Annual Books

I read a great many books.

I originally started tracking my reading in 2008 (from what I can see of my annual documentation). I think this was at the suggestion of a self improvement book I read, where the recommendation was to divide books into categories are read one out of each category.    That works, if you have the ability to multi-task.  I do not have that ability.

What it turned into (over time) is an annual record of the books that I have read in a year (the range for the last 13 years seems to be between 70 and 96 per year).  This has turned it less into a guided reading program (although occasionally I do set areas of study) and more into a historical record of "what's been read".

The readings consist of already owned books (I believe I have over 800 volumes in house and we are at somewhere around 1200 total) as well as certain amount that I acquire over the year (typically between 20 and 25), so the reading is both things I have read and things are new.  However, there are certain books that I return to year after year, almost as guideposts along my reading journey.

1.  The Bible

I have read through the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and currently use the New King James Version (NKJV).  I follow the "Read The Bible In A Year" program (various versions out there), which gets one through the Old Testament and the New Testament in a year (New Testament in the morning, Old Testament in the evening).  In terms of structured practice, this has been the standard for 15 years or more.

2.  Dark Piper (Andre Norton)

Andre Norton remains the Science Fiction and Fantasy author I own the most volumes of (42) and the one that will regularly seek out in used book stores (to be clear, her older science fiction items.  The later co-authoring works and revisiting of previous worlds were never quite as good).  Of these, my favorite is Dark Piper.

The plot is somewhat novel:  post galactic war, a veteran returns to a planetary colony and connects with a group of young people.  A refugee ship (former pirate or mercenary) appears, asking to land.  The veteran (Griss Lugard, the Dark Piper), plots to save the children.  What follows is what goes wrong when you misjudge people and a struggle to survive in a quickly post civilized world.

The cover you see was the 1980 version which I own.  The cover itself is tattered on the edges from being read so much and has been re-taped to the spine.  The book itself has broad scribble marks from where someone when they were young wrote in it (I do not recall who now).

I remember precisely where we bought this book, in the small bookstore (the only one at that time) in my hometown when I was still in middle school.  I remember the aisle it was on.

When younger, I enjoyed the book because the protagonist was a young man (17-ish or so) in a wilderness and leading.  Now that I am older, I appreciate the book both for the struggle to survive and making one's way in a world which has rapidly collapsed.  I now find myself much more aligned with the veteran and his worry about the collapse of civilization and the preserving what he can.

3.  A Book of Five Rings (Miyamoto Musashi)

Musashi was a late 16th century - early to mid 17th century samurai  (circa 1585-1645) whose life bridged the end of the Sengoku Jidai (The Warring States Period) and into the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1868).  He is the founder of the Nito (Two Sword Style) but was also accomplished as a painter, sculptor, garden designer, and blackmith.  A Book Of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho) was written within the last year of his life and represents his 60 years of training and combat.

Of all the Japanese strategic and sword texts (and I own and have read a great many of them), Musashi's is by far the most accessible.  Like most Japanese texts, discussion about techniques are such a way that it is not clear (without personal instruction) to understand them.  But the principles that he explains are put in such a way that anyone can understand.  I have been reading this book for 30 years (having worn out my first copy as pages fell out of the binding I procured a second one) and still discover new aspects of it (last year as an exercise I read it once a week all year.  It was a valuable event).

My favorite quote (and there are many):  "Step by step by step walk the thousand mile road.  Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of a warrior.  Today is victory over yourself of yesterday.  Tomorrow is your victory over lesser men."

4)  John Carter Series (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

(Cover from Thuvia, Maid of Mars)

I remember exactly where I was when I first discovered Barsoom (Burroughs' name for Mars).  It was 1980 and we were traveling across the US.  We were in Colorado and I was sleeping in a tent outside of the camper my parents and sister were in.  The sky, when I would look up, was black and full of stars.

Into this world John Carter appeared.

Well, really not him directly (the book I had were 4, 5, and 6 in the series) but his world of Red Men, Green Men (the Tharks), a dying planet with almost no water and miles and miles of ochre moss covered sea bottoms with the remains of cities that once dotted the oceans, where every hand was quick to sword and radium gun.  The women were beautiful, the men honorable, and there was (literally) a world to explore with all sorts of unknown items.

I loved it.

Eventually I acquired all 11 volumes (the illustration above is by Michael Whelan; if you find them I recommend those just for the covers alone).  John Carter is larger than life (as every hero should be) but everything I wanted (and perhaps want) to be:  skilled in arms, heroic in strength, quick in decisions, a leader and explorer.  

The series in quality went down over time (understandable, perhaps:  the first one was published in 1909 and last story written in the early 1940's), but they all still quite enchanting to me - it takes no effort all to picture where I was when I started reading and to see the ochre moss and charging green hordes in my mind.

I have read the other series of Burroughs (His Venus series and his Hollow Earth (Pellucidar) and enjoyed them, but they did not enchant like John Carter did. (Also, I have read one book of Tarzan series.  I think it is close enough to reality that I am not really that interested.  I prefer my fantasies to be much farther removed from real life).

5)  Conan (Robert E. Howard)

Conan the Barbarian of the Hyborian age is the root of a great deal of fantasy writing even to this day (I think one can safely argue that only J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis in post 1940's era spring from a different tree).   Howard's barbarian was skilled warrior, a surprisingly clever thinker, and a master adventurer who crossed and crossed again the known world of his time.

Howard's writings themselves were not in any particular order of Conan's life but were written as series of short stories and serials (with only one novel).  Later, L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter (themselves fantasy authors of the 60's and 70's) were commissioned to bring the Conan series into a sort of order.  What evolved was a series of 11 books incorporating the actual or edited text of Howard along with stories written by either Camp or Carter which are based on ideas or texts of Howard that never made it into a full story to cover the full extent of his life from a young runaway slave at 15 to a King who renounces his crown in his 60's (of course, to go adventuring).

I love Conan.  He is unduly strong, a doughty warrior, chivalric in his own barbarian way, and an adventurer across many lands.  I think in some ways my greater love of languages and ancient cultures stems from his adventures doing the same thing.

Fair warning:  Howard was a writer without equal and his stories, where largely left alone or lightly touched, are without equal.  The stories written by others are not nearly as strong, but still enjoyable.

So a question:  Do you have books that you re-read year after year, and what are they?