Attentive readers might remember that I joined Ed in setting 75 books as my goal for 2006. For most of the year I was right on track, but the start of football season, the Detroit Tigers’ trip to the World Series, and few other things knocked me off track lately. I am back up and running but still behind. As of today, I have read 59 books. Unless my math is off, 75 books in 12 months means 6.25 books a month. Through 10 months that leaves me 3.5 books short. I have to read 8 books in the next two months to meet my goal. That is daunting but still doable (I hope to make up some ground during the holidays believe it or not). If you want to see the books I have read so far, and track my progress, the list is here.

What about the peanut gallery? How many books have you read this year? Has it been a typical year, a down year, or a better than average year? What keeps you from reading? Have at it in the comments.

Those who pick up Saving God’s Green Earth are in for a delightful and easy read. Tri Robinson, founding pastor of the Vineyard Boise Church, passionately shares his journey and experience with creation care. This is a cookies-on-the-lowest-shelf kind of presentation, perfect for those who eschew or simply ignore the subject.

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I have returned from Washington but am a bit worn out. So until I get a chance to post some reviews, here are some books that have recently crossed my doorstep.

- The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems 1937-1952 by Allen Ginsberg

From Publishers Weekly

The troubled and excitable mind of the young Beat poet is given free rein in this exhaustive and often illuminating collection of his early private writing. The text serves as an evolving portrait of both a writer and a man: from the first, self-conscious high school entries to the stylistically mature entries of the early ’50s, the degree of insight and the fluidity of prose multiplies exponentially. Throughout, Ginsberg lives up to his reputation as the most intellectually rigorous as well as the most neurotic of the Columbia gang that included Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. Luckily, his neuroses—mostly of a sexual/ romantic nature—are often expressed with lucidity and intensity. Ginsberg’s obsessive relationship with the charismatic Neal Cassady is discussed at particular length, often in a narrative, slightly fictionalized form that provides a fascinating, and significantly more interior, counterpoint to Kerouac’s On the Road. An appendix of early poems provides significant insight into Ginsberg’s developing aesthetic. As a whole, the poems are entertaining in their own right, but, like most of the journals, they can best be appreciated in reference to Ginsberg’s body of later writing.

Exile on Main St.: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones by Robert Greenfield

- From Booklist

Greenfield focuses on the early post-Jones era, when Jagger and Richards were esteemed songwriters, and the band was starting to make money in piles. Picking up approximately where his S.T.P.: A Journey through America with the Rolling Stones (1974) left off, he recounts happenings at Richards’ French villa, where the album Exile on Main Street was recorded in summer 1971. Jagger, having recently dumped Marianne Faithfull, was married to jet-setting Bianca, whose antipathy for Richards and cohorts was reciprocated. Richards was in the middle of a long liaison with dissolute actress, scenester, and Faithfull-friend Anita Pallenberg. The Stones had extricated themselves from manager Allen Klein and, thanks to Jagger’s banker buddy Prince Rupert Lowenstein, were about to begin self-marketing. Complicating things were Richards’, Pallenberg’s, and assorted resident playmates’ heroin addiction, which brought Corsican drug dealers, local scumbags, and sleazoid Richards factotum Spanish Tony Sanchez into the mix, so to speak. Greenfield merrily corrects Sanchez’s and others’ published misstatements and serves up such treats as Richards’ description of Jagger as several of the nicest guys one could hope to meet. Rough, raw, and ironic by turns, he lays down the facts of how heroin enslaved and immobilized the band at a time when everything seemed within its grasp. So doing, this wry depiction of a dark, decadent moment in rock history inspires a certain demented nostalgia.

- Monopoly: The World’s Most Famous Game-And How it Got that Way by Philip E. Orbanes

From Publishers Weekly

In his account of the development of “the most significant money game in history” (200 million copies sold in 60 countries since 1935), former Parker Brothers vice president Orbanes (The Monopoly Companion) sets the game against a backdrop of political and economic events spanning a century. He introduces entrepreneurs and game inventors, beginning with Elizabeth Magie, who created the Landlord’s Game in 1903 to educate people about Henry George’s idea of a “single tax” on landlords (it even had a space called “No Trespassing/Go to Jail”). Initially unpublished, it circulated among game players in handmade copies on oilcloth. In 1930, Quakers in Atlantic City added local street names—Illinois, Pennsylvania, Mediterranean—to their handmade variation, which became the source of the Monopoly game that Charles Darrow marketed in 1934. Tracing this evolution, Orbanes covers collectors, foreign editions, memorabilia, licensing, copyrights and trademarks with fascinating details: Esquire magazine’s Esky was the springboard for Monopoly’s cartoon financier, and the metal tokens were inspired by the charms from charm bracelets that Darrow’s 11-year-old niece used as game pieces. Orbanes heightens the readability by interweaving his own personal story—at Parker Brothers, which he joined in 1979, and judging Monopoly world tournaments—throughout this lively chronicle that puts the iconic game in the context of a slice of social history.

