2018 Top Rereads

Following up on my list of best first-time reads of 2018, here are the best books I've returned to this year. These are books that not only survive multiple readings but become richer on repeated reads.

1. Austin Kleon, Show Your Work. This is why I started bgfay.com and the newsletter

2. Rick Bass, Winter. There’s nothing I’ve read quite like this book. I read it in summer and kept thinking, like Bass, I’ve got to stockpile more firewood.

3. Linda Cline, The Ghost Of Cramer's Island. I read this for the first time in 3rd grade. It has been years since I reread it and it still feels great. Better than Where The Red Fern Grows.

4. Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country. Thank goodness Vonnegut only had George W. Bush as the worst president in his life. He might have killed himself if he saw who we have now.

5. Christopher McDougall, Born To Run. People think it’s just a barefoot running book. It’s hardly that. McDougall has written a nonfiction thriller as good as anything I’ve ever read.

6. Stephen King, On Writing. Anyone who thinks Stephen King isn’t a brilliant writer hasn’t read this. Great memoir and good advice for writers. This keeps me writing. I read it once a year.

7. Annie Dillard, The Writing Life. I forgot what a poet Dillard is. I wanted to copy huge sections out of this. The word lyrical may have been coined to describe this book.

8. J.K. Rowling, The Harry Potter Series. Every summer my daughter and I each reread these books. I never tire of them and they shine as bright as they ever have. Rowling is supremely gifted.

2018 Top New (To Me) Books

My 2018 top-ten list of new (to me) books ended up being eleven. Oh well. These are listed in the order that I read them. All eleven are nonfiction. That sounds about right for me.

1. Damon Krukowski, The New Analog. This confirmed what I’ve felt about turntables and taught me the value of signal and noise.

2. Alan Jacobs, How To Think. This really got me thinking about how to think. That’s not something most books do for me.

3. Alan Lightman, Searching For Stars On An Island In Maine. Lightman deftly showed how faith and logic can live together, how religion and science intersect. It's quite a high-wire act.

4. Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments For Deleting All Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Technology companies are using me. This book convinced me to delete my long-held Facebook and Twitter accounts. I'm quitting Amazon but won't ever quit Google.

5. Richard Russo, The Destiny Thief. Russo's prose is as good as anyone writing today or yesterday. I wish he wrote more essays. I’ll reread this book someday soon.

6. Hans Rosling, Factuflness. My friend Laurie begged me to read this. Now I beg everyone else to read it. It turned me around. One of the most important books of this new century.

7. Chris Offutt, My Father The Pornographer. The best memoir I’ve read in a couple years. It's difficult to get through because of who and how his father was. The prose is lyrical. This is a writer’s writer but the book is for everyone.

8. David Sedaris, Calypso. Sedaris is the humorist of our times, which is a weightier mantle than that of comedian. He's also one of the best writers I've read.

9. Stephen Kuusisto, Have Dog, Will Travel. How is this not on every Best of 2018 list? Kuusisto is an honest to God poet and his prose is infused with both poetry and his vision of being a blind man in a sighted world.

10. Deborah Levy, The Cost Of Living. No book stuck with me more. Levy’s style is brilliant, forceful, spare, and so far beyond my abilities I almost want to cry but that would get in the way of reading more of her stuff.

11. Kristi Coulter, Nothing Good Can Come From This. I love this. Her mix of humor and honesty raise the book beyond the typical alcoholic's memoir. I can’t wait to read what she does for a second book.

Next up: 2018 Top Re-Reads

Rubber Band Ball

In the kitchen junk drawer (does everyone have one of those?) sits a rubber band ball that has grown just larger than a baseball. I found a purple rubber band from the asparagus on the table and stretched it around the ball. As usual, I thought of The Mickey Mouse Make-It Book from which came the idea to make a rubber band ball. I was six then. We didn't have hundreds of rubber bands in the house. Not being able to make the ball immediately, I gave up.

Fifteen years ago I wrapped a couple rubber bands around some used aluminum foil. I added bands as I found them. The ball grew but lacked bounce because of the foil core shortcut. I tossed it in the bin as a thing begun badly, but the idea lingered.

When the kids outgrew them I packed my Mickey Mouse books in a tote but lingered over The Make-It Book. I saw the things I had made. Some worked, others not so much, and one, the rubber band ball, still called to me.

I wound two rubber bands together to form a tiny ball. I added the half dozen bands lying in the junk drawer. I added rubber bands as I found them, winding each tightly around the core. Sometimes I thought of the book, the aluminum foil failure, the idea of what I was making, but mostly I wound the band I happened to have around the ball in the drawer.

In my basement nook is the tote of comics and Mickey Mouse books. Without digging into it for the Make-It Book I remember most every page, especially the rubber band ball project. In the white space I should write that these things take time, patience, and the art of forgetting, letting go. My grandchildren would do well to learn that, but maybe such things can't come straight out of a book.

Virtually Gone

Way back in August I deactivated my Facebook account and unfollowed everyone on Twitter but held onto the accounts just in case.

Today I went all in and got all out. If you want @brianfay on Twitter it should be available soon but then you'll be hanging with the orange turd tweeting from the White House. I don't know what will be available on Facebook but stay out of that cesspool.

I might regret these deletions, but that's tough to imagine. I've finally decided to leave these bad and abusive relationships. Good riddance.