Part I: The Way Mike Worked

The Laramie County Public Library kicks off the fall with the Smithsonian exhibit, "The Way We Worked." Sponsored here by Wyoming Humanities, the exhibit "engages viewers with a history of work." It opens Sept. 22 and runs through Nov. 13. Grand opening is a "Hands-on History Expo" on Sept. 28 where you can "dial a rotary phone, draw water with a hand pump, enjoy old-fashioned refreshments (make your own ice cream!) and much more." You can see antique tractors, a wheat-washing machine and an old-fashioned library card catalog. 

This is what libraries are for -- education and fun. Reading itself is a joy. Those facts alone are a bulwark against the Trumpists' war on truth, learning, creativity, and the free press. So come out to the library this fall and see what it was really like when your grandparents were kids. Dial a rotary phone. Man, I want to do that as it's been awhile. Wonder what memories that will provoke? And the library asks us for our memories, stories about what kind of work our forebears did, what we do (or did) for a living, what we want to do when we grow up. 

Some grow up knowing what they want to do with their lives. They are the lucky ones or the cursed ones, depending on how it all works out. Should I follow a predictable path, or take the road less traveled? Nothing more quickly provokes an eye roll from a high school grad than the question, "So what are your plans?" You can really punk your elders with wise-ass replies. I don't have any plans. I'm going to surf/snowboard until someone comes along and offers me a job. What's a plan?

I remember my elders asking similar questions at my 1969 high school graduation. What you going to do, Mike? I replied that I was attending the University of South Carolina in Columbia on a Navy ROTC scholarship and major in marine biology. I would serve my term as a naval officer, hopefully in places close to good surf spots. I then would become a marine biologist with a job close to good surfing spots. Oh yeah, I was going to get married, too, to my high school steady although maybe I wouldn't say that out loud because we hadn't discussed it yet. I was going to play serious basketball pick-up games as long as I could.

I really had no basis for any of this. Except the surfing part -- that I really loved. I loved the ocean, too, as a place that produced waves for me to ride. Did I spend my free time studying the ocean currents and plant/animal life? Did I dream of seagoing adventures on famous oceanography vessels? 

Where was my passion?

I read. I loved books. Some of my favorite novels were set on the ocean, those about Captain Horatio Hornblower, for instance. I devoured the novels written by Alistair MacLean, specifically "HMS Ulysses" and "Ice Station Zebra." I read books about World War II, my father's war. I read historical fiction and sci-fi and mysteries. I was an omnivore, reading-wise. I read the cool books, ones that people talked about such as "Catch-22," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,"  "Slaughterhouse Five." I wondered about the authors, how they got their start, how they sat down at a desk and typed all day. I never met a living author. I knew they existed but none of them came to my hometown, as far as I knew. None of them ever visited my small Catholic high school.

I had a clear picture of the ocean and the ships that sailed upon her. I had no clear idea of the world of writing. Thing is, I was much more attracted to the latter than the former. But how do you tell your Depression-era and WWII parents that you want to do something as ethereal as writing for a living? My father was an accountant with a well-stocked library. My mother was a nurse who read all of the time. My parents birthed nine children, and I was the eldest and the one who was supposed to be an example to them all. We did not grow up poor but budgets were always tight. My father bought breakfast cereal and macaroni-and-cheese by the case at the precursor of Sam's Club. My mother cooked fifties dishes, such as tuna casserole, that I never want to see again. My father changed jobs a lot and my mother worked, a rarity at the time. 

So I had to plan my own trajectory. And how did that work out? 

Stay tuned for details in my next installment of "The Way Mike Worked" series. Coming soon!

First comes the reading and then the literary tourism

I start each weekday watching the network news. Not sure why. Goes good with oatmeal, I guess.

