Collected Miscellany

To get back into the “book blogger” swing of things, here are some book links I have had enjoyed recently:

– Stanley Kurtz has a fascinating review of A Bee in the Mouth, by Peter Wood at NRO. Wood’s subtitle is “Anger in American Now” and Kurtz argues that the book “scores a direct cultural hit.” Here is Kurtz’s intro:

So the Democrats won the election. Is there any less anger in our politics for that? Not as far as I can tell. To be sure, you’ll find some relief on the Left, and a bit of smugness as well (the latter stemming more from our troubles in Iraq than from the election itself). But are we back to sweetness and light, say, on the web? I don’t think so. That is exactly why Peter Wood’s new book, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now scores a direct cultural hit. America has entered an enduring age of anger, and Peter Wood is the able (and unruffled) chronicler of that epoch.

I doubt that even Barack Obama can save us from our anger now. That’s because the anger that lately pervades our politics is more than just an aftereffect of six years of Democratic setbacks (although the strikingly angry Democratic response to their six bad years does call for an explanation). Our political anger is only the most impressive expression of a much wider cultural transformation. In politics, in music, in sports, on the web, in our families, and in the relations between the sexes, American anger has come into its own. Wood says we’re living in an era of “New Anger,” and regardless of who becomes our next president, New Anger isn’t going away anytime soon.

The review goes on to discuss New Anger’s impact on blogging, politics, and culture so read the whole thing.

– NRO writer John H. Miller has an article in the Wall Street Journal about the Fairfax County Public Library system culling of its stacks noted in a story in the Washington Post. In discussing the issue Miller raises an interesting question:

But this raises a fundamental question: What are libraries for? Are they cultural storehouses that contain the best that has been thought and said? Or are they more like actual stores, responding to whatever fickle taste or Mitch Albom tearjerker is all the rage at this very moment?

If the answer is the latter, then why must we have government-run libraries at all? There’s a fine line between an institution that aims to edify the public and one that merely uses tax dollars to subsidize the recreational habits of bookworms.

Read the rest for Miller’s answer. But let me turn that around. What do you think the purpose of public libraries should be? This feels like a good topic for a blog post. I will offer some thoughts on this interesting topic when I get the chance. But in the meantime I would love to hear from readers.

– Elizabeth Fox-Genovese died yesterday at the age of sixty-five. Joseph Bottum writes poignantly about her life over at First Things.

– Lauren F. Winner tackles two interesting books on a tough subject: Prayer. Her review at Books and Culture looks at Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey and Knocking on Heavens Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer by David Crump . Winner is a student of the subject but not always a successful practitioner:

I own and have read dozens, possibly hundreds, of books on prayer. A whole bookcase, right next to my desk, is filled with them: Dom Gregory Dix’s The Shape of the Liturgy, Roberta Bondi’s To Pray and to Love, F. D. Maurice’s sermons on the Lord’s Prayer… . Once upon a time I thought that my devotion to reading about prayer was a mark of my spiritual advancement. Eventually I came to realize my mistake: in fact, I love books on prayer not because I am uniquely prayerful, but because it is far, far easier to read about prayer than to actually pray. It is the rare book about prayer that, rather than inadvertently distracting me from the pursuit of a praying life, actually prompts me to pray. Yancey’s Prayer is one such book, and I am grateful for it.

I have decided to change my approach for the books that I read this year. Last year, I chose to review only a few of the books that I read. This year, I will try to say a little something about each book I read.

With that thought in mind, I just finished Stand for Something: The Battle for America’s Soul by John Kasich. Since Kasich’s failed bid for the presidency in 2000, I have been interested in learning more about him. His book is a combination of biography and his views on various topics (the topics are government, sports, business, religion, education, and popular culture).

He presents his views in a no-nonsense sort of way that does not leave you wondering where he stands. His basic premise is that this country needs to get back to its moral foundation of honesty, integrity, personal responsibility, faith, humility, accountability, compassion, and forgiveness.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in knowing about a man who could throw his hat into the ring for the Republican presidential nomination for 2008.

After the crushing disappointments of this season’s football, it is time to return to the subject of books. I am afraid, however, that I must report another goal yet unreached. I didn’t read 75 books in 2006 as I had hoped. It was close, but I didn’t get there.

If you want to be super technical I read just shy of 74 books in 2006, but I cheated and counted the last book I finished this morning on the bus. There were simply a few pages that I didn’t get to because I had to help my wife get the house ready for a New Year’s Eve party at our house. With all of the football watching (whose pain was far worse than any hangover) yesterday I never got around to finishing C. S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet until the bus ride to work this morning. So sue me, I counted it anyways.

My wife made the argument that if you counted all of the children’s books that I read to our daughter that I would top 75. That didn’t seem quite right, however, so I decided not to stretch things quite that far just to get to a number. Interestingly, last year I read a near identical number of books (73). Must be my natural pace. Disappointing to not be able to squeeze in a few more books, but small children will do that to you I guess.

