2005 reads.
The 10 best things I read in 2005:
1) Politics -- Hendrik Hertzberg.
Hertzberg is the only writer in America who fully appreciates the tragi-comedy of American liberalism and of the Democratic Party: its frustrations, its challenges, its contradictions, its enduring, messy importance. His writing is warm, knowing, skeptical, never cynical. "The Child Monarch", "Talking Points", "Flagellation", "Northern Light", "Eppur Si Muove" and "Blues" are essays beyond compare anywhere, anytime. When I lent Politics to a friend last year, I missed it so much that the night I got it back a couple of months later, I just sat on his bed and read passages to the assembled 20- and 30-somethings in the room. I dip in every now and then; it's like taking snuff, but for partisan liberals. My toes curl with pleasure every time.
2) Shake Hands with the Devil -- Romeo Dallaire
Harrowing, meticulous, frontline account of the diplomatic mess, historical tensions and amazing cruelty of purpose that led to the Rwandan genocide. And that's only the first half of the book -- then there's the genocide itself. Dallaire is so quintessentially Canadian and so quintessentially military, he leaves you with a profound sense of why a strong military and a strong, purposeful UN is necessary in this world, and why people everywhere have to be and deserve to be protected from the worst of ourselves.
3) Before the Storm -- Rick Perlstein
Raucous, obsessive, jam-packed with details account of the underbelly of the 60s, the Goldwater phenomenon and the birth of the modern rightwing backlash in the US. Perlstein writes history like somebody who truly loves the stuff. Goldwater himself remains somewhat of an enigma I thought, but the portraits of the other big pols of the ear -- LBJ, the Kennedy brothers, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller -- are counterintuitive and fascinating. What's really amazing is how little has changed: the right was just as crazy back then as it is now, maybe more so, and the appeal of the "sensible" center just as strong and just as (or more) chemerial. Walter Lippman was very much the David Broder of his day.
4) The Roaring Nineties -- Joseph Stiglitz
Who knew neoliberal economists could write like this?! The Roaring Nineties is both a ferocious condemnation of the Clinton Administration (all the more so because of Stiglitz' obvious affection for its principle members and total lack of stereotypical lefty naiveity) and a polemic on what the New Democrats could have achieved (and could achieve in the future) had they stayed true to themselves. Plus, Stiglitz makes the stock market bubble, the accounting scandals, the economic effects of fiscal policy, market failure and voodoo economics completely accessible and understandable for lay people. He's a terrific counterpoint to Larry Summers or Eric Engle (no equivalence intended; Summers at least votes right). And he certainly makes me feel better about economics.
5) His Dark Materials -- Philip Pullman
I wrote a long critical review of this fascinating triligy when I first read it here. The first of the three books is so precise, elegant, richly imagined and humanistic that it makes it more of a letdown when things get a bit sloppier later on. The death of God in the third book is truly unforgetable, though I could have done without all the icky euphemistic 12-year-old sex at the very end. Still, it's definitely worth reading, particularly with the Narnia stories back in vogue -- Pullman is essentially right to consider himself the anti-Lewis, though it's an open question which one is preferable. In terms of being a kids book, the carnage is more intense in Pullman's books, but the morality is a lot less rigid.
6) Assissination Vacation -- Sarah Vowell
I luuuuuv Sarah Vowell. Assissination Vacation, (don't be put off by the too-precious introduction) is actually much better that The Partly Cloudy Patriot, her 2002 book of essays in defence (I thought) of identity politics and the indignities of being a liberal in Dubya's America -- though that's great too. By now, she's graduated to pure outrage with Bush, and she weaves that in with the sort of America history lessons you can gobble down like ice cream. She's right too: the Spanish American War, not the Vietnam War, is the best parallel to the Iraq conflict. At least she convinces me that's the case.
7) Barney's Version -- Mordecai Richler
I swore off CanLit a few years ago. Thanks to Lyda and the Kits book club, I made an exception to read Richler's last novel before his death (about dying, and about life and about the vagueries of perception). It's the sort of book you appreciate more having finished and contemplated for awhile, but you feel like a more complete person for having read it. I love books like that.
