Books for the taking

Category	Author	Title	Notes
Biography	Stein, Gertrude	Wars I have seen	autobiograpy
Business	Barnes, Ralph	Motion and Time Study	1930's industrial manual - cool pictures ultra-dry text
Business	Bennis, Warren	Managing the dream	Reflections on leadership and change.
Business	Dezenhall, Eric	Damage Control	Harback - case studies on the public relation nightmares
Business	Fisher, Roger	Getting to yes	A business classic on negotiation
Children	Allende, Isabel	City of the beasts	Teen literature
Children	Andersen, Hans	The emperor's new clothes	A business book (just kidding)
Children	Baglio, Ben	The first olympics	Children's literature - grade school
Children	Burks, Brian	Soldier Boy	Boy's literature - grade school
Children	Byfield, Barbara	The man who made gold	Children's literature - grade school
Children	Carlson Natalie	The family under the bridge	Children's literature - grade school
Children	Kipling, Rudyard	Captain Courageous	Classic children's literature
Children	Packard, Edward	The mystery of Chimney Rock	Children's literature - grade school
Children	Paulsen, Gary	Brian's winter	Children's literature - teen
Children	Sachar, Louis	Wayside school gets a little stranger	Children's literature - grade school
Children	Twain, Mark	The adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Schoolbook version with study guide
Children		Boy's life book of outer space stories	Children's literature - grade school
Children		Sleeping beauty	children's book
Children		The journal of Scott Pendleton Collins, world war II soldier	Children's literature - teen
Essays/nonfiction	Anzaldia, Gloria	Borderlands, La Frontera	The experince of the mestiza woman
Essays/nonfiction	Badinter, Elisabeth	Fausse route	french feminism (in french)
Essays/nonfiction	Badinter, Elisabeth	XY - De l'identite masculine	Well-bred french feminism - in french
Essays/nonfiction	Bejamin, Jessica	The bonds of love	Psychoanalysis and feminism. Heavy-duty.
Essays/nonfiction	Bolen Jean	Goddesses in evey woman	female psychology
Essays/nonfiction	Borges, Luis	Seven nights	A slim book of literary criticism
Essays/nonfiction	Chodorow, Nancy	The powe of feelings	Personal meaning in psychoanalysis, gender and culture
Essays/nonfiction	Cixous, Helene	Coming to writing	Serious french literary essays translated into english
Essays/nonfiction	Clement, Catherine	Opera	The femal characters in opera
Essays/nonfiction	Clezio, JM	Le reve Mexicain	The french take on Mexico - in French
Essays/nonfiction	Codrescu, Andrei	The dog with the chip in his neck	Essays
Essays/nonfiction	Crosley, Sloane	I was told there'd be cake	Hilarious book of personal essays
Essays/nonfiction	Eco, Umberto	Misreadings	essays
Essays/nonfiction	Eco, Umberto	Misreadings	essays
Essays/nonfiction	Firenzuola, Agnolo	On the beauty of women	Academic book on the concept of beauty in renaissance italy
Essays/nonfiction	Fisher, Seymour	Body consciousness	An academic book. How we get to view our bodies.
Essays/nonfiction	Flax, Jane	Thinking fragment	feminism and postmodernism in the west
Essays/nonfiction	Gergen, Kenneth	The saturated self	Identity in contemporary life
Essays/nonfiction	Goldberd, Natalie	The long quiet highway	Writing inspiration
Essays/nonfiction	Goldstein, Michael	The experience of anxiety	essays on psychiatry
Essays/nonfiction	Hooks, Bell	Feminist theory from margin to center	African American feminist theory
Essays/nonfiction	Hurston, Zora Neale	Dust Tracks on the road	Classic african american literature
Essays/nonfiction	Huston, Zora Neale	Folklore, memoirs and other writings	essays
Essays/nonfiction	Inchbald, Elizabeth	A simple story	18th century feminism
Essays/nonfiction	Johnson, Spehen	Character styles	Fundamentals of psychology
Essays/nonfiction	Kingston, Maxine	The woman warrior	Feminine myths.
Essays/nonfiction	Kolenda, Pauline	Cultural construction of women	Academic feminist essays
