Fireside Reading

Seven selections for your winter reading, including my Book of the Year. May you have a warm and enchanting reading season….

Nonfiction

Autocracy, Inc., Anne Applebaum

Applebaum and her neoliberal proponents had assumed that the end of the Cold War and the ascendancy of economic globalization would lead to the spread of prosperity and democracy around the world. It did not occur to them that illiberal ideas would flow from the autocracies to the world’s democracies, but that is what has happened. She demonstrates the common practices of autocracies, but reaches when she implies a coordination among them to undermine “the West.” Still, this is an important book in framing a crucial development in international relations.

The Jazzmen, Larry Tye

This is more than biographies of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie, it is a portrait of cultural America in the first half of the 20th century. Tye describes the racism imposed on each musical genius, even as demand for their talents was insatiable and their impact on American cultural incalculable. It is my personal view that every development in music over the past century stems from the genius of Louis Armstrong, but Tye also highlights the enormous impact of Count Basie and, especially, Duke Ellington on American music and culture.

Fiction

Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser Akner
A fictionalized account of a true story, wealthy businessman Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his gilded mansion on Long Island. The ransom is paid, but the family will never be the same again. The chapters follow each family member as they deal with their trauma from the kidnapping and the guilt they have over the how the family fortune was made: the handsome son whose success in Hollywood disintegrates in a haze of drugs and sex, the nebbish son who is a failed lawyer, the artsy daughter who becomes a union organizer, and finally the matriarch who tries to keep the family together. Funny, often hilarious, sad and poignant, this version of the Great American Novel is a treat.

The Wizard of the Kremlin, Giuliano da Empoli
Fiction can illuminate life in ways that nonfiction cannot. This is the fictionalized account of the life of Vladislav Surkov, a longtime close advisor to Vladimir Putin. Surkov, renamed Baranov here, is clear-eyed about Putin, explaining why he supported him in the early years, and how power began to corrupt him over time. He portrays Putin as the patriot that most Russians see, even as he evolves into a ruthless dictator. Illuminating and enjoyable, giving us a glimpse into the mind of Putin.

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo
This novel centers on Amma, a black lesbian playwright and ten of her friends, all women, all marginalized racially, sexually, or in some way. Each of their lives is revealed, connecting with each other. There is not much of a plot, and the novel is written as prose, with long, ungrammatical sentences. But the characters are richly drawn in beautiful passages. If there is a common thread it is an exploration of identity, artistic and cultural, that forces us to reconsider our perspectives.

Table for Two, Amor Towles
A collection of New York stories opens this collection, each a gem. The second half of the book is the most compelling story, a novella set in Los Angeles shortly after the filming of Gone With The Wind. Nude photos of Olivia de Havilland have gone missing, and the race is on to find them. In the hands of one of our greatest writers, this is a pleasure from start to finish.

James, Percival Everett
Jim is the slave who leads Huckleberry Finn on his adventures in Mark Twain’s classic novel. James is Percival Everett’s reimagining of Jim as a slave, but a wise and intelligent one with his own set of adventures as harrowing as Huck’s. Everett is a brilliant writer, endowing James with humor and humanity and moral sensibility. My Book of the Year, it is a masterpiece.