Best Books for Reading & Life Inspiration - Perfect for Home, Travel & Relaxation

When we call someone “bookish,” we’re usually thinking of the classic bookworm who encloses himself in a world separate from everyday life. I always think of that classic episode of “The Twilight Zone,” where Burgess Meredith wants nothing more out of life than the solitude he needs to read books in the library. (I’m sure you all remember the ironic ending.) Michael Cohen is bookish in a different way. For him books are an extension of an active life, the means to connect his own environment and experiences to the world at large, the one we all live in. The need to connect and what we learn about the world and ourselves when we do is the theme of these fascinating explorations. You might say that the “topic” of a Cohen essay doesn’t really matter all that much. It can be serious (capital punishment) or trivial (local restaurants). Cohen begins his essay “Men in Uniform” by describing his own attitude toward the clothing he wears. As a “typical male” he is largely indifferent. You might say at this point, “Who cares what this guy wears”? But that’s the whole point: the everyday decision is just the beginning of the inquiry. The stimulus is a book (something about ladies’ black dresses) which Cohen vividly recalls reading. And then we’re off, on a journey through the fascinating, surprising, often funny world of men’s clothing. As Cohen tells us. “one of the governing principles of male sartorial design is making inappropriate choices hard to blunder into.” Along the way we get all kinds of wonderful information: Tobacco tycoon P. J. Lorillard, imitating the Prince of Wales, brings the tuxedo to America. The men’s suit evolves from a display of the male body to concealment of it. The rise and fall (and rise and fall) of the double-breasted suit, etc. Finally we return to Michael Cohen and his clothing choices. But it’s not really about him any more. It never is, and that’s really the point. Sometimes Cohen’s topics are obviously serious. His brilliant essay on capital punishment (“The Victims and the Furies”) couldn’t be more different from the usual “pro/con” essay. It doesn’t particularly matter whether you agree or disagree with Cohen’s position. (Why be coy? He’s against it.) Either way you will be dazzled by his fascinating arguments and the wide range of his references, from Orestes killing his mother in the Oresteia of Aeschylus to Michael Dukakis fumbling his answer to a question on CNN. And sometimes we just get a little fun, as in his essay on the demographics of local restaurants and the pleasures of a round of his beloved game of golf. We learn a lot about Michael Cohen from his essays. But we learn much more about the world we all live in. The final message of these informative and entertaining essays: Each of us is alone. But we’re all in this together. .