Essays/nonfiction	Kondo, Dorinne	Crafting selves	Power and gender in the Japanese workplace
Essays/nonfiction	La Bruyere	les characteres	Classic 17th century french - in french
Essays/nonfiction	Lawler, Jennifer	Dojo Wisdom for writers	Small book of writing inspiration
Essays/nonfiction	Locke, John	Second treatise of government
Essays/nonfiction	Moore, Robert	The king within	Jungian king myth
Essays/nonfiction	Moraga, Cherrie	This bridge called my back	writings by radical women of color
Essays/nonfiction	Myler, Thomas	How scandal brought boxing to its knees	A jock book
Essays/nonfiction	Nietzche, Friedrich	The Gay Science	Philosophy. Good grief I read this in high school?
Essays/nonfiction	Nietzche, Friedrich	Thus spoke Zarathustra	There goes another Nietzche book from MP's shelves
Essays/nonfiction	Paley, Grave	Just as I thought	Literary and political essays
Essays/nonfiction	Paz, Octavio	La hija de Rapaccini	A tiny serious book in spanish
Essays/nonfiction	Paz, Octavio	Solo a deux voix	Interview with Julian Rios - in french
Essays/nonfiction	Sacks, Oliver	The man who mistook his wife for a hat	essays on neurological disorders
Essays/nonfiction	Said, Edward	Orientalism	The origins of orientalism in Europe
Essays/nonfiction	Sansot, Pierre	Les gens de peu	Antropology - in French
Essays/nonfiction	Schor, Julier	The overspent american	Too late: we're overspent
Essays/nonfiction	Sedaris, David	Dress your family in corduroy and denim	Humorous personal essays
Essays/nonfiction	Sontag, Susan	Illness as metaphor	A very serious book of literary essays
Essays/nonfiction	Steedman, Carolyn	Landscape for a good woman	a study of english working class women
Essays/nonfiction	Stocker, Margaret	Judith	A thick book on the myth of Judith and Holofernes.
Essays/nonfiction	Taylor Charles	The ethics of authenticity	Canadian philosophy
Essays/nonfiction	Taylor, J	Eva Perron	The peronian myth. Written by a rice prof.
Essays/nonfiction	Thoreau, Henry	Wladen	Classic. But three copies??
Essays/nonfiction	Walker, Alice	In search of our mother's garden	prose and essays
Essays/nonfiction	Weedon, Chris	Feminist Practice and Postculturalist Theory	There you have it. Now you know how I squandered my youth.
Essays/nonfiction	Wickes, Frances	The inner world of choice	childhood development book.
Essays/nonfiction		Le code noir	The french slavery law code - in french
Fiction	Album, Mitch	The five people you meet in heaven	inspitational - sort of
Fiction	Amis, Kingsley	Lucky Jim	Literature
Fiction	Austen, Jane	Mansfield park	fluffy
Fiction	Barrico, Allesandro	Silk	quick read. Entertaining.
Fiction	Bellamy, Edward	Looking backward	19th centurey literature (I think)
Fiction	Bellow, Saul	Seize the day	literature
Fiction	Bourin, Jeanne	Les peregrines	Novel about the french croisades - in French
Fiction	Buck, Pearl	Pavillion of women	A classic. I always enjoy re-reading Pearl Buck.
Fiction	Calvino, Italo	Mr. Palomar	Calvino is a delightful italian author. I love his stories.
Fiction	Cambor, Kathleeen	The book of mercy	A mystery - with a mysterious dedication from the author
Fiction	Cather, Willa	Death comes to the archbishop	Classic. Everyman's libray hardback edition.
Fiction	Cerda, Martha	La senora rodriguez y otoros mundos	literature - in Spanish
Fiction	Chatelet, Noelle	Histoires de bouches	French short stories - in french
Fiction	Chatwin, Bruce	UTZ	I love this story! Set in France too.
Fiction	Chevalier, Tracy	La vierge en bleu	American author translated into french.
Fiction	Coetzee, J.M	Disgrace	A very good, thought-provoking read. Boy! I have a hard time parting with this one
Fiction	Cook, Robin	Crisis	Thrills
Fiction	Cooper, James Fenimore	The prairie	400 pages on the American frontieer
Fiction	Crighton, Michael	Five patents	Thrills
Fiction	Crighton, Michael	State of fear	Thrills
Fiction	Deloria, Ella	Waterlily	Story of a native american woman
Fiction	Divakaruni, Chitra	Arranged marriages	A great story - indian literature - couldn't put it down
