Books Read in 2014

These are the books I read during 2014. I've noticed for myself that no non fiction books have been selected for the top five. There were good bios of David Dinkins, Barbara Stanwyck, The Nixons, and Mussolini! But I'm attracted less to facts and more to exquisite writing, and for that my choices were made.

Top favorites for 2014:

All the Light we Cannot See examines the connection between a blind girl and a young Nazi soldier in occupied France.

Redeployment  is a collection of stories of soldiering in the Iraq war. You are there and you are horrified and enthralled. 

Fourth of July Creek has a very creative premise: a social worker and an abandoned kid in the wild. 

Miriam Toews almost made suicide funny. All My Puny Sorrows has a woman emotionally entangled with her suicidal sister. 

Richard Ford, God love him, continues to make middle aged men moving and important.

Oh, one more, for me, indispensable:  

Virgil Thomson, Music Chronicles 1940-1954
Thomson was a fine composer and is the best writer on music I've encountered.  Funny, dry, nasty, concise and extremely learned.
Thanks to Tim Page for making this available.





THIS IS I SHOW YOU MINE YOU SHOW ME YOURS! 

PLEASE NOTE ON THIS BLOG YOUR 
OWN FAVORITES AND RECOMMENDATIONS! THANKS!

*= a favorite

+=interviewed the author

 ________________________________________________

Richard Ford. He's done it again with Let Me Be Frank With You

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Russell Banks

*The Death of Santini   Pat Conroy

Exposed: Jodi Arias Jane Velez Mitchell

Mayor   David Dinkins

*My Reading Life Pat Conroy

My Beautiful World Sonia Sotomayor

Still Fooling Them Billy Crystal

Henry David Thoreau...Walden was worth reading.

Walden   Henry David Thoreau

Vicar of Christ Walter F. Murphy

Favorite Sons Robin Yocum

Song of the Spiderman Greg Berg

*The Essay   Robin Yocum

*The Fault in Our Stars John Greene       

Beach Music   Pat Conroy

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn

Barbara Stanwyck   Victoria Wilson

The Great Santini Pat Conroy

Doctor Sleep Stephen King

The Global Vatican Francis Rooney

The Queen’s Gambit Elizabeth Fremantle

This Road Will Take Us Closer to the Moon (stories) Linda McCullough Moore

*A Permanent Member of the Family (stories) Russell Banks+

(esp Big Dog)

Edmund White

Jack Holmes and his Friend Edmund White+

Mad As Hell (Network) Dave Itzikoff

The Soldier and the Spy (Dreyfus) Richard Harris

*David Copperfield Charles Dickens

Mussolini and the Pope David Kertzer

Pat and Dick (Nixon) Will Swift

Civil War Diaries Walt Whitman (in Specimen Days)

Living the Quaker Way Philip Gulley

Little Failure Gary Shteyngart

The Queen’s Bed Anna Whitlock

Fosse Sam Wasson

*The Husband’s Secret Liane Moriarty

The Burglary Betty Medsger

*Redeployment Phil Klay +

Mission at Nuremburg Tim Townsend

*Stoner John Williams

Faith   Jennifer Haigh (Boston, priests)

*Across the Bridge Mavis Gallant (stories rec. by Russell Bank)

Sum it Up Pat Summit

North of Boston Eliz. Elo

Tastemaker Carl Van Vechten and the Beginning of Modern

America --Edward White

*The Sweet Hereafter Russell Banks+

*Orfeo Robert Powers

*The Middle Men (stories) Jim Gavin

Leonardo and the Last Supper Ross King

Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow

*The Condition Jennifer Haigh

The Days of Anna Madrigal Armistead Maupin

Deception  Phillip Roth

Suspicion Nation Lisa Bloom (Trayvon)

*Bring up the Bodies Hilary Mantel

**The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kid

Escape From  Auschwitz Joel Rosenberg

*The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Samuel Clemens

Fatherland Robert Harris

The Windsor Faction D.J. Taylor

To Quell the Terror  William Bush

*Coal Black Horse Robert Olmstead (civil war, local author)

Newtown Matthew Lysiak

Divide: American Injustice in the Era of the Wealth Gap

Matt Taibbi

                                 

The Professor and the Housekeeper  Yoko Ogawa

You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz

A Time to Keep Silence Patrick Leigh Fermor

Perfectly Miserable, God, Guilt and Real Estate in a Small Town Sarah Payne Stuart

Cut Loose by Leah Vincent (left ultra-orthodox Jews)

Dominion CJ Sansom Nazi victory in WWII

The Hiltons J. Randy Taborirelli

The Good Pope-John XXIII Greg Tobin

What is Visible Kimberly Elkins (Laura Bridgman)

*Famous Writers I have Known Magnuson

                               

Stokely Joseph E. Peniel

**Fourth of July Creek Henderson Smith

I said yes to everything Lee Grant+   

Lee Grant. Loved her.

