Diamond-Cut Life

My experience is that great books are like life-blood to the Diamond-Cut Life (a life rich in joy and low in consumption). I have often been dollar-poor, and though I’m not any longer, good books give me — I think us — an exciting inner life whatever our external status in the world.

Reading an excellent book can be like taking a vacation or living out a whole alternate reality. Some novels are more vividly memorable to me than trips I have physically taken. And reading them spews no carbon emissions into our shared atmosphere.

I generally (not always) alternate my recommendations below between non-fiction and fiction. I add to this list periodically from the top [most recent update is January 12, 2010], and I welcome comments that tell me about your favorite books.

The Rainmaker and The Street Lawyer, both by John Grisham

I don’t know about you, but I read novels I like over and over again. The storylines and especially characters keep giving me hits of energy, and empathy for the world around me, every time I reengage with them. And I’m not necessarily highbrow in my tastes, as you can see with my enjoying Mr. Grisham. Both these novels of his are written in the first person and have fast-moving plots revolving around likable, energetic characters and themes of social justice, i.e. domestic violence, corporate violence (white-collar crime), and homelessness. They rivet me every time I revisit them, a key reason being that they have a firm moral center, i.e. predatory behavior and victimizing others really is wrong. Imagine that. A lesser-known Grisham novel I also recommend is A Painted House. It takes place through the eyes of a young boy on a hardscrabble farm several decades ago. Again, vividly detailed and compelling.

Siesta Lane by Amy Minato

This book describing a year in a woman’s life is so rich, tender and sweet that it feels to me like the special pumpkin chiffon pie with the pecans in the crust that my mother would only make once a year, during the holidays. Ms. Minato lives here in Portland, Oregon. I’ve participated in two of  her writing workshops, both at Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center, and I recommend those, too. She is the full meal deal:  humble, brilliant, and completely kind and generous toward probably every writer she has ever met.

Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston      

What I love about Pam Houston is her relationship with the outdoors. The accounts she weaves into her first-person-voice fiction of whitewater rafting, horseback riding, stalking dahl sheep in Alaska and sailing in the Caribbean are deeply exciting to me. When it comes to her relationships with men, the counselor in me aches to get Ms. Houston into a Women Who Love Too Much group, because despite being entertaining to read about, the relationships she recounts are awful. But her relationship to the natural world and her physicality is so vibrant, I read her to soak that up.

A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson

Mr. Bryson writes nonfiction books, usually in a self-deprecating first person voice, that teach me fascinating things and make me whoop with laughter. In this book, he hiked the Appalachian Trail with the world’s most woeful companion. On my last road trip to Eastern Oregon I delightedly listened to his own reading of A Short History Of Nearly Everything. Now I’m reading In A Sunburned Country, and am riveted by Mr. Bryson’s adventures on our planet’s startlingly unusual largest island.

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier

Ms. Angier makes science absolutely vibrate with life. No, she shows us with exuberant energy and humor that all of our lives are actually vibrating, already, with the stuff that science reveals to us. My favorite chapter would have to be the one on Thinking Scientifically, because it is so universally applicable to all times and places, including to a person steeped in the social sciences like me. Ms. Angier also penned Woman: An Intimate Geography, which I plan to read next. The Canon makes us smarter, and happier to be alive here in this wondrous world. It reinvigorated my own writing.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

This novel riveted me into the can’t-put-it-down near-delirium some people get over murder mysteries. (I’ve just never liked murder mysteries, though I certainly tore through the Nancy Drew series as a girl, comprised of non-murderous mysteries. Nancy was smart, strong and really rocked as a role model. But I digress.) In The Lovely Bones, the narrator is a teenage girl, murdered, actually, by a neighbor (his identity is clear). She lovingly watches her family from heaven as events unfold and all their lives change and deepen. How does The Lovely Bones relate to my passion for sustainability? Like this: I believe as the author does that our spirits, relationships and capacity to love sustain themselves beyond physical death. The plot startled me with its originality and the characters climbed straight into my heart. . . and are sustained there, as tends to happen with great art.

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam

Now, this book is written as a suspense-drenched mystery, despite it being non-fiction. Mr. Putnam discovers that civic engagement in the United States has declined sharply in recent decades (e.g., voting, volunteering, bowling leagues, even card-playing). So like any good detective, he sets out to discover the culprit. In prose that’s both erudite and delightfully conversational (he reminds me of Jared Diamond in that regard; see entry farther below), Mr. Putnam examines the trends suspected of slowly killing the juicy heart of our culture: is it women’s headlong entrance into the work-force? Longer commutes? The advent of television? This book is a classic, a deeply insightful critique of our culture that is both critical and hopeful.