So how many books did you read in 2006?

Things have been rather slow around here, I know. I have been busy with “real world” things at work and at home that have simply distracted my from all things blogging. I have, however, been thinking about what I would like to focus on next year and how that might impact this blog. One of the things I would like to do is focus my non-fiction reading a bit more in order to try and build some insight and knowledge. I tend to just jump all over the place and it can dilute the benefit of reading serious non-fiction. Whether I will or can pull this off, is another matter entirely but that is what New Years resolutions are all about.

As a taste of what is to come in 2007 I thought I would make a note here of some books that I have recently acquired and hope to read and review.

– I am currently (re)reading the Chronicles of Narnia and plan to read the Space Trilogy, and perhaps Til We Have Faces, in preparation for reading The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs.

One early Christmas present I have received is Mark Steyn’s America Alone. Josef Joffe recently had a review in the New York Sun. According to Joffe, Steyn has a sharp wit and talented pen but not necessarily any insightful answers. Nevertheless, he recommends the book as a worthy read:

This book is a relentlessly funny and felicitous polemic, but as in any polemic, its sparkling insights don’t quite add up to a watertight brief. Sentences are honed to the sharpest, wittiest point, but, in the end, they leave you breathless and with a sense of du trop. You begin to scratch your head once your look past the sheer delight of reading . . . His diatribe is a “device,” as the journalist’s lingo has it — a call to arms and to conviction. Eventually, appeasement must and will falter. Meanwhile, read this book and savor the fireworks. Grim as it is, it will make you laugh and then force you to think. Pedagogy could not be more pleasurable.

Mr. Joffe is himself and interesting character: publisher-editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg, taught American foreign policy at Stanford this fall, where he is also Abramowitz Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He just published Uberpower: America’s Imperial Temptation. Coincidently, I picked up Uberpower at the library recently and hope to read it soon.

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Following along with my recent interest in the current Iraq War, I just finished We Were One by Patrick O’Donnell. This is your typical combat book that follows a unit through its combat tour. Saying that, I love these kinds of books because you get to know the individual soldiers and appreciate a little of what they went through rather than dry narratives of which unit where and what they accomplished.

O’Donnell is embedded with the first platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment – known as the “Thundering Third”. His book details how a core of combat veterans transforms a bunch of new recruits into a unit fit for combat. Once in Iraq, the men go through the daily grind of patrolling and trying to avoid IEDs (improvised explosive devices). After a few months, O’Donnell explains that Lima Company’s unit has been designated to take part in the recapturing of Fallujah – a sanctuary for foreign insurgents. Once in Fallujah, O’Donnell provides a blow-by-blow description of the street fighting. This fighting nearly wipes the entire platoon out through injuries and deaths.

This is a hard-core book about the cost of combat. For example, the platoon had four sets of best friends and, by the end of the battle; each set had lost one man. O’Donnell does not sugar coat the men in the platoon or the combat they survived – or in some cases, did not survive. Some may think that O’Donnell glorifies the Marines too much, but I contend that he describes the weaknesses of these men as much as he highlights their strengths. The men were not angels by any sense of the word, but they were some of the best that we as a country could send into combat.

Although O’Donnell does not spend much time analyzing the insurgents the Marines fought, I don’t think that was his intention. If you are looking for a balanced account of the Battle of Fullujah, read something else. I think the purpose of the book is to portray the life and death of the Marines who willingly went to Iraq and fought for their friends and comrades. There is no need to describe the insurgents other than that they were drug-crazed fanatics who were willing to give their life for the life of one Marine – they were clever and resourceful fighters (especially the Chechens) that were respected by the Marines.

This book is a wonderful tribute to the Marines who fought and died in Fallujah.

As mentioned in the post below on Bloggers Block, I have been having the hardest time getting motivated to post my reviews. The danger becomes particularly acute the longer the distance between when you finished the book and when you post your review. Having sold my soul to publicists by accepting their filthy lucre in the form of free books to review, I feel a particular pressure to write glowing reviews of said books. I kid, I kid. Actually, I am just lazy and have a hard time organizing my thoughts. Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy the review that follows no matter how truncated and/or lacking in insights.

The good folks at Paraclete Press have outdone themselves in producing a long and rather awkward title. The Most Difficult Journey You’ll Ever Make: The Pilgrim’s Progress: a Modernized Christian Classic by John Bunyan, Robert J. Edmonson, and Tony Jones doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. But it really isn’t their fault. There are necessarily three components in the book, as evidenced by the authors listed, and communicating all of that is not easy. You have the original work written by John Bunyan in 1660. You have a modernization of that work by Robert J. Edmonson. And you have the overall editor, Tony Jones, who also wrote the introduction and supplies reader notes. Below please find my thoughts and reactions on all three of these aspects.

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