Bookends
What did Art Garfunkel read and when did he read it?
We know what he's sung, with and without Paul Simon. In Garfunkel's heyday, only Smokey Robinson had a more ethereal tenor, and no one came close to challenging him for the title of Best White Afro. It made him look positively angelic -- though with hair like that, who needed a halo?
What Garfunkel did need was a good book. The man was (and presumably still is) a demon reader. Go to www.artgarfunkel.com. Click on ``site map," then ``library." You get a list of every book Garfunkel read between June 1968 and June 2005. There are 948 titles, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ``Confessions" to David McCullough's ``1776."
It's a pretty serious list: many classic authors, such as Jane Austen and Henry James; lots of history; a considerable amount of philosophy and psychology. Yes, there's the occasional nod to popular taste (``Jonathan Livingston Seagull," in September 1972; ``Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," in December 2004; ``The Da Vinci Code," in February 2004). But this is a man who claims to have spent part of March 1993 reading The Random House Dictionary.
Popular music doesn't figure much in his reading: a Paul McCartney biography, Bob Dylan's ``Chronicles, Vol. 1," Fredric Dannen's music-biz expose, ``Hit Men," and memoirs by songwriter Jimmy Webb and music executive Clive Davis, the head of Columbia Records, Simon & Garfunkel's label. He's also honest, or immodest, enough to list reading one of his own books, ``Still Water," in October 1989.
Does the list shed any light on Garfunkel's career? He read Joseph Heller's ``Catch-22" in February 1969 -- and then played Captain Nately in Mike Nichols's 1970 film version. In July 1973, he read Thomas Hardy's ``Tess of the d'Urbervilles," a main character of which is named Angel Clare. That's also the title of Garfunkel's first solo album, released that year.
Garfunkel's reading may offer clues about his relationship with Simon. He's read three novels by Carrie Fisher, Simon's second wife. And the list includes two books about Simon and Garfunkel. Is it significant that the book Garfunkel read after Joseph Morella and Patricia Barey's ``Simon and Garfunkel" was Sun Tzu's ``The Art of War"?
There is no book list on www.paulsimon.com.
MARK FEENEY and STEVE HEYMAN 