Peace Like A River by Leif Enger

Reuben’s older brother Davy, 16, has killed two criminals in defense of himself and his family after the sheriff has ignored their repeated crimes. His father is a man of faith, integrity and healing gifts; his younger sister Swede is a fearless, feisty writer of epic Western poems. Mr. Enger’s use of the English language made me yelp with delighted laughter, feel the presence of the divine, and know the thrill of open spaces and adventure. Peace Like A River was named Best Book of the Year (2005) by three major newspapers.

The Old Way by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Did you know that a man can hunt and kill an eland by outrunning it? It has to be a hot day, a good runner and a large bull eland, but it works because the eland’s size means it dehydrates and collapses before the person does. This and more I learned from The Old Way, the author of which spent years of her youth living with a hunter-gatherer tribe in Africa. The Hidden Life of Dogs is also excellent, both books inviting us into a culture different from our own in which Ms. Thomas has personally steeped herself. I also recommend Reindeer Moon, a novel (the above two are non-fiction) set in the prehistoric past.

Back Roads by Tawnni O’Dell

Like the nonfiction book by Robert Leo Heilman listed directly below, this novel is about struggles, family, blue collar work and a richly described world of thoughts and emotions, all told in the first person. Back Roads is also funny, engrossing, and convincing — you really believe that this female author is a 19 year old man who has lost both his parents and is trying to raise his three younger sisters in a coal town of Western Pennsylvania. And you care. I flat-out love this book.

Overstory: Zero: Real Life In Timber Country by Robert Leo Heilman

Most of us like forests, and most of us use and like things made from wood. But do we have any idea of what it’s like to work in a sawmill, or on a crew in a forest doing the dangerous work of felling trees, or feverishly planting seedlings in an area after it’s been clear-cut? I say feverishly because Mr. Heilman reports that laboring is fiercely competitive, one of many surprising things I learned from Overstory: Zero. This award-winning series of essays is gritty and elegant. I’ll have the honor of  interviewing Mr. Heilman this summer; I’ll then pen a post about that. He’s an Oregonian who breaks all the stereotypes about blue-collar workers, philosophers and environmentalists.

High Plains Tango by Robert James Waller

This novel, set in the Dakotas but with a focus much deeper and broader than any single place, just vibrates with good characters and a gripping story-line. I can’t think of any novel I’ve read that better captures those elusive things like integrity, love of the land, right livelihood, community and soulfulness. Mr. Waller is most famous for The Bridges of Madison County. Other novels of his I like include Slow Waltz In Cedar Bend and Border Music. However, I think High Plains Tango is his best book because here he is weaving the concerns of the individual into the greater world we all share. I felt wiser, braver and happier after reading this novel.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

We think we know what creates excellence — but we really don’t. Mr. Gladwell’s engagingly summarized research shows that excellence is partly under our control (it takes at least 10,000 practice-hours to master any given skill) and partly a matter of chance and environment (most Canadian hockey stars were born at the beginning of the year). Blink is his earlier book about perception, including how our first ‘thin-sliced’  glimpse of a thing is sometimes stunningly accurate.  The Tipping Point was his first bestseller, now a classic on how social change happens. Whenever I read Mr. Gladwell’s books, my mind expands and I get excited about the possibilities of us human animals.

The Mitford Years by Jan Karon

This way-popular series of novels set in a small mountain town in the South has wonderful characters, dialogue and values. It’s about community in all its quirkiness, joys and vulnerabilities. I especially love that the village of Mitford is Christian and religious in the best sense of those words — these people actively care for each other, across ages, income levels and race, without any worries about ideology.  Everyone I know who has read one of these books has been delighted, and rushed to read the rest of them.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

I’m a gardener, but even if I weren’t, this action-packed ‘year of food life’ on a current-day farm would fascinate me. The sensuality of April asparagus, the surprising merits of family tobacco farming, her hilarious description of her turkeys having sex, all make this a great read, especially now in the planting season ( I’m writing this in the spring).  Speaking of writing, Ms. Kingsolver’s is so excellent it makes me green with envy. . . . kind of a cross between Annie Dillard’s laser-beam intelligence and Anne Lamott’s humorous, grounded, riveted-in-the-moment realism.

Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card

In the earth of the future, people have learned to watch whatever part of the past they’d like to observe. A particularly compassionate scientist identifies a point in the earth’s history that triggered the greatest amount of domination and suffering in the centuries that followed : the return of Columbus to Europe after his initial landing in America. Then, a team plans and executes a carefully crafted intervention on that event. This is one of the most conceptually creative novels I’ve ever read.  My friend Fred Reed, an engineer, recommended it to me — thank you, Fred!

Deep Economy by Bill McKibben

This modestly-sized paperback is chock-full of facts, wisdom and solutions to unsustainability. Mr. McKibben has lots of on-the-ground experience, whether he’s writing about urban farming in Cuba, factory workers in China or the growth of farmers’ markets across the U.S. He’s passionate yet concise, and the direction he points us in — building our local communities and the quality of our lives while downscaling our consumption — is what I call diamond-cut. If you read one book in your lifetime about sustainability, I suggest Deep Economy be that book.

