The Johnny Bingo Awards - 2024

 My Favorite Books of this Reading Year

Once again, it is time for the least-anticipated literary awards of the year…The Johnny Bingo Awards!

These prestigious awards are awarded annually in a variety of categories that change constantly.  There is only one constant, one rule, which I've been using for nearly 20 years:

Eligible books are those I read this year (see below for full list). It could’ve been written by a blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE or be an unpublished galley hacked from an MFA candidate’s MacBook in a Brooklyn cafe.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 last paragraph before the ball drops in Times Square, it can be a winner.

The literarily literate among you understand that “the blind Greek poet in the 8th century BCE” refers to Homer, author of The Iliad and The Odyssey.  This week it was announced that the acclaimed director Christopher Nolan’s next project will be a movie version of The Odyssey, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya.  The social media reaction to this was filled with so much literary ignorance it made me want to strap myself to the mast…

On to this year’s awards!

Best Historian at Capturing BIG Subjects in a Single Volume

Andrew Roberts 

When it was announced that Ridley Scott would be making a film about Napoleon Bonaparte, I was nervously excited.  I knew from Gladiator that historical accuracy wasn’t exactly Scott’s strong suit, but still – the chance to see a master filmmaker put things like Austerlitz and the invasion of Russia on screen…

The film was awful but its release inspired me to brush up on my Napoleon and that’s how I came across Andrew Roberts.  His Napolean: A Life is a masterpiece.  Scott couldn’t skillfully fit 22 action-packed years into 3 hours of celluloid, but Roberts splendidly tells the entire story of Napoleon’s life and era in fewer than a thousand pages.  

It was so good I read his single-volume history of WWII, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, and I can say with confidence it is the best single-volume history of this enormous subject I’d ever read.  It might be subtitled “Hitler Could Have Won the War if He Wasn’t Such an Ideological Idiot.”

I intend to work my way through Baron Roberts’ (yes, he is a Baron) entire bibliography over the next few years.  

Best Book by Someone I Hadn’t Read Yet

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Gabrielle Zevin

It seems much of the book-loving world has read Zevin’s Tommorow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – but I went back a few years and sampled one of her earlier works.  An absolutely charming book written by, about, and for book lovers.  

Best Old-Fashioned Novel by an Underrated Novelist

The Ocean and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story

Mark Helprin

Mark Helprin has had a curious literary career.  Early on, he took the expected steps of the Next Great Writer: acclaimed short story collections, regularly published in The New Yorker, the breathlessly reviewed debut novel (A Winter’s Tale), and the breakthrough novel (A Soldier of a Great War).

Then he seemed to fade from cultural view.  Partly it’s because he had politics well out of step with the literary gatekeepers – he is a passionate supporter of Israel’s right to existence (even served in the IDF) and was revealed to be a speechwriter for Bob Dole.  But it’s also because the next few novels didn’t live up to the promise of his earlier works. Often it seemed like a powerful literary gift was being wielded in the service of unworthy plots.

The Ocean and The Stars was, for me, a return to form.  It is  an old-fashioned novel about honor and courage and love, and a welcome respite from the cynical solipsism of the modern literary novel.

Best History Book About a Subject of Which I was Shockingly Ignorant

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

Michael Korda

Current historical events often influence my history reading.  For example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 inspired me to finally pluck that unread biography of Peter the Great from the shelf (and it won a Johnny Bingo that year!).

The Israel-Hamas war had me brushing up on the origins of the Middle East’s manufactured map, and made my realize how little I knew of T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia.

I don’t know if Korda’s 2011 work is the best biography, but it is thorough, well-written, and has the advantage of being written late enough to capture some recent history.  (and, unlike earlier biographies, late enough to be frank about Lawrence's, oh what's the right word, unusual sex life).

There is so much to Lawrence's life.  He was a critical figure - for better and worse - in the making of the modern Middle East.  And you'll learn much about the unique situation the passing of the Ottoman Empire created, and how it led to the creation of problems that plague the world today.

But it is also one of the great adventure stories of all time, and perhaps a story about the first truly global celebrity.  At the heart of it is the endlessly fascinating figure of T.E. Lawrence.  If I ever get to host one of those ‘if you could invite anyone’ dinner parties, I’d be hard-pressed to not offer a seat to Lawrence of Arabia.

Best Book by the Best Writer

The Passenger

Cormac McCarthy

As I age, and my heroes pass, this blog runs the risk of turning into an Obituaries pages.  Two of my last three posts have been tributes to Pete Rose and Dickey Betts.  And yet, I never quite got around to writing an homage to my favorite writer, Cormac McCarthy, who passed in June of 2023.

In some ways, his career arc was the opposite of Helprin’s.  His first 5 novels were praised in obscure literary journals, but found no readers.  His fifth novel, the much-acclaimed Blood Meridian, had a small press run of 5000 copies.  

But then he went on a run.  His Border trilogy found a much larger audience, and the first book (All the Pretty Horses) was turned into a Matt Damon movie.  In 2005, No Country for Old Men became an Oscar-winning Coen Brothers movie, and 2006 The Road was picked for Oprah’s book club and won The Pulitzer.  This notoriously difficult writer had, against all literary odds, become a mainstream success story.

And that was it.  Or so it seemed.  For the next decade and a half Cormac fans waited.  And then, in late 2022, McCarthy published not one, but two linked novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.  Six months later he was dead.

One night, not long after McCarthy's death, I sat on my deck with a bottle of Basil Hayden, a Montecristo cigar, and Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece album - and contemplated the career of Cormac McCarthy.  As the bottle emptied and the ashtray filled, my thoughts got more profound, and I was struck with an epiphany about the role of the artist, and how The Passenger and Veedon Fleece were sister works of art that encapsulated both of the careers of these Great Artists, and perhaps even explained Art.   I jotted a bunch of notes down in my phone, stream-of-consciousness style,  bursting with intellectual energy.

Apparently I didn’t save it.  Oh well.  

Hopefully my kids will remember that I have a first edition of Blood Meridian, and while I hope they pass it down through the generations, if they ever get in a tight financial bind, it might be worth something some day.

