5/7/2019: Just finished “The Dispatcher” by John Scalzi. It was a free giveaway to Audible subscribers so I did not necessarily have stellar expectations. I was pleasantly surprised at this clever combination detective/Syfy presentation. Another freebie from Audible that I listened to was “The Darkwater Bride” promoted as in Audible original drama by Marty Ross. Listening to that, reminded me of people clustered around radios back in the days before television. Although I will always love my bound printed books I am pleased to see new ways of presenting fictional entertainment content.
5/7/2019: I am deeply concerned about the “cancel culture” mentality which dictates that unpopular views and voices be silenced by omission. While this may seem like a desirable thing when the voices being silenced are speaking a contrary truth to our own, it must be remembered that the gate keepers may change at some future point in time and then the voices being silenced may be our own. Freedom of speech and ideas must be preserved even when the ideas are not to our liking. Certainly social media and the publishing industry ought not to be engineering society by the promotion and/or exclusion of creative content.
5/14/2019: Facebook plans a “court” to monitor speech according to “their values.” I thought that was the job of SCOTUS where arguments for and against a given example of speech are fully briefed and presided over by highly trained legal minds.
5/14/2019: Authors are so intimidated by the “speech police” that they are self-censoring their own work.
5/18/2019: Facebook suspends accounts of individuals expressing views with which it does not agree.
5/25/2019: Recently finished “The Spectators” by Jennifer duBois. It was strikingly similar to “The Great Believers” by Rebecca Makki. Both stories recreate an era just prior to and during the onset of the AIDS epidemic — an era I lived through. “The Spectators” is set in New York and features a talk-show host character reminiscent of Jerry Springer. I once attended a live taping of Springer’s show and offered one of his guests, by prior arrangement, a job opportunity in my law office (which was never followed through on the recipient). So I enjoyed this book. But “The Great Believers” really touched my heart because it featured so many familiar neighborhoods and places I frequented back in the day. I lost many gay male friends from AIDS so it was eminently realistic to me — like a trip down “memory lane.” I wondered as I considered these two books — both of which I enjoyed — whether or not literature these days is concentrated on a limited number of topics and story lines accidently or by conscious design.
5/25/2019: Just finished “Love Is The Punchline,” a light romantic romp featuring real-life, older lovers and every day frustrations and impediments to love bonding. Loved the older, flawed characters. Cute story.
5/29/2019: On Ann Beattie’s new book: One would not expect renown author, Ann Beattie to be a target for literary discrimination, right? Yet this author, whose long and distinguished career ought to generate respect not snarky criticism, is being oh-so-subtly trashed by Martha Southgate in the New York Times because her literary strokes are not broad enough…because her artistic content relies upon a “clubby shorthand that speaks only to certain people (literary-minded baby boomers).” Why is this such a crime? Why can’t an author direct her work towards older, literary minded types? This is, after all what she is and what she knows (and we are always told to “write what you know”). Or are we saying that something much more sinister than merely this is not a good book? Are we saying voices such as Ann Beattie’s no longer have any place in today’s literary world — and by chilling extension that her target market should also withdraw themselves? I wonder if this is just one more example of the pernicious and growing prejudice against the elderly citizens of the world.
1/1/2020: I fell into Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” quite by accident. The book I was trying to borrow on my Libby library app was out and it just popped up. I am so glad as it is one of the best books I have ever read. It speaks to so many of the issues we face today without ever mentioning them. It considers what it means to be human without ever asking the question. It is a horror story clothed within a gentle love story. I cannot praise this book enough.
12/13/2020: “The Glass Kingdome” by Lawrence Osborne is, like Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go,” a examination of profound issues in a dystopian setting. The horror is handled gently so our suffering is minimal.