I read a lot. Well, I listen a lot and read when I can. As a child who couldn’t sit still long enough to read and was diagnosed with ADD, which led me to special classes for much of my childhood, I find audiobooks a much more productive way to read. I chop wood, do the dishes, and fold laundry, all while ingesting stories, memoirs, and sometimes dense material. My reading changed a lot when heard Sebastian Junger in a podcast talk about his reading habits. I had often started books but disliked them for infinite reasons. Uninterested, bad writing, or my emotional state wasn’t in line with the book. Junger claimed started many books and didn’t finish them. Sometimes, one sentence did it for him. He said something along the lines of, “Don’t make me read your bad writing because I won’t.”
Since then, I have started dozens of books only to stop reading when I noticed my mind wandering from the story. It wasn’t meant for me to read that book. Fuck that book. I start a new book and find myself invigorated by the story or information. Like the music I like, I am all over the place. Slipknot and Celine Deion are on my most listened-to list, with almost everything in between.
My reading is about as wide, but it wasn’t always that way. I loathed reading as a child and saw no point while in the Army or while I served as a police officer. It wasn’t until early sobriety that my mind was still enough to consume large amounts of information. It began when I took English Composition II at Cape Cod Community College. In a school text, I read “Disliking Books,” from Gerald Graff’s book, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education, in which Graff reflects on his distinguished academic career that emerged from his youthful aversion to books.
Graff reviews how he found purpose in reading literature through the habit of mind of inquiry into the writer’s process and his reflection on his evolution as a reader. Graff’s reflection on his reading provided a new perspective on reading with a purpose, something which I rarely do otherwise, and has made me a more complex, dynamic thinker. I now seek and accept multiple values and apply them to my own life, especially my mental health.
Around this time, I read an article where Eric Milzarski theorized that A. A. Milne’s book, Winnie the Pooh, could be an attempt by Milne to explain characteristics of his war-induced, shell-shocked thinking to his son. So, when a class assignment was to have a literary discussion with authors, I picked A. A. Milne, not knowing it would also include his real-life son, Christopher Robin Milne.
The man who wrote Winne the Pooh was also in World War I, specifically the Battle of Somme. In his Autobiography, It’s Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer, he writes:
The description, “Hell on Earth” is apt, but doesn’t come close to fully describing the carnage of what became the bloodiest battle in human history. More than three million men fought and one million men were wounded or killed — many of Milne’s closest friends were among the numerous casualties. Bodies were stacked in the flooded-out trenches where other men lived, fought, and died.
When read Winnie the Pooh, I agreed with Milzarski. I speculate, based on my experiences and thinking patterns, that A. A. Milne’s words in the stories echo the compartmentalized thinking that traumatized people continue to tolerate unwillingly.
Christopher Robin is more than the character in Winnie the Pooh; he is also A. A. Milne’s son, Christopher Robin Milne, and is a writer and a war veteran himself. I sought this reading to get Christopher Milne’s understanding of his father’s writing, but now I also relate to him. I agree with Christopher Milne that Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh is not about his observation of his son’s childhood. Instead, his father was writing his thoughts and dreams. Christopher Milne wrote, “My father was a creative writer and so it was precisely because he was not able to play with his small son that his longings sought and found satisfaction in another direction. He wrote about him instead.” Writing about him could have been A. A. Milnes’ way of connecting with his son when he otherwise felt unconnected. He could not emotionally be there as a father, so he rhetorically interacted with him. Read the original paper I wrote, HERE.
The Collected Stories of Winnie-the-Pooh
By: A. A. Milne
Everyone knows the characters, but reading through the lens that the author was in the bloodiest battle ever gains a different meaning. This led me to read the memoirs of A. A. Milne and his real-life son, Christopher Robin Mile.
It’s Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer
By: A. A. Milne
“For it makes me almost physically sick to think of that nightmare of mental and moral degradation, the War. When my boy was six years old he took me into the Insect House at the Zoo, and at the sight of some of the monstrous inmates I had to leave his hand and hurry back into the fresh air. I could imagine a spider or a millipede so horrible that in its presence I should die of disgust. It seems impossible to me now that any sensitive man could live through another war. If not required to die in other ways, he would waste away of soul-sickness.”
The Enchanted Places: Beyond the World of Pooh
By: Christopher Milne
Christopher reflects on growing up the “real Christopher Robin,” which was much more akin to growing up to a traumatized and reclusive father.
By: Rachel Carson
Carson effectively combines science and literature in the book that began the environmental revolution. Beautifully written arguments give undeniable proof that organic pesticides used in her lifetime were detrimental to the environment.
By: Henry David Thoreau
Originally meant to live in the woods to mourn the death of his brother, this book on simple living proves literature can cut through time. Thoreau speaks to our generation as much as his own as he discusses many problems that still afflict our society.
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea
By: Sebastian Junger
What do Carson, Thoreau, and Junger have in common? They all lived in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In his debut novel, which became a movie, Junger combines science and literature to tell the true story of the F/V Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing vessel lost at sea with all hands in 1991.
Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir
By: Marsha M. Linehan
I was introduced to Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) at Mass General Hospital’s Home Base’s Intensive Clinical Program. DBT is meant to treat suicidal and other self-destructive behaviors by teaching skills to cope with or change destructive behaviors. Linehan created DBT when she was in the psych ward as a teenage girl being treated for BPD. This therapy taught me skills I use daily, which is the biggest factor in my exponential recovery.
Make Peace or Die: A Life of Service, Leadership, and Nightmares
By: Charles U. Daly and Charlie Daly
I met Charlie as he and his father were publishing this book, and Charlie has since taught me so much and become my best friend. Many of the books in this list have come from his recommendations. This book is about his father’s life, who was an Irish immigrant to the US who was deployed to Korea and found himself in combat and wounded in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. This is just the beginning, as he comes home decorated, wounded, and traumatized, only to begin a lifetime of service.
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
By: Piers Paul Read
This book, recommended to me by Charlie Daly, showed me how similar trauma and recovery are, despite the cause. The story of a plane crash in the Andes mountains includes a Uruguayan rugby team and their fight through constant death and survival. I relate to the boys on their recovery from being in unimaginable situations and trying to come back to society and understand who they are.
Comment if you have read any of these books, and read some of my other blogs
Joshua Maloney 
Leave a comment