He writes, ". . . Wild Child has just published the second volume of stories in Cruising the Green of Second Avenue. [See November 15 entry for news about the first volume] The tales take up where Vol. I left off˜bringing back Klein the Biker, Straight Charlie and Sammy the Madman while introducing some new characters facing the difficulties encountered by life in the late 60s."
More information available: http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/content/view/426/125/
For an excerpt: http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/excerpts/cruising2.html
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
I've just completed Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. It's an amazing little book with beautiful language and strong images -- making head cheese, among others! I was surprised that the NY Times named it one of the five best non-fiction books of 2007 -- surprised, but pleased.
Reviewed by Barbara Benda Jenkins '64
| 1st floor Smith Memorial | F627.B4 K35 2007 |
Monday, December 17, 2007
ENEMY COMBATANT: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar
Mozzam Begg (with Victoria Brittain). Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar. New York: New Press, 2006.
HV6432.B44 2006
Review by Chris Gaunt
I rarely purchase books, but I bought this one in mid-December last year. I read it in early January 2007 as I was traveling to D.C. with fellow peace-loving Iowans. We were protesting the five year anniversary of the January 11 opening of the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
Moazzam Begg, a British citizen, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and accused by the United States of being a terrorist. He was finally released in 2005 without explanation or apology. He tells his story.
I cried when he told about his undeserved torture and its effects, mental and physical. It is obvious that he did not let the experience turn him into a hater. He lived to tell his story and have it published. Good for him. Good for us.
The torture issue resonates with my soul, magnified when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out in 2004. I know from my involvement with the movement to expose and close the SOA/WHINSEC at Ft. Benning, Georgia, that a Freedom of Information Act in 1996 uncovered torture manuals used at that school. It is a dirty little secret that the U.S. military still wants to keep secret.
I recently served a prison sentence and endured on a very small scale the demeaning treatment that is routinely extended to those sucked into one of our U.S. jails or prisons.
For me, torturing comes down to this: the effects on the torturer as well as the victim.
I cannot believe that I will soon travel to Washington D.C. again, to mark the 6th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. What a disgrace.
HV6432.B44 2006
Review by Chris Gaunt
I rarely purchase books, but I bought this one in mid-December last year. I read it in early January 2007 as I was traveling to D.C. with fellow peace-loving Iowans. We were protesting the five year anniversary of the January 11 opening of the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
Moazzam Begg, a British citizen, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and accused by the United States of being a terrorist. He was finally released in 2005 without explanation or apology. He tells his story.
I cried when he told about his undeserved torture and its effects, mental and physical. It is obvious that he did not let the experience turn him into a hater. He lived to tell his story and have it published. Good for him. Good for us.
The torture issue resonates with my soul, magnified when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out in 2004. I know from my involvement with the movement to expose and close the SOA/WHINSEC at Ft. Benning, Georgia, that a Freedom of Information Act in 1996 uncovered torture manuals used at that school. It is a dirty little secret that the U.S. military still wants to keep secret.
I recently served a prison sentence and endured on a very small scale the demeaning treatment that is routinely extended to those sucked into one of our U.S. jails or prisons.
For me, torturing comes down to this: the effects on the torturer as well as the victim.
I cannot believe that I will soon travel to Washington D.C. again, to mark the 6th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. What a disgrace.
recommendations for winter break
Jonathan Franzen. The Corrections, 2001. PS3556.R352 C67 2001
(a family epic)
Jonathan Lethem. Motherless Brooklyn, 1999. PS3562.E8544 M68 1999
(An unusual crime novel)
Jonathan Lethem. As She Climbed Across the Table, 1998. PS3562.E8544 A9 1998
(Very funny!!!)
Anne Tyler. Digging to America, 2006. PS3570.Y45 D47 2006
(has a very funny scene involving a bicycle helmet)
Anne Tyler. The Accidental Tourist, 1985. PS3570.Y45 A64 1985
(A beautiful novel about love and death)
Kazuo Ishiguro. The Unconsoled, 1995. PR6059.S5 U53 1995
(Kafkaesque and very funny in a dark way)
Bakopoulos, Dean. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, 2005. PS 3602 .A593
(a moving novel about our changing society especially in the rust belt)
Jonathan Raban (another Jonathan!). Wax Wings, 2003. PR6068.A22 W39 2003
(the boom and bust of the 90's in Seattle)
Recommended by Rebecca Stuhr
(a family epic)
Jonathan Lethem. Motherless Brooklyn, 1999. PS3562.E8544 M68 1999
(An unusual crime novel)
Jonathan Lethem. As She Climbed Across the Table, 1998. PS3562.E8544 A9 1998
(Very funny!!!)