I usually watch until Trump's smarmy face appears. It doesn't take long. I then switch around the the Weather Channel or Turner Classic Movies. Today I clicked on TCM just to see the middle part of "The Adventures of Mark Twain," a 1944 film starring Frederic March as Twain. I was shocked to learn that Twain ran a publishing company or, rather, he hired his nephew, Charles Webster, to run the company and named it after him. Two early successes were "Huckleberry Finn" and "The Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant," Parts I and 2.  I read Huck Finn. I have poked around in my 1885 copy of U.S. Grant, long enough to know it is not just a pretty good presidential memoir but a pretty good book. I wonder if Twain played a part in that? I will probably read the trade paperback copy as the old hardback is falling apart. Too bad I got to it so late -- it's probably worth something in pristine condition.

Twain's press folded in 1894, after publishing several Twain books and two volumes by some Russian guy, Leo Tolstoy. Twain had hoped to get rich off of other authors' works. Instead, he owed creditors more than $200,000, which adds up to millions in today's dollars. Instead of making a deal with them, he embarked on a world speaking tour to every continent. He made enough to pay off his debts. Meanwhile, his wife died. Twain's death coincided with the year that Halley's Comet returned. But I already knew that from the Wonderful World of Disney version of Twain's life.

Seems as if Twain is the gift that keeps on giving.

He may be the most notable American author of the 19th century. We continue to read him. His books, mainly Huck Finn, continue to be banned by school districts upset with the casual use of the N word, realistic depictions of slavery, and youngsters defying their elders.

I am a Twain fan. I have seen Hal Holbrook's stage presentation of "Mark Twain Tonight." The author was quotable, that's for sure, and Holbrook does a great job with the part.

I am a bit miffed at his participation in the "Gilded Age" with Rockefeller and Carnegie et. al. His youthful goal was thee be rich, not to be a notable man of letters. He reached that goal several times but keep losing it on other dubious get-rich-quick schemes.

He wrote some great novels and some scathing literary criticism. I dare you to read "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" and not laugh. Anyone who has read any of Cooper's convoluted "Deerslayer" tales should enjoy the humor. Here's a sample from the piece:

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require: 

1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the "Deerslayer" tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in air. 

2. They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the "Deerslayer" tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop. 

3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.

Remember that this was way before bloggers invented snark.

If we are looking for purists among our literary practitioners, well, the boat has already sailed on that one (not the one that Hart Crane jumped from). Hemingway was a misogynist, Fitzgerald a drunk. Flannery O'Connor couldn't stop talking about those scary creatures she invented to frighten us out of our lethargy. In this New Gilded Age, we want some literary heroes, or at least cool  hometowns to play tourist in, such as Cather's Red Cloud or Hurston's Eatonville. And Twain's house in Hartford.

As a literary tourist, I have seen most of these sights. They are interesting. But you can't really get to the heart of Hemingway's Nick Adams' stories by ogling the descendants of his six-toed Key West cats. You have to read the books. That comes first -- you cannot skip this step. Then you can talk to me about Annie Proulx's Wyoming influences or D.H. Lawrence's New Mexico years.

Read. And just think: every book you read is another blow against Trumpism.

Catching up on my reading -- D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers"

The most recent book I've read by D.H. Lawrence is "Sons and Lovers."

It's the only Lawrence novel I've read. Ever.

Not sure how I missed them. Although he published this and two other books prior to The Great War, his reputation was mostly made in the 1920s. He was in the midst of the "Lost Generation" of writers shaped by the war. He and his German-born wife, Frieda, were booted out of Cornwall in England for allegedly signalling German submarines. Lawrence is is mainly known in the U.S. for his time with Georgia O'Keefe and Mabel Dodge Luhan and writers such as Aldous Huxley in a ranch near Taos, N.M. He is the author of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," banned in the U.S. and U.K. in 1928. The first unexpurgated edition came out in 1960, 30 years after Lawrence's death from TB.

As spawn of the 1960s, I am surprised that I never read -- or tried to read -- "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Wasn't on the shelves in any of my K-12 schools, public or Catholic. It may have been in the public library but librarians of the day were on the lookout for impressionable teens attempting to check out smutty books. Guardians of the Book Galaxy.

