Check out the "Best of 2006" list.

Selected Reviews

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#86. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Grade: ( A-)

Engrossing quick read, which can function on many levels. The novel could be merely the fascinating story of Buck, a successful sled-dog and his adventures in t e pioneer West. But Call also functions as a discourse on the recent theories in evolution by Darwin and philosophy by Nietzsche. However, Nazis burned London’s books in bonfires. If only Buck was there. He’d have shown them a different conceptualization of the “law of fang and club.” He accomplishes much with an unsentimental power-driven mentality, but his greatest feat is forming a bond of love with his owner. Yet all the while, ominously buzzing low on the horizon is that call. He’s a magnificent animal, but in the final analysis, Buck’s an animal faced with a decision between man and wild. A great read, and a great way to finish off a year of reading.  
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#85. The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Grade: (B+ for story, A for way it was told= A-)

“The White Man is the Devil” is a tenet of the Nation of Islam sect uttered often by followers of Elijah Muhammed and none more vociferously than his protégé, Malcolm X. The X is a place filler for the unknown name of Malcolm’s tribe in Africa he descended from. Elijah introduced Malcolm to the way of the Koran and defeating this white devil by first giving up the Christianity instilled on slave-ships and plantations. Elijah and Malcolm communicated by mail  because after running dope and prostitutes in Harlem,  Malcolm  found himself doing hard time behind bars when his white girlfriend’s husband’s friend turned them in for  a string of burglaries over the course of several months. Malcolm claims he’s put in jail not for the robberies but because he was with a white man’s wife. Okay, I can handle this.  That’s kinda what I figured Malcolm was…but wait, there’s more?

Oh buddy, better grab your hat, there is much much more. I’m talking major tv coverage, packed crowds, burgeoning political influence. I’m talking pilgrimages to Mecca, I’m talking hope for the white man even in Malcolm’s eyes, I’m talking everything you've ever seen has just been grays, well Malcolm’s going to put it in Black and White for you. There’s a paradigm shift worth trying on. But, when all is said and done, I’m still a comfortable white kid who grew up in suburbia. Even when I rap it’s only to Eminem. Is it appropriate for me to lodge any criticism? Well, the sign does say “Conrad Reads” not Malcolm Reads, and that’s thanks to whomever invented the internet- oh yeah, Al Gore (point for whitey!) There is so much truth to the fact that our race subjugated your race for centuries. It’s horrific. Us humans want an energy source NOW and we’d rather not consider the consequences. But I think maybe one reason why I passed the Martin Luther King, Jr. statue on campus on, Martin Luther King, Jr. day, in fact, and don’t get to see you until I need to mail something and you’re on a stamp, is that you sided with segregation, intolerance, stereotyping, and the extremes while others were attacking the problem with love.

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#82. Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Grade: A-

What a phenomenal work. I was interested in reading something that would mess with my mind and this was definitely it. Dick interweaves two possible realities into his work, the alternative history that his characters live in, and the alternative to alternative history in the form of a book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy written by the man in the high castle. In Man, Dick tells a multi-person narrative under the hypothesis of a Nazi victory. The Germans rule Europe and New York. The Japanese have the Pacific and much of western U.S. The U.S. has become a trivialized country consisting of the middle states where the citizens read a work of fiction fantasizing about what would happen if the Axis powers had not won. Remarkable imagination and excellent story-telling ability allow Dick to work through his many levels to pull away at everything the reader thinks he knows. __________________________________________________________ 

#80. John Adams by David McCullough

Grade: A

A biographical tour-de-force! I haven’t used that term yet in any of my reviews; now felt like the right time. Anyway, McCullough is a great biographer and historian, and I look forward to reading 1776 soon. What was most impressive about the book was McCullough’s ability to paint such a detailed picture of events taking place over 200 years ago. Attribute this to superior research skills and the fact that everybody and their horse kept a diary. Still, sometimes I wondered how exactly McCullough knew all the minutiae, such as the shape of random topiaries in the garden.

