It may come as a relief that there is no book recommendations attached to this letter. It has two other different and distinct purposes. Before I go any further, however, I must make a few “plugs”. I cannot help it.
Please look at Monsters. Those who have all agree that it is quite an experience in so many ways. Additionally, I continue to plug away at Crossroads by Franzen. It remains the best contemporary novel I have read in the last couple of years. Finally, go see Barbie. Clearly Oppenheimer is the serious BIG picture is this historic twin bill; however, much to my surprise, Barbie may be both the cleverer and the most profound of the two. I NEVER would have imagined myself writing that last sentence a month ago. Neither movie was perfect but the fact that millions of people went to the theater to see good NOT MARVEL films is nothing to sneeze at.
The big reason for this letter, however, is that if you received this you are very likely on the new site developed by niece, Katharine Pinney. You do not have to sign in with your email if you got this first mailing. Anyone getting this second hand is very much encouraged to join by entering your email below. I hope you find the site easier to navigate. I hope to be as inspired as the site challenges me to be.
The other reason for the late summer missive is to give a quick review of the Sun Valley Writer’s Conference. Jeannie and I have attended this conference for over two decades and watched it grow in every sense. This is not the platform for veteran attendee “nits” so I will stick with what the conference has always claimed is its meta mission - to inspire serious reading. There were many good novelists and memoirists in attendance - more than in previous years. I miss, however, the novelist that can rise above the very real limitations of Q&A to deliver a deeply crafted speech about his or her work. This did not happen. Verghese was everything Oprah would have wished for but had nothing to say about his book. Maybe because of an embarrassingly overblown video introduction, his hour felt much like an extended “thank you”. The Q&A with the three serious novelists was engaging but it always comes down to too little from one and too much from another. My “take-home” is no different than what I went into the session with: both Mohsin Hamid (please read How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia) and Emily St. John Mandel (Sea of Tranquility is excellent) are seriously talented writers whose books should be on all our shelves.
As in previous years, the show was stolen by the non-fiction world. Despite the best efforts of the moderator, the Q&A format diluted what should have been a cracker jack speech by Andrea Eliott on her extraordinary journalist narrative, Invisible Child. This was THE story of the conference. I only wish the two time Pulitzer Prize NYT journalist had flown alone on the big stage. Despite this “nit”, I suggest her book be put on everyone’s list. It flips one assumption after another about poverty and race onto its head. The big stage moment was ultimately seized by Robert Kagan and his second installment in his history of American foreign policy, The Ghost at the Feast. Though I have yet to finish the book (and I will), the subject, America the reluctant giant from 1900 to 1940, is not only history well told but history as pure illumination. While I agree that it is facile to say history repeats, Kagan makes it all too clear that it rhymes. If his speech is still on-line, listen to it … and then buy the book. Finally, thank you Ezra Klein for the Q&A that really did work. Ezea’s talk with Ed Yong about his brilliant Immense World: How Animal Senses reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us was not only a textbook example of perfection “moderation” but one cosmo shifting insight after another. To understand what an “Umwelt”, ours and every living thing’s around you, is to enter another dimension of awareness. If this sounds a bit much, download the session or buy the book.
Moderators stole the show for good and bad. Ezra and Ed Osnos ran away with it with the talented Mr. Ayad Akhtar doing well in a harder field. I will restrain myself on the less successful efforts though I must apologize to Ezra for enduring the conference’s most embarrassing (and eagerly anticipated) moment. I hope he returns - Ezra , that is.
Thank you for reading … feel free to share with your fellow readers.