Climbing Fitz Roy 1968 - Yvon Chouinard, et al 5 climbers who made third ascent of Mt. FitzRoy reminisce about the trip. The weather was terrible, they spent a total 21 days in an ice cave waiting for clear weather to reach the summit. Many beautiful photographs.
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured American, a fantastic book in which journalist Beth Macy writes about growing up in Urbana, Ohio in a poor home and in a working class town that in her day offered a way out of poverty (with the help of Pell grants, etc, in her case). Now? Urbana, and many of her family and classmates, are in a crisis that isn't helped at all by their Trumpiness, et. A bleak-ass book that is also really worth reading. The title refers to the her childhood where she delivered the local paper to about half the town. She went on to become a nationally known journalist, but in her home town, she's still the girl who delivered the paper to mom. Lot's of drugs in the community these days, lots of abuse and trauma, and of course, more than a little Q-Anon activity among people she would have thought wouldn't be susceptible.
Glitz - Elmore Leonard “‘Glitz’ may be the best crime novel of the year.” - Stephen King in 1985 https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/lifetimes/kin-r-glitz.html
I started this today as I have had it for a while. I have about ten books lined up, but have been way too friggin' busy. However, @soccernutter was discussing it in one of the P&CE threads this morning so it prompted me to get into it. It is very depressing, of course. Ms. Miller-Idriss deliberately avoids naming the men who carried out horrific acts against women. I appreciate that.
I have been reading books about extremism lately. Pretty much every book I have read in the past three or four years has pissed me off while reading it.
Robert E. Lee and Me - Ty Seidule The actual historical information in this is great. Unfortunately, the author far too often delves into pages of speculation and conjecture, even going to the point of sometimes admitting in advance that he has no evidence for his next section of the book. You could safely chop out about 60-70 of the 257 pages and get a much better read. This should have been great but was merely okay.
Star Spangled Jesus by April Ajoy. This is a story of Christian nationalism. I enjoy the Tim and April Show on YouTube. It's an interesting read.
Wanderers: A History of Women Walking, which is pretty self explanatory, though it's focus is primarily on women writers who were known to take some seriously long walks. Some of them I've heard of (Dorothy Wordsworth, Virginia Woolf, Nan Shephard, Cheryl Strayed) and others were new to me (Elizabeth Carter, Ellen Weeton, Harriet Martineau). Pretty decent book, and a pretty useful counter to the typical book which is about a guy undertaking a heroic walk which is made even more heroic by the profound insights that occur on the walk.
Just listened to them on "How Teens Get Indoctrinated to Christian Nationalism." Damn, they're great. And Star Spangled Jesus is in my local library.
The Last Step: The American Ascent of K2 - Rick Ridgeway Successful 1978 American expedition to K2, after several unsuccessful American expeditions since 1938.the book also discusses the dissension and conflicts among the climbers, which is quite interesting.
Average Joe: The Memoirs of a Blue-Collar Entertainer, which I saw on the returns shelf at the library and thought, why not, by obviously, Joe Piscopo with an assist by Walter Scott Lamb. The parts I was most interested in were interesting (his early work and especially the SNL years), Didn't know that he's become an active Trumper, but those parts were skimmable. The one thing I wasn't surprised about was his radio work, esp. his syndicated show "Sundays with Sinatra" which my brother listens to on Sundays when he does the cooking for the week. I've heard it a few times and. . . well, it's Sinatra. Not interested in his daily politics show. One of the things he mentioned regarding his work is that he always saw himself as a supporting actor. I went back and watched a lot of his old clips with Eddie Murphy and that's a pretty accurate statement; he allowed guys like Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams a chance to do great work.
Just finished it. It was exactly as expected. However, of all of the books on the subject of right wing extremism I have read over the past 5-6 years, this probably had the least substance to it, which was disappointing. Mostly a list of the horrible things that men and how male "culture" is permeated with toxicity and misogyny. A significant portion is devoted to Andrew Tate and his influence on young boys/men, but without really explaining who he is and how he became so influential. More than anything, it seemed "rushed" and lacked much of the historical context that books of this ilk generally have. A pretty disappointing effort, especially for a scholar who spent over two decades investigating the subject. I believe that I have, but have not yet read, her first book, Blood and Culture. I will still check it out if I have it.
I loved this one, may have to re-read it. Have you read The Yiddish Policemn's Union? Only other book I have read by him, I liked it very much. Finally finished this one, great history of the Eastern Front in WWI I think I might get "The Night Manager" from the library next. I had started it ages ago but life got in the way of reading it and I put it down.
I read an advanced copy of that a few months ago, and reviewed it (favorably!) for an ALA publication. I concur--it's a great history. I need to read his earlier history of the Western Front and look forward to the projected final volume of the trilogy, which IIRC will be about the non-European theaters of the war.
So cool! I didn’t know he had a Western Front book as well. Will have to find it. Heard about this one from The Rest is History podcast.
I've needed some lighter reading recently, and went with Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove. It's a Sci-Fi novel about a ship's AI trying (and often failing) to keep its human passengers alive when various monsters book passage. It was fun; I recommended it to my wife for an audio book listen.
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation an excellent history by Calvin College historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez. The subtitle captures the book really well.
This one is in my stack to read (hopefully this year). Calvin University (switched a few years ago) is one of the more interesting places in the US for producing a large number of diversely important/influential people. Everything from the Huizenga and DeVos families to philosopher theologians like Alvin Plantinga and Peter Kreeft.