BOOKS THREAD

Obviously somebody is not "woke."

 

How many "powerful" books have you sought out by people who left Christianity?

 

Been wanting to read that, since Otis is a tough subject to pull off:
- His relatively brief life.
- He didn't give very many interviews.
- The embryonic state of serious music writing and criticism during the years of his fame.

 

He gave one in-depth interview - to Hit Parader - and died one month after the launch of Rolling Stone. But Gould talks to so many key people in Redding's life and career that it will be very tough for anyone to top this.

 

Reading the new biography of Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls. Terrific. I studied the transcendentalists a lot in college, including independent studies on Emerson and the work of Orestes Brownson and Bronson Alcott. But Thoreau is the lynchpin of that set. Really had the balls and foresight that Emerson seemed to lack. Interesting to read of how a traditional literary career was denied to Thoreau bc he tried to follow the path charted by Emerson and even had the same publisher. But Emerson was already a name by the time he started writing his books. Thoreau's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, flopped and he never quite recovered -- or really wanted to -- in becoming a regularly published author. He started journaling like a fiend, which Emerson took for lack of ambition -- till he read the journals after Thoreau's early death and was blown away at the range of education, acumen and interests documented there. About 325 pages into this 500-page tome, and can't put it down for long.

 

Yuval Noah Harari's "Homo Deus"

I need a drink. The future sounds bleak.

 

I'm off and bored today, if you can't tell by reading the rest of this post.

Slowly working my way through David Garrow's "Rising Star" (it's Biblical in heft), but I peeked ahead to the closing to get a gist for what's coming. It's impeccably reported, as always, and I think an important read even if I don't completely agree with his assessment that Obama, despite his preternatural political skills and ability to inspire, ultimately failed to live up to the promise and found his argument that Obama created an identity that wasn't really his to serve him politically incredibly naive. I have a ways to go, but for as much as I respect Garrow's reporting and his previous work, it seems a really wide-eyed way to frame Obama.

Of course Obama re-framed his childhood and young adult experience to serve himself politically in "Dreams From My Father." What book written by a politician isn't that exact thing? Nixon and Kissinger both had their own cottage publishing industry trying to write a new narrative for their lives in hindsight. Hillary Clinton has started along that same path and I suspect will walk down it the rest of her life. I find that more appalling, to re-write your own adult history, than re-writing your formative years in hindsight. Learning about life as a young person essentially IS writing a narrative that may or may not be an authentic self (which, honestly, the more research we do we're learning doesn't actually exist, so let's not judge people on authenticity, okay?)

The Jager storyline is interesting from a gossipy standpoint, but not all that important to me. Obama made a composite character out of her. That's not optimal. But to judge a man and say he didn't marry her because he wouldn't have been seen as "black enough" is a judgment I'd never feel comfortable making. I'm not willing to trust a jilted lover that extensively when assessing another person. Garrow is, I guess. Did marrying Michelle help him solidify his views on race? Help him politically? Probably. But who doesn't have those considerations in mind when they're marrying someone, along with physical attraction and love? Ambitious people weigh (and should weigh!) those considerations when finding a mate. Garrow acting like he uncovered some massive thing in Obama's past by going through his relationships and struggles with race and his place in this country make me shake my head.

Barack Obama likely wasn't some firebrand African-American intellectual in his young days. But he did become that person, even if Garrow doesn't believe that. The notion that if Barack Obama really had been that man, he'd have lived up to his full promise is, again, naive. He met a headwind no politician could've walked through unscathed once he decided to do health care reform.

The notion that all this was some sort of early tell that Obama wouldn't change the political landscape is interesting and worth reading. It's one way to look at a guy who is kind of a sphinx and explains why so many on the other side of the aisle always accused Obama of a murky past. It doesn't excuse it, but it does explain it. We know so little about who he actually was and even after 1,000 pages of Garrow's book, I'm not sure we're any closer.

But that place way too much importance on his journey to the stage and not enough on the stage itself. I'm willing to look at circumstances and the place and time he ascended to the presidency and see his eight years as a success, a bulwark between the machismo and war-mongering of the Bush years and these desolate, hopeless upcoming Trump years. He inherited a previously-unimaginable financial crash (outside of Ragu's circles, I suppose) and actually won re-election. The racist, nativist attacks to him never really stuck because he responded graciously. When he was called imperious (and he was), it seemed to only hurt him, not the country. The real damages things were when he caved to the right's way of doing things in the Middle East and in the healthcare discussions.

The book is best when it, as it begins in breathtaking scope, chronicles the struggles of Chicago's South Side. Brent Staples of the NY Times went into that facet and was spot on about just how wonderful that aspect of the book is. Just how the slide began. How hard change there really was. Why any effort to change things was going to be at best incremental and likely a losing battle. For that reason alone, the book is worth reading.

"Rising Star" is a view of him that should be taken in. As I start to dig into Obama's life more here over the next couple of years and as the history of his life and presidency can start to be digested and chronicled, it's important to see this view of him portrayed. That facet of him will be a crucial piece in puzzling together his life and legacy, given how much of a sphinx the young Obama continues to be.

 

Looking for famous books with examples of man and woman meeting under unusual circumstances late in life and falling in love ...

 

There are some good David Bowie books out there, David Bowie: Starman, from 2011 being among the best, and Dylan Jones's new oral bio, David Bowie: A Life definitely belongs among the best things ever done on Bowie. Loads of people from childhood friends, fellow musicians, former bandmates, producers, journalists and people who knew Bowie from his forays into fashion and art have their say. This one covers all the bases: his scuffling early days, the highs and lows of his massive success in the 70s, his drug issues, his movie work, his dodgy recorded output after Let's Dance and his death. Highly recommended.

 

Just finished Unbelievable, Katy Tur's new book on life in the trenches covering the Trump campaign. Great, entertaining, sometimes disturbing look at life on the inside of that circus.

 

May have my next read:
Jonathan Eig wrote a comprehensive Ali biography, warts and all: "Ali, a Life"
Jeff Pearlman interviewed Eig for his Quaz feature ...

Jonathan Eig | Jeff Pearlman

I'm in.

 

Too Fat To Fish by Artie Lange. Liked it a lot, but I think he's a funny guy and not everyone does. Reads like him telling stories on the radio. Have a buddy who went to hs with him. When he had the show with Jon Ritchie, he mentioned a story about my buddy. My buddy remembered a few stories told in the book and he's reading it now.