Published in 1913, "Sons and L:overs" tells the story of Paul Morel as he comes of age in the Nottinghamshire coal-mining district. That's what initially attracted me to the book -- the coal-mining setting. But, unlike the film "How Green Was My Valley" (saw it on TCM last week) very little time is spent on the coal miners and their daily grind. Instead, we are absorbed in Paul's tale, almost absorbed as Paul is in his young life. Nothing new for a coming-of-age tale. But Paul's mother has a smothering presence. She's not evil but has transferred her attentions from her nogoodnik husband to her sons. When eldest son William dies, Paul is left holding the bag. He is talented, too, a young man who loves to paint and who knows his poetry. He is not destined for the mines, but something greater, and his mother intends to help him along the way.

That's the "sons" part of the tale. The "lovers" are Paul's, the innocent Miriam and the worldly Clara. You'd think an artistic chap such as Paul would have fled his one-horse town for life in London or Paris. But his mother keeps him close to home into his twenties.

I admire Lawrence's skill as a novelist. It's as plain a plot as any in literature. Will the guy flee his mother? Will he get the girl? I admit that the first 100 pages were hard-going. The pace of a 104-year-old novel is slower, as were the times. Lawrence takes his time noticing his home town of Eastwood, renamed Bestwood in the book. The flowers of summer, dazzling sunsets, people's feelings. We get inside Paul's head as he tries to determine the course of his life. Sensual -- but not sexual -- scenes power the novel. And leads me to rethink my own writing, more influenced by Raymond Carver than Henry James. Minimalist. Funny thing is, Lawrence was shocking in his time. His books were banned and so were the paintings, which were labeled as part of the daring Expressionist movement.

One of these best sensual sequences is when Paul accompanies Clara to the theatre. She wears a daring frock (daring for the time, anyway). "The firmness and softness of her upright body could almost be felt as he looked at her." (page 360).

'And he was to sit all evening beside her beautiful naked arm, watching the strong throat rise from the strong chest, watching the breasts under the green stuff, the curve of her limbs in the tight dress."

Something is going on on the stage but Paul hardly noticed. Clara and her parts "were all that existed."

The priggish Paul is enraptured. The foreplay goes on for quite a few pages until Paul and Clara finally get together in her bed. Sort of.

It's instructive to notice the shift in perception from 1907 rural England to 2017. Today, foreplay takes many fewer than 200 pages. Two-hundred characters, sometimes.

I did not find any graphic sex scenes in the edition I read, issued by Barnes & Noble Classics. It was published in 2003, so the scenes initially cut from the novel and returned in 1993, should be in there. Just for kicks,

This brings us the issue of censorship. That novel you are reading -- what edition is it? Was it cut up into a more acceptable shape before being published? To return to Carver, I've read varying versions of his stories. Apparently, his editor Gordon Lish had his own vision of Carver's stories. In our modern era, how much editing should authors allow? How much should they do?

I have found a few of Lawrence's public domain stories on the Internet. I will read some, especially those written during and after the war. One of my motives for reading Lawrence is to get a feel of the era, which is the setting of my novel. I've read quite a bit of nonfiction about The Great War and its aftermath. In some ways, fiction can do a better job of recreating the era. Good examples abound. "All Quiet on the Western Front." "The Good Soldier Schweik." "Farewell to Arms." And there are the British war poets who had a great influence on how the war was perceived by other generations. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. "Dulce et Decorum Est.."

"Wintry Peacock" is a malevolent short story by Lawrence. While some of the wording is dated, its theme of betrayal is as current as today's headlines. Here was a writer not Flannery O'Connor who featured peacocks in a story. Lawrence portrays the peacocks as dumb as stumps, more dim than the Morel family, which is experiencing a drama of its own making.  His style reminds me of that of his friend, E.M. Forster. See "The Other Side of the Hedge."

That is what aging provides, some perspective of what came before. I had good schooling. I have been filling in its blanks for 50 years. Maybe that's one of the positive aspects of the love of books and reading and writing. University liberal arts majors are belittled and, at some schools, discontinued. But my knowledge of books powered a career and sustains me in my retirement. I continue to discover treasures of other ages.

