Some good books.

Dude, it’s been a million years since I did a book list. But I’ve read some good stuff since then.

Very good:
Just finished Under a Flaming Sky, by Daniel James Brown, which I heard of here. Oh man. Remember when you read Outlaw Sea, like I told you, and you stayed up late into the night because you couldn’t put down the chapter about the ferry sinking? That’s what this whole book is like. I cried for those moms fleeing with their babies.

I also really liked Prayer for a City, by Buzz Bissinger. I vaguely think I read Friday Night Lights, too, on a flight to Hawaii, but it was obviously the wonky book about Ed Rendell and his efforts in Philadelphia that I remember.

Oh! If you want to understand California ag, which obviously you do, you should read The King of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire by Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. Super good, a very hard look at the farms in the Tule Lake bed that are bigger than some states. Good technical stuff on cotton, a couple generations of flamboyant doers and a look at very modern ag. Thanks for lending me that, Teddy. Are you going to want it back?


Solid:
American ground, unbuilding the World Trade Center, by William Langewiesche was good, but very obviously three long articles stitched together. That’s cool, though. I’ll read anything he writes. In fact, I think I have. He lives in Davis. I should stalk him.

The Nine Nations of North America, by Joel Garreau. Good recommendation, Ari, better than Redemption : the last battle of the Civil War, by Nicholas Lemann, which was a good explanation of how the Reconstruction went tragically wrong but not, like, a fun story. Garreau plays fast and free with generalizations about regions of American and big trends. He’s a catchy writer, too. He’s practically a blogger!

The Last Stand: The War Between Wall Street and Main Street over California's Ancient Redwoods, by David Harris. Another sad book, about the bad guys winning in a hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber. You see the same bad guys at the thick of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, so it offers a new angle on hating those fuckers. A very good story, well-enough written.

If you think you would like a book about freight transportation (trucking/container ships/trains) by John McPhee, then you would like Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee. Not so much plot, but lots of interesting detail and characters.

Oh! Thanks, Kwindla, for Radio Free Dixie, which was itself a good read, but combined with Blood Done Sign My Name (both by Timothy Tyson) and Redemption have left me struggling to remember that there must be some good in the American South, that I can't happen to see at the moment but must exist.

I had mixed feelings about The Quiet Girl, by Peter Hoeg. I liked Smilla's Sense of Snow a good deal, but thought it went weird in the end when it stopped being about understanding snow and started being a thriller. That was kinda how all of Quiet Girl was. Neat premise, that the guy can hear everything, and I expected to like it more seeing as how I am so disproportionately auditory. But it was kinda a thriller the whole way, with wrongdoing I couldn't exactly figure out and action I didn't really believe. But I read it all smoothly and think I liked it more than not reading a book. So maybe you'll like it too.


Light reads/young adult:

A couple good series:
I very much enjoyed Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty series, in which a contemporary werewolf has adventures and doesn’t leave out the sex. I found these through Prof. Shalizi’s booklists. I would now trust his tastes, except he recommended the Parker series of olde Japan mysteries which were utterly trite except for the annoying exoticism of Japanese honor rituals, which is a different kind of trite, I guess. Don’t read those.

I quite liked Jennifer Lynn Barnes' series about how it, like, totally sucks to have the Sight in high school. Golden and Platinum, so far. I predict a Silver because there is a third sister.

Stand-alone books:
I just read Everlost, by Neal Shusterman, which was sweet and moved smartly along.

I think my favorite read in a good long time and my top recommendation is Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale. That was just great. It really was. The girls from a village of stonecutters get sent to a princess academy, from which the prince will choose a wife. They are not passive about this. I’ve very much liked all of Hale’s fairytale settings and re-tellings, but this one is my favorite so far.



My older recommendations here and here. Tell me more stuff to read, OK? My request list at the library is down to one book.

UPDATE: Heh heh heh. Since I posted this yesterday afternoon, two separate writers on this list have googled themselves and come by. Hi! Sadly, Langewiesche isn't one of them and he didn't invite me out to dinner to tell me how amazing my blog is. The world is bleak and unforgiving.

I'll add some unsolicited advice to one of 'em, since she's been back a couple times: Honey, you're good now and you're going to be amazing when you're grown. In the next few years, as you come into your strength, you're going to stop wanting to be treated like a precocious sweet thing. When you get to that point, switch your photos. No peeking out from behind your hair, no cocked head angle. The cocked head angle is a flattering shot, but it is for listening to taller men and is both sexualized and submissive. When you are ready to be peers with your public, look them straight on. Only smile if you want to. Cutesiness is a pretty good formula (especially if you are cute), but you have even better options. You have so much talent that when you are ready to use other methods, they'll come through for you.

Incidentally, I am SO DISAPPOINTED that Shane Claiborne switched his glamor shots. I suspect these are a truer depiction of his attention and affect, but he had three old ones that were spot-on imitations of the headcock and moue that women often use. Having a scruffy dreadlocked guy use them shows their full ridiculousness. Forcing anyone who wanted him to speak use those shots was even better.