If I start a Steinbeck book, I can’t put it down, except for maybe East of Eden, it’s longer than long. My first Steinbeck was Grapes of Wrath, 1939 seventh printing hardback I inherited from my mom.
A few of the other classics I inherited (there’s multiple book shelves) is a 1939 Gone With the Wind, which having seen the movie (4 hours not counting intermission) twice in theaters and twice on television, is not on the urgent read list. But those aren’t the old ones. There’s a nearly 140 year old Les Misérables with tissue paper thin pages.
Sea of Cortez is one I have not read. Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden are my favorites. Travels with Charlie is so casual and easy reading it’s almost like light fiction. I read it back to back with a similar Bill Bryson book “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America”.
I’m a map geek. I pulled out a road map atlas and followed the routes in Grapes, Travels, and Bryson’s book.
Yes, Steinbeck is so readable! I'll have check his his biblio, but I don't think there is a title I haven't read. I even read Travels With Charlie, which I did stumble upon in high school or shortly after.
Collectible books; ah, there's a subject I may write on some day. I love modern 1st editions! Please tell me that copy of Gone With the Wind is a 1st and then share the windfall with me lol.
No such luck. Both the GWTW and Grapes were bought used from a local department store, based on pencil writing on the inside of the front cover. Mom probably read them on the way to work while riding on a Big Red Car (Los Angeles once had an excellent light rail system). She was one of Disney Studios first female animators in the late ‘30’s early ‘40’s. I do have two signed original water color paintings from a Disney animator (his side gig), but have never had them professionally appraised. One was his wedding present to my parents.
It’s actually something from my dad that would spark some interest at a museum, historical society, or maybe even the Baseball Hall of Fame. Primary school B&W class photo, maybe around 1928 - 1930. The kid standing two away from dad is Jackie Robinson.
You have a great collection. That 7th printing Grapes of Wrath is really something. I have a 5th printing of To Kill a Mockingbird that I’m very attached to. Both our books are probably only worth a couple hundred--better to just enjoy owning than selling!
You must be proud of your mom, that’s really cool!
I don’t follow sports but your class photo brings to mind PBS Antiques Roadshow. Maybe I’ll see you on there one day!
I went back to college at 55 able to finish a years work in three by doing one class per quarter BA in History. The recent history class was pretty easy. I don't read books any more, eyes, but can read Stack pennings.
Your account of your love affair with reading resonates with me. As a professor of philosophy, teaching a required philosophy course, I always enjoyed having non-traditional students like you. The kids who were there because their parents made them were not always the most enthusiastic people in the room. The adults who thought a liberal arts education at a private university was important enough to devote the time and money to acquiring made darn sure they got the most out of my class. As for myself, I tried to make the effort every semester to audit a class of one of my colleagues. Now that I'm retired, I'm reading and blogging my way through a pretty extensive list of great literature.
Great! Thanks for reading and commenting, Professor Boyd Skipper! A couple of my other essays mention works of literature ("The Freedom I Craved was Mine Already" deals with my mixed experience with Ayn Rand, and "Help, I Need Somebody" mentions Maggie Shipstead's The Great Circle). I love literary fiction and will continue to mention or theme around them in the future.
Good to discover you. I've been waiting to come across a blog that is themed around literary fiction. I just subscribed! Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I also recently contributed a written interview about my reading life to Matthew Long's Beyond the Bookshelf.
I just read your blog on White Noise, a book I really wanted to like... haha. I am looking forward to reading more of your work.
Oh, and yes, my sentiments exactly on adult students!
I read Hardy Boys books, Tom Swift, Nancy Drew and several other Stratemeyer Syndicate books while growing up. I collected First edition Hardy Boys (pre-WWII only) but sold them off (at a profit) over time. Nancy Drew firsts often command more money and are a more sophisticated read than the Hardy Boys.
Thanks for reading, Tom! I once had the chance to buy a boxful of old Hardy Boys books that may or may not have been 1sts, but I think I remember 1sts being very hard to identify and I didn't need more books piling up!
Hardy Boy Firsts are difficult to identify. There is a specialized reference book available to the collector community that helps identify the real Firsts. Same with Nancy Drew Firsts.
So my memory is correct! And the world of used books is completely flooded with Hardy Boys reprints—trillions of them!—so finding 1sts in a yard sale is unlikely.