I just started "Three Soldiers" by John Dos Passos, yet another complicated writer of the Lost Generation. The writer was an ambulance driver in the war. I bought a slightly-used 1921 edition of the book for four bucks at an estate sale of a veteran of another war. The book still has the sleeve that housed the borrowers' card at the Merced (Calif.) Free Library. A date stamp on the title page reads March 21, 1922.

I hold history in my hands. I read.

On the look and smell of old-fashioned print books

The New York Times reports that sales of "old-fashioned print books" are up for the third year in a row, based on figures from the Association of American Publishers. And indie bookstores are doing well, reversing a decline sparked by big box bookstores, Amazon and e-books.

Good news for book lovers. Are the books being read and understood? No, if the American electorate is any indication.

But I am a book lover. At this point in my life, I am trying to shed books with little success. I occasionally clean up the shelves and take a few boxes of books to the library store. But I find a need to read a certain book that I can't get at the library and I end up buying it. My latest purchase was "Sons and Lovers," the 1913 novel by D.H. Lawrence. When a friend and one-time indie bookstore owner saw the book in my car, he picked it up and said, "This is how I learned about sex." I replied that I hadn't reached that part yet. Paul Morel and his potential sweetheart Miriam are still in the platonic stage.

I had a selfish motive for reading "Sons and Lovers." I discovered it was filled with wonderful details about a British coal-mining village of Eastwood before World War I. My grandfather lived and worked in a British coal-mining village before and during the early years of the war. I portray a character like that in the novel I am working on. Also, I never read a Lawrence novel. How I could be an English major and not read Lawrence is a surprise to me. I knew more about his life in Taos than I did about his books.

"Sons and Lovers" is a good read. The prose is dense at times but it was 1913, the same era as Edith Wharton, William James and Upton Sinclair. I read "The Jungle" earlier in the year and it was slow going at times.  Lawrence's prose is better that some of his contemporaries. He had an eye for detail.

This edition of "Sons and Lovers" is a trade paperback published in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics. It carries a scent but doesn't have that old-book smell.

But my 1921 copy of John Dos Passos' "Three Soldiers" does. It got it at an estate sale for $4 with the tag "library condition." Well used but not battered. From the Merced County Free Library. It still has the sleeve for the borrower's card and date stamps on the outside front cover. It smells like old paper. The pages are yellowing. But it's still readable, so that's what I'm doing. The novel concerns the journey made by three young men as they volunteer for service in World War I. Written after the war by veteran Dos Passos, the slang and expressions and description are of that time and are quite something. I can read about old times and smell them all at the same time. Not possible with an e-book.

Not sure what I will do with my books (old and new) after I'm finished with them and my research. I would say leave them to my adult children but they look upon their parents' accumulated goods as if it were radioactive waste. They're both big readers but my literary passions are not theirs.

It's good news to see that print books are back. Is it a trend or a passing fancy? Who knows. My habits are not likely to change. I will still get suckered into used book sales and garage sales and will just have to have that 1930 edition of "Death Comes for the Archbishop." I found that book at the annual Delta Kappa Gamma used book sale in Cheyenne. Only 50 cents. Who could pass that up?

During spring cleaning, the bell tolls for booklovers

What do I keep? What do I recycle? What do I throw away?

The questions of spring cleaning.

Over the weekend, I vowed to clean up my writing room. Spring cleaning fever hit us on Saturday as we helped our daughter move to a new place in Fort Collins. We tackled her room first, which she hadn't lived in for 18 months. Because it was vacant, I used it as a storage room for the stuff overflowing from my office. The jig was up. She's at home, searching for stuff for the move. So I had to comb through the boxes of receipts and old checkbooks and manuscripts and books.

I tackled the books first. The difficulty is that I want to read parts of a book to decide if it's a keeper. Got stuck on a Brad Leithauser poem, "The Odd Last Thing She Did" by his collection of the same title. It's about a suicidal young woman who disappears after leaving her car running on a cliff overlooking the ocean. "The car/Is Empty. A Friday, the first week/Of June. Nineteen fifty-three." A mystery is at the heart of this poem. Could be the setting for a 250-page hard-boiled mystery novel, a case for Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. But it's a four-page poem, long for a poem, short for a novel. The summer night is lovely with "the stars easing through the blue,/Engine and ocean breathing together." She could have been abducted, but that's not what the poem implies. She threw herself off the cliff. A suicide. A pretty, 23-year-old, and one with a car. But she didn't want to live.

