Category Archives: Book Reviews

Movie Review: Country Strong (2010)

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Friendly movie hints of Nashville _ 7/10

Country StrongKelly Canter: [quoting Waylon Jennings’ lyrics]
“If you see me getting smaller, I’m leaving, don’t be grieving, just gotta get away from here. If you see me getting smaller, don’t worry, and no hurry, I’ve got the right to disappear.”

This was just a likable little movie from the gitgo. Very simple, the above four characters are really the only ones with important lines. Singer Tim McGraw is frankly out of his league in Actorville, but still carries on bravely and makes whatever plot there is connect in a convincing way. As for that plot, it’s about the country superstar Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow), whose fortunes have waned for various reasons and who is hanging on for a big comeback orchestrated by her manager husband James (Tim McGraw). She loves her husband, who has been there for her ‘despite all the crap,’ (mostly from her) but she is also fond of a semi-renegade, non-or-at-least-less materialistic new singer Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund). Continue reading →

Book Review: Cracking the Code

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The fascinating truth about taxation in America
by Peter Hendrickson
Review by Brian Wright

Cracking the CodeThree things cannot be long hidden:
the sun, the moon, and the truth
— Buddha

For a book that rather prosaically walks the reader thru centuries of political principles, statutes, and regulatory code pertaining to the American federal “income” tax (FIT)[1], Cracking the Code (CtC) is exceptional in so many ways. I especially want to draw the connection between concrete tax resistance or defiance—or in the case of Pete’s book on the FIT, accurate tax definition—and the worldwide movement toward adoption of the simple nonaggression principle in civil societies. Continue reading →

Book Review: Max Perkins: Editor of genius (1978)

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by A. Scott Berg
Review by Brian Wright

“The more a man is, the less he wants.” — Max Perkins

Having recently been overwhelmed by Woody Allen’s masterpiece of Francophilia, Midnight in Paris, I was excited to know more about the several leading authors brought to the center of the world stage there. Particularly, Ernest Hemingway, whom the actor Corey Stoll absolutely nails… well, at least in writer/director Allen’s eyes; as a man, I cannot help feeling a little surge of surrogate courage when the character talks so forthrightly yet kindly about love, bravery, honor, and death. [Come to think of it, Woody Allen’s Play it Again, Sam offers a similar sendup of an inspiringly masculine and creative force in the cinematic community: Humphrey Bogart.] Sorry, this dalliance with hero-worship isn’t to the point. The point is realization of literature and grand world literary figures of the 1920s and 30s. Continue reading →

Book Review: Deer Hunting with Jesus (2007)

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Guns, votes, debt, and delusion in redneck America
by Joe Bageant
Review by Brian Wright

Deer Hunting with JesusNot for the faint of heart or addled of brain; a redneck native son returns to his roots after years seeking out the American Dream—and at least finding a means of sustenance that gratifies him. Bageant is not a ‘liberal’ in the sense of, say, a quiche-eating, latte-sipping, urban townhouse-dwelling, suit-and-tie-wearing promoter of indiscriminate government spending for ‘those in need.’ In fact, such are a goodly part of his intended audience. He nonetheless manifests a genuine concern for ‘the other’ and an awareness of the engines of ignorance and vulture capitalism that tend to grind these many others of the redneck persuasion into fine dust. Right here in the good ol’ US of A, yup. Trick is: they’ve been brainwashed into liking it. Continue reading →

Book Review: January 2012 Double Header

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Red or Blue by Bob Jackson
Enough is Enough by Brendan Kelly
Review by Brian Wright

One of my main objectives with the Coffee Coaster is to encourage discussion and review of salutary (healthful) new ideas coming from the literary world [not much point in reviewing bad books]. As my preference:

  1. These good ideas must always either complement or further the nonaggression principle that I have spent my political life in evangelizing.
  2. As a side benefit, it also helps that the presentation be artful, structured, and imaginative. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Medusa and the Snail

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More notes of a biology watcher
by Lewis Thomas
Review by Brian Wright

Medusa and the SnailThe highly scientifically and medically distinguished Dr. Lewis Thomas—attended Princeton University and Harvard Medical School; became Dean of Yale Medical School and New York University School of Medicine, and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute; his formative years as an independent medical researcher were at Tulane University School of Medicine—writes in the crystal clear, sparsely elegant style of a great master of literature. For one reason or another, in the late 1970s, The Medusa and the Snail came to be a book that the ‘intelligentsia’ simply had to read. Or anyone striving to be well rounded and embracing a life of the mind. I remember the joy of reading this book rather than the content; I thought some day I’d like to be able to write so intelligently about various subjects of philosophic and political interest. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Farrah Chronicles

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Ninety minutes in the life of a very shaky girl
by Christine Mahoney
Review by Brian Wright

The Farrah ChroniclesFor those who feel the recently emerging author-directed alternative publishing technology tends to produce mundane work, The Farrah Chronicles will challenge your presumptions. This small story of a young woman’s journey through stylish neighborhoods of broken dreams and borderline sanity is a sparkling diamond of imagination. Written in first person via flashback, we’re first introduced to Farrah (29) as she’s being retrieved by her parents—and into their court-directed care—from an ‘institution.’ She finds it a little more than ironic that the state is placing her safekeeping ‘in the questionable hands of the very people who endangered it. Indefinitely.’ The next nine months provide the context of her reminiscences, as Farrah chronicles through her ninety-minute psychotherapy sessions (with the highly credentialed and determined Genie) what has brought her to this stage. As Farrah puts it: Continue reading →