Escaping the Haze

Upon landing in San Francisco on Saturday morning I immediately had a craving for eggs. After taking the BART and Muni over to Z's place to drop off my bags we were off in search of a place to brunch - particularly in a sunny part of town since the fog was taking over her 'hood (Inner Sunset). We made our way to Hayes Valley and stuffed our faces at Flipper. Bought some art from a guy selling his wares on the sidewalk then wandered aimlessly looking for our next adventure.

Spotted Keith sitting at a cafe/restaurant whose name I can't recall. He's reading The Radiance of The King by Camara Laye. Keith works for Browser Books on Fillmore and Sacramento and the new arrivals usually dictate what he will be reading next. He's been gravitating towards the New York Review Books that have been coming in and The Radiance of the King is one of them. When asked to briefly describe what the book is about I am told that it is about a white man who is shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, and becomes a slave resulting in self revelation and discovery. (I will be honest - due to my horrid hearing I had first thought he said, "A white man who becomes a stud and then an African Queen" which got me thinking of Virginia Woolf's Orlando). He's been zipping through the book and highly recommends it.


Keith skews more towards novel reading and lately he's really been into books by J.R. Ackerley. The last books he's read were Ackerley's My Dog Tulip and We Think the World of You - both of which are from the NYRB series AND are about the intimacies between a man and his dog.

When asked about his favourite book growing up he recalls a book that made a lasting impression on him. In the 4th grade he read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens on his own volition and remembers getting in trouble for it! His teacher saw that he was reading this and proceeded to call his parents, telling them that she felt the book was inappropriate for him at that age. "My parents weren't upset or anything. I just told them that I finished the book and there really wasn't anything they could do." Heck, if my child was reading that at a young age I would be proud! Granted, Keith admits that he didn't really fully understand everything that was going on in the novel but found it compelling and this left a lasting impression on him nonetheless. And from that moment on he was hooked on books!



Do you remember that book that got you hooked?

I would have to say it was Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf that did it for me. I read it in HS and although I read many books before then I feel I actually started to really pay attention to this one in particular. And it led me to re-read the book every few months for a handful of years along with other Woolf books peppered in between.