...started with Chandler's The Long Goodbye, naturally. It's a plot for its time, but it goes down easy because of the author’s fluid, sometimes hilarious style.
Then I waded into World Travel, which is a weird posthumous addition to Anthony Bourdain's body of work. His literary executors have compiled a kind of global guidebook of Bourdain’s impressions of various travel spots, arranged alphabetically & with an eye towards apprising the reader on transportation options & costs, as well as advice on tipping rates. Interspersed are essays from people close to Bourdain, offering personal glimpses into the man’s personality and history. He left us all too soon.
Cole’s Code Over Country is another piece of in-depth journalism that provides yet more evidence of the corrosive nature of secrecy, especially when coupled with weaponry.
Lepore’s history shows us the true history of the American Constitution, a fluid document if there ever was, which is a nice antidote to the cockeyed rationalizations of such groups of the Heritage Foundation & the Federalist Society.
I revisited Hersey’s Hiroshima before tackling Pelegrino’s Ghosts of Hiroshima, both of which detail, in stunning specificity, the absolutely horrific consequences of our deployment of atomic bombs. We can only hope we never unleash such terrors ever again.
Science Under Siege details the rampant anti-intellectualism of our time. It’s tribal, which is our nature, but its targeting of the scientific method may have long-lasting, dangerous effects, the least of which will be the hastening of the end of the Pax Americana we’ve enjoyed since the end of the Second World War.
I’ve long been a fan of Michael Connelly. His attention to realistic detail allows me to forgive his obvious use of plot conventions. After all, he has to keep the movie adaptation in mind as he writes!
P Moss is a Las Vegas treasure, and his Screwing Sinatra is a master-class in reworking various American legends into an almost-slapstick pastiche that nevertheless ties itself very neatly into a delicious package. Golly, this was fun to read!
Matt Haig’s popular The Midnight Library is a wonderful little fantasy with a kind of It’s-A-Wonderful-Life message, while the amazing George Saunders walks us through some Russian masterpieces, showing why he’s both an engaging teacher AND a talented artist in his own right. For this book, I recommend the audiobook, which enlists an impressive cast of actors to give voice to the 7 short stories that Saunders surveys.
Finally, my favorite book of October was How Dogs Love Us, which is both an appreciation of humanity’s best friend and a nuts-and-bolts description of science at work. What can I say? I’m a dog guy, and this book was both illuminating and heartwarming.