 Honorable Mention

Here’s the full list of books I read this year, along with some quick comments on other favorites…

Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts

The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy

Two Nights in Lisbon, Chris Pavone

The 39 Steps, John Buchan

Running Blind (Jack Reacher #4), Lee Child

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle,Stuart Turton

Without Fail (Jack Reacher #6), Lee Child

Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy

Dave Barry Turns 50, Dave Barry

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, & Happiness, Morgan Housel

Sometimes I give out an award titled "The Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick My Shin Under the Table", because I go on and on about lessons learned.  This is one of those books.

The Power of the Dog: Power of the Dog Book 1, Don Winslow

The only reason I didn't honor Winslow again this year is that I gave his book The Force an award last year, and wrote about him with some length.  But this is even better than The Force.

The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton

Red Sparrow: Book 1 of Red Sparrow Trilogy, Jason Matthews

The Summer Game, Roger Angell

The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting, William Goldman

A great read about screenwriting and moviemaking - or at least, screenwriting and moviemaking in the 70s and 80s.  Particularly recommended if you loved Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell

The 6:20 Man (6:20 Man #1), David Baldacci

The Innocence of Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton

The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Andrew Roberts

Dress Her in Indigo: (Travis McGee #12), John D. MacDonald

The It Girl, Ruth Ware

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid

A fictional oral history of a Fleetwood Mac-like band.  Excellent book, I should have given it a JB!

Swordpoint: The WWII Collection, Max Hennessey

Samuel Adams: The Revolutionary, Stacy Schiff

Adams is on the short list of Underrated Americans, and Schiff is on the short list of underrated historians.  For more on Schiff, see my previous post about the Benjamin Franklin series on Apple TV.

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls #1), Deborah Harkness

I'm two books into this series and I haven't experienced this kind of thrill around vampires since Anne Rice's heyday.

The Edge (6:20 Man #2), David Baldacci

The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

The Resurrection Walk (Lincoln Lawyer #7), Michael Connelly

The Ocean and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story, Mark Helprin

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, Noa Tishby

The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, Keith Law

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, Michael Korda

Flashman (The Flashman Papers 1), George MacDonald Fraser

A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle #1), Ursula K. Le Guin

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King

Case Histories: Jackson Brodie 1, Kate Atkinson

In Sunlight and in Shadow, Mark Helprin

Think Twice: Myron Bolintar #12, Harlan Coben

The Lion's Game: John Corey #2 , Nelson DeMille

Not DeMille's best - it should be a few hundred pages shorter and perhaps have a more wrapped up ending.  But DeMille passed this year, and he gave me many hours of reading pleasure.  The outpouring of support on social media from the giants of thriller writers suggest he was also a beloved and generous man.  Long Island really produces some winners.

Shadow of Night (All Souls #2), Debora Harkness

The Collector (Gabriel Allon #23), Daniel Silva

Apple TV's Franklin: A Sort of Review

When Hollywood takes on a historical subject I am interested in, I greet the news with cautious joy.  If I’m lucky, I’ll get something as good as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.  If I’m unlucky, I’ll have to endure Ridley Scott’s Napoleon.

It was with this happy trepidation that I tuned into Apple TV+’s historical miniseries, Franklin.  The 8-part series is based on Stacy Schiff’s* book “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America”.

* I haven’t read the book, but I have read Schiff’s excellent biographies of Cleopatra and Samuel Adams.  She is an accomplished historian who is deeply knowledgeable of the period

The show does some things very well, others less well.  And perhaps has a fatal flaw that prevents it from rising to greatness – something that was within its grasp.

Keatang’s Rules of History Movies

I have some rules for history movies or miniseries.  Or, to paraphrase Dr. Peter Venkman, they’re more guidelines than rules.  Let’s see how Franklin did:

Use a Smaller Story to Tell a Bigger Story

One might think a show titled Franklin would be a full-scale biography of one of our great Founders.  

But you won’t see him sign the Declaration of Independence or create the US Postal Service.  There are no scenes of him kite-flying in a thunderstorm or inventing bifocals.  Neither George Washington nor Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton or Madison, will grace the screen.

Franklin wisely zeroes in on an important period in Franklin’s life and the life of our country: the  near-decade he spent in France, first trying to gain France's support (military, financial, and diplomatic) for the American Revolution, then negotiating the Treaty of Paris ending that war.

This approach works.  Napoleon (a movie I will not be kind to in this piece) failed for many reasons, not least of which is that Ridley Scott tried to capture 28 history-packed years into 3 hours.  Even a filmmaker as unconcerned with historical truth as Scott can’t do that.  

Get the Period Details Right 

I have spent little to no time in pre-Revolutionary France, so maybe they didn’t get the details right.  But boy it sure it felt like they did.

Much of it was filmed at Versailles itself, and in spots throughout Paris, and it shows.  Spectacularly so.

The wardrobe and makeup seem to capture the ridiculous glamour of the Ancien Regime.

I have an admiration for historical shows that realize the world was much darker before Franklin discovered electricity (jk) and have the courage to show that, while still properly lighting the scene.

And Franklin does a masterful job of slipping back and forth between English and sub-titled French.

Finally…and this is a tricky subject…but unlike some other recent period films, there is no colorblind casting.  There are Black actors but they are playing Black characters.  There are good reasons for colorblind casting, particularly in a fictional setting.  But when a production is doing so much difficult and expensive work to make you believe you are in 18th century France, that can be undone by, say, 18th century French Ministers of Finance that look nothing like 18th century French Ministers of Finance.  

And having Black characters, rather than Black actors playing white characters, makes it possible to show period attitudes towards race.  Colorblind casting will show said Minister of Finance meeting with the King, and everyone in the room is cool with the fact that the Minister of Finance is Black.  When in actual 18th century France, I assure you, they would not be cool.  Instead, we get to see French nobility react to a louche young noble bringing an "African" actress to a ball, or see the the casual racism of John Jay compared to the more enlightened John Adams.  

The Truth is More Important Than the Facts

Novels, movies, and miniseries based on history are not documentaries.  They are fictional retellings of historical events.  And it is impossible to be completely faithful to the facts in this medium.

For example, the peace negotiations for the Treaty of Paris ran from April 1782 through its drafting in November, to its signing in September of the following year.  That’s a year and a half.

Director Tim Van Patten* had about 45 minutes of screen time to show this.  Some telescoping is necessary.

So, while what we see isn’t necessarily what happened, it is faithful to the truth of what happened.  Well done. (You’ll be shocked to hear that Napoleon got the truth and the facts wrong.)

