Tag: books

I’ve been a bit preoccupied with other reading this year — staying up to date with my MFA reading, for instance, and some religious books (Paul Tillich, 2009’s The Evolution of God by Robert Wright) and some other 2009 books (Michael Sandel’s Justice and Peter Maass’ Crude World), but there have been a few stunning books worth nothing from this past year that I’d recommend. (Read this post from Huffington Post for other interesting suggestion.)

Seamus Heaney, Human Chain: The Nobel laureate’s best and most accessible book in years focuses on the connections we have to each other, both physically and spiritually. Absolutely brilliant.

Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class: Hedges writes with an arch, polemical, cutting style that will put off some liberals. But the fact remains that his analysis comes closest to explaining the utter failure of the Obama administration.

Mark Doty, The Art of Description: A lovely, focused exploration of the use of image in poetry.

Rita Dove, Sonata Mullatica: The former poet laureate’s lovely musical collection of poems (OK, this actually came out in 2009, but I wanted to make sure it was on the list).

Send me your suggestions.
• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

A number of new nonfiction books are out that seem to be worth a read. I’ve only included those I have yet to finish. My short list includes:

• E.J. Dionne Jr., “Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right”
• Glenn Greenwald, “A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency”
• Chalmers Johnson, “Nemisis: The Last Days of the American Republic”
• Jane Mayer, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals”
• Bill Moyers, “Moyers on Democracy”
• Rick Perlstein, “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America”
• Kevin Phillips, “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism”
• Charlie Savage, “Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy”
• Cliff Schecter, “The Real McCainWhy Conservatives Don’t Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t”
• Robert Scheer, “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America”
• David Sirota, “The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington”
• Matthew Yglesias, “Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats”

Progressive readers rejoice — a new book club has made its debut with our interests as the focus.

Junot Diaz, who I interviewed in the fall following the publication of his wonderful novel, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for the novel.

Diaz, from the Dominican, grew up in Old Bridge and attended Rutgers.

He told The Star-Ledger that he was in “utter disbelief.”

“The applause for these things fade quickly, but if anything lasting comes of it I hope it will encouarge every other poor young kid from a similar marginalized background in New Jersey,” Diaz said.

Here is what I wrote about the novel in September (which contains an old link to our story from Time Off, written prior to his September reading in East Brunswick).

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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