Not necessarily the best books I've ever read--though that list would not be very far different from this one. But each of these books added something permanent to me--an insight, a vision, an attitude. I've placed them in roughly the order in which I encountered them:
Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style--all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.
There's a web page with the text of Strunk's
original
text from 1918.
George Orwell, A Collection of Essays
This was the second book Mr. Whitehead made us read that semester. His immediate concern was to get us to read "Politics and the English Language" of course, but we read all 14 essays before the semester was over. The meta-message, once again, was the power of simplicity and clarity.
One rapid but fairly sure guide to the social atmosphere of a country is the parade-step of its army. A military parade is really a kind of ritual dance, something like a ballet, expressing a certain philosophy of life. The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive-bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face. Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is "Yes, I am ugly, and you daren't laugh at me," like the bully who makes faces at his victim. Why is the goose-step not used in England? There are, heaven knows, plenty of army officers who would be only too glad to introduce some such thing. It is not used because the people in the street would laugh. Beyond a certain point, military display is only possible in countries where the common people dare not laugh at the army.
But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel--forbidding--now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
The web has a terrific source on
Melville
and his works, complete with references on whaling and Nantucket and contemporary reactions to the publication of Moby Dick.
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
This is a book that suffers from the "Mendelssohn Syndrome": If a piece of art is too popular and too accessible, then no one gets any points for liking it and it quickly acquires a patina of shallowness. So, at the risk of being shallow, let me say right out loud that this is a wondrous book, full of beauty and wisdom and the joy and tragedy of life. I have read it perhaps 15 or 20 times over the years. I have read it aloud twice (once to each daughter). But since you've almost certainly read it yourself, you will already have your own opinion.
"We fought far under the living earth, where time is not counted. Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, til at last he fled into dark tunnels. They were not made by Durin's folk, Gimli son of Gloin. Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day. In that despair my enemy was my only hope, and I pursued him, clutching at his heel. Thus he brought me back at last to the secret ways of Khazad-dum: too well he know them all. Ever up now we went, until we came to the Endless Stair."
The web has several Tolkien pages, some of them in strange foreign tongues, but I know of one good all-around Tolkien page.
Stanley Milgram, Obedience To Authority
In the early 60's psychological researcher Milgram conducted a series of experiments on ordinary people's willingness to perform unethical acts if urged to do so by an authority figure--specifically, to inflict electrical tortures on a completely innocent victim. In actuality, the tortures were simulated and the victims were actors, but the subjects did not know that; yet, with overwhelming (and appalling) frequency the subjects agreed to inflict the "shocks" to their screaming and begging victims. Again, the subjects were ordinary people--not sadists, not disturbed nut cases. Everybody. Milgram himself was astounded.
The experiments hit the popular press in the late 60's. They were dubbed the "Eichmann Experiments" and Milgram was criticized by many on ethical grounds for even conducting them (As you might expect, they had a pretty savage effect on the subjects once they thought about what they had done). These days I find few people who even know about them.
But what they taught me about human nature I've carried with me for twenty years, and I think about them every time somebody takes the moral high ground and smugly assumes they would never do what whoever they're condemning has done. For me now, all human behavior must be seen through the lens of this knowledge of our frailty. If I had my way this book would be required reading for every high school student in the country.
There is an extract/adaptation from the book on the Web posted by a professor from Miami University, though I'm not sure whether it violates fair-use copyright law.
The over-all level of obedience, across all four experimental variations, requires comment. Subjects have learned from childhood that it is a fundamental breach of moral conduct to hurt another person against his will. Yet, almost half the subjects abandon this tenet in following the instructions of an authority who has no special powers to enforce his commands. To disobey would bring no material loss or punishment. It is clear from the remarks and behavior of many participants that in punishing the victim they were often acting against their own values. Subjects often expressed disapproval of shocking a man in the face of his objections, and others denounced it as stupid and senseless. Yet many followed the experimental commands.The results differed sharply from the predictions made in the questionnaire described earlier....Observers often expressed disbelief upon seeing a subject administer more and more powerful shocks to the victim; even persons fully acquainted with the details of the situation consistently underestimated the amount of obedience subjects would display.
He went to the long avenue of knights who waited in the sun. By the very attempt to evade notice, he had brought on himself the conspicuous place of last. He walked down the curious ranks, ugly as ever, self-conscious, ashamed, a veteran going to be broken. Mordred and Agravaine moved forward....Lancelot looked into the East, where he thought God lived, and said something in his mind. It was more or less like this: "I don't want glory, but please can you save our honesty? And if you will heal this knight for the knight's sake, please do."
