My January 2010 in Books

Haphazard Notes on Reading Books from January 2010

Books A View from Above by Wilt Chamberlain The Other Side of the River by Alex Kotlowitz The Book of Basketball By Bill Simmons The Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne Michelangelo & the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King Notes from Gaza by Joe Sacco

Events New Year’s Eve / Day “Project Project” Haiti Earthquake MLK Day USA Politics – MA Election / State of the Union Apple Tablet (iPad)

My 2009 in Reading

Here’s my reading list for 2009.  Looking back it’s been a good mix of topics and ideas, I put stars by particularly good reads.

Here’s looking forward to 2010!

February

• American Scripture: Making the Declaration of independence Pauline Maier
• ***That the world may know: Bearing Witness to Atrocity James Dawes

March

• The Book of Saladin Tariq Ali
• ***Running to Maputo (1990) Albie Sachs
• Off The Books: The Under ground economy of the Urban Poor Sudhir Venkatesh
• Harold! Photographs from the Harold Washington Years Muwakkil, et al

April

• The Rise of Barack Obama Pete Souza
• ***The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid & International Charity Michael Maren
• ***Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee

May

• You Shall Know Our Velocity! Dave Eggers
• ***Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America Paul Tough
• On Chesil Beach Ian McEwan
• Genghis: Bones of the Hills Iggulden Conn
• Weep Not, Child Wa Thiong’o Ngugi
• ***A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki & the Future of the South African Dream Mark Gevisser

June

• The Book of Ralph John McNally
• Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence Geoffrey Canada

July

• ***Outliers Malcolm Gladwell

August

• Shakespeare Wrote for Money Nick Hornby
• The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey Salman Rushdie
• Hiroshima Notes Kenzaburo Oe
• The Waiting Country: A South African Witness Mike Nicol
• ***FAB: The coming revolution on your desktop Neil Gershenfeld

September

• Billions & billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium Carl Saganl
• The Dream: Martin Luther King JR and the Speech that Inspired a Nation Drew Hansen
• Unlucky Lucky Days Daniel Grandbois
• The Other Ryszard Kapuscinski
• Armageddon in Retrospect (2008) Kurt Vonnegut

October

• ***Zeitoun Dave Eggers
• Sound Unbound (Edited by DJ Spooky)

November

• ***How to Walk to School: Blueprint for a Neighborhood Renaissance Jacqueline Edelberg
• Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall Kazuo Ishiguro
• Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak
• Star Trek (2009) Alan Dean Foster
• Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

December

• ***Invictus: Nelson Mandela & The Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin

Science Fiction Shame (Remarks on another “Best of” List)

I’m more than a little ashamed that I haven’t read any of the books that i09 put on their “Best Science Fiction of the Last Decade” List.  I don’t have a good excuse for it, really, beyond the fact that I’ve been mired in the present happenings of technology this decade, and that in spite of my general love for the genre (I grew up on a steady diet of sci-fi) and generally voracious reading appetite, I simply didn’t make any time to go after any of the modern classics.

Certainly I’m aware of many of the highlights from this this list, both from their general impact on the culture (Harry Potter) or their critical acclaim (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Pattern Recognition, etcetera), but the shameful fact remains that I haven’t read any of them!

I suppose my reading list for next year is going to have to have a bit of a sci-fi lean to it
(mutters something about bring balance to the force I must, and shuffles off).

Here’s the list to check out again: i09’s list of Best Science Fiction Books of the Decade

The Economist’s Best of 2009 List

Sticking with the “Best of 2009″ theme, here’s the Economist’s Best of 2009 list.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’ve read any of these yet, but here are a few that sound intriguing to me:

