CHRISTMAS BOOKS

Dear Son,

The holidays will be here in no time!  And, as you know, we always give and receive plenty of books.  We wanted you to learn early that the book is a wonderful present.  As I write this, Dad and I are making up holiday book lists for each of us to give the other -- we can't think of a more wonderful present, and are glad to see that you are coming to treasure the book as well.

I happen to have the list of our holiday book-giving from last Christmas -- these, too, are now part of our family library.  We look forward to seeing the book tally under this year's Christmas tree!

Love,

Mom and Dad
[This post also under "Fairy Tales," "Cuisine," and "Spain and Latin America" -- could not fit in Labels as went on too long to reflect varied interests of books under tree.]

2013 CHRISTMAS

BOOKS MOM RECEIVED AS HOLIDAY PRESENTS:
CHASING CHAOS: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid by Jessica Alexander 

FERRAN: The Inside Story of El Bulli and The Man Who Reinvented Food by Colman Andrews 

I’LL DROWN MY BOOK: Conceptual Writing by Women, Eds. Caroline Bergvall, Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody and Vanessa Place 

The Hemingway Play by Frederic Hunter 

BACK FROM THE CROCODILE'S BELLY: Philippine Babaylan Studies and the Struggle for Indigenous Memory, Eds. S. Lily Mendoza and Leny Mendoza Strobel 

Club Without Walls: Selections From the Journals of Philip Pavia, Ed. Natalie Edgar 

Revelator by Ron Silliman 

Another Path by Gladys Tabor 

Stillmeadow Seasons by Gladys Tabor 

The Stillmeadow Road by Gladys Tabor 


BOOKS MOM AND DAD GAVE MICHAEL:
THE SECRETS OF MENTAL MATH 

PANORAMIC COLOMBIA, photographs by Miguel Salazar Aparicio and text by Enrique Pulecio Marino 

BOLIVAR: American Liberator by Marie Arana 

AFRICA UNITED: Soccer, Passion, Politics and the First World Cup in Africa by Steve Bloomfield 

Lord of the Flies by William Golding 

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (Easton Press. Books from Easton and Loeb are primarily to encourage a collector's library) 

THE HOUSE OF HADES by Rick Riordan 

THE COMEDIES by William Shakespeare (Easton) 

THE TRAGEDIES by William Shakespeare (Easton) 

THE HISTORIES by William Shakespeare (Easton) 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (9th printing, Sept. 1939) 

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951 Book of the Month Club printing) 

Mastering the Fundamentals of Mathematics, Prof. James A. Sellers 


BOOKS DAD RECEIVED AS HOLIDAY PRESENTS:
The Official Record of the WAR OF THE REBELLION 

AESOP’S Fables (Easton) 

St. Agustine Confessions, Trans. by William Watts (Loeb Classical Library) 

St. Agustine Confessions, II, Trans. by William Watts (Loeb) 

The Confessions of St. Augustine, Trans. J.G. Pilkington (Easton) 

THE DIVINE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI, Trans. Arthur Livingston, with drawings by William Blake (Easton) 

BOLIVAR: American Liberator by Marie Arana 

The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks 

OVER THE EDGE OF THE WORLD: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigating of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (Easton) 

WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte (Easton) 

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler (Easton) 

CICERO on The Republic of the Laws, Trans. Clinton W. Kayes (Loeb) 

CICERO ORATIONS, Philippics 1-6, Ed. & Trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Revised by John T. Ramsey & Gesine Manuwald (Loeb) 

CICERO ORATIONS, Pro Caelio De Provincii’s Consularibus Pro Balbo, Trans. R. Gardner (Loeb) 

CICERO: Tusculan Disputations, Trans. JE King (Loeb) 

CICERO: IX Orations, Trans. H. Grose Hodge (Loeb) 

CICERO: DE SENECTUTE DE AMICITIA DE DIVINATIONS, trans. W.A. Falconer (Loeb) 

