1) TRAPEZE: THE UNEXPURGATED DIARY OF ANAIS NIN 1947 - 1955 by Anais Nin.
Less of a diary than any of Anais' previous ones, it may have been more accessible
But I am rewriting Spy. I started angry at first -- everyone was against the fantasy, the lie detector (Sabina's conscience). Either I sink now, or I tell the story anew without the help of fantasy. Now I am interested. Half of me, after analysis, is willing to make an effort ti be clearer. I do not want to be silenced to be blockaded. In poetry there is depth. But there is also the danger of misunderstanding.
SPY?
A SPY IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE, one of her most famous books. Hilda led a six-week book discussion on this book for HILDA'S MIX.
2) JONI: THE ANTHOLOGY edited by Barney Hoskyns
David Yaffe wrote an awful book about Joni Mitchell. Even worse, he took to attacking Joni and defending well known liar Judy Collins. As Ava and C.I. explained, Yaffe was an idiot and bought Judy's lie that Judy had never invited Joni to the Newport Folk Festival and then not taken her there. He took Judy's word over Joni's word and, as Ava and C.I. explained, he was too stupid to ask Al Kooper who was present when the offer was made (he's the one who called Judy and put Joni on the phone). Al Kooper's story of what happened matches Joni Mitchell's story -- not Judy's latest lie.
So what to read?
JONI: THE ANTHOLOGY which traces Joni's career via various writers covering her in real time.
3) SHATTERED by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.
:
The shambles of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign served up for all to see.
4) DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET by Frances
Moore Lappe. Trina kicked off her site with a recipe from this book all
those years ago (2005). This fall she revisited the recipe and the
book.
We asked Trina for a comment about how a book decades old still attracts so many and she offers that, "like any cookbook, it features recipes. Unlike many books, it centers our basic actions within the world we live and draws a clear line between individual action and its impact on the planet. It works as a cookbook, as an activist primer and as a history of corporate food."
5) THE UNRAVELING: HIGH HOPES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN IRAQ by Emma Sky
Word for word, what we noted when this book made our 2015 list two years ago:
The Cassandras. That's what Beth dubbed them in the roundtable she moderated in October for the gina & krista round-robin (more on that in a moment). The Cassandras -- she named Ava and C.I., Ned Parker, Emma Sky, Michael Gordon, Bernard E. Trainor and the author of the third book on the list. They were the one who were sounding alarms in real time as Nouri al-Maliki's second term became little more than a vengeance fueled blood massacre.
Sky's written a book that catpures how Iraq went from bad to awful from 2010 to 2014. What she fails to do is to establish why the world and the media ignored these events but maybe telling that much truth would have left this major book shut completely out by the media?
6) SOUTH AND WEST: FROM A NOTEBOOK by Joan Didion.
7) LANA: THE LIFE AND LOVES OF LANA TURNER by Jane Ellen Wayne
Betty loved this book. And so did you. Some, like Natalie, were Lana Turner fans already ("but I never heard of this book") while some of you, like Jerry, were just looking for something new to read. It's a brief book but a good one.
8) AN AMERICAN SICKNESS: HOW HEALTHCARE BECAME BIG BUSINESS AND HOW YOU CAN TAKE IT BACK by Elisabeth Rosenthal.
The book captures you early on:
Imagine if you paid for an airplane ticket and then got separate and inscrutable bills from the airline, the pilot, the copilot, and the flight attendants. That's how the healthcare market works. In no other industry do prices for a product vary by a factor of ten depending on where it is purchased, as is the case for bills I've seen for echocardiograms, MRI scans, and blood tests to gauge thyroid function or vitamin D levels. The price of a Prius at a dealership in Princeton, New Jersey, is not five times higher than what you would pay for a Prius in Hackensack and a Prius in New Jersey is not twice as expensive as one in New Mexico. The price of that car at the very same dealer doesn't depend on your employer or if you're self-employed or unemployed. Why does it matter for healthcare?
Rosenthal keeps the issues in tight focus and writes about it in a way that rips the myth off the medical world.
The book captures you early on:
Imagine if you paid for an airplane ticket and then got separate and inscrutable bills from the airline, the pilot, the copilot, and the flight attendants. That's how the healthcare market works. In no other industry do prices for a product vary by a factor of ten depending on where it is purchased, as is the case for bills I've seen for echocardiograms, MRI scans, and blood tests to gauge thyroid function or vitamin D levels. The price of a Prius at a dealership in Princeton, New Jersey, is not five times higher than what you would pay for a Prius in Hackensack and a Prius in New Jersey is not twice as expensive as one in New Mexico. The price of that car at the very same dealer doesn't depend on your employer or if you're self-employed or unemployed. Why does it matter for healthcare?
Rosenthal keeps the issues in tight focus and writes about it in a way that rips the myth off the medical world.
9) HOW I LOST BY HILLARY CLINTON.
As Beth observed, read this and read Hillary's official release WHAT HAPPENED and "you really get how Hillary's playing dumb in her own book." HOW I LOST BY HILLARY CLINTON takes the candidate's own words, adds annotation by Joe Lauria and provides more understanding in two pages than in all of WHAT HAPPENED. It peeked Trina’s interest and it peaked the interest of many of you.
As Beth observed, read this and read Hillary's official release WHAT HAPPENED and "you really get how Hillary's playing dumb in her own book." HOW I LOST BY HILLARY CLINTON takes the candidate's own words, adds annotation by Joe Lauria and provides more understanding in two pages than in all of WHAT HAPPENED. It peeked Trina’s interest and it peaked the interest of many of you.
10) THE BLOOD OF EMMET TILL by Timothy B. Tyson.
A book discussion for the gina & krista round-robin focused on this book, concluding it's a book about the murder of Emmet Till but also on how the murder is carried out repeatedly by society today.
--------------
Martha and Shirley have also done the year in books for 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005.