8) The Emerging Democratic Majority -- John Judis and Ruy Teixiera
A must-read for political junkies I'd only finally got around to reading. I'm not totally convinced, but not totally unconvinced either.
9) What I Loved -- Siri Hustvedt
The only sleep-through-the-eight-thirty-class-because-you-were-up-all-night-and-couldn't-stop-reading-even-though-your-arms-were-numb-from-leaning-on-them-in-bed book I read this year. It's fluffy I guess, but I'm a sucker for this sort of elegantly-told tearjerker.
10) The Agenda -- Bob Woodward
I thought I'd put this on the list given Woodward's recent fall from grace. All his problems are on evidence: the insiderism, the total apparent lack of policy knowledge (this is the story of how the new Clinton Administation passed its 1993 budget -- the EITC increase, the progressive centerpiece of the budget, doesn't get mentioned until the last chapter, and only then because Gene Sperling talks about it at a party). James Fallows wrote a smart criticism of the book in real time, archived here that pretty much sums it all up. Still, for Washington scuttlebutt and an account of the tensions running through an inexperienced liberal-noeliberal Administration, it's hard to beat, especially if, like me, you have a ridiculous affinity for Clinton Admin retrospectives. What was surprising to me was who the sympathetic characters were: Sperling is the hero of the story; George Stephanopoulos and Lloyd Bensen also come off well.
Also, 5 books I was less impressed with:
1) Reinventing Democrats -- Kenneth Baer
The introduction, a historical discussion of American ideological movements, is invaluable, and I really liked Baer's TAP column during the election. But I bought Reinventing Democrats because I was sick of seeing the DLC being smacked around by Internet lefties and thought there must be more to the story. I expected to feel more sympathetic to them after reading Baer's account, but actually ended up feeling less so, maybe because he never convinces me that the DLC was necessary or that it was actually concerned with anything but pushing southern conservatives to the party's fore. Good God -- the DLC actually wanted to nominate Sam Nunn for the presidency? Chuck Robb was bad enough, but pro constitutional-ban-on-abortion Sam Nunn? Maybe Kos is right.
2) Harry Potter and Whatever it Was This Time
Yes, I read it in four days and, yes, it was a bit better than the fifth book. And if my friend's intriguing theory about what really happened during the final scene when Snape kills Dumbledore pans out, I'll reconsider my negativity. But the magic is wearing off fast at this point.
3) Never Let Me Go -- Kazuo Ishiguro
Except for The Unconsoled, Ishiguro's books are all good and so is Never Let Me Go, a fable of sorts about cloning or apartheid or just the horrible possibilities of modern society. It's elegant and more completely realised and disciplined than When We Were Orphans. But it's not realistic enough to be devastating. And in the end, there just didn't seem to be much to take from it.
4) Still Life with Woodpecker -- Tom Robbins
I could have written a great undergrad essay about how this book anticipates the transition from the movement decades of the 60s and 70s to the hedonistic era of the 80s and 90s. Is it a sin to find Robbins' prose so damn annoying it overshadows all else? I don't know, and plenty of people disagree with me anyway; but I'm still recovering from the extremely graphic Ralph Nader sex scene at about the one-third mark. Yes, it was published in 1980, but some things really don't improve with time.
5) You Have the Power -- Howard Dean
Dean was my candidate in 2003 and, despite his loose-lipped ways (and partly because of them), he's the perfect guy to head the DNC while the Dems don't hold the White House. My guess is that history will remember him kindly because he'll be Chair when the Dems break their record of losing the popular Congressional vote in 2006 and regain some seats. I looked forward to You Have the Power, which made the result doubly disappointing -- basically like the long version of Dean's speech to the DNC in July, equal parts braying and platitudes. Remembering him in those early debates in 2003 or his round table discussions on The Editors, the man who balanced all those budgets, brought health care to Vermont and wrote that letter urging Clinton to intervene to stop the genocide in Bosnia... my only thought was how that guy was so much smarter than the guy who wrote this book.