* TVP is the half-brother of Dick Van Patten, the Dad from Eight is Enough.  His filmography is a list of the best television shows of the last two decades.  He has directed episodes of The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, and more.

I'd be remiss however if I didn't object to the characterization of John Adams. Adams is used as a foil against Franklin.  Where Franklin is charming, Adams is rude and awkward.  Franklin's French is imperfect but passable; Adams' is clumsy and intelligible.  Franklin reads every person and moment perfectly; Adams blunders about cluelessly.  

Adams was a brilliant man, and Franklin knew it.  They give him a bit of a redemption at the end, but I may have to rewatch the HBO John Adams miniseries to forget this rendition.

Don’t Cast a Famous Person in the Role of a Famous Person

Even in a country as historically disinterested as America, most people have an idea of what Benjamin Franklin looks like.  Bald, paunchy, kindly, wise.  

Hollywood’s makeup artists, I’m sure, could have made Michael Douglas look more like Franklin.  Instead we get a rather svelte figure whose hairline was not retreating like the British from Lexington and Concord.

The performance was charming, the lines well-delivered, the twinkle in the eye perfect.  But not for one minute did I believe I was looking at Benjamin Franklin, American Founder.  I was always quite aware I was looking at Michael Douglas, American Movie Star*.

* As my friend Lucky pointed out, if you want a believable performance of Benjamin Franklin, check out Tom Wilkinson in the John Adams miniseries.

But hey – he was many thousands times better than whatever the heck Joaquin Phoenix was doing in Napoleon!  (damn, that movie infuriated me; I should do a review of that but I’d have to watch it again).  

*  The exception to this rule is Daniel Day-Lewis’ sublime performance in Lincoln

Thank You Apple

Whenever I review a history move/show, I feel bad because I nitpick at the edges.  In truth, I am very grateful that Apple actually greenlighted this show.  

Imagine that pitch meeting:

“So, we want to do a miniseries about Benjamin Franklin.”

“Oh, interesting!.  Declaration of Independence, all of the Founding Fathers.  Sounds great!”

“Actually, no, it will take place in France.”

“What?”

“Yeah, there’s going to be hours and hours of Franklin negotiating with French ministers, followed by hours and hours of Franklin negotiation with British officials.”

“Um…”

“Did I mention most of it will be in French?”

“Wait…”

“With sub-titles.  And half of it will be French spoken poorly by Americans.”

“I dunno…”

“What if we had Michael Douglas looking geriatrically sexy in the title role?”

“Done!”

Seriously, I’m grateful this kind of television is being made.  I know more about this history than the next guy, and probably the guy next to him.  But I still learned quite a bit from the show.  It captured well the competing interests of great nations, life in the ancien regime, and the wily charm of one of our greatest Americans.

As for Ridley Scott...just as Bonaparte himself gave us Austerlitz and Waterloo, you gave us Gladiator and Napoleon.  You win some, you lose some, right?

Pete Rose RIP

Moments after the New York Mets finished the most exciting (and, depending on how things play out, the most consequential) regular season game of their 62-year history, news arrived that Pete Rose died.

(It also happened to be my birthday, but that is neither here nor there.)

As a sports fan, I have been married to the New York Mets for as long as I can remember. 

No choice really.  I was born in Flushing.  My Dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, so it was a National League house.  My Italian grandmother loved the Mets.  Ed Kranepool lived around the corner, and the restaurant he operated with Ron Swoboda was half a mile away. 

But in the late 70s and early 80s, while I remained in a loveless and passionless marriage with the New York Mets, I had a torrid love affair with the Cincinnati Reds.

I wish I could blame it on M. Donald Grant.  On June 15, 1977, Grant traded Tom Seaver from the Mets to the Reds.  I could say, hey, the Mets betrayed me, my hero went to the Reds, and I followed him there.

I wish I could blame it on the 1976 World Series.  The Reds swept the Yankees, and by the transitive property of ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’, I became a Reds fan.

But alas, the timeline doesn’t work.  My cheating had begun as far back as ’75.

And at the heart of my love affair with the Cincinnati Reds and the Big Red Machine was my man crush on Peter Edward Rose.

The Big Red Machine

As a kid I loved baseball.  I’d put baseball cards in the spokes of my bicycle.  I thought the height of fashion was a long sleeve shirt under a short sleeve shirt with a batting glove in the back pocket. I would buy Big League Chew, even though it was horrible gum, because it approximated chewing tobacco. 

And I would read baseball statistics.  No, not read…I would study baseball statistics.  

If someone said Ty Cobb had the highest single season batting average, I would correct them.  “Nope, Nap Lajoie hit .426 in 1901.” 

I knew Joe Gordon won the MVP* the year Ted Williams won the Triple Crown.

I could reel off the top 10 hitters on the all-time hit list.

And I would absolutely devour the backs of baseball cards.  I studied them like Hebrew scholars study the Talmud. 

And in the mid-70s, when I was really into baseball statistics, the Big Red Machine had the most awesome statistics, the most fun-to-read backs of baseball cards.

How stacked was this lineup?

• Joe Morgan won consecutive MVPs
•  Johnny Bench was the best-hitting catcher of all time
•  George Foster’s 1977 season was the best by a hitter over 3 decades
•  Tony Perez, arguably the 5th best hitter on the team, is in the Hall of Fame

Heck, even the lesser players…

• Cesar Geronimo won 4 Gold Gloves from 74-77 and oh by the way hit .307 in 76
•  Dave Conception played in 9 All Star games
• Ken Griffey Sr. hit .300 over the 5 years he was on the Big Red Machine, and presaged his son’s career with fabulous outfield play

But the most exciting player on the team, at least for me - and, based on the recent documentary, Charlie Hustle and the Matter of Pete Rose, the entire city of Cincinnati+ - was Pete Rose.

He had the stats, of course.  Batting titles and consecutive 200 hit seasons and hitting streaks and so so many doubles.

But it was more than that.  He was such a baseball player.  The headfirst slides.  Sprinting to first base.  All-star at 5 different positions.  Switch-hitter.  It was hard to imagine anyone loving baseball - loving playing baseball - as much as Pete Rose.

By the mid-80s, a lot had changed.  The Big Red Machine had long since idled.  The Mets had awoken from hibernation and were exciting again.  The New York Football Giants had my attention, almost as much as any baseball team.