I was very cold when I got back into the boat, and, in my hurry to get my shirt on, I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me awfully wild, especially as George burst out laughing. I could not see anything to laugh at, and I told George so, and he only laughed the more. I never saw a man laugh so much. I quite lost my temper with him at last, and I pointed out to him what a drivelling maniac of an imbecile idiot he was; but he only roared the louder. And then, just as I was landing the shirt, I noticed that it was not my shirt at all, but George's, which I had mistaken for mine; whereupon the humour of the thing struck me for the first time, and I began to laugh. And the more I looked from George's wet shirt to George, roaring with laughter, the more I was amused, and I laughed so much that I had to let the shirt fall back into the water again."Ar'n't you--you--going to get it out?" said George between his shrieks.
I could not answer him at all for a while, I was laughing so, but at last, between my peals I managed to jerk out:
"It isn't my shirt--it's yours!"
I never saw a man's face change from lively to severe so suddenly in all my life before.
"What!" he yelled, springing up. "You silly cuckoo! Why the deuce don't you go and dress on the bank? You're not fit to be in a boat, you're not. Gimme the hitcher."
I tried to make him see the fun of the thing, but he could not. George is very dense at seeing a joke sometimes.
The complete text is available as part of the
Gutenberg Project. Be warned, it's the whole text in one page; better to download it than to try to read it from your browser.
Apple Computer, Human Interface Guidelines
The first volume of the books Apple published to define the Macintosh interface. Most of it is techie stuff, but the first chapter of the first volume should be read by anyone who works with computers and cares about how people might use them easily and enjoyably. Ten years of technical advance later, it's still the most important 30 pages in the computer literature.
The user, not the computer, initiates and controls all actions.People learn best when they're actively engaged. Too often, however, the computer acts and the user merely reacts within a limited set of options. In other instances, the computer "takes care" of the user, offering only those alternatives that are judged "good" for the user or that "protect" the user from detailed deliberations.
On the surface, the concept of computer as protector may seem quite appealing, but this approach puts the computer, rather than the user, in the driving role--something quite at odds with the basic philosophy of the Apple Desktop Interface.
As they stared blankly, in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realized all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses, and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces, and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demigod is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and light-hearted as before.
The complete text is available on the web.
Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery
Herrigel went to Japan in the 1930's to study archery under a Zen master, and wrote this slim volume to describe his experiences. Possibly because it is written by a Westerner who understands the biases of Western thought, it is the clearest description (I won't say "explanation") of Zen I've read. I came across this book just as I was getting seriously into studying piano, and I found its lessons about state of mind are applicable to any long-term and difficult task.
"You have described only too well," replied the Master, "where the difficulty lies. Do you know why you cannot wait for the shot and why you get out of breath before it has come? The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfillment, but brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way--like the hand of a child. Your hand does not burst open like the skin of a ripe fruit."
The book is aimed at amateur pianists (like Cooke himself), and is full of advice about how to work a passionate hobby into a busy adult life. Cooke himself comes across as a delightful fanatic, mapping out his practice schedule with Prussian rigor and shamelessly chasing down visiting performers for tips and advice. You may not be as single-minded as he is (I certainly wasn't), but I defy anyone to read this book without wanting to start practicing right now.
And therein lies the challenge and the inspiration to the amateur pianist. Masterpieces lie on every shelf, from the lower rungs to the highest, from the technically simple to the technically forbidding, along with a profusion of lesser but still outstanding compositions. At whatever rung you stand, you will want to linger--working, browsing, enjoying--as you gather skill to ascend unhurriedly to the next rung; then, after a due pause of new work, browsing, and enjoyment, to the next. And so on, as high as you are able, or wish, to go.Consider some of the lower rungs. Do the mighty torrents of Gotterdammerung's closing pages or the final paean of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony contain more beauty, except in dimension, than Chopin's Prelude in A, No. 7 in Opus 28? Moriz Rosenthal, one of the great technicians of all time, told me that he has studied this brief, simple masterpiece for sixty years and is still finding deeper levels of beauty in it. I venture that no one of my readers who has heard Rosenthal play the Prelude in A will ever forget the experience. This flawless work lies well within the technical grasp of every amateur who has passed the elementary stage of playing; immortal on its staves of cold print, it waits to be brought alive, to be studied and loved for a lifetime by countless pianists, professional and amateur, now and in generations to come.
Why is it that losses so often cluster? My mother died in 1978; within two months, I had lost a job and a home to the Iranian revolution. It took a year to deal with the complexities of closing my mother's office; then, in 1980, just before I began a new job, my father died. I tried to meet the resulting obligations with my left hand and set aside the emotions of transition while I tried to administer Amherst with my right. When Julian Gibbs died in January 1983 and my job fell apart, it felt like more of the same.Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity. In the aftermath of Julian's death and the betrayal that followed, I wrote a memoir of my parents that at least completed my grieving for them, working through their deaths and through much that was incomplete or unspoken between us. Reviewers remarked that the book had an elegiac tone, without knowing how much I struggled to project the light of my childhood through the shadows of recent months. But when I finished, I was able to say, I am a writer, just as Joan could affirm that she is a dancer.
