Nodal Point

Since this is a book Fight Club, and Rich H. can’t seem to make a decision, I’ll throw out another recommendation: Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America by Jay Parini.  This book is right in our wheelhouse.  The book is not about great literature – so, you fictionophobes need not worry about Moby Dick and Gatsby being on the list.  Rather, the author selects books, many non-fiction, that are “nodal points, places where vast areas of thought and feeling gathered and dispersed.”  And, it would be a fitting send-off for our sparring partner Ami.

These 13 are: “Of PlymouthPlantation” by William Bradford; “The Federalist Papers,” essays published under the pseudonym Publius but written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay; “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”; “The Journals of Lewis and Clark”; “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau; “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe; “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain; “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois; “The Promised Land” by Mary Antin; “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie; “The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care” by Benjamin Spock, M.D.; “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac; “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan.

So, what do you say Rich?  Call the ball.