Historical

 

Now firmly ensconced in my sixth decade sojourn on this spinning rock, I made a surprising self-discovery about my non-fiction book habits. It came suddenly upon some reflecting over my past year of reading during these crazy times.

I’ve always been a reader, but as each decade goes by I’ve read more and more, something not quite exponential but certainly more than just linear. In my twenties I read maybe 5-10 books a year. Thirties, about 20, 25. In my forties I upped that to 40-50, and a few years back, just shy of fifty, I read 60 books cover-to-cover one year, my personal record. I’ve reviewed a couple hundred of them here on the Hopper, but for every book I review there are three or four that miss out on that dubious honor.

Here’s what I found. In the mid-to-late 90s, as I was wrapping up the whole garage band thing and going to school for physics, my reading was majorly, quite naturally, in the physical sciences. Primarily physics, but with a hefty dose of astronomy and some math. And by majorly, I guess about 75 percent. Yeah, I still read thrillers and horrors and SF, but this is my nonfiction I’m talking about.

In the 00s, I pivoted from physics to majority philosophy. Why? Well, I had dropped out of my physics core at Seton Hall and finished up with a degree in business, so there was no practical need to immerse myself in the sciences anymore. The people I was hanging with at the time were not scientifically minded. But why philosophy? I guess I was trying to find out the meaning of life. Or, to put it in a less cliché way, find out how to navigate it. A set of rules, principles, guidelines. I had just married and soon bought a house and had children. And I needed to know why.

Then I had some major health issues in 2009 and 2010. So, again not too surprisingly, my major nonfiction reading trended toward religion. God. Jesus Christ. Christianity, Catholicism. And other major belief systems, such as Buddhism (Therevada Buddhism appealed to me intellectually), Hinduism, Christian Science (which, as Mark Twain snarkily remarked, is neither Christian nor Scientific). Yes, I had had a conversion experience in 1992. But I am a creature of recidivism, in need of constant consistent convincing. Which I still am to this day.

Now, since the Bad Year of 2020, I have primarily read nothing but History. In fifteen months I’ve put away nine books on World War II and am currently twenty percent into a thick volume on the History of Venice. Why Venice? Why not? It intrigues me at this moment of time. (Plus, it fits into a subplot in this master novel I have been outlining for the past couple of months.) After Venice, I want to return and revisit more intensely Rick Atkinson’s WWII trilogy I had previous read in stages over the past few years. Then, an overview of the medieval age and a pre-“woke” biography of Christopher Columbus. After that I want to travel through the definitive history of the Holy Roman Empire, whatever that might be.

Why? Perhaps it’s just me feeling historical myself, here in my sixth decade sojourn on this spinning rock.

Perhaps some interesting and intriguing tidbits about Venice in the days to come …