| Best Nonfiction I've read since October 2008 |
Click on title for complete review:
Searching for Tamsen Donner by Gabrielle Burton. Burton undertook a massive cross country trip with her husband and five children following the trail of the ill-fated Donner party and the personal story of Tamsen Donner. Full of Burton's details of life on the road interspersed with facts and questions about the Donner party and memories from Burton’s own life as a writer, mother, and feminist combine to make this an inspiring memoir of fully-engaged motherhood, a riveting history of self-discovery, and a heartfelt homage to the spirit and the legacy of Tamsen Donner.
The Tomb in Seville by Norman Lewis. Lewis wrote this, his last travel memoir, when he was ninety-three. It is about a trip he made to Spain when he was in his twenties, in the fall of 1934. Spain was on the brink of civil war and Lewis was on a quest, together with his communist brother-in-law, to search out a family tomb in the Cathedral of Seville. Their adventure is recounted through the eyes of Lewis as a young man, robust with humor, mettle, and sympathy, and with an easy fascination for everything he encountered. For anyone who has ever traveled to Spain, or is planning a trip, or might consider a trip, The Tomb in Seville is a must-read that offers not only an awestruck portrait of Spain, but also presents a very unique moment in time for a country and a very special moment in life for a man.
A Terrible Splendor by Marshall Jon Fisher. Subtitled "Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Every Played", the book is all this, and so much more. In telling the lives of Baron Gottfried Von Cramm, German tennis player, Don Budge, an American player from head to toe, and Bill Tilden, one of the mightiest racquet-wielders ever, and building their stories around the 1937 Davis Cup match between Cramm and Budge, Fisher brings to vibrant life the years between the two world wars, and the very different places that each of these players came from and answered to. Fisher illustrates through strong and engaging writing the dramatic differences that country, age, and sexual orientation played for these three men, and brings home the magnitude of their achievements, on court but also in their lives.
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill. Athill is a woman who understands herself, complete with foibles, weaknesses, and strengths, and strives to understand the people and the moments of her life that have shaped her. She shares her stories, thoughts, and conclusions freely, creating almost a manual for living. It is a manual that comes not with instructions but with illustrations from one life's passage and its coming conclusion. Athill demonstrates that life flows inexorably forward and that the best we can do is to move with it, to continue on because even for the very old, new and unexpected events can occur. Moments, even years, of pain can inflict themselves but beauty comes again and again, to encourage, distract, enliven, or inspire.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. By sharing with the reader how he runs and how he writes, Murakami shares his philosophy on life: it ain't always easy, but hard work is worth it, both in terms of achievement and in terms of personal satisfaction, no matter what the objective achievement. Murakami finds something positive in the difficult or negative or challenging aspects of running and writing (and life) and he has the discipline to do what he sets himself out to do in running and writing (and life). And he loves running. Even when he goes through long periods of not liking it very much, he always loves it. And so it is with his writing, not always loving it but sticking with it and coming through to the other side -- and then resting with a cold beer in hand to enjoy the accomplishment.
Algren at Sea by Nelson Algren. Containing two of books of travel, both are simply wonderful, offering up Algren's dry humor, quick wit, deep perceptions, graceful writing, and most of all, his very engaging humanity. Algren was a tough cookie but a big-brained and big-hearted one. He was a man I'd want in my corner as friend and defender, and the one who would most definitely point out any bullshit I might try to peddle. He dealt honestly and slyly at the same time with his readers, and with his writing. Algren is one of the great American writers, and these beguiling and moving stories of his travels through Spain and France prove it.
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski. This Polish journalist was in Africa from the late 1950s through the late 1990s and his stories of the forty years he traveled throughout the continent are rich with details of the physical landscape, vivid with his portrayals of the people he met, and disarmingly personal in his affection and empathy for the many Africas he gets to know. Kapuscinski loved his travels, enduring fear and deprivation for the joys of experience and knowledge, and that love is contagious through his book. It is a real pleasure to read this book, and it offers a thorough, and thoroughly enjoyable, steeping into the cultures, climates, and histories of the many places he writes about. There are very disturbing and grim depictions of horrors and miseries: these, of course, are not enjoyable to read but they are real and moving, and necessary to understand Africa, and Kapuscinski's enduring optimism and hope for Africa does not let the reader mire down in depression. For him Africa is enduring and abiding and eternal, and full of so much that he has found to love and to admire.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas by Frederick Douglas. Douglas' autobiography is harrowing, humbling, and inspiring. Harrowing for the extreme deprivations and tortures, physical and mental that Douglass suffered as a slave, literally from birth. Humbling because of Douglass' acute intelligence and burning will that allowed him to survive slavery and understand slavery; in the face of the dehumanizing institution, he exalted in his humanity and was determined to exercise it. Inspiring because he followed through on that determination: born a slave with no prospects of bettering his life, when briefly exposed to education (before his master stopped the simple lessons: an educated slave was a dangerous one), he quickly realized that his freedom would come through knowledge, and he taught himself to read and write. He sought to spread his knowledge to other slaves and when he came North, to anyone who would listen, knowing he was sowing the seeds of empowerment and freedom. Douglass understood in the year 1845 that freedom and justice and mercy were more than just words to throw around, and they still are more than just words: these concepts are the backbone of a good and decent society, the bedrock of government by humans for humans, and can never be held as a luxury but always as a necessity.
Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. The title of this book refers to a t-shirt Richard Hell designed, a white shirt with a big red bulls eye in the center and bearing the words "Please Kill Me" and the book is about the punk movement personified in that shirt, not as a plea for death but as a statement meant to shock, to disturb, to ignite. Punk was all about making a statement and then turning around the next day and making another one, maybe a totally opposite statement, but something outrageous that made others think and get agitated and maybe even just laugh, really hard. Punk was "about the apocalypse": say whatever you want, because the end is near. The end came too soon for many punk rockers, as told in this history but punk still sounds good, all its energy still intact on CDs and albums, and in the interviews, photographs, and notes captured in this book.
The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn. This memoir of a very dysfunctional family -- harrowingly so -- is the chilling story of three families and three childhoods. The bloodlines of the dysfunction are traced back to the tortured childhoods of the mother, Rosalie de Meric, an artist, and of the father, Thomas Blackburn, renowned poet, (and even further back to the grandparents' childhoods for a bit) and are horribly manifested in the childhood of the author, Julia Blackburn. The book flows beautifully, albeit painfully; there is nothing false about the story of the three even if it is often shocking or terribly sad. Julia seems to have a talent for both the truth and for forgiveness, and that is what makes the story so engaging, a page turner to the end. We are desperate to be assured of her survival, body and soul, and we are.
Scout's Honor by Peter Applebome. A must-read for anyone who was a Boy Scout, is the parent of a Boy Scout, or the parent of a Boy Scout wannabe, this book is a wonderful memoir of Applebome's years as the active parent of a Boy Scout. In turns funny, reflective, descriptive, and soul-searching as he offers up his own stories about scouting, Applebome also provides an in-depth and fascinating history of the Boy Scouts, from its beginnings in England in the early twentieth century to its migration across the sea to the United States, and the changes Scouting has undergone in the years since.
Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb. In these absolutely marvelous essays, Lamb writes about life in all its humble and daily, as well as unique and grandiloquent, occasions. No matter that he wrote from two centuries past: so many of his observations of human nature, predilections, and pastimes are still true today. Those comments of his that are dated are still fun to read, as when he decries the "modern" art of John Martin and his 1821 painting "Belshazzar's Feast". Lamb was right-on his criticisms, the painting is histrionic, and I would love to read what Lamb would write about the lacerations of Pollock or the cubes of Picasso or the shark of Damien Hirst.
On Kindness by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor. This fascinating book uses disciplines of history, philosophy ,and psychoanalysis to explore the concept of kindness. The premise of the authors is that kindness as a trait and as a virtue has been denigrated and down-listed to weakness and passivity, something that works fine between mother and child but has no place in the competitive world of individual survival. To the contrary, argue Phillips and Taylor, humans are interdependent in order to survive. The bridge between humans is best expressed through kindness, through recognizing kinship, shared interests, and mutual needs and desires.
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. Dillard writes -- and lives -- with blazing but focused ardor, and in this book she shares her acute observations and ideas in words, sentences, and paragraphs that are crafted and perfected, never sloppy but never restrained. She strives to connect through words and she succeeds; she uses an abundance of emotion, cut sharp and close and clearly-conveyed, to give us her views and we are convinced. It is not a book to encourage the writing life, but it will certainly incite an admiration for it.
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. This book of essays is a delight, a delicious collection of stories from a life of loving books, collecting books, sharing books, and most important of all (of course!) reading books. Fadiman remains as freshly entranced by books as the most newly-arrived apprentice to the coven of library card holders. And coven it is: all of us who delve into books regularly know that reading is a magic, that books are capable of casting the most powerful of spells, and that the wizardry is not about building vocabulary or boosting brain cells or assuring future success, but about the adventure offered here and now in the reading and forever in the remembering, of a great book.
Payback by Margaret Atwood. This is not only a book about financial debt (borrowing and owing and investing money) it is a book about everything. And it will make you look at everything in a new way. I cannot possibly do justice to all the issues Atwood examines: she is really, really smart and draws upon her incredible depth of reading and research and examination to explore all the themes related to debt and death. As Atwood points out, from the moment we are born we owe someone something for our existence (God, parents, Nature, failed birth control, alcohol, celebration, New Year's Eve, power outage, perfume or after shave, oysters) and it is game on from there.
Will War Ever End? A Soldier's Vision of Peace for the 21st Century by Captain Paul K. Chappel. Chappell calls for a worldwide movement to recognize and promote mankind as inherently preservative of life, especially of human life, and not as violent by nature and therefore doomed to war. Coming from a West Point graduate, Iraqi war veteran, and current Captain in the U.S. Army, as well as being the son of a man who fought in Korea and Vietnam, his call for peace is especially moving and doubly-heartfelt. He knows whereof he speaks and his knowledge and his words are powerful. He ends his book with clear and strong indictments of war from past soldiers of valor, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, Ghandi, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
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