In my south Louisiana Catholic childhood, youngsters were encouraged to read about the lives of the saints to learn how to be good. I still have on my living room shelf a weathered edition of “57 Stories of Saints,” which includes capsule accounts of such Christian luminaries as St. Sebastian, St. Catherine of Sienna, and, of course, the inestimable Joan of Arc.
Reading about the saints did not, alas, place me on my own path to sainthood — not yet, at least. But those stories about people gaining strength from difficult struggles gave me an early sense that biography could be a form of inspiration and instruction. Maybe that’s why, each year, I give myself the Christmas present of a new biography or two about someone who’s faced an obstacle and learned to overcome it.
I’ve found this part of my post-Yuletide reading life a great way to keep a feeling of possibility after the brightness of the holidays has passed and all those New Year’s resolutions have lost their shine.
Few of the biographical subjects I read about each winter were saints themselves. Most of them, in fact, had obvious flaws, just like the general run of humanity. Even so, their resilience in rising above hurdles seems like something worth keeping in mind at the start of a new year.
In 2021, for example, I spent the first months of the year with “The Luckiest Man,” Mark Salter’s account of the late Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Reading about McCain’s courage as a prisoner of war in Vietnam was a lesson in what duty can demand. Last January, I curled up with “Eleanor,” the David Michaelis biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s trilling voice and hesitant delivery made her an unlikely public speaker, but she worked hard to master the podium and became a persuasive orator. She had, it seems, a capacity for reinvention that’s very much a part of the American creed.
McCain and Roosevelt, had they been contemporaries, probably wouldn’t have agreed on very much politically, but I found much to admire in their biographies. That’s another nice thing about my winter encounters with the lives of the great. My list typically includes figures of all political stripes, which offers a healthy reminder that wisdom isn’t the exclusive province of any party.
Last month, I welcomed Christmas with “Inventor of the Future,” Alec Nevala-Lee’s new biography of Buckminster Fuller. Fuller, who died at 87 in 1983, was best known for popularizing inventions inspired by nature, such as the geodesic dome with its nod toward the honeycomb.
As I’ve been learning through Nevala-Lee’s work, Fuller was difficult and vain, often hogging credit for the work of others. What I’ve liked best about Fuller so far was his confidence that ingenuity could answer vexing human problems.
That kind of optimism seems in short supply these days, but it’s been good to remember what it looks like.