1) Politics -- Hendrik Hertzberg.
Hertzberg is the only writer in America who fully appreciates the tragi-comedy of American liberalism and of the Democratic Party: its frustrations, its challenges, its contradictions, its enduring, messy importance. His writing is warm, knowing, skeptical, never cynical. "The Child Monarch", "Talking Points", "Flagellation", "Northern Light", "Eppur Si Muove" and "Blues" are essays beyond compare anywhere, anytime. When I lent Politics to a friend last year, I missed it so much that the night I got it back a couple of months later, I just sat on his bed and read passages to the assembled 20- and 30-somethings in the room. I dip in every now and then; it's like taking snuff, but for partisan liberals. My toes curl with pleasure every time.
2) Shake Hands with the Devil -- Romeo Dallaire
Harrowing, meticulous, frontline account of the diplomatic mess, historical tensions and amazing cruelty of purpose that led to the Rwandan genocide. And that's only the first half of the book -- then there's the genocide itself. Dallaire is so quintessentially Canadian and so quintessentially military, he leaves you with a profound sense of why a strong military and a strong, purposeful UN is necessary in this world, and why people everywhere have to be and deserve to be protected from the worst of ourselves.
3) Before the Storm -- Rick Perlstein
Raucous, obsessive, jam-packed with details account of the underbelly of the 60s, the Goldwater phenomenon and the birth of the modern rightwing backlash in the US. Perlstein writes history like somebody who truly loves the stuff. Goldwater himself remains somewhat of an enigma I thought, but the portraits of the other big pols of the ear -- LBJ, the Kennedy brothers, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller -- are counterintuitive and fascinating. What's really amazing is how little has changed: the right was just as crazy back then as it is now, maybe more so, and the appeal of the "sensible" center just as strong and just as (or more) chemerial. Walter Lippman was very much the David Broder of his day.
4) The Roaring Nineties -- Joseph Stiglitz
Who knew neoliberal economists could write like this?! The Roaring Nineties is both a ferocious condemnation of the Clinton Administration (all the more so because of Stiglitz' obvious affection for its principle members and total lack of stereotypical lefty naiveity) and a polemic on what the New Democrats could have achieved (and could achieve in the future) had they stayed true to themselves. Plus, Stiglitz makes the stock market bubble, the accounting scandals, the economic effects of fiscal policy, market failure and voodoo economics completely accessible and understandable for lay people. He's a terrific counterpoint to Larry Summers or Eric Engle (no equivalence intended; Summers at least votes right). And he certainly makes me feel better about economics.
5) His Dark Materials -- Philip Pullman
I wrote a long critical review of this fascinating triligy when I first read it here. The first of the three books is so precise, elegant, richly imagined and humanistic that it makes it more of a letdown when things get a bit sloppier later on. The death of God in the third book is truly unforgetable, though I could have done without all the icky euphemistic 12-year-old sex at the very end. Still, it's definitely worth reading, particularly with the Narnia stories back in vogue -- Pullman is essentially right to consider himself the anti-Lewis, though it's an open question which one is preferable. In terms of being a kids book, the carnage is more intense in Pullman's books, but the morality is a lot less rigid.
6) Assissination Vacation -- Sarah Vowell
I luuuuuv Sarah Vowell. Assissination Vacation, (don't be put off by the too-precious introduction) is actually much better that The Partly Cloudy Patriot, her 2002 book of essays in defence (I thought) of identity politics and the indignities of being a liberal in Dubya's America -- though that's great too. By now, she's graduated to pure outrage with Bush, and she weaves that in with the sort of America history lessons you can gobble down like ice cream. She's right too: the Spanish American War, not the Vietnam War, is the best parallel to the Iraq conflict. At least she convinces me that's the case.
7) Barney's Version -- Mordecai Richler
I swore off CanLit a few years ago. Thanks to Lyda and the Kits book club, I made an exception to read Richler's last novel before his death (about dying, and about life and about the vagueries of perception). It's the sort of book you appreciate more having finished and contemplated for awhile, but you feel like a more complete person for having read it. I love books like that.
