I'm halfway through Malcolm X by Manning Marable. Since I consider Autobiography of Malcolm X to be one of my two favorite nonfiction books, I was really excited when this came out. So far I am really enjoying it. The hype surrounding it suggested it was some big 'tell-all', find out 'who the real Malcolm X was' sort of thing, and that it would greatly contradict Autobiography. So far, I'd have to say no dice. Okay, so Autobiography left some things out, glossed over some other things, etc. A little bias is inevitable in an autobiography, particularly one written during the last year of your life and then finished by your cowriter after your assassination. I still think (again, so far) that the Malcolms presented in both books are recognizably the same man: compelling, intelligent, intriguing, frustrating, admirable.
Second: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen. It's taking me a long time to get through this because of how fucking depressing it is.
Third and fourth: I just finished Three Cups of Deceit and Under the Banner of Heaven, both by Jon Krakauer. I did not realize they were by the same author until I was done with Three Cups and almost done with Banner. Shows how observant I am, eh? Both were excellent and I enjoyed both more than I did Into the Wild, his arguably most famous book.
Three Cups of Deceit is about Greg Mortensen, an author and the founder/CEO of a charity that builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Deceit documents how the foundation myth of the charity (per Mortensen's book Three Cups of Tea) is precisely that, a myth, and how the charity is not run properly financially, and how the good that it does is greatly exaggerated/lied about. Deceit ends up being part detective story, as Krakauer investigates and documents the claims made against Mortensen, and part lament that 'the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak'. Mortensen's ideals are good but his execution is flawed because humans are flawed—he is flawed.
I highly recommend buying Three Cups of Deceit. It's a fast read, only $2.99 from the Kindle store, and 100% of the author's proceeds goes to 'Stop Girl Trafficking'.
Under the Banner of Heaven is about fundamentalist Mormonism, and it is absolutely fascinating. The book spends about half the time talking about fundamentalist Mormonism today and about half talking about the history of Joseph Smith and the rest. For me the history part semi-overlapped with Lies My Teacher Told Me. I remember studying Mormons and their history in school, but the really interesting parts were left out. For example, high school history books don't mention the Mountain Meadows massacre, nor the crazy extent of discrimination Mormons faced in the early years back east. Also, did you know that the way modern Mormon fundamentalists are able to have such ridiculously large families is through welfare? The husband marries the first wife, and then the subsequent wives generally all collect welfare for their multitudes of children since technically they are single mothers. One family collected something like $1.5 million in welfare and benefits in 10 years. Absolutely crazy.
I'm also reading Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) and Eating Animals and Smells Like Dead Elephants but I will leave those for another day. After the romance post!
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