Fiction	Djebar, Assia	Les femmes d'Alger	New french/arab contemporary literature - in french
Fiction	Dostoevsky, Fyodor	The brothers Karamazov	Two pounds of russian literature - an excellent Constance Garnett translation
Fiction	Eco, Umberto	Loana	French translation
Fiction	Farrell, J.G	The siege of Krishnapur	A great english colonial war story
Fiction	Fitzgerald, Scoot	Babylon revisited	literature
Fiction	Fox, Paula	A servant's tale	Contemporary Caribbean literature
Fiction	Frank, O'Connor	Stories	Mid century male short stories, what can I say?
Fiction	Gibbons, Kay	Divining Woman	A great story.
Fiction	Gordon, Mary	Pearl
Fiction	Grisham, John	The associate	Thrills
Fiction	Grisham, John	The brethren	Audio tapes - thrills
Fiction	Grisham, John	The last juror	Thrills
Fiction	Haien Jeannette	The all of it	An irish story
Fiction	Irving, John	A prayer for Owen Meany	So satisfying, like all Irving's books.
Fiction	Irving, John	The world according to Garp	a classic
Fiction	Kellor, Garrison	Lake Wobegon Days	Always entertaining
Fiction	Kenison, Katrina	The best of American short stories	Used in a writing class - got all the classics
Fiction	King, Stephen	Umney's last case	short story in a tiny book
Fiction	Kinsolver, Barbara	Best American short stories	2007 edition
Fiction	Koontz Dean	Velocity	Thrills
Fiction	Lahiri, Jhumpa	Interpreter of maladies	Great indian literature
Fiction	Lawrence, DH	The plumed serpent	Think DH Lawrence in Mexico
Fiction	Leavitt, David	Family dancing	literature
Fiction	Lewis, C.S.	The dark tower	Classic literature - suitable for teens
Fiction	Lewis, Stephen	The dumb shall sing	literature
Fiction	Leyner, Mark	The tetherballs of Bougainville	God knows what this is
Fiction	London, Jack	The Jack London reader	Literature - o.k for children
Fiction	Mann, Thomas	The magic mountain	Classic literature - lots of it
Fiction	Mason, Bobbie Ann	Clear Springs	Coming of age story. Very nice read
Fiction	McCockle, Julie	July 7th	Well written contemporary literature - sort of a chick book
Fiction	McCorckle, Jill	Carolina Moon
Fiction	Moore, Lorrie	Like Life	One of Lorrie Moore's first books. Very well written short stories
Fiction	Moore, Lorrie	Self help	Her first book. Very funny.
Fiction	Morrison, Tonei	The bluest eye	Classic of African American literature
Fiction	Nemirovsky, Irene	Le vin de solitude	in French
Fiction	Orseman, Erik	Une comedie francaise	French bourgeois literature - in french
Fiction	Oyone, Ferdinand	Le vieux negre et sa medaille	French attack on french colonialism. In french. Uh-oh!
Fiction	Proust, Marcel	Du cote de Guermande	In French
Fiction	Rahimi, Atiq	Syngue Sabour	Very powerful novel about women in afghanistan. In French
Fiction	Robinson, Mary	An amateur guide to the night	Children's literature - grade school
Fiction	Rushdie, Salman	East/West
Fiction	Sebold, Alice	The lovely bones	Great story. Coming into flim.
Fiction	Shelley, Mary	Frankenstein	The original story.
Fiction	Shute, Nevil	A town like Alice	A good story. There's a movie of the same.
Fiction	Tan, Amy	The hundred secret senses	Comfy read - great story - a chick book
Fiction	Tolstoy, Leo	War and Peace	A doorstop of Russian literature and another Constance Garnett translation
Fiction	Tremblay Michel	La traversee du continent	Canadian contemporary literature - in French
Fiction	Trollope. Anthony	The spotted dog and other stories	19th centurey literature
Fiction	Tyler, Ann	Ladder of years	I love this story! Definitely a chick-book escape
Fiction	Vian, Boris	L'automne a Pekin	In French
Fiction	Vonnegut, Kurt	Hocus Pocus	literature
Fiction	Vonnegut, Kurt	Slaughter house five	A classic!
Fiction	Waugh, Evelyn	Decline and Fall	A classic.
Fiction	Wharton, Edith	Madame de Treyme	A tiny book - short story
Fiction	White Bailey	Sleeping at the starlite motel	A light story ala Ann Tyler
Fiction	White Edmund	The beautiful room is empty	Never read it. Must be someone else's