I will be traveling to our nation’s capitol today, so here are a few links to keep you busy:

- Birnbaum talks with Michael Lewis about his new book Blind Side. Here is how Birnbaum describes the book:

The Blind Side is an incredibly moving story about the remarkable reversal of fortune Michael Oher, a 6′5″, 350-pound, feral sixteen-year-old black boy from inner-city Memphis, encounters as he is adopted by a wealthy white Evangelical family. And as is Lewis’s inclination, he is able to tell this heart-rending and warming tale in the context of a football story and a parable for re-evaluating our views of nature versus nurture and, in fact, a whole set of fallible talent assessment criteria.

- The Hotel Chelsea blog is getting in the Halloween spirit by featuring ghost stories this week. The offerings include:
* “Harry and the Zombie,” a fictional work by Ed Hamilton about the zombie that filmmaker Harry Smith kept in his closet.
* “Thomas Wolfe Postcards: A Ghost Story at the Hotel Chelsea,” written by Canadian novelist Susan Swan.
* An interview with a resident who knows all about the Betty Boop ghost and a report from a medium who spent a few days at the hotel.
* A review of “The Road.”

- Those of you in the New York City area might want to check out the book launch for Spectacle by David Rockwell and Bruce Mau. Here is a brief description:

In Spectacle, the architect David Rockwell, in collaboration with designer Bruce Mau, explores the allure of larger-than-life events that take place around the globe. From the running of the bulls in Pamplona to the Holi Festival in India to deafening - and dangerous - NASCAR races, Spectacle considers what it is about these “shared, live experiences” that transforms not only the way we see the world, but also how we connect with each other.

Illustrated with over 200 color photographs, the dynamic visual essay highlights the power of real-time, real-space events in today’s highly mediated world. The book features a collection of photographs and interviews with award-winning authors, producers, directors, and performers. These contributors have documented, participated in, or produced large events and bring a fascinating behind-the-scenes and in front-of-the footlights perspective on “spectacles” today. Interviews include: Muhammad Ali, champion boxer; Kurt Anderson, novelist and essayist; Simon Doonan, author and creative director; Dave Hickey, art critic; Quincy Jones, legendary music and event producer; Guy Laliberta, founder of Cirque du Soleil; Julie Taymor, film and theater director; Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, architects; John Waters, filmmaker; and Steve Wynn, Las Vegas mega-developer, with a concluding essay by critic Herbert Muschamp.

Rockwell, Spectacle’s designer Bruce Mau and moderator Chee Pearlman will be discussing the book Wednesday, November 1, at 6:30 p.m. at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. More information here.

- Speaking of book launches in NYC, the official NYC Book Launch Party for SIGNS OF LIFE will be Wednesday, November 15th, 7 - 10 pm at the GALAPAGOS Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The event will include:
- Fernet-Branca will razzle with *complimentary* cocktails
- The Hungry March Band will dazzle with their unique and high energy form of brass marching-band music
- We’ll show you a big screen slide show
- Signs of Life books & gorgeous, affordable prints will be available for purchase

Much has been written about the Pilgrims and their first few years in America, but as Nathaniel Philbrick explains in his book Mayflower a lot of what we have been taught is false. Philbrick does an excellent job chronicling the first sixty years of the Pilgrims’ settlement in America.

The book briefly covers the Pilgrims’ persecution in England and how many of them escaped to Holland to avoid further persecution – and why they choose to leave Holland for America. It then details the torturous sea voyage on the Mayflower and their first hesitant steps in the New World. The bulk of the book covers the first few years of the Plymouth Colony and their relations with each other and the Indians. The book generally builds up for the last part – King Philip’s War – and how it affected race relations from then on in New England.

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Some book reviews and articles for your perusal:

- Nice take-down of Andrew Sullivan by by Chris Roach over at AFF’s Brainwash: Andrew Sullivan: Defining Conservatism Down. You should read the whole thing, but here is a taste:

Sullivan’s confusion about secularism and the First Amendment leads to his hair-brained assaults on so-called Christianists. It’s true, some Evangelical Christians may be crude in their beliefs, not quite well read in the Constitution, ridiculously messianic in their treatment of Israel, and inclined towards other types of radicalism. But they are not the Taliban; their aims are chiefly defensive. Sullivan’s attacks on radical “Christianists” miss something important about cause and effect: right-wing Christians’ views are a reaction to an assault on their way of life by liberal political radicals, which is exacerbated by their disempowerment by Sullivan’s beloved judiciary. Their reaction is healthy and normal and predictable. But Sullivan and his ideological brethren only see hate in this defensive posture. Any normal person in any other era in history, whose mind is not warped by liberalism, would see this defensiveness and radicalization as a natural reaction to radical change imposed from hostile forces.

