Tomes to take on your staycation
Friday, July 25, 2008
By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
We're deep into summer and way past the time for recommended reading lists for a lot of folks.
Many of you have already gone to the beach (or stayed in your back yard) and consumed your mass-market paperbacks without any help from me.
In any case, here's a list of books I'm either currently juggling or have finished in the last few months or so.
It may be a day late and a dollar short, but you can always clip it out to use as a bookmark.
Tuesday's column will be my hit parade of recommended music.
"Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War" by Joe Bageant.
This is a book I wish I had read before the contentious Democratic primaries. It would have stopped me from making disparaging remarks about Hillary Clinton's appeal among the white working class.
Before Mr. Bageant's book, I had a typical liberal's understanding of America's small towns and its people. This book is an eye-opener for those of us who have been far too dismissive of these voters. It should be required reading for the Obama campaign if they one day hope to win the working-class vote and govern all of America.
?
"The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals" by Jane Mayer.
Books about the Bush administration's contempt for civil liberties could fill a wing of the average library. Still, few tomes are as riveting or damning as Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side."
Ms. Mayer guides us through the shadow lands of American politics to the lair of Dick Cheney and his dark companion David Addington as they conspire to make the unthinkable national policy. This is a book about a traumatized nation's willingness to allow its highest ideals to be hijacked by ideologues. It casts an unsentimental light on torture, our march to war in Iraq and the lies that continue to strangle our democracy. Essential reading.
?
"Ex Machina: The Deluxe Edition"[/B] by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris.
I'm a relative newcomer to the cult of "Ex Machina," one of the finest comic book series ever and the most intriguing since Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" two decades ago. Mitchell Hundred, a civil engineer, finds an alien artifact in New York Harbor that zaps him and gives him the ability to control the technology around him.
His career as a superhero is short-lived when he abandons vigilantism to run for mayor of New York as a Democrat. Trying to govern post-9/11 New York with all of its labyrinthine politics is more difficult than he ever imagined. "Ex Machina: The Deluxe Edition" reprints the first 11 issues of the series in hardback. Read it before Hollywood discovers and ruins it.
?
"Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America" by Rick Perlstein.
Richard Nixon was not the nicest president of the last century, but he is without a doubt the most fascinating. Historian Rick Perlstein unveils Richard Nixon in all of his contradictory shades as both a creature of his tumultuous times and skillful manipulator of the white working class he dubbed "the Silent Majority." This is a book of astonishing depth and breadth.
?
"Moyers on Democracy" by Bill Moyers.
Need I say more? The great Bill Moyers' most eloquent speeches of the last decade, collected in one place.
?
"Dreaming Up America" by Russell Banks.
The great novelist turns essayist with this collection of meditations on American identity as experienced through the prism of our divergent histories and our great art. There's something guaranteed to startle you on every page.
?
"Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II"[/B] by Brendan I. Koerner.
One of the strangest stories of the "Good War" involved Herman Perry, a mentally unbalanced and drug addicted black soldier stationed in South Asia who shot an unarmed white superior officer before high-tailing it into the Indo-Burmese jungle.
Perry "went native" and integrated into a society of headhunters where he was revered as "The Jungle King" and given the chief's daughter in marriage. Meanwhile the American military was closing in on the erratic fugitive.
?
"Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" by Chuck Klosterman.
Stumbling across this hilarious and erudite collection of essays on popular culture was one of the most fortunate whims of my life.
Chuck Klosterman writes with irony-drenched geekiness about everything from "The Real World," Billy Joel and the videogame Sims to serial killers, the Lakers/Celtics rivalry and the "Left Behind" series. Imagine a Dave Barry who is too hip for the room and you have Chuck Klosterman.
Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.
First published on July 25, 2008 at 12:00 am
Friday, July 25, 2008
By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
We're deep into summer and way past the time for recommended reading lists for a lot of folks.
Many of you have already gone to the beach (or stayed in your back yard) and consumed your mass-market paperbacks without any help from me.
In any case, here's a list of books I'm either currently juggling or have finished in the last few months or so.
It may be a day late and a dollar short, but you can always clip it out to use as a bookmark.
Tuesday's column will be my hit parade of recommended music.
"Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War" by Joe Bageant.
This is a book I wish I had read before the contentious Democratic primaries. It would have stopped me from making disparaging remarks about Hillary Clinton's appeal among the white working class.
Before Mr. Bageant's book, I had a typical liberal's understanding of America's small towns and its people. This book is an eye-opener for those of us who have been far too dismissive of these voters. It should be required reading for the Obama campaign if they one day hope to win the working-class vote and govern all of America.
?
"The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals" by Jane Mayer.
Books about the Bush administration's contempt for civil liberties could fill a wing of the average library. Still, few tomes are as riveting or damning as Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side."
Ms. Mayer guides us through the shadow lands of American politics to the lair of Dick Cheney and his dark companion David Addington as they conspire to make the unthinkable national policy. This is a book about a traumatized nation's willingness to allow its highest ideals to be hijacked by ideologues. It casts an unsentimental light on torture, our march to war in Iraq and the lies that continue to strangle our democracy. Essential reading.
?
"Ex Machina: The Deluxe Edition"[/B] by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris.
I'm a relative newcomer to the cult of "Ex Machina," one of the finest comic book series ever and the most intriguing since Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" two decades ago. Mitchell Hundred, a civil engineer, finds an alien artifact in New York Harbor that zaps him and gives him the ability to control the technology around him.
His career as a superhero is short-lived when he abandons vigilantism to run for mayor of New York as a Democrat. Trying to govern post-9/11 New York with all of its labyrinthine politics is more difficult than he ever imagined. "Ex Machina: The Deluxe Edition" reprints the first 11 issues of the series in hardback. Read it before Hollywood discovers and ruins it.
?
"Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America" by Rick Perlstein.
Richard Nixon was not the nicest president of the last century, but he is without a doubt the most fascinating. Historian Rick Perlstein unveils Richard Nixon in all of his contradictory shades as both a creature of his tumultuous times and skillful manipulator of the white working class he dubbed "the Silent Majority." This is a book of astonishing depth and breadth.
?
"Moyers on Democracy" by Bill Moyers.
Need I say more? The great Bill Moyers' most eloquent speeches of the last decade, collected in one place.
?
"Dreaming Up America" by Russell Banks.
The great novelist turns essayist with this collection of meditations on American identity as experienced through the prism of our divergent histories and our great art. There's something guaranteed to startle you on every page.
?
"Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II"[/B] by Brendan I. Koerner.
One of the strangest stories of the "Good War" involved Herman Perry, a mentally unbalanced and drug addicted black soldier stationed in South Asia who shot an unarmed white superior officer before high-tailing it into the Indo-Burmese jungle.
Perry "went native" and integrated into a society of headhunters where he was revered as "The Jungle King" and given the chief's daughter in marriage. Meanwhile the American military was closing in on the erratic fugitive.
?
"Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" by Chuck Klosterman.
Stumbling across this hilarious and erudite collection of essays on popular culture was one of the most fortunate whims of my life.
Chuck Klosterman writes with irony-drenched geekiness about everything from "The Real World," Billy Joel and the videogame Sims to serial killers, the Lakers/Celtics rivalry and the "Left Behind" series. Imagine a Dave Barry who is too hip for the room and you have Chuck Klosterman.
Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.
First published on July 25, 2008 at 12:00 am
