Once upon a time, I was a book blogger. I read books. I wrote about what I read. I read about what other book bloggers read. And I argued with my fellows about books. Mostly with From Couch to Moon. Because she sups upon the tears of her vanquished foes. Woe unto you, unsuspecting Heinlein fan, for From Couch to Moon is become death, destroyer of patriarchy.
I lost my momentum earlier this year. Life got in the way, as life does. Rare is the book blogger who remains steadfast in his or her dedication to the craft. Consider Battered, Tattered, Yellowed, & Creased. Not only has he been blogging for four years, but he also employs in his blog name the Oxford comma and an ampersand. Pleased with his grammatical choices, Chris reads pulps paperbacks whilst sitting upon the graveyard of American industry.
If one were to form an impression of my year’s reading based on my entries here, one might assume that I have given up on reading altogether, that I am even now dressed only in my skivvies, eating Lucky Charms out of a mixing bowl, and staring into the middle distance, a victim of la cafard. Quote Philip Caputo:
“…the battalion began to suffer from a spiritual disease called la cafard by the French soldiers when they were in Indochina. Its symptoms were occasional fits of depression combined with an inconquerable fatigue that made the simplest tasks, like shaving or cleaning a rifle, seem enormous.”
Or blogging. So many French soldiers gave up on their blogs while in Indochina. A real tragedy for social media.
But lo! I have been not been idle. No, indeed, I have been reading as ever. Permit me to share with you here some of the books I read over the course of the past few months. (This may or may not be a prelude to a return to active blogging.)
Fiction
The Waterworks, E. L. Doctorow
I read this after learning via a New York Times article that it’s one of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s favorite books. Solid historical fiction, but I wasn’t terribly impressed. If you’re looking to try Doctorow, stick with his masterpiece, Ragtime.
The Doors You Mark Are Your Own, Okla Elliott
This high-concept dystopian novel has received a lot of attention. I’m sorry to report to you that it’s bloated and its conceits a bit overdone.
Aleksandr Tuvim: Not his real name!
Wayward, Blake Crouch
Pines, Blake Crouch
The Last Town, Blake Crouch
Make no mistake: Black Crouch is by no means a writer of literary fiction. In the epigraph to Wayward, Crouch quotes Michael Crichton–an apt comparison. But let’s be honest; Crichton has his place. Sometimes you want candy, and that’s what Crouch gives you. And he’s really good at it. Crouch’s books may not be terribly deep, but they’re compulsively readable.
Ack-Ack Macaque, Gareth L. Powell
Great concept, poor execution. I preferred the original short story. But given its popularity, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.
Nonfiction
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, Jon Krakauer
How has it been 11 years? As always, Krakauer takes something worthy of an article and pads it into book-length. It held my attention, though.
How to Read, Eckhard Gerdes
No.
The Fellowship: Literary Lives of the Inklings: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski
I was so looking forward to this and am sad to report that I was a bit let down. A solid introduction to the Inklings, but nothing really new here, and I feel like the Zaleskis strained at times to make palatable to the modern reader the moral failings of Tolkien et al. (Look, people can be jerks and still do great things.)
The History of Last Night’s Dream: Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul, Rodger Kamenetz
Why do I do this to myself? No. Just no.
Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today’s Jewish Mystical Masters, Rodger Kamenetz
Do you speak Jewish? No? Then skip this one.
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, Kay Redfield Jamison
People love this book. Love it. Jamison is significant because she was open about mental health at a time when it wasn’t popular to do so–and it’s still a very important issue. Jamison is a skilled writer, but her prose is sometimes overwrought.
Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son, Peter Manseau
Eh. Didn’t need to be a book. Casual readers will find themselves bored to tears by Manseau’s detailed history of the mid-twentieth century American Catholic church.
One God Clapping: The Spiritual Path of a Zen Rabbi, Alan Lew
The late Alan Lew was a really interesting guy as well as a fantastic writer. Lew devotes most of One God Clapping to the decades he spent as a devotee of Zen Buddhism. Despite Lew’s inclinations–Buddhist, Jewish–there’s fodder here for anyone who considers themselves a seeker.
American Ghost: A Family’s Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest, Hannah Nordhaus
An entertaining if forgettable diversion into one American family’s history.
My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Ari Shavit
I highly recommend My Promised Land to anyone interested in understanding the Palestinian-Israeli impasse. Shavit, a Haaretz journalist, identifies defining moments in each decade of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, reporting with nuance and sympathy the motivations of Palestinians and Israelis. He also employs some truly outstanding turns of phrase, for instance, “For one long moment, he who is their Nebuchadnezzar wishes to be their Jeremiah.”
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, Bart D. Ehrman
Bart Ehrman is the New Testament scholar (and avowed agnostic) you never knew you wanted to read. Don’t start with this one, though, which is in part a recapitulation of his other popular works.
A Blue Hand: The Beats in India, Deborah Baker
A (sadly) somewhat dull travelogue of Allen Ginsberg’s 1962 trip to India, although it does include a truly excellent exchange between poet and student of Zen Gary Snyder and his wife, Joanne Kyger. I paraphrase: Gary: “Don’t you want to study Zen and learn to obliterate the ego?” Joanne: “What! After all the time it took to get one?!”
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
An examination of the collision of “traditional” Laotian culture with that of modern American medicine. The Laotians and their doctors not only speak different languages; they nearly exist in different worlds. The clinicians treat what they understand is a biological illness but what is, for the Laotians, a spiritual malady–and, perhaps, a gift. Also a pocket history of the Laotian people. Good stuff, this, but you need a strong attention span.
The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India, Rodger Kamenetz
It’s good enough, but unless you’re Jewish or Buddhist, you don’t need to read this one.
God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer, Bart D. Ehrman
I confess that I’m an Ehrman fan, indeed, a partisan, if you will. (He has his detractors both within and outside of the Academy.) The logic Ehrman employs in his examination of theodicy–the philosophical reconciliation of human suffering with the existence of God–is reductionist but compelling. Lest you fear that God’s Problem might be highfalutin, Ehrman writes in a clear and entertaining style fit for the layman. Probably among the best places to start for an introduction to Ehrman’s thought.
That’s me in the corner.
And? What next, you may ask? Shall I return to blogging? I’m not certain, but I admit that I’m tentatively leaning toward “yes,” with the caveat that my activity will appear much reduced compared to my previous efforts. I suspect that, were I to begin writing reviews now, I would schedule them to begin posting in late September or October, and on a weekly frequency. I’ve missed the conversation in which my blogging comrades and I once engaged. (Except for that with From Couch to Moon, she’s scary.) So a return seems likely, if not inevitable.
Books, Brains and Beer 