LONGVIEW, Texas — Autumn is here. The days have shortened. Soon, with luck, we will have blue northers and restful nights whiled away warmed by a fireplace. Yards won't require mowing. There will be more hours to read.
To help you fill those idle hours, here are a few reading recommendations from books I've read during the dog days.
— "True Compass," by Edward M. Kennedy. The longtime Massachusetts senator's autobiography was published just a few weeks after his death from brain cancer. Ron Powers, a fine biographer in his own right — who last published a fine life of Mark Twain — served as collaborator.
Ted Kennedy's voice is what comes through in this tome. The language is spare and sparkles. Kennedy readily acknowledges his shortcomings — women, boozing and, of course, Chappaquidick. What shines through this finely written piece is Kennedy's lifelong commitment to the poor and disadvantaged, his outsized personality and his ability to get things done in the U.S. Senate, one of the most frustratingly deliberative bodies in world history.
Kennedy was truly a lion of the Senate, of a par with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
Kennedy's matter-of-fact account of facing and fighting a near-certain death from his brain tumor is truly inspiring. He had many faults. Fear was not one of them. Telling the truth in this last missive will be one of his many legacies.
— "Enough," by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. I was fortunate enough to meet Thurow at a recent writer's conference. He is a veteran journalist who has been figuratively struck blind, like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. This Wall Street Journal reporter is on a mission to educate the world on how to end world hunger, which right now is largely centered in Africa.
There are heartbreaking examples here, based on Thurow and Kilman's reporting, of warehouses filled with grain grown in Ethiopia, now rotting, because of plunging prices and no way to distribute the food, as children die of starvation just blocks away. Subsidies granted to farmers in the United States and other Western countries make it impossible for farmers in these countries to compete, to grow their crops for less than millionaires who own corporate farms and live in large houses here.
"Enough" is a clarion call to action. Thurow autographed my book with the inscription, "Enough is Enough! Shout it From the Rooftops." After reading this work, I am convinced there is no reason anyone should die of starvation in this world. As citizens of this planet, we have an obligation to ensure that no longer occurs.
— "Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln," by John Stauffer. I picked up a copy of this in the Harvard Coop (they pronounce it like a home for chickens) in Cambridge, Mass., while on vacation. Sorry to name drop, but this was an absolutely lovely bookstore that lightened my bank account and weighed down my back pack.
Stauffer is an English professor at "Hahvad" and has produced a fascinating dual biography of two men whose lives intersected during the years leading up to the Civil War and after our nation split over slavery.
Stauffer does an excellent job of weaving their lives together, from their similar modest backgrounds and their ultimate friendship, despite their deep differences concerning race. The former slave and the wood-chopper who became president ultimately needed each other as the nation split over the issue. This is a fine piece of scholarship, especially considering how often this ground has been trod over in the nearly 150 years since the first shots were fired over Fort Sumter.
— "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power," by Robert Dallek. I don't know why I can't read enough about Richard Nixon, whom I despised at the time he held power. I haven't really changed my opinion as years pass. But I've read two fairly new biographies this year alone. I guess it's the nerdy version of slowing down at a car wreck.
Dallek, a noted presidential biographer, parses a complicated relationship between the German-born, Harvard-educated academic and this very strange man from California, a graduate of Whittier College in California with an inherent distrust of Ivy Leaguers. It's well done, another addition to my Nixon library. But it didn't change my low opinion of Nixon and my only slightly higher opinion of Kissinger.
Enjoy, and let's all pray for the first blue norther. I'm ready.
Gary Borders is publisher of the Longview News-Journal. E-mail: gborders(at)longview-news.com.