Perhaps it was a book that sparked an intellectual pursuit or steered you toward a lifestyle change. It might have made you look at the world in a new way or challenge what you once believed to be true. Most of us can recall at least one book that touched us in a profound way.
For me, it was Diet for a Small Planet. Outrage motivated Frances Moore Lappe to write this book (20 years ago this month) - outrage that we feed almost half of the world's grain to livestock, returning only a fraction in meat, while millions starve. I read Diet for a Small Planet when I was 13-years-old, and the author's words changed my life.
I was born and grew up in South Africa. Even with its vast wealth of natural resources, industry, agriculture and unspoiled beauty, starvation was a daily reality for many people. When I came to the United States, I suffered from culture shock, not just from the accents, smells and first-run TV shows, but mostly from the waste. When my friends didn't finish the food, their moms casually scraped it into the disposal. What about composting, scraps for the chickens, feeding the homeless or at least wrapping it up for another meal?Taking to heart Lappe's message, "Hunger is human made," I became a vegetarian. I couldn't see a way to change the world, but I could do my small part to make more food available.
Then I grew up and became involved with the Hunger Project. Its goal is to end world hunger by changing policy. If "hunger is political," my vegetarian status seemed less vital. Re-reading Diet for this article, I realized that Lappe's theories don't conflict with my thinking; she makes compelling arguments about the political, socioeconomic and ecological causes of hunger. But being a vegetarian isn't the cure for world hunger. I still don't think I can change the world, but maybe the little bit I do every day will make a difference. Maybe.
Maurice Isserman, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of HistoryHaving a daughter who recently turned 12 and who I rarely see without her nose buried in one or another thick fantasy saga (the kind that come with swashbuckling ferrets and the like depicted on their covers), reminds me of the reading streak I was on at the same age, back in the early 1960s. No ferret sagas in my case, but lots of tales of heroically anxious adolescents and young adults: The Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, A Separate Peace and so on. Oh yes, and in another genre, I remember finding Terry Southern's Candy quite intriguing.
But the book making the biggest and most lasting impression on me that year was Joseph Heller's Catch-22. I was hardly unique, because Heller's 1961 novel, which drew heavily on his own experiences in the Army Air Corps during the Second World War, became a kind of generational bible for those of us who came of age amidst the turmoil of the decade which followed its publication. Here, forgive me, I feel impelled to quote myself and my co-author Michael Kazin from America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, in which we argue that the popularity of Catch-22 signaled a new eagerness to question the logic of established authority.
The protagonist, named Yossarian, is an American bombardier in Europe who wants to be grounded after having risked his life flying dozens of missions over enemy territory. But, according to military regulations, he can opt out of the war only if he is crazy. So Yossarian goes to his unit's medical officer, Doc Daneeka, asking to be grounded on that basis. But the rules don't permit it. "You mean there's a catch?" Yossarian asks.
And then Mike Kazin and I quote the passage from the novel that still rises to mind, lo these many years later, unbidden but inevitably appropriate, every time I have to deal with such institutions as, say, "health maintenance organizations" (a wonderful Hellerian bit of terminology, by the way): "Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."
Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22, and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
It's those Catch-22 moments of adulthood that make me wish I could live my life over as a swashbuckling ferret. Take that MVP - aaaargh!
Yvonne Schick, technical assistant in the Print ShopWe all have "magic numbers" when it comes to aging. Some of us dread turning 30 or 40, or cringe at the thought of having lived for half a century. My "magic number" came a couple of years ago when I turned 42. My mother died at the age of 41, so turning 42 was really frightening for me.
I was 22 when she died. I thought, "I'm an adult; how difficult can life be now that I'm all grown-up?" But I found that planning a wedding without a mother seemed cruel, and having a problem pregnancy and not knowing how to care for a baby seemed even more cruel. All of the special milestones in my life had a huge void.
Almost 10 years after my mother died, I was poking around a small bookstore when I found what I thought was the answer to my prayers. Hope Edelman wrote Motherless Daughters - The Legacy of Loss after interviewing nearly 250 women who had lost their mothers. I started reading enthusiastically, hoping to find answers to life's questions.
Surprise! I couldn't get through it! I found it extremely painful. I put the book away until I reached the "magic" age of 42. I have since read and re-read Hope's work. Each time I read it, I find that the sharing of experiences and feelings helps with the healing process. This sharing gives you hope and helps you grow. It has helped me to understand how much influence my mother has had on my life and how a few deep and profound experiences can change everything.