CICERO: ON THE NATURE OF THE GODS - ACADEMICS, trans. H. Rackham (Loeb) 

CICERO: ON THE ORATOR, trans. by E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham (Loeb) 

CICERO: LETTERS TO ATTICUS, Vol. II, Ed. & Trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Loeb) 

CICERO: Letters to Quintus and Brutus to Octavian / Inventions Handbook of Electioneering, Ed. & Trans. by D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Loeb) 

CICERO: Orations Philippics 7-14, Ed & Trans. by D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Revised by John T. Ramsey & Gesine Manuwald (Loeb) 

CICERO: Letters to Atticus, Vol. I, Ed & Trans by D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Loeb) 

CICERO: Orations in Catilinam I-IV, Pro Murena – Pro Sulla – Pro Flacco, Trans. C. MacDonald (Loeb) 

CICERO: Orations Pro Quinctio Pro Roscio Amerino Pro Roscio Comoedo On the Agrarian Law (Loeb) 

CICERO Orations Pro Archia Post Reditum In Senatu Post Reditum Ad Quirites De Domo Sua De Haruspicum Responsis Pro Planco, trans. by MH Watts (Loeb) 

CICERO XXI, Ed. Jeffrey Haderson (Loeb) 

CICERO IV De Oratore, Book III De Facto Paradoxa Stoicorum Partitiones Oratoriae, Trans. H. Rackham (Loeb) 

CICERO Orations Pro Milone – In Pisonem – Pro Scauno – Pro Fonteio – Pro Rabirio Postumo – Pro Marcello – Pro Ligario – Pro Rege Deiotaro, Trans. N.H. Watta (Loeb) 

[CICERO] Rhetorica Ad Herennum, Trans. Harry Caplan (Loeb) 

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (Easton) 

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (Easton) 

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (Easton) 

How The Crusades Changed History, Prof. Philip Daileader (Great Courses) 

The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin (Easton) 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens (Easton) 

The Short Stories by Charles Dickens (Easton) 

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco 

THE MILL ON THE FLOSS by George Eliot with illustrations by Wray Manning (Easton) 

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett 

In Flagrante Collecto (caught in the art of collecting) by Marilyn Gelfman Karp 

FAUST by Goethe (Easton) 

THE MAPS OF ANTIETAM by Bradley M. Gottfried 

THE MAPS OF THE BRISTOE STATION AND MINE RUN CAMPAIGNS by Bradley M. Gottfried 

THE MAPS OF FIRST BULL RUN by Bradley M. Gottfried 

THE MAPS OF GETTYSBURG: An Atlas of the Gettysburg Campaign June 3-July 13, 1863 by Bradley M. Gottfried 

Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Easton) 

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Easton) 

HESIOD The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans H.G. Evelyn-White 

THE ILIAD by Homer (Easton) 

THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER (Easton) 

PASSIONS: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson 

A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce (Easton) 

SHERMAN: A Soldier’s Life by Lee Kennett 

HOW MUSIC AND MATHEMATICS RELATE, Prof. David Kung (Great Courses) 

The Prince by Machiavelli (Easton) 

Caesar’s Women by Colleen McCullough 

ANCIENT SHORES by Jack McDevitt (Easton) 

LANGUAGES A to Z, Prof. John McWhorter (Great Courses) 

Moby Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville (Easton) 

WIRED FOR WAR: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century by P.W. Singer 

IVANHOE by Walter Scott (Easton) 

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott (Easton) 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (8th printing but replica cover) 

CALIFORNIA: A History by Kevin Starr 

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (Easton) 

The Alhambra by Desmond Stewart and the Editors of the Newsweek Book Editions 

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (Easton) 

TACITUS Annals, Books XIII-XVI, trans. by John Jackson 

TACITUS Agricola Germania Dialogue, Trans. M. Hutton, W. Peterson; Revised by RM Ogilvie, EH Warmington, and M Winterbottom 

