Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators (2019) by Ronan Farrow. Odd book, in that I was impressed with the reporting and the constant twists and turns in the story (involving some legitimately crazy spy stuff) but turned off by Farrow’s writing, in which he comes across as an Encyclopedia Brown in the age of selfies. Funny passage near the end of the book, when The New Yorker is set to publish Farrow’s first big Harvey Weinstein article online, and Farrow moves to take a photograph of everyone in the room -- until editor David Remnick (who’s one of the heroes of the book) tells him no photographs, kid, that’s not our style here. Farrow sheepishly writes that he wanted the photo in the spirit of "unsmiling documentation, not triumphalism," but I think Remnick had him figured out.
The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life (2019) edited by Andrew Blauner. Anthology with 33 contributors (mostly with essays, but also a couple poems and comic strips) on Charles Schulz’s life and work. Quite a range in quality, from excellent (Gerald Early, Kevin Powell, Chris Ware) to bad (Jonathan Franzen, predictably insufferable). Worth it if you’re a fan of Peanuts.
By the way, over the past few years I read (or re-read, in the main) the entire strip in volumes that contain two years’ worth of strips each. The books begin in 1950 and end in 2000 – that’s right, Schultz drew Peanuts for exactly half a century, with the last strip published the day after he died. Peanuts was genuinely brilliant for maybe 15 years, from about 1959 to 1974. There are still good individual comics in the ‘80s and beyond, but unfortunately a lot of sentimental fluff too, as Schultz moved away from the earlier irony and cruelty and brought the strip more in line with the cutesy “Happiness is a Warm Puppy” merchandising. Anyway, great to read these right before bedtime, especially if you've had a rough day...
11/19/2019 1:29 AM (edited)