A week of reading: part two: Filling in the gaps

The “things my Ohio Valley education didn’t teach me” challenge

Probably not me and my sister

I come from a family of voracious readers and sharing books is a pleasure and a tradition. Recently, my sister and I were talking about the books that we felt we should have read in high school or college but somehow did not (they weren’t assigned; we’d never heard of them; we were sick that day in seminar, etc.). Over the winter we read Catcher in the Rye together and now we’re on to that mammoth I’ve never been able to make it through: War and Peace! You know you have a true and loving sibling when she will face down the forces of Napoleon with you!

To complement that heaviest of tomes, I’ve also working through Lieven’s Russia against Napoleon. I think it’s helping me (at least a little) to understand how Russia and France understood themselves going into the conflict anyway.

And, to qualify, our Ohio Valley experience was a wonderful one where teachers were concerned, and I count myself privileged to have learned from some very special English and history faculty and librarians! You just simply can't get to all of the books!

Speaking of the Valley, I’m giving That Dark and Bloody River another try to better understand the history of my home. I’m paring it with Tecumseh:vision of glory. My parents took me to see the outdoor drama Tecumseh! as a child and he's always had a hold on my imagination.

In the same state (if hardly the same subject), I’m also reading Winesburg, Ohio. I may have had to read it in school at some point, but it doesn’t seem familiar. For reasons I can’t quite explain, it seems a natural follow up to last year’s Spoon River Anthology. 

At present, I’m pairing it with Ohio – which is a look at current pressing problems that don’t limit themselves to a single state but prevail across Appalachia. Some of these same issues also appear in Hillbilly Elegy – a book which it took me awhile to come to (apparently there’s quite a controversy over it).  Books responding to it include: What you are getting wrong about Appalachia and Appalachian Reckoning.