Booker's Dozen

A few years ago I wrote about an idea I had called the Motivated Book Exchange (MBE). The gist of if was that people would agree to read books recommended to them by friends, in exchange for the friends' agreement to read any book they might recommend. Well, I could never really get it to catch on, for some reason. But I always thought there was a kernel of something really good in there, having to do with people broadening their horizons and expanding their minds by willingly reading something they might otherwise not have. Not to mention gaining insight into some aspect of a friend's point of view.

Lately, my interest in this project has been reawakened. I guess I've been reading more than I usually do, thanks to my new Kobo and plenty of beach time. And my dad has recently posted a list of the books he's currently reading or read on his blog, which gave me what I think is a pretty good idea for a variation on the admittedly unsuccessful MBE. It's called the Booker's Dozen.

Here's how it works: you make a list of the twelve books you think everyone in the world should read. These are the books that have changed your life, opened new neural pathways, made you who you are. You always wished there was some way to force others to read these books, but of course that was an unrealistic wish. Until now.

Having made your list, you now have others you know make up their own Booker's Dozens. Then you and they choose just ONE BOOK off each other's lists that you and they haven't already read and wouldn't mind reading in its entirety, and you and they do just that. Easy and fun!

I figure this cultural campaign might have more legs than the MBE did, because 1) you get to create your own highly opinionated list of twelve IMPORTANT books, which is pretty fun; and 2) you get to choose which book you'd like to read from a list of twelve, which is a lot less pressure than having to read whatever your potentially sadistic friend decides to hand you.

So, here's my Dozen. Anyone who feels like trying this out by leaving his or her own personal list as a comment, I promise I will read one of the books on that list in its entirety.

1. Alan Carr - The Only Way to Stop Smoking
Sounds like it would be kind of useless to read if you don't smoke, and I'll admit that it's not incredibly great writing, but the way he comes at the problem of addiction is unlike anyone else I've ever read in its insight and level-headedness, and I find it translates into almost any realm where you find yourself behaving in ways you wish you wouldn't. Makes you more sympathetic toward others' addictive behaviours too.

2. Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained
My favourite contemporary philosopher. This is the one where he lays out exactly how intentionality can arise out of a completely physical system. No one else, for my money, has ever successfully done this, and especially not in such a readable way. Mind-blowing whether you read philosophy or not.

3. Lewis Hyde - The Gift
How do gifts differ from commercial transactions? What would a culture be like that was based on gift exchange rather than trade? Why would both artists and art appreciators do better to think of the products of creativity as gifts, rather than as commercial goods or services?

4. William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience
Manages to study the phenomenon of religion objectively without underestimating its value or ruining what's good about it. Atheists and theists alike could benefit from James's deep analysis.

5. J. Krishnamurti - Anything, really.
I know it seems like a copout not to list an actual title, but really all his books are pretty much the same. His simple but radically individual spiritual outlook is depicted through transcribed lectures and conversations, and occasionally personal journal entries. Let go of all your baggage, is really his only point, including your personal history, opinions, the culture you live in, and any instruction you may have been given on how to let go of all your baggage, because it's all preventing you from relating in an honest, loving way to others and yourself in the present.

6. Desmond Morris The Naked Ape
The problems and strengths of human beings explained by studying them as an evolutionary biologist would study any other animal population. Should be required reading for all politicians.

7. Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man Is Hard to Find
The best short stories ever written. This is what people mean when they talk about the Southern Gothic style. Characters cling to big ideas, usually to their detriment. Death is always in the air, along with a heavy sense of mystery. It's all funny and creepy and haunting and perfect.

8. J. D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey
Two connected stories in one book. These are the best of the stories about the Glass family. The title characters are young adult siblings, the former in the midst of a sort of breakdown. They've both been somewhat messed up by the benevolent teachings of their learned older brothers, one of whom committed suicide. But these teachings may also be what what they need to get them through their own crises. If you like The Royal Tenenbaums, check out the original inspiration.

9. W. G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn
It's technically fiction because the narrator is not exactly the writer, but it reads like the undirected rambling of a very knowledgeable and wise, if socially isolated man as he walks around the English coast. Full of fascinating history and inspired trains of thought, and you eventually come to know the heartbreaking character deeply through the ways his brilliant mind works.

10. Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth
I know, it's an Oprah book. I find it weird — but I guess also uplifting — that this guy's so popular, as his teachings are pretty radical. He's essentially in line with J. Krishnamurti (see 5, above), only maybe he manages not to sound quite so grumpy about it. The world is insane and you are an insane product of it, but it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, the way to sanity is to just notice the insanity, RIGHT NOW. Simple. Consistent with the teachings of all sorts of wise people throughout history, but you can tell that it's coming from a condition of true understanding, and not just some scholarly quoting and summing-up.

11. David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
I wish I had more fiction on this list, but I guess it's radical ideas that blow my mind more than imaginative plots or complex characters. Luckily, this novel has all of the above, and then some. It's long and complex. You need two bookmarks for it because there are lengthy and numerous footnotes. The major theme is addiction and how it has completely shaped modern American life. The main characters are a super-intelligent young man from a dysfunctional family who attends a tennis academy and an ex-addict who works in a rehab centre. There is a Québecois terrorist plot to render Americans harmless by introducing them to a videotaped movie (directed by the young tennis student's now dead father) that is so addictive people can't stop watching it and eventually starve to death in a paralyzed stupor. There are plenty of other completely messed up characters. Years are sponsored by companies and now get a product name instead of a number. Everything relates to everything else. Impeccable grammar and long-windedness are used as literary devices. The whole thing is just so FUNNY, that it would be worth slogging through for that reason alone, even if it weren't so brilliant and insightful.

12. Alan Watts - The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are
Watts, Tolle, and Krishnamurti are my holy triumvirate. This book is consistent with 5 and 10 above, but maybe a little more loose and playful in its presentation. Some of the colloquial language is a bit dated, but he gives a very down-to-earth explanation of some fairly esoteric ideas, mostly from the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. The language is mythological, almost as if it were a story being presented for children, but he continuously reminds us not to mistake the story for the truth it is pointing towards. The Book was one of my introductions to eastern, non-dualistic thought as a teenager, and I find it still always has something of value for me whenever I come back to it.

That's it. Gauntlet thrown. Anyone else got a list of her own? It needn't be annotated...