- Interesting portrait of Sam Harris, the author of Letter to a Christian Nation, in the Washington post: Atheist Evangelist. The article seems to make it clear that Harris’ project is unlikely to be successful:

Which gets us to another problem with Harris’s work often cited by critics: He can preach only to those who have left the choir. As a critique of faith, “You people are nuts” isn’t likely to change a lot of minds. There is the broader question, too, of whether religious moderates really are enablers for extremists. Maybe moderates are a bulwark against fanatics. If this is really a war of ideas, it is probably not a war between no religion (which is what Harris would like) and extremism. It’s a war between moderation and extremism, which is a war one needs moderates to fight.

“You’re not going to convert everyone to atheism,” says Harvey, the retired Stanford professor. “Secular humanists like Harris ought to be concerned with allies, to win fights on questions like the separation of church and state. But Harris isn’t concerned about the political implications of his arguments, because he thinks that anything supernatural is evil.”

- Allen C. Guelzo has a fascinating discussion of the left in his review of The Intellectuals and the Flag by Todd Gitlin. Public Indecency:

Points for honesty, Todd, but no cigar. In the end, Gitlin took down his flag. It was too much, he explains, to see the Patriot Act dispose of civil liberties (although I am not sure how many Black Marias Gitlin has counted rolling through Manhattan), too much to see a “lazy ne’er-do-well, this duty-shirking know-nothing who deceived and hustled his way to power” in the Oval Office, too much to see “a supine media” bending over backwards to accommodate “apocalyptic Christians and anti-tax fanatics” (and what bubble must Gitlin live in, that he imagines “the media” to be even slightly accommodating to “apocalyptic Christians”). We now know how much automatic revulsion is actually required before Gitlin junks the “common good,” and it doesn’t seem to be much.

Can there be a decent Left? Walzer thought this would only happen (a) if the Left stopped turning the world into a cheap economic melodrama and went back to the 18th-century basics of “secular enlightenment, human rights, and democratic government,” (b) if it stopped regarding “good bourgeois values… like temperance, moderation, and cleanliness” as the enemy of “radical politics or incisive social criticism,” and (c) if it would, for once, treat other Americans as fellow citizens (”We can be as critical as we like, but these are people whose fate we share”). It is a hopeful sign that 9/11 could shake Todd Gitlin free to consider these possibilities seriously. But it is not encouraging that even such a catastrophe could only shake Gitlin free for a little while.

Here are some literary links that have found their way to me in the last few days. I offer them here in case you missed them.

- Unbridled Books is continuing their Unbridled Aloud feature. This episode features:

Carolyn Turgeon, author of the about-to-be-released first novel Rain Village, (Pub Date Nov. 1st), a magical and enchanting debut about a young girl who dreams of becoming a circus performer. RAIN VILLAGE has the honors of being both a November Book Sense Pick and a Pulpwood Queens Book Club Selection.

- Robert Birnbaum has another interview over at the Morning News. This time he talks to the Nigerian novelist CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE about “her new book and the Biafran War, being African in America, and the distorted picture of Africa created by the media.”

- Seem almost silly to link to them at this point, but there were some interesting reviews in the NYTRB this weekend:
* Jim Holt on Richard Dawkins’ latest attempt to kill off God .
* David Brooks on Andrew Sullivan’s latest incoherent ramblings book.
* Henry Alford on the appropriately titled last book in the Lemony Snicket series.
* Colson Whitehead on The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

Quotes from some of these reviews below.

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Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank: And Other Words of Delicate Southern Wisdom by Celia Rivenbark

From Publishers Weekly:

In some 32 short essays on the ridiculousness of modern life, Rivenbark (Bless Your Heart, Tramp; We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier) wanders through Tweenland at the mall, thinking a better name would be “Lil Skanks.” She thinks that the Cruise/Holmes pregnancy has an “indescribably delicious” Rosemary’s Baby feel to it and recalls that Monica Lewinsky hosted a TV dating show—in which she “didn’t get the guy.” Rivenbark riffs on America’s crazier obsessions—the painful but obligatory pilgrimage to Disney World, the new attention to “buttocks cleavage,” coffee makers calling themselves baristas, or those celebrity moms who have “bumps” instead of babies. Rivenbark describes herself as a “slacker mom” and reminds readers to learn something from men—”because no matter how slack a dad is, if he does the least little thing, people gush over him.” This is a hilarious read, perhaps best enjoyed while eating Krispy Kremes with a few girlfriends.

