Joseph Planta's Commentary - thecommentary.ca

Friday, 31 December 2004

My best books of 2004

By Joseph Planta

VANCOUVER - As I told the former Member of Parliament Deborah Grey when I interviewed her last month, I have read quite a bit this past fall. I didn't even begin to get at the three dozen or so books that were lucky enough to make the bestseller lists; nor am I a full-time book reviewer, that I've been able to read a good sampling of books. It's nonetheless quite a bit that I've read. Because it's the end-of-the-year, and because it's apt for a little year-in-review, best-of nonsense in this space-here are my picks for what I consider the top ten books of the year, all of which I have read. These are books not worth overlooking if you're starved for something interesting to read, or if you're out book buying.

A word about my criteria for selection, ranking and placement: My listing of the notable books of the year came to just over 30 books. I decided that ranking a top 25 or even a top 30 would be a little too cumbersome, so a top ten would be much more manageable. The books in the top ten are books that I consider unimpeachably enjoyable, if not satisfying. The criteria for the top ten is simple-was the book enjoyable and/or thought provoking? Because ten was still too short of a list, and there were a few more books worth mentioning, I've added 15 other books deserving of an honourable mention. The measure of whether the book was satisfying enough was if after reading the book, I didn't have many questions or concerns about what the book included or left out. All of the books that receive honourable mentions, I believe were less than successful in terms of execution and left me wanting more, but are good enough that I recommend them for some redeeming qualities they possess.

You will find no fiction on my list. I didn't read any Mary Higgins Clark or Philip Roth's book, or the new Godfather volume. I've never read Michael Crichton, so I don't plan to read State of Fear. I've read Marty Beckerman's Generation S.L.U.T. already, so I don't think need to read Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. Perhaps I could promise to read fiction in 2005, but I probably won't. Would publishers deign to send me fiction, I might read more were it to interest me.

Herewith is my top ten selections of books released in 2004:

1. Father Joe by Tony Hendra (Random House) is my favourite book this year. It is one of the most satisfying reads I've had in a long time. Hendra, a remarkable satirist, wrote a remarkable book. It had me laughing and crying throughout, and was just a wonderful book that was heart warming, raw, and hopeful. It's insights about religion, acquired through Hendra's hard living, are thoughtful, thought provoking and insightful. It was critically acclaimed and spent some weeks on the bestseller list. It suffered some ignominy with revelations from one of Hendra's daughters saying he had abused her, and that he was less than truthful in this book. That aside-because you really must judge the book on its own as the allegations on both sides are complicated to wade through-this book is a wonderful memoir on how someone troubled by life, love and religion, seemed to find some convergence in that nearly-mythic figure in Hendra's life, Father Joe, a Benedictine monk.

2. Here Be Dragons: Telling Tales of People, Passion and Power by Peter C. Newman (McClelland and Stewart) makes my list, not because I've been a fan of Newman's or had the pleasure of interviewing him about his book this past fall, but because it truly is a great book. If Hendra was unforgiving about himself, Newman was equally as objective about his life and loves. And Newman has lived and love lots in his 75 years. Newman is a legend in this country and his memoir was not only a recount of his storied life, his life was a confluence of him and the times in which he lived. Like Dostoevsky, Newman is a child of the century; the 20th century that Laurier thought would have belonged to Canada. Think about this, he's known and observed (fairly up close) prime ministers since St. Laurent up to the current one. When he wasn't writing about politics, he was writing about our business leaders. His treatments on the Canadian Establishment are as synonymous as the moniker itself. And as I told him in our interview, his sketch of his journey to Canada in the first chapter or two, fleeing his relative luxury in Czechoslovakia because of Hitler, was gripping.

3. Number one on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list, the last dozen or so weeks is Jon Stewart and The Daily Show's remarkably funny and ingenious America (The Book). Published by Time Warner, it is hilarious. You know that when you laugh out loud reading, you must be reading something good.

4. Maureen Dowd's first book, a collection of her New York Times columns, Bushworld (Putnam), was perhaps the funniest as well as the most insightful and culturally-conscious of political books that skewered Bush and the Bushies. Though Dowd is not a Bushie (her family are Bushies), she is surprisingly fair in some of her blistering attacks on this administration. This book, is a wonderful sketch of George W. Bush's unexpected rise to the presidency and chronicles from her prime Times op-ed column, the foibles of Bush 43, which will, I hope, with the re-election of Dubya, mean a sequel's is due in four years. If not, perhaps the hussy from Washington could do up a collection of her Clinton columns. Columns which by the way, won her a Pulitzer Prize.

5. Backstage Vancouver: A Century of Entertainment Legends by Greg Potter and Red Robinson (Harbour) is a charming book by authors who know this city well, and have done nothing less than a service to the Lower Mainland for their chronicle of our cultural life. There's no book like this, and it's long overdue. The pictures are absolutely a gem, and the stories are riveting and fascinating not only to Lower Mainlanders but by those outside.

6. The prodigious Bob Woodward had another blockbuster out this spring. Embargoed and launched with much press and attention, Plan of Attack (Simon and Schuster) was the follow-up to the wildly successful Bush at War, which I suspect changed the perception many had of President Bush after September 11, 2001. Where Bush at War discussed the aftermath of September 11th and the war in Afghanistan, Plan of Attack took the reader through to the march to war in Iraq. Where the first book painted a flattering portrait of Bush, the second was a little more convoluted. Both the Kerry and Bush campaigns endorsed it; the latter for the wartime President in full regalia, and the former for the oddity surrounding the President's relationship with his father, his religion, and the entire Iraq policy of pre-emption, which many still find unconvincing. Woodward writes wonderful lively prose, and his portrait of the President and the events surrounding the Iraq war provide us with a history of these events, at least up to its release in the spring.

7. Broadway: The American Musical by Michael Kantor and Lawrence Maslon (Bulfinch) was a heavy coffee table that was both a good balance of the visual, as well as the density needed for a comprehensive subject such as the social history of theatre in Manhattan. A companion to the PBS miniseries of the same name, I swear, the roar of the greasepaint and smell of the Broadway crowd was palpable in the book's pages.

8. Backstory by Ken Auletta (Penguin) is a collection of some of the New Yorker essayist's comprehensive and informative pieces about some of the media's prevailing themes and personalities. He's an accomplished writer and one of the more noted media analysts around. The book was also enlightening. If you need some context on the media in America, or insight into the Culture Wars then this is a good primer.

9. Threads by Joseph Abboud (HarperCollins) makes my list because I actually found myself engrossed by the story of Abboud's career in the fashion industry. He's not immediately known as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger, but he's worn by enough people-people who matter-that that's all that matters. Surprisingly enough, the précis about how to succeed in the fashion business was interesting to even someone who heretofore didn't care frankly. Plus, Abboud is a tasteful gossip, never salacious, when talking about his colleagues and those he's worked with in show business and beyond. As well, Abboud's thoughts on how he thinks men should dress are worth noting.

10. Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at the New York Times by Jayson Blair (New Millennium) was at first a difficult book for me to get into. When the book came out in the spring, I began reading it concerned about the political and journalism implications of the Blair debacle when it was discovered that he had been the source of a series of fabrications so serious that it lead to the Times's top editors having to resign. To say that the entire Blair episode left the Times a bit battered is an understatement. However, as a book told from Blair's angle about being in the centre of the firestorm, it's nonetheless a good read. Of course, he's a good writer-how could his rouse have lasted so long?-but beyond that you get a sense of how this was not all a mischievous plan of his, rather a deeply personal and tragic story about how ambition got the better of him, how fear was the motivator that led to his very public demise.

Now, these are the books deserving of an honourable mention:

Rafe: A Memoir by Rafe Mair (Harbour) was as expected Rafe Mair at how we've expected him-opinionated, frank and entertaining. He leads a pretty public life, so perhaps that's why this memoir doesn't reveal so much. Maybe, I was just expecting too much, but I didn't think it was as insightful as it could have been. Nonetheless, it's a good précis of the province and country and its politics, and Mair's own life-an obviously noteworthy one.

