BOOKS THREAD

It isn't new, but I just finished "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by novelist Barbara Kingsolver. It's her nonfiction account of moving to her husband's family's farm in rural Virginia and trying to live off the land. I've never thought much about locavore life, but the writing was very engaging -- with recipes! -- and I found the whole thing fascinating.

 

"The Book Thief," a novel by Markus Zusak. Can't recommend it highly enough.

I searched for this title to try to make sure it hadn't been discussed ... if so, apologies already.

 

This sorta falls under this category, but if you happen to be in New Orleans to cover the Sugar Bowl, go do some book shopping if you have a chance. There are several independent bookstores in NOLA. I was pleasantly surprised at how many, actually. I visited the one on Frenchmen Street twice during the fam’s recent trip.

 

Here’s my reading list from this year:

1. A Children’s Bible, Lydia Millet
2. A Promised Land, Barack Obama
3. A World Without Email, Cal Newport
4. Bath Haus, P.J. Vernon
5. Be Where Your Feet Are, Scott O'Neill
6. Blacktop Wasteland, S.A. Cosby
7. Deacon King Kong, James McBride
8. Fantasy Man, Nate Jackson
9. Good to Great, Jim Collins
10. Goodnight Beautiful, Aimee Molloy
11. Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton
12. Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead
13. Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker
14. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
15. Homeland Elegies, Ayad Akhtar
16. I Left My Homework in the Hamptons, Blythe Grossberg
17. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
18. K: A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches, Tyler Kepner
19. Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro
20. Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam
21. Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath
22. October Men, Roger Kahn
23. Razorblade Tears, S.A. Cosby
24. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki
25. Shorter, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
26. Squeeze Me, Carl Hiaasen
27. Sweetness, Jeff Pearlman
28. Swing Kings, Jared Diamond
29. The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, John Maxwell
30. The Biggest Bluff, Maria Konnikova
31. The Cold Millions, Jess Walter
32. The Collective, Alison Gaylin
33. The Damage, Caitlin Wahrer
34. The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor
35. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
36. The Next Millionaire Next Door, Sarah Stanley Fallaw
37. The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead
38. The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris
39. The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz
40. The President is Missing, Bill Clinton and James Patterson
41. The President’s Daughter, Bill Clinton and James Patterson
42. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen
43. The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
44. Tropic of Stupid, Tim Dorsey
45. Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener

 

Had a couple plane rides recently, so, plowed through three books. In order of enjoyment...

- "Little Miss Little Compton," by Arden Myrin. Autobiography by the comedic actress, and her tone and energy really comes through the text. Plus, she's from my home state of Rhode Island, so it had little asides and references I "got," haha. A really solid and quick read, although given that she isn't an A-list actress, YMMV when it comes to whether it is worth the full $20 or not. (It doesn't seem like the kind of title that would be widely available in libraries, for example.)

- "Kiss Me Like A Stranger" by Gene Wilder. A 2005 memoir from him, and it's generally good. There is more about the craft and technique of Acting than you'd expect. Also, uh, Wilder writes pretty candidly about his sex life, which is... odd, since I knew him first as Willy Wonka, and only later for his Mel Brooks roles and "Young Frankenstein." This is a well-written book, but the focus on Acting and ladies Wilder slept with kind of take the place of amusing stories from the set.

- "The Storyteller" by Dave Grohl. So, the writing in this is fine, but for a 300 page book, it leaves you wanting "more" in so many circumstances. There are only two or three chapters about Nirvana, for example, and one or two chapters about the formation of the Foo Fighters. Grohl does a good job of providing some information about every facet of his life - except, kind of oddly, how he met his wife - but some depth on the bigger subjects would have been better.

 

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/12/...1V1ypoqm7563FUQg1qFo_hKRdcYEFNQS5MO9cMEsuU0XM

 

Just finished reading Finished Business by Ray Didinger. It is a memoir of his 50-year sports writing career. In terms of memoirs by sports writers, I would rank this alongside the ones by Frank Deford and Lowell Cohn. The chapters on his relationships/interactions with Andy Reid and with Tommy McDonald are outstanding.

Highly recommended...

 

It wasn’t as good as “Slow Getting Up.” I wouldn’t recommend spending money on it, but it’s worth starting if you like his persona.

 

I read this last night, and really enjoyed it. It's Earl Braggs' tale of growing up poor in North Carolina, and going on to earn an MFA and teach college at UT-Chattanooga. The writing is just beautiful. It's a small book, and short, just 120 pages, so it can be knocked out quickly.

Joe Bob says definitely check it out.

 

Finally got around to Norman Ohler’s “Blitzed.” I think he overstated the case that every soldier and citizen of Nazi Germany was out of his or her mind on pervitin, and his assertion that X’s in Hitler’s doctor log meant Hitler was getting eukodel every time really stretched what the evidence showed. Hitler pretty clearly had Parkinsons and Ohler used the symptoms from that to bolster his case of rampant, continuous opiod drug use. I think it’s more likely he did use opiates, but his decline was more the cumulative affects of his war plans collapsing, physical fatigue and the burial of conscience for decades on the psyche.

Still, the book really showed how important drugs were in the Reich and his account of the testing on concentration camp victims and the giving of cocaine to young teens to send them to their deaths in mini submarines were really affecting.

I don’t like the assertion by critics that his book was letting Nazis and Hitler “off the hook.” He never made the argument that Naziism was anything but the sober-minded creation of an evil man spurred on by a country receptive to helping that man achieve evil. The hypocrisy of creating a war on drugs while themselves using pervitin and cocaine so often is enough of an indictment, and one our modern society would be well to contemplate today.