A winter's reading

     "I read late into the night and go north for the winter," with apologies to T.S. Elliot

     With snow getting closer I just placed my winter book order. Thanks to a friend who alerted me to the PBS Great American Read program I will be taking some good books instead of a bunch of cheap detective novels. Most of my favorite authors are included in the list and though they included "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, they left off Mark Twain's seminal work and generally agreed to be the first modern American novel, "HuckleBerry Finn." James Patterson has a book on the list, I have to say, not a fan. I read one book of his and started another and all I could think was this guy needs an editor. I did like his appearance on Castle though, especially when he chided Castle for putting out only one book a year. Some TV writer had a good time with that one.
      Back in the days before Amazon, book day would always be a big one, when in anticipation of a winter in the woods I would head for my favorite book store and spend a couple of hundred dollars on reading material for the season. These days it's a survey of Amazon some late night, still fun but not the same.
     In recent years I have been having some measure of trouble. My curiosity about new books kind of faded with a few exceptions around the heyday of the generation that brought us Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Hmmm, Mailer wasn't on that list either. Anyway I have not kept up and therefore didn't really know what to look for in new fiction and true to the adage, you can't tell a book by its cover.
    I am fortunate enough to have a long-standing friend who is a voracious reader and who last year recommended several books to me and I liked them all. She is the one who informed me about the PBS book list and program and voting. She was quite excited when her favorite was named the top book of the 100 — "To Kill a Mockingbird."
    Going down the list she told me about on PBS there were several I had never heard of, mostly written after Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. Each of the book covers on the main page opens to a synopsis of the book and something about the author plus some quotes from the text, all very helpful when looking at works you've never been aware of. I chose four off the list for now, plus another book she had suggested knowing our interest in Native American history.   
     I am not recommending these books because I haven't read them, but they are the ones that interested me enough to buy them:
"The Book Thief," by Markus Zusak
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime." by Mark Haddon
"A Separate Peace," by John Knowles and, yes, I know this is older than Mailer.
"Looking for Alaska," by John Green  and, again, yes I know it is not about the state Alaska, but about a woman named Alaska. Still, Alaska on the cover is a natural draw.
Those are the four I picked off the list. The Native American history book is:
"Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI," by David Grann.

     Maybe to many readers, five books don't seem to be a lot for a winter in the woods, but I do have some cheap mystery novels I bought earlier, plus I plan to spend much of this winter working on my own potential addition to the next list. I would say wish me luck, but it's easier than that, simply, hard work or as H.L. Mencken wrote, "It's easy you just sit at the keyboard until beads of blood form on your forehead."
     Oh, one other thing. Thanks to Amazon and my excessive use of my credit card late at night under the influence of some adult beverage, I had enough points accumulated to get all those books for a total of $4.46 including shipping. As always I hope the authors get the full royalty despite what I paid for their works.
     Now, just add snow.

Here's  link to the PBS list: The Great American Read

And here's an extra special treat. The entire finale.