Book of the Month for September

BOM for Sept: Reality Hunger: a Manifesto, David Shields.


Knopf. 2010.

Probably the best way to review David Shields’ bizarre new screed Reality Hunger: A Manifesto is to present one passage:

I find nearly all the moves the traditional novel makes unbelievably predictable, tired, contrived, and essentially purposeless…
I like work that’s focused not only page by page but line by line on what
the writer really cares about rather than hoping that what the writer cares
about will somehow mysteriously creep through the cracks of narrative,
which is the way I experience most stories and novels.

If you’re the kind of writer, reader, or thinker who reads this fatuous passage as a neat indictment of its author’s shallowness and general stupidity, you’re not going to have a meaningfully different experience with the rest of the book and its glib pronouncements, which greatly outnumber and overwhelm the few interesting explorations it affords.
If you, however, read it with a fist pump and an “in your face, traditional novel!” read the rest of the book.

Michel Pastoureau's Black: The History of a Color

BOM for August: Black: The History of a Color. Michel Pastoureau. Princeton University Press: 2009.

Medieval historian Michel Pastoureau continues his work on the history of colors and patterns with his latest book Black: The History of a Color (he has previously written on the color blue and stripes). Pastoureau tackles this admittedly complex subject in the context of European art, beginning with prehistoric and ancient cultures and concluding with how the modern perception of black is shaped by social, political, cultural and artistic currents. Throughout visual history the color black has come to represent a gamut of concepts including austerity, evil, death, secrecy, elegance, power, luxury modernity and danger and has been exploited by artists and propagandists alike to communicate these sentiments.

Pastoureau’s most interesting narrative comes early in the book when he discusses black’s place in the color spectrum and lexicon. Black's status as a color in its own right has fluctuated for centuries, depending on scientific and technical advancements such as Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of the color spectrum and the invention of the printing press--black ink on white paper. Pastoureau asserts that contemporary thinking once again considers black a color but cautions us to not consider black in isolation, both from other colors and from historical and cultural context.

Pastoureau supports his ideas with historical documents, artifacts like coats of arms, and beautifully reproduced, full color paintings, etchings and photographs. The book is divided into short, digestible chapters, organized chronologically. Although the prose is sometimes abstract and overly conceptual, Black: The History of Color is an enjoyable and fascinating read for anyone interested in aesthetics, art and design.

Doug Glanville's The Game From Where I Stand

BOM for June-July: The Game From Where I Stand: a Ballplayer's Inside View

Doug Glanville. Times Books. 2010 GV867.64.G58 2010

Doug Glanville played centerfield for the Texas Rangers and the Philadelphia Phillies and isn't a half-bad writer. This memoir of his major-league career has a true behind-the-scenes feel, and serves as a good tour guide through the life of a big-leaguer for the truly curious.

Glanville tells us about the clubhouse crew and clubhouse cook, about selecting a mitt at the beginning of the year, and about the best party town in the National League, Montreal. Apparently, you can get an invite to Tyra Banks' birthday party merely by being quoted saying you'd kiss a plate (you'll have to read the book) if it had her face on it.

Glanville's style is punchy, direct, sometimes a bit corny, too keen on jokes, which come off as superfluous. But what makes this book go is something they teach in English 101--give concrete details to illustrate every point. Many sports memoirs are stunning in their ability to not impart any illumination. This one, light fare though it may be, will give you a better idea of what it is to be a professional ballplayer than you had before you picked it up.

New China New Art

BOM (Book of the Month) for May: New China New Art

Ed. Richard Vine. Prestel, 2008.

A man wearing a rack of ribs; goats' heads popping out of a ball of blue fur; headless dolls on plates; a vat of soy sauce cooking a man and a boar; the images in New China New Art are striking and sometimes shocking. Many depict violence, exploitation, degradation, the crassness of capitalism and the oppression of Mao Zedong's regime.

The book, editied by Richard Vine, Senior Editor for Asia of Art in America magazine, features paintings, photos, sculptures, performance art and video art from dozens of contemporary Chinese artists. While the cultural changes in the nation's recent history are reflected in the work, Vine says in the opening chapter, "the focus of this book is more concrete, based on the conviction that artworks are generated by individuals, working with particular materials, under their own set of circumstances."

