000 more days like this one.
