The Awakening - Kate Chopin “He could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”
If you have Amazon Prime, this book is $1.99 on Kindle The BAd Ass Librarians of Timbuktu https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010MHA7C6?_bbid=323115979&tag=bookbubemail1-20
If you're looking for an MLK biography, the most recent, by Jonathan Eig, is free on Kindle Unlimited. Highly recommend it.
The Chicago Race Riots, July, 1919 a collection of articles from a socialist newspaper authored by my Galesburg, Illinois homeboy, Carl Sandburg. Journalism being the first draft of history, much of his work has been superseded, but historians still assign this book. Shoutout to labor historian Paul Buhle for his excellent preface.
This Is Your Brain on Music was a fantastic read for me, as a music fan. But it’s also deeply interesting in terms of the science of memory, and human evolution. I learned a hell of a lot. My only caveat is the book is fairly old now, in the context of brain science. For all i know, many of the theories and assertions in the book have been overturned by newer science. Thanks!
Straight Up - James Ramsey Ullman The life and death of American climber John Harlin, who died on the Eiger in 1966.
It has. My college has a really good music therapy thread, and most of the students who’ve read it will have a professor instantly point out the book’s limitations. Luckily, most of the music therapy profs aren’t assholes, so they’ll also make it clear it’s good for the kids to have read it, and even recommend it to their friends who read, if they have any (friends with attention spans, that is). Eig’s MLK bio was one of the best biographies I’ve read in the past few years, incidentally.
A book I first heard of when Chesco United posted about it upthread... Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith, a book which covers ground pretty similar to that covered by Jesus and John Wayne, only from a more experiential basis. April Ajoy is a preacher's kid who discovered that that Christian Nationalism she was raised in, and rather obnoxiously advocated for throughout her life, has very little to do with Christianity, and is basically a form of idolatry that makes the Nation one's god. Damn fine book, so mucho gracias to @Chesco United for mentioning it.
Just finished it. It was highly entertaining. It is an excellent explanation how even most "True Christians" really are not true christians, as almost all are not following what the Jesus guy (allegedly) actually said. I really liked the way that he added context to various passages from the bible and the incredible danger christians taking select passages out of context. His humor is almost always right on, as well.
I especially liked how, nearly 99% of the time, "adding context" to the Bible passages involved, as you know, quoting the freaking Bible. I'll take the Christian Nationalists seriously the instant they get together and stone Trump on the grounds of his multiple adulterous relationships.
Well, they certainly could not stone him for picking up sticks (or otherwise working) on a Saturday! Oh, I take the Christian Nationalists very, very seriously.
I don’t know about your heretical Catholic Bible, but in the one, true Bible, the Protestant Bible, Jesus convinces the mob not to stone the adulteress woman.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. I saw the movie years ago, so I figured I'd read the book. It's a tale of a stay in a mental hospital with Nurse Ratched. Should be an interesting read.
I read that a good while ago. Usually after I see a movie I can separate out the filmed portrayals from the prose, but not in this book. Still worked out just fine; even the minor characters are fantastic in the film.
Why Sinatra Matters, not the first book about a Jersey-born musician I've read in the past few months by the great NY journalist Pete Hamill. The book involves Hamill borrowing from Sinatra's many biographies, and interspersing the basic details with his own memories of hanging out with Sinatra on many occasions. Sinatra, incidentally, played my mother-in-law's high school prom, when he was singing with Harry James' orchestra. Her prom card features autographs from James, "girl singer" Connie Haines, and of course, Frank Sinatra. Who, incidentally, saved his career by refusing James' request to sing under a less ethnic-sounding surname. As Sinatra told Hamill in the early 80s... " Can you imagine if I was singing as 'Frankie Satin'? I'd still be singing on cruise ships."
Dark Passage - David Goodis 40s crime noir set in San Francisco. Just okay. Author didn’t do his homework. After narrator mentions several times how hot it was (in August!), narrator doubles down with “The street was bright yellow from hot August sun following the heavy rain.”
I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future over the course of about six weeks. It's a climate fiction/science fiction novel set in the immediate future and about thirty years afterwards. It starts with a climate disaster: the wet bulb number hit 35 (at which humans cannot survive) and millions died in India. So people start to get serious, and a the mythical UN organization in the book title gets to work. Things get worse. People try all sorts of things, and much of it is about policy-oriented discussions mixed with other actions so it's slow going. Only a couple of characters are developed in any depth in its roughly 600 pages. It ends hopefully. My time reading it coincided with the period in my senior policymaking seminar where we discussed many similar themes, and it was interesting to compare the sorts of big picture things that end up working in the book that we discussed and dismissed as implausible right now. That's the "advantage" of things truly going to shit in the book: people have to start acting.
Confession: I have avoided watching the movie for that reason; problem is, I have never got around to reading the book, so I have therefore never seen a pretty iconic film. ONE of these days...
Goodis was a pulp writer from Philly. He was banging out paperback originals for a quick buck back in the day. If you want him at his best, check out Shoot the Piano Player or The Burgler.