By Steve Weinberg, via NPR:
Fit To Print: Top Five Current Affairs Books Of 2009
1) American Original by Joan Biskupic
It is unusual for a biographer to write the life of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice. Similarly, it is unusual for a journalist whose daily beat it is to report on an institution to write candidly about it at book length, because she might lose access. But Joan Biskupic, of USA Today, is obviously an unusual reporter. In her sharp-eyed chronicle, Biskupic details how Antonin Scalia’s formative family, schooling and workplace experiences translate into his strict constructionist reading of the U.S. Constitution — and how his self-proclaimed unwavering interpretations waver indeed, if he can help award the presidency to George W. Bush instead of Al Gore, or restrict access to abortions. The Scalia portrayed by Biskupic appears immune to what the other justices think about his jurisprudence, as he intentionally provokes those who disagree with his opinions. Yet off the bench, Scalia comes across as the charming life of the party.
2) Good Soldiers by David Finkel
As long as there are journalists willing to risk it all in war zones, there will be books that provide the kind of reportorial insights unavailable from soldiers, the Pentagon and the White House. When those journalists are capable of weaving what they saw, heard, smelled and felt into compelling narratives, their books often achieve a rare momentum and power. David Finkel has written one of those books. A reporter for the Washington Post, Finkel was embedded with a battalion of about 800 troops in Iraq. The Good Soldier focuses on the triumphs and traumas of that battalion and, particularly, on its commander, Army Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich. Kauzlarich is an optimist who greets every day in gritty eastern Baghdad with the phrase “all is good,” even as the deaths and crippling injuries suffered by his troops cast shadows on the mantra. When Finkel’s narrative eventually moves to the home front, anxious families — including Kauzlarich’s wife and children — define “all is good” as the day a soldier walks in the front door, physically and psychologically unharmed.
3) Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder
It might initially seem strange that a book set in the central African nations of Burundi and Rwanda — a book about genocide and other forms of human cruelty — would take its title from a soothing Wordsworth poem. But in Tracy Kidder’s skillful hands, there is something unexpectedly soothing about the odyssey of Deogratias Niyizonkiza. In book after book, Kidder has immersed himself in low-profile lives that provide a window on previously misunderstood realms. This time, the realm is that of the seemingly hopeless immigrant to the United States. Niyizonkiza, aka “Dr. Deo,” is now an American-trained physician, but he endured obstacles unimaginable to most of us. His personal tale is one of triumph, but like Kidder’s spirit-lifting book, it is leavened by the misery Dr. Deo now confronts as he tries to bring modern medical care and his own heroic effort to the lives of the many still struggling in Africa.
4) The Healing Of America by T.R. Reid
As American voters try to sort out the highly politicized health care debate, many find it difficult to determine the truth about how well the health care system functions in other nations. Reid, a peripatetic Washington Post reporter, has done the research for American voters. The result: He exposes numerous opponents of American health care reform as liars, or at best, ill informed. Almost without exception, government-run health care overseas functions more efficiently and cost-effectively than the current American private-public hodgepodge. Reid is especially enlightening on health care in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. He posits that a “nation’s health care system reflects its moral values.” If he’s correct, the United States of America is morally challenged.
5) When Everything Changed by Gail Collins
Sexism isn’t dead. New York Times columnist Gail Collins knows that. But it has diminished greatly in just 50 years. The shift within airlines from pretty young stewardesses to flight attendants who cross age ranges, body types and gender is an example of progress used lucidly by Collins. Women now sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, run multinational corporations and feel comfortable working outside the house in less visible occupations — or feel comfortable staying at home with the children. Collins’ penetrating social history charts the progress of women by combining the “public drama of the era” — from bra burnings to class-action lawsuits — “with the memories of regular women who lived through it all.” Those regular women include a three-generation Wyoming trio — grandmother, mother, daughter — whose individual stories capture the rise of female independence across the United States as vividly as any longitudinal, scientific study.