Don, it was fun going into your archive a bit and reading this one! I know it's not the noblest emotion, but...I envy your ability to absorb books! I wonder if I had grown up in the 70s instead of the 90s when computer games always called my name and I'd constantly skimp on required reading...
"Embarrassed by its cover, I turned the title inward when carrying the book through the school corridors"
This was me, except it was an Alanis Morisette CD, and I was hiding it under my bed from my much cooler cousin.
The divorce stuff and the tension leading up to it is very palpable. Thank you for sharing, truly.
I think growing up in the 90s indeed makes a huge difference. I don't know much about computer games but I'm sure there is similarity in the "world creating" and one's ability to lose oneself in those worlds.
That's funny about the Alan's Morisette CD! We all have our reputations to uphold haha!
I read a lot of Hardy Boys originals, including all the nineteen-teens racist references to "da Blacka Hand!" (la Cosa Nostra) in the first printings of the first one. Also some Nancy Drew, but my favorites were the Three Investigators, who I mention (along with the Mad Scientists' Club from Boys' Life) in tomorrow's newsletter.
So many wonderful books that you've mentioned, and I remember reading (multiple times :-)
Books are nice to return to. Currently, I happen to be rereading Walden. A thoughtful gift that I received. And... as for American Transcendentalists... Thoreau and Emerson are my favorites!
his essay “Walking”, published posthumously in The Atlantic Monthly.
🌿"The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is-I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?"🌿
Reading this piece was like hearing echos of my younger self. I was always a voracious reader who stumbled upon great literature rather haphazardly. I've loved Thoreau and Steinbeck from a young age. Books kept me company through a bad marriage and a difficult divorce. This read was worth a coffee. Keep writing! Cheers.
Yes and yes! I share some of your favorite authors and have to look up a couple others. Thank you. I always have a strong feeling about what I need to read next (which often makes it hard to take recommendations but means I follow an eclectic trail). Currently reading the (auto)biography of Niki de Saint Phalle by Nicole Rudick. It's interesting! So glad you found me, and glad to be here.
I loved this, Don. So interesting to track a life through books. Hardy Boys for me too, plus Nancy Drew, my first tastes of American culture, (I’m in the UK), followed by Steinbeck and Catcher in the Rye. I think the combo of carpentry and literature sounds a very healthy one. Speaking from experience, a life in books alone can get a bit cerebral and lose touch with reality if you let it, which I did for a while when I was young.
Thank you, Julie. It's always nice to hear someone tell you you're leading a healthy life! Books did help me rise above the poverty thinking that has kept my large family from expanding and educating their minds and taking better care of themselves.
I have read your posts and see that you are on a path of discovery yourself, through your art. I wish you the best and will continue to follow your journey!
Books did that for me too, Don. They not only opened my mind to a larger world but made me think I could live there one day too. My first degree was in English, so books did indeed free me as the first (only) one of my family to go to university. Doing my textiles degree now is quite a different experience! I’m so pleased you’re reading sling, thank you.
Wow, you, too! I do have a younger sister (I come from a family of eight) who pursued a nursing degree later in life. She works very hard so I give her credit. But she hates to read and is not afraid to say so lol!!
Love this Don! Like David said, so incredible how you can map out the journey of your life through books. I started reading at around age 2 and by the time I was 3, I would visit the children's library every week with my parents, and it's such a core defining memory for me; the drives, the exalted run into the library, the being surrounded by books. There I would borrow the maximum number of allowed books for the week, and then get through all of them in a few days. I remember getting chided by my mother that I had to pace myself better with books so I wouldn't be bored by the end of the week, haha!
Thank you so much, Anagha. I really appreciate you support! I too have fond memories of my mom bringing my siblings and me to the public library, on Saturdays. Our book limit was eight and I always finished them too soon as well!
That was a facinating read, its amazing how you can map the beats of your life out in the books you were reading at the time. And well done on getting that bachelor degree done. Clearly, based on what you are writing here it was the right thing to do... But the fact that you ended up back at carpentry does not surprise me. I studied French and Art/Architectural History but ended up in software engineering... And they compliment each other, critical thinking and creative practices often do.
