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Tom Wolfe
A Man in Full
- Tom Wolfe recently died, which, as death of a famous person does, brought lots of attention to his work, which included journalism and novels. We haven’t read all his novels, but A Man in Full is a wonderful book. It’s also a very long book, clocking in at 742 pages, at least in the hardcover version we read. And this is the kind of book you want to read as a book, not on a computer. So get the book, find a comfortable chair, and settle in for a long, entertaining read. A Man in Full is set in Atlanta in the 1990s. The protagonist, certainly not a hero, is poor boy made good from rural Georgia. First a football star at Georgia Tech who becomes famous as the Sixty Minute Man, for playing both offense and defense. Then he becomes a big time real estate developer, taking advantage of Atlanta’s boom town mentality during this period. But he gets carried away with the boom, as developers so often do, and builds an empty monument to his ego. He also sheds his first wife for a young babe. Meanwhile, a new black football hero comes to town, and his accused of the rape of the white daughter of one of Atlanta’s leading citizens. The book weaves together a number of entertaining subplots, but they all revolve around the themes of race and age, status and wealth. But what really makes A Man in Full different is that Wolfe manages to weave in the philosophy of Stoicism without slowing down the flow of the book. Wolfe shows big time college football for what it is; a breeding ground for insolence and entitlement. And he shows politicians, in this case the mayor of Atlanta, for what they are; power hungry, amoral manipulators of pubic opinion. But what he’s best at is showing that no matter where you stand in the food chain, you have plenty of opportunity for stress and trouble.
Anthony Bourdain
Kitchen Confidential
- We were saddened to hear of Anthony Bourdain's suicide at age 61. He seemed exactly unlike the type of person who would take their own life. He was adventurous, involved with other people, and wildly successful. But it’s impossible to know what is really in someone else’s mind and heart. When we first read his book our thoughts were: We like this guy, and would like to have a beer with him, which is not something we say about all the authors we recommend. Entertaining, informative, nice frank style, modest but not too modest.
Nick Bilton
Hatching Twitter
- "If you’re interested in Twitter, or just tech start-ups in general, this is a great, and pretty easy, read. It proves that if you have an idea that really meets some broad demand, you can have terrible management, no business plan, no revenue, and still do quite well. The subtitle, A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal - says it all.
Frank Herbert
Dune
- We're not normally huge science fiction fans here at AM, and you'll find this is the only science fiction title we recommend thus far. But it's a great one. Herbert created a world where water is an extremely precious commodity and life to a large extent revolves around this scarcity. One would think that this is a book that would be seized on my environmentalists, especially given the pending issue of massive water shortages in the world. But the real reason to read this book has nothing to with the environment - it's simply a great romantic novel in a wild and exotic setting. The world of Dune is to a large extent a universe created in the mind of the author, based on the future, but with enough ideas from the past - like royalty based on birth - to provide reference points.
Charles Dickens
Bleak House
- You should read Dickens. Don't be put off by the fact that he was writing a long time ago, or that you were forced to read him in high school; this is easy, accessible reading, and every bit as entertaining today as when it was written. And Bleak House is one of his best. We recommend starting with Bleak House, the most autobiographical of Dickens' novels. But there are many great novels by Dickens, such as The Pickwick Papers, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens was a very prolific writer, and once you have discovered how easy he is to read, you will have discovered the source of a lifetime of entertainment. Bleak House is the story of a lawsuit over an inheritance, and all the people involved in the inheritance; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Among other things, it is a savage indictment of the English legal system of the time - an indictment that is relevant to the American legal system today. But it's also a romance, a family drama, and more, filled with Dickens' usual assortment of fascinating characters.
Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South
- More than anything else, this is an intelligent and moving romantic story. But it's also a book about business, and about the early clashes between industrialists and the laborers who worked for them. A brilliantly crafted work, just as easy to read today as in 1855. Gaskell pits the agricultural south of England against the industrializing north, and does a very fair job of contrasting the virtues and vices of each; she also has an excellent understanding of business, and gives a fair rendering of the issues for the working class, particularly through the character Higgins, and the "masters", in the form of her love interest, Mr. Thorton. North and South is a mix of Austen, without the gentleness or humor, but Mr. Thorton is very much a Mr. Darcy character, hard and resolute in his class, but becoming gentler as the story develops. And as in Pride and Prejudice, the heroine, in this case Margaret, provides a rude and summary refusal, which humiliates the hero. Both this book and Pride and Prejudice have a pretty woman as the protagonist, but Margaret is much haughtier, more serious, and more religious, than Elizabeth Bennett. There is an element of Rand too with Mr. Thornton, much like Rearden in The Fountainhead.
Jordan B. Peterson
12 Rules for Life
- Traditional values of Western Civilization have come under such relentless attack that they can now be seen as revolutionary. But they make as much sense now as they always have: "Take responsibility, defer gratification, accept some inequality and the fact that men and women are different, etc."
Anthony Trollope
The Duke's Children
- It's an exciting time for fans of Anthony Trollope, which, as faithful readers will know, include Attitude Media. "The Way We Live Now" is one of our favorite books of all time, and every bit as relevant and timely today as when it was first published. And now, despite the author having been dead for well over a century, there is a new book - well, not really a new book, but an expanded revised edition of The Duke's Children based on Trollope's own notes. For more about the new edition, see this Wall Street Journal article. You can get the new edition in a deluxe binding for $330 on the Folio Society website. Or get the original version for free and read it on your Kindle.
