John's profile

96 ratings | 101 reviews
avg rating: 3.41

John's bookshelves

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John is currently reading

	08/31 John is currently reading: Great Expectations (Paperback) by Charles Dickens bookshelves: currently-reading	my rating:
	John said: "Rereading " add a comment
	05/16 John is currently reading: The New Testament In Modern English: Student Edition (Paperback) by J.B. Phillips bookshelves: currently-reading	my rating:
	John said: "Rereading during my morning time with God " add a comment
	03/01 John is currently reading: Letters of C. S. Lewis (Harvest Book) by C.S. Lewis bookshelves: currently-reading	my rating:
	John said: "Rereading " add a comment

John's recent updates (rss)

September 04

John read and liked christa's review of The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own.:

"There are so few ways to deviate from the addiction memoir outline, short of posthumous publication. The plot lines are easy, like a murder mystery or a romance novel. Your hero is a drunk/junkie/bulimic/sex addict. Your hero faces a lifestyle change...more There are so few ways to deviate from the addiction memoir outline, short of posthumous publication. The plot lines are easy, like a murder mystery or a romance novel. Your hero is a drunk/junkie/bulimic/sex addict. Your hero faces a lifestyle change in which the options are extreme: change vs. death. Your hero dusts himself off [typically more than once:], washes his hair, excavates the past for meaning and and writes something intelligible about how at one point he poked drugs into his eyeball and seemingly assaulted a cab driver — according to police reports. Now he writes for the NY Times.

That said, addiction memoirs are my favorite genre. David Carr still managed to stun me with The Night of the Gun.

1. As much as this book is about being a bad man who gets all hopped up and punches women in the face, this book is about my truth versus your truth and whether it coalesces with the documented proof. Two people sharing an experience and walking away with such different stories, whether it is:

Who actually owned the gun?
Did David Bowie sing directly to us?
What did witnesses see on 9/11?

Carr, the consummate journalist, provides documentation when possible. Arrest reports and published stories from his archives. Medical records. Direct quotes taken from videotaped interviews with friends and family. It is like he is saying: Look, my lows were low. Lower than you can exaggerate, low. And I’m not just some frat boy bragging about chugging Southern Comfort from a beer bong. Here is the official report.

This has to be the most honest addiction memoir I’ve ever read. And when what actually happened is debated, he defers to the less-broken brain.

2. You can read Anne Lamott and get the sense that she is never going to drink again. She has found a mix of spirituality and hiking, knows her triggers and has a way to sort of “time out” if she has to. After Marya Hornbacker wrote Wasted, it was hard to imagine her swirling her spoon around a mound of frozen yogurt again, lazily lapping at it for the next hour, getting full, and again dropping below 60 pounds. Maybe it’s because Carr is so committed to the best truth he can find, or because his teeter from 14 years of sobriety was so seamless — a simple hand-to-mouth muscle memory, almost — that this doesn’t memoir doesn’t necessarily feel like him riding off into the sunset. This feels like the wind could change any minute and he could be marinating his organs in gin.

An addict is an addict, he gets this: “I could be drunk tomorrow or shooting dope even as you read this, but the chances of that are low as long as I make a daily decision to embrace who I really am and then be satisfied with that at the end of every day,” he writes.

3. Carr seems to realize that addiction comes before everything. His loyalty to Jayson Blair’s fight is surprising, especially considering that Carr is so attracted to hard work and honesty. But when the NY Times reporter is outed for falsifying stories, Carr chases him down and begs him to not fall off the wagon in this moment. Maybe Carr is considering the reputation he built as a journalist, later doused in kerosene, and through the virtue of hard work and forgiveness, was able to resuscitate.

...less "

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August 31

John marked as to-read:
The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (Penguin Classics)
by Henry Fielding
bookshelves: to-read

my rating:

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John is currently reading:
Great Expectations (Paperback)
by Charles Dickens
bookshelves: currently-reading

my rating:

John said: "Rereading "

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August 30

John read and liked Tamara's review of Sarah's Key:

"I wasn't sure how I would feel about the storytelling shifting chapter to chapter from the little French girl, Sarah, in 1942 France and the adult woman, Julia, in 2002 France. It worked just fine.

The storytelling was so evocative, and even when ...more "

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New comment on Lindsey's review of All Creatures Great and Small

John wrote: "The verse is from a hymn by Cecil F. Alexander. I don't believe it's a direct quotation from the Bib...more "

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August 27

New comment on John's review of Frankenstein -Lib (Illustrated Classics)

John wrote: "Thanks, Beth. What are your reading these days? "

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August 22

New comment on Priscilla's review of Society's Child: My Autobiography

John wrote: "I heard her interviewed about this book on public radio a couple of weeks ago. I was surprised, beca...more "

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August 21

John marked as to-read:
Empire Falls (Paperback)
by Richard Russo
bookshelves: to-read

my rating:

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John made a comment on Priscilla's profile:

John wrote: "I finally got around to reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" this year! Excellent book. "

John gave

to:
Frankenstein -Lib (Illustrated Classics)
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

my rating:

read in August, 2008

John said: "I think Frankenstein was a bit of a crybaby. But I had some sympathy for Frankenstein's monster.
The edition I read includes an essay by Mary Shelley on "How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?&q...more "

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John's writing

"Easter is coming!" (Religion & Spirituality)

0 chapters — updated 04/10/2008 08:36AM

description: Written on Good Friday, April 10, 1998

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