Alex Berenson on Why the First Amendment Matters 

Alex Berenson 

Alex Berenson is not a right-wing radical. He’s not even a card-carrying conservative. He’s a thoughtful and well-educated researcher and writer who has developed a following by challenging large ideas, doctrines, and ideologies by pointing out verifiable facts and using logical reasoning. Here, he summarizes a speech he recently gave on why the rising rejection of the First Amendment is the greatest threat to our democracy and any democracy in the world.

Something Rich and Strange 

By Ron Rash
448 pages
Published Nov. 4, 2014

This is one of two short story collections The Mules read for our February meeting. It was the second book of short stories we read by Ron Rash, who is indisputably one of the finest American short story crafters writing today.

In Something Rich and Strange, he gives us 32 different sorts of stories about different kinds of people, presented in different lengths, tempos, and points of view. The rugged hills and farms and valleys of Appalachia provide a rich and strange background for the rich and strange vignettes of the characters that come to life in each one.

What I Liked About It 

Ron Rash is a specialist in writing short stories, which takes a very different set of skills than writing novels. He is a literary writer, who, like Cormac McCarthy or William Faulkner, can not only tell a tense and compelling story but can do so with a mastery of phrasing and diction and dialog that provides its own rewards.

Critical Reception 

* “Ron Rash occupies an odd place in the pantheon of great American writers, and you’d better believe he belongs there… Something Rich and Strange is a major short-story anthology that can introduce new readers to this author’s haunting talents and reaffirm what his established following already knows.” (New York Times)

* “No one writes better about the misunderstood, bedeviled, mule-stubborn inhabitants of Southern Appalachia than Rash… Something Rich and Strange is a bonanza for short-story fans, and another great introduction to Rash for those who haven’t read the originals yet.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

* “The prose in every story is sensual and expressive. [Rash] swings easily between humor and pathos, the mundane and the momentous.” (Chicago Tribune)

Chick Lit: The Introduction of a New Fiction Genre 30 Years Ago

Helen Fielding 

On February 28, 1995, an anonymous column appeared in the British newspaper The Independent, titled “The Diary of Bridget Jones.” The idea for the column came from Charlie Leadbeater, the features editor. According to This Week in Literary History, Leadbeater “had been looking for a writer to capture a certain voice, to speak to the kind of women he saw at work every day. It was his wife who suggested Helen Fielding, who wrote for The Independent on Sunday.”

Fielding was working on what she called “an earnest and frankly unreadable novel about cultural divides in the Caribbean” when she was invited to write the column. “But,” she said, “to write a column, as myself, about single life in London. Much as I needed the money, the idea of writing about myself in that way seemed hopelessly embarrassing and revealing. I offered to write it anonymously, as an exaggerated, comic, fictional character. I assumed no one would read it, and it would be dropped after six weeks for being too silly.”

At first, Fielding didn’t tell anyone at the paper what she was doing. “I was working alongside a lot of very clever, seasoned journalists who were writing about New Labour and Chechnya and I felt stupid writing about calories and alcohol units and why it takes three hours between waking up and leaving the house in the morning,” she later wrote. “When we started getting letters praising the column, I started boasting, ‘It’s by me, meeeee!’ and things snowballed from there.”

The Diary of Bridget Jones became a hugely bestselling novel, an Academy Award-winning movie, and arguably the model for a new genre of fiction that became known as “chick lit.”

If you’d like to know more about this story and the continuing controversy about its standing in the hierarchy of contemporary British literature, here is a link to an essay on the subject.

How Money Walks 

By Alexander Ward
368 pages
Published Feb. 20, 2024

The WSJ recommended The Internationalists last week. I have at least 60 books piled up in various corners of my house and office that I’ve promised myself I would read, but this one intrigued me.

Short of time, I skimmed it. But there were paragraphs and even pages that I put stickies on to get back to when I had time.

One is this observation about Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan:

“During the chaotic scenes that unfolded around Kabul’s airport as Taliban-aligned forces began taking over the capital, White House officials knew the president was making promises he couldn’t keep to get people out of the country.

“Biden told ABC News on Aug. 18, 2021, that he was committed to having troops stay in Afghanistan until every US citizen who wanted to leave could do so.” A senior White House official told Ward at the time: “There’s no one here who thinks we can meet that promise.”

“Ultimately, Biden withdrew the last US troops there two weeks later, but left more than 800 American citizens in Afghanistan. Also left behind: Tens of thousands of Afghans who allied with the US and had been promised refuge in the US. So White House staff knew that Americans and many of our friends would be left behind but nobody felt compelled to blow the whistle? One can only wonder who would hire such people.”

This morning, I found a critique of the book by James Freeman in the WSJ that elaborates on the issue. You can read it here.

1. Night at the Fiestas: Stories 

By Kristin Valdez Quade
304 pages
Originally published March 16, 2015

I don’t remember how this got onto my to-read list. I half-liked the title – a collection of possibly good, possibly literary short stories from south of the border. But titles, as we know, can be misleading. It could be a compilation of socially astute, Oprah-worthy, cliché-ridden accounts of racism and oppression.

It happened that – and, again, I don’t know why – it had been downloaded onto one of the book apps on my iPhone and I was embarking on an hour’s drive. So I began listening to it. And now, having read (listened to) it and thought about it for a week, I feel comfortable recommending it.

What I Like About It 

Kristin Valdez Quade is indeed a literary writer, but in the school of simple sentences and limited flourishes that I prefer, especially when the stories are meant to be experienced (like The Sun Also Rises), not plumbed and researched and then deciphered (like Finnegan’s Wake). So, I like Quade’s style of writing. I also like the amount of detail in her stories that adds depth and dimension to the cultural background in which the stories come alive. And finally, I think she does a very good job with dialogue, which is not easy.

What I Don’t Like (So Much) 

There is a minor current of political correctness that runs through the collection, in terms of who the heroes and villains look like, speak like, and act like. It’s there, and I wish it wasn’t. Because had Quade resisted this superficial commercial temptation, the book would have not only received high marks from me in terms of literary style and horizontality, but better grades on verticality as well.

Critical Reception 

* “[A] sparkling debut collection… features dreamers and schemers whose lives pulsate with wild hopes, hard luck, stunning secrets, and saving grace.” (Elle)

* “Quade demonstrates her command of writing about complex issues of ethnicity and success head-on.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

* “ Fresh, funny…. A gifted storyteller with an eye for quirky, compelling detail.” (Dallas Morning News)

2. Can This Death Row Inmate Bring Down the Death Penalty Itself? 

Death row inmate Richard Glossip in 2014, one year before he was scheduled to die. 

A longtime “passion” of mine is the incarceration of people falsely convicted of crime. The idea itself is scary. But what’s really frightening is that I’ve learned from 20 years of involvement in this issue that proving one’s innocence is not, as one would think, a get-out-of-jail pass. On the contrary, the way the system works in most judicial jurisdictions in the US is that, after it’s been proven (often by DNA evidence plus admissions by the actual culprit) that some poor bastard has been incarcerated for 20 years, the DAs do everything they can to keep him in jail (or on death row) because they don’t want to tarnish their prosecution percentages.

For someone not familiar with the facts, this may seem unbelievable. Here’s a typical example from The Free Press that should upset you.

3. What a World: A Grieving Father Recounts His Son’s Dying Moments

Ken Kesey 

An important feature of American prose style for the last 100 years is restraint. Restraint in action, restraint in diction, and, especially when describing harrowing experiences, restraint in expressing emotion.

“One icy morning in January of 1984,” Sean Usher writes in the Feb. 3 edition of Letters of Note, “as the University of Oregon’s wrestling team headed on a bus to their next tournament in Pullman, WA, the driver lost control of the vehicle on a mountain road and it tumbled through the guardrail and over a 300-foot cliff. Tragically, not all survived.

“One boy, Lorenzo West, was killed on impact; another, 20-year-old Jed Kesey, was left brain dead. He passed away within days.”

The boy was buried at his family’s farm. A few days later, his father, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author Ken Kesey, wrote to five of his closest friends. Here is the power of restraining emotion.

4. How Much Does It Cost to Retire in the 20 Happiest Cities in the World?

We (The Agora Companies) publish all sorts of things about living and retiring abroad, including International Living, which is the largest circulation magazine of its kind. International Living often covers cost-of-living stories about beachside and or mountain areas as well as tropical paradises and low-cost retirement Edens. But I never saw an essay on this topic. Click here.

1. The Triple Package 

By Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld
352 pages
Originally published Feb. 4, 2014

SL, founder of The Mules (my book club), gave me this book to read. He had recently interviewed Amy Chua on his podcast about multilingualism, and discovered that she has an interest, as I do, in how the beliefs and values of varying cultures can have a huge impact on the successes or failures of its members.

I’m about halfway through The Triple Package but can already recommend it.

In the book, Chua and Rubenfeld (who are husband and wife and professors at Yale Law School) argue that, despite the anti-American vitriol spewing from the teachers and students of America’s best universities these days, the dream of coming to America and becoming successful – in all the most common ways – is still alive and strong.

What I Like About It 

Chua is also the author of a book I read years ago and loved, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she recounts the extremely high expectations she had of her children and the iron-willed way she went about making them successful. Her raw intelligence and willingness to challenge her own beliefs with serious research and undeniable logic… it won me over in that book and again in The Triple Package.

The Triple Package is especially interesting to me because the thesis is remarkably like one I’ve been working on for years. (Working title: “Wealth Culture.”) The idea is that there is an elephant-sized fact that academia refuses to address – which is that the great disparity of outcomes between various ethnic/racial groups that is so often talked about today is not the result of slavery or Jim Crow but of significantly different cultural viewpoints and beliefs that affect every aspect of “success” for those that attempt to pursue The American Dream.

What I Don’t Like So Much 

When my book is finally published, critics will say I got the idea from Ms. Chua.

Critical Reception 

* “Provocative…. If you care at all about the pressures underpinning success and failure, or relish fresh perspectives on how societies really work, you’ll want to read this.” (Sunday Times/UK)

* “A sometimes funny, sometimes academic, and always interesting study of the cultural traits that make some groups outperform others in America.” (National Review Online)

* “[The authors] tiptoe mirthlessly over cultural eggshells yet still manage to stir up controversy.” (The Times/UK)

2. The Juror Who Found Herself Guilty 

By Michael Hall in Texas Monthly
Estimated Read Time: 60 min.

There are hundreds of stories written about wrongly convicted people. Innocent men and women that languished in jail because of bad police work, legal incompetence, or (shockingly commonly) the purposeful withholding of exculpatory evidence.

This is one such story with an interesting twist: In 1990, Estella Ybarra, a juror in a rape case in Texas, was pressured by other members of the jury to send a man to life in prison, despite her near certainty that he was innocent.

Almost three decades later, she decided to right her wrong.

Click here.

Einstein in Time and Space: 
A Life in 99 Particles 

By Samuel Graydon
368 pages
Published Dec. 14, 2023

I’ve read a few books about Einstein before. No genuine biographies, but books that promised to help me understand a bit about his life and a bit more about his theories. But most of all to get some insight into how a mind like his works.

What I Liked About Einstein in Time and Space 

The book exceeded my expectations. Its unusual approach – a series of shortish vignettes – present fascinating anecdotes and accounts of the 20th century’s greatest genius. You get to see him as a constantly questioning child, a precocious and untamed student, a jokester, an inventor, a friend, a humanitarian, and a serial adulterer.

What I Didn’t Like 

I can’t think of anything. It’s long. But because of the way it’s structured, you can easily enjoy it in bits and pieces as a bathroom book.

Critical Reception 

* “Mr. Graydon’s approach delivers a fresh take on episodes not strongly emphasized in other biographies. [He] has woven from these separate strands a compelling and beautifully written narrative.” (The Wall Street Journal)

* “A mosaic biography of an exceptional scientist… pieced together with illuminating skill, style, candor, and charm.” (Times Literary Supplement)

* “The Einstein sketched here in 99 short chapters is not only the unworldly genius and quotable sage of popular imagination, but also someone who could excuse his own hurtful behaviour as an unavoidable consequence of his essential nature.” (Literary Review/UK)

Can the US Fight Three Major Wars Simultaneously? 

Read Time: 8 minutes 

Michael Snyder believes that 2024 will be a “year of war.”

In the Jan. 1 issue of his blog, he says, “In recent years our military has been gutted, eviscerated, and transformed into a politically correct joke. We couldn’t even defeat the Taliban, and now we are faced with the possibility of fighting three major wars simultaneously [Russia, the Middle East, and China].

“We are in so much trouble, but most Americans seem to believe that we are still the same global military powerhouse that we were when the first Top Gun movie was originally released.”

Read more here.

“On the one hand, it’s amazing to think that the artists we love will never die. But on the other hand, it can start to feel like a scene from the movie Weekend at Bernie’s.”

In this essay, Andrew Zucker talks about The Beatles’ recently released track “Now and Then” and how AI will transform rock and roll music.

Watch the official video of the song here.

“Robert De Niro at 80: The career of an indelible movie icon”
By Calum Russell in Far Out Magazine
Read Time: 10 minutes (20 minutes with clips)

“After rising to public consciousness in the 1970s, De Niro has occupied a space at the very pinnacle of Hollywood ever since, magnetising adulation from fans for his radiant style and on-screen charisma. Forming a strong bond with filmmaker Martin Scorsese, with the pair collaborating on some of cinema’s most feverous crime dramas, De Niro has also worked with some of the craft’s most pertinent names, including Francis Ford Coppola, Sergio Leone, and Quentin Tarantino.”

Read more here.

All the Sinners Bleed 

By S.A. Cosby

Published June 6, 2023

352 pages

This is S.A. Cosby’s 6th novel – and I think just about every one of them was a bestseller and/or won some sort of award. It was The Mules’ (our book club) recommendation for December.

The Plot 

All the Sinners Bleed is both a serial killer mystery and a layered story about a Black sheriff in the South dealing with hatred from White supremacists and distrust from Black people who have been harmed by police violence in the past.

What I Liked About It 

As a crime thriller, it works. The plot is intriguing. The pace is fast. And the hero must deal with all sorts of personal challenges that could distract him from completing his very important job. In these respects, S.A. Cosby is a master of the craft.

What I Didn’t Like 

As a serious examination of racism in the South today, it fails. Completely.

The plot points and characters are almost entirely clichés. The town where it takes place, for example, is depicted as stereotypically good-old-boy, fat-bellied, and bubbling with barely repressed racism. Every White character is either “unconsciously” bigoted or downright evil. Every Black person is either fundamentally good or outright angelic. (With one exception that is so obviously shoved into the plot you can almost hear the editor recommending it.)

To the author’s credit, the main character is complex, as protagonists of crime stories should be. He is good. But he has an original sin. That worked for me, until I found out what the sin was. Racial justice warriors will read it as an act of virtue.

And then there’s the hero’s superhuman abilities. He is a polymath, a literal polymath, with expertise in every subject he encounters. In a single paragraph, he can quote the Bible (chapter and verse), cite passages from Macbeth and King Lear, explain the roots of jazz or the square root of any number, and in his leisure time, ruminate over Plato or Locke.

Critical Reception 

All the Sinners Bleed was generally well received by critics. A few examples:

* “Riveting…. What elevates this book is how Cosby weaves politically charged salient issues – race, religion, policing – through the prism of a serial murder investigation.” (Washington Post)

* “Dark, wildly entertaining…. All the Sinners Bleed is rough, smart, gritty, intricate, and Southern to the core.” (NPR)

* “Cosby vaults his own high bar…. His most deeply resonant, timely, and timeless novel to date.” (Los Angeles Times)