‘Tis the season to be bombarded with year-end lists: the best or biggest books, movies, music, news stories, climate disasters, recipes, video games, board games, TV shows, sports feats, podcasts. Here’s my list of books I love but won’t be recommending.
My goal is not to waste your time or mine describing books that I find distasteful. No! This is my chance to rave about some books I love that may be hard to find.They’re out of print or too obscure for general audiences.
Let me show you what I mean.
The first book on my list is: Insect Musicians and Cricket Champions: A Cultural History of Singing Insects in China and Japan by Lisa Gail Ryan, published in 1996.
The Chinese have kept crickets as pets for millennia. Often they are groomed for cricket fighting. The way my mom told it, my uncles – her brothers and their cousins – were fervent participants in cricket fighting. They kept their favorites in intricately carved cages and fed them special foods.
When Mom, always curious, leaned in for a closer look, her cousin scolded her. Her breathing on a cricket would lessen its fighting spirit. Eight decades later, she still remembered the cricket’s victory celebration dance. She’d pump her bony shoulders up and down and cry a high-pitched ji, ji, ji.
Dad had a sentimental attachment to crickets as well. I was in the basement of their house in St. Louis one fall day. I told him I thought I heard crickets down there. Did he want me to figure out how to get rid of them? He gave me a sheepish look and then said, “I kinda like them.”
My second non-recommendation is The World, Two Wheels and a Sketchbook. The author and artist is Sophie Binder. It was published in 2013. Linda Ballard, the retired Director of the University City library, pressed this book on me. And I am grateful, even though the illustrated travel journal weighs almost six pounds, not exactly airplane reading.
Sophie Binder is a St. Louis transplant from France. In April 2001, she left St. Louis on her bicycle for points east. When she reached the Atlantic Ocean, she and her bike Phileas (accent over the “e”) flew to France. From there, she rode to Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Turkey was a highlight for her, as it was for me on a much more staid trip. We agree that Turkish hospitality is unmatched, that Turkish food has intense, wonderful flavors, and that “Turkish honey is the best.”
She flew and sailed when necessary. Mostly, she rode her bike. Sometimes she stayed in hostels and hotels. Mostly, she camped. She met up with family and friends and strangers. Mostly, though, she traveled alone.
She crossed the border into Syria on 9/11/2001. Yes, that 9/11. The Syrians, and Sophie, were shaken, stunned. “Nobody could fathom what was happening.”
From Syria, she went to Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. She rode Phileas through the Sinai. After the quiet solitude of the desert, she landed in Mumbai, overcrowded with people, smells, and sounds. Then, a long sojourn in Southeast Asia. Then, New Zealand. From there, she returned to the United States, biking two thousand miles through the American West to a joyous welcome back to St. Louis.
All told, she traveled over 14,000 miles in 14 months. The biking part was strenuous. But to have time and the mental bandwidth to journal, draw, and paint boggles my mind. She coaxed beautiful, rich colors from a travel water-color set. Pen and ink as well. In the final product, each page is an artful master lesson on how to lay out combinations of type, handwriting, paintings and photos.
My next book is 101 Opera Librettos : Complete Texts with English Translations of the World’s Best-Loved Operas by Jessica M. MacMurray and Allison Brewster Franzetti, published in 1996. This doorstop of a book landed on my front porch just a week ago. It’s a Christmas present from my son Alex and daughter-in-law Ariel. They know how much I love opera. Each of the entries includes the opera’s synopsis, the text in the original language, and an English translation. My plan is to go through my favorite operas, starting with Tosca and The Magic Flute. Then, Verdi, I think. Maybe Rigoletto.
My next non-recommendation is Jasmine Nights & Monkey Pluck: Love, Discovery and Tea by Marylu Downing, Faith Morgan, and Ellen Galford, published in 2002. In this slim volume, women authors meditate on the everyday and the extraordinary events of life through the lens of tea. Each essay or poem is short enough to fit on one page. On the opposite page is a glorious picture of tea-ware.
Cathy Stevenson sent me this book after we met on a trip to Slovenia in 2004. At that time, my parents were alive. Dad was still healthy, his stroke four years in the future. Mom was spry, but her mind was already seeping away.
Growing up Chinese, I took tea for granted. Of course, we offered tea to everyone who came by the house. It was high quality tea but served simply. We didn’t strain the leaves. Just pour hot water over the leaves in the cup and let it steep. No sugar. No milk. It was the same for us when we visited other families.
After Dad’s stroke, my parents lived with Bill and me. Every morning, we would put a small amount of long jing (dragon well) leaves in an insulated, lidded cup and brew the tea. Mom and Dad would share this cup, and when the water level got low, we’d just add more hot water.
I’m not sure why, but it pleased me to see that every place in the world where Sophie Binder encountered tea, the local word for it derived from the Chinese.
My last book is Tales of the (314): Gateway Moments and Impressions. It is an anthology published in 2025 by the St. Louis Publishers Association (SLPA). It is hard to get because it is sold only at the St. Louis History Museum in Forest Park.
(314) is the St. Louis area code. The “Gateway” of the title alludes to the Gateway Arch as well as the metaphorical entry to discovery, memory, and self-awareness.
The brainchild of SLPA president Jo Lena Johnson, the book features 30 artists of all ages and races and abilities. Each writes from the heart about their experience of living in St. Louis. I am one of the authors. My story “The University City Memorial Day 10K Race” is a tribute to a unique neighborhood, a meditation on life, and a love note to my husband Bill.
Each essay, poem, or short fiction is a gem.The stories reference both hometown favorites, such as the baseball Cardinals and Busch Stadium, the Arch, the Mississippi River, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Botanical Gardens and also less-recognized St. Louis neighborhoods, like Fenton, the Metro East, Hazelwood, Lafayette Park, Riverview Gardens, Jefferson Barracks, and the now-demolished Laclede Town. Each author has a unique take on their relationship to where they call home. It’s funny how often Ted Drewes frozen custard shop shows up.
These books are meaningful and dear to me even though they aren’t well-known or mass-marketed.
Tell me: Do you have books that have special meaning to you that others wouldn’t know about?
Dr. Bookworm 