2022 Media Diet

Monty and Morgan doing the Sunday crossword. Monty is quickly learning the vital art of brunching in bed and spending weekends idly reading.

Another year means time for my annual list of what I read, listened to, read, and visited over the past year. This list is not as long as previous years for two good reasons: I spent the first part of 2022 in graduate school where I mainly had to read about things related to my scholarly paper. The primary book I read during this time was the 2,200 page tome the Veteran’s Benefits Manual (which can be yours for the low low price of $450!) as my focus was on how the VA diagnosis disabilities.

The second reason is right after I graduated, we went and had a baby! His name is Montgomery and dang! He is cute! But holy cow! Does he make it tough to get into a good rhythm with a book or movie. So I have found myself reading less and also reading easier (i.e. no Caro this year) books. So apologies if this list is only 1500 words this year, as opposed to 2000.

My Top 5 In no order: These are all A+ books that I would gladly recommend and reread.

American Tabloid: James Ellroy. The best novel about the Kennedy assassination hands down and the best novel I’ve ever read about capturing the part of the 60s that wasn’t Woodstock and hippies and all that boomer stuff.

When Hell was in Session: Jeremiah Denton. Denton was the POW who blinked the word “torture” during an interview while he was in a North Vietnamese prison and this book pulls no punches about life in a POW camp. The perfect companion book to one of my favorite ones last year- An American in the Gulag.

About Face: Colonel David Hackworth. Recommend with reservations as Hackworth and his language and slurs would get him kicked out of today’s Army in a week. However, in terms of painting the scene about how the Vietnam war went wrong from the Soldier’s perspective, “Hack” as everyone in the book calls him knows how to spin a tale.

Phil: The Unauthorized Biography: Alan Shipnuck. Anyone slightly interested in golf and whose watched Phil Mickelson should read this book. Phil somehow comes off as the most caring yet the most callous guy in the world and the gambling exploits in this book are worth it alone.

Beer in the Snooker Club: Waguih Ghali: I don’t know if this novella about the underworld of colonial Cairo is accurate, but it was highly entertaining.

OTHER BOOKS SORTED BY CATEGORIES

Fletch Universe:

Fletch (the book): (A)Fletch (the movie): (A-)Confess Fletch (the book) (B-)Confess Fletch (the movie) (B+)

Watch Fletch, then read Fletch, then watch Confess Fletch and decide if you need more Irving Fletcher in your life. Good pool/beach read with enough twists and laughs, but not so engrossing you’re going to forget to get in the pool. In terms of the movies, Confess Fletch, with Jon Hamm, is closer to the book style. Hamm’s Fletch is breezy and charming. Chevy’s Fletch, while much more of a jerk and cynical than the book, is at peak Chevy performance, and frankly, just more entertaining.

Planes and Travel:

Crash Detectives: Christine Negroni (B+) I wished this had been more scholarly in its approach. The main takeaway is that air crash examinations are not impartial scientific endeavors, but crazy politicized battles. The most glaring example being New Zealand Flight 901 where the airline changed the autopilot settings causing the plane to crash into a mountain, the airline knew they changed the settings, but they continued to blame the pilots for several years.

Airline Visual Identity 1945–1975: M.C. Huhne (A) I love old airline travel posters so this coffee book was right up my alley.

First Stop in the New World: David Lida (A+) This book makes Mexico City seem like the most magical place in the world. I dare you to read more than a couple of chapters before you’re looking at the cost of flights to Mexico City.

Bill Bryson: Collectors Edition: Reread. (A+) This is Bryson’s first three books: Notes from a Small Island, Neither Here Nor There, and I’m a Stranger Here Myself. This time I listened to the audiobook version of the first two (I’m a Stranger Here Myself is a collection of mostly forgettable newspaper columns he once wrote) in Bryson’s own voice and it was wonderful.

Social and Finance

740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building: Michael Gross (B-) This is the third Michael Gross book I’ve read (his most famous and best book is his unauthorized Ralph Lauren biography) and I’ve never actually enjoyed his style or reading them, but I always do because I love the subjects he picks. Here, the subjects are the occupants of a tony New York apartment and their hatred for each other.

The Billionaire Raj: James Crabtree (A) Having no idea how India’s billionaire class came to be, this was fascinating. Sadly it is hard to not see parallels to parts of the U.S. and the incredibly rich building huge homes within throwing distance of some of the poorest.

Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats who Rule the World: Oliver Bullough (B) Definitely a slog once he starts talking about LLCs within LLCs. If you’re interested in the secret world of shell corporations and off-shore money save yourself several hours and instead read the New York Times Article How to Hide 400 Million Dollars.

Nothing to Envy: Barbara Demick Reread (A+) Hard to believe North Korea still exists and the immense subjection there.

Fiction:

The Colors of Infamy: Albert Cossery (C+) Another book about Cairo. Read this right after Beer in the Snooker Club and maybe it was the translation or maybe I wanted more of the zanier characters from Beer in the Snooker Club but for whatever reason, this was not nearly as engrossing or entertaining.

Farewell My Lovely: Raymond Chandler Reread (A+) Man, I love Chandler. I think I’ve listed this book now three times in six years of these lists. That’s how much I love it and the Big Sleep. If you’ve never read pulp noir before and are wondering if you’d like it, find a Chandler book for 99 cents at a used book store, and prepare to enter a different world.

Cape Fear: John D. MacDonald (A) The rare book where you’ll say why wasn’t this book longer! Just as it gets going and Max Cady is the most evil person ever, it ends. Also, this is a great used book store find. By that, I mean I found this book in a used bookstore and I think it cost 50 cents. For that price, it was well worth the couple of hours it took to read it. However, if I had spent several dollars and bought it online, I would have been much more disappointed with how short and abrupt it ends.

Sports and Culture:

The Nineties: Chuck Klosterman (C+) Eh. Not Klosterman’s best. Reads like someone trying to do a Klosterman impression.

You are Looking Live: How the NFL Today Revolutionized Sports Broadcasting: Rich Podolsky (B) Oh this was so clubby and syrupy and schmaltzy, I loved it. I imagine the author wrote every single one of these chapters in a leather-booth at a steakhouse with a glass of whisky and laughing at his own jokes with a cigarette cough. If you are ever wondering how Jim Nantz came to be Jim Nantz, this book answers your question. If you are ever wondering how much tv journalists drank during the 70s, the answer is an unfathomable amount.

The Confidence Game: Why we Fall for it Every Time: Maria Konnikova (B) Scams before the internet were wild.

Politics and History

The Divider: Trump in the White House: Baker/Glasser (B+) There are a thousand Trump White House tell-alls, but I chose this one because it’s the one book where the Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley talked to reporters. If even 1/10th of the stuff in this book is true then it is crazy. The New Yorker article excerpted from the book will tell you if this book is up your alley.

The Best and the Brightest: David Halberstram (A) If David Hackworth’s book About Face, tells how the Vietnam War went wrong from the bottom up, this books tells how it went wrong from the top down.

The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB: James Risner (B-)I needed some Ben McIntyre spy drama in my life and unfortunately, this didn’t deliver.

Zodiac: David Fincher (A+): So good.

Zodiac: The Shocking True Story of the Zodiac Killer: Robery Graysmith: The book Fincher’s movie is based on. (Jake Gyllenhaal plays Graysmith in the movie FYI). I read this in parts because if you go down the Zodiac rabbit hole on the internet (and oh boy! I did!), then you realize a bunch of Graysmith’s theories have been refuted. [Note: If you do follow these links and buy some of these books, do NOT buy the mass paperback version of the Zodiac. I did and it was virtually unreadable the type was so tight on the page and the Zodiac puzzles were too small to decipher. I returned it and got a used copy of the original paperback instead and it was like reading a different book.]

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time: Dave Sobel ( C ) I felt like I was reading the world’s longest Wikipedia Article.

Non-Books:

Better Call Saul: (A+) As a person whose never watched Breaking Bad, I picked up this series without skipping a beat and love it.

Sicario: (A) Was this movie popular when it came out? It is really good.

Veteran’s Benefits Manual: I know I made fun of this book at the top but what it has taught me is the importance of Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs) such as Disabled American Veterans (DAV) or AMVETs. If you ever served in the military in any capacity, you should look for a local VSO, as they are the experts in VA disability and by Congressional mandate they are absolutely 100 percent free! It is an amazing perk that not a lot of veterans, even those retiring after 20 years, take advantage of, and it exists right there to help people who served get money. If my year of studying the VA taught me anything! Find a VSO!