Scholarship table
Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman
One of the books I have been rereading as of late is a 2016 book called Making the Unequal Metropolis: School Desegregation and Its Limits. It was written by Ansley T. Erickson about my former hometown, Nashville, TN, and the era during the time I lived there (1960s and 1970s). Had I not been educated in Nashville's Catholic School System (which also produced the lovely and talented Chick), I would have been in the middle of it. Many of my friends were.Ms. Erickson is an education history scholar at Columbia. She is not a native Nashvillian and it shows at times in her occasional lack of understanding of the city and infrequent factual mistakes. Yet she captures the tenor of times from an African American's perspective. The Caucasian perspective on School Desegregation in Metro Nashville long ago was over-covered. The African-American perspective far less so. Given the re-emergence of a protest movement and concerns above acceptance by African-Americans into the broader community, the book is an eye-opener. Ironically, it also explained more than a few bizarre trends that went on in Metro education from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Almost done with third volume of Hilary Mantel's fictional trilogy which is structured around Cromwell's rise as a counselor to Henry VIII (I. Wolf Hall- downfall of Thomas More; II. Bring Up the Bodies- the fate of Anne Boleyn; and III. The Mirror and the Light - Thomas Cromwell's undoing). It is as good as the first two; she has a remarkable ability to place the reader in the room. It takes a while to get used to how she identifies Cromwell's thoughts and dialogue, and there is a fair amount of archaic language and unfamiliar (to most of us) people and places, but I have enjoyed learning about those.
Did you see the mini-series on Netflix based on the 1st two books? Very well done.
Been rereading the Hunger Games series as we got the prequel and I wanted to refresh myself on the world first.Took a detour to read Trevor Noah's excellent autobiography Born A Crime. Also started with audiobooks for the first time, listening to The Hate U Give. Also had no idea there was a new Robert Langdon book from Dan Brown out, just waiting on that audiobook to become available. I'm listening on the Libby app, which allows me to get audiobooks from the Milwaukee Public Library. Nice function and feature.
You got me excited to read more shítty fiction by dan brown, but then realized you were talking about his book from 2017.
Jockitch has a pre-order on the graphic novel version of Michael Cohen's book.
It's an old one...but I just finished The Cider House Rules by John Irving. Outstanding read if you haven't already done it. IMHO, much better than The World According to Garp (which I thought was good, but not great).Next on my list is Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski.
Obviously, since I just got through saying Garp was a fave, I disagree that Cider House was better. But I liked it. Irving’s Hotel New Hampshire and Owen Meany also excellent reads.
Funny - I read your comment about Mary Trump and Rick Wilson's books, and somehow skimmed right over your comment on Garp when I posted.In any event, Garp and Cider House are both worth reading, and I can see how someone could pick either as his or her fave.Just starting the Bukowski book now, but I might grab the other Irving books you mentioned - both have been on my 'someday' list for a long time.