Larry’s
Comments
(group member since Nov 23, 2020)
Larry’s
comments
from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.
Showing 1,341-1,360 of 1,867
Here's link to the NYT's top 10 books of 2021.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/bo...
and the NYT 100 notable books of 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...
For me, the first was immediately accessible with my browser and the second was behind the NYT firewall. To get to this, many people with online access to their public library will find that they can get to all NYT articles through Proquest. Except ... EXCEPT ... that the 100 Notables Books of 2021 is archived in the New York Times Book Review publication and not in the New York Times publication. Oh well, life is not always meant to be easy.
Carol wrote: "IHe very famously fell out with Christopher Hitchens, also another very interesting journalist, whom I once saw at a meeting in the early 70s in London, who considerably enlivened a very drab gathering when he swept in wearing what resembled a large, colourful, Cavalier-style hat and having a personality to match..."Hitchens was just so brilliant. He seemed to enjoy his attacks on other people to an unseemly degree. It wasn't enough that he was so often right; it seemed like he enjoying inflicting pain.
I think that Western countries have handled the USSR and Russia very badly. Generally, the USSR and Russia deserved to be given much more credit openly for stopping Nazi Germany at the cost of all those lives that Carol mentions. Even today it's not too late to do that in one of the annual events.That said, the actions of Putin in killing individuals--not just citizens in Russia but those who have fled to other countries--and threats to other countries like Ukraine need to be answered. I think that even there a good answer is some version of the one being followed by the G-7 and that is not to threaten any military action but to point out that the consequent economic sanctions--consequent to a Russian invasion--could be devastating to Russia.
Great poem, John. I read it three times through … and then breathed deeply just trying to breath the poem in itself.
Carol wrote: "I felt rather sad reading the poem after Jack Hirschfeld's words and looked at it in a somewhat different light than I would have done. I can't see the connection with his wife, Minna, and I can't ..."Carol, I wonder if the connection might be more apparent if we had those other stanzas (before IX that is displayed here), but maybe not. I wonder what percentage of poems are meant to evoke sadness ... and how this differs across poems of different cultures.
Prathet,Thanks so much. I think that what makes books "best" really requires the kind of answer you have provided here. It involves getting into why a book was written, what were its sources, etc. All too often people begin--and end--with a judgment based on whether they agree with the book or even more narrowly whether they like the book.
It's a leap into another genre but I've always liked what Clifton Fadiman said about William Shakespeare's works : "He is our greatest English poet and dramatist. But he is not always great. He often wrote too quickly, with his eye not on posterity but on a deadline. Some of his comic characters have lost all power to amuse, and it is best to admit it. His puns and wordplay are frequently tedious. He can be obscure rather than profound." It should serve as a reminder to all writers who aspire to do their best works.
Thanks so much for starting this list and discussion, Prathet. What one book would you recommend to others for a start in understanding Stalin and Stalinism? Because of my own background in economics, I am most likely to try, *The Political Economy of Stalinism*" by Paul R. Gregory.
John,My own feelings exactly.
Maybe it's just as depressing, but I do recommend another book on the opioid crisis and that's Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy. It's from 2018, but captures the many dimensions of the opioid pandemic and personalizes the story as it essentially moves up and down I-81 mainly in Virginia. It's recently appeared on Hulu as an eight-part series, but I'm not sure I can watch it. The book had enough unhappiness in it.
TIME MAGAZINE'S LIST OF THE 10 BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2021: (an ordered list from 1 to 10)A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
Crying in H Mart
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Aftershocks
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease
SOURCE: https://time.com/6125895/best-nonfict...
John wrote: "One that comes to mind for me is The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History.What is fascinating about this book is you read reviews of classics when they just c..."
John,
Most of the book reviews are of books that were published shortly before the review, but there are a few that are just great that aren't. I like the 2018 essay, Books That Terrify, in which several authors discuss the horror books that truly terrified them. I say this and I'm not particularly a fan of the horror genre. And I really like this essay:
"Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote BY CARLOS FUENTES The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes celebrated Edith Grossman’s new translation of the novel almost four centuries after it was written.
... I stop right here, as the curtain goes up—or the pages open—to celebrate the great new translation of Don Quixote by Edith Grossman. ... Edith Grossman delivers her Quixote in plain but plentiful contemporary English. The quality of her translation is evident in the opening line: “Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing.” This Don Quixote can be read with the same ease as the latest Philip Roth and with much greater facility than any Hawthorne. Yet there is not a single moment in which, in forthright English, we are not reading a 17th-century novel. This is truly masterly: The contemporaneous and the original co-exist."
New York Times, The. The New York Times Book Review (p. 312). Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed. Kindle Edition.
John wrote: "One that comes to mind for me is The New York Times Book Review: 125 Years of Literary History.What is fascinating about this book is you read reviews of classics when they just c..."
John,
I just bought it ... I'm amazed at how many of the books that were reviewed are books that I know of ... not necessarily ones that I've read but ones that I m aware of. I look forward to slowly going through this one.
Larry
From Fivebooks.com :Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist
recommended by Kathryn Hughes
"Every year the judges of the Baillie Gifford Prize pick out the very best nonfiction books, the shortlist they come up with a brilliant way to find gripping books to immerse yourself in. Here cultural historian Kathryn Hughes, one of this year's judges, talks us through the six books they chose for the 2021 shortlist, books that will draw you in, whatever the subject."
Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945–1955
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
Islands of Abandonment
Things I Have Withheld
Fall: The Mysterious Life and Death of Robert Maxwell, Britain's Most Notorious Media Baron
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
SOURCE: https://fivebooks.com/best-books/nonf...
The best history books of 2021:
"The Best History Books: The 2021 Wolfson Prize Shortlist
recommended by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Every year the Wolfson History Prize seeks out books that combine careful research with good writing, aimed at the general reader. Here, Diarmaid MacCulloch, historian and chair of the judges, talks us through the outstanding history books that made the 2021 shortlist, and why, in his view, they're all must-reads."
Survivors: Children's Lives After the Holocaust
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture
Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood
Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge
Atlantic Wars: From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution
SOURCE: https://fivebooks.com/best-books/hist...
Another set of the best history books of 2021, by a different person:
"Best History Books of 2021
recommended by Paul Lay
Historical writing continues to shed new and interesting light on all manner of topics, including even much-written about subjects like Napoleon, who died 200 years ago this year. Paul Lay, the editor of History Today, offers his choices for the best history books published in 2021."
Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows
Plunder: Napoleon's Theft of Veronese's Feast
The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World
London's 'Golden Mile': The Great Houses of the Strand, 1550–1650
The Habsburgs: To Rule the World
SOURCE: https://fivebooks.com/best-books/best...
From my Facebook and real-world friend, Jack Hirschfeld."In my early Village days, 70+ years ago, I met the aging Maxwell Bodenheim. He was already a derelict, and was selling copies of his poems on the street to maintain his alcoholic existence. He was something of an object of ridicule, I think because it was hard to pity him, since he had fallen from such a high place in the culture. It wasn't until many years later that I learned how prolific he had been when younger, and how influential in the local cultural scene. He was widely and frequently published, but it was hard to see a successful author in that frail, shopworn body of his in the final years. I haven't thought about him for a very long time, and was a little shocked when his name showed up on Poem-a-Day."
Here's the poem (Minna was his first wife):
Minna (IX)
Sedate and archaic, a twilight-frilled haze
Walks over the meadows like rolled-out centuries
Quivering in sprightly welcome.
Trees pushed down by silence;
Trees lolling in comely abandon;
Trees pungently flamboyant,
Their leaves spinning in the wind’s golden elusiveness.
Trees probing the shrilly sensitive sunset
Like little, laced nightmares leaning
Upon a scarlet breast;
Trees sprinkling their stifled mockery
Upon the blue tomb of the air;
Trees, are you silenced beings
Whitening into the winding paradise
Of old loves seeking a second death?
And has this archaic, twilight-frilled haze
Moulded me to your semblance?
---Maxwell Bodenheim
John wrote: "I have read these collections over the years. The general “feel” for each volume tends to be dependent on the guest editor. I tried a good six or seven years worth of the best poetry. And I have en..."John, in addition to the three that I highlighted, I have bought some of the other ones also. I usually look at the table of contents of the others and make a decision based on that.
Another point I would make is that all of the annual volumes have good lists of articles/essays that were considered and not included in the published collection. For readers who have EBSCO available through their local public library, you can read many of those articles also.
Carol wrote: "Aspens have here always been regarded as magical trees in Celtic mythology, similar to the rowan, and were both often planted near to homes. My daughter is called Rowan...." A pretty name indeed.
Carol wrote: "Yet again, another very unusual poem by Emily Dickinson, both in thought and in the way it is written. Am not sure if I quite understand it."Carol, I often think about the poems that I don't understand for far longer than the ones that have obvious meanings. But they do have to offer something that engages me.
There are several annual collections of the best essays on particular topics. One of my favorites is The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021. This year's guest editor is Ed Yong, who is one of the best science journalists writing today. As you might guess, may of the articles collected deal with some aspect of Covid-19 and the pandemic.More generally, the best American essays of the year are collected in The Best American Essays 2021. This year sees Kathryn Schulz as the guest editor. Some Covid-19 material here but much more.
And--mainly because I always buy this book for my son--I also always look at what once was in the series called The Best American Sports Writing but has now become this year The Year's Best Sports Writing 2021. The introduction to the book explains why that change took place after 30 years.
Let me strongly recommend the series that usually still uses that "The Best American Writing ..." as the beginning of its title. The collections go beyond the three that I mention (science and nature, general essays, and sports) to include other volumes on food, travel, poetry ... and also fiction such as short stories, mysteries, science fiction, etc. My only caveat is that the quality varies considerably from year to year depending on who the guest editor is for that year's volume.
It's time to start reviewing these lists! I'll be adding links to the books for the lists that are behind firewalls ... and maybe to some of the other lists as well. I will edit this opening message here to try to help in finding and using the current annual lists of best books.
The first lists are largely American, but my favorite lists come from British publications, most notably the Economist and the Financial Times. And those lists are indeed behind firewalls, so I'll be extracting books from those to share ... and also suggesting how to get around firewalls in legal ways, e.g, using ProQuest (at your local public library) to read NYT articles.
985: The Missing All—prevented Meby Emily Dickinson
The Missing All—prevented Me
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World’s
Departure from a Hinge—
Or Sun’s extinction, be observed—
‘Twas not so large that I
Could lift my Forehead from my work
For Curiosity.
