The Weekly Wrap: September 21-27

Pagination

A pet peeve. I recently read a book where I had to read fifty pages before getting to page 1. There was a foreword, preface, and then a biographical sketch of the author and introduction to his work. Following convention, the pages were numbered in lower case Roman numerals. I usually don’t mind these when they are just a few pages. In this case, all this front matter occupied a quarter of the book.

I do like to read this material. It helps me better understand the author and what they intended to accomplish. Yet as a reviewer, I have page goals for each book based on the numbered page count. So, it can be a dilemma. Do I skip the front matter, which I don’t tend to comment on in reviews? Do I take an extra day to read this? Or do I go extra long and read both this and up to my page goal? As I read this, I realize it may sound OCD. But I really get into what the author has written, don’t you?

On the other hand, I’ve come across other books where the first page of text might be numbered page 11. In this case, blurbs, cataloging info, title pages, and contents were counted as pages. It’s nice to be ten pages into a book before I’ve read anything. The one thing all these books have in common is that their page counts represents the Arabic numeral pages, significant when a 200 page book really has 250 pages of text.

My solution? I’d start the front matter with page 1, and eliminate the Roman numerals. Usually title pages, copyright and cataloguing info and contents pages are not numbered. This makes it easier for the reader to know what the length of the book is, and is probably easier for footnoting purposes. And if the front matter is lengthy, it gives the reader a heads up when they learn chapter 1 begins on page 53. Too many times, I’ve wondered, “when is this going to end?”

In the grand scheme of things, this is minor–even picky. But if I were to organize the world…

Five Articles Worth Reading

One of the big novels of the fall is Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know. It is a fictional lookback at our time from a Great Britain of 2119. One preview is that those from the future call our time “The Derangement.” The book is sitting on my TBR. “Ian McEwan Knows History Is an Imperfect Judge” is Sarah Lyall’s review for The New York Times.

I posted a “By the Book” interview with Patricia Lockwood last week. “Patricia Lockwood’s Mind-Opening Experience of Long COVID” is a review of her new novel, Will There Ever Be Another You. Perhaps you are like me and know more people suffering from long COVID than people who died of it. Maybe this will help us be more sympathetic.

I reviewed a book from 1954 the other day. It won a book award. But it, like many other books and other works from the mid-twentieth-century, is fading into oblivion. Or so contends Ted Gioia in “Is Mid-20th Century American Culture Getting Erased?” He asks if any of these great authors, composers, and works exist for Americans under forty.

Children of the Book by Ilana Kurshan is a memoir of the books read together in a Jewish family and how Torah was woven into those readings. In “Between the Covers” Mark Oppenheimer hosts a discussion of the book with Molly Worthen, Ross Douthat, Cyd Oppenheimer, and Stuart Halpern. All five are parents and discuss their own reading practices as families.

Finally, our local news announced that a local data center will be among the first gigawatt consuming data centers in the country. I estimated, after some research that this one data center alone could increase our region’s power consumption by nearly 40 percent! In light of that, “Toward a Just and Sustainable Energy Transition” a review of two books, caught my attention. The article notes that sustainable power generation is not replacing fossil fuels but merely helping to meet increased energy needs.

Quote of the Week

William Faulkner, one of those mid-century writers, was born September 25, 1897. He observed:

“Unless you’re ashamed of yourself now and then, you’re not honest”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m reading David McCullough’s History Matters, a wonderful posthumous collection of speeches and articles. McCullough notes that one of the criteria he used for book subjects was whether he liked the person, since he would end up spending several years with them, ten in the case of Harry Truman who was the subject of a nearly thousand page biography. I loved reading that book back in the 1990’s and still have it. I think it was my first McCullough book. I’ve since read all the others. I’m so glad for the people he liked enough to spend several years writing about them.

Ronald Rohlheiser’s forthcoming Insane for the Light explores the spirituality of our later years. He uses a phrase to frame this I’ve not heard before–“giving away our deaths.” The book explores how we make our last years, and even our dying, a gift to others. When you notice in obituaries that most people, apart from the long-lived, are either your age or younger, or ten to fifteen years older, it’s something worth thinking about!

You all know I like baseball books. I’m hoping one will be written about this year’s Cleveland Guardians, currently tied for first place in their division. I am a long-suffering Cleveland fan. Could this be the year? Hope springs eternal. With all the setbacks this team has faced, that would be quite a story!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: John Calvin, Behold My Servant

Tuesday: Agatha Christie, Hickory Dickory Dock

Wednesday: The Month in Reviews: September 2025

Thursday: Mark S. Hansard, Star Trek and Faith, Volume 1

Friday: William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for September 21-27

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