"What are you doing?" Chris asks

I look up. "Reading," I say.

"That's not spring cleaning."

"Yes, but..." I want to say that this poem is wonderful and filled with mystery. It's why we read. But realize that I have been caught in the act.

Now my daughter is looking at me. She writes poetry. "C'mon, Dad," she says, hauling another box of rejected books out to the car trunk. She will take three boxes of books to the library today.

Caught in the act. I close Brad's book and put it into a box labeled "Mike books." Our rooms and basement have many such boxes as the bookshelves are full. In some circles, I would be labeled a hoarder. But among booklovers? Also in the box is "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, which I keep pledging to finally read; "The Voice of America," stories by Rick DeMarinis, which doesn't have my fave DeMarinis story ("Under the Wheat") but does have "The Voice of America" and "Aliens;" and a 1968 Fawcett Crest Book edition of Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" or, if you prefer the German, "Im Westen Nichts Neues." I have been tempted lately to reread the latter book as I am working on a novel set in the years after The Great War. But I have other research to do and may never get to it.

Therein lies the bookie's dilemma. What to keep, what to send to the library? I cannot bear to throw away a book as it seems too much like burning a book. Someone, somewhere wants to read the book that I don't want. Just as I want to read a book that someone else doesn't want, which is why I stop at garage sales.

I am 66 with grown children who are both readers. What will I make of all of this when I am gone? My accountant father painstakingly put the division of his library in his will. He read history and presidential biographies and autobiographies. I got everything from Lincoln to Kennedy, including a beat-up 1885 edition of the "Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Volume 1." Not sure which of my four brothers got the other volumes, if there were any. But I also got a trade paperback of the Grant memoirs which is comprehensive but not nearly as compelling as the original.

Technology is changing reading and collecting habits. Old books fall apart. Indie bookstores die along with their proprietors and aging customers. Good news, though -- it appears that this trend may be reversing. Our kids read books but spend a lot of time on Kindle and online reading.

I am tempted to bring up all these issues with my family. But I am in a losing battle against time. Nobody will care for these books as I do. Some will be claimed by my heirs but most will end up in library second-hand sales or in paperback bookstores or on the curb in garage sales. I will get rid of those that I can now and let time take its toll on the rest. John Donne said it well, and I don't have a single Donne book, not even holdovers from my undergrad and grad school English courses.

Here's the quote, which you may recognize:

"... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Before those bells start tolling, I need to tackle these books. Wish me luck.

Readings begin Nov. 18 for Blood, Water, Wind, and Stone: An Anthology of Wyoming Writers

Made in Wyoming (and published here too): This new anthology from Jackson's Sastrugi Press features a great line-up of the state's writers,

Attached is the latest info on readings and book signings for Blood, Water, Wind and Stone: An Anthology of Wyoming Writers. My story, "George Running Poles," was selected for inclusion by editor and poet Lori Howe. Sastrugi Press is the publisher. Great to have a Wyoming-based press (Jackson) and a Laramie-based editor. The rest of us are scattered all over the state. 

I will read with others at the Dec. 8 event in Laramie. Not only that -- goodies will be served. And Night Heron is a great place to buy Christmas presents for those readers in your life. Order now at Sastrugi Press.

Cody Opening: Friday, November 18, 5-7pm. Legends Bookstore, 1350 Sheridan Ave. Cody, WY 82414. Ph: (307) 586-2320, website: www.legendsbooks.com.

Casper Opening: Saturday, November 19, 6-8pm. Backwards Distillery, co-hosted by Wind City Books. Hosted by Backwards Distillery at 158 Progress Circle, Mills, WY 82644. www.windcitybooks.com or www.backwardsdistilling.com, (307) 472-1275.

