Unsolicited Book Recommendations

Human Smoke, Nicholson Baker

I stumbled across this book in a Building 19. If you hail from anywhere in central New England,  you probably know that B19 prevents a lot of ersatz junk, misprints, irregulars and damaged packaging from going directly to the land fill. Plus, you can drink free "coffee" during the entire rummaging experience.

This book comes at the run up to World War Two with a clear disregard for prevailing myths of heroism. Baker doesn't just indict, in his oddly satisfying approach to history. He allows men like Churchill to condemn themselves, by revealing the motivations that never make it into hagiographic "great men" histories.

Resource Wars, Michael T. Klare

Klare got ahead of the curve (in a manner similar to that of Paul Roberts, with The End of Oil) and outlined the current geopolitical environment before many of the acts now playing out on the stage of history had even cast their leads and supporting players.

Especially important, I believe: his sections on the quiet water war waged by Israel, underlying the fight for colonial control of the West Bank, and his treatment of the foundational causes of the encirclement of Iran.

A Sideways Look at Time, Jay Griffiths

This book slaps you in the moral face - taking on no less than the Enlightenment itself. Griffiths never apologizes, as she savages Bacon, Franklin, the entire scope of Western time making, calendar conventions, and the occidental assault on all things natural. Reviewers often apply the term "uncompromising," when discussing stupid ghost written screeds by Sean Hannity or Regnery authors, when they want to convey hard-headed "toughness." They mean, instead, "thick headed nitwitishness."

Griffiths really doesn't compromise, and she goes after the unquestioned premises that assclowns like Hannity (and Obama) need to sell their case for continued occidental colonial hegemony.

The Transformation of War, Martin Van Creveld

A vital book, even where it works now only as recent history. Too many reviews of this work already cover the basics, so I'll keep it simple. If you want to understand why Clinton, Blair, Bush, Brown and Obama have spent so much time and capital getting around Geneva and domestic war crimes legislation, start with Van Creveld.

Neither Wolf Nor Dog, Kent Nerburn

My wife, who doesn't "do politics," handed this to me after she'd finished it. She never recommends books, or movies, preferring in her own quiet, beautiful way to let me stumble onto insights and delights that we can later share.

She never forces another person's hand. Rare. So damned rare.

She didn't insist that I read it, of course. She just handed it to me.

I didn't want Nerburn's tale to end. Unlike so many white writers who delve into indigenous concerns, he did not pretend detached objectivity. He undertook to tell an Indian man's story, the story of a friend, and how that story and his own life intertwined. He celebrated, and that love and care informs every page.

With sparse language, at turns more ellipsis than text, Nerburn brings Dan (a native elder) to life, transcending the page, to grant three dimensions to both his subject and his environment.