reading list: april - june 2024

Alasdair Gray, Poor Things. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. I pulled Poor Things off the shelf in response to its Oscar-winning film adaptation -- wanted to be ready for what I’d se. Strang part is that I hadn’t read it before, a my obsession with Gray goes back to discovering Lanark during my collegiate semester in Scotland: that shelf holds every title I’ve been able to track down. This one is purportedly the autobiographical confessions of a 19th century doctor and his Frankensteinish friend God, who rescue a woman in need. It is certainly worthy of being made a movie; it is also well worth reading on its own. Philip K. Dick, Man in the High Castle. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962. Imagine the Axis had won World War II and divided North America as spoils. Now imagine the resistance. The key figure, the one who can imagine the Allies victorious, has literally taken to high ground in Montana, but plans to eliminate him are already in motion. V.M. Burns, Bark if It’s Murder. NY: Kensington, 2019. Finding a good kennel can seem like murder, but when Aggie’s mom uses the remote video to check on her fur-baby, she sees the real thing. With help from her dog-obedience classmates, she digs into the mystery, and turns up a very bad girl. Alexa Martin, Next-Door Nemesis. NY: Berkley, 2023. Collins moves home to Ohio when her boyfriend steals her TV script, only to encounter the one who broke her heart before she left for LA. She eventually gets to chose which one she wants, because there are no other single men in Ohio. At least she gets a movie script out of the mess. Ernie Harwell, Stories from My Life in Baseball. Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 2001. This collection of Harwell’s sports page columns gives us stories of favorite players, games, and events off the field in a prose that almost lets me hear the long-time broadcaster again. Ali Hazelwood, Bride. NY: Berkley, 2024. A political marriage between a vampyre and a werewolf? Sounds like a great idea -- for a story, if not a stable alliance (or relationship) -- and it doesn’t disappoint. Norman Mailer, Gospel According to the Son. NY: Random House, 1997. Mailer’s Christ is very much a man, full of the knowledge of his father yet also full of doubt. he is a sympathetic character, somewhat overwhelmed by sudden success, and sometimes given to anger. The chronology adheres closely to the standard timeline of events, but focuses on the acts and motivations more than His teachings, leading to a thoughtful, definitely non-blasphemous reconsideration of the Savior. Susan Orlean, Library Book. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018. In April, 1986, the LA Public Library’s Central branch caught fire and burned for more than seven hours, damaging or destroying well over a million books. This is the story of that fire, that library, and the investigation into that library’s fire. Daniel Rachel, Too Much too Young. Brooklyn: Akashic, 2024. “That’s what genius is. It’s Miles Davis. Marvin Gaye. It’s Jerry Dammers. They’re one-offs. Geniuses like that don’t fit well in the pop industry,” said Andy Brooks of The Friday Club. yet, in less than two years, jerry Dammers, founder of the Specials and 2 Tone records, simply changed the industry rather than try to fit. In the process, he launched his own career, as well as those of Madness, the Selector, the Beat, and other bands that filled the spiritual void of Thatcher’s England between the Clash and Wham! This study talks to the major players, recording the story and providing insight into motivations, results, and impact of Britain’s interpretation of ska. Robert Burk, Never Just a Game. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1994. One needn’t be a Marxist to see that modern history is labor history, and the history of professional sport is no different. This first of a deeply-sourced two-volume set covers baseball’s development from the clubs and voluntary associations of the 1700s through the reification of the American and National leagues as Majors, co-opting the power of government to beat back all challengers and ensure monopolistic profits for the ownership cabal at expense of both players and patrons. the author’s attitude toward the Lords of the Game is clear and invites readers to question why such money-making machines ought belong to any private entity when they exist as a nominal public good.