Books acquired: “100 Cassettes,” Dennis Callaci

Books read: “Walden and Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau; “Europe Through the Back Door,” Rick Steves

Welcome to 2020! Please leave your jetpacks by the door, take off your Velcro slippers and feel free to grab a refreshing dehydrated beverage from the robot bar.

Do we have any reading goals for 2020? I want to read the last four or five books on my shelves that date, unread, to the 20th century. That will considerably raise the floor on my unread backlog to a more reasonable date of purchase. Any other predictions or plans are almost certain not to come true, simply because I’m likely to get through about one-sixth of my remaining unread books in 2020 and any guesses as to which titles or series will probably be wrong. I’ve been hoping to get back to the Travis McGee series for two or three years. Maybe this year, maybe next. Ditto with reading the last two Fu Manchu pot boilers. My shelves have a lot of competing priorities.

However, I did want to start 2020 with something meaty, and I also wanted to return to an old tradition. When I read “Moby-Dick” in the first weeks of 2009, I did most of that at a Coffee Bean during evenings. It’s a fond memory of leisurely reading this ambitious novel in a public place on a cold night, a hot beverage in front of me.

So in January, I toted “Walden” to the same Coffee Bean on a couple of nights. Frankly there were a lot of distractions. A seeming transient would play music videos on his phone with no ear jack that could be heard throughout the store. An upscale-looking couple stroked each other like they were on the sofa at home. Meanwhile I’m trying to read 19th century prose.

But it was a worthy attempt on my part, one I hope to repeat on occasion. Speaking of Thoreau:

“Walden” (1854): Was Thoreau the first millennial? He gave up meat, lived in a tiny house, owned few physical goods, worked in the gig economy (occasional carpentry or substitute teaching), had a favorable opinion of tattooing and says at age 30 he “had yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.” Then again, he was against coffee and didn’t think he should have to pay taxes, so never mind.

I bought this in 1998 at the Rancho Cucamonga Barnes & Noble, on a night when I was feeling literary: Willa Cather’s “Collected Stories,” finally read last year, came from this same night, as did another heavy book I hope to get to this year.

One attraction was that this edition had Thoreau’s famous “Civil Disobedience” essay. I read that at the end of 2019, along with the introductions, etc., so I could start the year with “Walden.” I may have done this in the wrong order, as “Civil” struck me as a virtual tea-party screed, with Thoreau thinking the government was doing nothing that he liked and that he didn’t want to help support it, then wondering why they went to the trouble of jailing him. He has some pithy lines, but the piece rubbed me the wrong way. “Walden,” however, was pretty good, and perhaps if I’d read it first, “Civil” would have seemed more in keeping with it. It’s got a lot of good nature writing, and he seems like he’d have been a quirky but friendly enough neighbor, and it’s studded with great lines, as well as (who knew?) sly humor.

“Europe Through the Back Door” (2017): Rick Steves is the author and personality whose guidebooks to Europe are a staple of bookstore travel sections. I’ve used his Germany and Poland books and profited from his advice. This is an overview book about European travel, with advice on packing, money, illness abroad and sightseeing strategies. I admit, I was hoping this would be more of a manifesto. Instead, there’s an awful lot of referrals to various Rick Steves apps, audio tours, travel tours, etc., and his individual guidebooks probably do about as good a job in advising you about the basics.

Still, this is a useful, practical overview of traveling to, in and around Europe. Reading his enthusiastic pitches for individual European countries in the back portion of the book, you want to book a flight to at least half of them. I bought this at the Chino Hills Barnes and Noble in 2018. I started it before a trip, set it aside for more than a year and then had it on my nightstand for a few weeks in late 2019-early 2020. It’s possible his recent “Travel as a Political Act” book is more of the philosophy-of-travel book I hoped this one was, but next time I see it I will examine it carefully to find out.

So, a small start for 2020, but satisfying. It’s possible I will read a little less this year, as I want to take time to watch the occasional movie (unwatched DVDs are stacking up like books) and also need to work on my own next book. But I liked that I got to these two books to start the year, one around for two decades, the other recent but half-read.

How was your January, readers? And what goals, if any, do you have for the year? Leave a comment below, then retrieve your jetpack from my robo-butler and we’ll see you soon!

Next month: All that glitters.