Alistair Cooke, Letter from America: Alistair Cooke was the legendary British born-and-raised expatriate who became famous for his columns and radio shows in which attempted to capture for his British audience what this huge endeavor known as America is. This book collects the texts of a small sample of his radio addresses from the 1940s to the 21st century. Most striking for me has been how salient even the observations made in the 1940s are. Cooke knew America, he loved this country, and he saw things that even most natives might never have noticed, or at least he saw them in ways that were, if not uniquely British, whatever that means, at least reveal a cross-cultural vantage point. I picked this one up in oxford and do not even know if it is available in the US, but I would suggest that the British dcat contingent make its way down to Borders or Waterstones or Blackwells and pick up Cooke’s delightful collection of essays.
The staff of The Boston Globe, Finally! The Red Sox Are Champions After 86 years: Hey, look, if you're going to be reading dcat, you’re going to be reading about the Red Sox indefinitely. This is akin to a coffee table book, and captures in vivid pictures the glory of the Sox 2005 season by the newspaper staff that knows them best. This will at least tide you over until Bleeding Red hits the shelves in a matter of days.
John McWhorter, Losing the Race: Black Self-Sabotage in America: McWhorter is always smart, usually provocative, and occasionally infuriating. His books are challenging because he takes stances on issues facing black America that are not afraid to challenge the orthodoxy among most who purport to speak for black Americans. Sometimes I think he is just plain wrong, but McWhorter is such a fluid stylist and his arguments are important. He is often dismissed as being a conservative, as if there is something inherently wrong with that, but for me, this simply makes him more essential. In the past I have used one of McWhorter’s books in my civil rights classes just to ensure that my students receive a different perspective on the issues facing black America, indeed all of America.
Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991: Much of the music I love can be traced to this subgenre during these years. The Replacements, Husker Du, the Pixies, Sonic Youth – although I came late to most of these bands, not really discovering them, or at least not discovering them in earnest, until college, they have provided the foundation for a goodly percentage of my music listening in the last two decades. Azerrad’s essays are informative, colorful, insightful, and help augment music that has provided much of the soundtrack to my life.
Richard Ben Cramer, Best American Sportswriting, 2004:Most years it errs too far on the side of the treacly and the obscure. But if you want nearly perfect bedtime reading, the “Best American” series will do the job. I especially like the sports writing, travel writing, essays, and “nonrequired reading” collections each year.
Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract:: Categorical assertions, including this one, are always dangerous. That said, I can almost assert that one cannot be a real baseball fan without gaining an appreciation for this enormous undertaking. For the first time I am trying to read this mammoth tome from cover to cover. Among the highlights, and the part I have spent several weeks making my way through, is the top 100 players listing for each position, which includes anything from a few sentences to entire essays about every player, with both statistical and impressionistic rationales. It is remarkable how players whom we all probably thought of as pretty marginal easily crack the top 70 or so at most positions. If you love baseball and you do not own this book, go get it. Now. What are you waiting for?
Happy reading.
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