Fiction	Wolfe, Tom	A man in full	A southern gent' story of greed and fall
Fiction		American Short Ficton	Vol 10, issue 38 summer 2007
Fiction		Harpur Palate	Volume 7 issue 1
How-to	Baxter, Harry	How to read music	I could never learn. You try.
How-to	Brungardt, Kurt	Complete book of abs for women	I gave up on tight abs - might work for you
How-to	Calabro, Rose	Living in the raw	Raw cooking vegan recipes
How-to	Cookshack	Get smoking	190 award-winning smoker oven recipes
How-to	Cotton, Leo	Old Mr. Boston official bartender's guide	Boozy recipes
How-to	Farmer Fannie	Original 1896 cooking-school cookook	Actually a tiny reproduction
How-to	Galloway	Book on running	Method to run marathon (not that I ever did)
How-to	Gordon, Deborah	Ants at work	book on bugs
How-to	Hines, Emmett	Fitness Swimming	Great swimming workouts
How-to	Hitt, Jack	Off the road	Travel book about Compostella
How-to	Jensen, Bernard	Guide to diet and detoxification	I could never follow a diet
How-to	Lawrence, Allan	Running and racing after 35	fitness book
How-to	Maleska Eugene	Daily NYT crosswords	Thursday level - too advanced for me
How-to	Prudhomme, Paul	Old-time Louisiana recipes	cookbook
How-to	Townbridge, John	The Yeast Syndrome	Lotsa yeast everywhere. Yikes!
How-to	Whittman. Kate	Brittany Gastronomique	Recipe book - in english
How-to		Clothes	A picture book of 90's classics
How-to		McCormick & Schmicks seafood restaurant cookbook
Humor	Larson, Gary	Far side observer	comics
Humor	Salajan Joanna	Zen Comics	Slim book of zen cartoons
Poetry	Banerjee, Chitra	Leaving Yuba City	Poetry
Poetry	Eluard, Paul	Capitale de la douleur	Painful french poetry - in french
Poetry	Eluard, Paul	Derniers poemes d'amour	French love poems - in French
Poetry	Hall, Donald	Old New Poems	poetry
Poetry	Masters, Edgar	Spoon River Anthology	Classic poetry
Poetry	Theobald, John	The lost vine	medieval french poetry translated into english
Religion/spirituality	Andre-Delastre, Louise	St. Agnes	A very pious little book on the life of St. Agnes
Religion/spirituality	Daila Lama	Deity Yoga	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Donnell, Thomas	A Thomas Merton Reader	Christian spirituality
Religion/spirituality	Geshe Sopa, Lhundup	Cutting through appearances	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Gross, Rita	Buddhism after patriarchy	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Johnson, Franklin	True Womanhood	19th century manual on how women should behave. Oh Lord!
Religion/spirituality	Klein. Anne	Knowledge and liberation	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Merton. Thomas	contemplatice prayer
Religion/spirituality	Norbu, Namkhai	The crystal and the way of light	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Rinbochay, Khetsun Sangpo	Tantric practice in yingma	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Rinbochay, Lati	Mind in tibetan buddhism	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Sohl, Robert	The gospel according to zen	interesting religious cross-study
Religion/spirituality	Trungpa, Chogyam	The myth of freedom	Tibetan buddhism
Religion/spirituality	Wisse, Ancrene	Guide for Anchoresses	A glimpse into medieval spirituality
Religion/spirituality		Religion of the United States - vol 2	A school book
Self-Help	Dyer, Wayne	Your sacred self	self-help
Self-Help	Ford, Debbie	The dark side of the light chasers	self-help
Self-Help	Garfield, Charles	Wisdom circles	a guide about building small groups
Self-Help	Gawain, Shakti	Living in the light	self-help
Self-Help	Jaksch, Mary	Learn to love	Cute. Quick read. With pictures.
Self-Help	Levine Stephen	Who dies	An uplifting books on mortality (just kidding)
Self-Help	Moore, Thomas	Soul mates - honoring the mysteries of love and relationships	self-help
Self-Help	Myss, Carolyn	The creation of health	health, spirituality
Self-Help	Rohrer, Norman	Facing anger	self-help
Self-Help	Wlaker, Barbara	The Crone	Book on women and aging

