RedState's Summer Booklist
By Ben Domenech Posted in Culture — Comments (39) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A few of RS's Editors banded together to make a Summer booklist for ya'll's enjoyment. Feel free to add your own suggestions in comments.
Josh Trevino:
1) Martin Amis, Koba the Dread
Amis explores the psychology that allowed Stalin to rule over -- and
slaughter -- millions.
2) Jared Diamond, Collapse
Diamond spins tenuous theories about why civilizations end. A favorite
of the ecological doomsday set.
3) Niall Ferguson, Colossus
Ferguson -- to my mind, the only truly serious proponent of American
empire -- explores the costs and consequences of that imperium.
4) Alexandra Fuller, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
A sober memoir of a childhood in Rhodesia.
5) William Langewiesche, American Ground
A gripping account, ripped straight from the pages of The Atlantic,
about the men who worked at Ground Zero.
6) Oriana Fallaci, The Force of Reason
Fallaci versus Islam. Guess who wins?
7) Bruce Campbell, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way
Thomas Crown's mom suggested this one to me.
Kevin Holtsberry:
The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy
by Peter W. Huber, Mark P. Mills.
Thought provoking look at why so much of the conventional wisdom surrounding "Energy" issues is wrong.
Articles of War by Nick Arvin.
A sparse, tightly written, and at times gripping story about human emotions pushed to the extreme.
Gilead by Marilyn Robinson.
Ron Charles in the Christian Science Monitor: "There are passages here of such profound, hard-won wisdom and spiritual insight that they make your own life seem richer."
His Excellency by Joseph Ellis.
I am a sucker for well written historical biography.
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell:
I am nervous about this one as I understand she is a bit of lefty, but my mother-in-law gave it to me so I feel like I should read it.
The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks.
"The Matrix meets Alias?" Sounds fun, no? Plus, the controversy surrounding the author and the marketing campaign stoked my interest.
The Bridge of Sighs by Olen Steinhauer.
A hardboiled crime novel set in Post WWII Eastern Europe (although fictionalized) looks like a intelligent page turner.
Thomas Crown:
Recommended Books:
Gates of Fire:
Historical semi-fiction, based on the life of a young
helot in service to a Spartan lord, as the Persian invasion inevitably
leads to Thermopylae. Stunning attention to detail, no sensationalism,
and an amateur's love of the subject bound with an expert's
encyclopedic knowledge.
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations:
An old, old chestnut, but as we may now
be in a semi-permanent state of war, this Caesar's thoughts while
marching from battle to battle are worth a quick read. Better in the
original Latin because it carries a certain rhythm lacking in English,
but entirely enjoyable in English, too.
Shadow Without A Name:
The metaphor is a chess game; the story
revolves around chess games; and the mystery -- who is Adolf Eichmann?
Awesome book. Read it cover to cover twice.
The Ends of the Earth, and Balkan Ghosts:
The real reason to read a
word Robert Kaplan has ever placed on a paper. Brilliant, if sometimes
a wee flawed, travel narratives that, aside from giving frightening
and amusing and interesting travel and history tidbits, perform a
single, vital service: They remind the reader that in ethnic and
religious conflicts, sometimes the past is the present. Vital reading
for, say, the next hundred years.
Books I Am Reading:
The Bourne Supremacy:
Ludlum may have had a ridiculously amoral view
of the Cold War, but he could turn a phrase. Also, it's interesting to
once again read "West Berlin" without irony.
Ghost Wars:
I'm long overdue in getting into this. It follows on the
Past-Is-Present theme. We have too strong a tendency to treat every
news event as a new event. I further recommend starting with the Iraq
War and working back through the history of the Tigris and Euphrates.
I'll be doing that this summer, God willing.
The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy:
A good friend
recommended this, and it just came. I'm a sucker for inter-writer
correspondence.
Paul Cella:
Recommended Books:
Saints for All, edited by Clare Booth Luce
This short
volume of essays by a wide range of impressive writers
makes for enjoyable reading of the highest order: each
contributor has chosen his or her favorite saint and
given the reader a tribute, usually moving, often
challenging, invariably illuminating. While Roman
Catholicism is the dominant (though not uniform)
perspective, this book cannot but be valuable to any
Christian, or any reader sincerely interested in some
of the great giants of Christendom. Evelyn Waugh,
Whittaker Chambers and Thomas Merton are among the
contributors.
