Far Tortuga by Peter Matthiessen. Here's one Amazon reader review:
Far Tortuga is one of the finest works of fiction I have ever read. Had this book been written a hundred years ago, we wouldn't be comparing Matthiessen to Conrad today (as happens often), because Matthiessen's writing is so much better. This book's prose is mytho-poetical, gorgeous, and shorn of everything that is not necessary (unlike Conrad's heavy-handedness). Even though we (ironically) live in an age of some fine writing, the frenzy of life and the vulgarity of taste of most people is such that a book like Far Tortuga comes along, gains some readers, gets some good reviews, and is forgotten. It's not Matthiessen's fault; it's just that anything today of real quality is noticed by fewer and fewer people. Far Tortuga is a dream. Please read it, you won't be disappointed.Go here for more.
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I will read this book anyway if we don't chose it for bookclub. Hearing Howard Zinn on the radio once is enough to want to read his book. I would love to know what he writes about American history. Reviews at Amazon include this :
A quick look at the reviews for this book will tell you just how difficult it is for a reader of Zinn's works to whistle and walk on. Either one ends up savagely dismissing him as a petty caviller, or extolling his brand of "eye opening" wisdom. I doubt I can add anything purposeful to this seemingly hot debate because I approached this book with a different intent altogether.
I wanted this page of history to answer some of my business questions. How America came from a nowhere nation of vagrant Arawak Indian tribes just a few centuries ago to being a commerical (ok, and imperial) superpower in our times. My interest was not to equip myself with geewhiz anti-US trivia (although I picked up a fair bit on the way, tra la) but to answer the atavistic question of what promoted capitalistic thinking, meritocracy, love of freedom etc in the United states more than the rest of the planet (assuming this is true in the first place).
And in that department, I have to say that this book left me startled. It might sound presumptuous but the quick answer is that there is nothing specific in the history or the anthropological station of US in this century and the last that may have accentuated its drive for capitalism. What's more, America was and is, just like any other country on the planet, subject to the exact same vagaries of civilization/humanity/bigotry/dogma that make and mar an empire every few centuries or so. I also recognize why this is very difficult for Americans to identify with or agree to, specially Americans who typify the inward looking solipsism of the current generation and perhaps the last 2 or so.
I recommend this book highly as a VIEW of historical events that are difficult to deny occured. Whether the guardians of the old order spring into an attack or not this is bound to yank a lot of people (me included) out of a langour of perspective.
Not all books need to be read to be "liked". Even a book that makes you constantly revulse in disagreement is worth a read for that precise reason. 5 stars from me.
Southland by Nina Revoyr. I'm not a mystery fan but I was intrigued since the author takes you through another side of south central LA.
Spanning three generations, Revoyr's follow-up to The Necessary Hunger (1997) uses the murder of three boys during the 1965 Watts riot as the pivot point for a moving, sometimes harrowing exploration of race relations among black, Japanese, and white residents of L.A. When her grandfather dies in 1994, young Japanese American lawyer Jackie Ishida seeks to discover why her grandfather, Frank, had once planned to leave his Crenshaw grocery store to one of the murder victims, a black teen from the neighborhood. After enlisting the help of one of the young man's relatives, rock-solid community group worker James Lanier, Jackie embarks on a journey that will enable her to understand why she has fled so far from her Japanese roots she won't even consider dating a fellow Asian. Switching effortlessly from the mid-1990s to the 1960s, the 1940s, and back again, Revoyr peoples the landscape with compelling characters who are equally believable whether they're black, Japanese, male, female, gay, or straight. With prose that is beautiful, precise, but never pretentious, she brings to vivid life a painful, seldom-explored part of L.A.'s past that should not be forgotten. If Oprah still had her book club, this novel likely would be at the top of her selection list. Frank Sennett
This last one is a book of poetry. Mountains and Rivers Without End by Gary Snyder. Sounds intriguing but I think I'll check this one out first.
A magnificent achievement, this epic poem belies the common take that Snyder's poetic career is notable mainly in the past tense and is refracted by the works of others. Without doubt, Snyder's exploration of nature, Zen Buddhism and his travels through unexplored corners of American society influenced the Beat writers of the 1950s and early 1960s, and some of his early works (Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, 1965, and Turtle Island, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975) are masterpieces. This new, vital work sums up stylistic and thematic concerns by uniting 39 poems written between 1956 and 1996 (many published here for the first time) into a seamless whole that, like a modern Leaves of Grass, combines fascination with the varied particulars of the way people live with awe at the majesty of nature. Each of four sections is organized around a familiar Snyder focus: the demands made on people by nature and time ("The road that's followed goes forever;/ in half a minute crossed and left behind"); observation of the terrain he occupies ("Slash of calligraphy of freeways of cars") and various American landscapes ("trucks on the freeways,/ Kenworth, Peterbilt, Mack,/ rumble diesel depths,/ like boulders bumping in an outwash glacial river"); and subtle tributes to those who have survived the last 40 years ("At the end of the ice age/ we are the bears, we are the ravens,/ We are the salmon/ in the gravel/ At the end of an ice age"). A concluding essay, "The Making of Mountain and Rivers Without End," serves as an intellectual mini-autobiography and a gloss on some of the Eastern influences on the poem. This is a major work by a venerable master of post-WWII American poetry.The first two are definitely ones I'd go with. Not sure about the last ones.