The turn

I am not tired of being good. I am tired of being predictable. I have plumbed the depths of my evil side and found them as fastidious as my afternoons spent folding laundry. I am aching for boldness.

I met a woman once at a party. She was slathering cheese spread on Ritz crackers, her large body leaning into the kitchen counter of our mutual friends. Her lips glistened under the neon lights.

“I was driving back from a conference in Santa Fe,” she told between bites, “when I reached this intersection in the middle of nowhere. You know the kind. You’ve seen it in movies: two roads, no sign, no direction, nothing. Out of the blue, I turned right. To this day I couldn’t tell you why. I knew the way home was straight but I took a turn. I drove for three weeks taking whichever road I felt like taking. I ate and slept whenever I wanted to. The only call I made was to my daughter in college to tell her I was fine. She had her own life already. ‘Mama,” she said, ‘I just want you to be happy’. I don’t know that I was. I spent three days holed up in a motel room reading from a box of mystery novels I had bought at a garage sale a hundred miles back. I ate and drank from the vending machine and when I got done reading I went for a swim and a steak dinner. I saw the Grand Canyon. I think. Maybe it was some other canyon. Who knows really? I didn’t talk to anyone. Just did a lot of driving. When I finally came home, there was a letter from the school district telling me I had been fired for being a no-show. I had been a school counselor for twenty-two years. I could have gone back and begged for my job but I didn’t. I sold my house and everything I had. Kept a couch and a coffee table and moved to a garage apartment in San Antonio. I didn’t even keep a bed or a set of sheet. At first, I thought I’d do something: write the Great American Novel, go to school, start a hobby. But all I did was read and watch movies. It was like a switch had been turned off in me and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything worthwhile. Or maybe it was the opposite: a switch had been turned on and I was just living the way people are supposed to live. It was the first time in my life I didn’t have to hurry.”

She pointed at a flower dress with a sweeping gesture that left a dab of cheese spread on the tiled floor: “And now look at me. Here I am: looking for work and with seventeen thousand dollars in credit card debt.”

“Do you have any regrets?” I asked.

“Regrets? I wished I had had enough money so I wouldn’t have to deal with the creditors right now. But that turn off the highway? I think that was a gift from God and I am glad I had the good sense to take it.”

About flowers

Send the flowers to my office, by special courier, on a busy Monday afternoon. Make sure you give an incomplete address and scribble my name unintelligibly. I want a mild commotion at the reception desk, lots of necks craning from around cubicles. I will be waiting, ankles crossed, hands poised on the keyboard and will act appropriately surprised and delighted. I will keep your identity a secret until the switchboard operator learns your voice, then I will upgrade you from casual date to semi-permanent beloved.

A first, send me light airy bouquets of pseudo wildflowers with dots of baby-breath and wispy, tender greens that will arrest mid-afternoon bureaucratic meetings long enough for me to speed-dial you on for an impromptu afternoon picnic. Just think of it: the two of us eating vanilla ice cream on a quilt by the artificial blue pond at the center of the business park. We will blow a small snowstorm of private wishes from a dandelion. You will pick a blade of grass from my lips before kissing.

Later you can send me a happy batch of sunflowers but once love strikes, I tell you, only two dozens roses will do. They will have to be velvet-curtain red and elegantly arranged in one of those satisfying vases with the spiraling weeds and the tasteful silk ribbon. This will be no time to be cheap darling. You will want to be back and this modest initial investment will ensure that all your phone calls will get past my assistant and that my calendar will be cleared for seventy-five evenings in a row.

