Good books for rainy days

The weather changed abruptly this week. Well, it changes abruptly darned near every week. But it went overnight from almost-spring to the most leaden, drizzly, blustery sort of winter. And when the early spring went, so did my energy.

With no oomph, but also no impending deadlines, I roused myself for long dog walks, but before and after them I slung myself into a comfy chair with a big blaze going in the pellet stove and read and read and read.

I meant to blog, but my brain was empty and the news seemed worse than the weather. I couldn’t write about Obama formalizing and validating evil Bush policies (as if indefinite “detention” was as American as torture and no-knock raids and “change” wasn’t worth $.02). I couldn’t write about the TSA’s wet dreams for “all scanning all the time.” I didn’t even have the oomph to write wisecracks about the latest stage in Charlie Sheen’s self destruction.

I just sank into my stack of books and let the world drift away. Fortunately, it’s been a week of unusually good reads. So since I’m not overflowing with original thoughts right now, I might as well refer you to my betters. Here are some of the best books I’ve read lately. Yes, the links are Amazon-commission links. Use ’em if you’re so inclined. Or use this link or this one for any Amazon purchase you ever make. It always helps. But the books are keepers, no matter where you get them.

In no particular order …

THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins: The United States is barely a memory. Instead, there’s simply The Capitol, surrounded by 12 subject districts. There were 13 but one rebelled and was obliterated. Now each year the remaining districts are forced to send one boy and one girl as tributes to fight to the death in grand combat. When her beloved 12-year-old sister is chosen by lottery to be one of the warriors, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to go in her place. With her goes Peeta Mellark, a kind and principled boy she tries not to like because she knows that, if either of them survives to the end of the combat, one will have to kill the other. The Capitol’s cruel rules allow for only a single living victor. I don’t know whether you’d call this young-adult novel libertarian. But the Capitol bears obvious resemblances to Rome at the height of Empire, and the 13 districts are surely a nod to the 13 original American colonies. And it’s certainly a powerful story of individuals making choices even under the worst sort of manipulation and oppression. The Hunger Games and its two sequels are destined to make interesting movies.

AN UNFORGIVING LAND by Jason S. Walters: How to describe An Unforgiving Land? It’s a book of short stories set in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert (best known as the site of Burning Man). These are horror stories. But what makes them unusual and evocative is that the horrors rise right out of the rocks and sand and flora and fauna of the desert. A Judas horse, trained to help men bring in herds of mustangs, realizes it’s turning its own kind into dog food — and rebels. Hunters encounter a cat that is … well, just a little bigger and wilder than all the rest. A lonely old lady invites a pack of coyotes to do a deed that she herself cannot. Even the meth cookers are a little crazier, a little more violent, and quite a lot stranger in this bleak land. But if you’ve spent time in the desert you’ll almost believe these things could be real. The author knows whereof he writes. He has a ranch in the Black Rock desert and he sent me this book after reading some of my high desert ramblings in Backwoods Home. The book could have used one more proofreading (spellcheck leads you astray sometimes, guys) and just FYI several of the stories are definitely R-rated. The book carries an “over 18” caveat. But it’s a damn good creepy read.

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot: She was a poor black woman who died at 31. Without her knowledge or consent she bequeathed the most amazing (and sometimes the most troublesome) human cells in the history of medical science. What makes this book so fascinating is that the author determined that she would not only tell the scientific story, but the human story of Henrietta and her descendants. And this very young, privileged, intellectual, and emphatically white woman, thrust her way into a world where she was neither welcomed nor trusted and forged bonds with disparate members of the quirky, angry, sad, touching, inbred, and sometimes scary members of the Lacks family.

HAMILTON’S CURSE by Thomas DiLorenzo: The subtitle pretty much says it all — “How Jefferson’s Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution–and What It Means for Americans Today.” The book is short (just over 200 pages), pleasantly laid out, easy to read, relevant — and a good education in how the groundwork was laid for today’s leviathan state. A good read for people who already know the basics and want more depth of information. Potentially also the sort of read that can help open the eyes of some less savvy folk, too.

LAST CALL: THE RISE AND FALL OF PROHIBITION by Daniel Okrent: Okrent traces the anti-drinking crusade to its nineteenth-century roots, then follows it through all the sordid propagandizing, lying, political maneuvering, crime, and corruption that followed. It’s a thorough account (although almost dizzying in its detail at times). It’s also a witty one. Okrent researches like a good historian, but he also allows a Menckenesque contempt for his subjects to shine through.