It is time once again for the most prestigious, least-anticipated literary award of the year – The Johnny/Bingo Awards!
Most literary awards – the National Book Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature - have, if nothing else, consistency. They are given out annually. They have the same categories every year, with moderate changes. They honor books that came out that year. They might give a Lifetime Achievement to someone who has managed to produce a lifetime of work but is hopefully still alive.
But remember what Ralph Waldo Emerson – who is not eligible for any of those awards but IS still eligible for a Johnny-Bingo Award - said about consistency: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
We have no little statesmen or philosophers or divines on the Awards Committee. We have only me. And me has only one rule:
“All eligible books must have been finished by me in 2020. It could have been written by a blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE or be an unpublished galley hacked from an MFA candidate’s MacBook in a Brooklyn cafe. As long as I read the final paragraph before the calendar turns, it could be a winner.”
Beyond that..the awards change, the frequency is eccentric - heck, I'm not even sure if these are called "The Johnny Bingo Awards", "The Johnny-Bingo Awards", or "The Johnny/Bingo Awards".
* if you care about the source of the name, go here
On to this year’s winners!
Best Historical Novelist
Bernard Cornwell
According to my book log I’ve read 30 Bernard Cornwell novels since 2001. Which seems like a lot until you realize that Cornwell has written 60, so I’m only halfway through. In the ten years readers have been waiting for the next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) Cornwell has written a dozen novels.
Cornwell has a kind of formula which he deploys across several series: follow a major historical figure over a long period of time, through a fictional character.
This year I read 3 more books in his Sharpe series, which follows British soldier Richard Sharpe through the Napoleonic wars. And in the process learned quite a lot about the Peninsular War and the growing martial mastery of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington (he's the guy who beat Napoleon at Waterloo, but I'm sure you knew that already).
I also read the first four volumes of The Saxon Chronicles, which is the inspiration for the excellent television series “The Last Kingdom”. If you want to learn a great deal about the birth of England and the historical importance of Alfred the Great while also enjoying lots of battles, sex, and political intrigue – I highly recommend The Saxon Chronicles and "The Last Kingdom".
Best Book I Didn’t Quite Understand
A History of Western Philosophy*, Bertrand Russell
I bought this book 20 years ago, made an unsuccessful run at it 10 years ago, started it again 3 or 4 months ago…and finished the last page on Sunday.
* If you're wondering how I can spend 3 or 4 months on one book and still read enough books to justify this globally-famous awards platform...I read books the way most people watch television. I have several going at once. I might knock off a crime novel in a week but something like this opus I'll read a chapter per morning, most mornings, over months
It’s an overview of, well, western philosophy – from the ancient Greeks to the medieval Christians to the moderns – from Pythagoras to William James. Huge chunks of it were over my head – especially the parts involving mathematics.
But parts of it were utterly fascinating. I was completely unaware of how Plato, and later Aristotle, shaped the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. I was somewhat aware of how Nietzsche influenced Hitler, but less so of how the Romantics influenced Nietzsche. The path from Byron to Hitler is particularly interesting when you consider Russell was writing in 1943.
I confess to skimming some chapters and skipping others entirely (I figured, since I never heard of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, I could skip that chapter entirely). And if I had an exam on the book on Monday I’d struggle to pass. But it was at times utterly engaging and certain chapters went very well with whiskey.
The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick Me Under the Table
I gave this award for the first time last year (see, there is some consistency) and here’s what I said about it:
"There's a certain kind of book - non-fiction, well-written, a colon in the title, and a Big Idea at its heart - that will make me talk about it for months afterwards. Eventually, I'm out to dinner with other people and am rambling on for entirely too long about how ancient Romans used memory palaces to commit multi-hour speeches to memory and - thwack! - my wife will deliver a well-placed blow to my shin."
But since the pandemic cut down that whole ‘out to dinner’ thing I’m going to temporarily rename this award the:
The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick Me Under the Table, If There Was a Table, But Since There Wasn’t She Could Only Smile and Nod Along and Hope I’d Shut Up
The winner this year is (drumroll please, Ringo):
The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz
This book is not for the casual fan. It is an exhaustive history of the Fab Four. How exhaustive? Ringo doesn’t even show up until page 127.
But even as a serious Beatles fan I learned so much and my poor wife who…well, I’m not sure how this happened exactly but somehow I managed to fall in love with and marry and spend my life with someone who DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE BIG DEAL IS WITH THE BEATLES ANYWAY!!!
And, what with the pandemic and all and the seriously depressed social life there weren’t many tables for her to kick me under so I shared with her every single detail of the Beatles that so utterly fascinated me and instead of kicking me she just politely nodded along…
“Did you know the Beatles were the first artist to include lyrics on an album?”
“Did you know the Beatles did the first music video? You see, they had stopped touring because of the screaming fans and they needed to promote their new music so they invented the video!”
“Did you know that the length of ‘Hey Jude’ was what inspired FM radio to move from a talk radio to a music format? You see…”
Truly a thrilling read about one of the greatest creative forces ever – where they came from, how they developed their craft, the almost insane innovation in a relatively short period of time, and how they blew apart.
(and oh my God I can't wait for this)
Best History Book on a Subject I was Embarrassingly Ignorant About
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
I knew the name Genghis Khan. I was also aware there was a guy named Kublai Khan. I kinda sorta knew there were Mongol invasions. Was pretty sure horses were involved. And that’s about it.