Anne Tyler. Digging to America, 2006. PS3570.Y45 D47 2006
(has a very funny scene involving a bicycle helmet)
Anne Tyler. The Accidental Tourist, 1985. PS3570.Y45 A64 1985
(A beautiful novel about love and death)
Kazuo Ishiguro. The Unconsoled, 1995. PR6059.S5 U53 1995
(Kafkaesque and very funny in a dark way)
Bakopoulos, Dean. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, 2005. PS 3602 .A593
(a moving novel about our changing society especially in the rust belt)
Jonathan Raban (another Jonathan!). Wax Wings, 2003. PR6068.A22 W39 2003
(the boom and bust of the 90's in Seattle)
| |
Monday, December 10, 2007
...books by Milton Friedman
Search the library catalog by clicking on his name: Friedman, Milton, 1912
Thursday, December 6, 2007
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007.
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Naomi Klein mounts a frontal assault on the madrassa of Bolshevik privatization better known as the Economics Department at the University of Chicago. The recently expired Milton Friedman was the theory-giver for a generation and a half of economists who have come to embrace the aftermath of catastrophic events such as war and natural disasters as the basis of “exciting market opportunities.” The Friedmanite ideology that is the foundation of the “Shock Doctrine” holds that “reconstruction” finishes the job of the original disaster by eliminating the public sphere. At the core of this neoliberalism is the belief that profit and greed practiced on a mass scale create the greatest benefit for society.
The Shock Doctrine is a work of political economy following in many ways the tradition established by Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation. Both works challenge the idea proponed by Friedman and Hayek et al that free markets and free societies are part of the same historical process. Klein argues that liberalized markets not only do not require a free society but often serve as the catalyst for crushing democracy e.g. Tiananmen Square in 1989.
For Klein the danger posed by the “Chicago Boys” is the human misery that is created as a byproduct of their squalid utopianism. “The Marxists had their workers’ utopia, and the Chicagoans had their entrepreneurs’ utopia, both claiming that if they got their way, perfection and balance would follow.” Wherever these corporate conquistadors have worked their magic, 25 to 60 percent of the population lives in poverty. At the end of the day an unfettered capitalism enforces the idea that, indeed, freedom is not free.
Burling Library 2nd Floor HB95 .K54 2007
Also by Naomi Klein:
No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. New York: Picador USA, 2000
Burling 2nd Floor HD69.B7 K58x 2000
For other contributions, search the library catalog:
Reviewed by T. Hatch
Naomi Klein mounts a frontal assault on the madrassa of Bolshevik privatization better known as the Economics Department at the University of Chicago. The recently expired Milton Friedman was the theory-giver for a generation and a half of economists who have come to embrace the aftermath of catastrophic events such as war and natural disasters as the basis of “exciting market opportunities.” The Friedmanite ideology that is the foundation of the “Shock Doctrine” holds that “reconstruction” finishes the job of the original disaster by eliminating the public sphere. At the core of this neoliberalism is the belief that profit and greed practiced on a mass scale create the greatest benefit for society.
The Shock Doctrine is a work of political economy following in many ways the tradition established by Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation. Both works challenge the idea proponed by Friedman and Hayek et al that free markets and free societies are part of the same historical process. Klein argues that liberalized markets not only do not require a free society but often serve as the catalyst for crushing democracy e.g. Tiananmen Square in 1989.
For Klein the danger posed by the “Chicago Boys” is the human misery that is created as a byproduct of their squalid utopianism. “The Marxists had their workers’ utopia, and the Chicagoans had their entrepreneurs’ utopia, both claiming that if they got their way, perfection and balance would follow.” Wherever these corporate conquistadors have worked their magic, 25 to 60 percent of the population lives in poverty. At the end of the day an unfettered capitalism enforces the idea that, indeed, freedom is not free.
Burling Library 2nd Floor HB95 .K54 2007
Also by Naomi Klein:
No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. New York: Picador USA, 2000
Burling 2nd Floor HD69.B7 K58x 2000
For other contributions, search the library catalog:
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Walt Giersbach '61 has recently published ...
He writes:
I’m very happy to let you know that Wild Child has just published Cruising the Green of Second Avenue. My collection of short stories centers on New York’s Lower East Side in the late 1960s. Klein the Biker, Straight Charlie, Sammy the Madman, Frank and the Chick from Canarsie romp through the pages in the dawning of a new age. Their highs and lows are covered with humor and insight through the eyes of Jake, the narrator. The collection updates a rich heritage of vernacular story-telling in the genre of O. Henry’s Collected Stories and Damon Runyon’s Guys and Dolls.
