‘When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.’ 

                                   ― Maya Angelou

In today’s Times, a review of Barack Obama’s brand new book, A Promised Land. It’s the first of two volumes. This first one is 768 pages. If you read his other books, you know he can write. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/books/review/barack-obama-a-promised-land.html?referringSource=articleShare

In college in the late 60s and when we got out and went to Vietnam or found alternative ways to serve we needed companions. Our parents weren’t in the way we needed. Most teachers weren’t. Music and magazines were big for us in that way. So was Kurt Vonnegut. Gallows Humor they called it. I saw him read once in Cleveland. I took my young oldest daughter. Here are reviews of Slaughterhouse Five from 1969:

https://bookmarks.reviews/the-first-reviews-of-slaughterhouse-five/

 

This is still waiting to be done. It didn’t happen under any president or administration.