The Mermaid’s Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

A conventional Southern woman, married with a young adult daughter, returns to the island where she grew up to help her aging mother. The way that she climbs into her physical body and her wildish, instinctual nature was the thread of the story I most loved. Ms. Kidd also wrote The Secret Life of Bees, which was great, but this one was even better.

An American Childhood by Annie Dillard  

I see Annie Dillard (a Pulitzer prize winner) as being in a class all by herself as a nonfiction writer. The depth and originality of her thinking have at times sent my mind into a happily stunned, delirious orbit. The above is the richest story of a person’s life I have ever read. Teaching A Stone To Talk, a collection of essays, is another top pick. I read that and Living By Fiction right after I graduated from college in 1983, and consider myself fortunate to have started reading Ms. Dillard when I was young. Holy The Firm wowed me. When a woman told me in 2002 that a short piece of mine reminded her of Annie Dillard I was honored. Interestingly, I haven’t liked Ms. Dillard’s novels; the characters feel flat and lifeless to me. I see her vein of gold to be her first-person nonfiction, especially when she writes about the natural world.

Belle Canto by Ann Patchett

This novel took me happily all the way across the U.S. and then the Atlantic, flights so long I would have gone crazy with restlessness without a riveting story like this one. It was so good I then reread it on the flight back from Ireland.  The Magician’s Assistant is also wonderful. Ms. Patchett’s stories and characters are fresh, unlike any others, told with a deft non-wordiness that keeps me leaning in closer and closer, delighted to be under her spell.

Merle’s Door by Ted Kerasote

Engrossing as a novel even though it is non-fiction, this is in effect a biography of a dog with remarkable intelligence — or is his intelligence so remarkable? Mr. Kerasote, an outdoorsman who won the National Outdoor Book Award for a different book, believes that when a dog interacts steadily with wild nature as Merle did, its intelligence and joy are maximized. He weaves lots of intriguing information (i.e., all modern  dogs are descended from wolves!) into this grounded, respectful story of love between a person and an animal. My copy is currently out on loan to my dog-loving friend Allison Hamilton (the creator of Oregon’s solar highway).

The Loop by Nicholas Evans

This novel about wolves and people in a ranching region of Montana is so compelling to me that I’ve reread it about ten times. The tensions and connectedness between wild animals and humans are vivid and real, and the author doesn’t demonize anyone, making his characters vulnerable wherever they stand concerning wolves.  He’s also the author of The Smoke Jumper and The Horse Whisperer — good too — but Nicholas Evans was in his real vein of gold with The Loop.

The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron

This rich, warmly written non-fiction book is what led me to make that last statement about the above author. Julia Cameron is most famous for The Artist’s Way; and this is the sequel. Ms. Cameron writes from decades of experience in teaching and facilitating writing and creativity in general. She identifies the vein of gold as the arena in which each person most shines and is the most fully alive — but many of us haven’t yet found it. So, she shows us how to joyfully mine for it. I see Julia Cameron to be operating at genius level. I’ve also never encountered a writer with a more generous spirit: she genuinely wants fulfillment and joy for everyone, and has a track record of helping people to achieve it.

Better Off: Flipping The Switch On Technology by Eric Brende

The author, a Yale and M.I.T. graduate, took his new bride to live in a farming community that was happily using community, i.e. people working together, to replace fossil-fueled technology. He’s a great writer, not at all preachy, and I laughed my head off.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Never has a novel given me characters and a setting (rural Appalachia) that feel more vibrantly real to me than this one. It enchanted and fascinated me, and I learned a lot about animals and biology at the same time. Other great novels by Ms. Kingsolver that I keep rereading are The Bean Trees and its sequel Pigs In Heaven. The characters in these are poor in dollars, rich in energy and heart.

Guns, Germs And Steel and its sequel Collapse by Jared Diamond.

The first of these two was a Pulitzer prize-winner, and I’d suggest it has given the world more insight into human history and current reality than . . .  any other book in human history. Mr. Diamond is that rare academic who renders complex information and ideas fully understandable, with wit and humor thrown into the mix. Collapse shows how some civilizations destroyed their own resource-base and thus themselves, and other cultures have disciplined their resource-use for much happier outcomes. I’m a fan of the latter path.

Blue Shoe and other novels by Anne Lamott, especially Crooked Little Heart.

Like a great many people, I love Anne Lamott, who could be described as the funniest, quirkiest, recovering alcoholic/addict to ever embrace liberal Christianity. I saw her in person in 2007 at the Bagdad Theater here in Portland, which was packed as if for a rock star. She read from her latest non-fiction book Grace (Eventually) and made me laugh harder than any comedian since Harvey Korman’s skits with Carol Burnett on her TV show in the 70’s. She’s wise, warm and honest as well as funny. Anne is the rare novelist who makes herself into your friend.