Whenever you pick me up for lunch, I will lock my arm under yours and smile all the way to the small bistro with the checkered tablecloths and the Gerber daisies sticking from the Italian wine bottles.

Be wary of birthdays and Valentines: I have the taste of an eighteenth-century noble woman who demands overflowing bouquets of peonies and orange-colored roses with a reddish fringe, lots of eucalyptus, some fern, a few orchids and purple lilies. I tolerate neither cheap carnations in bud vases nor stiff suburban arrangements of exotica. Obligations bore me stiff; I want passion in petals.

Should you show up on my doorstep the morning of May 1 holding a small pot of Lily of the Valley I swear I will call in sick and give you my entire day. I cannot resist Lilies of the Valley, they go so well with cold beer and Mexican food. Our day will be so memorable that you will show up the next year, and the one after that, pot in hand, until neither one of us remembers how we got started.

Give me flowers for no other reason that it will make us happy. Surprise me with a bouquet of irises on the dining room table, a single aster on the hood of my car, four bunches of gladiola in the bathroom, a handmade bracelet of black-eyed Susans, a jam-jar full of blue bonnets, wildly colored carnations from a curb-side flower stall, or a handful of wildflowers that will only last only as long as your embrace. I will kiss you every time, run my hand in the back of your neck where the hair is cut as short as the grass on a golf course.

When I grow old and can no longer see, choose for me the most fragrant plants, those that smell of lust, life, sun and wind. I will no longer care for subtlety. You will have to hunt for dianthus, gardenia and lilac and fly me to the Mediterranean for a nap in a lavender field.

Before each fight, hand me two thick purple thistles wrapped in newspaper, but once we reconcile I beg you to deliver whatever pours from your heart: tiny violets, renonculi tied with twine, a pansy dried between pages of my dictionary, a supermarket rose-bush, or some wild-ass tropical monster that will scare the wits out of me every time I step into the living-room. I promise to keep every flower in my heart until it withers away.

Should I die first, do as you see fit. I have seen coffins blanketed by rainbows of gladiola and others graced with a single white rose. Either is be fine by me, but please, nothing in lieu of flowers.

Why read obituaries

Consider the life of Laurel Hester, a lesbian police lieutenant who died of cancer at age 49. A month before her death, she had convinced the Ocean County freeholders to change their pension rules and approve a resolution to allow enforcement employees to designate a person other than a spouse to be the beneficiary of pension benefits. The small article about Ms. Hester’s life, at the bottom of page 17 of the Monday February 20, 2006 edition of the New York Times, concludes by saying that “her condition rapidly declined” after the successful meeting with the freeholders.

I am addicted to the simplicity of obituaries, to life distilled to its very core.

Open the paper and here it is: this man changed the world of cheese-making, this other revolutionized quantum physics. This woman loved powerful men but that one wrote books about the lives of worms, or danced her heart out, or was the best fly-fisher on this side of the Mississippi. In the local paper most everybody gets to fight a courageous battle with a dreadful illness or was the ever loving father, daughter, or nephew of someone else.

Most days I anesthetize existential angst in a daily hum-drum of paper-pushing routines and double lattes. But after reading the obituaries I pause to wonder what, in the end, will remain of my passage on Earth. Will it be the children I raised? The stories I wrote? The medical plan I administered so someone might win that courageous battle with the dreadful illness? Or will it be something more mundane, like the scarf I knitted absent-mindedly on the plane home from France but that might somehow be preserved for the next five hundred years and eventually displayed in a museum exhibit on “21^st century fiber arts”?

Or will the-thing-that-matters-most happen at the very end, like it did for Laurel Hester? The article does not say what she thought of her life. Had she been asked she might have talked about her love for her partner Stacie Andree, for whom she fought till the very end.  It's always about love.

Obituaries are condensed little romance novels offering us glimpses into someone else's love.  Delivered in neat paragraphs with a photograph of the main protagonist, they are meant to remind us that our combined hearts tick with the passion that makes the world go round.   They are tiny reminders of our intertwines lives and our struggles for meaning.  Let's read them, by all means.  Let's read.