In Defense of Tradition, by Richard Weaver
Another
book of essays, this one is by the almost legendary
traditionalist Weaver. Despite his status in
Conservative lore, Weaver’s real work is peculiarly
unknown, or at least unappreciated. His insights into
the nature and importance of rhetoric are remarkable;
his emphasis on the permanent role of place or home in
human flourishing is a voice of wisdom in the
wilderness; and his occasional studies of the
consequences of the decline of what was once properly
called the Liberal Education are prescient. Some of
this book, it must be said, is heavy-lifting, because
Weaver was a serious scholar, but taken in shorter
essay-form it becomes quite manageable.
Field Guide to the Night Sky, National Audubon Society
(any similar guide will do). Men have looked to the
stars with awe and reverence ever since we were given
self-consciousness; but it is only late modern men who
have lived under the dull blanket of the city light
that hides the heavens and breaks up that strange
spirit of equality which a man feels when he looks
upon the same distant sparkles that Aristotle or
Columbus did. Go to the beach or the mountains or the
plains, away from the light, and bask in the
ineradicable brotherhood of man under the night sky.
What I Am Reading:
Christianity and Classical Culture, by Charles Norris
Cochrane
Upon request, Liberty Fund sent me a copy of
this impressive book for review; and within fifty
pages I realized I was quite unqualified to review it.
Not sure what I’ll do now, except to say that Norris’s
book simply bristles with insight and learning. Anyone
who wants to begin to understand the spectacular
changes that took place as pagan antiquity became
Christian antiquity, should not fail to consult this
magisterial study.
Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Volume XX
One
could read Chesterton, it seems, for an entire
lifetime, so fruitful was his pen. This volume
contains his writing on Ireland, the Holy Land, and
his absorbing little book A Short History of England.
For lighter summer reading, Volume IV offers some of
his singular novels, including The Napoleon of Notting
Hill and The Club of Queer Trades.
Augustine:
1. The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy
Dang, Thomas said this one already. Shelby Foote’s recent death brings us to the end of a life of Southern literature and history that is almost unsurpassed. The irony here is that Foote condemned Percy’s conversion to Catholicism as the end of his artistic ability – arguing that creativity is achieved only through doubt – yet Percy went on to write some of the greatest fiction in American history, while Foote’s masterpiece is his historical work. This book is full of hilarious and beautiful arguments among friends over food, manners, politics, literature, and the South.
2. Three Nights in August, by Buzz Bissinger
Every year, I read at least one good sports book to remind myself that it isn’t all SportsCenter highlights and “Boom goes the dynamite.” Last year it was Buster Olney’s excellent “The Last Night of the Yankees Dynasty,” before that it was Jane Leavy’s well done biography of Sandy Koufax, and I’m still making my way through Michael MacCambridge’s “America’s Game.” In this volume, Bissinger (of Friday Night Lights fame) provides an incredible view of the Cardinals organization and the infamous Tony La Russa. There are still good things about Major League Baseball – Kinsella still lives – and this book reminds us of that.
3. The Collected Short Stories of Graham Greene
I must confess: I never like Graham Greene’s characters. But his writing is magnificent.
4. In the Cherry Tree, by Dan Pope and I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe
Dan Pope is a total pervert (stop staring at her Dan; please, stop staring; there are other students in this class), but I find his tone amusing. Tom Wolfe is not a pervert, but after spending time amongst some of the most perverted members of our society – college students – he has emerged with his pen intact. Hilarity ensues.
5. Second Space: Poems by Czeslaw Milosz
Thirty two poems, published posthumously, written by a brilliant man in his nineties, who approaches death with a heart full of thoughts both profound and hopeful.
6. The Buckley Canon
There’s simply no measure of the impact WFB has had on America and conservative thought. I’m slowly working my way through this list.
7. Cash by Johnny Cash
You gotta problem with it?
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I'm making my way (easily I might add) through Thomas Sowell's Black Rednecks and White Liberals. I recently finished his Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study.
Both are fairly easily readable. I especially am enjoying the chapter in Black Rednecks titled The Real History of Slavery.
