For Every Occasion There Is a Book to Match

Every Saturday morning, my husband and I curl up on our respective couches for our weekly reading ritual. He sits with his pile of books and a thermos of coffee, and I get comfortable with my literary mountain, not just of books, but notebooks, magazines, and dictionaries, in addition to a steaming pot of green tea. We sit for hours, sharing interesting facts or fabulously written lines. There could not be a better way to start the weekend.

This week, being the first of my challenge, had not one but four glorious days of this kind, a result of my holiday vacation. I didn’t get to finish more than the allotted four however, as there was much to do for work and home.

It would be a misnomer to say that I started the year with ‘x’ book. Usually, I never just hunker down and read a single volume in one sitting unless I am obsessed with it (as I was for, say, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which I devoured in sixteen or so continuous hours). Instead, I read anywhere from four to ten books concurrently, a mix for every mood and potential reading situation.

There is the physically and intellectually light public transportation book; then the bedtime book, usually fiction. I have a French volume going at all times, most often read at home so I can look up words in the dictionary. Non-fiction reading is reserved for the daytime at home as well, and these are the ones that serve as the ritual books, for the most part. My husband and I also have our shared car audiobook, and we each have one of our own for when the other is not there. It may seem complicated but it doesn’t feel like it in practice.

The first title of the year that I finished, then, was Normand Baillargeon’s Petit cours d’autodéfense intellectuelle. A how-to for critical thinking, it is not original in terms of content, but a very good sum of its parts, covering everything from media literacy to lying with statistics. It was a Quebec bestseller and I’d recommend it if you understand the language. It should be translated, but that’s not to say it will be.

It took no time at all to get through Joel Kotkin’s The City: a Global History, as it is short and sweet. I want to learn more about urbanity in the months to come, so I figured this was a good place to start, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Ever since my honeymoon in Paris, I have loved all things French, and I read what I can on l’Hexagone as books appear. My third book, Joan DeJean’s Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafés, Style, Sophistication and Glamour, surpassed my expectations. She proved her argument, and I like the way she organized her information. What’s more, she used primary documents, which always impresses me because of my history training. If you want to branch off from this book, there are different roads to take. You can read more on French character by picking up the excellent Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t be Wrong by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow. If it is luxury goods you’re after, go find a copy of Peter Mayle’s Acquired Tastes, where you can follow along as he samples the delicacies of the rich. Marian Fowler’s Hope: Adventures of a Diamond is useful for fleshing out the Sun King’s luster as well.

The last book of the week is The Club Dumas, a novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. I loved the glimpse into the rare book world, but desperately wished that I had read the Three Musketeers beforehand—mental note to get to it one day. The movie The Ninth Gate was based on this book, but it has a different focus. Normally, I detest seeing the movie before reading the story, but I saw it so long ago that I wasn’t too tainted.

Next week’s read will include the Da Vinci Code (no, I haven’t read it yet), and l’Attentat, among others. I’ll keep you posted.