And yet, I must have still been into Pete Rose.  Because my sister – on September 30, 1985 – 39 years to the day before Pete’s death – gave me a scrapbook for my birthday.  It is filled with newspaper and magazine clippings of Pete’s 1985 season – the year he caught and passed Ty Cobb on the all-time hit list. 

The Tragedy of Pete Rose

I won’t dwell on all that came after.  And I won't weigh in on the Hall of Fame candidacy - I have mixed feelings about that.  

But I do want to say the remainder of Pete’s life was a Shakespearean tragedy. 

(There are wonderful Shakespeare quotes about roses – not just the famous “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, but also ‘the rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem for that sweet odour which doth in it live.”  But really the most accurate quote for this section comes from the hair metal band Poison: “Every Rose has its thorn”).

Here’s the thing about the great Shakespearean tragedies: the protagonist’s downfall comes about because of a fatal character flaw.  Indeed, that flaw is sometimes too much of a virtue.  Macbeth’s ambition.  Lear’s vanity.  Othello’s jealousy.  Hamlet’s intellect.

Pete Rose might well be the most competitive sonofabitch in modern American sports.  And competitive people love the action.  (Michael Jordan, another possible contender for the competitor throne, was known to place a bet or two.)

And when gambling threatened to destroy his life he did what all problem gamblers do – he doubled down.  He lied for decades about gambling on baseball.  Watching the recent documentary I got to thinking that Pete had embodied the George Costanza theory of lying: It’s not a lie if you believe it.

Pete's competitiveness, the fire that made  him one of the most exciting athletes of my lifetime, is a big part of what brought him down.  

All these years later I’m not quite sure how I feel about Pete Rose.  But I can’t help but think that the Twitter wit behind Super70s Sports said it best:

"Super Sky Point to Peter Edward Rose. He was crass. He was selfish. He was full of shit. He was his own worst enemy. But nobody played harder, nobody loved baseball more, nobody won more games, and nobody got more hits. He’ll always be a Hall of Famer to this kid. #RIP"

 

* Gordon led the AL in strikeouts and GIDP, and led all 2nd basemen in errors!  That, my friends, was an injustice

+ Local banks in Cincinnati wouldn't let people use 4192 as their ATM pin because it was too easy to guess

 

The Third Miracle

Dickey Betts, RIP

[I wrote this with the album Brothers and Sisters on.  It would make my day if you read it the same way.]

The term ‘Southern Rock’ was always a bit of misnomer.  The signature bands of the genre not only had differing influences – everything from the obvious country and blues to the less obvious British invasion and jazz – they often had very different instrumental lineups.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, for example, was the only major Southern Rock band with a pianist in the main lineup of the band.

The Marshall Tucker Band had Jerry Eubanks, whose saxophone and flute were regularly featured.

Genre pioneer Charlie Daniels was, quite famously, a fiddle player.  

And The Allman Brothers Band had Gregg Allman playing organ.  

But the true signature sound of Southern Rock was the dual – and sometimes triple – guitar attack.  

Dickey Betts, alongside the virtuoso Duane Allman, completely reinvented the idea of two lead guitars.  The traditional lead/rhythm was replaced by two leads going back and forth with each other.  

You can hear this sound on Layla, with Duane and Eric Clapton, and on most of the Skynyrd catalogue featuring Gary Rossington and Allen Collins.  

But in its purest form, listen to Dickey Betts and Duane Allman on ‘Blue Sky’, a Betts composition.  In particular, listen to them in this extraordinary recording at Stony Brook University*:

* for reasons I’ve never understood, Southern Rock was always hugely popular in the New York suburbs, and Long Island in particular

And then, Duane Allman died.

Surely, a band that loses its leader, the gifted musician whose session work got The Allman Brothers Band a record contract in the first place, would mean the end of that band?

But the Allman Brothers had another Allman, Gregg, who was a great songwriter and an extraordinary vocalist.

And they had a third miracle: Dickey Betts.  On the first album after Duane’s death, ‘Brothers and Sisters’, all he did was write two classics:  Rambling Man and Jessica.  

Rambling Man was by far ABB’s biggest hit.  And Jessica has remained a classic rock staple.

Dickey Betts is in the conversation of most underrated classic rock star.  Maybe it’s because he was in a band called The Allman Brothers and his name wasn’t Allman.  Maybe it’s because the lost promise of Duane Allman and the celebrity journey of Gregg Allman overshadowed him.  

But Forrest Richard Betts was a true classic rock Renaissance man.  He was a songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist.  He wrote songs that can be deemed country, blues, rock, and jazz.  He was trying to make a living, and doing the best he can.  And his best was pretty damned good.

Rest in Peace, Dickey Betts.  

--

Quick personal story: when I was a pre-teen falling in love with music, me and my friends went to a pizza joint in Massapequa Park called Bi-County Pizza.  This place had the worst jukebox.  Disco crap like ‘Ring My Bell’ and Donna Summer.  There were exactly two rock songs on this jukebox: Third Time Lucky by Foghat.  And Blue Sky by the Allman Brothers Band.  As you might imagine, we played Blue Sky A LOT. 

The Johnny Bingo Awards - 2023

Best Books Read by Me This Year

It’s the moment that readers around the world didn’t know they were waiting for – The Johnny Bingo Awards!  As a reminder here are the criteria for The JBs – actually, criterion – which I have slightly updated due to the fact that the Dick Clark reference was getting a bit dated:

This award too has only one criterion – for a book to be eligible, I had to have finished reading it this year. It could’ve 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 last paragraph before the clock hits midnight on December 31, New York time, it is eligible for a JB.

In my quest to be as inconsistent as possible, this is (I think?) my first-ever Top 10 list.  Also, for the first time this year, I'll list all eligible books at the bottom.

But first, I need to take my annual swipe at the Nobel Prize in Literature.  This year’s winner was Jon Fosse.  Heard of him?  Me neither! 

Apparently he is a Norwegian playwright/novelist who is largely unknown around the world.  His Wikipedia entry, in a quest for accolades, can only come up with kudos like “the second most performed Norwegian playwright” and “ranked number 83 on the list of the Top 100 living geniuses by The Daily Telegraph”.  Well, if this doesn’t melt your snow, I don’t know what will.

Cormac McCarthy, on the other hand, will never give an acceptance speech in Stockholm.  He died this summer.  

On to the winners!

Best Unexpected Read

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab

Sometimes I take a chance on a book based on the title alone.  And I liked the name ‘Addie LaRue’.  Glad I did!  This is a delightful tale of a young Frenchwoman in 1714 who gains immortality, but at the cost of not being remembered by anyone who lays eyes on her.  We follow her through the centuries to the denouement in present-day New York  A fun read.

Best Series

The Hornblower Saga, C.S. Forester

Like many lovers of historical fiction, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series is one of the greatest pleasures of my reading life.  (And, a 2007 Johnny Bingo Award winner, the inaugural year of this prestigious prize)

The Hornblower Saga – 8 novels spanning the career of Horatio Hornblower from midshipman to Admiral – was an inspiration for Aubrey/Maturin.  Less literary and more of an adventure tale, it covers nearly the entire span of the Napoleonic Wars.  I highly recommend reading it in the order of Hornblower’s career, rather than the order in which it was published.

Best History Book by a Politician

The Naval War of 1812,Theodore Roosevelt

When Theodore Roosevelt was only 24 years old, he published the definitive history of the Naval War of 1812.  It was not just a thorough account of the war, but an argument for the importance of sea power.  The book was so well-received that a copy of it was placed on every ship in the United States Navy. 

Fourteen years later he was named Assistant Secretary of the Navy, where he successfully lobbied for a build-up of naval strength.  Five years after that he became President, and as President he sent the Great White Fleet on a tour of the globe – a friendly tour but one that said to the rest of the world, “Don’t mess with the US Navy.”  

For three decades, nobody did.  Then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.  It didn't work out well for them.

Anyway, a first edition of this book will hopefully be the next valuable addition to my library.

Best History Book by a Journalist

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Jon Meacham

The non-Presidential part of Andrew Jackson’s life is so fascinating, I thought a book focused just on his Presidency would be boring.  I was wrong.

I bought this book while visiting the Hermitage, Jackson’s home outside Nashville.  Like most great history books, it gives an insight into the world we live in today, and in particular how presidential power evolves, and is very different depending on who sits in the Oval Office.

And for this long time student of the Civil War, I was surprised to learn how that war nearly started 30 years earlier, and may well have if not for Andrew Jackson’s powerful belief in the Union.

Best History Book by an Actual Historian 

Power and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages, Dan Jones

Jones is an actual historian - a first-class history degree from Cambridge and 10 history books to his credit, mostly about medieval England.  But he's also a novelist, a TV presenter, a sportswriter...

Dan Jones is, above all, a story teller.  

This account of the middle ages is the kind of book that might make the serious reader cringe a bit.  The title, for example, is clearly trying to get the attention of Game of Thrones fans browsing the bookstore.  

But his passion for the stories he is telling, and his skill at organizing large complex histories into a compelling narrative, is truly a gift.  I'll be reading more of him.  

Best Classic Novel

Things Fall Apart (African Trilogy, Book 1), Chinua Achebe

Kudos to Amazon, who consistently recommended this book to me in Kindle ads, so I finally took a shot.  What an elegant novel about pre-colonial life in Africa, and how the arrival of European missionaries in the late 19th century shattered that.

Best Spy Novel(s)

Slough House series, Mick Herron

George Smiley, the chief protagonist of John LeCarre's novels*, has long been considered the ultimate anti-Bond.  Where James Bond is a natty womanizer who defends England with his gun, Smiley is a homely cuckold who defends England with his brain.

Jackson Lamb, the weathered MI5 agent who leads the gang of misfit toys known as the Slow Horses, makes Smiley look like Bond.  This is a wonderful series - legitimately good spy novels with earned comedy and excellent character studies.

I highly recommend the Apple TV series, with Gary Oldman having the time of his life as Lamb.

* A 2020 Johnny Bingo winner

The Best Book Most Likely to Make My Wife Kick Me Under the Table

 Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein

I first gave this award out in 2020.  Here's how I described it:

There's a certain kind of book - nonfiction, well-written, a colon in the title and a Big Idea at its heart - that will make me talk about it for months afterward.  Eventually, I'm out to dinner with friends and 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.

David Epstein was nominated for this award back then for The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance.  But alas, he lost to Joshua Foer's Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (that's the book with the memory palaces).

Anyway, I'm sure he's thrilled to win this year's award!

Best Sports Book

A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers, John Feinstein

Bobby Knight's passing this year put this book on my radar, and lo and behold, the 25th anniversary edition was sitting on my son's shelf.  So I swiped it.

In the preface to this edition, Feinstein addresses all of the theories as to why this book has resonated with people for so long (it was published in the mid-80s).  The timing, the access he had, the way it was written.  But Feinstein is right when he says what made this book so special is the unique character that is Robert Montgomery Knight.  

This clip rather perfectly captures that perfect.  RIP Bob Knight.

Best Book of the Year

People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks  

Occasionally you come across an author, and after finishing the last page, you say to yourself, "Self, I'm going to read everything she ever wrote."  Geraldine Brooks is one of those authors.

People of the Book is not one of her most lauded books, but a particularly timely one.  This book is part scientific/literary detective story, part historical fiction, and part romance.  But it's also a reminder of all the times in the past half millenium that the Jewish people faced existential threats - the expulsion of Jews from Spain, the Inquisition, Vienna in the 1890s, the Nazis, and more.  

But it's also a tale of ecumenical hope.   And we can all use a bit of that these days.

