Editor’s Note: I first met Dave in New York several years ago after reading some of his great author interviews on the Powells Books website. As an ex-Portlandian I occasionally need a City of Books fix. I also discovered that Dave was hard at work creating Powells’ breakout series of films about books. That’s right, not book-to-film but “al reverse”, letting the medium serve the message. Out of the Book is “a series of literary films screened in more than seventy cities around the United States. The most recent featured John Hodgman, Susan Orlean, Anthony Bourdain, David Rakoff, and a dozen other contributors to Ecco’s State by State collection.” Dave Weich is Powells Books’ director of marketing and development.
Rather than write about books that saved his life, Dave wanted to write about….
Books That Ruined My Life
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Two grades straight, fifth and sixth, my teachers assigned The Red Badge of Courage. You’d have thought our elementary and middle school teachers would have shared reading lists, but no. Horror of horrors, in sixth grade, my mother actually tried to make me read it. I could not. Not even in our dull cabin, in the woods, with no TV, over several days of pouring rain. I turned pages as fast as seemed reasonable. More than once my mother caught me skipping ahead. The Red Badge of Courage set me back years, novel-reading-wise. Mom caved. Good grades pending, she left me and my friends to the basketball hoop in our driveway. I didn’t read a book start-to-finish until freshman year of college, but you should have seen my baseline jumper. (more…)