Hey, thank you, David, I really appreciate your taking the time to comment. Getting the degree was absolutely the right thing to do. And it was truly absorbing; I loved being an adult student, just reading, writing, and engaging with others about literature every day for four years. It was an end in itself. (On that note, I will soon be writing an essay on being a "late bloomer.")
I just subscribed to your blog and am looking forward to getting to know you and your creative thoughts.
Yes when I went to do an arts/humanities degree I guess my idealistic self imagined I'd end up in the Arts/academia as a job but as you grow up you also realise what you love, and what you love to do as a profession. I loved the art, study, eploration etc of university but when it came down to it I also loved making things on computers. It ended up being a great mix and probably in years to come ill go back to more dedicated time to the other.
And great to meet you on here, looking forward to your future posts.
My father was a carpenter in the Boston union and both my parents were high school dropouts (out of necessity to help their families survive). So going to college at all was a very strange thing, and not urged or supported. I think I Always felt obligated to be doing something “real,” working with my hands and making money, not dreaming. So it actually felt more natural and right, in one sense, for me to work than to study. But in another, more personal sense, I never felt like I belonged on the job site. I never fit in (construction workers don’t read!).
I guess I was like Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf!
Nice that you seem to have found the balance you need. The very phrase “Arts/Humanities” sounds pleasing to my ears.
If I start a Steinbeck book, I can’t put it down, except for maybe East of Eden, it’s longer than long. My first Steinbeck was Grapes of Wrath, 1939 seventh printing hardback I inherited from my mom.
A few of the other classics I inherited (there’s multiple book shelves) is a 1939 Gone With the Wind, which having seen the movie (4 hours not counting intermission) twice in theaters and twice on television, is not on the urgent read list. But those aren’t the old ones. There’s a nearly 140 year old Les Misérables with tissue paper thin pages.
I went through a Steinbeck phase in high school, and learned later that he had an unpublished werewolf novel. That would be something to see.
Still haven't managed to read The Log of the Sea of Cortez, though I saw a good documentary about it recently.
https://randallhayes.substack.com/p/so-many-zingers
Sea of Cortez is one I have not read. Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden are my favorites. Travels with Charlie is so casual and easy reading it’s almost like light fiction. I read it back to back with a similar Bill Bryson book “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America”.
I’m a map geek. I pulled out a road map atlas and followed the routes in Grapes, Travels, and Bryson’s book.
East of Eden is worth the time commitment. I read it at least once a year. The ending is the best part! I envy you your copy of Les Mes.
It’s by far his longest book. I had to write down a list of characters and relationships to keep them straight.
East of Eden is my favorite Steinbeck. I read it when I was young and again 2 years ago.
Yes, Steinbeck is so readable! I'll have check his his biblio, but I don't think there is a title I haven't read. I even read Travels With Charlie, which I did stumble upon in high school or shortly after.
Collectible books; ah, there's a subject I may write on some day. I love modern 1st editions! Please tell me that copy of Gone With the Wind is a 1st and then share the windfall with me lol.
No such luck. Both the GWTW and Grapes were bought used from a local department store, based on pencil writing on the inside of the front cover. Mom probably read them on the way to work while riding on a Big Red Car (Los Angeles once had an excellent light rail system). She was one of Disney Studios first female animators in the late ‘30’s early ‘40’s. I do have two signed original water color paintings from a Disney animator (his side gig), but have never had them professionally appraised. One was his wedding present to my parents.
It’s actually something from my dad that would spark some interest at a museum, historical society, or maybe even the Baseball Hall of Fame. Primary school B&W class photo, maybe around 1928 - 1930. The kid standing two away from dad is Jackie Robinson.
You have a great collection. That 7th printing Grapes of Wrath is really something. I have a 5th printing of To Kill a Mockingbird that I’m very attached to. Both our books are probably only worth a couple hundred--better to just enjoy owning than selling!
You must be proud of your mom, that’s really cool!
I don’t follow sports but your class photo brings to mind PBS Antiques Roadshow. Maybe I’ll see you on there one day!
I went back to college at 55 able to finish a years work in three by doing one class per quarter BA in History. The recent history class was pretty easy. I don't read books any more, eyes, but can read Stack pennings.
I like both your framing and your finish work.
No kidding, 55! I was 52 when I finally got my bachelor’s. Thanks for reading, Malcolm. Hope I didn’t stress your eyes to much!
