Just one more thing I love about being a journalist: Sometimes I get to interview authors of books I really like. Here’s a link to my interview with Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist who wrote “The Happiness Hypothesis” and “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Religion and Politics.”
Books to read for a trip to Ireland
We’re going to Ireland again, so it’s time for another Irish reading list.
So what’s on my reading list? I don’t have all that much time, so it’s fairly short.
Modern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction. You won’t find anything here about the Celtic tiger or the financial crisis. By “modern,” they mean from about1800 to 1992, with a heavy emphasis on before 1922. Got that? Instead, this is mostly a history of how Ireland won its independence from Great Britain. If you’ve watched “Downton Abbey,” this is the kind of book that would give you great insight into the world of Tom Branson, the “very political” driver.
The Forgotten Waltz, by Anne Enright. This is a contemporary novel, the story of an affair. Enright won the Booker Prize for a novel about a family confronting the suicide of an adult son. Her writing is supposed to be fabulous.
Mothers and Sons, by Colm Toibin. This choice is much more difficult, I’ve been wanting to read something by Toibin for years. “The Master“— probably his best-known work — is a fictionalized portrait of the American novelist Henry James. Toibin’s novel “Brooklyn,” is about an Irish girl arriving in the States in the 1950s; it also got excellent reviews. His newest work is a set of essays called “New Ways to Kill your Mother,” in which he contemplates literature and family. But I will probably go with “Mothers and Sons” because it’s about (relatively) contemporary Ireland and also for a more mundane reason — I have it on my bookshelf.
To End All Wars, by Alan Hochschild - Favorite Nonfiction of 2011
This history of World War I — To End All Wars by Alan Hochschild — was my favorite nonfiction book of 2011. I don’t usually think of World War I much, yet it was an astounding conflict in so many ways, with its vast loss of lifeless and the almost pointless way it started. I wasn’t really sure how the war ignited before I read this book, and now that I have more detailed knowledge, I’m not sure I can explain it any better. Basically, Austria invaded Serbia, and the rest of the countries of Europe really wanted to go to war, so they all jumped in.
Hochschild uses a smart structure for his history: He focuses on people in Britain, switching between the points of view of the generals running the war and the anti-war protesters trying to stop it. There’s plenty of futility to go around on all sides: The generals don’t understand that they can’t take out machine gun nests by throwing infantry and cavalry at it. Meanwhile, the conscientious objectors are trying turn public opinion that seems absolutely gung ho for war.
Hochschild tells the story through just a few characters, including the Pankhurst family, a mother and her daughters who were radical suffragettes — bombing buildings and rappelling into parliament — before they split over the war issue. The mother, Emmeline, became a fervent war supporter, while one of her daughters ran a prominent anti-war newspaper.
Finally, World War I has popped up in some uniquely personal contexts for me. My husband has been working on a history of his grandparents, who came to the United States from Ireland in 1913. His great uncle John came to the States around the same time, but was drafted and sent back Europe to fight with the Americans in 1918. Back in Ireland, the Easter Rising, which eventually led to the country’s independence, happened in 1916, right in the middle of the war.
On a lighter note, World War I is figuring heavily in the new season of my favorite TV show Downton Abbey.
I would strongly recommend this book to people who are interested in history but who find traditional scholarly treatises to be dull and plodding. This book is anything but.
Appetizer for “The Hunger Games” book group meeting: nuts, berries and “roast groosling.”
(Roast groosling is actually Cooks’ Illustrated recipe for chipotle chicken skewers.)
_A Good Man is Hard to Find_ by Flannery O’Connor This is a recording from 1959 of Flannery O’Connor herself reading _A Good Man is Hard to Find_ at Vanderbilt University. Probably one of the coolest things in the world right now. Also, it’s included in the special features of John Huston’s film version of _Wise Blood_, recently released in the Criterion Collection.
Steve Jobs, RIP.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
This is an interesting analysis from the New York Times’ 538 blog of the many ratings we’ve issued over at PolitiFact.
I’d never heard of Mary Oliver but this interview inspired me to place a hold on one of her books of poetry at the library. On another level, the interview is simply a portrait of a woman aging gracefully and with verve.
PS If you click through you’ll see a photo with mangroves in the background. The photo credit says Hobe Sound on the east coast of Florida, but it looks just like Weedon Island near St. Pete on the west coast. (Yes, I have to interject a Florida connection wherever I find it.)
