October Reading Log

Lots of great reading this month, and plenty of variety. Take a look!

5 Articles I Like This Month

"The Morality Wars" by Wesley Morris, The New York Times Magazine. 20 minutes.

In 2018, it sometimes feel more important that art be morally and socially good than that it be good art. As Wesley Morris puts it in this article, "It can be hard to tell when we're consuming art and when we're conducting H.R." Is that a good thing? A good question, and an excellent, insightful exploration of the topic.

"What Happened to the Houston Astros' Hacker?" by Ben Reiter, Sports Illustrated. 19 minutes.

Chris Correa, formerly a front office staffer with the St. Louis Cardinals, was sentenced to federal prison after hacking into the Houston Astros' computer systems to steal proprietary data from former colleagues. How's he doing now, with his release imminent? A fascinating testimony about the prison-industrial complex cleverly disguised as a sports story.

"The White Sox Ballpark in Chicago that Never Was and Could Have Changed History" by Dayn Perry, CBS Sports. 33 minutes.

When Guaranteed Rate Field (then known as New Comiskey Park) was built in 1991, it marked the final modernist (i.e. boring) ballpark construction before Orioles Park at Camden Yards ushered in a new era of retro designs. But it turns out, there could have been another way, a project named Armour Field that would have given the White Sox a true neighborhood park like Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. A fascinating look at the architecture of baseball stadiums told through a what-might-have-been perspective.

"Raised By YouTube" by Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic. 23 minutes.

Sesame Street is so last decade...these days, parents looking for an electronic pacifier for their overactive toddlers have turned to YouTube. But given the free market, Wild West nature of the Internet (as opposed to traditional children's television programming, which was originally undertaken as a partnership between business, government, and child development experts), what does that mean for our kids? A fascinating, sometimes scary look at the brave new world of children's programming in the Internet age.

"The Untold Story of the Yankees' Stunning Rally in 1978" by Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated. 51 minutes.

1978 was the height of the "Bronx Zoo" Yankees, with Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, and George Steinbrenner feuding constantly and publicly even as the team sunk lower and lower in the standings. It was also, says Tom Verducci, the last gasp of baseball sportswriting as it had been. And when the writers went on strike—and suddenly no one was there to quote Billy to George—the team's fortunes turned and neither newspapers nor the Yankees were ever the same again. An entertaining story about a legendary team, told from the vantage point of the men who covered it.

THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL by Brennan Manning

It's always disappointing when you don't love a classic.  The Ragamuffin Gospel certainly bears that label, have been beloved for nearly 30 years now by evangelical readers, including famously by the late Rich Mullins, who named his band "The Ragamuffin Band." Brennan Manning's distillation of the gospel as a message about God's pure, unfiltered grace has resonated with thousands of people, and I'm grateful for his witness. I just wish I was one of those people with whom it struck a chord.

The Ragamuffin Gospel comes to the reader with the stated goal of taking Christianity back from the religious legalists who have made it all about personal morality; Manning declares that the gospel is really the story of God's love for the 'ragamuffins' of this world and the grace He offers them in Christ. It's a noble, Pauline (if a bit one-sided) goal, one that those who have never heard the gospel and those who have need to hear.

My issue is not with the book's purpose so much as with Manning's delivery—this feels like a 20 minute sermon that he turned into a 250 page book. As I read, there was little to distinguish one chapter from the next, and my excitement when I started the book faded as its redundancies piled on top of each other. There's just not a lot of depth here—a great evangelistic message, but not much surrounding it.

I highly recommend reading the first chapter of The Ragamuffin Gospel. Manning is a good writer, and he has something important to say—I just think he says everything he needs to in those first 30 pages.

THE INTERIOR CASTLE by St. Teresa of Avila

I'm a Baptist, so spiritual mysticism doesn't come naturally to me—we Baptists are children of the Enlightenment, so we're a lot more comfortable sitting in a room expositing Scripture than supernaturally reaching heights of spiritual transcendence. Nevertheless, the Bible is full of people whom God reached through dreams, visions, and moments of spiritual ecstasy, and I'm not comfortable limiting the activity of the Holy Spirit by saying God never works that way anymore. So in the spirit of open-mindedness, I decided to tackle The Interior Castle, widely considered a spiritual classic and arguably the most important book on Christian mysticism.

Written in 1588 by Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun, the book operates as a guide for the soul to spiritual union with God. Envisioning the soul as a diamond castle, she describes seven different "mansions" or rooms, each of which is a stage the soul must go through along the way to God. Through prayer, suffering, penance, and good works (and ultimately by the grace of God), seekers can finally reach the blessed seventh mansion and become one with God, just as Jesus prayed we would.

