Just finished Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane, about a struggling Irish mom, who lives in a housing project in Southy. Her daughter goes missing and is implicated in the death Black man. This happens during the weeks leading to ordered school busing in Boston. It’s a great summer read.
Recently finished Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book,” an account of the devastating LA Public Library Fire in 1986 — and, by extension, an appreciation of all public libraries. Currently reading “The Heart Goes Last,” another Margaret Atwood dystopian novel, which — like “The Handmaid’s Tale” — seems sadly relevant now.
Margaret Atwood is on my favorite authors list along with Ursula K Le Guin (The Left Hand if Darkness), and Pearl S Buck just to name a couple. I started my favorite authors list when I was in the sixth grade and started reading Pearl S Buck books out of the school library.
I am enervated enough by all the accumulated years since 2016 that I'm a little careful not to read too much exhausting stuff at a time. I am currently in error.
I'm about a seventh of the way into Mike Pompeo's Never Give an Inch, and he may be the very worst person I've ever read a book by. The more so that he's a skilled writer in his way. Bombastic but with flow, and an accustomed practicioner of the Gish gallop, including its under-appreciated yet even more effective aspect in which the perp doesn't just spout fallacious or de-contextualied facts, but implicitly shifts ground from one contested/problematic framing to another, un-narrated. He's also extremely and explicitly pro-aggression, personal and national.
I am nearly done with Lauren Boebert's memoir. It's much less well-written, but I just finished the most skillful of her chapters-- one that I think must come from speeches she's accustomed to make. Again, the Gish gallop, though more purely recitative and less shapely.
I audioread Mike Pence's So Help Me God in the spring and was struck by something obvious: politician-authored books are primarily presentations of persona intended to attract votes. (Mike Pence is The Grave Judicious Even-Handed Daddy. And a surprisingly good writer.)
When I've finished the Boebert I will be starting either Brandi Collins-Dexter's Black Skinhead or Sarah Kendzior's They Knew. Either of those is a psychological bad choice. Good leftie stuff is notably more intense than rightie stuff.
Immediately after 2016 election results I stopped listening to audiobooks and doing Pimsleur while I drove and listened NPR. I read more national news stories than had ever been my wont*. I prefer not to be snuck up on. And while I can't do *much* I feel a citizenly and humanitarian duty to do what I can to preserve civil rights and national decency and sanity and sustainability, and felt it was more intensely under attack than I'have ever before experienced. I'm slightly more vigilant than I ws, though I've felt able to relax a bit since January 21, 2023.
* I had never been and still am not one to read coverage of the same stuff without different informational or framing angles.
Nope, but since 2016 I've read a shocking number of Trump administration and non-Trump GOP books. I've learned a lot. Pretty much all gruesome.
The thing that's been the most valuable and most horrific to me has been learning that today's Republicans tend to believe implicitly that all USians regard Republicans as the responsible and moral party/ones. I'm not sure I'll ever stop boggling. But as soon as I read that I could perceive it underlying So Much.
I’m not sure I’d be able to sleep at night after reading this. I’m already having horrific nightmares just watching the weather. I calm my anxiety by letting God know how grateful I am that I live in New England! But then I suffer guilt that I live in New England ??
Between the millions suffering in the heat dome in North America and the Canadian wildfires and the extreme heat being reported even out of China it brings me an image that the world is on fire. Then there’s the flooding and I’m looking for Noah’s ark. But I am safe for the moment. More guilt.
I'm listening to The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. I don't follow Oprah's Book Club but I did see that she called this one of the best books she's ever read which got my attention. The audio version is 31 hours long. Luckily the narration is excellent.
A counselor we were seeing suggested “I Don’t Have To Make Everything All Better” which is written to offer principles to empower those of us struggling to make “everything better.”
I'm still in catch-up mode, just started Resurrection: Myth or Reality? by John Shelby Spong, published in 2009. I did take a break and read The Young Unicorns, by Madeline L'Engle, another "catching up" of oh so many books that I missed when they were first published. I'm finding it hard to get into any work of fiction these days--if it doesn't grab me in the first chapter or the first few pages, I drop it--but this one was short and sweet.
I will look for some of these books mentioned here. I recently finished The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Currently reading an easy summer read. I read right before bed and have found that deep books keep me awake. 😥 I love them but pay a price.
The tortured relationship between two friends of mine has me thinking I’m going to reread R. D. Laing’s “Politics of Experience” and see if it helps me sort them out (in my mind, not theirs). I last read it in my twenties and it helped me understand my parents and myself. We’ll see if it aged well. Sometimes when I reread or rewatch books or movies that I thought were revelations years ago I end up asking myself in embarrassment, what the hell was I thinking?