-Big Tom
With the SCOTUS fight brewing, Robert Bork's "The Tempting of America - The Political Seduction of the Law" is a must read for anyone interested in the Constitution.
I have to suggest AGAINST Jared Diamond's "Collapse". I found it to be infinitely tedious, and almost sophomoric in its attempts to find support for the current Democratic Platform in history's lessons.
Gilead I found to be a significant disappointment. Some beautiful prose and inspiring thoughts, but I felt like it just didn't go anywhere as a story. Frankly, I was rather dismayed that it won the Pulitzer.
I can emphatically recommend Gates of Fire for just about anyone who isn't put off by descriptions of ancient warfare. It describes perhaps the single greatest story of valor, bravery, and sacrifice in all of human history. Three hundred Spartan warriors (and about 8000 Greek allies) faced off against more than one million Persian soldiers, holding a narrow pass for three days under a relentless onslaught before a local shepherd sold them out by showing the Persians a secret trail through the mountains. The Spartans, led by King Leonidas and with the full knowledge that they were on a suicide mission, fought to the last man in order to buy the rest of Greece the time necessary to mount a defense against the invasion. Without the sacrifice of the Spartans, western civilization as we know it might never have happened. This book is a compelling, exhillerating, heartbreaking read.
I wrote a review of The Virtues of War by the same author months ago. Heckuva guy, by the way, even if he's a Democrat. Great book, too.
The only book of all those listed so far that I've read. One of those books you see described as a rumination. I thought it was thin cud.
Finished The Tsar's Last Armada last night. An interesting enough account of the Russian preparations for and travel to the Battle of Tsushima, which decided the Russo-Japanese war. Lots to criticize, though -- excessive use of the vernacular, for one thing.
The German Raymond Chandler is a Brit, Philip Kerr. Berlin Noir is a collection of three detective novels set in Berlin in the '30s and Vienna in 1947. Grim and evocative. No "The Third Man," but still worthwhile, Chandleresquelly.
And I've been listening to The Eels, "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations." Same old E. s***, but good use of autoharp and musical saw.
For fish, I prefer a hearty Gewuerztraminer.
I'll just give you the last three books I've read, in no particular order, since no way I could possible remember before Summertime.
God's Revelation to the Human Heart by Seraphim Rose
An old Rose lecture on how God reveals himself to man.
Fooled by Randomness by Taleb
A math professor and trader shows how randomness works in the markets and how it is often mistaken as skill.
Actually, I can't even remember any further back than that. Those and a couple of quant books is about everything in the last few months.
I'm currently reading: Nothing. It's summer. Go outside.
Taken together, these two books provide a compelling argument for a pragmatic, yet principled foreign policy aimed at fostering global liberty:
The Future of Freedom
Fareed Zakaria
I was beginning to worry if the reality-based community had developed a new counting system.
I was long a libertarian with conservative leanings, but The Conservative Mind made me a conservative with libertarian leanings. It's fascinating to watch Kirk (with the big help from the guys he's writing about) weave conservatism from mere reaction into a framework of thought.
May I recommend:
Molvania: A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry
Read it, then go someplace, anyplace, else.
:)
(It's a travel parody. And we could all use a good laugh this summer. We face a contentious fall ahead.)
Actually, I do have a problem. I don't know how any conservative can recommend Johnny Cash. He spent much of his life performing for criminals and was a criminal himself. Even though, I have caught myself enjoying "Ring of Fire" on occasion. Still, I wouldn't support even the estate of that man.
Is one of the best books I have read in the past 3 years. A generally apolitical book that tends to tell like it is. Instead of assuming the same CW that most people do about Afghanistan, Bin Laden, and America's involvement I suggest you read this book.
going back a long time with that one. But if you
like that pick up the Deighton's Berlin Game, Mexico
Set, London Match (and of course Spy Hook, Line,
Sinker and Faith, Hope and Charity). These are
also known as the Sampson series and are classics
of the genre. There was also a PBS series on the
first three.
Len Deighton wrote numerous wonderful books involving the same set of characters. The 9 mentioned in the prior comment all relate to this group of characters. There may be a few other books featuring these characters. Regardless, I don't think I was every truly let down by Len Deighton in any of his writings. As beezle mentioned though - it has been a while since I read all those books back in high school.