First the good: this book places a heavy emphasis on humility, love, and prayer, which one could argue are the most important virtues of the spiritual life. Furthermore, Teresa is careful to state, again and again, that union with God is only possible by His grace, not by works—that her prescriptions throughout the book are helpful to unlocking the door to God, but they are not the key in and of themselves. For this Protestant reader, that was important.

Nevertheless, my critiques of this book largely rest in the typical (and yes, sometimes misguided) critiques of Catholicism in general and mysticism in particular. While noting that union with God is only possible through His grace, Teresa provides a step-by-step plan for using good works to get there, rather than relying on faith. While citing Scripture to make incidental points, the foundation of the whole exercise (that of the interior castle and its seven mansions) is utterly foreign to anything found in the Bible. And while deeply concerned with the individual's spiritual life, there is no responsibility for sharing the Gospel with others.

So no, this book didn't make me a mystic; if anything I found it a somewhat frustrating read. There are quotes I will gladly lift from it, and I respect and value the impact it has had on readers over the centuries. But, whether the fault is mine or Teresa's, I found her understanding of how one relates to God to be too impenetrable to fit my understanding from Scripture.

MEANS OF ASCENT by Robert A. Caro

What was Lyndon Johnson willing to do to get and maintain power?

That is is the question that drives Robert Caro's multivolume biography of the 36th President, and in the tightly focused Means of Ascent, the reader see Johnson descend to perhaps his lowest ethical depths to achieve his goals. The book, which begins right where Path to Power left off with Johnson losing a special election to the U.S. Senate, covers Johnson's brief time in the U.S. Navy during World War II, how he acquired a fortune through the purchase and expansion of an Austin radio station (helped along by his connections in the FCC), and his final years as a member of the House of Representatives. But the vast majority of the book deals with his campaign to claim the Senate seat that had elude d him seven years earlier—and how, in the end, when he was unable to win the election conventionally, he stole it outright.

As detailed as The Path to Power was in telling LBJ's story, Means of Ascent one-ups its predecessor in that regard, with Caro relying on thousands of documents and scores of personal interviews to tell the story of the 1948 Democratic primary election between Johnson and Governor Coke Robert Stevenson. With a talent for storytelling that matches his skill as a researcher, Caro paints Stevenson as a near-mythic figure in Texas, a Horatio Alger-like Texan who rose from nothing to become one of the most beloved and effective politicians in the history of the state. By contrast, Johnson comes across as a villain in his own biography, a driven, power-obsessed political genius up against insurmountable odds who employs every political, legal, and illegal trick available to him in his pursuit of victory.

In the end, of course, Johnson wins the election against Stevenson, but Caro's voluminous research makes it plain that his victory came via the kind of dirty tricks that would make Nixon blush. Sparing no detail, Caro recounts not only Johnson's hard-fought campaign (which was admirable in its innovation and hard work) but his wielding of every lever of corruption available to him on Election Night and beyond to ensure that the vote count was changed to make him the winner. Caro's journalistic attention to detail makes it clear once and for all what had long been rumored—Lyndon B. Johnson, without a doubt, stole the election.

Admittedly, all that detail, particularly in the book's final 100 pages or so when lawyers are driving the story, becomes a bit tiresome. Nevertheless, I admire and respect Caro's effort—and to his credit, he tells a story of injunctions, subpoenas, and executive committee meetings with a flair that enlivens subject matter which could have been deadly dull.

This book makes for a worthy successor to Path to Power and a fascinating look at Texas politics and a key period of Lyndon Johnson's life. Up next is the series' most acclaimed (and longest) volume, Master of the Senate, where LBJ's story shifts permanently to Washington and his power widens like never before.

DUST & GROOVES: ADVENTURES IN RECORD COLLECTING by Eilon Paz

There is something contagious about passion. When you're around someone who is excited and even borderline-obsessed with something, it makes you excited too, no matter how little you care about the object of their passion. That was my experience reading Dust & Grooves, a coffee table book about record collectors that I grabbed on a whim from Barnes & Noble's clearance section. Packed with color photographs of records, studios, and basements piled from floor to ceiling with vinyl, this book was part Hoarders, part Antiques Roadshow, but all fun.

The vast majority of the book is photography, the labor of author Eilon Paz, who years ago began finding and interviewing record collectors from around the world and photographing their collections for his "Dust & Grooves" blog. The photos are gorgeous and somehow manage to keep from being too redundant even after over 300 pages. I looked through all of these in one sitting and had a great time marveling at the millions of records some of these people had acquired over the years (and envying the stylish spaces in which they stored them.)

