The past few years, I’ve read or re-read at least one Faulkner novel every summer. This year (so far) it was Pylon. He wrote it quickly while struggling with Absalom, Absolam! and it was based on his own experience flying in New Orleans. Minor work in the canon but he was firing on all cylinders in the mid-30’s so it’s definitely worth checking out.
While you're at it, you might want to add "The History of Physical Culture" by Conor Heffernan. He details the full history of the idea and includes a discussion of Eugen Sandow in it. Heffernan did a podcast interview about the book with Brett McKay last year that was really interesting.
It Looked Like Forever – Mark Harris The fourth and final Henry Wiggens book. “Oh, that big future. I should of enjoyed it more while I was doing it. Instead, I was always looking ahead, and now the future is the past.”
Some subjects I am interested in but not enough to take a deep dive, and for those, a book by a columnist/blogger (as opposed to an investigative journalist or subject expert) can often hit the mark. Case in point: Amanda Martell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. In four sections, she briefly death cults, controlling religions, MLMs, and workout influencers in turn, with the bulk of each section given over to consideration of the kind of language each one uses to craft unity and then absolute loyalty. Side note: for some fields, I think no education is necessarily required to be considered a specialist in something, for others, a bachelors, others a masters, and some a doctorate. "Linguist" is one I would expect - like "Economist" or "Historian" - to refer to someone with an advanced degree (unlike, say, an accountant (BA) or farmer (none). Montell has a BA in linguistics from NYU but that seems to fall short (to me) of what makes one a linguist? My own bias is showing.
I would agree. However, exercise influencers are a thing I follow (mostly to make sure my bullshit detector is fully functioning), AND the book is available on Kindle Unlimited, so I'll be checking it out.
I just added the audiobook to my Libby account at the library. Looks like something interesting, but not interesting enough to actually purchase.
Maud is perhaps an unlikely serial killer - 88 years old and so not as adventurous as others - but she's an effective one. This series of five short stories set in Sweden is pretty fun, and somehow you root for Maud. An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good, by Helene Tursten.
Just started this today, about 1/3 of the way through. Katherine Stewart's new book is an in-depth(ish) look into the money behind the anti-democracy, Christian Nationalism movement. It is a bit all over the place, but I suspect it will begin to come together as it continues.
About @ year ago, I read a couple of books, Key Thinkers of the Radical Right and War For Eternity, about Nationalist movements around the world. Basically, “finding a rich old guy” to be a patron is a dream for all the guys who want to be players in the movement.
It is my current obsession in reading. It started with Jane Mayer's Dark Money and went from there. The first couple of chapters is basically about "Well there a bunch of rich old guys (and women)" to fund this crap, including several I did not know. I want a rich guy on the left to do that.
Once upon a time, this was cutting edge: Hubris - The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by David Corn and Michael Isikoff. It came out in 2006 so that it's old hat isn't its fault. I picked it up off one of the end-of-Spring-semester "take one they're free" piles that appear in many academic buildings. And good news for me: the pile is still there so I can return it now that I am done! Great cover photo too.
The Book of Revelation: A Biography, another book in the "Lives of Great Religous Books" series by Princeton University Press. I read the one about Genesis last month, which is pretty good. Then I tried Exodus, which was not. However, Timothy Beal has a pretty good entry in the series with Revelation. It helps that the book his, for obvious reasons, generated A LOT of looney-toon interpretations.
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster - Dana Thomas Published in 2007, this is a look at the history of most of the major brands and products of the luxury industry, where it had gone with mass marketing and cheaper products in the 80s and 90s, the emerging markets of India, China, and Russia, and the rise of the truly couture experience again in the early 00s. It's 346 pages, but rarely dull. She's got a newer book continuing on the topic, but I doubt I'll get to it anytime soon.
I read the section on exercise. Not bad at all. Glad to see none of the strength and conditioning guys I follow on YouTube exhibit any cult like tendencies in their advocacy for their approaches. Concur. I don’t see what is wrong with Journalist or Free Lance Writer. Besides, a fair amount of her analysis is closer to rhetoric than to linguistics. A memoir by Dana Gioa, a poet whos3 poetry I don’t like, but who is an excellent and entertaining critic, essayist and memoirist.