- Death By Powerpoint by Michael Flocker

Book Description:

“By the best-selling author of The Metrosexual Guide to Style, a hilarious manual for navigating the many rungs of the corporate ladder. Does your manager talk endlessly about “engineering synergy” and “bridging disconnects?” Does the guy in the cube next to you eavesdrop and peak at what’s in your personal drawer? Have you ever come close to “death by PowerPoint” as you struggle to stay awake in a meeting? If you work in any kind of office–large or small–the answers to these questions are undoubtedly “yes” and you obviously and desperately need Death By PowerPoint. A life-saving guide to twenty-first century corporate culture, it provides incisive coverage of everything you’ll need to get ahead (or to simply stay above water):

- The Art of Office Politics–sucking up effectively, how to deal with control freaks and that annoying guy with all the “new ideas”
- E-Mail Etiquette–responding to ridiculous requests, managing passive-aggressive messages, and how best to undo E-damage
- Mandatory Fun–proper etiquette for office parties, the curse of Secret Santa, and undermining your drunken co-workers
- Sex in the Workplace–how to spot video surveillance, telltale signs that others are getting it on, dumping etiquette, and the treacherous realm of sex with the boss”

- Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake by Trevor Dann

From Publishers Weekly:

A British acoustic-psychedelic entry into the ever-swelling hall of artists who died young, Nick Drake received little recognition during his short life. Yet more than 30 years after his death, his celebrity has never been greater and has been accompanied by reissues, documentary films and biographies—one Drake tune even rated a Volkswagen commercial. Born to a wealthy family, Drake showed early interest in music; by his university years he had developed a unique guitar style and brooding songs that had little to do with the hippie noodlings of the era. Heavy drug use and commercial failure pushed the already introverted Drake deeper into isolation and despair; he died of an overdose at the age of 26. To this day, questions swirl around every aspect of Drake’s life, from his musical influences and sexuality to whether or not he intentionally killed himself. Unfortunately, Dann, producer of Live Aid, brings little insight to the Drake mysteries. While he covers Drake’s Cambridge years thoroughly, other aspects of the musician’s life are barely mentioned; even interviews with Drake’s closer friends reveal little—it just might be that no one really ever got close enough to him. By contrast, the book’s discography is comprehensive and informative.

- Strange Case of Hellish Nell by Nina Shandler

Book Description:

The fascinating story of Britain’s World War II witchcraft trial of Helen Duncan, the grandmother who conducted seances, and had a knack for revealing military secrets
On March 23, 1944, as the Allied Forces were preparing for D-Day, Helen Duncan–”Nell” to her six children and four grandchildren and “Hellish Nell” to her detractors–stood in the dock of Britain’s highest criminal court accused of: witchcraft!

At the time of her arrest, Helen Duncan was Britain’s most controversial psychic, a celebrity medium with a notorious reputation. During her seances, she channeled spirits who spoke from the world beyond, and on a few occasions, her “spirit” seemed to know too much: Helen’s seances were accurately revealing top-secret British ship movements. Intelligence authorities wanted “Hellish Nell” silenced.

Using diaries, personal papers, interviews, and declassified documents, Nina Shandler resurrects this strange episode and explores the unanswered questions surrounding the trial: Did “Hellish Nell” channel spirits of the dead who gave away wartime secrets? Was she a calculating charlatan or the innocent target of obsessive wartime secrecy? Why did the Director of Public Prosecutions try her as a witch, and not a spy? Sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, The Strange Case of Hellish Nell is a true crime tale laced with psychic phenomena and wartime intrigue.

In my review of The Devil’s Halo by Chris Fox I raised the following question:

Here is an interesting question: Can you raise serious issues or ideas in a paperback thriller? Now I am not talking about a literary novel that uses aspects of the thriller genre. I know books that often get classified as genre fiction deal with serious ideas. No, I am more interested in whether the kind of book you might take to the beach or read on the commute to work can contain some serious ideas underneath the action driven plot.

This issue came up again recently while I was reading The Second Horseman by Kyle Mills. While Devil’s Halo was more of techno thriller, and Second Horseman is a political one, both raise interesting questions in the course of their fast paced action driven plots.

2nd Horseman’s lead character is Brandon Vale, a talented thief and con man currently serving time for a crime he didn’t commit. Vale is content just to serve his time and start over again once on the outside. But when a mysterious group arranges his escape and offers him a job things get complicated.

It turns out the man who arranged his escape is Richard Scanlon, a former FBI agent and currently head of a Vegas-based intelligence contractor, the man who framed Vale in the first place. Scanlon offers Vale the easy life on a South African vineyard if he can pull off a job. The problem is the job involves stealing $200 million dollars from Vegas casinos and exchanging the money for twelve nuclear warheads held by a Ukrainian crime syndicate.

Mills further complicates things with a twist that involves a National Security Adviser with a Machiavellian plan to use Scanlon’s nukes to forever alter the Middle East and international relations.

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