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#FridayReads, May 11–Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong, Raymond Bonner’s powerful and sad indictment of the system in a S. Carolina death penalty case. Also, “Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance, 1985-1995 by Michael Barclay, et al, a rich, readable tour of Canadian rock n’ roll, accompanied by a great CD compilation of the same name.
#FridayReads Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland, artist Joseph Remnant and editor Jeff Newelt’s posthumous publication of one of the late Pekar’s last manuscripts, lovingly assembled. Also, Rifftide: The Life and Opinions of Papa Joe Jones, as Told to Albert Murray, edited by Paul Devlin–Jones was longtime drummer in the Count Basie Band, a garrulous soul.
May 28, 2012 Update: I was delighted to see this new, modern translation of the Inferno received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. They write, “This will be the Dante for the next generation.”
#FridayReads, Mary Jo Bang’s splendid modern translation of Dante’s Inferno, with diabolical drawings by Henrik Drescher and fascinating, context-lending notes by Ms. Bang, being published by Graywolf this coming August. Also, Mickey Cohen: The Life & Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster by Tere Tereba–what a nasty killer.
#FridayReads, April 13–Carol Anshaw’s novel Carry the One–hard to like characters so far, but so well-written it’s keeping me reading. Also, The Hockey Stick & the Climate Wars, scientist Michael Mann’s personal story of crazy climate revisionist hardliners who came after him and his ilk.
#FridayReads, April 6, “Prague Fatale,” the eighth Bernie Gunther novel in Philip Kerr’s matchless Berlin Noir series. And in nonfiction, Deadly Spin, former health insurance insider Wendell Potter’s lucid dissection of how insurers rig the healthcare game.
#FridayReads The New Yorker‘s excerpt from Robert Caro’s fourth volume in his long-running LBJ bio. Powerful narrative of the day JFK was killed and LBJ took office, and how this picture came to be taken by WH photographer Cecil Stoughton. As readers of this blog may recall, I’ve had opportunities to converse with Caro and I’m a huge admirer of his 1974 book The Power Broker. It will be a treat to read his latest book when Knopf publishes it in May. I am also finishing James Kunen’s remarkable Diary of a Company Man, which I posted on for my last #FridayReads. Think Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for a Common Man,” only it’s not set to music, it’s in prose.
#FridayReads–DIARY OF A COMPANY MAN: Losing a Job, Finding a Life by James S. Kunen, whose Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary was a key 1960s text. After he was laid off from his corporate job in February 2008, Kunen describes himself as too young to retire, too old to hire. I’m still reading that first section of the book, over the weekend I’ll read how he weathers the storm of disemployment and comes out somewhere on the other side. Having experienced my own layoff, Kunen’s is a pitch-perfect rendering of the experience.
Also reading and loving Wayward Saints, a tragi-comic tale of rock ‘n roll, family, and second chances in life, by Suzzy Roche, of the singing Roches.
Update: I’ve now finished both these books, and loved them both, among the very best I’ve read thus far in 2012.
The Kunen book was really excellent on finding a new way through (mid-)life. Enduring my own layoff and disemployment, it was really inspiring to see Kunen, who’d worked in corporate PR at TIME, Inc. before he got dumped by the corporation, discovers a new meaning teaching English to immigrants. It’s titled Diary of a Company Man, and I kept thinking of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for a Common Man,” only it’s not etched in musical notes, but prose.
I’ve also now finished Suzzy Roche’s novel and found it to be an infectiously readable treat. I really loved it. It’s filled with wonderful characters spanning the generations and memorable situations. While Roche undoubtedly drew on her years as a traveling musician to flesh out the story, it doesn’t read as if it’s merely a novel about rock ‘n roll written by a musician; it’s a truly satisfying novel by a real writer, clearly not something that was just tossed off. Among the most striking features of it was the relationship between the musician protagonist, Mary Saint, and her mother Jean, from whom she’s long been separated. They learn how to forgive each other for past injuries. The second was the friendship between Mary Saint and her roommate Thaddeus, who becomes her confidant and motivator, able to push her to see what she’s still capable of doing.
#FridayReads/March 16 The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History, Jim Higdon’s terrific book coming out in April. This blurb for it appears above the author’s bio: