Some good reading

So I’m back after dealing with some frightening deadlines. They are not all vanquished yet, but I have a toehold. Getting there, getting there.

At least I have time to continue blogging again.

Here’s a list, from The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf, of some of his favorite pieces of journalism over the last year:

Nearly 100 Pieces of Fantastic Journalism

Last day of classes today

It’s my last day of teaching today, and several other real-world deadlines are also coming to a head this week. Then, more time for blogging about writing, reading, journalism, and eavesdropping on strangers.

Stephen King on writing

Stephen King’s advice to young writers (for any writer, really). Read a lot. Write a lot. Maddeningly simple.

This is how to review a book: H.L. Mencken

Here’s my favorite book review, written by H.L. Mencken in 1909, and collected in H.L. Mencken’s Smart Set Criticism, William H. Nolte, editor: (remarks in brackets [ ] are Mencken’s)

A Novel Thus Begins

Apologies for Love–F.A. Myers. ” ‘Do you remain long in Paris, Miss Wadsworth?’ Earl Nero Pensive [!!!] inquired, as he seated himself beside her. His eyes, like beaming lights out of shadowless abysm, were transfixed upon her as by magic force. . . .” Thus the story begins. God knows how it ends!

David Grann in Slate

David Grann, the author and New Yorker staff writer, is profiled in this article from Slate. I read The Lost City of Z and, while I enjoyed it, especially the deep reporting and vivid scene reconstruction, I was ambivalent about Grann’s central “trick,” (and I’m sorry to call it that, but that’s what it felt like). It’s his technique of sending the reader through the narrative, as Slate puts it, with blinders on,

 building up our expectations in one direction, then yanking the rug out from under us—often to reveal another rug, soon to be yanked, beneath that one.

Throughout “Z,” Grann knows something important but we don’t get the final reveal until the closing pages. I had two reactions: First, I gasped. Then, I thought — well, hell, if I had known this 200 pages ago I wouldn’t have needed to read all this. Then I thought, well, of course — that’s what a story is. The storyteller knows how it ends and the reader doesn’t. Why read a murder mystery when the author could say, on page 3, “It was the jealous husband.” The end.

So what bothered me couldn’t have been that he simply withheld information from the reader. That’s a writer’s job. What I can’t put my finger on is why it bugged me in this book. Why did the final “a-ha!” feel like a trick to me?

I like David Grann and as soon as I have some spare time I’m going to read The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. Meanwhile, any thoughts on how he handles surprising the reader?

Something lighter — Laws Concerning Food and Drink

Lots of posts about violence, war, and death. So here’s one from Ian Frazier, “Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father.” It’s his Old Testament take on parenthood.

Blocking the Transmission of Violence, Alex Kotlowitz

Here’s one from NYT Mag near the top of the page on longform.org today by Alex Kotlowitz, an author and teacher whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, and on This American Life, among other places.

In this 2008 piece, he profiles Violence Interrupters in Chicago, and a doctor who aims to treat urban violence not as a moral problem, but as a public health crisis.

The first step to containing the spread of an infectious disease is minimizing transmission. The parallel in Slutkin’s Chicago work is thwarting retaliations, which is precisely what Hoddenbach was trying to do in the aftermath of Emilio Torres’s murder. But Slutkin is also looking for the equivalent of a cure. The way public-health doctors think of curing disease when there are no drug treatments is by changing behavior.Smoking is the most obvious example. Cigarettes are still around. And there’s no easy remedy for lungcancer or emphysema. So the best way to deal with the diseases associated with smoking is to get people to stop smoking.

Kotlowitz is the author of Never a City so Real, and The Other Side of the River.