*Unbroken Lauren Hillebrand

Play it Again Alan Rusbridger

*Blue Eyed Boy  Robert Timken (‘Nam vet, journalist, burns)

Hot Dogs and Cocktails (FDR/Royal Family) Peter Conradi

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour  Joshua Ferris

*Mr. Mercedes  Stephen King

Bleeding Edge Thomas Pynchon

The Long Loneliness Dorothy Day

The Alteration Kingsley Amis

The Good Luck of Right Now Matthew Quick (Richard Gere)

Shooting Straight Piers Morgan

*The Rosie Project (Asperger wife)-Prof Don Tillman

The Romanov Sisters  Helene Rappaport

*Remember Me Like This (Justin Campbell lost boy)

   Brett Anthony Johnston

Olivier  Phillip Ziegler

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin  Jill Lepore

Savage Harvest: The Search for Michael Rockefeller  Carl Hoffman

*The Undertaking  Audrey Magee

A Fighting Chance  Elizabeth Warren

The Chase Janet Evanovich+

1776 Revolutionary Summer  James Ellis

***Hold the Dark by William Giraldi

Big Little Lies  Liane Moriarty

Terrorist’s Son   Zak Efraim

*Barracuda  Christos Tsoikas

Easy Street (The hard way) Ron Perelman

Heft Liz Moore

War and Peace Tolstoy

*The Life and Tragic Death of Robert Peace  Jeff Hobbs

*The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher  Hilary Mantel

          

You Might Remember Me: Phil Hartman  Mike Rowe

Eve of Eternity  Ken Follett

The Mathematicians Shiva Stuart Rojszstater

The Good Father  Noah Hawley

*We are not Ourselves  Matthew Thomas

*Nora Webster Colm Toibin

The Job Janet Evanovich+ 

The Heist Janet Evanovich+

How I Write Janet Evanovich

Janet Evanovich. Had a blast interviewing her to a sold out house, thanks to The Thurber House

*Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen and Essex Hemphill  Martin Duberman

Sisters of Treason Elizabeth Fremantle

Village of Silence: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France Caroline Moorehead

On the Edge  Edward St. Aubyn

Lost for Words Edward St Aubyn

City of Lies: Therean Ramita Navai

*****All the Light You Cannot See  Anthon Doerr

(Bob) Hope by Richard Zoglin

Without You There is No Us Suki Kim

*The Goldfinch Donna Tarrt

*The Children’s Act Ian McEwan

*All My Puny Sorrows Miriam Toews

Is it a crime to be schizophrenic?

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Scott Panetti is scheduled to be executed in Texas tonight for the murder of his in laws. No one doubts that this crime was especially horrendous. Panetti held the older couple hostage along with his own wife and daughter. He shot his in laws to death, claiming the devil had ordered him to do so. He spared his daughter and former wife.

The crime occurred in 1992. Panetti was sentenced to death in 1995. Scott Panetti represented himself at trial. It is said his defense came down to incomprehensible rants. He called over 200 witnesses, among them Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy. The American Psychiatric Association is among the many signators on letters of clemency directed to Texas Governor Rick Perry.



On Monday the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole denied clemency is a 7-0 vote.

"This is a man who has been severely mentally ill since twelve years before the crime", said Ron Honberg of the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill. "It would be a travesty to proceed with this execution."

Joe and Amanda Alovrado murdered by Scott Panetti

Is Panetti a nice guy wrongly convicted? No. He's profoundly ill and and in his madness killed two people. He should not be enjoying the freedoms guaranteed tot he rest of us. He's a danger to himself and others.

What bothers me most, aside from the obvious assault on decency in executing a schizophrenic, as if he should be lamed for his own illness, is the rage that is nurtured in cases like these. Politicians want to be re elected. Thus in many communities they seem to be ignore clemency and decency in favor of death. The public is frightened and outraged by crime. The authorities demonize the mentally ill. They are easy targets and are used to further incite the public. Look what this monster did! Let's kill him! Yes! screams the electorate. There's no gray area, no consideration of brain disorders beyond anyone's control.

Remember, Panetti is not reported to have received medical care in those years prior to the murders. Medication yes. But how diligently was he treated? How extensive was his care? Unless he was independently wealthy, I'll be he got nothing but pills.

Why was Panetti allowed to defend himself? He dressed up in cowboy gear and battle fatigues, and he made absolutely no sense in court. Why was this allowed to continue? Was the prosecution qualified to claim Panetti was acting? He must be a very good and inexhaustible actor.




I worry too that all of the ACLU cries for justice are dismissed as liberal weak assed junk. I'll bet even Sister Helen Prejean is dissed in this manner. What's especially interesting in the Panetti case is the Evangelical community's support of clemency

As reported by Stephanie Mercimer in Mother Jones,


"[Panetti's] religious fervor is the product of a brain disorder, and the evangelicals' opposition to his execution is not related to his religious proclamations," wrote Mencimer. "It is more of a reflection of the shift in public attitudes regarding capital punishment that has been driven by the growing number of exonerations of death row inmates, the high number of mentally ill and disabled people sentenced to die, and the inefficient and expensive administration of capital punishment."

It is becoming too easy and too acceptable to kill people. God help us. They are coming after the profoundly mentally ill. Who's next?