Sheridan Opening. Sunday, November 20, 2:30-5pm. Sagebrush Community Art Center, 201 East 5^th St. Sheridan, WY. Ph: (307) 674-1970. website: www.artinsheridan.com

Cheyenne Opening: Saturday, December 3, 3:30-5:30pm. Laramie County Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave. Cheyenne, WY 82001. Ph: (307) 634-3561. Website: http://laramiecountylibrary.org.

Laramie Opening: Thursday, December 8, 6-7:30pm. Night Heron Books, 107 E. Ivinson St., Laramie, WY 82070. Ph: (307) 742-9028. Website:  www.nightheronbooks.com.

Jackson Opening: Saturday, December 10, 5-7pm. Valley Bookstore, 125 N. Cache St. Jackson, WY 83001. Ph: (307) 733-4533. Website: http://valleybookstore.com

Sarah Palin: "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"

The Anchorage Daily News, charged with keeping tabs on its peripatetic governor, reports that Sarah Palin is set to sign a book deal with Rupert Murdoch's Harper Collins Publishers. The exact amount of the book deal has not been announced, but it's sure to be a whopper. Then again, Palin has some whoppers to tell.

Here's an excerpt from the News story:

News reports this winter suggested Palin was pursuing an $11 million advance. She called that figure "laughable" in January but has never provided another. Palin has said she would give a portion of any money she makes from a book to charities although she hasn't decided how much or which ones.

Palin hired Robert Barnett, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who is one of the most powerful figures in book publishing, to negotiate the deal for her memoir. His past deals reportedly include $12 million for Bill Clinton's memoir and an $8.5 million advance for Alan Greenspan.

Barnett said in an interview Tuesday that HarperCollins was "first and fervent" in pursuing the Palin book.

This is a big reason why publishers have no money to publish real writers, such as some I know in Wyoming and throughout the Rocky Mountain West.

Instead, they publish crap by high profile people, books that people never read. However, they may buy a copy to put on their coffee table. They may also buy a copy if they can get it signed in person by the "author." I once did this with one of Newt Gingrich's books. I stood in line for two hours in a Bethesda Border's store and had the most interesting conversations. Not everyone was a Republican, as Maryland is as bereft of Repubs (except in Michael Steele's burg) as Wyoming is lacking in Dems.

I was able to utter a few comments about saving the National Endowment for the Arts as Newt scribbled his name on the title page. This may have been the reason that Newt helped salvage the NEA's literary fellowships when the big "Contract with America" cuts came down in 1994. Or maybe I'm being a bit grandiose. But I did read a bit of the book before I put it in the mail to my Dad in Florida. Not bad. The guy can write. He's a big name in the "alternative futures" or "spec-fic" sci-fi category.

But Sarah Palin? Which category will her book be in? Speculative pasts? Ridiculous presents?

Some funny book titles were suggested tonight on Keith Olbermann's show. "The Audacity of Hype" is a good one. Since Palin has said she's a C.S. Lewis fan, someone suggested "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." You have to think about that one a little bit.

All the President's books

On Friday, President Obama accepted a book from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The book was Eduardo Galeano’s "Open Veins of Latin America." Obama should read it, he really should. Galeano is an amazing writer. An outspoken leftist who had to flee right-wing death squads in his home country of Uruguay and more death squads under Argentina’s military junta. Galeano wrote his masterpiece "Memory of Fire" (Memoria del Fuego) while an exile in Spain.

Pres. Obama may read the gift book from Chavez. The prez, after all, is a reader. A writer, too. Reading good writers keeps the mind open, allows new ideas to permeate the brain and circulate freely. Allows you to consider new ways to do things. Chat with former enemies of the U.S., for instance.

Americans seem to have the idea that we invented the world. But the world was well on its way by the time we formed our democracy. Some 300 years of Latin American history had transpired by 1776. And a bloody history it was. In his book, Galeano tells short stories of the good and the bad and the in-between. The stories are compelling and the history, compelling and infuriating. How can humans make the same mistakes over and over again? So writers have something to write about.