Your account of your love affair with reading resonates with me. As a professor of philosophy, teaching a required philosophy course, I always enjoyed having non-traditional students like you. The kids who were there because their parents made them were not always the most enthusiastic people in the room. The adults who thought a liberal arts education at a private university was important enough to devote the time and money to acquiring made darn sure they got the most out of my class. As for myself, I tried to make the effort every semester to audit a class of one of my colleagues. Now that I'm retired, I'm reading and blogging my way through a pretty extensive list of great literature.
Great! Thanks for reading and commenting, Professor Boyd Skipper! A couple of my other essays mention works of literature ("The Freedom I Craved was Mine Already" deals with my mixed experience with Ayn Rand, and "Help, I Need Somebody" mentions Maggie Shipstead's The Great Circle). I love literary fiction and will continue to mention or theme around them in the future.
Good to discover you. I've been waiting to come across a blog that is themed around literary fiction. I just subscribed! Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I also recently contributed a written interview about my reading life to Matthew Long's Beyond the Bookshelf.
I just read your blog on White Noise, a book I really wanted to like... haha. I am looking forward to reading more of your work.
Oh, and yes, my sentiments exactly on adult students!
Thanks, Robert!
I read Hardy Boys books, Tom Swift, Nancy Drew and several other Stratemeyer Syndicate books while growing up. I collected First edition Hardy Boys (pre-WWII only) but sold them off (at a profit) over time. Nancy Drew firsts often command more money and are a more sophisticated read than the Hardy Boys.
Thanks for reading, Tom! I once had the chance to buy a boxful of old Hardy Boys books that may or may not have been 1sts, but I think I remember 1sts being very hard to identify and I didn't need more books piling up!
Hardy Boy Firsts are difficult to identify. There is a specialized reference book available to the collector community that helps identify the real Firsts. Same with Nancy Drew Firsts.
So my memory is correct! And the world of used books is completely flooded with Hardy Boys reprints—trillions of them!—so finding 1sts in a yard sale is unlikely.
Finding them with original dust jackets is even harder but that’s where the money is.
Don, it was fun going into your archive a bit and reading this one! I know it's not the noblest emotion, but...I envy your ability to absorb books! I wonder if I had grown up in the 70s instead of the 90s when computer games always called my name and I'd constantly skimp on required reading...
"Embarrassed by its cover, I turned the title inward when carrying the book through the school corridors"
This was me, except it was an Alanis Morisette CD, and I was hiding it under my bed from my much cooler cousin.
The divorce stuff and the tension leading up to it is very palpable. Thank you for sharing, truly.
I think growing up in the 90s indeed makes a huge difference. I don't know much about computer games but I'm sure there is similarity in the "world creating" and one's ability to lose oneself in those worlds.
That's funny about the Alan's Morisette CD! We all have our reputations to uphold haha!
I read a lot of Hardy Boys originals, including all the nineteen-teens racist references to "da Blacka Hand!" (la Cosa Nostra) in the first printings of the first one. Also some Nancy Drew, but my favorites were the Three Investigators, who I mention (along with the Mad Scientists' Club from Boys' Life) in tomorrow's newsletter.
Yeah, in researching this article I read that the first editions had to be "cleaned up."
I loved because of Winn Dixie! Other young favorites include A series ofUnfortunate Events and Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia.
I read Narnia so long ago, and I only read the first Harry Potter, which I couldn't put down.
So many wonderful books that you've mentioned, and I remember reading (multiple times :-)
Books are nice to return to. Currently, I happen to be rereading Walden. A thoughtful gift that I received. And... as for American Transcendentalists... Thoreau and Emerson are my favorites!
Glad you enjoyed the post, Audrey. Thanks for being here! 🩷
Another Thoreau favorite -
his essay “Walking”, published posthumously in The Atlantic Monthly.
🌿"The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is-I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?"🌿
- H. D.Thoreau
One of my favorites, too! Especially that quote! Thanks, Audrey. 🙂❤️
Reading this piece was like hearing echos of my younger self. I was always a voracious reader who stumbled upon great literature rather haphazardly. I've loved Thoreau and Steinbeck from a young age. Books kept me company through a bad marriage and a difficult divorce. This read was worth a coffee. Keep writing! Cheers.