Of course, the biographee of this piece is worthy as well. The first Vice President, second President, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and ambassador extraordinaire played an essential role in America’s formation. McCullough chronicles the man’s greatness, extolling numerous compliments and every once in a while pointing out a shortcoming. In fact, if I have any complaints about this book, it is that McCullough is prone to fawning over his subject, with maybe a little bias as well. Adams somehow ignites controversy with a great number of figures in the biography, and McCullough rarely attributes the fault to Adams. It’s kind of like having a bunch of wrecks. Maybe you’re perfectly innocent, but it does cause your insurance adjuster to ask some questions.

But it’s not just Adams who is treated in this work. His wife Abigail, and son John Quincy (later to best Andrew Jackson and others for the presidency himself), Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson merit much attention as well. McCullough pays homage to the founding Mothers often, and since he draws frequently from Abigail’s letters, her specter looms almost as large as John’s.

All in all, a fascinating read, and despite its significant length, I wanted it to continue. 

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#77. Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

Grade: B-

Lewis takes on an embarrassingly thinly disguised temptation allegory in the second book of his Space Trilogy. Lacking the inventiveness of Out of the Silent Planet and with large chunks of straightforward theological commentary, this novel felt more like a work of nonfiction than a book of fantasy. Lewis’s portrayal of Satan is exceedingly chilling: the protagonist follows a trail of dying frogs to find him calmly ripping their necks out with his fingernails. But there are few novel things said here, and the 20-page description of walking through a cave is, frankly, boring. Skip it, and reread a Chronicle of Narnia instead.

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#75. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Grade: C+

 This book is a cancer, rotting from the inside. To ban it would be to give it to much credit, to not read it, would be to preserve your sensibilities. Miller does have a way with words, and it reads like poetry…just like poetry: commingled imagist phrases but no plot. One thing this book doesn’t do is sensationalize sex, rather it makes repulsive, an odious, carnivorous drive of humans becoming animals. All in all, it probably drove me closer to Christianity much stronger than the Purpose Driven Life ever would. Miller could be writing about himself with this passage:

“Out of the endless torment and misery no miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige even of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the  carcass is ripped open.” 

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#74. Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway

Grade: A- 

Hemingway delivers again, this time with a collection of short stories. The best of the collection, “The Killers,” I had read before, but it got me again with its matter of fact portrayal of a wanted man. Also excellent was “The Pursuit Race,” deft in its revelation of the twist and astonishing in the level of sadness it leaves with the reader with such little narrative. What amazed me about this collection was how quickly he developed the characters and story line. Some of the stories ran only six pages, but they still felt fleshed out and believable. That Hemingway can do the most with so little is now firmly established in my mind.

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Grade: A

And the award for strangest character names goes to William Faulkner, for Cash, Jewel, Darl, and Vardaman.  When discussing this book with my literary law school friend, Andrea, she said, "This book is pain. Not beautiful pain, just pain." I have to agree with her. Faulkner's multi-narrative book lays out a Southern country family and their tragic burial attempt of the matriarch. Faulkner excels at both form and content, telling his story briliiantly with so many different, vibrant voices, utilizing every technique available to the novelist, metaphor, foreshadowing, and irony. And his tale is meaty as well, filled with wise side-notes on humanity's self-destruction and pride. The sick, twisted ending fits perfectly with the flow of the entire novel and yet somehow provides closure at the same time.

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#68. Silence by Shusaku Endo

Grade: A-

A heartbreaking tale of boldness and suffering, Silence takes place in 17^th century Japan and follows the travails of a Portuguese priest in his attempts to maintain and spread his faith despite the governmental prohibition of Christianity. Without spoiling the plot for any would-be-readers of this delicately crafted novel, Father Rodrigues is daily faced with a choice between apostasy and upholding his belief in Christ. Endo, a Japanese Catholic himself, pushes the point of his thought experiment to dizzying degrees, asking tough ethical questions of practical consequence. A tough read in that it will cause you to painfully wrestle with the counter-culture nature of Christianity, but one well worth the sacrifice. 