Reading in the Brain: BOM for Apr.

BOM (Book of the Month) for April: Reading In the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. Stanislas Dehaene. Viking, 2009.

Author of The Number Sense, Dehaene explores how our neurons must be rewired when we, as children, begin to learn to read. Per the dust jacket, "Dehaene convincingly argues that the emergence of cultural inventions, including writing, is constrained by the prior architecture of our primate brain."

The book is an astonishingly thorough investigation of all facets of the intricate workings of the human mind as it reads. Essential for educators, fascinating for anyone who loves language.

BOM for January

Book Of the Month, Jan.

Searching For Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America. Rich Benjamin. Hyperion, 2009. E184.A1 B374 2009

This nugget of middle-brow pop-sociological exploration finds journalist Rich Benjamin staying for a time in various all-white exurbs and reporting his findings.

Whitopia is Benjamin's term for towns like St. George, Utah and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, whose residents are attempting to return to a "simpler time."

Benjamin's prose is jaunty and brisk, his style narrative more than analytical.

BOM for Dec.

BOM: Book of the Month for Dec.

The Trouble With Boys. Peg Tyre. Crown, 2008. LC 1397.T97 2008.
From the dusk jacket:
"(boys) get expelled from preschool nearly five times more often than girls; in elementary school, they're diagnosed with learning disorders four times as oftn. By eighth grade huge numbers are reading below basic level."

Negative Review

Descriptive Review

Positive Review

BOM for November

BOM--Book of the Month for November
How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'N' Roll
Elijah Wald Oxford University Press 2009 ML 3477 W35

Wald decided that putting the Beatles in the title was just about enough; outside the intro and the last chapter, Wald isn't writing to make any argument about the Beatles or their effects on rock 'n' roll.
He instead gives an interesting look at popular music in the early
20th century, the life of a professional musician before the rise of records and radio, and the interaction of genres of music such as Blues, Country, R&B. It's a very worthwhile history of American music, 1900-1960.

Book Of the Month for October

B▫O▫M Book of the Month for October
IN ROOMS OF MEMORY Hilary Masters
PS 3563 A82I525 (currently "new titles" display)

Masters, noted essayist and fiction writer and son of Edgar Lee Masters, has crafted this volume of essays concerning his incomplete relationship with his father, the craft of writing, and travel.
From "My Father's Image:
So what I am left with is secondhand, abbreviated,
and possibly just a paste-up at that, while what
is missing is the sensual aura of the man: the
smell and feel of him, the handling and warmth
of him on a cold morning, the rub and texture
of his ordinary stubble.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review profiles Masters

Book of the Month for Sept.

B▫O▫M Book of the Month, Sept. 09
A Failure of Capitalism
Richard A. Posner
HB3722.P67 2009

U.S. Court of Appeals judge and author of How Judges Think,
Posner analyzes our current economic travails, which he terms a depression.

Posner identifies, as causes of the collapse, many actions and events that can be placed under the umbrella of greed: deregulation, executive compensation , risky lending. He also proposes solutions.

Book of the Month, August

Between Barack and A Hard Place

Tim Wise City Lights. 2009

E184.A1W57 2009

Washburn University professor Tim Wise decries the myth that Obama's election has ameliorated all racial tension in this nation. His chief arguments are that

• there will always be exceptional people within any group, those with access to "good" education, etc. The presence of these people and their accomplishments says nothing about all members of this particular segment of society



• the fact that people admit to favoring or accepting Obama because he has "transcended" race or is a "different" sort of Black man demonstrates the persistence of prejudice and stigmas



• empirical evidence in areas of housing, health care, education and others points to continued discrimination against African-Americans

While much of the book advances an argument that most would accept out of hand, that institutional racism still exists, Wise, when discussing the effects of and dynamics concerning Obama's presidency specifically, advances a welcome critique of much conventional wisdom. He writes, "white folks still hold the power. White folks still get to call the tune...The fact that there are some folks of color who can play the tune...hardly alters the dynamic between those who call it and those who are forced to do the dance."