It's really nice to pick up a book with few expectations and find that it's something that seems to have been written with me in mind. I should probably not admit this, but I'm not a regular newspaper reader, other than my local paper and only on weekends. I get my news mostly online but it doesn't tend to extend to the book sections (at least not regularly), which is something I think I need to reevaluate. It's mostly a matter of 'there's only so much free time for so many things I want to fit into it', not a lack of interest.
I'm familiar with Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda (and even have a few of his books), but I have only just discovered Jonathan Yardley via Second Reading: Notable and Neglected Book Revisited just published by Europa Editions. The book happened to cross my desk at work and I was all set to request it once it had been processed, but by chance I was in contact with someone at Europa and she offered to send me a copy rather than waiting for the library's. After dipping into it I'm pleased to have a copy of my own that I can read at leisure, as this is a book that could easily sit by your bedside or on your coffeetable to pick up and read a little at random.
The book is made up of about sixty columns that appeared in the Washington Post between 2003 and 2010. Sounds fairly standard, right? It's been done before and done a number of times, but what I like is the way Yardley approaches his subject and the books he chooses. His column 'Second Reading' focused on mostly worthy older books, books he had read and loved growing up. Revisiting them through his writing and sharing with other readers amounted to something of an "autobiography of a lifelong reader". What I like is that he mentions how much fun it was to write about the books and how often 'fun' would appear in his columns.
"The fixation of journalists on the new and the trendy is a forgivable occupational hazard, but it neglects the interests of readers who want something more substantial than the latest Flavor of the Day. My own tastes certainly are not everybody's tastes, but the steady, heavy volume of incoming email convinced me that I had stumbled onto something that readers wanted."
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"I have been an ardent, constant reader since the day I was old enough to read, but I do not consider myself a literary person--first and foremost I am a journalist--and I am not ashamed to find merit in books--Rebecca, for example, of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, or The Long Season--such as the literati scorn. Above all else I love and value the art of storytelling, now sneered at in certain quarters; I especially admire it as practiced by masters as diverse as Elizabeth Bowen, Margaret Leech, and Peter Taylor. I cherish many difficult but rewarding writers--hence William Faulkner and Garcia Marquez--but have absolutely no taste for mere wordplays or literary games; I like puzzles in crosswords but not in novels. I savor the irony that Ulysses, the sine qua non of the literati but a book I simply cannot read, was admitted to the United States by my great-uncle, Federal District Judge John Woolsey. Had there been room for James Joyce in Second Reading it would have been for Dubliners, not for Ulysses or God knows, Finnegan's Wake."
It's this last bit that really sold me on the book. I do admire people who tend to choose really challenging books and I like to do so myself now and again (I should probably do so more often), though I tend to also be someone who reads at least as much for the story as anything else. It just seems you don't often hear critics applauding authors whose books do that really well--simply tell a good story. This aspect of Yardley's writing really appeals to me. Don't think, however, that the books he writes about are in any way lowbrow as he has a varied and distinguished lineup of authors.
I think I'm going to enjoy reading Yardley's columns and discovering some new books to read and maybe even revisiting a few as well. And I fully expect to share more of the book as I go.