8) The Emerging Democratic Majority -- John Judis and Ruy Teixiera
A must-read for political junkies I'd only finally got around to reading. I'm not totally convinced, but not totally unconvinced either.
9) What I Loved -- Siri Hustvedt
The only sleep-through-the-eight-thirty-class-because-you-were-up-all-night-and-couldn't-stop-reading-even-though-your-arms-were-numb-from-leaning-on-them-in-bed book I read this year. It's fluffy I guess, but I'm a sucker for this sort of elegantly-told tearjerker.
10) The Agenda -- Bob Woodward
I thought I'd put this on the list given Woodward's recent fall from grace. All his problems are on evidence: the insiderism, the total apparent lack of policy knowledge (this is the story of how the new Clinton Administation passed its 1993 budget -- the EITC increase, the progressive centerpiece of the budget, doesn't get mentioned until the last chapter, and only then because Gene Sperling talks about it at a party). James Fallows wrote a smart criticism of the book in real time, archived here that pretty much sums it all up. Still, for Washington scuttlebutt and an account of the tensions running through an inexperienced liberal-noeliberal Administration, it's hard to beat, especially if, like me, you have a ridiculous affinity for Clinton Admin retrospectives. What was surprising to me was who the sympathetic characters were: Sperling is the hero of the story; George Stephanopoulos and Lloyd Bensen also come off well.
Also, 5 books I was less impressed with:
1) Reinventing Democrats -- Kenneth Baer
The introduction, a historical discussion of American ideological movements, is invaluable, and I really liked Baer's TAP column during the election. But I bought Reinventing Democrats because I was sick of seeing the DLC being smacked around by Internet lefties and thought there must be more to the story. I expected to feel more sympathetic to them after reading Baer's account, but actually ended up feeling less so, maybe because he never convinces me that the DLC was necessary or that it was actually concerned with anything but pushing southern conservatives to the party's fore. Good God -- the DLC actually wanted to nominate Sam Nunn for the presidency? Chuck Robb was bad enough, but pro constitutional-ban-on-abortion Sam Nunn? Maybe Kos is right.
2) Harry Potter and Whatever it Was This Time
Yes, I read it in four days and, yes, it was a bit better than the fifth book. And if my friend's intriguing theory about what really happened during the final scene when Snape kills Dumbledore pans out, I'll reconsider my negativity. But the magic is wearing off fast at this point.
3) Never Let Me Go -- Kazuo Ishiguro
Except for The Unconsoled, Ishiguro's books are all good and so is Never Let Me Go, a fable of sorts about cloning or apartheid or just the horrible possibilities of modern society. It's elegant and more completely realised and disciplined than When We Were Orphans. But it's not realistic enough to be devastating. And in the end, there just didn't seem to be much to take from it.
4) Still Life with Woodpecker -- Tom Robbins
I could have written a great undergrad essay about how this book anticipates the transition from the movement decades of the 60s and 70s to the hedonistic era of the 80s and 90s. Is it a sin to find Robbins' prose so damn annoying it overshadows all else? I don't know, and plenty of people disagree with me anyway; but I'm still recovering from the extremely graphic Ralph Nader sex scene at about the one-third mark. Yes, it was published in 1980, but some things really don't improve with time.
5) You Have the Power -- Howard Dean
Dean was my candidate in 2003 and, despite his loose-lipped ways (and partly because of them), he's the perfect guy to head the DNC while the Dems don't hold the White House. My guess is that history will remember him kindly because he'll be Chair when the Dems break their record of losing the popular Congressional vote in 2006 and regain some seats. I looked forward to You Have the Power, which made the result doubly disappointing -- basically like the long version of Dean's speech to the DNC in July, equal parts braying and platitudes. Remembering him in those early debates in 2003 or his round table discussions on The Editors, the man who balanced all those budgets, brought health care to Vermont and wrote that letter urging Clinton to intervene to stop the genocide in Bosnia... my only thought was how that guy was so much smarter than the guy who wrote this book.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home