Great Books

I have read a lot this year. This is not an un-abridged list of what I have read this year, just a few of my favorites. There may or may not be more coming. This is an excellent topic for comment, so please...I need validation.

All of My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers
By Larry McMurtry
I have never ready any thing by Larry McMurtry that I have not loved. All of My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers(AMFGBS) is the story of Danny Deck. Danny is a young writer going to school in Texas. He falls in and out love, and meets many eccentric characters along his life's journey.AMFGBS is a very introspective book from one of America's great writers. The young author deals with his increasing fame and fortune, while still trying to figure out who he is. We get to know a lot about Larry through Danny. The things I love about this book are the vivid charactersMcMurtry creates in all of his prose, along with with the simple yet meaningful dialogue woven in the tale. The book may not have a strong plot element that keeps you from putting it down, but the journey and complicated world of Danny Deck will more than keep you entertained.

Fargo Rock City
By Chuck Klosterman
This book is by another of my favorite writers. Klosterman grew up in rural North Dakota and was a dedicated fan of heavy metal. Fargo Rock City is his attempt to put into perspective the heavy metal music of the 80s and its eventual death at the hands of Kurt Cobain. The book takes a serious look at what the actual cultural impact heavy metal head on society. The book uses Klosterman's wit and general "smart ass" tone to keep the reader involved even if they have never banged their head to Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil(which I also highly recommend you try next time you are stressed). The book also culminates with us understanding what it means to grow older, and how the music of our past can become embarrassing with time(I owned The Rembrandts , theme song from Friends, album), but it is still a part of us. I have read this book twice, and return to it often for a good laugh, and when I need to be reminded why Guns n' Roses rocks.

IV
By Chuck Klosterman
Is a collection of essays and interviews from Chuck Klosterman. I at first thought this book would be nothing more than an updated version of Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs(Can not recommend this book enough), but IV gives some wonderful interviews with unlikely celebrities. His interview with Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) shows an incredible artists who if you met on a bus(which is entirely a possibility with Tweedy) you would never know he was a rock star. His famous interview with Billy Joel ,that caused the "Piano Man" to become enraged with Klosterman, shows a music icon who really needs to be loved. I was impressed with this book, because it showed a growth in Klosterman as a journalist and as pop culture critic.

Let it Blurt:The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic
By Jim Derogatis
For those of you who don't know Lester Bangs was one of America's great voices on music for the better part of two decades. His album review of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is better than the actual album. He had legendary verbal sparring matches with Lou Reed, and wrote some of the erudite criticism of rock n' roll ever. He is the gold standard by which all other critics should be judged. He was also a fascinating person, addicted to cough syrup he was far from the typical narcotics user of his day. He would often call aspiring writers who wrote to him with a desire to be a rock critic at all hours of the night and discuss music with them and how to prefect their own craft. Bangs was raised a Jehovah's Witness and the strict religious indoctrination created a strange vision of the world, that permeated his writing. Its wonderful look a brilliant and flawed man, as well as one of the finest eras in music history.

Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader
By John Morthland

If by chance you read Let it Blurt this is a great follow up. It contains a lot of the famous essays as well as few of the short poems and lyrics Lester Bangs wrote over the course of his life. It can be a hard read, and really recommend reading the biography listed above first. It will however give you a great insight into why Bangs was so influential and should still be relevant today. I actually like this better than Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, which was a book that was supposed to be the compilation Bangs never actually wrote himself. Robert Christagua (Bang's self appointed successor as America's great rock voice) did a lot of the compilation here, and left out some of the most meaningful parts of Bangs prose and poetry, that help to show the complete artist that never was.

Wilco:Learning How to Die
By Greg Kot
I initially became interested in this book after reading the Klosterman profile of Jeff Tweedy in IV. I have always been drawn to singer/songwriters, and Tweedy seemed like someone I should know more about. This book was an excellent look at one of the greatest songwriters of my life time. The story of a mid-western band carving out a new sound that mixed Nirvana and Waylon Jennings. The drama of two school yard friends bonded by their exclusive love The Ramones and Sex Pistols in St Louis, and the jealousy induced unraveling of their friendship and first band Uncle Tupelo when on the verge of super-stardom. It shows Tweedy's innovation in using the Internet to reach fans, when his record company refused to release his artistic masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The book cemented my already strong fan status of Wilco, and Tweedy. Its a great read for anyone interested in music, or celebrities with a brain.

The Partly Cloudy Patriot
By Sara Vowel
Sara Vowel is best known as the voice of Violet in Pixar's The Incredibles, or as a regular contributor to NPR's long running This American Life. If you have not read her, you are missing out. Especially if you are at the geek level I am at, and stop on the road side to read a plaque placed there to honor where Lewis and Clark stopped to shave and perhaps trap a possum for dinner. Sara is a patriot who loves her country's history in spite of all that she knows is wrong with it. Her essays are humorous and at times heart wrenching for those of us who were utterly pained to be living through the Bush years, but still loved our country with all of our hearts. This books tapped into the zeitgeist of what I was feeling for those 8 long years. She delivers wit and insight on a variety of topics. I don't want this book to come sounding like something only a liberal can enjoy, because its not. Its a book that anyone who loves their country, gets annoyed with its current state or past histories, and just owns up to their own geekiness.

The Omnivore's Dilemma
By Michael Pollan
In the Omnivore's Dilemma investigative journalist Michael Pollan traces four distinct food lines. A modern industrial food line starting at a cattle ranch and ending with a meal at McDonalds; beyond organic farm in Virgina that raises food the way food was raised 50 years ago; the organic food chain with places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and even Wal -Mart; and a hunter gather meal made from a boar the author shot himself, mushrooms he gathered wild, and food raised in his own garden. The book is a hard look at where the food we eat every day comes from. How corn has become the grain that ultimately feeds us all, even though animals like cows and fish are not designed to eat corn and this creates some very sick animals. The Omnivore's Dilemma is a book that really challenges you to think and re-think about where your food is coming from. The book has inspired small changes at the Smith household, we use the Downtown Farmer's Market more, buy organic when we can, and I am even planning a day trip to a farm in Wyoming that raises food the same way the farmer in Virgina from the book does. Its a challenging book, that's a fine example of what good investigative journalism should be.

Roads
By Larry McMurtry
One of the greatest things I have ever done in my life was a two week road trip with my friend Brad Neve. We made no concrete plans, only to drive east and go "look for America." And America we did find. It showed me parts of the country I had never seen, and was the culmination of a life long love of staring out the window from a car a passing landscape. In Roads Larry McMurtry does much the same thing. He narrates his drives down some of America's great roads, and talks of his life as an author and bookseller. One of my favorite parts of the book comes when McMurtry is looking out the window of his hotel room at the Arkansas River and talks about the death of one of the minor characters in Lonesome Dove(McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel and one of my three favorite books). He writes of the sadness he had when this minor character died, and how often times while writing its the minor characters that you end up connecting with. McMurtry's own love of books is evident as he writes of the great travel books, and authors who dwelled in the places he passes through on his sojourn. I have yet to read a McMurtry book I have not loved, and this is no different.