Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (2)

Required Reading, Distaff Version, Part II: What Would Sarah Palin Read?

September 24, 2008 Thanks to all who left comments on Monday's post in which I questioned the organizing principle of Jezebel's post that challenged Esquire's Top 75 Books Every Man Should Read list. As I said, keep those picks coming. Even if this blog doesn't get the traffic Jezebel does, I'd like to compile a list of reader recs for women and post in to their latest entry. I still maintain that that original list has more than a whiff of women's studies seminar about it, but full disclosure: I've read 74/75 titles on that list (I both praise and blame my alma mater), the exception remaining To Kill A Mockingbird. I really must remedy that lack soon.

Of course, several commenters over at Jezebel said something to the effect of "Please send this list to Sarah Palin. Thank you." Would that we could get Governor Palin to read Delta of Venus, or even Anna Karenina, or just Little Women, which contains more truth about women's hearts and needs between its covers than Bristol Palin will ever get from a mother who is pushing her into shotgun marriage. (Even if the blessed union of Bristol and Levi is "suddenly" called off in case of a lost election, lost pregnancy, or lost mind, I believe that forcing a young woman to stand up next to her reluctant baby daddy in front of millions of Americans as a political example is manipulative and wrong regardless of where one stands on the issues.)

What would Sarah Palin read, besides the Bible? I've lived among some of the reddest of red-state denizens (that's another story for another time, but trust me, I know them) and I've been in their living rooms. Just like blue-state residents, there might be no books, or there might be lots of books. And just like blue-state residents, the readers in the red states sometimes limit their reading choices according to their world views. 

Red State Bookshelf (observed): The Left Behind series, Bible concordances, Tom Clancy novels, and biographies of major military and Republican figures.

Blue State Bookshelf (observed): A shelf of literary reference books, Anne Tyler novels, lots of narrative nonfiction, and biographies of Democratic presidents and artists.

I think my point is that regardless of literary merit, these bookshelves show that we're not all alike here in the United States. We're just not. We do have some deep differences in our perspectives, and that shows not just in our book selection but in our candidate selection.

The best way I know to understand someone else's perspective? Read a book. Even if Sarah Palin isn't reading much these days, that doesn't mean we can't. So I'm asking you today to recommend a book that taught you something about someone else's quite foreign perspective -- that might be one of the books you already recommended for the women's list, or it might be something new.

My choice? American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Posted by Bethanne Patrick on September 24, 2008 | Comments (2)