Reading

The following commentaries and book reviews can be found below:

1. A Good Summer Read
2. The 10 Best Sea Stories

A Good Summer Read

 by Skip Keyser

(originally published in the Kiwanis Club of Napa Bulletin)

If you want a new idea, read an old book.  Anon.

It’s summer and for some reason everyone seems to think this is when there’s more time to read.  Personally, I’ve never figured this out.  Summer, for me, is when I spend all my extra time valiantly try to keep the color of my garden closer to green than burnt sienna.  Regardless, the onset of summer is accompanied by interminable lists from erudite reviewers of “The Ten New Books That Will Change Your Life, Cause You To Lose 15 Pounds and Give You The Insight To Complete That PhD That Has Languished Unattended Lo These Many Years.”

I propose instead ten OLD books that you should consider rereading.  While they might provide new insight, some contain more angst than a typical New York Liberal and so just might cause you to add a few pounds as you head to the refrigerator while reading them.  Regardless, and in no particular order…

1.  To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The old adage that an intellectual is someone who can listen to Rossini’s The William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger applies equally well to those who can read To Kill A Mockingbird without picturing Gregory Peck. 

2.  Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956).  One of the last plays written by O’Neill, it provides a sharp analysis of both conflict and why O’Neill remains one of the Twentieth Century’s preeminent playwrights.  Follow it up with The Iceman Cometh (New York, Random House, 1956).

3.  Wilbur and Orville, a Biography of the Wright Brothers by Fred Howard (New York: Knopf, 1987).  More detailed and less readable than the more recent To Conquer the Air by James Tobin (New York: Free Press, 2003) it examines both the technical aspects of the development of controlled, powered flight and of the Wright’s personal life.

4.  My Brother’s Keeper by Marcia Davenport (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954).  Long out of print and tough to find, the [fictional] story of the Holt brothers will make you think twice about that elderly couple down the street.

5.  The Good Old Stuff by J.D. McDonald. Long a fan of the Travis McGee series by McDonald (as well as Dave Robicheaux by James Lee Burke) both as formulaic – and as easy to read - as the day is long, the highbrows be damned,  I no longer have a copy of this book, having loaned it to my mother-in-law, who gave it to a friend, who…

6.  America by Alistair Cooke. (New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002)  As far as I’m concerned, a significant portion of any summer can be productively spent reading anything (and everything) by the late Alistair Cooke (and, in fact, I date the decline of Masterpiece Theater from Cooke’s retirement as its host, Russell Baker notwithstanding).  Derived from the script material developed by Cooke for the series by the same name, this compilation examines the development of the United States up through 1972.  Would that he were still alive today to comment on the current state of affairs.

7.  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1993).  By the author of The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451 sounds too futuristic to be true, until you recall that even today certain books are banned (albeit not burned – yet) in some schools and libraries.

8.  Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. (New York, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1999).  First published in 1959, this book recounts Sir Ernest Shackleton’s failed 1914 attempt to cross the Antarctic continent.  However, the real story is the two-year (successful) struggle for survival, under the command of Shackleton, of the 28-man crew of the Endurance after the ship was trapped and crushed in the Antarctic ice.  If you’ve ever gone to sea, this is must reading.

9.  We Were Soldiers Once…and Young by Lt. Gen Harold G Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway (New York, Random House, 1992).  Military history seldom combines tactical, strategic and personal analysis as does this volume.  Long after you forget the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam, you’ll remember the young men who fought and died there.

10  The Blue Hen’s Chick by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. (New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965).  Better known for The Big Sky, The Way West (Pulitzer Prize for fiction), These Thousand Hills, Arfive, The Last Valley, and Fair Land, Fair Land, Guthrie also wrote the screenplays for “Shane” and “The Kentuckian.”  The Blue Hen’s Chick is his autobiography.

11.  If This Is A Man and The Truce by Primo Levi (London, Abacus/Time Warner Book Group UK, 1987).  Published as one volume, these narratives tell the story of a Jewish Italian chemist who sets out to join the anti-fascist resistance, is captured and, along with 649 others, is sent to Auschwitz in early 1944.  Only 125 are sent to the work camps; the rest go immediately to the gas chamber.  Factually relating the conditions and day-to-day life in a German concentration camp and of his (and only two others of the 650) eventual return to Turin, Haftling (prisoner) 174517’s autobiography is noticeably lacking in invective.  Follow this one up with The Wrench and If Not Now, When?

I know...that’s eleven old books, but who’s counting…

The 10 Best Sea Stories

A List

Based on 22+ years in the US Navy, here is my list - again in no particular order - of the ten best sea stories:


1.  The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna


2.  Blow Negative by Edward Carl Stephens


3.  Sharks and Little Fish by Wolfgang Ott


4.  Two Years Before the Mast - by Richard Henry Dana


5.  Das Boot by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim


6.  A Night to Remember by Walter Lord


7.  The Cruise of the Lanikai by Kemp Tolley


8.  Yangtze Patrol by Kemp Tolley


9.  The Sea Wolf by Jack London


10.  The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk