I'll give both books a thumb's up recommendation. The longer one reads quicker than the shorter one, but oddly, since intuition led me to them in Borders (something Amazon hasn't figured out how to do yet because I always fuck with the database), there is a serendipity in how the themes of these books reflect each other.

Or maybe I just got a thing for uncatagorizable iconoclasts, eh?

Read this one last weekend in a single sitting: The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk: Why I refused to testify against the Clintons & what I learned in jail by Susan McDougal with Pat Harris. Intro by the fairly newly outspoken Helen Thomas (speak it girl! those were a lot of years of keeping quiet, so it is catchup time!).

I was scanning this one in Borders, mostly looking to see if anybody I know from Arkansas was mentioned. 4 hours later and halfway through the book, I knew I had to buy it. Very eye-opening on Ken Starr and the OIC--that stuff will blow your mind. I didn't expect this, but the best part is her experiences in prison. Despite the cliche' of this kind of "making lemonade" approach, which is totally predictable, I have to say I came away feeling that this woman was born to face this particular life trial that would lead her to prison. I usually don't go with religious/karma stuff at this level because that is just too easy, too obvious. The easy answer seems like a ploy and it usually is.

I don't know what to tell you except maybe I'm a sucker, because despite my predisposition to discount this kind of a story, I came away totally believing that the purpose of this woman's life, what she was MEANT to do, involved finding and meeting those women in prison. More power to her.

The other book is Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens. Again, a surprisingly easy read. I was actually prepared for something more scholarly and wonky, sort of like The Orwellian Moment, a book I worked on for the University of Arkansas Press.

I was rolling on the floor when Hitchens took on Raymond Williams (that part was so wonderful!), and I'm still not finished, but I am loving this book.

I think what Hitchens intended is what I'm feeling right now, a welcome relief from the false dilemma fallacies that dominate US political thought right now thanks to the Bush adm, all this "If you're not with us, your against us" bullshit. It is so oppressive and obnoxious on listservs especially, with all these newly empowered conservative but pitifully bad rhetors.

Hitchens lays out the conflicts on the right and left that would leave Orwell out of the overly polarized rhetoric. He didn't exactly side with either the right or the left, but Orwell remains as he always was, whether shooting an elephant or down and out in Paris and London, one of my very favorite people. What a fun read this book is!

Miasma
9:59:02 PM