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#66. Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005 edited by Dave Eggers

Grade: C+

The weakest of the Best American Nonrequired series thus far. While the stories by authors familiar to me, like Aimee Bender, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Dan Chaon, were well crafted, the unknowns simply couldn't deliver. Their general format for fiction started with an outlandish "attention-grabbing" statement left unsupported or quickly qualified. Then the first person narrative would devolve into a recounting of miseries. There was very little hope here, just a litany of complaints and the losers that suffer them in lieu of brazen adventures and meaningful character arcs. The nonfiction selections, aside from the vain, unfunny politico-humor rantings of Al Franken, were much stronger than the short stories. I found the prize of the collection to be George Saunder's "Manifesto," which begins with the line, "last Thursday, my organization People Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction, orchestrated an overwhelming show of force around the globe." It's this quirky, pointed sensibility which has endeared me to the series in the past that was unfortunately rarely to be found in this volume.

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#65. The Chosen by Chaim Potok

Grade: A-

Wow, I waited way too long to read a book by this guy. My mother has been extolling the merits of My Name Is Asher Lev for some time now, so I will probably take that on soon.

Potok, who died in 2002, is most masterful in developing the twin themes of silence and sight as well as creating incredibly talented yet realistic characters. The chief difficulty in painting the portrait of a genius is that the author must back his character up with evidence of this genius. When the author is not a genius himself, this can be an impossible task, which is why it is so much easier to create a character who is unbelievably beautiful; the author can just tell his readers that she is gorgeous and it is believable. Making a realistic genius is much harder. Salinger accomplished this feat with his tragic Seymour Glass, and here Potok chooses to make all of his characters brilliant, and the Hasidic teenager Danny exceptionally so. He supports this bold move by giving Danny eidetic memory. Yet also, Danny's conversations revolveing around analytic psychology and the Talmud are inspired, proving out his  "chosen" nature. 

Of course, the title also refers to the Jewish race as a whole, documenting from an American Jew perspective the horrors of World War II and resultant Zionism, as well as showcasing the massive differences between the different  sects. It was this inner life, the depiction of rituals and discourse over Jewish law, that I found most fascinating. A rabbi himself, Potok truly new his subject matter, and revealed much about humanity and God.

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#62. Gorgias by Plato 

Grade: B

The back cover states, “To judge by its bitter tone Plato’s Gorgias was written shortly after the death of Socrates.” The tone certainly is angry, and when juxtaposed with the utopian vision of the Republic or the outpouring of love from the Symposium, this work pales in comparison. One of my chief issues with the dialogue format is how Socrates is always “winning” points from his dialectical opponents, when Plato writes both voices. It’s kind of like when the writers of Friends wring a laugh from Joey and Chandler thinking the same thing: one voice wrought in the form of two characters does not a coincidence make. I also think Plato commits a serious error of logic when Socrates states that what he says must be true since no one has proven him wrong yet.

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#61. The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

Grade: A

Reading the Federalist Papers technically started in Berman's Constitutional Law class and then morphed into a grand summer experiment to consume one a day. Then in September, I began cheating, allowing myself multiple articles a day. The truth is, they're fascinating. Many in the legal world use them today to grasp a better understanding of what the Framers of our Constitution intended that document to mean, as the Papers are a defense of the Constitution, one of numerous published pamphlets of the late 1700s (much like blogs today) making arguments for and against the present political regime. The authors wrote under the pen name Publius, and boy did they write.

Hamilton wrote the bulk of the articles, but if you only read one, try Madison's Federalist 10, which includes his signal contribution to political theory: the use of factions. What's amazing to me about the Papers is their predictive value. Sure, they were wrong about some things. None of them predicted the current demise of states which currently exists. But generally they have withstood the test of time.

As one of my friends put it, "We are living in the aftermath of a successful political revolution," and I think to the extent that is true, we owe it to the Founders, people of foresight. Thank you, James and John and Thomas and Ben and George. Gee, I wish we had some people like you around today.

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#59. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Grade: B-

 I paid special attention to gender issues in this one. Woolf paints her men as baby birds, constantly needing, whining, begging for the worm of compassion from the women, who are capable and competent. The men are not strong, they are mysterious at best. There’s Mr. Carmichael who “liked to lie awake a little reading Virgil, keeping his candle burning rather longer than the rest.” And there’s the inscrutable Mr. Ramsay who knows that one person a generation thinks to thought Z and although he’s only thought to thought Q, his one desire is to think to thought R.

