Books and movies

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I bought a pile of books at the Friends of the Library book sale, one of my favorite semi-annual events, and I think I promised (threatened) to tell you all about the books that I bought. Here's the list.

Stuart: A Life Backwards, Alexander Masters. I had never heard of either the book or the author, but the cover and the hand-drawn illustrations appealed to me. I read this one first. It's very, very sad, and funny in bits (though not "hilarious" as many of the blurbs exclaimed because spoiler alert, there's only so much humor that you can wring out of the life of a drug-addicted homeless man who suffered horrendous abuse as a child and eventually took his own life at age 34). It's a life backwards because the author begins with the present, and then works backward through Stuart's teenage and childhood years. Apparently, there was a movie, starring Tom Hardy, one of the last actors I'd expect to see in this role.

Endgame: The Inside Story of SALT II, Strobe Talbott. Not sure if I'll ever get around to actually reading this, but I'll report back if I do.

Fortunes of War (The Levant Trilogy, Volume II), Olivia Manning. I normally won't watch a movie if I loved the book, but this is a rare case in which I saw the movie first. It was actually a Masterpiece Theater miniseries, starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson when they were still married. It was very good, and I always meant to read the book; or books, because it is a trilogy (not sure how I feel about starting with Volume II). Anyway, if it's half as good as The Cazalet Chronicles, then it's money well spent.

The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point, Haynes Johnson and David S. Broder. I'm actually reading this now. Despite the hilarious quaint nostalgia of the subtitle (and the whole premise of the book, if it comes to that), it's actually a very lively read. The aforementioned premise is that the American political system (kind of annoyingly referred to as The System throughout the book), which comprises politicians and elected officials, political appointees, journalists, lobbyists, and consultants, broke down into complete fragmentation and chaos during the Clinton/Gingrich years.

Adorable, right? If only the authors had known what was coming.* But they're right in many ways. I once had to write a paper about the Carter White House, and while I was researching the malaise speech, I ran across a Hugh Heclo essay that blamed Bill Clinton for the "permanent campaign" that has so damaged American politics. Clinton and Gingrich share the blame. Both of them paved the way for the swamp that Donald Trump has shockingly failed to drain.

Anywhere but Here, Mona Simpson. Oddly enough, this is the second book in the group that I have seen the movie version of, but have not yet read. I liked the movie.

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt (1st ed.) I read the Nook version of this soon after it was published. I don't remember much of the plot, except that it opens with a terrorist attack in a museum, and then follows the protagonist around the world as he lives his life while concealing an immensely valuable painting that he took from the museum in the aftermath of the bombing. Although I don't remember many details, I do remember that it was astonishingly good. I might read it again, but even if I don't, I'm happy to have a hardcover copy, and a first edition, at that.


Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, Mikhail Gorbachev (1st ed.) Another first edition! I'm only a bibliophile in the sense that I really love to read books. I don't really care about their cash value as objects. But this one has huge historic significance, and it's exciting to have one of the first copies in print. I'll definitely read it, because the only thing better than reading about the Soviet Union is reading about the end of the Soviet Union. Another common element: This author, like Broder and Johnson, probably had no idea what was coming.

*****

*Case in point: I wrote that sentence on Tuesday night, before Trump weighed in on Matt Lauer and all but accused Joe Scarborough of committing a murder. The System is literally deteriorating by the day. Though they didn't know it at the time, Johnson and Broder were writing about the good old days.