Tales of the Whales – May Reading List

"Whaling Voyage Round the World" c. 1848 by Benjamin Russell and Caleb P. Purrington

This month Book Phantom will be reading about whales and seafaring.  How did I come to this subject?  It’s nearly summer, and time to start thinking about seaside vacations.  However, little synchronicities in my life have been pointing me towards “whale lit”.  First, when I was browsing Books of the Month at Amazon, I came across a recommendation for Galore by Canadian author Michael Crummey.  I was pulled in by the blurb about a strange, pale man cut from the body of a beached whale.  My next sign came as I was reading Swamplandia!.  In the chapters that took place at The World of Darkness theme park, Karen Russell described a ride called the Leviathan in which tourists could slide down into the innards of a great fake whale.  The third sign came when I took my daughter on a field trip to Shackleford Banks last week.  This island was the site of a small whaling community in the 1800’s called Diamond City.  It was abandoned in 1899 after a great hurricane flattened most of the town.  I learned on this trip that North Carolina was the only state south of New Jersey that had a whaling industry of any note. 

My final reason for choosing whale tales is that whaling is in my family history.  My husband’s great-grandfather left the Azores at the age of fourteen upon a whaler and eventually settled in Erie, Pennsylvania in the late 1860s.  In order to give my kids a better understanding of their ancestry, I thought it would be helpful to read some literature about it.

So, the universe was giving me a nudge, and the notion to read about whales emerged from the depths of my subconscious as clear as a tail fin or a spout from a blowhole.  Here are my “Tales of the Whales” reading selections:

What to Read? Part 3: How to Make a Reading List

Last post, I introduced the Reader’s Formula for Selecting Books.  It looked like this:

Values ((Assets + x) – (Desires + y) – Liabilities – Requirements) = Optimal Reading List

This post, I am going to give an example from my reading life to demonstrate how to use this formula.  The first part of the formula is “values”, which I said are variable.  They determine what experiences we deem important or not, and influence our judgment and behaviors.  For simplicity, and to avoid sounding like a Sociology 101 text, I call this “life acting upon us”, because essentially, our life circumstances give rise to our values.

            So, what do I value these days?  What filter is life applying to me to influence which experiences I let in and which ones I release?  Lately, I have been feeling adrift, directionless.  After two years of working regularly to revise my manuscript, I find myself ready to give up on the project.  My mind resists quitting, but my behaviors tell me I already have.  I can’t make myself work on it anymore, yet nothing has replaced this piece of work in my mind.  No new ideas.  No desire to do anything else.  I am adrift on a plain of apathy.  How to find my way?

            I decide to read to take my mind off my failure.  I browse the stacks in the library, hoping to be inspired by something.  My eye lands upon the cover of a book, featured by the library staff.  It is called The Selected Works by T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen.  I have seen this book many times, and although intrigued by it, I never took it home.  This particular day, feeling lost and in need of a map to navigate my professional aspirations, I thought, “What better way to reorient myself than to read a book about a boy cartographer?”  If being lost was what life was giving me, then finding my way was what I valued.  Therefore, in my reader’s formula, v = Finding my way.

What to Read? Part 2: The Reader’s Formula

In my last post, I likened finding good books to dating, and I promised to share my process for choosing what to read next.  Consider me a matchmaker who helps “bind” books and readers (sorry for that).  In order to find a satisfying partner for a literary love affair, one needs some method of selection from a multitude of promising candidates – sort of like the method mathematician John Nash (whose life was depicted in A Beautiful Mind) developed for choosing which women he and his pals should pick up in a bar. (Keep in mind, I’m no schizophrenic supergenius, this isn’t anything like game theory, and we are just talking about books here lest anyone is confused and thinks they landed on an Internet dating site).

First, the reader must have a list of things he/she is looking for in a book, and the reader must consider his/her own limitations.  Here is what I know about my reading preferences as well as the constraints that work against me:

1. I want to read the best new releases when they come out instead of getting on the library’s wait list, but I can only afford one, maybe two hardcovers a month (my limitations are urgency and money).  I don’t have a lot of time to research (another limitation), so I will read reviews of only the newest – say, those released within the last three to six months. 
2. I don’t want to neglect the Classics because a well-rounded reader should make an effort to read what is timeless (if for no other reason than to appreciate references to these works in other literature).  I suppose the genealogist in me compels me to read Classics – I think we have better perspective of the present if we know what came before.  Mark Twain put it so aptly:  “‘Classic.’  A book which people praise and don’t read.”  (Ironic that Twain’s books are now classics, and I still haven’t read one.)
3. I like reading nonfiction as much as fiction.  Learning for the sake of learning is a value to me, and I’d like to be informed by more than just watching the evening news (which I avoid) or searching Wikipedia (to which I’m addicted).
4. My children are a priority, and I like to read the books they’re reading and preview things I think they’ll enjoy.  Children’s literature and YA are a couple of my favorite genres because the necessary read time is usually minimal. 
5. I am a writer, and need to read books that inspire and educate me so I’m more productive, creative, and efficient.  This type of reading might fall under self-improvement, career, or inspirational, and it helps us contribute our own verses to the world.   These materials are most directly related to real-life action.  For example, I might be reading Blogging for Dummies right now, which leads me to write a blog.