The other day I sat visiting with a friend over a cup of coffee and our discussion came around to books. He asked, “What are you reading now-a-days?” Now that question can generate hours of talk, and I would never want to make light of my answers. I believe reading is basic to living a well-rounded life and is closely akin to drinking water and eating food. Electronic screens - computers, televisions, smartphones - can be fun and interesting, but I’ve found little of substance to approach the lasting benefits found in well-written books.
I took a sip of coffee and told him recently I’ve been reading several books from two authors - James Lee Burke and Ken Follett. Reading Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth took time to plod through because it’s nearly 1000 pages long, but I gave assurance it was well worth the effort. In fact, I have to place this book near the top of my list of favorite books. To Kill a Mockingbird stands at the top, and I don’t think it will ever move from that spot.
Simply put, Pillars centers around the building of a cathedral in England’s 12th century. My friend sniggered a bit, so I knew a bit of explanation was necessary. How was it that so many towering cathedrals could be built 800 to a 1000 years ago without using powered devices we use. Furthermore, those buildings are still standing and serving their intended use. Chisels, levers, and pulleys plus inventive minds served them well. The author even brought up the fact that paper wasn’t available to them, so how could plans be drawn and translated to the workmen? According to Follett, the master builder scratched his designs on thin layers of mortar spread on a flat surface.
In addition to craftsmen constructing the building, Follett weaves a story of love, hate, intrigue, and most anything else a well-crafted novel contains.
James Lee Burke caught my attention a short time ago, and I’ve now read about a half dozen of his books. His favorite setting is New Orleans inhabited by a variety of good and bad characters he weaves into his stories. He is a master at planting social commentary in the characters’ thoughts or his own thoughts as an omniscient observer.
John le Carre and Frederick Forsyth and their spy thriller stories make for excellent reading. I hate to admit it, but I just picked up Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal, a book that’s been around for a long time. Better late than never. The story takes us through attempted assassination plots of the French president Charles de Gaulle. And his Jackdaws, man, what a story that was about a team of English lady demolition experts sent to France to destroy a Nazi communications hub. Men hadn’t been too successful, so they thought women should try.
My friend asked, “Don’t you read books in the western category?” Certainly, James Lee Burke’s House of the Rising Sun contains elements of the familiar western story. Two other books just arrived for review from the office of my editor in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One, a novel about Teddy Roosevelt appears to be light reading, but the other looks meaty, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present. Every month or so the editor sends me two or three for review. One year I sat on a panel judging the best book of the year in one category, and I received about seventy of them to review and pick what I thought was the best one.
As for Western literature, I’ve spent many worthwhile hours absorbed in stories of the West written by Elmer Kelton, Louis L’Amour, Jack Schaefer, Charles Portis, Richard S. Wheeler, Johnny Boggs, Dorothy M. Johnson, and so many more. Johnson’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence contains a line I’ve not forgotten. In the movie version, it’s Jimmy Stewart who says to a reporter, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
The historians such Wallace Stegner grab my attention. Stegner was a good writer in the fiction vein, too. A short story of his, “Genesis,” might just be the best short I’ve ever read. In it a young man from England comes to Canada to start a new life and finds work on a large ranch. He learns hard lessons from herding cattle in a blizzard and saving the life of a man he detested.
Kelton’s The Good Old Boys and Schaefer’s Monte Walsh both feature characters who love the old way of cowboying, and just can’t conform to the loss of the open range.
Well, friend, I hope that answers your question. Do I get paid for reviewing books? Nah, although one time my editor did say that while he couldn’t pay me for doing it, he would buy me a drink at the next convention. That was a few years ago. I’m still waiting for that drink.
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