In exigent times, all human action seems mythic, and any sudden change seems a harbinger of the apocalypse. As we wrap up a year as traumatic to publishers and booksellers as to i-bankers and Republicans, herewith some thoughts on books that meet the drama of the times with healthy doses of cynicism and idealism—and no shortage of enjoyable penmanship.
Call Me Ted by Ted Turner and Bill Burke (Grand Central). At the annual Book Expo America in June, publishing types scurrying through the Los Angeles convention center were greeted by a four-story tapestry that featured the visage of Mr. Ted Turner, smiling and mustached, inviting the thousands of attendees to call him simply “Ted.” Published last month, Turner’s 450-page memoir invites readers to do the same, in a book about a man who, like the publisher’s advertising campaign, is bigger than life.
In many ways, Turner’s memoir—well-managed by CNN’s Bill Burke—is standard celebrity fare, checking off the necessary boxes in the inventory of a visionary American life. Celebrity memoirs like Turner’s (or Barbara Walter’s, or Tim Russert’s, among others) are elevated above the madding crowd by mixing self-reflectiveness with self-promotion so artfully that a reader cannot separate fact from spin, vulnerability from propaganda. This is especially true of those whose success has been won in the industry of media, a pantheon in which few gods have ruled as mightily or capriciously as Turner.
Turner has always appeared a mix of debonair and dangerous—part corporate exec, part cowboy. He is smooth, able to charm and woo, able to slip past his competition, his detractors, and even his friends. Though the imbalance of his professional and personal life is reflected in the book (the story of his meeting Jane Fonda, for instance, is told in less than a page, and his true feelings about their marriage are hidden between the lines), by the final page, one senses that Turner offered a fairly honest look at a life lived always on the edge of risk, while the real man behind the mustache and the millions is still roaming free.
My Three Lives by Dame Celia Lipton Farris (IRC). In the season of Madoffs and Blagos, here’s a volume that rejects the ethos of greed and elevates a life lived generously. Documenting in text and image the dynamic doyenne of philanthropy, the gorgeous oversized tome is less book than dramatic celebration. Her three lives are three musical movements of composition: distinct, equally beautiful, with the true power resting in the cumulative effect—with the final allegro yet to come.
Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid by Denis Leary (Viking). The pronoun in the title of Leary’s new book-length rant is the first clue that the volume might have value beyond a few minutes laughter at the comedian’s acerbity. Leary’s appeal to the thinking American is based on the troubling fact that to be part of America is to be complicit in its absurdity. The book is delightful self-flagellation, but Leary’s evolving. Ever the provocateur, Leary is a step above self-loathing anarchist, and his angry humor now has a message: we can be better than this.
Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?: Insanely Annoying Modern Things by Steve Lowe, Alan McArthur, and Brendan Hay (Grand Central). If you find it difficult to drop $20 on a humor book, make this alphabetically-arranged roasting of popular trends the year’s exception. These three stooges are crafty in their criticism of the lowbrow, with the observational powers of Jerry Seinfeld circa 1997 singing harmony with Lewis Black circa...this morning. Pies are thrown in the faces of myths such as abstinence programs and carbon credits while baby name books and alpha males are given noogies as well. The irony’s nice, too: a book berating the eccentricities of American popular culture is of course engaged in the celebration of the same. For the reprint, I recommend the authors include a new entry named after themselves.
This I Believe II: More Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman (Holt). It’s fitting in an age of deep skepticism and mistrust that the program begun by Edward R. Murrow has been revived to such great effect—first on radio and now in its second book volume. This second in the series may register as even more powerful than the first, as events of the past year have caused Americans to reach even deeper into their emotional reserves for surety, and the success of the show has spurred many to articulate the deepest of beliefs. As with the previous volume, the most powerful of these short essays are by men and women whose names you don’t know and won’t remember, but whose brave and tested visions of self-hood and community will remind you that beneath the rubble lies a hidden spark.
Selections for the Season:
The Little Big Book of Love by Natasha Tabori Fried and Lena Tabori (Welcome Books): a clever, chunky book that celebrates what we seek at year’s end and hope for at year’s beginning. Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Shroeder (Bantam): because anyone who emerged stoic and untouched by the past year is worth listening to. Vanity Fair: The Portraits (Abrams): iconic images for every book collector. George, Being George by Nelson Aldrich (Random House): the authoritative oral history of a legend will refill your stock of cocktail party anecdotes.