Thank you so much, for your kind words, for taking the time respond, and for the coffee! I'm sure we could have a good talk over that coffee!
Enjoyed this article Don as I do most things related to books and reading. Keep up the great work.
Thanks, Matthew!
I enjoyed getting an inside look at you as a young man. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Bill!
Enjoyed this piece very much,
Thank you, Joan! :-)
Yes and yes! I share some of your favorite authors and have to look up a couple others. Thank you. I always have a strong feeling about what I need to read next (which often makes it hard to take recommendations but means I follow an eclectic trail). Currently reading the (auto)biography of Niki de Saint Phalle by Nicole Rudick. It's interesting! So glad you found me, and glad to be here.
Thank you, Jessica. What are a couple/few of your favorite authors?
I loved this, Don. So interesting to track a life through books. Hardy Boys for me too, plus Nancy Drew, my first tastes of American culture, (I’m in the UK), followed by Steinbeck and Catcher in the Rye. I think the combo of carpentry and literature sounds a very healthy one. Speaking from experience, a life in books alone can get a bit cerebral and lose touch with reality if you let it, which I did for a while when I was young.
Thank you, Julie. It's always nice to hear someone tell you you're leading a healthy life! Books did help me rise above the poverty thinking that has kept my large family from expanding and educating their minds and taking better care of themselves.
I have read your posts and see that you are on a path of discovery yourself, through your art. I wish you the best and will continue to follow your journey!
Books did that for me too, Don. They not only opened my mind to a larger world but made me think I could live there one day too. My first degree was in English, so books did indeed free me as the first (only) one of my family to go to university. Doing my textiles degree now is quite a different experience! I’m so pleased you’re reading sling, thank you.
Wow, you, too! I do have a younger sister (I come from a family of eight) who pursued a nursing degree later in life. She works very hard so I give her credit. But she hates to read and is not afraid to say so lol!!
Love this Don! Like David said, so incredible how you can map out the journey of your life through books. I started reading at around age 2 and by the time I was 3, I would visit the children's library every week with my parents, and it's such a core defining memory for me; the drives, the exalted run into the library, the being surrounded by books. There I would borrow the maximum number of allowed books for the week, and then get through all of them in a few days. I remember getting chided by my mother that I had to pace myself better with books so I wouldn't be bored by the end of the week, haha!
Thank you so much, Anagha. I really appreciate you support! I too have fond memories of my mom bringing my siblings and me to the public library, on Saturdays. Our book limit was eight and I always finished them too soon as well!
That was a facinating read, its amazing how you can map the beats of your life out in the books you were reading at the time. And well done on getting that bachelor degree done. Clearly, based on what you are writing here it was the right thing to do... But the fact that you ended up back at carpentry does not surprise me. I studied French and Art/Architectural History but ended up in software engineering... And they compliment each other, critical thinking and creative practices often do.
Hey, thank you, David, I really appreciate your taking the time to comment. Getting the degree was absolutely the right thing to do. And it was truly absorbing; I loved being an adult student, just reading, writing, and engaging with others about literature every day for four years. It was an end in itself. (On that note, I will soon be writing an essay on being a "late bloomer.")
I just subscribed to your blog and am looking forward to getting to know you and your creative thoughts.
Oh, do you mind if I restack your comment? Ever the self-promoting on here, right? :-)
Go for it!
Yes when I went to do an arts/humanities degree I guess my idealistic self imagined I'd end up in the Arts/academia as a job but as you grow up you also realise what you love, and what you love to do as a profession. I loved the art, study, eploration etc of university but when it came down to it I also loved making things on computers. It ended up being a great mix and probably in years to come ill go back to more dedicated time to the other.
And great to meet you on here, looking forward to your future posts.
My father was a carpenter in the Boston union and both my parents were high school dropouts (out of necessity to help their families survive). So going to college at all was a very strange thing, and not urged or supported. I think I Always felt obligated to be doing something “real,” working with my hands and making money, not dreaming. So it actually felt more natural and right, in one sense, for me to work than to study. But in another, more personal sense, I never felt like I belonged on the job site. I never fit in (construction workers don’t read!).
I guess I was like Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf!
Nice that you seem to have found the balance you need. The very phrase “Arts/Humanities” sounds pleasing to my ears.
Thanks for engaging, David.