Sumoftha Books (NonFic) I Read in 2009

Listen - I dunno how much time you want me to spend on explaining how this year's reading list was overdetermined by external events, my dissertation, etc., so just lemme say this: I did a lot less actual book-reading this year than I have in the four, five, six years previous. If anything, I hope this underwhelming list (of neither "high" nor "low" lights) will inspire some of our distinguished bloggers, commenters, etc., so that they'll use the occasion to reminisce on books they read and liked this year. It's a good excuse for looking back on shit - even non-book shit - you know?

Invisible Hands: The Businessman's Crusade Against the New Deal
by Kim Phillips-Fein
A major motif of my academic-ish readings in 2009 was a dip out of academic social and political theory, into a) more "applied" political science writing and b) the necessarily more "empirical"/"historicist" realm of the history of conservatism (both Perlstein's Nixonland and Wilentz The Age of Reagan deserve mention, too.) Check out Phillips'-Fein's Nation Review Article posing the question, what can the histories of conservatism tell us about the current configuration feat. Tea Parties and various fledgling populisms.

From Marxism to Post-Marxism
by Goran Therborn
I will revisit this work, no doubt, in making the argument that my dissertation "methodology" is """ marxism, """ but in the longer run, I fear I find it a little middling, and appropriate only for a grad-level Marxism seminar I'm increasingly less likely to ever one day teach.

Fat Man in a Middle Seat
by Jack Germond
You remember Germond [pic. below, Right] as the "fat man" from the McLaughlin Group, and his memoir is a weird, newsy, drunk, dry, drab denunciation of the (Clinton-era) political culture. I blame my unfortunate dependence on cable news for situating me such that this kind of well-meaning, liberalist batinage tastes like a grilled cheese sandwich to me after a long day "working."
The Eliminationists
by David Weinert
Domestic terror was on the brain, for obvious reasons. Which side is allowed to call the other one "fascist," again?

Plunder and Blunder
by Dean Baker
Have I ever mentioned this guy before? I am thinking about forcing this, if not The United States Since 1980 on some anthropology undergraduates this Summer who are doubtlessly expecting something about female genital cutting instead. It is the best explanation of the "current crisis" that I've read.

The Family
by Jeff Sharlet (who has a blog, I am thrilled to know.)

“Un-American theocrats can only fool patriotic American democrats when there aren’t critics like Jeff Sharlet around -- careful scholars and soulful writers who understand both the majesty of faith and the evil of its abuses. A remarkable accomplishment in the annals of writing about religion.”
--Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

Now, what the crap non-fiction did you read?

Everything from ABBA to Zeppelin, Led

I'm currently reading Douglas Brinkley's The Great Deluge about the Katrina catastrophe. While it's certainly not a funny book, this quote on page 60 cracked me up:

The bar was holding a midsummer Mardi Gras party featuring the legendary George Porter, founder of the Meters, the seminal New Orleans funk band that influenced everybody from Phish to Widespread Panic.

Call me crazy, but I think the Meters' influence spreads farther than from a white, neo-hippie jam band from Vermont to a white, neo-hippie jam band from Georgia.

Hard Case Crime

I just joined the Hard Case Crime book club. Like your average mope in these stories, I can't see how this could come back to haunt me, although everyone else can.

I read the title at left. It's the hard luck tale of Max, a businessman who simply wants to have his wife killed so he can marry his blonde, 38DD (a bit small for Max), Irish (oh, but that accent) secretary. Max remains constantly amazed throughout the book that the fulfillment of this simple desire can get so complicated.

Bruen and Starr pull off the difficult trick of making none of their characters particularly likable, but writing them in such a way that the reader has a rooting interest in their success and feels pained by their inevitable undoing. Max in particular is a difficult hero in that 90% of the time he's hugely offensive, but he has just enough naivite that you can sympatize with his plight. After all, he only wants to have his wife killed.

There, but for the Grace, go we all.