The Hobbledehoy love to bring a new book to the beach, and with August vacation plans on Old Cape Cod approaching, we may spend more time on our screened-in porch with a good read than swimming with the sharks, hiking with the ticks, or dining out with the mosquitos. Damn you, Climate Change! And you too, Patti Page!
Two new books we highly recommended for Summer reading!
“The Book of Norman” by Wayne Cresser
As a kid, Norman Winters aspired to be good at something, baseball, canoe-racing, anything at all. As an adult he wants to teach eager minds and keep his house free of smoke and frauds. And in his old age, he just wants to burn the money and hold on to the clams. Does Mr. Winters want all these things too much?
Readers will wonder as they follow him over the course of a life, loosely chronicled in a fresh collection of interconnected short stories by author, broadcaster, and teacher Wayne Cresser.
The Book of Norman deals with such topics as sibling rivalry, bullying, forgiveness, mercy, and love at first sight and promises readers, to paraphrase the great comic, many “a laugh and a tear.”
Mr. Cresser authors the excellent Just Between You and Me blog, and has contributed to The Hobbledehoy. His weekly radio program Picture This is must-listening for fans of great film composers like Bernard Herman, Ennio Morricone, and Elmer Bernstein, as well as classic soundtracks from Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Fantastic Mr. Fox. His recent show on the beloved American lyricist Johnny Mercer was, as the poet wrote, “too marvelous for words.”
“The Book of Norman” is available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle.
“The Last American Road Trip” by Sarah Kendzior
In 2016, Kendzior wrote about similarities between Donald Trump and the authoritarian leaders she had studied given Trump’s admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin before there was widespread public awareness of Russia’s interference in the US election:
Today is November 18, 2016. I want you to write about who you are, what you have experienced, and what you have endured.
Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others. Write about your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children. Write about the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today.
Write your biography, write down your memories. Because if you do not do it now, you may forget.
Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them.
Write a list of things you would never believe. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will either believe them or be forced to say you believe them.
It is increasingly clear, as Donald Trump appoints his cabinet of white supremacists and war-mongers, as hate crimes rise, as the institutions that are supposed to protect us cower, as international norms are shattered, that his ascendency to power is not normal.”
Kendzior co-hosted the podcast Gaslit Nation, with filmmaker Andrea Chalupa. Psychology Today stated that the podcast “frequently reminds listeners that the Trump administration is part of a ‘transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government'”, stating that the podcast’s title, Gaslit Nation, refers to their assertion that the Trump administration is “gaslighting” America in precisely the way that Arendt, Orwell, and Pomerantzev have described, by repeatedly contradicting the facts and claiming that black is white.”
It is one thing to study the fall of democracy, another to have it hit your homeland — and yet another to raise children as it happens. The Last American Road Trip is one family’s journey to the most beautiful, fascinating, and bizarre places in the US during one of its most tumultuous eras. As Kendzior works as a journalist chronicling political turmoil, she becomes determined that her young children see America before it’s too late. So Kendzior, her husband, and the kids hit the road — again and again.
Starting from Missouri, the family drives across America in every direction as cataclysmic events – the rise of autocracy, political and technological chaos, and the pandemic – reshape American life. They explore Route 66, national parks, historical sites, and Americana icons as Kendzior contemplates love for country in a broken heartland. Together, the family watches the landscape of the United States – physical, environmental, social, political -transform through the car window.
Part memoir, part political history, The Last American Road Trip is one mother’s promise to her children that their country will be there for them in the future – even though at times she struggles to believe it herself.
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