22nd
FIRE PROOF
Originally published: March 19, 2010
A poorly-placed, unattended candle claimed the lives of many paperbacks I owned early one morning about two years ago. Some were salvaged (autographed copy of David Sedaris’ “Barrel Fever” … [phew]), but about two dozen had to go into the trash. Many were assigned reading titles from college that I couldn’t really pretend to miss if I tried, but I wrote down the entire list for precisely the reason I found myself revisiting it recently when trying to locate a copy of Viki Carr’s “How to Write a Movie in 21 Days.” That wasn’t on the original list, for the record, so it just means I’m a bonehead and did what I assume most people do when they can’t find such things: I bought a new copy on eBay. But when looking over that list of the books I can only say I “used to own,” these are the five I want to revisit the most and be able to own again:
—”All the President’s Men,” Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
WHY I USED TO OWN IT: I finally purchased it during a downtown Chicago shopping spree with a few girls from a country club I’d been working at and shortly after “Deep Throat” was revealed to be W. Mark Felt. I first read it in high school during my initial journalism class, but truly came to appreciate how a late-night story of a break-in at the Watergate complex led to the only presidential resignation in history during the long minivan journey to my sister’s wedding that summer.
WHY I WANT TO OWN IT AGAIN: It almost feels like the Associated Press Stylebook in the sense that it’s a title you are expected to have a copy of as a journalism major. My only point of contention with former New York Times managing editor Gene Roberts calling it “maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time” would be the inappropriate use of the word “maybe.”
—”Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” Barbara Ehrenreich
WHY I USED TO OWN IT: It happened to be on a shelf—possibly during that same Chicago shopping spree—at the right time after Ehrenreich finished her brief stint as a guest columnist for the New York Times. I burned through it as soon as I got it, nodding and pumping my fist the entire time as Ehrenreich attempted to get by while working as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart associate.
WHY I WANT TO OWN IT AGAIN: Current employment woes lead me to believe I’ll be wanting to turn to “Nickel and Dimed” again for the feeling of a friend who really knows how you feel.
—”Freaky Deaky,” Elmore Leonard
WHY I USED TO OWN IT: While 1983’s “Stick” was technically the first Leonard title I ever purchased, this 1988 tale revolving mostly around a Detroit police sergeant who gets transferred from the bomb squad to sex crimes offered more entertainment per page than anything else of his I read. Leonard tosses in a number of characters in “Freaky Deaky” and manages to effectively use every single one of them .
WHY I WANT TO OWN IT AGAIN: Leonard told Esquire five years ago that he’d written 40 novels and while he didn’t know why, this was his favorite. Like just about everything else he’s written, it’s being made into a movie, set to be released this year.
—”Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream,” H.G. Bissinger
WHY I USED TO OWN IT: Not all that required reading for college was so bad. This one was originally assigned for my “History of Sports in the United States” class. Bizzinger’s compelling examination of Odessa, Texas and the Permian High School football team at the heart of the city made it perhaps the first book in my academic career in which I was ahead of the assigned reading schedule.
WHY I WANT TO OWN IT AGAIN: Despite Buzz Bissinger’s infamous display of arrogance when confronting former Deadspin editor Will Leitch, I’m not sure anything better exemplifies what can get lost in the novel-to-film transition than “Friday Night Lights.” Anybody who has seen the movie but never read the book might be astonished to learn of some rather critical elements that were changed for rather questionable reasons.
—”Love Medicine,” Louise Erdrich
WHY I USED TO OWN IT: Another bit of assigned reading, this one for a “First Novels” fiction class. I was initially skeptical after hearing more than a few descriptions calling it a “Native American novel,” but became quickly mesmerized by the masterful way in which Erdrich lets two families worth of characters tell their own stories using individual first-person accounts.
WHY I WANT TO OWN IT AGAIN: A newly revised edition was released last year.