Sharon Gormley, coordinator of the ACCESS ProjectI have read Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, a rather short but incredible book, at least a half dozen times, and I always come away from each reading with something new. The novel deals with several disturbing issues, but one in particular taught me an important and timely lesson - how we value our children and how a parent's actions shape the entire life of those children. The primary character, Percola, is described as a homely child who has experienced no real affection from her family. As her character develops, we realize that Pecola thinks that if she could somehow acquire blue eyes she would be loved. Her obsession with her own appearance and how it hinges on withheld affection finally drives her mad.
I first read this at a time when my teenage sons were experimenting with different hairstyles, facial hair, earrings and some really funky clothing. While I was tempted to berate them for making spectacles of themselves, I realized that it doesn't matter what they looked like on the outside. I bit my tongue more than once, and rather than compliment or criticize my children for their appearance, I decided that it was more important to let them know that I loved them and was proud of them, regardless of how they looked to other people.
At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna, I have tried to take that approach in every area of my life by not judging people by outside appearances, but rather by placing more value on the kind of person they are. I really feel that one book has shaped the kind of parent and person I am, and while I may slip on occasion, I try to remember the kind of pain we inflict when we make careless remarks and judgments on appearance alone.
Peter Rabinowitz, professor of comparative literatureMikhail Lermontov's Hero of Our Time (1840) has not changed my life as much as works by Proust and Dostoyevsky have, but it is the novel I love most, and the one I reread the most often. It's hard to describe the source of its sway over my imagination. Part of its magic, I suppose, comes from the unapologetic excess of its romantic trappings: its duels, seductions and daring rescues. But its power also comes from the way the novel's melodrama is intertwined with Lermontov's remarkable insights into issues of self-presentation, specifically the inevitable conflicts between the ways we think about ourselves, the ways we want others to think about us and the ways others in fact think about us. Finally, the book is cannily constructed. It's only at the very end that you have the information you need to read the beginning properly; but as you reread the novel from this new perspective, everything changes, including the ending - which sends you yet again back to the beginning. It's not a long book, but it will keep you engaged for as long as you have.
Chip Haddity, audiovisual technicianThe events of September 11 brought our country and the world closer together. Another event, in 1999, brought the golf world to a sudden and saddened halt. The plane crash that killed professional golfer Payne Stewart and five others is still vivid, and many people in the golf community still find it hard to believe.
As a thank-you to so many people around the world who shared that grief, Tracey Stewart, Payne's wife of 18 years, wrote a biography titled Payne Stewart. The book is dedicated to their children, Chelsea and Aaron, to let them know what a wonderful father they had. From childhood to fatherhood, this book makes any parent appreciate the joys of sharing life with a spouse and children. Even if you're not a golfer or fan of the sport, Tracey's accounts and words help you understand the simple yet complex world of professional golf.
When I received this book as a Christmas present from my children, which they had picked out personally, I was overcome with joy and sadness. As an avid golfer, I was really affected by Payne's death. I have come to love the game for its skill, sportsmanship and beauty. Payne's ability to play at the highest level and still be a caring and warm husband and father make you appreciate the richness of family life. To hear your children say, "I love you," each and every day is something very special. Payne Stewart held on to this belief. I hold this feeling even more securely after reading this biography of a man who was taken from this world at the very early age of 42.
Sue Ann Miller, professor of biology
Reading the "pages" of nature has had more influence on my life and career than any single book. Walking in the wilds provides a narrative that changes by the hour. I read them in my youth; I read them to my children. Nature has guided my itineraries all over the world. In my youth I collected critters, plants, shells, rocks and sands, and read the skies year-round with a backyard telescope. Instead of mysteries and adventure serials, I read books that informed my interest in nature, wrote stories about anthropomorphic dinosaurs, and sketched horses and landscapes. I slept under forest canopies and under stars on alpine tundra and in deserts. I studied clouds from windows of DC-3s and appreciated new perspective on earthscapes as jets took my view to greater heights. I still prefer window seats. As a graduate student in cell biology, I read every technical publication about snow avalanches because I skied where they ran. How can anyone take a road trip without a copy of Roadside Geology? Reading science is always interesting.
Of course, I also read beyond science. Using The Little Red Hen to teach a younger friend to read just after I had learned to read might have presaged my career in education, but that book had no influence on my using the chick embryo for the past 30 years as a model to investigate developmental mechanisms. Because there is more in Shakespeare than I could appreciate at age 15, I make time for the luxury of reading great works now with the awareness of several decades of life to inform my interpretation. The timelessness of human interactions is interesting, but Austen also helps me appreciate that I am not living in her era. Regular walks in local woods exercise my mind as well as my cardiac and skeletal muscles.
