The Book Shopper

Field of Dreams Fanatic

 

Mention anything about the movie Field of Dreams and I am there. So when Brett Friedlander stopped by the Opal Gallery on Moreland Avenue last Thursday to talk about the book he co-authored, Chasing Moonlight: The True Story of Field of Dreams’ Doc Graham,  I showed up to swap FOD  trivia with the North Carolina sportswriter. (In case you haven’t seen the 1989 movie a dozen times like me, Doc Archibald “Moonlight” Graham was the character played by Burt Lancaster. In the movie and in real life, Graham played in one major league game, but never got to bat.)

Unfortunately for Friedlander, I was one of the few non-family members in attendance. But a supportive, friendly family is nothing to sneeze at (ask Ray Kinsella) and for a moment I found myself wishing they’d invite me along for a celebration burger at the nearby Vortex. Instead of a full, aching stomach, here’s what I did take home with me from his presentation:

• After being banned from playing Major League Baseball, Shoeless Joe Jackson (one of the main characters in FOD) continued to play baseball, barnstorming through small towns that included Graham’s adopted hometown of Chisholm, Minnesota, where they played against each other.
• Graham met Ted Williams in an exhibition game while Williams was a minor leaguer playing in Minnesota in the 1930s.
• The author W. P. Kinsella (FOD was based on his book Shoeless Joe)declined to write an introduction to Friedlander’s book, having retired from writing after a debilitating accident.
• The town of Galena, Illinois (hometown of Ulysses S. Grant) was used as a location for filming instead of Chisholm, Minnesota.

 If you’re interested in learning more – and you may be because the FOD phenomena should not be underestimated – see a review of Friedlander’s book at the California Literary Review.  

The Unabomber's Library, Part 2

Following up from the last posting...

Here are several pictures of filmmaker James Benning’s replica of the Unabomber’s cabin and library.

 

 

He has also provided a list of the library’s holdings:

 

The Unabomber Library

On her visits, my daughter Cynthia always introduces me to the work of some intriguing artist or writer. Last year she introduced me to visual artist-photographer and writer Moyra Davey who has written extensively about books and the book experience. Last weekend she talked about the photographs of documentary filmmaker James Benning, who is working on recreating the famous cabins of Henry David Thoreau and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Included in the collection is a photo of a small shelf hung about eye-level and represents Kaczynski’s library of about 20 books.  

 It is unclear to me whether these are books Benning thought Kaczynski might have owned or whether it was a re-creation of Kaczynski’s actual library. Either way, it includes the following titles and authors (at least the ones that I can make out from the photo):

•  Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi
• Vaslav Nijinsky,  The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky
• Jean Paul Sartre, (title unrecognizable)
• Robert Starkie, Raggle-Taggle: Adventures with a Fiddle in Hungary and Roumania
• Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species
• Bertrand Russell, Mysticism & Logic
• E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
• Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture

P.S. #1 I might post the photograph later, but not unless I obtain proper permissions,

P.S. #2  There is another connection between Benning and Atlanta via Hank Aaron. See comments.

Revisiting Rick Atkinson

Part I: An Army at Dawn

Heavy days of travel may keep me from blogging, but it does help free up time for reading in airports and on planes, as I am just finishing up a book that has been near the top of my queue for awhile – Rick Atkinson’s An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, the first volume of his World War II Liberation Trilogy,

 Last September, my friend Denise and I saw Atkinson when he was at the Decatur Public Library discussing the second book of the trilogy, The Day of Battle, The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. For some one as knowledgeable and celebrated as Atkinson (he won the Pulitzer for An Army at Dawn) the author was a humble and gracious man perhaps from the realization that his work as a military historian will always be secondary to those brave men who fought.

 Atkinson’s book reminded me of Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative trilogy because his ability to seamlessly mesh the facts (the troop movements, the geography, the generals, the type of armament the armies needed and used) with epic storytelling.  In Army at Dawn, he uses the personalities of the commanders including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General George S. Patton and German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel -- none who were flawless in North Africa – to give the reader “hooks” into the main plot which is a  “coming of age” story about  a fighting force that launched the U.S. as a world power.

 I somewhat pride myself at being better than average military buff, but Atkinson’s detailed book showed me how very little I really knew about Allies efforts in North Africa.  I’ve purchased several copies for friends already.