You know I don't do politics here on the blog don't you? Growing up in Northern Ireland in the poisoned atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s killed all interest in politics for me and on the rare occasions when I've met career politicians I have found them to be profoundly creepy, self involved and boring. I have being following the Republican fight for the Presidency in an abstract sort of way and have come to some admittedly flimsy conclusions about the candidates based on their selection of favourite novel. If I was going to pick a GOP candidate solely on this criterion this is how I'd rate them: ...
7. Jon Hunstman Jnr: Couldn't find a favourite novel or book for Huntsman. He doesn't even seem to have a favourite movie unlike all the other candidates. Do the children of billionaires not read?
6. Michele Bachmann has to go in second last place I'm afraid. After a lot of searching I couldn't discover if she reads fiction. Her list of favourite non fiction books is here and its not terrible. She says she has a love/hate relationship with Garrison Keillor's works but then so say we all.
5. Mitt Romney's favourite novel is Battlefield Earth by L Ron Hubbard which is one of the worst science fiction novels I've ever read. The prose is as clunky and dull as the characters and about the only saving grace is the fact that much of it takes place in Denver.
4. Rick Perry likes the novels of Vince Flynn. I haven't read Vince Flynn but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that he sounds like a Tom Clancy sort of guy which would really be saying something. If I'm wrong about Flynn please let me know.
3. Ron Paul likes Ayn Rand's books so much that he named his son after her. I've read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and strongly disliked both of them. Hate is too strong a word here, for at least I recognised them as novels but really this is philosophical fiction for light weights. If you want to read good didactic philosophy in a fictional setting try The Symposium.
2. Rick Santorum. Apparently his favourite novel is The Lord of the Rings. Nothing wrong with that. I read it three times before I turned 13 and although its not currently in my Top 20 list I hold it affectionately in my heart.
1. Newt Gingrich. Gingrich has been coy about picking just one favourite but he's got a pretty interesting list on the Freakonomics blog here. Among his novel selections are Lincoln by Gore Vidal and The Godfather by Mario Puzo, both great books. He also likes All The Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren and Shogun by James Clavell which I dug too. (Not afraid of a weighty tomb is Gingrich.) These four are all middle of the road, fairly safe choices but they are 4 books that I liked, so as far as I'm concerned Speaker Gingrich wins the contest and gets my hypothetical (I'm a registered independent) vote.
...
More favourite books by famous people here.
30 comments:
Shogun is awesome. Decent miniseries too. Clavell knew how to spin a yarn.
-Brian O
Brian
Have not seen the series but yeah the book is pretty good. Check out The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet for a similar milieu (although much later).
Obama still wins on literary smarts, though. Well, pretty much every kind of smarts, say what you will about the governing aspect.
Seana
Isn't Obama's favourite novel Song of Solomon?
Have you read that? Yikes. In fact double yikes.
battlefield Earth? Hahahaha!
Mike
Its really an amazingly bad book. And such big portions.
Spielberg must have watched the movie and thought he read the book.
Rick Santorum's pick of LOTR seems refreshingly outside the box, but Romney? That's clearly a guy who reads one book per millenium. I looked at the favourite books of famous people website and was surprised by Megan Fox's choice. It was a James Patterson title. What's surprising is that it's an honest choice. Most of the other celebs made safe, respectable choices (To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher In the Rye) that were probably recommended by their publicists.
Adrian,
I've never read Toni Morrison, except for The Bluest Eye, a very long time ago, but my mother loved her. Was Song of Solomon double yikes in a good way, or a bad way?
Unfortunately I don't know of many other African-American woman novelists, but we read Richard Wright, Jean Toomer, and Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man in school. I'd like to recommend them to anyone who's interested, and I'm pretty sure they all cited James Joyce as an inspiration.
Matt
A common complaint.
Cary
Ah Megan Fox, the poor man's Angelina Jolie. I agree with you it sounds like a real choice of a real book she actually read, which is good.
Anon
Song of Solomon if I remember correctly is the one where the plantation slaves secretly know the power of flight. i.e. they put their arms out, flap them and they can fly.
I thought it was less horrible than say Beloved but it was pretty horrible.
All indicators would suggest I've read Morrison, but I haven't.
In any case, I'd say Obama is the more venturesome reader.
Seana
Didnt he take The 1000 Autumns of Jacob De Zoet on his vacation? Thats a big plus in my book.
Yes. Also Daniel Woodrell. And he patronizes an indie book store to get them.
fascinating documentary from the BBC on Steve Jobs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WphgnZI5YQw
Watch it soon because the BBC will take it off YouTube as soon as they find out its on there.
Seana,
I didn't know President Obama reads Daniel Woodrell! That's awesome. I don't read nearly enough, but Winter's Bone and Tomato Red were both good books and I'm eager for more.
Well, he bought it anyway, anon. You know how that goes sometimes.
Adrian, you're saying that there is still more news about Steve Jobs that could be termed fascinating?
Color me skeptical.
Adrian,
Unfortunately my whole family and most of the Republicans are better-read than I am. Beloved was another one of my mother's favorites that I never read.(For her part, she declined Resurrection Man.) I should probably try the works of a Nobel laureate, but Toni Morrison's last novel, about Africans and Europeans in early America, got mixed reviews. Apparently most of the white characters were deeply disturbed and innately destructive. I can't really argue with that depiction, especially given the context; I'm white, and I already knew that people like me aren't exactly the best thing that ever happened to the planet. But so far, whenever I've wanted insight into white violence and insanity, I've always turned to Northern Irish writers and Eugene McCabe. And I mean that in a good way.
I am really glad you are a better writer than you are at choosing a Republican. Besides, how do we really know what the Newt read? He has a limited acquaintance with the truth. Oops, this is not supposed to be political, sorry.
So, did you hear how you cleaned up on Declan Burke's blog? Well deserved, I would say. I could not put down "Falling Glass." (Review on Amazon). So now I have to wait for Cold, Cold. Can't you write faster?
Lil,
You ordered Cold Cold Ground from the Book Depository, right? January's almost here, and I can't wait for my copy, either.
Newt Gingrich frightens me.
Seana
No new material in it apart from an interview with Stephen Fry.
Anon
I think she's a terrible writer. At least based on the two novels that I've read. Very overrated.
Lil
Thanks for the review! I always read and appreciate reviews, esp the thoughtful ones and the nice ones.
The last I heard was January 7th for TCCG. Alas I'm pretty skeptical that it will have any kind of American release except for its availability on Audible.
Anon
If you're in the US as far as I can see its either Book Depository or Amazon or an indie that can get UK titles. I dont forsee a US release any time soon.
Very Bad News.
Christopher Hitchens has died:
good article in the NYT about Hitch here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/arts/christopher-hitchens-is-dead-at-62-obituary.html?_r=1&hp
I was hoping I would see you had heard that, because I didn't want to be the one to break the news. It's somehow ironic that the end of the Iraq war and his end come at the same time.
It was a very good obit. Complicated man born of complicated circumstances. I had forgotten about the assailing of Mother Teresa.
His friend Salman will be very sad.
It wasn't unexpected but it's still a shock.
Yeah, we kind of expect that because people can keep on going for awhile, they can do it forever.
One of my coworkers got the ball rolling on putting up a display today, and a customer thanked me for it.
Post a Comment