Miller is German, and the translation into English is at times tough going. This is not great literature, but her empathy and pity for the children thus used comes clearly through her writing.
It is one of the turning points in analysis when the narcissistically disturbed patient comes to the emotional insight that all the love he has captured with so much effort and self-denial was not meant for him as he really was, that the admiration for his beauty and achievements was aimed at this beauty and these achievements, and not at the child himself. In analysis, the small and lonely child that is hidden behind his achievements wakes up and asks: "What would have happened if I had appeared before you, bad, ugly, angry, jealous, lazy, dirty, smelly? Where would your love have been then? And I was all these things as well. Does this mean that it was not really me whom you loved, but only what I pretended to be? The well-behaved, reliable, empathic, understanding, and convenient child, who in fact was never a child at all? What became of my childhood? Have I not been cheated out of it? I can never return to it. I can never make up for it. From the beginning I have been a little adult. My abilities--were they simply misused?"
Recently Miller has published an updated version of this book, which I have not read--though I am told that in it she backtracks some from her prior use of the term "gifted."
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
The movie wasn't a patch on the book. If I could write like anyone, I wouldn't write like Faulkner or Tom Wolfe (or Thomas Wolfe, for that matter) or Cormac McCarthy, or Tolkien. I would write prose like Norman Maclean's--simple, honest, clear and beautiful. Of all the books on this list, I think of this one as the most human.
I once had the privilege of reading this book aloud with a group of 4 or 5 friends one long summer afternoon. I'll never forget how we came down to the last few pages, and people started counting out silently, trying to figure out who would get to read that haunting and sonorous last paragraph. In the end, we fell back on elementary politeness, and agreed that the honor should fall to our hostess.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.I am haunted by waters.
Answer: In the hands of Alexander and crew, it can be consuming. The subject is good environmental design, from the layout of cities down through neighborhoods and blocks to individual houses and rooms and windows. This book is passionate about how design can enable or disable the joys of life. No principle of design is included to impress the visitor; all are there to make for comfort and good feeling for the inhabitants. It's not just about design; it's about how to live.
The book is laid out in a fascinating mosaic structure of "patterns," starting with the macro and working down to the micro, with cross-references back up and down the hierarchy. You can start anywhere and go where it leads--the ultimate bathroom book--though I found it fascinating to read straight through from beginning to end, watching the patterns repeat themselves on a smaller and smaller scale.
21. Four-Story LimitThere is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy.
...At three or four stories, one can still walk comfortably down to the street, and from a window you can still feel part of the street scene: you can see details in the street--the people, their faces, foliage, shops. From three stories you can yell out, and catch the attention of someone below. Above four stories these connections break down. The visual detail is lost; people speak of the scene below as if it were a game, from which they are completely detached. The connection to the ground and to the fabric of the town becomes tenuous; the building becomes a world of its own, with its own elevators and cafeterias.
Tufte's third volume, Visual Explanations, was published in February 1997. While it is well worth reading, it seems to me fundamentally a further working-out of the principles established in the first two books, adding richness but not much in the way of new concepts. I fear Tufte has said most of what he has to say.
Occasionally designers seem to seek credit merely for possessing a new technology, rather than using it to make better designs. Computers and their affiliated apparatus can do powerful things graphically, in part by turning out the hundreds of plots necessary for good data analysis. But at least a few computer graphics only evoke the response "Isn't it remarkable that the computer can be programmed to draw like that?" instead of "My, what interesting data."
There is a brief item on
Tufte in the Yale faculty web pages.
Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
This book is about writing, but it is not about how to hone your craft, nor about how to choose an agent, but about how to get past the demons that prevent you from doing your best work. As such it is good advice for anyone trying to work in a creative field. The book is humble and sweet and wise and funny. For example, on my office wall at work I have made myself a sign that quotes from it:
If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.
Lamott lives in the Bay Area, and she does frequent radio appearances here, typically assuming a kind of stand-up-comedian role. Between those appearances and the success of her book Operating Instructions, she is a much beloved figure in this area. Because I fundamentally believe no one should be that beloved, I was determined for a long time not to like her. But I found my curmudgeonliness was no match for the honesty and humanity that soaks every page of this book.
I often ask my students to scribble down in class the reason they want to write, why they are in my class, what is propelling them to do this sometimes-excruciating, sometimes-boring work. And over and over, they say in effect, "I will not be silenced again." They were good children, who often felt invisible and who saw some awful stuff. But at some point they stopped telling what they saw because when they did, they were punished. Now they want to look at their lives--at life--and they don't want to be sent to their rooms for doing so.