~Big Tom
by Bruce Campbell must be awesome. Is that supposed to be a "women's book" or no? I'm just forming my opinions on Bruce via the Evil Dead series...so I'm guessing he may be more than 1 dimensional...
I'll look for a copy of that when I go to California in two days. I'm actually a libertarian with liberal leanings, so I'd like to read something like that and see if it nudges me right.
I thought was a good book...I never really thought about where it'd fall on a political spectrum or anything, but it was an enjoyable read. Other than that, I guess I couldn't recommend any other books as most of my favourite books in recent memory were ones I read in high school...and you've all probably read those to death (1984, Fahrenheit 451, etc).
The amazing part is, many of my peers read less than one book per year...and refuse to read Fight Club / High Fidelity, but rave about the movies (I feel the movies did not do the books justice).
I'd recommend Rainbow Six if you guys like Clancy, though. I used to be really into Counter-Terrorism stuff a few years ago and enjoyed it, although it follows the same formula of every other Clancy novel.
I was trying to quip at him a bit...I like him in that "omg Bruce Campbell" sense. I know near-nothing about him other than the Evil Dead movies.
I can recommend a few books:
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder - Michael Savage
This was actually a good read, some of his ideas are a little over the top, but a good read nonetheless.
Deliver Us From Evil - Sean Hannity
This was pretty good, but more of a history lesson then political opinion.
Infiltration - Paul Sperry
Very very interesting book. Regarding how Islamists have infiltrated Washington while keeping the wool over our eyes about it.
When you Ride Alone, You Ride With Bin Laden - Bill Maher
Although there is not much substance to this book, and yes it's Bill Maher, I still thought it was great. The WWII posters he re-vamped for the WoT I think are a great idea.
I haven't read any fiction books for a while, but the last one was The Davinci Code, and it was great.
To my mind, along with Chris Elliot and Rip Torn, the most underrated actors of the late twentieth century.
that I remember with Rip Torn in it. I know he was in Men in Black and Dodgeball. Everything else is an unknown to me. What are some other movies that Campbell/Torn were in?
Bruce Campbell is best known as the king of current B-Movie stars, a role he wholeheartedly embraces (as shown by the title of his first book: If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Star). He's been in too many things to number, but he's both appeared in and starred in TV shows ("Hercules", "Xena", "Adventures of Brisco County Jr.", "Jack of all Trades"), movies (the "Evil Dead" series, "The Hudsucker Proxy", "Congo", bit parts in the "Spiderman" films and "Bubba Ho-Tep", possibly the finest alt-fiction movie about the Real Elvis living out his final days in an East Texas nursing home fighting off a soul-sucking Egyptian mummy with the help of a wheelchair-bound black man claiming to be JFK) and video games (recent "Spiderman" games and "Tachyon: The Fringe" to name a few).
And, by all accounts, he's an all-around Really Nice Guy, as opposed to most stars of any sufficient magnitude.
I'd highly recommend checking out his back catalog sheerly for entertainment's sake.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn - This is one of the classics of philosophy of science. This book can take your understanding of science and stand it on its head. It has actually altered my understanding of how the world at large works because it emphasizes how two different groups can use the same words and yet be unable to communicate meaningfully because they just talk past each other because they understand the words to mean two different things. Rather like conservatives and liberals in my mind.
A Song of Fire and Ice - George RR Martin. This isn't a book, but instead it is a series of books. If you go for fantasy this is one of the best series you can get your hands upon.
Ordeal by Fire - James McPherson. This is one of the best books on the Civil War written. It isn't a novel, but rather more like a textbook, although it is very well written and doesn't induce sleep within 2 minutes like many textbooks do. Partner this one with the Foner book below.
A Short History of Reconstruction - Eric Foner. Foner is the preeminent historian of reconstruction. This is a condensed version of his longer work Reconstruction:America's Unfinished Revolution and it reads like a novel moreso than a textbook. I believe that understanding the Civil War and Reconstruction is vital to understanding the U.S. today.