There's something to to be said for sleeping like crap -- I've read 28 books this years. I was binging on a lot of the political books, but got burned out, so I've been reading more fiction, including the Icelandic noir genre. Just finished "You Can't See Me" by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, the last of a 4-part series. Very atmospheric; read till 3 a.m. last night finishing it. OTH, I recently read "A Dance of Eagles and Dragons" By Evan Pedone, a political thriller. Incredible detail and insight into the military camps and technology of the US, Russia, and China, but I have never read a book with so many typos! And then, I recently finished "The Woman They Could Not Silence" by Kate Moore, about Elizabeth Packard, a lesser known, very outspoken feminist in the 1860s; she was institutionalized by her husband for speaking her mind and never stopped speaking out! My Kindle is absolutely packed!! I'll add Goodell's book to it!
I am reading “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. It is the heartbreaking (at least in the first half of the book) story of a Melungeon boy growing up in the mountains of southern Appalachia. The title is a takeoff on Dickens’s “David Copperfield”, but you’ll have to read the book to find out why. I absolutely love this book!
After several years of not reading due to the inability to focus, I've recently started again. In the past 2 weeks I've read Edie Windsor's "A Wild and Precious Life", "The Phantom of Fifth Avenue : The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark" (the definitive biography of Huguette Clark, who went from being one of the wealthiest and most famous Jazz Age socialites to spending the last twenty years of her life hiding out in hospitals. Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. Her father William Andrews Clark, was a copper magnate, the second richest man in America, and not above bribing his way into the Senate. Huguette attended the coronation of King George V. And at twenty-two with a personal fortune of $50 million to her name, she married a Princeton man and childhood friend William MacDonald Gower. Two-years later the couple divorced. After a series of failed romances, Huguette began to withdraw from society--first living with her mother in a kind of Grey Gardens isolation then as a modern-day Miss Havisham, spending her days in a vast apartment overlooking Central Park, eating crackers and watching The Flintstones with only servants for company. All her money and all her real estate could not protect her in her later life from being manipulated by shady hangers-on and hospitals that were only too happy to admit (and bill) a healthy woman. But what happened to Huguette that turned a vivacious, young socialite into a recluse? And what was her life like inside that gilded, copper cage?), and because the bizarre story of Huguette Clark sent me down a "Clark" wormhole, I'm now reading "Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune". I have about a dozen books on my Kindl that I need to tackle. I might not have been into reading, but I had no problem buying books! LOL
Just finished Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane, about a struggling Irish mom, who lives in a housing project in Southy. Her daughter goes missing and is implicated in the death Black man. This happens during the weeks leading to ordered school busing in Boston. It’s a great summer read.
Oh! I love his writing. That's on my list now.
You’ll love it.
Lehane’s “A Given Day” is one of my favorite fiction books. I’m surprised it hasn’t been turned into a mini series. I imagine someone has the rights.
Recently finished Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book,” an account of the devastating LA Public Library Fire in 1986 — and, by extension, an appreciation of all public libraries. Currently reading “The Heart Goes Last,” another Margaret Atwood dystopian novel, which — like “The Handmaid’s Tale” — seems sadly relevant now.
I loved "The Library Book," but haven't made it to "The Heart Goes Last" yet. How does Margaret Atwood just know?
Right?!
Margaret Atwood is on my favorite authors list along with Ursula K Le Guin (The Left Hand if Darkness), and Pearl S Buck just to name a couple. I started my favorite authors list when I was in the sixth grade and started reading Pearl S Buck books out of the school library.
I am enervated enough by all the accumulated years since 2016 that I'm a little careful not to read too much exhausting stuff at a time. I am currently in error.
I'm about a seventh of the way into Mike Pompeo's Never Give an Inch, and he may be the very worst person I've ever read a book by. The more so that he's a skilled writer in his way. Bombastic but with flow, and an accustomed practicioner of the Gish gallop, including its under-appreciated yet even more effective aspect in which the perp doesn't just spout fallacious or de-contextualied facts, but implicitly shifts ground from one contested/problematic framing to another, un-narrated. He's also extremely and explicitly pro-aggression, personal and national.
I am nearly done with Lauren Boebert's memoir. It's much less well-written, but I just finished the most skillful of her chapters-- one that I think must come from speeches she's accustomed to make. Again, the Gish gallop, though more purely recitative and less shapely.
I audioread Mike Pence's So Help Me God in the spring and was struck by something obvious: politician-authored books are primarily presentations of persona intended to attract votes. (Mike Pence is The Grave Judicious Even-Handed Daddy. And a surprisingly good writer.)
When I've finished the Boebert I will be starting either Brandi Collins-Dexter's Black Skinhead or Sarah Kendzior's They Knew. Either of those is a psychological bad choice. Good leftie stuff is notably more intense than rightie stuff.
Does Boebert’s book come with a box of crayons? 😎
A snack and a nap blankie too perhaps?
And a diaper, I hope.
Yeezus Mary Ann! Are you planning on going undercover for the next election?
I know. I worry that the dreams along would be bad.
Immediately after 2016 election results I stopped listening to audiobooks and doing Pimsleur while I drove and listened NPR. I read more national news stories than had ever been my wont*. I prefer not to be snuck up on. And while I can't do *much* I feel a citizenly and humanitarian duty to do what I can to preserve civil rights and national decency and sanity and sustainability, and felt it was more intensely under attack than I'have ever before experienced. I'm slightly more vigilant than I ws, though I've felt able to relax a bit since January 21, 2023.
