Summer Reads

 

Soooo… August.  Summer is quickly expiring and you probably have not left your desk or your job for a decent vacation.  This is a sin and a microcosm of what is wrong with our country.  We don’t want “European Style Socialism” but they shut down for August.  People go the water or at least they stop working and that should be the goal of sensible people everywhere.  I know that no one reads anymore but it is still one of the greatest pleasures or summer.  Reading has become a victim of two things in my opinion:

1.    No time

2.    No trusted sources or filters (like music)

99% of people dont care about books at all.  To the extent they care about anything other than FOX NEWS or the business report they read magazines and once again those tend to be more about business and current event than literature.  This is a shame.  As people stop reading their ability to express themselves in writing declines and as I said, this is a shame.  Reading shouldnt be painful so I suggest some summer reads….from east to hard.

“Sweetbitter”-Stephanie Danler

NY Times Book Review-http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/books/review/sweetbitter-by-stephanie-danler.html?_r=0

“Sweetbitter” is the best sort of cotton candy.  That does not mean it is crap.  It is very well written, very well paced and excellent.  It is the novel Anothny Bourdain would have written had he been a girl instead of a boy and working front of house instead of the kitchen.  It is a coming of age (late) tale about a midwestern girl moving to NYC and snatching a job as a backwaiter in a great restaurant.  There is romance, competition, mentors, heartbreakers, crazy bosses, funny stories and lots of drinking, cocaine, sex and regret.  She narrates as a sympathetic character and then you get to the authors picture on the jacket flap and it is more like, “boo hoo...pretty girl goes to NYC and gets a job and adventure in the mean city”.  It is kind of trite, kind of funny and kind of sad but as I said, she can write.  If you like food and you like restaurants and you like NYC, it is just a fun read. It requires no thought and in many ways is the perfect summer book.  You can put it down, pick it up and not worry about missing or fogetting anything.

The Fixers:  Michael Thomas

This is another easy read.  It is narrated by an old school, monied, CIA trained art afficianado.  He gets recruited by his old boss to help throw the 2008 election and explains the financial crisis through the lense that Wall Street bought and paid for the 2008 election, pulled strings to make sure that none of their were prosecuted and moreover made sure the government did nothing to impede (and instead actually enhanced) their ability to continue to pilfer and victimize.  It is well written.  Short chapters and speaks very poorly of Wall St. and what Wall Street culture has become.  The narrator eventually and long after the fact has pangs of conscience and there is a longing for the Wall Street and the ethose of old.  He makes very clear that the top 1% of the 1% make their decisions solely on the basis of what is perceived to be “legal” and if it is “legal” there is no question about anything silly like ethics.  He walks you through the whole thing, the mortgage meltdown, the greek crisis, the LIBOR fix, Fannie, Freddie, The Big Short.... Everything.  It is kind of stomach churning and kind of amazing that we survived at all but this too is an easy fun read that also makes you think.

Everybodies Fool-Richard Russo.  This is my personal Book of the Year!  I ave always loved Richard Russo.  “Mohawk”, “Straight Man”, “Nobodies Fool”, “Ransom” and all the rest.  Most of his books are set around upstate New York and the failing industrial economy that seems especially relevant in light of the fact that the rust belt and angry, under employed white people, seemingly left behind have been mobilized to support one of the two cantidates for the most powerful office in the world.  No one writes dialogue or colors characters like Russo and he is the top of his game with this follow up (of sorts) to “Nobodies Fool”.  He takes us back to North Bath NY.  A failed manufactuing town that was poisoned on the way out by industry fouling their streams as well as their downtown.  He draw a colorful list of down in the mouth characters who are all compelling, many of them from “Nobodies Fool” but they have changed as life has continued to kick the shit out of them and their town.  It is a hard book to put down and is so well written as to be mesmerizing.

NY Times Review-http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/books/review/t-c-boyle-reviews-richard-russos-everybodys-fool.html