ELIGIBLE BOOKS FOR THIS YEARS JOHNNY BINGO AWARDS

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, V.E. Schwab

The Happy Return (Beat to Quarters): The Hornblower Saga #6, C.S. Forester

A Ship of the Line: The Hornblower Saga #7 C.S. Forester

Troy: Our Greatest Story Retold Stephen Fry

Flying Colors: The Hornblower Saga #8 C.S. Forester

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789 Robert Middlekauff

Hornblower and the Atropos: The Hornblower Saga # 5) C.S. Forester

A Test of Wills: Ian Rutledge Mystery #1 Charles Todd

The Captain from Connecticut C.S. Forester

The Gods of Gotham: Timothy Wilde #1 Lyndsay Faye

The Naval War of 1812 Theodore Roosevelt

Readings in the Classical Historians Michael Grant

Things Fall Apart (African Trilogy, Book 1) Chinua Achebe

Rules of Prey, Lucas Davenport #1 John Sandford

War of the Roses #1: Stormbird Conn Iggulden

Dead Lions, Slough House #2 Mick Herron

War of the Roses #2: Margaret of Anjou Conn Iggulden

Mr. Churchill's Secretary: A Maggie Hope Mystery (#1) Susan Elia Macneil

The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper, Travis McGee #10 John D. MacDonald

Mistborn: The Final Empire #1 Brandon Sanderson

D-Day: The Battle for Normandy Anthony Beevor

Joyland Stephen King

God Save the Mark Donald E. Westlake

Real Tigers: Slough House #3 Mick Herron

Innocent Scott Turow

The Hot Rock: Dormunder #1 Donald Westlake

Power and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages Dan Jones

Look Before You Leap (includes: And Then He Went Away) Donald E. Westlake

The Four Foundations of Golf: How To Build a Game That Lasts a Lifetime Jon Sherman

Act of Oblivion Robert Harris

Cloud Cuckoo Land Anthony Doerr

Henry V William Shakespeare

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder David Grann

War of the Roses #3: Bloodline Conn Iggulden

One Fearful Yellow Eye: Travis McGee #11 John D. MacDonald

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House Jon Meacham

Pale Gray for Guilt: Travis McGee #12 John D. MacDonald

Portrait of an Unknown Woman: Gabriel Allon #22 Daniel Silva

Desert Rose: Harry Bosch/Renee Ballard mystery Michael Connelly

Essex Dogs: #1 Dan Jones

War of the Roses #4: Ravenspur Conn Iggulden

The Commodore: The Hornblower Saga #9 C.S. Forester

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World David Epstein

Down the River Unto the Sea: King Oliver #1 Walter Moseley

Lord Hornblower: The Hornblower Saga #10 C.S. Forester

Hornblower in the West Indies: The Hornblower Saga #11 C.S. Forester

A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers John Feinstein

Spook Street: Slough House #4 Mick Herron

People of the Book Geraldine Brooks

Girl with a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier

A Musical Epiphany

On the Surprising Influences of The Lynyrd Skynyrd Band

Here’s one of those sentences that makes me feel old:  I’ve been listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd for 41 years. 

And for 40 of those years, if you asked me to name Skynyrd’s musical influences I would have said:

-         = Outlaw country, particularly Merle Haggard

-          = Old school Blues

I had good reason for thinking this.  Skynyrd covered Haggard’s Honky Tonk Night Time Man on their last album.  Lyrically, they had much more in common with the Bakersfield sound than, say, rock and roll contemporaries like Bruce Springsteen or The Rolling Stones. Heck, Merle Haggard sang at Ronnie Van Zant’s funeral!

As for the Blues…they name-checked Son House in Swamp Music.  The fictional Curtis Loew is a character out of a Delta blues song.  And of course, they cover Robert Johnson’s Crossroads on ‘One More From the Road’.

But I had a musical revelation recently.  And since today is the anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and Dean Kilpatrick, I thought I’d share it with you.

 

One of the quirks of the Era of Music Streaming is that the classic albums offered on Spotify, Apple Music, etc., are often ‘Deluxe’ and ‘Extended’ and ‘Super Deluxe Extended’.  They have outtakes and alternate takes and duplicate takes, which can be awesome but is also sometimes really annoying.  Like, maybe I just want to hear Tom Petty’s ‘Wildflowers’ as it was originally released, and not 9 other songs I don’t associate with that album?

About a year ago I was listening to the Skynyrd live album ‘One More From the Road (Deluxe Edition)’, specifically the alternate take of Crossroads.  I had always thought they were doing the old Robert Johnson blues song, which is actually called Cross Road Blues.  In fact, they ARE doing the old Robert Johnson blues song Cross Road Blues, albeit a rock and roll version. 

But in my deluxe edition Ronnie told a little story I’d never heard before:

"I remember one time when Allen and Gary and myself had to collect some Coke bottles* to go down to Miami to see a group we wanted to see.  And we did, and I thought they were the best group we ever saw.  I still do.  This is a song by them.  We’re going to try and do it for you."

 

In their minds, they weren’t playing Cross Road Blues, a 1936 blues song by Robert Johnson.  They were playing a 1968 Cream song!  When they were in high school, they weren’t country boys listening to old blues and country, they were hippies listening to rock and roll.  They weren’t idolizing Merle Haggard and Robert Johnson – their God was Eric Clapton.

* echoes of ‘The Ballad of Curtis Loew’

 

From here, I dug into another story I sort of know, which I’ll share with you here along with some of my own theorizing. 

Not too long after Ronnie and Allen and Gary saw the best group they ever saw, they formed their own group, named after their high school gym teacher, Leonard Skinner.  And that band started kicking ass, and then that band got a record contract.  And they went to the fabled Muscle Shoals studio and made a record.  And they gave the record to the record company, which led to the following conversation, which I completely made up but also might be true:

Record Company Executive:  ‘What the hell is this?’

Skynyrd:  ‘It’s our record.  Do you like it?’

RCE:  ‘Um, no, we don’t.  It sounds like every other record.  It sounds like a bad Cream record.  We like you guys because you have something different.  You’re rock, but you’re also…I dunno…Southern.  Like, um, Rock Southern.  Or something.  Now go back to the studio and give us a completely different album.’

 

And they did.  They went back into the studio and came out with a completely different album, ‘Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd’.  

Oh, you want a different album Mr. Record Company Executive?  How about one with Freebird, Gimme Three Steps, Tuesday's Gone and Simple Man!  You like this record?

Sadly, 5 years, 5 studio albums, and one incredible live album later, on this day in 1977, a plane crashed.  And we’d never get another Lynyrd Skynyrd album again.

Or would we?  Somebody remembered that old Muscle Shoals album and released it in 1978 as ‘Skynyrd’s First…and Last’.  And you know what – it’s a really good record!  It’s very different than Pronounced, and I think in some ways sounds more like the pop sound of ‘Street Survivors’, which preceded it in release.  On the other hand, there are songs on there that make me feel that record company executive's pain.  What the hell is this?

I guess none of this should have surprised me.  After all, Sweet Home Alabama’s was co-written by a southern California guy who was in a psychedelic band called Strawberry Alarm Clock.  The anxiety of influence, indeed. 

