This week’s Sunday Stealing is about books. I buy many more books than I read, or more specifically, than I finish reading. Books are often presented at the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library’s Tuesday book talk. When it is an author talk, I tend to buy the book.
This Tuesday, December 3, at 2 p.m., at the Washington Avenue branch of the APL, musician Reggie Harris will discuss Searching for Solid Ground, the memoir he wrote with Linda Hansell. I will almost certainly buy it because I greatly enjoy Reggie’s music.
Has reading a book ever changed your life? Which one and why, if yes?
There are lots of them: Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer, which helped me become more assertive; Bartholemew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss, which speaks truth to power; Lying by Sissela Bok, which “challenges the reader to consider the effects of lying on the individual, relationships, and society”; and The Sweeter The Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and White by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, which is an interesting treatise on race in America.
Do you prefer to read fiction or non-fiction?
Nonfiction, although historical fiction, can work for me, too.
If you could be a character in any novel you’ve read, who would you be?
Yossarian in Catch-22.
Has reading a book ever made you cry? (Which one and why?)
Absolutely. Among others, I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood in 1995, about a decade after it came out. I read it while in a book club at my old church. Almost all the people in the group were women, and the narrative was, to be understated here, untoward.
Started…
How many books do you read a year?
I started a dozen or probably even more. Usually, I read a chapter or three. Then I get a new book, and I’m attracted to that. I begin reading that instead and seldom get back to the previous book. I probably finished three this year. One of the things I’ve done in the FFAPL book review group is schedule myself to be a reviewer so that I must finish a book.
Name a book you had to read but hated. Why did you hate it?
The play Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare, which I think I had to read in college freshman English class, was a bloody piece that frankly bored me
If someone wrote a book about your life, what would it be called?
I had no idea, so I asked my wife. She suggested Roger That! I like it!
Have you ever written (or started to write) a book?
Yes, started.
If you could pick a book you’ve read to make into a movie, what would it be?
Effa Manley and the Newark Eagles by James Overmyer. It’s a story about a woman who ran a baseball team in the Negro Leagues.
What was your favorite book as a child?
I believe it was Message From Moscow (1966) by Brandon Keith, a novelization of the NBC television series I Spy.
What are you reading right now?
The Chronic Illness Workbook: Strategies and Solutions for Taking Back Your Life by Patricia A. Fennell, MSW, LCSW-R.