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#54. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Grade: A-

The most tasteful coping with 9/11 since Springsteen's The Rising, Safran Foer decidedly refutes succumbing to a sophomore slump. Through a rotating narrative structure the stories of Oskar, a nine year-old protagonist as endearing and hilarious as Alex from the author’s first work, Everything Is Illuminated, and his family members are intertwined to paint a picture of what binds humanity together.

The author’s take on 9/11 is more finely wrought than the flashbacks to the Dresden firebombing. What can he say that Vonnegut hasn’t already brilliantly covered? Also, the drawback to writing with multiple voices is that one can emerge as preferable, making passages told by other characters tedious by comparison. I’ve found Safran Foer’s central narrators to be the best part of both novels; why not try simplifying, filling a whole book with only one voice? Finally, why the title? Never referenced in the book, it has an obvious meaning, but this could have been stronger.

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#51. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Grade: A+

If I haven’t borrowed the book I’m reading, I mark it up. I’ve ceased highlighting in favor of underlining with a black ink pen. I star often, jot a note in the margin, bracket a beautiful line or gem of wisdom. This book opens with a bracket on the first line and closes on the last page, it’s that good.

From a self-esteem card my mother gave me: “Your joy is divine, and so is your suffering. There’s so much to be learned from both.” I take issue with this statement. What’s divine about parasitism of the fifth order (a parasitic wasp with a parasitic wasp with a parasitic wasp with a parasitic wasp with a parasitic wasp)? What’s divine about Duchau?

Most of my friends are dualists. That is, they believe you can’t have the sweet without the sour, that we learn from suffering, or at least that the pleasure makes the pain worthwhile. I’m not so sure. Why can’t we have pure beauty? Who needs hell to exist so that we can enjoy heaven by contrast?

Dillard takes on pain and beauty themes in this dissertation, to great effect. She presents the horrors of nature along with the luxurious. Her enthusiasm as a human being surrounded by the world is the way we should teach science: she loves her subject so much that her joy is infectious.
The author knows how to distill her reading into two line quotes or stories from various writers to which she has been exposed. This would seem to be her greatest gift, but then she comments on the vignette, and adds her own distinguished take, placing the note in context, expanding the readers understanding through her own insight.

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#50. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

Grade: B+

Perhaps I should have initiated this site with a note of humility. I am a literary nobody: not a critic, not a writer, just a guy who likes to read. When I give a grade, it’s what the book did for me; authors should not judge their self-worth by the grades I assign. I am also a toddler in the philosophy world. That said, Mr. Nietzsche, I have some questions for you.

Question 1: The two most dramatic ideas to me were a) the idea of the ubermensch, that man is a bridge, a thing to be surpassed, and b) the eternal reoccurrence, that this whole cosmic movie gets played over and over again, ad nauseam. But when I put those two together, what is the point of achieving the overman if we are confined to the eternal return? I almost want to throw in the towel right now (and again, and again).

Question 2: You’ve been lauded as a viable ethical alternative to Christianity. Jesus flipped morals on its head when he said turn the other cheek and find God, and you flipped them back over when you said God is dead so look out for numero uno. But altruistic psychology is telling us that being self serving is actually not the best way to serve the self. Is it possible to reach the overman and the new society not by weeding out weakness, but by caring for the sick and helping others?

Question 3: Who is this Zarathustra fellow? You, right? Don’t you think calling yourself a prophet, albeit one step removed is a tad pretentious?

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 #46. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Grade: A

Stoppard and Hemingway both have their characters utter philosophical truths about the world, but Hemingway’s achieve their purpose with less. “I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it.” “No.” “And sometimes I see you dead in it.” Is that the most beautiful fragile broken sacred statement on fearing the perils that come with life and love ever written? And it’s only twenty-two words. The whole book is like this, tiny gems achieved with a perfected economy of words.

