Last Night
Last Night: Patti Smith
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDJZm_HyXY[/youtube]
I have good taste in books. Or more to the point: I'm getting old.
I've noticed that the books I read lately always end up winning big prizes. Three hefty hardcovers I plunked down cash for the second they came out in recent years have all won big prizes. The Race Beat won a Pulitzer, The Looming Tower won a Pulitzer, and Alex Ross' history of 20th century music, The Rest is Noise, was a Pulitzer finalist, landing on the New York Times ' ten best books of 2007 while also winning the National Book Critics Circle Award.
I don't think it's so much that these books are uniquely great. I think it's that the people handing out the awards are white guys who are my age and who have the same interests I have; what these books have in common is that they catalog some giant themes of the 20th century. (While Looming Tower is a 9/11 book, its achievement is how it delineates the rise of Islamic radicalism in the late 20th century, a storyline that emerged in the post-boomer generation as I was growing up. The 1979 hostage crisis was a big deal.)
I'm getting all confessional here because one book I didn't pick up, but have been tempted to buy repeatedly this year, is Patti Smith's Just Kids . (Love Patti Smith!) Well, go figure, it won the National Book Award for best non-fiction last week. And go figure, it's a memoir about a pivotal cultural moment in the late 20th century—late 1960s/early '70s Manhattan, a time and place that pretty much defined hipsterdom for the remaining decades of the century.
It's a good book—I bought it this week, but it's not outstanding or anything. Just as the victors write history, I think the oldsters hand out the prizes as they realize their generation is fading from the spotlight.
I have good taste in books. Or more to the point: I'm getting old.
I've noticed that the books I read lately always end up winning big prizes. Three hefty hardcovers I plunked down cash for the second they came out in recent years have all won big prizes. The Race Beat won a Pulitzer, The Looming Tower won a Pulitzer, and Alex Ross' history of 20th century music, The Rest is Noise, was a Pulitzer finalist, landing on the New York Times ' ten best books of 2007 while also winning the National Book Critics Circle Award.
I don't think it's so much that these books are uniquely great. I think it's that the people handing out the awards are white guys who are my age and who have the same interests I have; what these books have in common is that they catalog some giant themes of the 20th century. (While Looming Tower is a 9/11 book, its achievement is how it delineates the rise of Islamic radicalism in the late 20th century, a storyline that emerged in the post-boomer generation as I was growing up. The 1979 hostage crisis was a big deal.)
I'm getting all confessional here because one book I didn't pick up, but have been tempted to buy repeatedly this year, is Patti Smith's Just Kids . (Love Patti Smith!) Well, go figure, it won the National Book Award for best non-fiction last week. And go figure, it's a memoir about a pivotal cultural moment in the late 20th century—late 1960s/early '70s Manhattan, a time and place that pretty much defined hipsterdom for the remaining decades of the century.
It's a good book—I bought it this week, but it's not outstanding or anything. Just as the victors write history, I think the oldsters hand out the prizes as they realize their generation is fading from the spotlight.
