The Read List

Last week was a perfect week at the beach at Topsail Island, bright and warm, with books and beer and shrimp all in the appropriate measure.

The books I read:

• Off Main Street. Michael Perry

Perry is a wonderful author. This is a collection of essays that was a delight to read. You can’t go wrong with any of his books.

• 13 Bankers. Simon Johnson and James Kwak (A Josh Zumbrun selection)

A good and approachable explanation of what caused the financial crisis of 2008-2009. If you don’t hate Wall Street and want to run off and join the Occupy movement now, you will after reading this book.

• The Happiness Project. Gretchen Rubin (Another Josh Zumbrun selection.)

It will make you think a lot about what makes you happy. Although I didn’t think her frenetic rush from activity to activity was the way to find happiness.

• The Road. Cormac McCarthy. (Another Josh Zumbrun selection)

Cormac McCarthy is such an amazing writer that I regret all the years I’ve spent not reading his books. The Road about as grim a story as you can imagine, yet I came away from it feeling uplifted and hopeful.

• Arrowhawk. Lola Schaefer.

A children’s book about a hawk that gets shot by an arrow from a poacher and eventually is rehabbed and released to the wild. Lola is my cousin and I’d never read any of her books. Being family I wasn’t surprised to find it was just excellent. Creating a children’s story about a hawk getting speared with an arrow seems like a difficult task. But the book was unflinchingly, but not preachy, and not too harsh for children.

• Fidelity: Five Stories, and The Wild Birds. Wendell Berry.

Short stories about Berry’s fictional town of Port William. Maybe life was never that way, but I wish it had been or could be.

• It All Turns on Affection. The Jefferson Lecture, Wendell Berry.

Berry’s Jefferson Lecture sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Berry argues for an economy based on affection. Remarkable. You can listen to it or find the text here.

• Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession. Julie Powell. (A Missy Gordon selection)

Julie Powell remains as, or is even more, self-centered, oblivious, and obnoxious as she was in Julie and Julia. Nonetheless, her books are like roadkill and you just can’t look away until you’ve read the last page.

• A Walk in the Woods. Bill Bryson

A tale of walking the Appalachian Trail. Unlike Julie Powell, Bill Bryson seems like such a kind, happy, and gentle soul that you savor every page and wish you were walking in the woods with him.

• They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? Christopher Buckley.

A political satire novel about a plot to assassinate the Dalai Lama. Hilarious, and I wish I was a Washington insider so I would get all the jokes.