The Book Shopper

Lethargy 2013: Best Books and ATL Book Events

“...gray just not coming in, but putting its feet up and making itself at home.” - Thomas Pynchon

Recapping the year, it's been a time when I didn't read as many books as I usually do or attend as many book events as I normally do. But why?

The Best Read of the Year Wasn't a Book

This year, I found myself reading more magazines and fewer books. Part of the reason is that due to a chronic wrist problem, I find carrying larger books on the train more troublesome. Since I have no desire to own an e-reader, I switched to reading more magazines. Taking advantage of low subscription rates, I regulary read The Atlantic, The Economist, Cabinet, The Believer, and Harpers, but the magazine I enjoyed the most was The Sun.

The Sun has been around since 1974 but this is first time I subscribed to it. In a time where print is dominated by slickness and snarkiness, this magazine with its black and white photos takes a personal approach. The short stories and observational pieces seem written by common folk (still they are writers, but the prose is usually simple, direct and touching). Readers contribute with letters and there is a topic of the month where they send in personal anecdotes, which must be deftly edited by founder Sy Safransky. Each issue is anchored with a lengthy interview of someone whom I had never heard of, but has fascinating views on the environment, the prison system, animal rights, etc., This month the interview was with author and couples therapist Esther Perel, who talks about sex, marriage and intimacy.

The Sun does not accept advertising and relies on subscriptions and donations (and shout outs from blogs).

There are a few books that are worth mentioning. Most of them books that were published years ago, but that is one of the themes of the book shopper – not just focusing on “the latest” but looking for gems of the past. Some of my favorites were Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2001), William Styron's Tidewater Mornings (1993), and Micheal Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union (2007), Wilfrid Sheed's Baseball and Lesser Sports (1991) Robert Boswell's Living to Be a Hundred (1994) and David Shields'  The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (2008). A couple notables published this year were Francis Spufford's  Unapologetic and Where Somebody Waits by Margaret Kaufman. Currently, I am working my way through Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge, where the opening quote in this posting comes from.

The Best Local Book Event (That I Attended) in 2013

I probably went to less than ten book events this year and mostly at the urging of the my longtime partner Denise. I must say that my interest for going out to see a writer has waned. (Keep in mind the theme of this posting is lethargy.) This year, Denise and I did see the gracious Rick Atkinson for the second time and a repeat performance by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Neither disappointed. Denise thinks that Erica Jong at Decatur Public Library was by far the best event we attended – so that is good enough for me.

My goal for 2014? More rest and a better attitude.

 

Bye-Bye Football

For the past few months I have been trying to give up watching football, which is not like me trying to give up watching professional bowling or professional poker players. This relationship goes back to my days as a youth. As a kid every Sunday, while playing the fantasy game I invented with football cards, I watched the Chicago Bears and the likes of Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers and later endured the Slow-mo Bob Avellini era. I even tried to play football at our small high school. My father summarized my football skills best by referring to me as “a tackling dummy for the varsity.”

 

So why goodbye to football? There are a lot of reasons when I think about it. Here they are listed in order of importance.

 

Reason 1. Once you know the long term health implications for those who play the game I feel complicit in continuing to support the sport with my viewership. I know the pros get paid a lot of money, but the average player's career is short (less than 3 years). College players don't get paid at all supposedly, and the expenses of high school football are a strain on most local education budgets.

 

Moreover, the hypocrisy of all the sportscasters and commentators who talk about the violence of the game while repeating video clip after video clip of collisions has become too much to endure. Players sacrifice their long term health so I can be entertained. I wonder if some day centuries from now, people will look at football stadiums like we look at the Roman Coliseum and the days of gladiators and Christian-eating lions. Will they wonder how a civilization could be so barbaric?

 

Reason 2. Speaking of hypocrisy, the relationship to the military and football is troublesome. Every football broadcast honors the veterans who serve and gives them special tickets and camera time. Then there are beer commercials including a promotion that for every bottle cap I redeem 10 cents goes to a veteran's family. I am not criticizing soldiers or helping their families. My complaint is that these “salutes to the military” just mask over the real problems and don't question why we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place. If you've read Ben Fountain's novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk (2012) you realize that football celebrations of the combat soldier serve more to disguise our own guilt than to benefit the troubled war veteran. Though I didn't think it was a great novel per se, I thought its message was clear and important.

 

Wolfe and Coyote: Book Memories

Lately, I have been revisiting a few older books. Usually this is triggered by some random event or small reference and these instances are no different.

The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1963) by Tom Wolfe.

A few months ago, Sports Illustrated ran a where-are-they-now interview with NASCAR great Junior Johnson.The article mentioned the Tom Wolfe feature story “The Last American Hero” which showed Johnson's driving roots and how they were seeped in the moonshine of Western North Carolina. In the article, published in the 60s, Wolfe explains the South's love affair with the automobile that began after the war: “...the car symbolized freedom, a slightly wild careening emancipation from the old social order. Stock car racing got started about this time, right after the war, and it was immediately regarded as some kind of manifestation of the animal irresponsibility of the lower orders.”

In the Johnson interview in SI, he said that he did not allow Wolfe to interview him, but he did permit Wolfe to talk to any of his friends about him. The feature story is still a fascinating look into the early days of NASCAR.

Descent of Man: Stories (1974) by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Recently there have been articles and blog postings about coyotes in the Atlanta and Decatur area and it reminded me of the work of T.C. Boyle. Even though Boyle made the coyote a symbol of urban encroachment on natural habitats in The Tortilla Curtain, (1995) what I remember best is his short story, “Heart of a Champion” where the noble television collie, Lassie – “balsamed and perfumed; her full chest tapers a lovely S to her sleek haunches and sculpted legs” runs away with a coyote, “puny, runted, half her size, his coat like a discarded doormat.” Boyle writes the story like it was episode of “Lassie” including the “opening strains of the theme song, one violin at first, swelling in mournful mid-American triumph as the full orchestra comes in.”

I think George Saunders reads like early T.C. Boyle.

Living to Be A Hundred (1994) by Robert Boswell

I am still rescuing books from the final days of Books Again's Going Out of Business sale. (Even if you're not going to read them, you should go there buy a favorite book or two just to keep some modern classics in circulation.) This Boswell book of short stories was no rescue. Ever since I read Boswell's short story, “Glissandro” a heartbreaking story of a fourteen-year-old boy's reconciliation of the sadness and goodness of his father, I wanted to find this early Boswell collection. And there it was – a signed uncorrected proof. Joy.