TACITUS, Histories IV-V, Annals I-III, Trans. by CH Moore and J. Jackson 

TACITUS The Histories, Books I-III, Trans. by CH Moore 

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Easton) 

TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne (Easton) 

REASON AND FAITH: Philosophy in the Middle Ages by Thomas Williams 

FORMING AN "IDEAL BOOKSHELF"

Dear Son,

MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF (art by Jane Mount and edited by Thessaly La Force) is a sweet book, complete with an epigraph from Dr. Seuss:

The more that you read, 

the more things you will know. 

The more that you learn, 

the more places you'll go.

Here's an excerpt from the book's description:

The books that we choose to keep and display—let alone read—can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In My Ideal Bookshelf, one hundred leading cultural figures, including writers Chuck Klosterman, Jennifer Egan, and Michael Chabon, musicians Patti Smith and Thurston Moore, chefs and food writers Alice Waters and Mark Bittman, and fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, reveal the books that matter to them most—books that reflect their obsessions and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world.

You can go HERE for the list of book contributors.  Because I am a poet, I naturally paid closer attention to the poet-contributors (and as I write this, may I say what a joy it was last night for you and I to discuss the poems of Stephen Crane--I hope you will always remember your Mom when you read his poems again in the future (as you should, since poems shouldn't be read just as homework):

If I should cast off this tattered coat, 

And go free into the mighty sky: 

If I should find nothing there 

But a vast blue, 

Echoless, ignorant— 

What then?

In paying attention to the poets, I came across Jorie Graham whose ending to her contribution I take to heart:

Ms. Graham says, "As to what I would say to a young writer? Don't think of it as a career, think of it as a practice. Read everything by one poet.  Learn one whole language and world at a time.  Don't worry about understanding it critically.  Not at first.  Not for a long time."

Dear Son, your Mom was not trained formally as a poet--everything I know about writing poetry I learned from reading poetry.  And though I didn't know of Jorie Graham's advice at the time I was a newbie poet, I inadvertently hewed by it--that is, I was lucky to find three poets whose poems I so adored that I immersed myself in their works for a time.  In our library, their books are gathered together on the shelves and here are the photos of the three poets so meaningful to my development as a (young) poet:

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge:

Mei-mei's books are shelved next to some boxed book art by her husband Richard Tuttle (grist for another post):

Arthur Sze:

You might notice shelved among Arthur Sze's book this wonderful science text, THE QUARK AND THE JAGUAR by Murray Gell-mann.  I have Dr. Gell-mann's book because, in one of his poems, Arthur Sze had referenced quark and jaguar and I wanted to know more about the source --the life lesson, here, Son, is that immersion is best when done as deeply as one is able:

John Yau:

Speaking of deep immersion, John Yau here has more shelf space because I also pay attention to his art writings and collaborations with artists in addition to his poems:

As for the specific book titles by these poets, you can go to our Poetry Library -- click on their names for their books: Berssenbrugge, Sze and Yau.  You might be curious as to how I came to focus on these three writers.  Simply, I'll share that I feel these poets don't just write words but they expand the scope of words as they make their poems. I feel an affinity with what I read to be their approach due to my own transcolonial concerns....actually, let's not focus here on me...

By the way, if one is learning "one whole language and world at a time" without (yet) focusing on "understanding it critically," I believe this relates to at least two factors: 1) that poetry is its own language -- we learned this last night as we discussed how rhetoric and poetry differ; and 2) if critical understanding isn't the scaffold (of sorts) here, what might the position be from which the reader experiences poems for the first time?  Well, that I became a poet provides a clue.  For me, the answer to No. 2 is Love.

Dear Son, reading is a manifestation of Love.  May you always experience it, including ending up doing with your life what it is you (will) love.  It may take a while to get there -- I didn't focus on poetry until I was about double your current age -- but it can happen.

Love, 

Mom