SFist Reads
There are two great things about getting to compile this column -- one is the sense of camaraderie and sharing we get when our wonderful SFist colleagues or readers recommend, refer, or concurrently read (Christine, that's you) books from their online reserve list. There are so many books we've read only because we've checked them out, borrowed them, or purchased them from one of our fine local independent bookstores at the behest of a reader or fellow SFist. Y'all are better than the NY Times Book Review. Maybe one day Norman Mailer will crap all over us too.
SFist Isaac just yesterday got Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières. Yes, that's the guy who wrote Corelli's Mandolin and yes, it was made into an exceedingly poor film, but it's a really great book, OK, and so what if he got a little misty when that guy got killed by the Nazis. (Ed note: Anyone else suddenly crushing on SFist Isaac just a bit? Just us? OK.) His previous trilogy is also quite great, the one that starts with The War for Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, which would make a really good movie or HBO series, contingent on Nicholas Cage being barred from any sort of involvement. Anyways, he has been eagerly awaiting the paperback of this new one, because it's impossible to read hardcover books comfortably, plus they're realy heavy. This one is about the Ottoman Empire.
SFist Cheshire is two-thirds of the way through Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High, by Bay Area resident Melba Pattillo Beals. It's an important first-person account of one of the most transformative periods in American history, and Beals does provide searing, unflinching detail about the resistance she and her family faced from all sides. Unfortunately, the prose is often clunky and repetitive, which gets in the way of what is truly an amazing story of one of the bravest 16-year-olds this country has ever seen. Those of us born after the mid-60s grew up hearing about the Brown v. Board of Education cases, about Rosa Parks, about the Woolworth's lunch counter -- and even though we all probably read about the events in Little Rock, Arkansas, the compression of history is such that we probably read all those events as done deals. Reading Beals' book, however, reveals how little we know about the day-to-day war that made integration into something we simply take for granted today. Our one-day protests we roll out every now and then these days are nothing compared to the battle Beals and her Little Rock 9 compatriots waged.