The last 150 pages of the book is a series of interviews with some of the featured collectors, featuring everyone from the elderly owner of a flea-market-like record store in Mississippi to Questlove. These interviews were fascinating because of how eclectic both the collectors and their collections are. One man, for example, has spent his life collecting Sesame Street records, and has dozens to show for it. Weird? Um, yeah, but by the end of the interview he had almost won me over with his nostalgia and passion.

Very little of the music featured was familiar to me—don't expect to see many Beatles or Eagles albums here; the tastes of these collectors is much less mainstream. But ultimately, the music seems almost incidental to the act of the collecting and the compulsion behind it. The book didn't inspire me to start collecting records myself (it looks like a LOT of work), but I enjoyed spending a little time with those who do.

WILD THINGS: THE JOY OF READING CHILDREN'S LITERATURE AS AN ADULT by Bruce Handy

One of my favorite parts of every day is reading to my almost two-year old son. In doing so (we've been reading him at least 2 books per day since he came home from the hospital), I've learned something: there are some really excellent children's books out there (and some not-so-excellent ones, of course.) The best children's books speak with a sweet simplicity that "grown up" literature can't pull off, and can be as meaningful for the adult reading out loud as for the child hearing them for the first (or the hundredth) time.

That's the truth that drives Wild Things, an exploration of children's literature by writer and children's book reviewer Bruce Handy. In each chapter he delves a different corner of the world of children's literature, beginning with picture books like Margaret Wise Brown's Good Night, Moon and ending with middle grade classics like Beverly Cleary's Ramona books and E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. In every chapter, he delves into the biography of the author, the themes the books address, and why the book has proved to be so important for kids and adults.

It all makes for a joyful trip through the world of children's literature. As a daily reader of kids' books, I was pleased to see these books taken seriously, since I've seen firsthand that not all children's books are created equal. Writing for kids, he proves, should not be seen as a step down for a "serious" author; it brings its own challenges and rewards...and its own luminaries. I really enjoyed this book, and appreciated his list of recommendations at the end. Time to go shopping!

HIP HOP FAMILY TREE VOL. 1-4 by Ed Piskor

As ubiquitous as hip hop—both as music and culture at large—is today, it did not emerge fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Indeed, hip hip has a convoluted, diverse, crazy history starting with house parties in 1970s New York City. In Hip Hop Family Tree, cartoonist Ed Piskor sets out to pictorially tell that history with encyclopedic detail. The result is a dense, beautiful, and incredibly fun ride.

Beginning with the stories of DJs like Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and DJ Kool Herc, these volumes trace the rise of hip hop up to 1985, when it remained a niche genre but had managed to infiltrate mainstream culture thanks to artists like LL Cool J and behind-the-scenes moguls like Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin. Jumping from character to character and coast to coast, Piskor tells the story of hip hop chronologically and at a frenetic pace, leaving seemingly no stone unturned.

If you are a casual hip hop fan (like me), much of this will be utterly foreign to you, and the reading experience will be more than a little overwhelming as Piskor overloads you with names, songs, and events. But even when you feel a little lost in the shuffle, it never stops being a fun ride—the beautiful art and obvious passion of the author more than make up for any narrative confusion. (Side note: a good way to ease some of the confusion is to read it while watching Hip Hop Evolution, the documentary series on Netflix about the same subject.)

Hip Hop Family Tree is not for those wanting just a cursory look at hip hop's history—it took me more than 2 weeks to read the four books—but for those who want to see music history told interestingly, Ed Piskor has delivered. Assuming he continues the series (he previously promised at least six volumes), I plan to snap them up immediately.

ARKHAM ASYLUM: A SERIOUS HOUSE ON SERIOUS EARTH by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean

Over the course of Batman's decades-long existence, Arkham Asylum, where Gotham's criminally insane are housed, has become a character all its own. Its history has been plumbed, its purpose questioned, and, of course, its inmates have escaped so many times it's become a running joke. But in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Arkham is no joke—it is a place of madness.

Created in 1989 by comics superstars Grant Morrison and Dave McKean, this graphic novel is a horror story and psychological thriller about Batman being forced to quell a riot in the asylum. Told alongside that narrative is the origin of the building itself and how its founder, Amadeus Arkham, went insane after the murder of his wife and daughter. Packed with symbolism, Arkham Asylum is told in the cadence of a dream, barely linear yet somehow capable of being followed. And man is it creepy.

With apologies to Morrison, the star of the show is Dave McKean of Sandman fame, whose art combines painting, photography, sketches, and watercolor to produce a collage of images as disturbing as the subject matter. Abstract and mysterious, the art sells the madness of the story and its characters, even when it makes the narrative difficult to follow at times.

I read this in the middle of the afternoon (it's a quick read) and was still worried I'd have nightmares; it's that scary. Recommended for horror fans and NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT for kids.