Can a Darwinian be a Christian? - Michael Ruse. Ruse is one of the leading philosophers of biology today. He is a remarkably humorous individual (known from personal experience with him) and writes in a way that is easily accessible to non-philosophers/non-bilogists. I recommend anything by him, although some will not be easily accessible to non-philosophers of biology but those are fairly easy to single out by their titles.
I read Angels and Demons and while I have read worse, it is hardly one I would recommend to others. It read a bit like a screen play, and was extremely unrealistic (although I am often willing to overlook this if the book is excellent). Good enough for mind candy, but not outstanding. Good suspense would be more Michael Connelly than Brown.
Because he wrote terrific music and his sound helped bridge the rock-country divide.
And yes, we know the guy had a drug problem before he found God and got his life together.
Frankly I think that learning from that sort of lesson isn't going to do anyone any harm - unless we're supposed to limit our patronage to people who lead perfect lives.
For all the "South Park" conservatives and readers of Us Weekly (I fall into the former but not the latter category) among us who enjoy a good, scandalous read in between all the heavy political theory and 600-page military history novels.
Edward Klein does a terrific job of hunting down sources, people who know Hillary and Bill Clinton. He does a good job of delving into her pysche, particulary her philosophy of "political lesbianism". Not a hatchet-job, but an honest appraisal of a woman utterly consumed by the quest for power, all in concise, easily digestible chapters. Hillary is shown to be just as human and fallible as the rest of us, and certainly beatable in '08. If you know the Clintons are crooks and are looking for ammunition against the Hildabeast, than this piece of muckraking is for you.
Stephen Moore, the president of the Club for Growth, wrote this superb book last year at the height of the election season. It's short, and broken into concise chapters, but it's the best book on conservative economics I've seen. It's reminescent of the pamplets like Thomas Paine's
Common Sense that circulated prior to the War of Independence.
Written geared towards the non-economist, Bullish on Bush lays out why the Bush Ownership Society is the one Americans should embrace, instead of the European, welfare state variety of mild socialism that John Kerry endorses. Moore covers each topic (the Clinton recession; taxes, tax cuts and the tax code; Social Security, and the deficit) with intelligent, well-reasoned argument. It has proved invaluable to me in understanding and appreciating Reaganomics. The graphs and tables are good too.
Hint: Pulitzer prize winner takes place in New Orleans.
My anger toward Johnny Cash comes from a recording he made at a prison. He sings "I shot a man in Memphis just to watch him die" and the prisoners just were thrilled. That kind of pandering to the basest elements of society is something that can't be forgiven in my book.
Personally, I prefer classical music, anyway.
could be a different version.
He was singing about prison, and what it was to be a prisoner ("Folsom Prison Blues")-- you can't expect puppy dogs and sunshine from a song like that.
I specifically remember that he spent quite some time with the line you mentioned trying to come up with the meanest thing you could do to wind up in jail. It's not like he was advocating it, even if the prisoners in the audience were.
about Reno. We agree that it is an ugly lyric and I just think that, at the very least, he could have chosen not to perform that song in that context.
There's a famous picture of Cash viciously making an obscene gesture and that photo for me sums up Cash's qualities as a person.
I picked it up for $4 ata book store though, so I guess it'll be something to merely pass the 5 hour plane ride to Dallas. I've never been to Texas ^_^
I'm briefly reminded of an old episode of King of the Hill where some guy from Boston comes down to visit Hank...and makes him wear a cowboy hat and calls him "Jay Ahhhr" for some reason. I love Boston and am so ashamed of it at the same time
..."Head." It's from the sixties, it's the Monkees...don't ask me how I know about this movie!
This is a collection of superb essays by Theodore Dalrymple, an urbane and widely travelled British psychiatrist. It's worth reading just for the single article, "When Islam Breaks Down", described by David Brooks of The New York Times as the best journal article of 2004. This work is even better than his first, "Life at the Bottom." Dr. Dalrymple provides remarkable insights into human nature and many current social and political problems based not only on his clinical experience but on his own array of personal experiences and understanding of other cultures. It's the proverbial book that's hard to put down!
Why not a challenge?
Liberty by Isaiah Berlin, Henry Hardy (Editor)
Justice as Fairness: A Restatement by John Rawls, Erin Kelly
That it would have been my wife, not my mom, who recommended Campbell's book. For my mom, her heart beats quicker only for Billy Dee Williams.