The Buzz Board
Picks from the Inner Circle
Lee Eisenberg
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Lee Eisenberg’s new book is Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What. Excerpts and the author’s blog can be found at LeeEisenberg.com. Author of Shoptimism |
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 Right now I’m plowing (slowly) through a book I’ve long hoped would be written—Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, by Robin D. G. Kelley, a professor at USC. What allows the book to come alive is the ease with which you can put it aside and log onto iTunes, there to hear for yourself, and not just be told, how Monk’s chord changes on “Rhythm-a-Ning” echoed Gershwin’s on “I Got Rhythm,” no matter that you’ve listened—rapturously—to both songs a million times. |
Steve Inskeep
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Steve Inskeep is host of Morning Edition the most widely heard radio news program in the United States. He co-hosts the program with Renee Montagne. Co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition |
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You never want to get stuck on a plane with nothing to read, which is why I walked into an airport bookstore and bought a copy of Eagles and Empire, by David A. Clary. Of course I never opened it until I got home again, but it was worth lugging around. It traces the tortured relationship between Mexico and the United States. It centers on the Mexican War, that great American land grab and war of choice. Clary traces the decades leading up to that war, as two nations sparred across the continent, forever blundering, forever improvising. President James K. Polk never had a clue what the Mexicans were thinking. The Mexicans changed their president every few months. Finally, the issue was decided by American generals whose strategic thinking rarely went deeper than this sentence: “Taylor decided he might as well take Matamoros.” This, plus a lot of bloodletting, was how we got our hands on California. |
Frank Langfitt
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Frank Langfitt is a business correspondent for NPR. He’s just back from nearly three weeks reporting in mainland China and Taiwan. Langfitt also covered the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he shared in an Edward R. Murrow Award for Sports Reporting. Previously, he was the Baltimore Sun’s Beijing bureau chief from 1997 to 2002. Business correspondent for NPR |
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I just got back from a trip to China where President Obama is trying to manage the ever-deepening economic relationship between the two countries. As always, I was struck by the contrast and complexity. Rich Chinese are spending wildly in Beijing luxury malls while workers in southern factory towns are coming out of a period of massive layoffs because of the collapse in American spending. To get a feel for the globe’s second most important economy, pick up China Shakes the World by James Kynge, the Financial Times' former China bureau chief. It provides an unusually readable overview with rich anecdotes. But China changes fast, so for something more contemporary, take a look at the writings of Andy Xie, a former Morgan Stanley analyst in Shanghai. Xie is known for his contrarian views. He thinks China’s stunning rebound from the global financial crisis is largely a government-fueled bubble. |
Joshua Ferris
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Joshua Ferris's first novel, Then We Came to the End, won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes and Noble Discover Award, and was a National Book Award finalist. It has been translated into 24 languages. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Best New American Voices, New Stories from the South, Prairie Schooner, and The Iowa Review. He lives in New York. Author of Then We Came to the End. |
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I recommend A Friend of the Family, by Lauren Grodstein. This novel is an act of supernatural ventriloquism, as Grodstein wholly inhabits the voice of a middle-aged New Jersey doctor oblivious to the destruction of his good intentions. It's traditional Philip Roth territory, but in a different register, and bringing to bear different sensibilities... but no less accomplished for all that. |
Leslie Cockburn
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Leslie Cockburn is the director and co-producer of American Casino. She began her documentary film career in 1980 at CBS Reports. She was Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton, a co-producer of The Peacemaker, and has produced dozens of segments for 60 Minutes, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Colombia, Zimbabwe, and Russia. Her awards include the Robert F. Kennedy Award, the George Polk Award, the Columbia Dupont Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, and the Emmy. Director of American Casino |
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If you only have time for one book this month, read The Wayfinders by Wade Davis. The Wayfinders tells the story of human cultures that are en route to extinction but it is told in language as rich as a succulent plant, bound to satisfy your thirst for great writing and imagery as dazzling as any ayahuasca trip. Davis, the ethno-botanist extraordinaire, takes the reader hunting with the San in the Kalahari, canoeing with the Polynesians, pondering the Northwest Amazon with a Latvian count with a prized crystal of quartz that is, in the eyes of the local shamans, the crystallized semen of Father Sun. As he takes you wandering across the world, Davis makes clear that half of the 7,000 languages spoken now will disappear in our lifetimes. For many of the cultures in The Wayfinders, Davis is witnessing the end of their world. |
Fran Lebowitz
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Fran Lebowitz is an author known for her witty social commentary. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Writer |
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I am very interestingly leafing through Imperial by William Vollmann. It’s like, eight thousand pages, and it’s about agriculture in the Imperial Valley. It’s pretty fascinating and there’s a companion book of photographs. It’s not your average book. It’s very unusual, in a good way. |
Rosie Perez
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Rosie Perez is known for her work in films such as Fearless, for which she won an Oscar nomination in 1993, the controversial Perdita Durango and Judd Apatow’s Pineapple Express. She is a well known political activist for Puerto Rican causes and HIV/AIDS. Actress and activist |
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Irene Vilar is the author of a book called Impossible Motherhood. She is the granddaughter of political activist Lolita Lebraun and she had such a crazy turbulent adolescent and young adulthood. It was very honest. It's an amazing book. You should pick it up! |
Malika Saada Saar
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Malika Saada Saar is the founder and executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, a national legal and policy organization that advocates for justice, dignity, and reform for vulnerable families. Founder of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights |
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For all of us moms who were raised on Wonder Woman, Bionic Woman, and Isis, and now long to give our own daughters stories of brave, strong, and determined girls, I have a great child’s book to recommend. The Legend of the Lady Slipper by Lise Lunge-Larsen and Margi Preus is a lovely tale of an Ojibwe girl who saves her village from sickness and despair. Excellent reading choice for ages 4-8. And, a wonderful way to celebrate November as Native American Heritage month (and give our daughters something better than Hannah Montana). |
Eric Alterman
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Eric Alterman is a professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and a professor of journalism at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author, most recently, of Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Important Ideals. Journalist, author, and professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism |
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I'd like to recommend The Saint and The Sultan, by Paul Moses, just published by Doubleday. Paul is a hard-driving journalist, rather than a scholar of religion, which for my purposes, is a good thing, because he jumps into the story of St. Francis of Assisi and the 13th-century Islamic leader Sultan Malik al-Kami with a doggedness, and a storyteller's ability that makes the whole thing jump in way I would not have imagined possible when it comes to a period like this one. What's more, he does not shy away from drawing analogies to our own issues with Islam, and lessons that might be drawn from the example of St. Francis. I learned something and enjoyed myself immensely in the process and I'm betting you will, too. |
John Lithgow
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John Lithgow is an Emmy and Tony award-winning actor, known for his roles in Footloose, Shrek and on the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. He is currently guest-starring as a serial killer in season 4 of Dexter . He will appear in the Off-Broadway show Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, which starts previews in January. Actor |
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The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. He’s a wonderful Irish novelist but even more well-known as an Irish playwright. It’s an incredibly heartfelt story. You know those Irish—they write. Anybody who takes my recommendation will thank me for it. |
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