Worth Fighting For by Sheila Copps (McClelland and Stewart) was actually not a bad book. You can say what you want about Copps, but she's stuck to her guns fighting off the Paul Martin machine that came out to discredit her memoir, and the critics who've been less than enthusiastic. Copps also stuck to her beliefs, and though I never shared them, I have admired her tenacity as of late. I never thought I'd say this, but she was a presence in this country, and now that she's gone, Ottawa's perhaps a little less colourful. The book is a bit short. I think she shortchanges a lot of her work as a cabinet minister, as well as leaves out some critical first-hand insight about the Chrétien era, so as to devote space to criticise Paul Martin. Had she perhaps spent the bulk of her book talking about what it was like inside during the Chrétien era, as say John Crosbie did in his memoir about the Mulroney years or Judy LaMarsh about the Pearson years in hers, then I would think Copps's book would be more valuable historically.

The same goes for Never Retreat, Never Explain, Never Apologize by Deborah Grey (Key Porter). Grey, the doyenne of the Reform Party movement in the late '80s through the 1990s, wrote what I consider the most refreshing memoir by a politician in a while. She's candid about her life and her politics, in a charming effervescent way. You can't help but like her. Her career however was of great consequence to the politics of the last 15-20 years. Though she goes through them as a listing, I didn't get a sense of what it all meant. I also didn't get the sense of just how consequential her times were to Canadians, for they were. Now perhaps we can chalk that up to good old Canadian humility, as Grey is definitely not one to immortalise herself. Or perhaps it was too soon to look at her career through the lens of context.

The Imus Ranch: Cooking for Kids and Cowboys(Rodale) by Deirdre Imus is mentioned because I'm a Don Imus fan and because this book is wonderfully photographed and has some neat vegetarian recipes worth trying out.

Miles Gone By by William F. Buckley (Regnery) is a remarkable book by a remarkable man. It is perhaps impregnable if you loath the kind of conservatism that Buckley espoused, or the format of the book was not a conventional narrative that you'd expect of an autobiography. It's a collection of past works that are culled so as to provide a sketch of Buckley's consequential life. What I think is deserving of Buckley, is a kind of reflective memoir that Peter Newman's was, written in the present looking back. Then again, Buckley thought to undertake such a tome would be self-defeating, as his previous output-and columns of other books-has already covered such bases.

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) by Ann Coulter (Crown) is a great read. A collection of the conservative icon's past columns about September 11th, terrorism, the Democrats, the Republicans, Bush, pop culture and more, the book is often funny and thought provoking, almost always controversial. You don't have to agree with Coulter's harangues to like this book. I read this in tandem with Maureen Dowd's book, which in itself is a fun exercise.

The Sinatra Treasures by Charles Pignone (Bulfinch) is another lavish coffee table book from the same publishers who did Broadway: The American Musical. I'll have more on this book in a review in the new year, but it really is delightful in how it constructs and at the same time reveals-literally in your hands-a bit of that Sinatra mystique.

Women I Have Dressed (and Undressed) by Arnold Scaasi was for me, a surprisingly entertaining read. Like my experience with the Joseph Abboud book, I didn't think I'd find fashion engrossing-I still probably don't-but I enjoyed Scaasi's candid and revealing sketches of some of the famous women he has designed clothes for. He was tasteful in his dishing, which made it a harmless book, but one that was a delight.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, I almost forgot about including. It seems as if the book has been around for ages, and it has. But it actually made its North American debut in the early part of 2004, thus I include it. Who'd have thunk a book about punctuation would sell? Who'd have thunk a book about punctuation would be at once interesting, as it was instructive?

Now the following six books, I have not finished at the time of writing this. They're all remarkable books, and a couple of them could easily have gotten into the top ten. Nevertheless, they rank honourable mentions if only that they're, thus far, extraordinary. Big Russ and Me (Miramax) by Tim Russert; Courting Justice by David Boies (Miramax); He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (Simon and Schuster); George Carlin's hilarious When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? (Hyperion); Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris; and Downtown: My Manhattan(Little, Brown), by one of my favourite writers ever Pete Hamill.

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