Registered: Oct 2001
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My Literary Lists

What makes a great book great, or a symphony or perhaps a dramatic performance? I do not ask this question as a precursor to an answer for I do not know. I set out this morning to list my ten favorite books and my ten favorite plays (to read), and my ten favorite poems. It was not so hard to do although I found it impossible in some categories to list ten or to constrain my list to ten
but since I was making the rules this didn’t bother me a bit and the fact that I have only nine favorite poems yet fourteen favorite non-fiction books didn’t cause me any concerns. But as I reviewed the lists that I had compiled I began to get the queasy feeling that I had included some
hip-hop along with the chamber music. In fact, the longer I looked the harder it was to find the chamber music. I fear that my appreciation of all the arts is highly subjective. I have been taught in music appreciation classes that it is boorish to laud Tchaikovsky’s music because he was not a “great” composer and that I was displaying my inability to discern great music and separate the musical sheep from the goats. Well it was not news to me that I had no ear for great music but I still like “Swan Lake” just as much as if it was great. In poetry I was also taught that Kipling just couldn’t cut it in the poetic ranks and that something like Baudelaire or Dryden would be better choices---nevertheless you will find four of my ten poetry choices to be Kipling poems. “The Highwayman” by Noyes is also considered pedestrian I think, but I can’t look at a full moon without saying under my breath (or aloud) “ The moon was a ghosty galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas”. So I am apologizing in advance with the statement that MY LITERARY LISTS are heavily influenced by the “MY” and are what I like and are not what is necessarily “great”. Listed below is the literature that has entertained and captivated me. I invite your comment and would love to see your lists too. So here goes:

MY TEN FAVORITE NON-FICTION BOOKS

1. Goodbye To A River--- by John Graves. A simple Waldenesque essay about a man’s canoe journey down the upper Brazos River just before the river was dammed at Granbury has become my favorite non-fiction book of all time. Graves takes only his dog with him on the trip and the simplest of food and equipment living mainly on small game he shoots with a rifle and the fish he catches in the river. I live on that river and I share Graves love for it. I have read the book about four times and it is about time again.

2. The Arabian Sands---by Wilfred Thesiger. Thesiger is one of those peculiar British
gentlemen who like to go off to some remote corner of the world and adopt the
language and lifestyle of the natives and ends up being more native than the natives. I
have read this book at least eight or nine times and still enjoy it. With a gang of Arabic
“bedu” he crosses the great Empty Quarter twice by camel. My first knowledge of the
character and nature of the inhabitants of the people of that part of the world came from
book and when I got over there I discovered that Thesiger had been an outstanding
observer.

3. Adventures With A Texas Naturalist—by Roy Bedichek. Bedicheck was a very
unusual man. His writing about the flora and fauna of the fence-rows and railway right of ways of Texas is laced frequently with classical references and philosophical content. He was a close friend of J. Frank Dobie (folklorist) and Walter Prescott Webb (historian) in his hometown of Austin, Texas. When I attended the University in Austin Bedicheck was busy writing this book only a few blocks from my crummy wooden ex-BOQ dormitory but I never met him. He is a super writer.

4. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton---Edward Rice. Burton was without doubt one of
the most unusual men that ever lived. He was a master linguist and spoke something like twenty different dialects of the Near East with sufficient accuracy to act as a spy in the parts of the Hindu Kush, Pakistan, Iran and that area of the world. After leaving the British army he translated by far the best un-bowdlerized version of “The Arabian Nights” that is still extant today. This book tells of his travels and adventures in India, Arabia, Africa and
Afghanistan. It is a lively read.

5. Naked Is The Best Disguise ---by Samuel Rosenberg is a study of the writing style and
themes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in all of his works and what this tells us about Sir Arthur himself. Rosenberg was a man possessed of an almost limitless memory and it is said of him that he remembers the plot and characters of every book he ever read. He made his living during his short life by hiring out as an expert witness for studios and publishers when they were sued for plagiarism because he held that he could testify as to where the suing party stole the matter in question. Rosenberg claimed that there was no such thing as a new plot or character. Very interesting.

6. The King Ranch ---by Tom Lea. Many of Lea’s fellow writers have criticized Lea for
writing this massive two volume work because it was paid for in part at least by the Kleburg family of South Texas who owned the then 3,000,000 acre King Ranch. The supposition was that Lea was not unbiased in his work because of these payments. I find it however to be a fine piece of work that is filled with details that lay out the life of one of the legendary people of Texas history, Captain Kleburg who founded the King Ranch. I loved the book.

7. The Great River---by Paul Horgan. The river referred to in Horgan’s book is the Rio
Grande, and Horgan treats it in all of its aspects and its influence on all of the people who live along its course. It is not a quick read but is a very rewarding one especially if you have any affinity to Mexico, Texas, or New Mexico. It is the work of a master.

8. The Mysterious Mister Shakespeare---by Charles Ogburn. Ogburn is one of the leading advocates of the theory that the true author of the plays we attribute to the Bard of Avon were really written by the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. I have read this book twice and I must admit that he has me convinced (and I wasn’t before I read his book) that the Bard of Avon could not have written the plays and sonnets. You can spend several long winter evenings becoming convinced that Will Shaksper as Ogburn calls him just didn’t have the “right stuff” to write these works.

9. This Stubborn Soil---by W. A. Owens. Owens calls this a “fictionalized autobiography”
and tells of his childhood and coming of age on a dirt poor northeast Texas farm during the very worst of the depression years and his desire to become a school teacher. It might give you comfort to know that he became a Professor Emeritus at Columbia University in New York City. But his childhood was so strained and poor that it evoked many memories of people of that day who were near starvation---I remember those days too.

10. I’ll Die Before I Run---by C. L. Sonnichsen. This book is a detailed history of the family
feuds and political fights (with guns) that characterized life in Texas from 1865 to 1910. This book evoked many memories for me because I have lived in many of the towns where these feuds originated or waxed hot. It is a good suspenseful read.

11. A Personal Country--- by A. C. Greene. This is a book about West Texas (where I was
raised) and how it differs from the rest of Texas and some of the peculiar things that have happened there. Add to that the fact that my grandson won the A. C. Greene Literary Award for a play he wrote and became a personal friend of Greene’s this book was a natural for me to put at least eleventh on my favorite list of ten.

12. A History of the Peninsular War--- by Sir Charles Oman. In seven volumes (each

contains over 600 pages) this mighty work analyzes every move made by Wellington and Napoleon’s marshals during the war in Spain and Portugal. It is a wonderful read for the detail hobbyist only.


So there are the twelve books that constitute my favorite ten non-fiction books. I told you above I was not going to be bound by any rules and that my idea of what was good literature might not suit yours. So let me hear from you. What are your favorite ten non-fiction books. Tomorrow comes my favorite ten novels---maybe. Next day comes my favorite ten poems---maybe even my favorite ten plays or short stories.

Love
Dad, grandpa, Ami

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