Bookshelf: Michael Pettis, Founder, D-22

The book on my shelf with the most sentimental value is probably the very tattered copy of Selden Rodman’s 100 Modern Poems, which I picked up in high school and read obsessively for years. The introduction was brilliant and the selection of poems ended up defining my taste in modernism.

If you only ever read one book about music, make it The Idiot’s Guide to Music, because you’re an idiot if you only ever read one book on music. But my favorite in the last few years is probably Alex Ross’ The Rest Is Noise, on the relationships between aesthetic and political changes in 20th century music. Few people have the sheer knowledge of and sensitivity to music as Ross.

My favorite books from childhood are the Lewis Carroll books, which were great when I read them as a kid and equally great every time I reread them. No one does a better job of pointing out the lunacy of what is normal.

The book that changed my life? Perhaps the last big one was Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China, because it inspired me to come to China on a one-week holiday in 2001. It was in the middle of that holiday that I decided to quit my job on Wall Street and move to Beijing for two years.

The character in a book who I’d like to meet is Nick Carraway, to see whether he is honest, self-serving, or just naive.

The book I wish I hadn’t read was Frank Herbert’s Dune, which I read at the end of my freshman year in college. I was so fascinated that I immediately read the other two long books in the trilogy and then failed my Physics Lab course.

Have I ever judged a book by its cover? I once bought an old edition of one of Kerouac’s books because it had one of those very sleazy pulp covers – a “hip chick” in tight jeans near a motorcycle staring suggestively out at the viewer.

My favorite quote from a book: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Click here to see the November issue of the Beijinger in full.

Photo: Nature Zhang