Nonfiction Lunch

Every New Year's my Uncle Paul names the year that's going to happen. For the first few years this millennium, it was Body 2000, then Body 2001, and so on. Then it was 2004: It's All Coming Together, which was really the rightest one because that year his family gained a cute daughter, and the Red Sox won the World Series and the Patriots won the Super Bowl, which got Uncle Paul all amped up. Since then it's been things like 2006: Nice One and 2008: This Year We Play For Keeps. Anyway, the thing is that the little manifesti that Uncle Paul announced to go along with the year names were usually only partially achieved. Like all named things, the years since 2000 have been in some way a disappointment. And even so with the dead horse I'm going to here kick, my Summer of Adventures without Underlining.

That, the lonelier of you will recall, is what I meant to do last summer in order to save money and learn things: since I didn't expect them to have a lot of finely tuned phrases (no "(picnic, lightning)"s to scribble under), I could forgo underlining nonfiction books. And because I didn't have to write in these books, I could get them at the library (cheap!). And then, as you know from my reporting on the epic battle of me vs. Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte, the best laid plans &c. But! I have been secretly sticking with it, to surprise you! On a day just such as this! With the news that I have kept up low-level commitment to nonfiction books, and, for an inveterate fiction snob like yrs truly, it has been going ok.

Of books I wanted to read, I am not doing so hot. I've only read one, the Nine by Jeffrey Toobin, but that is the one about which I want to talk to you today. The Nine was a very good book, and had a lot to say about the Supreme Court under William Rehnquist, and some sharp things to say about where the court is headed now. That said, the only thing that really stuck with me about the book (apart from a few zingers from Scalia) was that David Souter eats an apple for lunch every day -- and eats the core, too. That blew me away. Did his parents teach him, in harsh New Hampshire winters, that no part of the apple should go to waste? And did their parents? Or did Justice Souter just decide one day, enough is enough, I'm eating this whole apple? This was the main thing I took away from this sharply written, thoroughly researched book about one of the three most important bodies in the United States. That probably means something.

Anyway now I'm reading the Dark Side by Jane Mayer, which is good. On the lunch front, all I've seen so far is that David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, ate gazpacho for lunch everyday by himself. That seems to be sadly humanizing, but doesn't hold a candle to Justice Souter's bravura, philosophy-encapsulating lunches. More on nonfiction next week, and a list later today!