COLUMN: Time to Drop Everything and Read

By Tobin Barnes

I’m going to talk about books today.

Whoops, probably already lost a bunch of readers.

But as the rest of you know, a good book’s a great way to spark up the ho-hums of winter. As Groucho Marx said, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

Anyway, I’m going to tell you about my own book-reading experiences lately. Maybe you’ll come away with an idea or two for yourself.

First off, I just finished Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I know, the title’s somewhat less than entrancing. And let me deflate you even more.

It’s about this ninety-something guy who’s trapped in a nursing home with people he despises. He spends his time escaping by remembering the summer of 1931 when he hooked up with a circus. Every boy’s dream, right? Except he was more of a young man on the outs after losing his parents in a car crash, walking out of his veterinarian finals, and learning his parents’ home was getting foreclosed.

Never thought you’d want to read a book about Depression-era train circuses? An old codger in a nursing home? I’m feeling ya, man.

But my sister-in-law raved about it and gave it to us. My wife read it and liked it, too. So I somewhat reluctantly picked it up and found myself more and more into it as I went along. It turned out to be one of those books where you can’t turn the pages fast enough at the end. And along the way, you learn a lot of weird little tidbits about circus life on the rails that you find strangely interesting. Pretty darned good book.

Other good bets for page turners are books by James Patterson. I’ve read a bunch of them lately (they’re kind of like salted peanuts), and every one of them swept me along at breakneck speed.

Patterson and his stable of co-writers practice assembly-line fiction. That’s right—two to five-page chapters with very little description or characterization—instead, just plain old slick plots with sometimes preposterous twists and turns that readers readily excuse. They’re strictly mass entertainment with few or no literary pretensions. Yeah, it’s mental bubble gum, all right, but at that they’re the Double Bubble of that kind of novel.

Try these Patterson books: 4th of July, Beach House, Beach Road, and The Lifeguard. Hmmm, on second thought, maybe there is a literary motif after all.

Not long ago, I vowed to never read another John Grisham book. I’d read too many, I’d thought. The southern lawyer well had gone dry. His novels had fallen into a certain sameness.

But another one was sitting around, so I tentatively gave it a parting shot. Maybe it was the latent memories of Grisham’s oftentimes adept story-telling that lured me in. Soon, I became a Grisham fan again.

The Broker breaks the mold by spending most of its time in Bologna, Italy. And as Grisham gives us a tour of the city, we find it’s a fun place to be while becoming engrossed in an interesting plot that skirts the highest levels of the United States government. The protagonist is a wheeler-dealer lobbyist you start out hating and end up liking.

And speaking of Italy, I’ve just finished a book that answers a question on many people’s minds: What’s up with those kooky Italians? It’s called La Bella Figura by Beppe Severgnini. The title comes from “fare la bella figura” which means “to make a good figure”--in other words, kind of like “looking good.” And the author maintains that it’s the raison d’etre of most Italians.

In it the author explains how for the average Italian a stop light is more a conundrum than a command. Should the motorist run the red light and chance getting hit by those speeding along with the green, or should he stop for the red light and when it’s green chance getting hit by those running their own red light. And that’s not to mention the motorists behind who are honking their horns, impatiently awaiting the chance to make their own choice.

Severgnini dissects the great, the bad, and the bizarre in the Italian psyche on a ten-day tour through the peninsula. It’s oftentimes humorous and usually interesting, particularly when the author contrasts Italians with Americans and other nationalities.

Finally, I’ve got to admit I’m a sucker for a book jacket with a swastika on it. World War II, counter-intelligence, and all that Nazi bad-guy stuff lure me in every time. Sometimes satisfactorily, sometimes not.

I recently had one of those “not” experiences with The Black Sun by James Twining. Supposedly based on historical fact, it’s about an SS treasure train filled with stolen loot that mysteriously disappeared in the last days of the war.

So where is the train now?

After way too many convenient contrivances and cardboard characters, I stopped caring. Go ahead, blow the train up...which they did.