BOOKS THREAD

Pretty sure I've recommended the late Christopher Logue's War Music to everyone here. It's a booklength reimagining of The Iliad.

So if you're a fan of The Iliad and contemporary reimaginings, I also make my highest recommendation for Alice Oswald's Memorial. Just tremendous. It absolutely scalped me.

The latest translation of Beowulf, by Maria Davana Headley, is likewise worth your time. (Though the definitive version is still Seamus Heaney's.) Also, Emily Wilson's Odyssey is fantastic. Waiting for her Iliad to drop any day now.

I think it's important for journalists and nonfiction writers to read as much poetry as they can make time for. It reminds us what's possible with language.

I've also been going back and forth with some friends about what they'd add to their teaching of nonfiction. Along with the 'read more poetry' thing, I suggested more oral history. Terkel, for sure. The whole canon of Alexievich, of course, but Voices from Chernobyl if you only have time for one.

Likewise Charles Reznikoff, whose found-poetry classics, Testimony and Holocaust are both devastating.

I'd also add Rebecca West - a forgotten giant of 20th century literary journalism - and A Train of Powder.

 

Forgot to mention that I suggested swapping in A Train of Powder for Joe Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel.

I love Mitchell and I love that book and was raised on both and have written about both, but we teach it too much. Especially knowing what we know now about Mitchell's willingness to composite characters and pipe quotes.

I further think we teach too much Thompson and too much Wolfe. Gonzo is 50 years in the rearview mirror, and New Journalism is more than half a century old. I'd go easy on the Didion, too.

Sacrilege, I know.

 

This is a different kind of post for this thread but I thought this was the best place for it, and that it was too good not to put out there.

It's an article in The Atlantic that lists synopses of 15 books the writer believes are worth reading, or re-reading if you've already done so. I haven't read any of them, but this has me ready to tackle most of them. Almost all of them sound shocking and/or challenging in some way, but I'm counting on that making them worthwhile. I thought others here might think the same, and appreciate the article as a resource and point of reference if you're looking for something to read.

15 Books You Won’t Regret Rereading

 

"The Glass Hotel" by Emily St. John Mandel.

Definitely not a sequel or followup to "Station Eleven," but like that book, Mandel tells this story in a non-linear fashion, with seemingly small events and characters from flashbacks reappearing and playing important roles in the main story.

Without spoiling too much, I can tell you that "The Glass Hotel" made me think a lot about time. How we obsess over it, waste it, and misunderstand it.

A very good read. Highly recommended.

 

Speaking of re-reading, it's the 100th anniversary of Ulysses this year. This week, in fact.


. . . and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

 

This is only going to get worse.

Missouri School District Bans Toni Morrison Book | Kirkus Reviews

Tennessee school board bans Pulitzer prize-winning Holocaust novel, Maus

US conservatives linked to rich donors wage campaign to ban books from schools

Book bans in schools are catching fire. Black authors say uproar isn’t about students.

Book banning fever heats up in red states

Oklahoma lawmaker introduces book-banning bill with $10,000-a-day penalty

An Oklahoma state Senator this month introduced legislation that would allow parents to ban books in Oklahoma public schools. It would also set a $10,000 bounty to be collected by parents for each day a challenged book remains on library shelves.

Republican state Sen. Rob Standridge on Dec. 16 announced he had filed two bills for the 2022 legislative session, which begins in February, addressing “indoctrination in Oklahoma schools.”

“Our education system is not the place to teach moral lessons that should instead be left up to parents and families. Unfortunately, however, more and more schools are trying to indoctrinate students by exposing them to gender, sexual and racial identity curriculums and courses. My bills will ensure these types of lessons stay at home and out of the classroom,” Standridge said in a statement.

 

Fascism is rising in America

 

Willful, aggressive ignorance is a constant in this country. As are bad faith politics.

Book banning ebbs and flows with our politics, but never entirely disappears.

The latest round of which is being driven by the stupidity and fear surrounding 'Critical Race Theory' - as ginned up by radio hosts and Fox News talking haircuts.

 

oof

https://nypost.com/2022/01/25/seattle-school-removes-to-kill-a-mockingbird-from-curriculum/?

 

also, oof

Chuck Palahniuk Reacts to 'Fight Club' Ending Getting Censored in China

In the rest of the interview, Palahniuk added the obvious—that he's used to others banning Fight Club at this point. "What I find really interesting is that my books are heavily banned throughout the U.S.," he said. "The Texas prison system refuses to carry my books in their libraries. A lot of public schools and most private schools refuse to carry my books. But it's only an issue once China changes the end of a movie? I've been putting up with book banning for a long time."

 

Actually pulling these off the shelves.

https://www.theledger.com/story/new...dent-frederick-heid-novels-graph/9224745002/?

Polk County Public Schools Regional Assistant Superintendent John Hill and several of his colleagues spent Tuesday morning going to area middle and high schools to gather 16 books out of media centers after County Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative political group, complained to Superintendent Frederick Heid that the novels, graphic novels, autobiographies, and sex education books contain pornographic material harmful to children.