Note:  I doubt very many people got this far, but if you did and want to hear more about my teenage obsession with Skynyrd, check out my sort-of obituary for Billy Powell.

The Kings (and Queen) of Rock

Forget Album Sales.  The Way to Track Artists Today is Spotify Stats 

About a year ago I was talking to my friend Windex about a recent musical obsession, an early 90s alt-country band called Uncle Tupelo.  I was in the middle of explaining how influential they were when his daughter looked them up on Spotify, and found they had fewer than 300,000 monthly listeners.  

In other words, borderline irrelevant.

The idea of ranking musicians by Spotify stats had never occurred to me before.  And since I’m a perfectly normal person who does perfectly normal things in his spare time, I decided to do a bit of a deep dive on classic rock artists and glean from the data what I could.

Let me be clear: I am well aware that Monthly Listeners, like all statistics, is deeply flawed.  It doesn’t factor how many songs are listened to, or how many hours.  It doesn't capture how many people are listening on other streaming platforms, or on other mediums.  It is quite simply the number of unique individuals who listened to that artist that month on that streaming platform.

But it is not, like Uncle Tupelo, irrelevant.  Streaming gives us meaningful metrics about what people are choosing to listen to.  Before streaming, record sales was the best metric we had.  But just because you bought that O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, it didn't mean you were throwing it on the turntable every day. To compare artists who were at their peak 20 or 30 or even 60 years ago, to see how many people are listening to them today, means something.  

Not artistic value, I’ll grant you.  But here’s the thing about artistic longevity: the really good stuff holds up.  Shakespeare may have been fighting Christopher Marlowe for the attention of London playgoers in the 1590s, but half a millennium later it’s no fight at all.  Moby Dick, Mozart, Michelangelo – artistic greatness persists.

And rock and roll as an art form is now old enough that maybe, just maybe, seeing who people (or at least, Spotify subscribers) are actually listening to is at least interesting, and possibly meaningful.  

Or maybe it’s just a fun way for me to spend an evening!

A Word About Methodology

This is a snapshot in time: particularly, the day of February 1, 2023.  Every statistic presented here is the Monthly Listeners (MLs, from now on) of a particular artist on that day.

My criteria was rock artists whose first album was released before I graduated college in 1988.  An arbitrary date, for sure, but it just worked out that way.  I started with the biggies – Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, etc.  I looked at solo artists like Billy Joel and Bruce.  I kept digging until I ended up with 30 artists.  These are not necessarily the top 30, but close enough.  You won’t see Rush or Grateful Dead or CSNY or other popular acts, because they tended to have numbers that were neither interesting or surprising (generally in the low single digit millions).  But you will see, for example, various members of the Beatles as solo artists, because their individual numbers tell us something about the enduring popularity of the biggest and most important rock and roll band.  

To give you a little context, here are the monthly listeners of the Top 3 artists on Spotify right now:

1. The Weeknd 97m

2. Taylor Swift 79m

3. Ed Sheeran 77m

The top Classic Rock artist is in 40th place today, with 48 million MLs.  The Beatles, with 27 million monthly listeners, are sandwiched in 120th place between Em Beihold and DJ Snake*.

*  Before you think this is a Sign of the Apocalypse, remember two things:  1) Millions of older folk are still listening to CDs and their iTunes library, so Spotify Monthly Listeners is far more likely to undercount older acts than they are to undercount, say, Mr. Snake.  Also, I’m pretty sure those two artists won’t be doing as well as the Beatles 52 years after their last recording.

My list of 30 artists is at the bottom.  But first - some observations.

Captain Fantastic

You will probably be surprised to hear the list is topped by… Sir Elton John, with 48 million Monthly Listeners!  

But I think that is a fluke.  His top-streamed song, by far, is "Cold Heart (Pnau remix)", a 2021 hit.  Pnau, as I’m sure you all know, is a trio of Australian producers who took a trio of Elton John songs from the 70s, added some vocals from the English-Albanian singer Dua Lipa, and produced a monster hit.  

It's quite good.  But the timing of this hit has Sir Elton much higher on the list, methinks, than he normally might be.  If I was doing this little experiment in 2015, when Paul McCartney was topping the charts with "FourFiveSeconds", his collaboration with Rihanna and Kanye, the numbers would have been similarly skewed.  So you’ll forgive me, I hope, if I declare the true Classic Rock Spotify Monthly Listeners crown goes where crowns often sit, on the head of the...

Queen!

With 42m MLs, Queen has nearly as many listeners as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined.  Nearly 7 times more than The Who.  Two and a half times more than U2.  What the what?

Yes, the movie Bohemian Rhapsody won Oscars and put them back on the map, but that was in 2018.  A lot has changed in the world since then!  You might be equally surprised to hear that their most listened to song, by far, isn’t "We Are The Champions" or “We Will Rock You" or even "Another One Bites the Dust".  It is "Don’t Stop Me Now’, which has more than twice as many listeners as any song produced by any of the artists in the paragraph above.  Color me shocked.

Oh, and if you're wondering how the King did...Elvis Presley has 17 million Monthly Listeners.  Not bad when you consider most of his surviving fans have no idea what Spotify is.

The World Makes Sense Again

Once you get past the first two anomalies on the list, the world regains its normalcy with The Beatles, who as usual beat all of their British Invasion rivals, with 27m listeners.  It’s also worth noting that Paul McCartney (10.7m), John Lennon (10.6m), and George Harrison (7.3m) all have respectable numbers.  Indeed double those of  Rush and the Grateful Dead.  Heck, even Ringo has a million MLs.

Fleetwood Mac vs. The Eagles

The two California-based 70s bands with colorful backstories and monster albums both did well – but it’s Fleetwood Mac with the easy win.  They are 4th on my list, with 25m MLs.  The Eagles are back in 15th place, with a very respectable 18m.

Heavy Metal Still Rules

How about this:  the next 3 artists on the list, all with roughly 24m MLs, are AC/DC, Guns ‘N Roses, and Metallica.  All of them rather easily beat Led Zeppelin (17m), their spiritual forerunner, and a band that was much bigger in their prime than any of these 3 (with the possible exception of AC/DC).  Most surprising to me is GNR, given how small their discography is.

