Why are we passionate about books?  Why do we read them?  For information?  Entertainment?  Vicarious adventure?  Enlightenment?  Sheer joy? 

    Or maybe because reading is a lot like breathing? 

    For me, it's probably all of this and more.  The best part is being surprised.  When I learn something I never expected to learn; when I encounter a gorgeous new turn of phrase for the first time; or when I see an important figure in a whole new light when I thought I'd pretty much figured the person out by now—all of this makes reading a good book worthwhile.   

    Here's another list of fine summer reading that I think, and hope, will do this for you as well:

    GREAT SUMMER READING, 2008:   BOOK FARE LIST #2

    1.   The World in Six Songs by Daniel J. Levitin (August 2008/Dutton, $25.95) 

    Before becoming a research scientist, the author, based at McGill University, worked as a record producer and a professional musician.  Here, he explains why he's "come to believe that there are basically six kinds of songs, six ways that we use music in our lives, six broad categories of music. No less." 

    The Levitin Six:  Friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love. 

    I found this a fresh, compelling construct that allows the author to explain how music enriches and informs our lives, how it teaches us, how it helps us—and also for him to share vivid stories that illustrate his points.  

    Perhaps the story of how he visits the John Lennon/Yoko Ono suite at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth hotel—the one where John and Yoko held their famous 1969 week-long "bed in" to protest the Vietnam War—is my favorite. (It falls under the friendship category, in case you were wondering, because, his argument goes, music can be a tool for social bonding.)  Levitin recalls watching news coverage of the bed-in from his home in California all those years ago, and as he stands there in the present time, invited in to see the room by his friend Oliver Sacks, who happened to be staying there, it all comes flooding back: 

   "The song ['Give Peace a Chance'] continues to play in my head, but not like an ear worm, stuck in an irritating twenty-second loop, but full, rich, vivid.  I hear the percussiveness of [Lennon's] guitar (hastily miked, it sounds thin, more like sandpaper and sticks than the beautiful spectral instrument it is), the clapping of the twenty people in the room, the makeshift bass drum of people clomping their feet on the floor, sounding eerily like mortar fire.  My mind becomes flooded with thoughts I haven't held in years—the death of my grandfather, of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the dead war veterans, the Kent State students, Lennon's own violent death. Standing in Room 1742, Lennon's room, I find a tear for all their lives, and all that they stood for."

    Also, check out the chapters on music as comfort, and music as love.  

    Bottom line:  This one's worth not just a read but a couple of wonderful re-reads.  For more info on the author, visit his website by clicking here.

    2.   After the Fire:  A True Story of Love and Survival by Robin Gaby Fisher (August 2008/Little Brown, $24.99)

    In this part of the country we read and heard a lot about the fire that ripped through the freshman dorm at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey in January of 2000, snuffing out the lives of three students and injuring 58 more.  (I'd lived through a fire in one of my own dorms as a college student, and it was truly terrifying.)  But I always wondered exactly what happened at Seton Hall that night, and who did what to whom, and why, and how so many could have been so badly hurt, and why better safeguards weren't in place for those kids (this is the parent in me talking).  Well, none of us need wonder any more about this event, because it is all spelled out in dramatic fashion by journalist Fisher, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who covered the story for the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger. 

    Her book homes in on two of the students who survived the fire, two kids—roommates—who ultimately clawed their way back to health after suffering severe burns and barely crawling out alive.  There's the drama of their medical survival (aided by an incredible burn trauma team) as well as the inspirational tale of their friendship and their family's love and support, all in few short couple of hundred pages. 

    It's a relief that Shawn Simons and Alvaro Llanos have lived to share their stories.  Yes, there's anger at the two kids from across the hall who started the fire as a prank—enormous anger (under a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the most serious charge against two boys, that of felony murder, and instead the two pled guilty to arson and witness tampering. They're each serving a five-year sentence; you can read more about those details here).  But most of all, the book conveys a sense of making it through to the other side—of relief and triumph and sheer human perseverance.  

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Miscellaneous:   In answer to a faithful "Book Fare" blog reader's comments about the Steve Martin book previously recommended:  Yes, I know what you mean. One does see Martin in a new light, and this includes a perception of sadness.  My reaction:  His personal story gave me new perspective on how hard he worked to overcome his background and to succeed in a very difficult profession.  I wished he'd gone farther in the book to explain and articulate his feelings.  Maybe he will one day; one hopes.