On the shelf

Peggy and I both love to read and always have one book we just read, one we're currently reading, and one we're about to read.

Double that in Peggy's case, because she has the sort of brain that allows her to have two (maybe three) books going at once. I cannot do that, but I still get my reading done, one at a time.

Right now I am reading the latest by Susan Orlean, and this time, instead of being a compilation of her casuals from The New Yorker and other magazines, it's her memoir - what she calls "the story of my stories." She is a person gifted with the extraordinary ability to make the ordinary stories - day-to-day accounts of people at work, what different people do on their Saturday nights, and so forth - come to life in a vivid manner. Her book is called "Joyride," and I am enjoying the trip.

And then I come to the coffee table in the family room, where Peggy keeps her current reading at the ready. It struck me that there was a wide cultural gap between the two tomes she is into now: 

"Last Rites" by Ozzy Osbourne... and "Markings," a collection of the diary entries of the late United Nations secretary general, Dag Hammarskjöld.

Ozzy is one of Peggy's favorite entertainers, a man who brought his own style and unique grace to the art of deep-throated vocalization, a sort of guttural howling that bespeaks his being upset about something, for all I can tell. But hey! I have Jerry Lee Lewis and Ring Lardner among my heroes, and many people can't appreciate their appeal. Ozzy liked to be called The Prince of Darkness, and who could deny him that sense of royalty?

One review of "Markings" describes Hammarskjöld's words as "a powerful journal of poems and spiritual meditations recorded over several decades by a universally known and admired peacemaker." He was the second secretary general of the organization formed after World War II to try to prevent the world from descending into chaos and disorder, and even though they weren't able to talk Ozzy out of making his chaotic, disorderly music, at least he didn't start World War III with it.

Next up for me will be a book about the 1952 Dallas Texans football team, followed by my annual re-read of "Catcher In The Rye." Where Peggy's attentions will turn next is any bookseller's guess.