• “The Idea of Justice. By Amartya Sen. Belknap Press; 496 pages; $29.95. Allen Lane; £25
  A commanding summation of the work of Amartya Sen, an Indian-born Nobel laureate, that focuses on economic reasoning and the elements and measurement of human well-being.”
• “It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower. By Michela Wrong. Harper; 368 pages; $25.99. Fourth Estate; £12.99
  A down-to-earth yet sophisticated exposé of how an entire country can be munched in the clammy claws of corruption and tribalism to ensure that those in power win the fattest share of the cake.”
• “When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment. By Mark Kleiman. Princeton University Press; 256 pages; $29.95 and £20.95
  America has one prisoner for every hundred adults—a rate unprecedented in American history and unmatched anywhere in the world. Brute-force crime control has been a costly mistake, both socially and financially. Mr Kleiman shows how smarter enforcement strategies are more successful and make existing budgets go further. An important book that deserves a wider readership.”
• “American Rust. By Philipp Meyer. Spiegel & Grau; 384 pages; $24.95. Simon & Schuster; £12.99 Set in America’s crumbling industrial heartland, Mr Meyer’s first novel is a paean to the end of empire—a book that is as painful as it is enjoyable.”
• “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. By Daniyal Mueenuddin. Norton; 249 pages; $23.95. Bloomsbury; £14.99
  A remarkable debut by a Punjabi writer who has gained plaudits from Mohsin Hamid and Salman Rushdie. A small book that reveals, in every detail, the extent to which life in Pakistan is dictated as much by whom you know as what you do.”

On the Sem Coop’s Best of 2009

My local independent bookstore, the Seminary Co-Op / 57th Street Books announced their “Best of 2009” list this week.  Check it out!

Unfortunately, I haven’t read any of their recommended books yet, although I do have Nick Hornby’s latest on order at the Chicago Public Library.

Besides Hornby’s book, the other books they listed that caught my eye were “Green Metropolis” which seems to be arguing for population density (i.e. urban living) as an environmental good and David Byrne’s “The Bicycle Diaries“.

What Book Are You? (AKA Internet Quizzes are Never Wrong)

If internet quizzes defined us as books then… I’m…

You’re Shogun!
by James Clavell
Complicated and sophisticated, you lead a most interesting and adventurous life. You can’t help but wonder if you’re just repeating history, though a good deal of the events you experience feel unique or quirky in their own way that couldn’t possibly have been done before. Nevertheless, you feel strongly that your life is tied to some destiny, some fate larger than the church, ninjas, or even the complicated morass you’ve run aground on. In the end, you know you can never escape. Though you find football to be somewhat undignified, you root for the Atlanta Falcons when forced to watch it.

Take the Book Quiz II at the Blue Pyramid.

Hat Tip to Pete Lit for this one.

Best Books of the Decade?

I don’t believe we’ve already reached this year’s season of lists, much less that we’ve reached the point where “Best Blanks of the Decade” lists are being circulated.  But, as Pete Lit points out, we’ve already got the Times Online UK’s Best Books of the Decade list to ponder.  For the most part, I think ranked lists of literature like this are only useful in establishing what books are well regarded generally, and not useful in any comparative sense. So #98 is not necessarily much “worse” than #12.  Still, I have to admit that I’m always interested (from a cultural literacy standpoint) in finding out what’s what.

Here are the books from the the Times UK list that I’ve read, and a quick comment:

• #89 The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie (2008) – Certainly the best book of Rushdie’s from the past decade.
• #81 The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud (2006) — A meditation on morality that leaves you liking almost none of the characters.
• #50 No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein (2000) – Klein is very persuasive & thorough in looking at the psychology of branding and corporate identity formation (her subsequent books on economics are nowhere near as solid)
• #44 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (2005) — Uchicago prof makes you go hm…
  
• #33 Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan (2004) — I was stunned by how good Chronicles was.  The distinctness of Dylan’s voice and the uniqueness of the literary style made this a thoroughly enjoyable read.
• #24 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005) – Ishiguro steps lightly into the world of science fiction with magnificent results.
• #20 White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000) — Eventhough the story fell apart in the end, Smith’s pacing and voice was fresh.
• #12 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000) – I didn’t much like AHWOSG when I read it in 2001, but have loved everything else by Eggers that I’ve read since then.  Makes me want to revisit this book.
• #6 The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (2000) –  Gladwell’s gift is his engaging writing-style and the fresh perspective he brings to most topics.   He’s often guilty of over-simplification, and of ignoring established disciplines when they don’t suit him, but he always makes you think.
• #3 Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (2004) – A great book that was really released in 1995, Obama would have been lauded as a great writer had he not ventured into American politics.
• #2 Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003) — A remarkably good graphic novel, packed with much more history than the film version.

