Suggestion: A Game As Old As Empire

I was intrigued when I heard an interview with John Perkins upon the release of the first book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. This second book is a compilation from others. A different angled follow-up to the Beah book -- cuz, how are they getting all those guns and drugs in the African jungle?

"John Perkins exposed this shocking secret world in Confessions, his first-person account of his own life as an Economic Hit Man, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Here, other economic hit men, journalists, and investigators join Perkins to reveal many more deeply disturbing stories of greed and international corruption. In gripping detail, they describe the schemes and subterfuges that multinational corporations, governments, powerful individuals, financial institutions, and quasi-governmental agencies use to line their pockets behind the façade of “foreign aid” and “international development.” "

http://www.economichitman.com/

Group Discussion #2

Book:
You Don't Love Me Yet: A Novel, by Jonathan Lethem.

Date & Location:
TBD (first to second week of June).

Author's web site

Book Description:

From the incomparable Jonathan Lethem, a raucous romantic farce that explores the paradoxes of love and art.

Lucinda Hoekke spends eight hours a day at the Complaint Line, listening to anonymous callers air their random grievances. Most of the time, the work is excruciatingly tedious. But one frequent caller, who insists on speaking only to Lucinda, captivates her with his off-color ruminations and opaque self-reflections. In blatant defiance of the rules, Lucinda and the Complainer arrange a face-to-face meeting—and fall desperately in love.

Consumed by passion, Lucinda manages only to tear herself away from the Complainer to practice with the alternative band in which she plays bass. The lead singer of the band is Matthew, a confused young man who works at the zoo and has kidnapped a kangaroo to save it from ennui. Denise, the drummer, works at No Shame, a masturbation boutique. The band’s talented lyricist, Bedwin, conflicted about the group’s as-yet-nonexistent fame, is suffering from writer’s block. Hoping to recharge the band’s creative energy, Lucinda “suggests” some of the Complainer’s philosophical musings to Bedwin. When Bedwin transforms them into brilliant songs, the band gets its big break, including an invitation to appear on L.A.’s premiere alternative radio show. The only problem is the Complainer. He insists on joining the band, with disastrous consequences for all.

Brimming with satire and sex, You Don’t Love Me Yet is a funny and affectionate send-up of the alternative band scene, the city of Los Angeles, and the entire genre of romantic comedy, but remains unmistakably the work of the inimitable Jonathan Lethem.

About the Author:

JONATHAN LETHEM is the author of six novels, including the bestsellers The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of two short story collections, Men and Cartoons and The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye, and a collection of essays, The Disappointment Artist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Maine.

suggestions: the book of salt

by monique truong. fictionalized account of alice b toklas' & gertrude stein's manservant.

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Where is the access road?

So on the ride home I was thinking more about an access road INTO the book "A Long Way Gone." Now, granted, if this memoir was written when he was 50 it would be a very different book than it is today - probably started when he was 25... or younger considering the loft he moved into was that of a professional storyteller.

The thing I'm missing most is accessibility to his situation. While I have never done the things he has done I have used many of the same psychological triggers he has used. I only have my own experience to draw on to relate to him and the place that where it could happen are these moments that aren't given time. (Either by his own narrative or the editing.) I've used storytelling as a safety device, I've been triggered in times of stress to employ survival techniques and skills and I understand the pleasure I get from those devices. We never see implicitly that he uses his skills to further himself. He is a good looking, friendly faced and intelligent young man. This is a marketable skill for both Ishmael to use to get out and for the people looking to use him as a poster boy. He *knows* this... he's a performer and he's intelligent. He knows how to work a crowd, how to manipulate a crowd ... yet we aren't shown this side of him in the story. At the end of the day he GOT something for what he did. Not brown brown here people... pleasure, enjoyment and revenge. He continued the killing not only because he "had to" (brianwashing?) because he also got a psychological "gimmie" from the deal. And the thing is - THAT'S OK. It's part of understanding why you do the things you do. If we've already forgiven him for the atrocities of war - why can't we give him pardon for being human?

I get that this is something that is sort of "well if the book was this" instead of what the book IS... but I put my finger on why this book rang hollow for me. The person isn't real even though this is a real person. The book suffers from being too much too soon. For Ishmael's story to have full and lasting effect outside of this tragedy I feel like he needs to re-visit it in another 25 years.

Suggested: The Lucifer Effect

Hi y'all,

I would like to put up The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo, as an interesting book to follow Beah. He is the Stanford professor who did the famed Prison Guard psych experiments in the 70's. It's about understanding how good people do evil. How genocides, Abu Ghraib, and the like happen. I really wish I could be there discussing this book with you guys tonight, but if I was I would want to ask how humans are capable of arming children, or killing their neighbor with a machete... This book supposedly sheds some light on this issue. I would also volunteer my services to do a book report on this one and report back to the monkey shooters ;)

_ray

Suggested: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a bleak (yet at times beautiful) story of a father and son, travelling across the burned out husk of a nightmarish, post-acpocalyptic America. Much like A Long Way Gone, this is a "road" book in which the main characters journey thru a hostile environment where death is always just behind them—or waiting just ahead—while at the same time, lurking within their own hearts, waiting for them to stumble or miss a step along their equally mortal inner journies. That may make no sense, but what I'm trying to say is that the two books make quite a powerful pairing and share many similar themes. They both illustrate the depths to which man may sink and the atrocities which he may visit upon his brothers and himself. And yet, they both illustrate the strength of man's humanity and his ability to overcome violence, despair, fear, loss, and death. They illustrate the ability to overcome one's own shortcomings as well as those shortcomings which have seemingly plagued man as a whole, since the beginning of recorded history. The Road may herald the end of human history as we know it. But, in that end, it creates something worth recording and remembering.

As you may be able to tell, I've already read the book, as well as one more by the same author, Blood Meridian. If you don't read if for the book club, I highly recommend reading it for yourself and would love to hear your comments on it. Follow it up by watching Children of Men for a contemporary cross-over of intense, visceral storytelling involving more of the same themes.

BTW, The Road was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year. You can read an article about the author from the New Yorker here.

Suggested: Watchmen

While inhabiting the same territory as Orwell's 1984, Gilliam's Brazil, and a number of lesser bleak views of a (then future) society, Watchmen takes full advantage of the graphic novel format to flesh out its characters and plots in ways rarely seen in any medium. Even after 20 years, still probably the best graphic novel out there.