Eric Gaskins Vol. 010 Required Reading: Summer 2010
When school let out when I was a teenager, I used to cringe at the list of books I was expected to read before September rolled around. Nothing was more burdensome than the specter of school shadowing every minute of my precious vacation. It seemed like the most sinister and odious trick that school could play, deflating the fantasy that we all were actually free. Grudgingly, I read over that list and tried to find a way to come to terms with giving up my precious days or steeling myself for the firestorm that I’d face if I “lost” the list and went back unprepared. I found a delicate balance between the two opposing paths and read a little as I played a lot.
As a grown man, my feelings about reading and books in general, is so radically different that I don’t remember the kid who’d happily go for weeks without opening anything more challenging than Vogue or Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine. That’s right baby…..this kid has come a long way. Now I am never without at least one or two books on any given day. I can’t go to sleep at night without having read at least a few pages. It’s my sleeping pill, but it’s also my fix. I have a voracious appetite for books, because I’m simply fascinated by humanity. History, popular culture, Art, Fashion, Architecture, Interior Design, Photography, Painting and Painters, Jewelry design and its history, and on and on. It all fascinates me and as a result I collect books like many of you collect the work of fabulous fashion designers. The greatest thing about books are they always fit, there’s always a place for them in your lives, you can share them with friends and you learn something every time you read a sentence. Technology has made it all so much easier for us with the advent of the Kindle reader and now Apple’s IPad. These are a book junkie’s new best friends, except for those of us who have dual addictions to large format coffee table books. I’m hooked on both types: literature (hi and lo) and heavy–duty visual fare that can only be found in a monster coffee table book. There is yet another subset that is loads of fun, too. The Audio book is a pleasure, especially if you spend lots of time in the car driving or being driven. It’s perfect for the yacht or on a floating air mattress at the club’s pool. If you’re like me and you’re making that hellish commute to Nirvana, also known as South, Bridge or East (Hampton) audio books are fabulous antidotes to the frustration of traffic on the LIE, or the hassle of waiting, boarding, flying, landing, deplaning and driving to your “oh so delicious” estate in South, Bridge or East (Hampton)! Reading is our Higher Power’s way of getting us from point A to point B with minimal stress while exercising and stimulating our brains.
So here is my list for this summer, which lends itself to many of the different scenarios I mentioned. Biography is always a winner because it’s a real person in real situations that always resonate with our own in some way. I can’t get enough of them. Present day is as much fun as historical. “Open An Autobiography” by Andre Agassi is fantastic and reads like the finals at Wimbledon. He’s riveting and not at all what you’d expect. For those of us who never get enough fashion, there is a marvelous story by Alicia Drake, entitled ” The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent and Glorious Excess in 1970’s Paris”. This is a total roller coaster ride of the rise and rise of these two Titans of Fashion. They compete, fight, undermine and shine in ways one never imagined. The formative years of their superstardom on the world stage is chronicled in this story. It’s truly incisive, shocking and addictive, like so much in fashion……I love the new biography “The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham”, by Selina Hastings, which just came out in the last couple of weeks. Maugham, who gave us so many great stories which became classic films like “Of Human Bondage” and “The Razor’s Edge” led a very complicated and checkered life, one that we would call a “double life”, but at closer inspection was more like triple or quadruple. They don’t make them like that any more unless you consider Uncle Bernie a double or triple lifer. At the moment he’s just a lifer. When that book hits, it will be “Required Reading” no matter what season it is! No summer is complete without a great heist story and that can be found in Michael Frayn’s “Headlong”. It’s fiction with lots of dry British humor, suspense, history of a particularly prolific painter and an important moment in time, but best of all it’s a screwy, “on the edge of your seat” heist story. This story and “The Beautiful Fall… “ are great for the beach, boat or just lolling in bed, assuming the kids are off at camp, hubby is around but not too much around and you’re feeling a little self indulgent. I know that feeling will be foreign to most of you, but just try to go with it. Colm Toibin’s “Brooklyn” is a serious and moving story that takes you back to your innocence and to a time where the heart and mind did battle. It’s romantic and sad and utterly powerful as are all of his novels. Another fantastic novel I just finished is “Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann. It is a masterfully woven story whose central theme is the the day the Frenchman walked between the twin towers on a tightrope in 1972. These poignant interlocking stories that circle this audacious act make for a truly amazing read. This book was not the 2009 National Book Award winner for nothing.
The books I’ve listed, thus far, are all available on the page, as Kindle/I Reader books as well as Audio fare. Take your pick…whatever floats your boat! I’ll share with you my choices for the well-dressed coffee table in the coming weeks. Some of them are already available in Hirshleifers ETC, so get busy!
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