As much as I loved this book (Hemingway’s surgical prose style completely captivates me), I preferred the slower pacing of The Sun Also Rises. I thought A Farewell to Arms was a paraplegic’s memoir, I didn’t know it was about WWI. Hemingway seems to work best in small spaces, seemingly trivial vignettes which reflect distilled humanity truth: “People love each other and they misunderstand on purpose and they fight and then suddenly they aren’t the same one.” Or, “I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.” Still, all the action provided a comprehensive statement on the inevitability and destruction of war, and the psychology of defeat. “Whichever side realizes they are knocked in last will win.” And, “The Austrians will not stop when they have won a victory. It is in defeat that we become Christians.”

Plus, the man knows how to intersperse humor, reversals, contagious friendship, generosity of spirit, and sparkling passion ("And maybe I'd look lovely, darling, and be so thin and exciting to you and you'll fall in love with me all over again." "Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?" "Yes. I want to ruin you." "Good," I said, "that's what I want too").  So, how can someone who understands what it means to be alive kill himself? Does that say more about the workings of the world or the high price of genius? Perhaps it has something to do with the author's relationship to his protagonists. I'd say Hemingway's are updates and improvements on the Byronic Hero. There's a literary criticism essay waiting to be composed here, but I'm too busy reading to write it.
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#42. Beloved by Toni Morrison 

Grade:B+

 What separates humans from animals? Language? Technology? Agriculture? Dolphins talk. Chimps use tools. Ants farm. Freedom? Morrison shows this feature of humanity in the liberty, often only  a freedom of the mind, manifested by her characters.  Those that find no mental respite are not free: slaves or masters. Strange how one institution enslaves both. Character development is her strength, and some (Baby Sugg, Sixo) are endowed with the Secret to life and worth the cost of admission alone. 

However, I thought the magical realism actually detracted from the novel,  an unnecessary plot crutch, either tell your story straight up, or if you're going, dive in headfirst like Garcia Marquez. The most spirited parts of Beloved were sans spirits. Altogether I found it more consistent but at a lower level than say an uneven Bukowski, with mounds of rough dirt to sift through in order to happen upon the gold nuggets. I prefer the Bukowski. Or better yet, consistently brilliant, like Dillard.

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#40. An Autobiographical Sketch by Benjamin Franklin 

Grade: A+ 

Every once in a while we get a human so advanced for his time that he manages to pull society up with him, as evidenced by Franklin’s contributions of the Franklin stove, bifocals, libraries, and fire stations. Where’s the 21^st century’s superman? Alright, Obama, lets see you invent something! Franklin was a deist, yet he lamented the fact that the belief system was true but not useful, and thus put forth five maxims: 1) Existence of a deity, 2) Who made the world and governs it by His provenance, 3) Most acceptable service to Him is doing good to man, 4) Immortal soul, 5) All crime is punished and virtue rewarded in the here or hereafter. He also came up with a list of 13 virtues, humility only being added after several friends convinced him that his pride necessitated it: 1) Temperance, 2) Silence, 3) Order, 4) Resolution, 5) Frugality, 6) Industry, 7) Sincerity, 8) Justice, 9) Moderation, 10) Cleanliness, 11) Tranquility, 12) Chastity, 13) Humility. How great to finish a book (which included Franklin’s own autobiography as well as correspondence) on a true patriot, the only man to sign all 4 of the great documents in America’s Independence (Declaration, Treaty of Alliance w/ France, Treaty of Peace w/ England, and Constitution) on July 4^th. 

 #38. Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

Grade: B+

Can't believe I graduated with a Psychology degree and only now do I complete a full work of Freud's. The man is still relevant today, although some of his theories are a little wacked-out, e.g., the connection between urine and fire, and how primitive man was able to control fire only after he mustered the ability to control his impulse to douse it with his stream. Civilization was written toward the end of Freud's life, and consequently seems to be broader in its scope. Not just psychology, but anthropology is discussed and Freud extends his superego/ego/id theory to the whole of civilization. The individual man's desire for happiness (egoism) conflicts with and is ultimately subjugated by communal man's desire for his neighbor's happiness (altruism).

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