Wednesday, January 2, 2008 | by nathan
2008 Books
2008 Books
This year I’m not going for quantity as much as quality, though I am going to try my damndest to keep my book count above 40. As usual I’m counting audiobooks and re-reads, though I’m trying to do much less of the latter. If you don’t think an audiobook counts as reading, you can suck my ass. As ever, green numbers represent re-reads and purple represents audiobooks.
Yes, I said suck my ass on the internet. Now, let’s get down to reading.
This year I’m also linking each one of these books to its page at Amazon, and also to my review of it; excerpts will be below, but if you want more in-depth thoughts you can click on that. If you’d like to read along, feel free to email me at nathan at this doman, and I’ll let you know what I’m thinking of reading next. Also, I’m always looking for suggestions, but I gotta tell you now, if you liked The Da Vinci Code or Blue Like Jazz, I’m probably going to hate what you recommend. Now let’s get down to work. We’ve got a lot to cover.
1. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.
From my review, which you can read here:
"The book tries very hard to mix two things that do not necessarily go well together: a Yiddish sensibility and a story of upheaval and redemption, and a noir-ish detective tale. The strands do not blend well, and as a result the book is a bit like roast beef-flavored toothpaste. Still, for the last 160 pages or so the suspense and intrigue were notched up, and I found myself very interested. I’m just a little sad it took me 3 weeks - and it NEVER takes me 3 weeks to read 250 pages - before we got there."
2. The Abs Diet (audiobook) by David Zinczenko
From my review, which you can read here:
"The science makes a lot of sense here, I suppose, but here’s what bugged me, what bugs me about all this kind of stuff: we all grew up knowing what was healthy, what was good for us, etc. I can’t stand it when "experts" try to tell us that the things we’ve known all along are wrong, are lies, are actually THE THINGS THAT ARE KILLING US. This book engages in less of that than most diet and health books, which is good, but it did just enough that when I was listening to it - usually at the gym, oddly enough - that I’d occasionally have to grit my teeth and try not to scream."
3. Since You Asked by Cary Tennis
From my review, which you can read here:
"Cary never forgets that there are real-life consequences to our actions, that sometimes doing what seems right can lead to disastrous effects. A recovering alcoholic, he knows the rough edges of life all too well and brings a kind of compassion and grace to the table that few advice columnists are able to muster. The book is completely addictive, and because it is a collection of columns, reads easily and quickly. I was in the bathtub way past my bedtime reading it last night, and was able to get through a whole bunch more this morning like a flash."
4. The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering A Life of Faith by Marcus J. Borg
From my review, which you can read here:
This book is for people whose story and struggle are like mine. Unlike other books which describe a different perspective on Christianity, however, it is compassionate, kind, and not dismissive of traditional or evangelical Christianity, and it does not covertly embrace a necessarily secular-humanist agenda. It encourages an active faith, one that engages God and the Bible, one that requires prayer and community and social action, one that fundamentally changes the believer. Where Borg occasionally lapses into liberal-political rhetoric he can be forgiven; his faith, after all, has implications for his political beliefs and he makes no apologies for this, nor does he imply that anyone else should, whether or not they reach the same conclusions that he does.
5. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
From my review, which you can read here:
in this day and age, any politician hoping to rise beyond a certain level pretty much has to release this type of book. George W. Bush even has one. The P.R. and money are just too good to resist making this type of move. As political memoirs go, The Audacity of Hope is excellent, filled with wonderful anecdotes both from Obama’s life and from the lives of people he’s met on the campaign trail. Also, as an audiobook, well - he deserved the Grammy, for sure, if for no other reason than for his spot-on impersonation of George W. Bush.
Still, if you want to know more about the man, about the mind behind the phenomenon, I’d go for Dreams From My Father. It’s less guarded, less political, more personal and interesting, less philosophical, and yet, more insightful.
6. John Hedgecoe’s Photography Basics by John Hedgecoe
From my review, which you can read here:
Digital photography hasn’t quite been the revolution people think it is - at the end of the day one still needs to know what constitutes a good photo and what doesn’t, and Hedgecoe’s book does a good job both of describing the rules for taking good pictures and for including enough good photographs so that one can see what a good photograph looks like.
What he doesn’t explain, and what I think bears repeating here, is that if you want to be good at photography - and this rule applies to pretty much anything you want to be good at - you have to take a whole lot of photographs. You have to take photographs almost every day, and you have to take tons of them, because if you’re lucky, maybe five percent of your pictures will be good.
7. The World Is Flat 3.0 by Thomas L. Friedman
From my review, which you can read here:
I find it offensive because it implies that because now someone in India or China or Bangladesh can do call-center work, that must mean the playing field is level for everyone, everywhere. It’s an overly simplistic argument that essentially lets exploitive companies off easy while simultaneously repeating the great palace lie that the internet is somehow going to be the great savior of human culture.
8. The New Seed Starters’ Handbook by Nancy Bubel
From my review, which you can read here:
As with many gardening books, she offers a lot of advice that should perhaps come with a disclaimer, something like, "Plants want to grow. That’s why they exist - to grow, to flower, to produce fruit, and, finally, to produce seeds." Instead, by supplying a lot of really elaborate ways of caring for plants, from very specific, circuitous ways of layering the soil in one’s garden to how to build drip-irrigation systems, she seems to imply that anything you put in the ground will rot and die if you don’t follow her advice. Still, overall I’d absolutely have to recommend the guide.
9. The Preservationist by David Maine
11. The Party Faithful by Amy Sullivan
From my review, which you can read here:
The book is a fascinating look at why religion does matter to all voters, and why it should. Sullivan herself is an evangelical Democrat whose work is inspired by a deep, personal faith both in Christ and in Democratic party principles. This sets it apart from other books on the subject, many of which are written from a detached religious perspective. For Sullivan (and for me) this stuff is personal and vital; it’s the question, largely, of what it means to be a Christian in America.
12. Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy) edited by Heather Armstrong
From my review, which you can read here:
What we get here is a bunch of people talking without affectation, without pretense about fatherhood - about their own fathers, about their experiences as fathers and how one informs the other. The essays are occasionally hilarious and always heartfelt, and each one of them made me want to call my dad up and tell him I love him.