I learned volumes about the history of this region from "Memory of Fire" when I read it in the early 1990s. As a writer, I was impressed with Galeano’s style. He did his research and transformed it into this book that was both personal and universal. Wikipedia described it this way: "It starts with pre-Columbian creation myths and ends in the 1980s. It highlights not only the colonial oppression that the continent underwent but particularly the long history of resistance, from individual acts of heroism to mass revolutionary movements."

He also prompted me to read John Dos Passos’s "U.S.A." trilogy, which documented our history in a similar fashion. Dos Passos documents labor struggles and war and politics through a variety of characters. He intersperses that with "newsreel" sections which document world events in the manner of movie theater shorts. It was a very original idea and ahead of its time. Dos Passos went from being a rabble-rousing leftist in the 1930s to a diehard Republican in the 1950s. People can change, can’t they?

"Open Veins of Latin America" has already shot up the book sales lists. I would like to see a photo of our president reading Galeano’s book. Sipping coffee in the Oval Office, his attention on reading. This photo would send out all kinds of messages. The main one is: "I read. I understand."

Read a banned book today!

The American Library Association conducts "Banned Books Week" this time each year. The date for 2008 are Sept. 27-Oct. 4. Please endeavor to read a banned book today.

The ALA's list of the “10 Most Challenged Books of 2007” reflects a range of themes, and consists of the following titles:
1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell; Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group
2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier; Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence
3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes; Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language
4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman; Reasons: Religious Viewpoint
5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain; Reasons: Racism
6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker; Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language
7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle; Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou; Reasons: Sexually Explicit
9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris; Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit
10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky; Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group.

As far as I can tell, there are no Wyoming writers on this list, although a book by Cheyenne mystery writer C.J. Box is being challenged at one of the state's public libraries. There is one Colorado writer on the list: Lauren Myracle of Fort Collins, Colo. Terrific writer of books for tweens and teens. My daughter read "TTYL" when she was 12 and reports no permanent damage from the experience.

What book are you reading today?

The new AP-Ipsos poll about reading habits showed that, among those who read books last year, seven was the average number of books read. Not so good is the fact that 25 percent of adults surveyed said they didn't read any books last year. As pointed out in the Publishers Lunch e-mail newsletter, "It's not clear if the poll was limited to literate adults or not--an important factor since we only have a 70 to 75 percent literacy rate to begin with." Good point. How can the pollmeisters tell if there’s an illiterate person at the other end of the telephone line?

The Guardian in the UK reported this: "People from the West and Midwest are more likely to have read at least one book in the past year. Southerners who do read, however, tend to read more books -- mostly religious books and romance novels -- than people from other regions... The survey also found that fewer liberals and moderates are non-readers (22 percent) than conservatives (34 percent)."

This led to an in-print political tiff. Pat Schroeder, former Colorado congresswoman who’s now president of the American Association of Publishers, said this: "The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes.' It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

Mary Matalin, conservative apologist and publisher, replied: "As head of a book publishing association, she probably shouldn't malign any readers."

Some might see this as a bad thing, a sure sign that nasty partisan politics can’t be avoided in any discussion. But I consider books and reading and literacy important topics. It’s a good thing if they can spark some political bickering and media attention. The competition is fierce, with new hot topics cropping up daily: Michael Vick’s dog-fighting charges; feckless Utah mine owners; more deaths on Iraq. If we can talk about reading for a day or two – all the better.

What am I reading? Glad you asked. My latest book is "Living to Tell the Tale," a memoir by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Before that it was another memoir, Nick Flynn’s "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City." I’ve read about a dozen books this year. I also dive into story collections, snatching up stories like fish from a stream. "The Touching that Lasts" by Colorado’s Kent Nelson and "All Things, All at Once" by New Mexico native Lee K. Abbott are two books I’ve gone a-fishing in lately. I’ve also been reading personal essays in Colorado’s Matter Magazine.

But I’m a writer and I work with writers at my day job. I tend not to read political tracts, left or right. I doubt if I’d ever pick up a book by Karl Rove, even if it contained more than the phrase "no new taxes."

What are you reading today?