Episode · The Book Review · 2024-07-18
Books mentioned on C.I.A. Operatives in the Early Years of the Cold War
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Lawrence in Arabia
Discussed“well speaking of selling out people it seems to me also that one of the links between this book and Lawrence in Arabia at least to this reader feels like they're both very concerned with questions of empire”
Where to get it
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The Quiet American
The Quiet American by Graham Greene is a brilliant political novel set in Vietnam that examines the tragic consequences of misguided Western idealism and foreign intervention through the eyes of a cynical, world-weary British journalist.
Discussed“your title is obviously a reference to the Graham green novel why the quiet Americans”
Where to get it
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Memorial Drive
Memorial Drive is a powerful memoir by Natasha Trethewey that investigates the tragic murder of her mother by her former stepfather and the author's own journey through grief and memory.
Recommended“so I'm reading Convenience St Woman by sayaka Morada I'm reading Natasha tre's Memorial Drive and I read cast the origins of our discontents by Isabelle Wilkerson”
Where to get it
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Convenience store woman
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is a contemporary novel that explores societal pressures and nonconformity through the life of a thirty-six-year-old unmarried woman working in a Japanese convenience store.
Recommended“so I'm reading Convenience St Woman by sayaka Morada I'm reading Natasha tre's Memorial Drive and I read cast the origins of our discontents by Isabelle Wilkerson”
Where to get it
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson is an epic, deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction that chronicles the historic decades-long Great Migration of Black citizens leaving the American South.
Recommended“and Wilkerson of course was a guest on the podcast talking about this book as she was last year was it now that it was the year before talking about Michelle Obama's book but also about her own first book the warmth of other Sons which is probably one of my favorite narrative non-fiction books of of of all time”
Where to get it
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Just Us
Just Us by Claudia Rankine is a provocative examination of American race relations, whiteness, and the cultural imagination.
Discussed“and another book that I'm reading right now is Claudia Rankin's new book just us and it it's very much about kind of the racial imagination the the way that we conceive fantasize about race”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“and Wilkerson of course was a guest on the podcast talking about this book as she was last year was it now that it was the year before talking about Michelle Obama's book but also about her own first book the warmth of other Sons”
“so you're reading two non-poetry books by Poets because you're Claudia Rankin sort of is a poetry book in the same way that citizen is poetry and Essay and art it it kind of brings everything together because that that is her mode as a poet”