BREAK BOOKS.

When school is in session I don't get to read to consume, only to examine. So during semester break, I try to read a book or two that has little or nothing to do with communications research, political science, new media anthropology, etc. This year I read these:

Al Franken's appropriately titled follow-up to Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them is his least funny, and yet, most informative book to date. His style is still jaunty and sarcastic, but Lies and Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Idiot made much more use of actual jokes, ironically. For instance, there are no continuing adventures of the "Operation: Chickenhawk" crew. There is, however, an extensive chapter on Jack Abramoff, written and published months before Abramoff's guilty plea and subsequent newsworthiness. I wonder how much this might have to do with the public's surprising receptiveness for this story -- the fact is that most of the people who read The Truth in 2005 had probably never heard of Abramoff before.

Franken is a full-fledged political actor these days; my guess is that we've seen the last of him as a pure comedian. He is in many ways the face and voice of the liberal grassroots, and if he doesn't run for Senate in 2008 I'll shit my pants. Viewed as just another Al Franken book, The Truth is enjoyable but unexciting. Viewed as a campaign book, it's groundbreaking.

A review quote on the back of Jonathan Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close references, among others, Holden Caulfield, which seems completely ridiculous until you're pretty far into the book. Eventually, though, you start to see nine-year-old Oskar Schell, whose father died at Windows on the World on "the worst day," as a kind of 21st century, world-weary anti-hero -- an "Echo Boomer" Caulfield. It's clear that his overwhelming sadness is not entirely drawn from his father's death; he's too earnest, too empathic and too bright to survive happily in contemporary society.

Foer tries too hard at times to make Oskar's behavior idiosyncratic, occasionally dipping into an obvious picture of an adult inventing a child. Otherwise, though, Extremely Loud is an incredibly moving portrait of several generations of a family often afraid to live. I haven't read anything quite like it in years, maybe since I first read J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day For Bananafish." I've got Foer's first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, on hold at the library, along with Max Barry's Company, so hopefully I'll be able to find some time in the next few weeks for a little more recreational reading.

posted by Aaron S. Veenstra
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