* I had never been and still am not one to read coverage of the same stuff without different informational or framing angles.
Nope, but since 2016 I've read a shocking number of Trump administration and non-Trump GOP books. I've learned a lot. Pretty much all gruesome.
The thing that's been the most valuable and most horrific to me has been learning that today's Republicans tend to believe implicitly that all USians regard Republicans as the responsible and moral party/ones. I'm not sure I'll ever stop boggling. But as soon as I read that I could perceive it underlying So Much.
I've read a lot of books about Trump but that's as far as I can push myself...
For more on the Gish gallop: https://speakingofresearch.com/2012/09/11/gish-gallop/
I’m not sure I’d be able to sleep at night after reading this. I’m already having horrific nightmares just watching the weather. I calm my anxiety by letting God know how grateful I am that I live in New England! But then I suffer guilt that I live in New England ??
Between the millions suffering in the heat dome in North America and the Canadian wildfires and the extreme heat being reported even out of China it brings me an image that the world is on fire. Then there’s the flooding and I’m looking for Noah’s ark. But I am safe for the moment. More guilt.
But climate change is a HOAX?
Right. A well-documented "hoax."
I'm listening to The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. I don't follow Oprah's Book Club but I did see that she called this one of the best books she's ever read which got my attention. The audio version is 31 hours long. Luckily the narration is excellent.
Phew. That's a commitment but I'll put this on my list.
A counselor we were seeing suggested “I Don’t Have To Make Everything All Better” which is written to offer principles to empower those of us struggling to make “everything better.”
I'm still in catch-up mode, just started Resurrection: Myth or Reality? by John Shelby Spong, published in 2009. I did take a break and read The Young Unicorns, by Madeline L'Engle, another "catching up" of oh so many books that I missed when they were first published. I'm finding it hard to get into any work of fiction these days--if it doesn't grab me in the first chapter or the first few pages, I drop it--but this one was short and sweet.
I'm that way with all books. Life's too short to struggle through bad prose. I read the Spong book but could probably go back and re-read it.
I will look for some of these books mentioned here. I recently finished The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Currently reading an easy summer read. I read right before bed and have found that deep books keep me awake. 😥 I love them but pay a price.
The tortured relationship between two friends of mine has me thinking I’m going to reread R. D. Laing’s “Politics of Experience” and see if it helps me sort them out (in my mind, not theirs). I last read it in my twenties and it helped me understand my parents and myself. We’ll see if it aged well. Sometimes when I reread or rewatch books or movies that I thought were revelations years ago I end up asking myself in embarrassment, what the hell was I thinking?
There's something to to be said for sleeping like crap -- I've read 28 books this years. I was binging on a lot of the political books, but got burned out, so I've been reading more fiction, including the Icelandic noir genre. Just finished "You Can't See Me" by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, the last of a 4-part series. Very atmospheric; read till 3 a.m. last night finishing it. OTH, I recently read "A Dance of Eagles and Dragons" By Evan Pedone, a political thriller. Incredible detail and insight into the military camps and technology of the US, Russia, and China, but I have never read a book with so many typos! And then, I recently finished "The Woman They Could Not Silence" by Kate Moore, about Elizabeth Packard, a lesser known, very outspoken feminist in the 1860s; she was institutionalized by her husband for speaking her mind and never stopped speaking out! My Kindle is absolutely packed!! I'll add Goodell's book to it!
I am reading “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. It is the heartbreaking (at least in the first half of the book) story of a Melungeon boy growing up in the mountains of southern Appalachia. The title is a takeoff on Dickens’s “David Copperfield”, but you’ll have to read the book to find out why. I absolutely love this book!
After several years of not reading due to the inability to focus, I've recently started again. In the past 2 weeks I've read Edie Windsor's "A Wild and Precious Life", "The Phantom of Fifth Avenue : The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark" (the definitive biography of Huguette Clark, who went from being one of the wealthiest and most famous Jazz Age socialites to spending the last twenty years of her life hiding out in hospitals. Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. Her father William Andrews Clark, was a copper magnate, the second richest man in America, and not above bribing his way into the Senate. Huguette attended the coronation of King George V. And at twenty-two with a personal fortune of $50 million to her name, she married a Princeton man and childhood friend William MacDonald Gower. Two-years later the couple divorced. After a series of failed romances, Huguette began to withdraw from society--first living with her mother in a kind of Grey Gardens isolation then as a modern-day Miss Havisham, spending her days in a vast apartment overlooking Central Park, eating crackers and watching The Flintstones with only servants for company. All her money and all her real estate could not protect her in her later life from being manipulated by shady hangers-on and hospitals that were only too happy to admit (and bill) a healthy woman. But what happened to Huguette that turned a vivacious, young socialite into a recluse? And what was her life like inside that gilded, copper cage?), and because the bizarre story of Huguette Clark sent me down a "Clark" wormhole, I'm now reading "Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune". I have about a dozen books on my Kindl that I need to tackle. I might not have been into reading, but I had no problem buying books! LOL