The Dynamic Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy - Second Edition - Theodore P. Snow
I received my copy from Pat Uyemura, my Sunday School teacher at Montebello Plymouth Congregational Church. Those of you who wonder at my ability to reconcile communities of religion and science need only look to this event, and the associated encouragement, for the beginning of an answer. I admired "Mr. Pat" tremendously. He was, and is, a very bright, creative individual who always had a ready smile and a great way of making kids feel like you want to be smarter, more knowledgeable, and better behaved. (Mr. Pat may contend he had the opposite effect on the last point, but he need only check notes with my mom to reveal he actually did see us at our best behaved.)
It was the first textbook I'd ever received. And I got it when I was about seven. This book helped encouraged an interest in astronomy, which I pursued all the way to a Cornell PhD program and an NSF fellowship. I'd never thought of it before, but I guess this helped me never get intimidated by college - or high school - textbooks. I'd also say that while we never spoke about space a great deal, Mr. Pat was the second greatest influence in my decision to study physics and astronomy in undergrad and grad school. (James "Kimo" Hoffman, a family member who gave me Voyager photos in my youth, was the first.)
I had the opportunity to meet Professor Snow briefly during my grad school prospective visit to CU Boulder. I think he was genuinely surprised, and somewhat dumbfounded, that I told him that his book was one of the formative objects in developing my interest in astronomy. We spent a half hour chatting, and while I had no interest in pursuing his specific line of research, I think we both walked away from that conversation a bit happier and more optimistic.
Teachers, of all stripes, know this: what you give to a kid, in the form of books, mentoring, and simple good cheer, can mean the world. We may never tell you - I hope Pat knows, but just in case, I will make sure he knows this week - but you do. May this knowledge neither cripple your ability to act effortlessly, just as you are, nor may it embolden the worse among your group to inflate otherwise morbidly obese egos.
First read in the early 1990s.
Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
This book narrowly edged out Fahrenheit 451. I'm still not completely comfortable with it. But since I've sneakily included the latter in both this section and the caption, I think I'll sleep well enough.
I know this list is probably overweight old, weary, male quasi-protagonists. (See The Remains of the Day, The Waste Land and Other Poems.) It must be what I'm drawn to, or what impacts me the most. I don't know why, and it'd probably take a therapist years to tell me.
But unlike the other stories, and unlike the other entries, there's something distinctly, well, American about this one. I've been told there's an Ivory Tower institutional bias against American literature in English departments across the world. Hell, it might even be legitimate. But I feel that this book, as well as The Great Gatsby and, arguably, Huckleberry Finn, start the process of escaping from under the legacy of British literature.
Like I said, it wasn't easy to put this on the list. But I find myself thinking of it throughout life - whenever someone unexpectedly but correctly uses the word "remiss"; whenever I see a salesman whose smiles have drawn thin; whenever I think about men trying to redefine a sense of manliness and self-identification after they had been broken catastrophically.
It's from a world I never knew, and yet a world all of us know terribly well. And so it survives a long, tortured process of vacillation and contemplation, "decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse", to borrow the words of another nod to old, broken men on this list.
I watched Death of a Salesman with my mom when it arrived in Los Angeles. Brian Dennehy, who I've never seen before or since, headlined the performance, and played a great Willy Loman. In some ways, I think he did a better job than Dustin Hoffman, depending what you're looking for. Hoffman did a better job of carrying off the weariness that Loman seems to have. This is the only play I've gone to with my mother, who fell asleep halfway through the first act.
It is an American story, in that other America, maybe that one referenced by politicians each election cycle, or maybe in that vast, unwritten history that will never get published because no one would buy it. It's perhaps strange that it should be important for its oppositional attraction. But I will count its value if I can prevent this American story from becoming my own.
First read in 1999.
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
A lot of reviews and fans of this book express a common theme - Ender's Game is remarkable because, unlike most books, it places children on an intellectually and morally "equal" footing as adults. By "equal", I mean that the book creates children whose minds and characters are equally important and complex as any adult's. That it is a sci-fi novel is deceptive, and unfortunate, because it will mean that a large proportion of society will immediately write it off as unreadable. But that it is a sci-fi novel is almost necessary, since the space environment serves as a plot device that largely eliminates the physical asymmetry in power between children and adults. I haven't thought much about whether it needs to be a space novel to suspend the disbelief we would ordinarily feel about children being capable of murder, deterrence calculations, or otherwise having none of the limitations or weaknesses that we adults may unconsciously lord over them. But that, as well as the whole novel, are worthy of further contemplation and analysis.
I like this book. It's a joy to read. It's fairly long, especially by our modern internet-driven standards. But it flies by in a remarkable way, all the more remarkable when one thinks that it takes place far away from any traditionally regarded battlefront. It reminds me that "games" of varying degrees of importance, violence, and complexity operate throughout all of life. Formalizing this took a game theory class, which would come a year after this. (I am still annoyed that an otherwise treasured economics teacher in high school denigrated game theory to my young and impressionable minds - I could've better appreciated the world with it.)
I think it also helped me appreciate and clarify the distinctions and value of both tactics and strategy, not in the strict military sense, but in terms of leadership and social dynamics. It's worth noting that Ender's Game was assigned reading in a leadership class at West Point.
This is also an instructive case of separating the author from the work. Does Orson Scott Card's ideology/politics enter into the book? To a degree, yes, though nowhere nearly as obviously as, say, Heinlein. Should that add or detract from the book? Absolutely not.
I know a lot of friends boycotted (or thought about boycotting) his commencement address at Harvey Mudd, in particular for his beliefs on homosexuality. But I think the consensus was among the attendees that his speech was worth hearing, and non-confrontational. It was yet another reminder of the value of listening to the people or genres you dislike.
First read in 2007.
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