Now is as good a time as any to curl up with a good book, especially with the dogs of war nipping at our heels. This column is my annual list of books that meant something to me last year. My usual pointless rant will return next week.
"The Rasputin File" by Edvard Radzinsky. Russian scholar Radzinsky's compulsively readable account of the palace intrigues of the disreputable monk Rasputin is my current passion. This tale of an illiterate peasant's journey from rural Siberia to the inner circle of Russia's doomed Romanov dynasty reads as if written by one of the great 19th century literary giants. Radzinsky's careful documentation of how Nicholas II and his gullible wife were bewitched by a mysterious "holy man" also doubles as a cautionary tale about the willful stupidity and corruption of national leaders.
"Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period: The Complete Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce" edited by Russell Duncan & David J. Klooster. As a newcomer to the pleasures of Bierce's vivid documentation of the Civil War, I'm still in the "full of awe" stage when it comes to digesting these unsentimental narratives about the futility and horror of war. Bierce, a rival of Mark Twain's when both lived in San Francisco, has arguably a more bitter and ironic wit. He either fought in or was present for nearly every major battle of the war --believing in the Union's cause, but never putting his faith in its leaders. This is a wonderful introduction to a man who refused to conform during wartime.
"Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson" by Linda Williams. According to the author, a professor of Film Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, Americans of all racial persuasions are guilty of projecting the worst fantasies about each other in an endless stream of reductive images. Written in an academic prose style occasionally leavened by penetratingly original insights, Williams makes a strong case for a recognition of America's greatest pastime: the pursuit of virtue through group victimization.
"The Body and the Blood: The Holy Land's Christians at the Turn of a New Millennium. A Reporter's Journey" by Charles M. Sennott. As the former Middle East bureau chief for the Boston Globe, Sennott has seen up close the terrible religious passions that have soaked the birthplace of three major religions in blood. Sennott eloquently traces the plight of the region's dwindling Palestinian Christian community. This is an essential book for understanding how a region that gave birth to "love thy neighbor as thyself" became a cauldron of seething hatred.
"Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age" by Quentin J. Schultze. Calvin College professor of communication Schultze has succeeded where even the great Jacques Ellul failed: He's crafted a critique of our technological conceits that is at once lucid, humorous, philosophically nuanced and accessible to the masses. Because Schultze understands how real people operate in the world, he's able to outline strategies for maximizing human freedom in the face of relentless marketing, mechanization and manipulation.
"Theater of War" by Lewis Lapham. The happiest time of the month for many of us is when the latest issue of Harper's arrives. The first thing we turn to are Lapham's essays about the latest Constitution-distorting follies coming out of Washington. Lapham is the bane of those who use Sept. 11 to justify the wholesale usurpation of American rights and ideals. His skepticism about the direction of the Bush administration's war on terrorism comes through on every page.
Most Gratuitous Plug for Two Friends' Books, Dept.: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Mike Seate and freelance journalist Wayne Wise both stepped to the plate and got published last year. Mike's beautifully illustrated and well-written book "Street Bike Extreme" is now the defining text on acrobatic cycling. Wayne's stylish, creepy first novel "King of Summer" is a Stephen King-like meditation on friendship, otherworldly horror and adolescent dread by a Western Pennsylvania lake. Congrats, fellas. I'm jealous of you both.
Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.
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