Hmm, its been a while.
Lessee... books I've read (and actually remember) and other stuff of note mediawise.
The "Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards was a heavy read (not a big book but an emotional one about giving away a child during the 60's when kids with down's syndrome where thrown away like defective goods.)
"The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson is a great detective-style historical story (true story) about the cholera epidemics that swept through london in the 16-1800s. In particular it focuses on the worst one and how the people who solved the problem used visualization to understand and later communicate the real source of the epidemic to a world that did not want to acknowledge that they were stuck in their own orthodoxy (they all thought up to this point that you got cholera either because you weren't of strong moral fiber or because you were living at a low altitude... animacules where not really widely understood yet). What is really scary is that today there are still cholera outbreaks in india and the developing world. Secret solution back then? Well lets just say that the brewery workers where paid in beer and didn't get sick. Read it.
"What is the what" a new book by David Eggers (of "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" fame... if you didn't read that one read it). In "WITW" Dave does another kind of autobiography, this time for one of the lost boys of sudan. He and Valentino Achak Deng (one of the lost boys) carried on a multiyear conversation and then David wrote the book. Its called a novel but most of the stuff that happens actually happened to Deng or one of the other boys. Its a book worth reading. At times sad and funny, stark and oddly hopeful. It spans Valentino's early childhood in an idyllic dinka village and his long and grueling, unexpected, lucky, unlucky journey to America, and being tied up and robbed while minding his own business in his own apartment in Atlanta by not so friendly Americans. I'm not done with the book yet but I'm already enjoying the read.
David is also the creator of the best super hero supply company in brooklyn and a fine pirate supply shop in san franscisco and if you read a bunch you've also probably seen his McSweeney's Quarterly. He has also started up a creativity/writing program for kids aged 6-18 in New York (and now a few other cities) that is making me think that maybe I should try to get one started up in my town.
"Beasts of No Nation," by a 23 year old named Uzodinma Iweala who is a young american of african decent. Although he grew up in washington DC he captures the life of a child turned child soldier amazingly well. Its not explicitly set in the sudan or africa at all but reading both this book and "What is the What" together is probably about all I can read on this subject for a while. Its pretty good for a debut novel with a unique voice and a heartbreaking message. Maybe a bit overhyped.
"The Town that Forgot How to Breath" by Kenneth J. Harvey is a ghost story about electromagnetic disturbances, a sleepy newfoundland port town and the people who have lost their lives to the water. Its a fun little book to read around halloween.
"This I Believe" was produced back in the mid century by Edward R. Murrow and has been brought back by NPR with a companion book that is a must read. He started the project as a daily series of 5 minute radio segments by famous people about what they believed. Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Heinlein and hundreds of other participants took a brief moment out of their lives to talk, in a positive way, about what they believed. After listeners complained that they didn't hear from any regular joes the series expanded to include teachers, dockworkers, and other people from all walks of life. The series took off and became an international phenomenon. I think whats wonderful about this idea is that it was very simple and yet it revealed a great deal about the psyche of the time. Its interesting that the new book includes both 1950 and current essays and that it is very hard to tell the difference between the two. There is the same feeling of hopelessness about the current state of the world and the same sense of hope about what is good and right in the world. The website has all of the essays in a searchable database. Go. Now. Read one. Listen to NPR. Write one. They provide a nice respite from the day. I'd recommend one a day or at least one a week for the rest of our lives. It was originally started to become an antidote to the cycle of bad, horrible, unthinkable news that was then flooding the airwaves. its good that this antidote has been rediscovered.
A (rather long) clip from Edward R. Murrow's own essay/intro gives you a taste...
"We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion. A lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism, or a for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the marketplace, while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply. Around us all—now high like a distant thunderhead, now close upon us with the wet choking intimacy of a London fog—there is an enveloping cloud of fear....We don’t pretend to make this time a spiritual or psychological patent medicine chest where one can come and get a pill of wisdom to be swallowed like an aspirin, to banish the headaches of our time. This reporter’s beliefs are in a state of flux. It would be easier to enumerate the items I do not believe in, than the other way around. And yet, in talking to people, in listening to them, I have come to realize that I don’t have a monopoly on the world’s problems; others have their share, often far, far bigger than mine. This has helped me to see my own problems in truer perspective. And in learning how others have faced their problems, this has given me fresh ideas about how to tackle mine."
Heavy Rotation?
Idlewild by Outkast (from their new movie... which I haven't seen yet... uneven but worth listening to)
Til the Sun Turns Black Ray Lamontagne (kinda joe cocker meets jack johnson... really good, gotta go buy his older stuff)
Every Waking Moment... new Citizen Cope (maybe not quite as good as his first one but damn good)
Eraser by Thom Yorke (from Radiohead... basically sounds like radiohead)
Lemonade (nice G. Love mix with a bunch of songs with guest performers)
Game Theory by the Roots (Dave Chappelle's house band kills me)
Exit Music (covers of Radiohead songs by others... really good)
Just went and saw English Beat on Friday. Lets just say that if you need a little pick me up you should go read Edward R. Murrow's complete essay while listening to "mirror in the bathroom" and think about how lucky you are to be alive (well, that's what I'm gonna do).
