I need to buy some books on jazz. People judge you by your books. I need some books on
jazz or Jung or the Dalai Lama maybe. He’s pretty hip these days. I need books that make
me seem sophisticated and mysterious when new people come to my apartment. Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia Of Bodybuilding just doesn’t seem to cut it.
You know what. I don’t just need books. I need tomes! I’m not exactly sure how a tome is
different from a book but I feel so mature just having used the word tome. I hope tomes come in
paperback though, because I hate lugging a hardback tome around New York City.
I did once read Chasin’ The Trane, the biography of sax man John Coltrane. See you think I’m
cooler already, but dammit I borrowed that book. I guess I could stand beside my pedestrian Tom
Clancy collection and verbally remind visitors that I’ve read books on jazz, but it just doesn’t
seem to have that big impact you’re looking for.
What do you want? I grew up in the suburbs. I read books on war, spies, forensic psychology and
the mob. Normally, I don’t even think about what’s in my bookcase but I’m actually dating
someone now, sorry girls, and I knew she was going to check out my books when she got to my
apartment for the first time. We walked in and she went straight to the library, which in my
multi-use studio apartment is also the kitchen, bedroom, and union hall. Quote from her, “you’ve
got a lot of books with Jewish stars on them.” Knowing one’s history is important, and like a lot
of American Jews, I revel in Israel’s heroic soldiers and sneaky spies. I’d volunteer to be Israel’s
next Our Man In Damascus (yep, read that one about super-spy Elie Cohn by Eli Ben-Hanan) but
it’d be a little hard for a 6’3” redhead who burns like a new-born calf to blend in with the swarthy
crowd at a Middle East coffee bar.
I actually lost a good Israeli spy book in south Texas on the Greyhound bus from Corpus Christi
to San Antonio. Somewhere on the banks of the Rio Grande is a group of Mexicans using the
Mossad’s methods of infiltration to join America’s melting pot. If you read about a bunch of
illegal aliens claiming anti-Semitism as the reason for their being sent back to Tijuana, you’ll
know that my book has turned up.
I’ve got books on industrial espionage, Northern Ireland’s troubles, Gurkhan knife fighters, tons
of books by James Michener and Leon Uris, and ONE book—Go Tell It On The Mountain—by
James Baldwin. Baldwin, by the way, is black, gay, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. That should
make up for all the books on fishing. I haven’t actually read the Baldwin book, but it sure looks
good on my shelf between W.E.B. Griffin’s Secret Warriors and The Hunter’s Field Guide. I’ve
bought a lot of these books on-line from Amazon so I know that somewhere, deep in the bowels
of the FBI’s headquarters in Quantico, VA, I’m on a list of potentially dangerous dorks. (By the
way, you can conveniently buy books and coincidentally make me a little money, by using the
Amazon portal on my links page.)
I even have a couple of signed books by Michener and one of my heroes, civil rights lawyer
Morris Dees. Wait a minute, maybe I should display the books open with a discrete halogen light
shining on the signatures and a blinking neon sign above them reading, “I have depth.” I’ll have
to get in touch with the people who display the Declaration of Independence and see how they do
it. Tell me that won’t impress the chicks.
You know what I don’t have on my shelves anymore? Sports biographies. I must have owned
them all when I was growing up. Biographies of Billy Martin, Sparky Lyle, Goose Gossage, Ken
“The Snake” Stabler, and Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. As a teenager, I used to revel in their stories of
cheering crowds, game winning plays, and contracting Venereal Disease from groupies. We can
look at the lack of current sports bios in one of two ways. Maybe I’ve grown up, or more likely,
maybe I just know how silly I’d look with 26-year old Derek Jeter’s autobiography on my
nightstand.