But Weatherford makes a pretty good case for the second part of his book title.
Consider this: under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army conquered more lands and subjugated more peoples in 25 years than the Roman Empire did in 400. If I may quote the dust-jacket:
"With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the world, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order."
And his grandson, Kublai Khan, founded the Yuan Dynasty in China. This new world order connected Asia to the Middle East to Eastern Europe, and allowed for an extraordinary spread of culture. And it's a rip-roaring story filled with adventure, statecraft, warfare, and some truly epic family strife.
Best Book(s)That Proves I’m Really Still Just a Nerdy 11 Year-Old
The Thrawn Trilogy, Timothy Zahn
I was 11 years old when "Star Wars" came out. I loved it. I saw the next two movies in the theater and loved those. But then, like most normal people I moved on with my life. I met people in college who were REALLY into Star Wars – would talk about the different colors of the light sabers and what they meant - and I said, thank God I’m not like them.
But somewhere along the line I started to, um, become like them. A big part of it was my son becoming a fan. We were so excited about "The Force Awakens" that I picked him up at college after his last final sophomore year, and we found a theater between his college and home to see the movie. We sat on line with headsets on so we wouldn’t hear any spoilers from exiting fans.
This year, thanks to "The Mandalorian" I completed the metamorphosis to full geekdom. I started watching "The Clone Wars" animated series (in the proper order). And after Admiral Thrawn was name-checked in the second season of "The Mandalorian" I decided to read The Thrawn Trilogy.
I know it’s Legends, not Canon, and it was occasionally jarring to see storylines in total conflict with the storylines of the sequel trilogy. But it was still a fun ride. I’m assuming we’ll see the blue Admiral in season 3 of "The Mandalorian" and I am ready for him. Of course, by the time that comes out in 2022 I'll have watched all four seasons of "Star Wars: Rebels"...
A Fond Farwell
John LeCarre
As I mentioned last year, I do something I call subject-bingeing. For example, while reading The Beatles book I subject-binged. Listened to endless Beatles albums, scoured YouTube for interviews and other clips referred to in the book, watched the movie ‘Help’. Even dug deeper into the solo careers of the Fab Four (damn those early McCartney albums are underrated).
And it so happened this is the year I binged on John LeCarre – or to be more precise, his most famous character, George Smiley.
I tried to read LeCarre years ago, but I wasn’t ready for him yet. There was a depth and sophistication so far beyond Ludlum and Higgins and it sailed over my head. But on a recommendation from a colleague I decided to start from the beginning.
I read all of the Smiley books, including the early ones where he is sometimes only a minor character. I read his masterpiece, “The Karla Trilogy”. I watched the two brilliant BBC mini-series “Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy” and “Smiley’s People”, with the incomparable Alec Guiness*. I rewatched the “Tinker” movie with Gary Oldman. And I tried without success to find some of the early movies like “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold”. I went full Smiley in 2020.
* Both of these series are available for free in their entirety on YouTube
If you are unfamiliar with George Smiley, the easiest way to think about him is as the anti-Bond. He is not handsome or dashing. He never shoots a gun. He never beds a beautiful Russian spy. There are no gadgets. His wife constantly cheats on him. And yet, if Bond and Smiley went up against each other, I have no doubt Smiley would walk away the victor.
John LeCarre was a spy novelist, but his spy novels were literature. Plots mattered but character mattered more. The great game of nation-states fighting for their preferred ideology mattered, but the sordid moments of a crumbling marriage mattered more. And while all this was happening LeCarre was creating a language that future spy novelists would use. Moles. Honey-traps. Pavement artists. Because LeCarre had actually worked for British intelligence, everyone assumed he was using real lingo – but oftentimes he was a novelist making things up.
Not long after I completed the full Smiley journey, John LeCarre passed away. RIP to the greatest spy novelist, and possibly the greatest observer of the Cold War, to ever put pen to paper.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Bill Bryson
I bought my first Bill Bryson book – The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way – 30 years ago. I bought it on a whim but immediately recognized that this guy wrote the way I wish I could. A seemingly effortless charm, lightly worn erudition, and a wry and optimistic yet not at all naïve worldview.
Here are the first few paragraphs of Bryson I ever read:
"More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to. It would be charitable to say that the results are sometimes mixed.
Consider this hearty announcement in a Yugoslavian hotel: 'The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid. Turn to her straightaway.' Or this warning to motorists in Tokyo: 'When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.' Or these instructions gracing a packet of convenience food from Italy: 'Besmear a backing pan, previously buttered with a good tomato sauce, and, after, dispose the canneloni, lightly distanced between in a only couch.'
Clearly the writer of that message was not about to let a little ignorance of English stand in the way of a good meal. In fact, it would appear that one of the beauties of the English language is that with even the most tenuous grasp you can speak volumes if you show enough enthusiasm-a willingness to tootle with vigor, as it were."
I read his travel books, his memoirs, his Shakespeare book, even followed him as he ventured into science with A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body: A Guide for Occupants.
Last month, the 68 year-old Bryson did something few writers do: he announced his retirement. Who knows? Maybe it won’t stick. Maybe this will be like The Who announcing a farewell tour. But for now at seems I need to bid a fond farewell to an author who has kept me company for 3 decades.
And to thank him for all the words.
Congratulations to all of the winners. We were going to have a live awards ceremony but due to COVID etc. etc. etc.
