January 21, 2001

s we begin the Baby Bush years it's best we stick our nose in some good books until the next election cycle. Actually in today's politics, the next election cycle has already begun.

Here are a few of my recent reads for whatever it is worth

Jew vs. Jew, The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry, by Samuel G. Friedman. This important book tells about the political and religious battles being fought in Jewish America. American Jews used to be overwhelmingly secular, but the ground is shifting. Friedman paints the picture in several scenes.Highly recommended.

Papal Sin, Structures of Deceit, by Garry Wills.Wills is a believing Catholic who feels the Catholic Church should acknowledge its checkered history. "(T)he system of God's truth is an escape from the whole regime of false claims that trap humanity in the violence of sin. Truth is a moral disciple as well as an intellectual one." Wills spends a great deal of space on the Pius' XII denial of the Holocaust and the historical send up from Pius IX.What Wills refers to as Doctrinal Dishonesties are also discussed. Recommended.

Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins. Robbins writes a novel once every four years. I've been a fan of his unique metaphorical style and weirdly juxtaposed subjects. I had a hard time getting through this one. I could never answer the question of why is this book important to me. Not recommended.

POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency, by Michael Waldman. This quick read is from a speech writer in the Clinton White house. It gives an excellent back grounder look at the speech making processes. It shows that Clinton was his own head speech writer. Recommended.

Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, by Stephen Jay Gould. Gould, a Harvard paleontologist, is the best science writer on the planet. He recently completed 30 years of monthly essays in Natural History magazine which has been the source material for many of his books. This book makes the argument that science and religion can coexist so long as they stick within their Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA). Keep the the natural world within the realm of science, and the moral world in the religious domain and everything is cool. Sounds simple, but history tells us that religion has a tendency to stick to Biblical explanations for the natural world long after they've outlived their usefulness. Highly recommended.

From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to Present by Jacques Barzun. I was reluctant to pick up this one. I was afraid it was another tiresome polemic blaming the loss of all that is great on modern liberalism (Bork et. al.).This was not the theme. It was a superb survey of Western Culture and politics. The specific art, literature, and politics of each age provided the fine grain detail, but without losing sight of the big picture and trends. I believe we should not study less Western Civilization, but more. How else to explain where we are? (Other cultures should be studied more also, and not just by ethnic specialists). Recommended, but with caution. This is not an easy read and should probably not be read as the first book on this subject.

Laura, by Larry Watson.This is the seventh novel by this Wisconsin author. I read everyone of his books (he was my best buddy when we were growing up). Laura is a woman who Paul meets in boyhood, and idealizes for the rest of his life. The novel started out as his best. (This may be because I knew Skoog (the author's nickname) at age eleven, so the inner world of this boy rang true.) As the life of Paul Finley was revealed I began questioning why a maturing man would cling to this obsession. The writing was excellent. He has an efficiency of language like a Hemingway. Recommended, but try Montana 1948 first.