The rest of these are on my “to read” shelf or a wish list of some variety

• #1 The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) – I’ve been meaning to read this for a year now, and am now going to wait until we get to the desolate part of the Chicago winter
• #98 Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2007) — want to read
• #54 Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (2003) — Bought, traded away, still want to read
  
• #32 Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002) – On my waiting to read shelf at home
• #28 The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (2007) – On my waiting to read shelf at home
• #The plot against america by Philip Roth (2004) — On my waiting to read shelf at home
• #14 Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (2003) — On my waiting to read shelf at home

Open Books Chicago

open books chicago

Three Cheers for Open Books! This weekend was the grand opening of their downtown Chicago store (near the Chicago stop on the Brown Line train). Open Books is a non-profit bookstore with a wealth of energy & programming devoted to addressing the scourge of illiteracy while promoting a lively atmosphere for reading.

I made it out there on Saturday afternoon, and was impressed by the place and the energetic staff. If you’re in the chicagoland area, check them out!

Open Books Website:
http://open-books.org/

A New City Article about the Open Books ethos:
http://lit.newcity.com/2009/11/16/the-good-word-chicagos-open-books-arrives-with-a-mission/

“Where the Wild Things Are” — Sendak Vs. Jonze/Eggers

Maurice Sendark’s “Where the Wild Things Are” wasn’t a big book in my childhood, so I didn’t really have any reservations about it being turned into a film, beyond a technical fascination with how they were going to take a short children’s book and turn it into a 90 minute film.

I remarked elsewhere that the Spike Jonze / Dave Eggers film was “a really good movie, but it’s NOT a kids’ movie.  It replaces the whim­si­cal with the real, which is jar­ring…  no mat­ter how fan­tas­tic the locale or inven­tive the characters“.

Rereading Sendak’s original version this week, I’m struck by how wonderfully whimsical and sweet the original story was, and how strikingly bold the Jonze/Eggers reinterpretation was.

In 2005, I got an opportunity to hear Kazuo Ishiguro talk about what the relationship between a book and the film based upon the book ought to be.   I remember he said that he hoped that the film would be a good kinsman to the book, related and familiar, but unique in its way.    He also remarked that the distinctness of the media should be appreciated in some way, and that sometimes as a writer you want to write an un-filmable book (to avoid becoming just a screenwriter).

By this standard, the Sendak’s story was meant to be un-filmable, and would have remained so but for an imaginative modernization by Jonze / Eggers.  They changed the audience in order to make their film work, and replaced the whimsy that entertained the toddlers and young kids (and their parents), with a mature story about how our imaginations can help us overcome the many darknesses of the every day.

Plight of The Poors (South Africa)

Earlier this week, I went Ashraf Cassiem’s talk (notes) at the University of Chicago about the Western Cape’s Anti-Eviction Campaign (South Africa), and the plight of the poor in the developing world… where the term “privatization” now has all the airs of a modernized variant of “colonization”.

I can recommend (at least) two very different books about the plight of the poor in South Africa.

In 2007, I read “We Are the Poors” by Ashwin Desai which details efforts by community groups that work in a similar space as Cassiem’s, advocating for the poor in circumstances of evictions, water shortages, medicine shortages, and crime.  Desai’s book does a great job of conveying the extra-ordinariness of the way these groups band together, and to highlight the adversarial tone taken by the governments towards the poor.

A very different book is David Cohen’s “People Who Have Stolen from Me: Rough Justice in South Africa” which I read in 2005.  While really about the complex nature of crime as seen through the happenings in a furniture store in Johannesburg, Cohen touches upon all of the massive change, upheaval, and social injustices that factor in.  It’s clearly a much more nuanced picture of causes of crime than the caricatures you’ll find on the nightly news.