Books

Tomorrow morning I go for my second chemo treatment. I'll bring a book to read, my ipod with a second book to listen to if I get tired of holding a book after a while, and some sudokus if I get tired of reading altogether. I love to read. I read both fiction and non-fiction. I can't read bad writing, no matter how good a story is, but I can listen to almost anything, no matter how bad the writing, if it's an interesting story. I think I just like being read to. I grew up listening to the radio - we didn't get our first TV until I was 9 or 10 years old - and I was hooked on westerns (The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy), mysteries (Green Hornet, Superman, Charlie Chan), and comedies (Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, Bob and Ray). Saturday mornings were the best. Grab a box of Ritz crackers, a jar of peanut butter and some milk and listen to all the great shows while everybody else in the house slept.

Like most people I have favorite authors who just don't write enough books. My tastes in fiction run to spy thrillers, satire, some detective novels, historical fiction and any well-written book that has an exotic locale and/or theme. For thrillers you can't beat Robert Ludlum, Ken Follett, Daniel Silva, John LeCarre and Frederick Forsyth, all masters of the craft. One of my favorite authors is Carl Hiaasen whose novels are laugh-out-loud funny. He is a columnist for the Miami Herald with a particular bent towards savaging the people who would rape Florida's environment for profit. He skewers them in delicious ways in his novels. Christopher Buckley also writes some very sharp satire. Stephen Cannell, the creator of the A-Team TV show, writes some good mystery novels, set in LA. It's not literature but he tells a good story. T. Jefferson Parker is an excellent writer with a number of very good, gritty mysteries set in various locales in Southern California.  I'm also hooked on some very light fare. M.C. Beaton has a series about a Scottish detective, Hamish Macbeth, set in a small village in remote northern Scotland. The books are charming and clever mysteries always featuring a murder. My favorite author of historical fiction, a master of the craft, is Bernard Cornwell, who happens to live here on the Cape. I've read or listened to just about every book he's written, and he has written lots of them. I recommend him highly.

My tastes in non-fiction run to history, biography and travel writing. Unfortunately, most travel writing is not very good, but there are exceptions. I picked up "The Caliph's House", by Tahir Shah, a few months ago. It was spellbinding, recounting his family's move to a large, run down house in the heart of Casablanca, and the adventures they encountered in restoring it. A second book, "In Arabian Nights", also about Morocco, was just as good. Pico Iyer is another excellent travel writer, as are Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux (though I find him rather depressing at times). I love to read history. My favorite eras are the classical - ancient Greece and Rome - and our colonial and revolutionary times. One of my favorite books is "The Glorious Cause", by Robert Middlekauf, about our revolution. It's the best of the many books I've read on this period in our history.  Another is J.J. Norwich's three-volume history of Byzantium which was my nightly companion for several months. David McCullough is a compelling storyteller. I greatly enjoyed his biographies of John Adams and Harry Truman. Another of my favorites is Joseph Ellis. His "Founding Brothers", about the founding fathers, is a great read. Finally, I must mention Robert K. Massie. His "Peter the Great",  about the Russian czar, was one of the first audiobooks I listened to, and is one of the best books I have read, even though I generally have little interest in Russian history. Other authors whose histories I have enjoyed are John Keegan, writing on the first world war, and Barbara W. Tuchman, writing on almost anything. There are many others that I haven't mentioned because I can't remember their names (can't remember much of anything any more). I have read six or seven biographies of Alexander the Great, whom I consider one of the most fascinating characters in history. Finally, I have to say I love books, the kind made of paper. I don't think I'll ever be a fan of e-readers, or reading off a computer screen. And because I love free things, I love libraries. Long may they endure.