A few weeks ago I found out that a man I’d lost touch with killed himself last spring. He’d been a magnificent influence on me in the early 1990s. We wrote for the same magazine, but his writing was many leagues beyond my work horse prose. Where he would wax romantic, I would wane maudlin, and he wasn’t afraid to tell me so. But he was kind. One late night in his office cluttered with rock specimens, empty bottles of great wines and hundreds of books, he let me recite “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in its entirety. I was nervous, so he handed me a stress ball to squeeze. That’s a good friend. I’d forgotten his kindness. Continue reading “A Long Strange Trip by Dennis McNally”
Category: Biography/Autobiography
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain & The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert
I read The Last American Man and Kitchen Confidential back to back, which wasn’t planned, it was just that I craved these biographical short books as transitional material after five volumes of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. I tried to start My Struggle Volume Six, but my brain revolted. What I needed was an all-American male palate cleanser, make that two, and these books served the purpose well. Continue reading “Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain & The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert”
My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Brene Brown, author of the two self-empowerment books Gifts of Imperfection and Daring Greatly, must love Karl Ove Knausgaard. My biggest takeaway from this six volume, 3,500 page autobiography is how brave Knausgaard is, how naked. The books are like a grove of winter trees, dour, stark and beautiful, and, at 3,500 pages, it took at least a grove of trees to produce them. Continue reading “My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard”
Hell’s Angels, Hunter S. Thompson
How do you write a report on a book by Hunter S. Thompson without sounding like a total asshole? I’m glad he’s not alive to google his name and find this blog entry (not that he would, but one of his minions might). I picture him in his prime, driving to my house, tumbler of whiskey in one hand, skull-head pipe in the other, just a finger or two on the wheel, making it from Aspen outskirts to unincorporated Calistoga in a bleary 15 hours so he could shoot out my lights personally with a lovingly polished 45 magnum. Continue reading “Hell’s Angels, Hunter S. Thompson”
Art of the San Francisco Bay Area (1945-1980), by Thomas Albright
It happened again: one of my heroes died before I even knew about him. First it was Chris Whitley, a musician and amazing song writer I first became aware of in 1991 when his song “Big Sky Country” was the sexiest, most memorable and poetic thing I’d heard on the radio in years and I bought the album. He was in his 30s then I think, and I thought I had plenty of time to hear him live, even though I never go to live concerts and didn’t even really think about it until I bought two more of his albums, Dirt Floor and Soft Dangerous Shores, the latter released in 2005, the year he died of lung cancer at age 45. By the time I fell in love with Soft Dangerous Shores he was dead. Continue reading “Art of the San Francisco Bay Area (1945-1980), by Thomas Albright”
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris
May you live in interesting times. The old unattributed Chinese curse has a stranglehold on the country and something interesting/disturbing/terrifying has been happening almost every day. The 2016 election, the hurricanes, the shooting in Las Vegas, more hurricanes, more Trump, the wildfires in California, the Russia investigation, the terrorist bike path attack in New York…
Continue reading “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris”
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was a busy, busy man. As I lay in bed watching Episode 23 of Parks and Recreation Season Two as if it were my job, I reflected on TR’s strenuous life and constant contributions and guilted myself into getting up and getting a new post started. By following the biography of his early years, Mornings on Horseback, with a selection of his own writing I thought I would stay engaged with one of our most energetic historical figures, but these writings focus on how to kill as many animals as possible, mostly for food. Yes, I eat meat, wear leather goods and have more animal skins scattered around my house than the average person, but I find myself wondering, “so when does the conservation part begin?”
Continue reading “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Theodore Roosevelt”
Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough
Theodore Roosevelt is one of my all-time heroes. As a near-sighted asthmatic myself, I love the stories of how he developed the idea of “the strenuous life” to overcome his ailments and went on to become one of the most admired and beloved figures in United States history. His tirelessness physically and mentally and his unwavering morality never fail to inspire. It is shocking to be reminded that he died at 60–his brain, his mouth, his pen or his body was in motion the entire time; no wonder he wore himself out relatively early.
Continue reading “Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough”
The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton
From the mat to the world–a break from yoga to plan a trip to NYC and get some de Botton civility.
I was thinking of going into some yoga-spiritual related books after the four yoga books I’ve just finished, such as Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols, which was one of the first second-hand books I ever bought when I moved to San Francisco after college. Or Joseph Campbell, or Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues or Still Life with Woodpecker, all of which influenced me so much in the late 1980s. But since I have a travel bug and am planning two or three trips (NYC next month, Jacksonville, Florida and for Thanksgiving, Kauai with high school girlfriends in February), I thought I’d better reread The Art of Travel. Continue reading “The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton”
The Selfish Book Club 