I’m very happy to let you know that Wild Child has just published Cruising the Green of Second Avenue. My collection of short stories centers on New York’s Lower East Side in the late 1960s. Klein the Biker, Straight Charlie, Sammy the Madman, Frank and the Chick from Canarsie romp through the pages in the dawning of a new age. Their highs and lows are covered with humor and insight through the eyes of Jake, the narrator. The collection updates a rich heritage of vernacular story-telling in the genre of O. Henry’s Collected Stories and Damon Runyon’s Guys and Dolls.
Cruising the Green of Second Avenue is available as an e-book
--Walt Giersbach '61Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Addy Najera '10 is reading and recommends.....
Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs. New York: St. Martin's Press: 2007
She comments that this book is horribly depressing, but in a good way!
This book is on order.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
The End of History and the Last Man
Francis Fukuyama. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: The Free Press, 1992
Reviewed by T. Hatch
This is one of those books that are often mentioned en passant that through repeated and casual use comes to represent a facile shadow of itself (much like Gibbon’s Christians running the Roman Empire into the ground or Weber’s Calvinists single-handedly launching modern capitalism). Accordingly, the demise of the Soviet Union signaled the triumph of capitalism and the end of history.
Fukuyama is at his core a conservative Hegelian. As such he attempts to rescue Hegel from the Marxist mob that had held the venerable philosopher hostage for a century and a half; the Marxists ran roughshod with Hegel’s all ready radical notion of historicism. As victims of the Enlightenment both Fukuyama and the heroic Hegel see history as the progress of humanity towards higher levels of rationality and freedom. Following this path of reason history ended with the establishment of the modern liberal state (an event that arguably occurred long before the 1989-1991 epoch). Nonetheless Fukuyama attempts to establish a “coherent and directional universal history of mankind.” Metanarratives seem to die hard.
What distinguishes Fukuyama from many conservatives, especially the Natural Right crowd associated with the late Leo Strauss a.k.a. the neoconservatives, is that he does not display an overt animus to either modernity or political liberalism. In this he violates the ideology inherent in the weltanschauung of the Weekly Standard orbit. It may be merely coincidental then that Fukuyama broke with the neocons on the righteousness of the US invasion of Iraq. Perhaps a more felicitous title might have been The End of History and the Lonely Man.
2nd floor D16.8 .F85 1992
Find other books by Fukuyama at the Grinnell College Libraries
Reviewed by T. Hatch
This is one of those books that are often mentioned en passant that through repeated and casual use comes to represent a facile shadow of itself (much like Gibbon’s Christians running the Roman Empire into the ground or Weber’s Calvinists single-handedly launching modern capitalism). Accordingly, the demise of the Soviet Union signaled the triumph of capitalism and the end of history.
Fukuyama is at his core a conservative Hegelian. As such he attempts to rescue Hegel from the Marxist mob that had held the venerable philosopher hostage for a century and a half; the Marxists ran roughshod with Hegel’s all ready radical notion of historicism. As victims of the Enlightenment both Fukuyama and the heroic Hegel see history as the progress of humanity towards higher levels of rationality and freedom. Following this path of reason history ended with the establishment of the modern liberal state (an event that arguably occurred long before the 1989-1991 epoch). Nonetheless Fukuyama attempts to establish a “coherent and directional universal history of mankind.” Metanarratives seem to die hard.
What distinguishes Fukuyama from many conservatives, especially the Natural Right crowd associated with the late Leo Strauss a.k.a. the neoconservatives, is that he does not display an overt animus to either modernity or political liberalism. In this he violates the ideology inherent in the weltanschauung of the Weekly Standard orbit. It may be merely coincidental then that Fukuyama broke with the neocons on the righteousness of the US invasion of Iraq. Perhaps a more felicitous title might have been The End of History and the Lonely Man.
2nd floor D16.8 .F85 1992
Find other books by Fukuyama at the Grinnell College Libraries
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Angela Winburn is reading J. M. Coetzee ...
Angela writes:
I am currently reading Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee and Splendid Solution by Jeffrey Kluger. I am reading Where the Lilies Bloom by Vera and Bill Cleaver to my son, Sam. This was a favorite, childhood movie of mine.
The libraries edition of Slow Man was published by Viking in 2005. PR9369.3.C58 S56 2005
Splendid Solution : Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio was published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 2004. There are two copies in Kistle Library. QR31.S25 K58 2004. This was the 2007 all Iowa Reads title.
I am currently reading Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee and Splendid Solution by Jeffrey Kluger. I am reading Where the Lilies Bloom by Vera and Bill Cleaver to my son, Sam. This was a favorite, childhood movie of mine.
The libraries edition of Slow Man was published by Viking in 2005. PR9369.3.C58 S56 2005
Splendid Solution : Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio was published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 2004. There are two copies in Kistle Library. QR31.S25 K58 2004. This was the 2007 all Iowa Reads title.
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