The King of New Jersey

The growing popularity and respectability of Bon Jovi is one of the mysteries of our times.  This was a cheesy hair band, a less menacing version of Motley Crue.  And now he’s* beloved and respected and in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?  Warren Zevon can’t get in but this dude with the stone-washed denim jeans and frosted tips feathered hair writing cringey high school poetry lyrics can? 

Well, it’s worse than you thought: his Spotify MLs (24m) are significantly higher than Bruce Springsteen (14m).  Now look, if I'm in a bar and "Living on a Prayer" comes on I'm going to sing along about Tommy and Gina as loudly as the next guy.  But seriously, how did we allow this to happen?

On a related note, Bruce also lost the Battle of the Tri-State Troubadors: Billy Joel’s 13th place finish edged out The Boss, too.

* Yes, I am aware that I'm slipping back and forth between 'they' and 'he' as if I'm not sure if Bon Jovi is a person or a band.  That's because I'm not sure and I don't care enough to find out.  

Random Notes

• Tom Petty (solo) beat Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Petty had 18 Top 100 Billboard hits with the Heartbreakers, and only 7 without them.  He released 13 studio albums with the Heartbreakers and 3 without them.  I consider this an upset.  (bonus fact: Petty’s biggest hit was actually released on a Stevie Nicks album ("Stop Dragging My Heart Around".  Put differently, Stevie Nick’s' biggest hit was written by Tom Petty.)

• Creedence Clearwater Revival existed for 4 years.  But they have more MLs than Bob Dylan, The Allman Brothers, and The Who…combined!

• Another shocker: Aerosmith just missed out on the Top 10, but still easily beat the likes of U2 and Pink Floyd.

• Perhaps the saddest thing on the list is The Who.  I always considered them one of the Big Four (along with Beatles, Stones, and Zep).  Alas, today, they can barely beat out George Harrison’s solo work.

• And finally: in the skirmish between Southern Rock bands, my beloved Lynyrd Skynyrd absolutely trounced the far more respected Allman Brothers.  I guess if you stick around for 30 years making one shitty record after another, it keeps those listeners rolling.  Maybe Neil Young (who has 2m fewer listeners than Neil Diamond) was wrong: it’s better to fade away than to burn out.

Here's the list:

1 Elton John                                        47,734,430 

2 Queen                                         42,222,980 

3 The Beatles                                 27,523,606 

4 Fleetwood Mac                         24,893,393 

5 AC/DC                                         24,418,378 

6 Guns N' Roses                         24,386,262 

7 Metallica                                         24,384,583 

8 Bon Jovi                                         22,734,657 

9 The Rolling Stones                         22,156,356 

10 CCR                                         21,557,748 

11 Aerosmith                                 21,404,458 

12 The Police                                 20,126,177 

13 Billy Joel                                         19,299,273 

14 U2                                                 18,568,809 

15 The Eagles                                 18,281,069 

16 Elvis Presley                                 17,386,843 

17 Pink Floyd                                 17,354,383 

18 Led Zeppelin                                 17,289,419 

19 Bruce Springsteen                          14,327,632 

20 Lynyrd Skynyrd                         13,011,316 

21 The Clash                                 10,760,711 

22 Paul McCartney                         10,754,194 

23 John Lennon                                 10,650,950 

24 The Beach Boys                         10,142,970 

25 Bob Dylan                                 9,267,357 

26 Tom Petty                                 8,187,505 

27 The Who                                         7,415,837 

28 George Harrison                         7,359,429 

29 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 6,262,043 

30 The Allman Brothers                 3,999,466 

The Johnny Bingo Award - 2022

It is late December, and therefore time for the least-anticipated literary prize of the year – The Johnny Bingo Award!  I’m sure you all remember how this works, but just in case here is a cut-and-paste reminder of the rules:

This award too has only one criterion – for a book to be eligible, I had to have started reading it this year. It could’ve 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 first paragraph before Dick Clark’s puppeteer walks him through the New Year’s Eve Countdown, it can be a winner.

There is a significant difference between The Johnny Bingo Award and the slightly more prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature: there is a chance you may have heard of my authors!

The Nobel Prize for Literature should be renamed “The Nobel Prize for a Random European Author Nobody Reads”.  This year, it went to somebody named Annie Ernaux.  As is often the case with the Nobel Prize for Literature, after the winner is announced readers all over the world say “Who?”, then go to the person’s Wikipedia page, which has like one paragraph, and then try to buy the book, and find it is out of print.

This is not a new phenomenon for the Nobel Prize.  In the 19th century they skipped over Leo Tolstoy and Mark Twain – who were beaten out by such literary giants as Bjornstjern Bjornson, Jose Echeragay, Henrik Sienkiewicz, and Rudolph Christoph Euken.   In the 20th century, Joyce, Nabokov and Proust were defeated by Lagerkvist, Andrik, and Elytis.   

So Cormac McCarthy*, my old friend, you may have published some masterpieces, but you committed the unpardonable sin of being liked by Oprah, The Coen Brothers, and actual readers.  No Nobel for you!

* McCarthy published two novels this year, his first in 16 years.  But alas he is not eligible for a JB as Santa Claus (actually my son) gifted them to me 4 days ago, and I have yet to read them.

On to the Johnny Bingos!

Best Biography

Peter the Great: His Life and World, Robert K. Massie

When Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, some ill-informed TV talking heads said he wanted to bring back the glory of the Soviet Union – to be the next Stalin.  But well-informed historians said no – he wanted to bring back the glory of Mother Russia – to be the next Peter the Great.

Robert K. Massie is the preeminent English-language historian of the Romanov Dynasty, and his biography of Peter has sat on my shelf a long time.  I bought it not long after reading his thrilling masterpiece, Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty.

Putin's blunder* finally inspired me to pull this one from the shelf, and it is well worth the 1000+ pages.  Like all great history, it illuminates our world while telling a thrilling story from the past.  

* By the way, remember how everyone thought the Russian army was going to roll through the Ukraine with ease?  Well, if you were reading Freetime you may have been more skeptical.  I wrote this piece the day before the invasion.  As I said above, history is almost always a better guide to the present than the TV news shouters.   

Best Newly Discovered Dead Writer*

John MacDonald

In a lifetime of reading mysteries and thrillers, not sure how John MacDonald slipped through the cracks.  Most famous for the Travis McGee series and his novel The Executioners (which inspired the two Cape Fear movies, the original with Robert Mitchum and the remake by Scorsese), MacDonald is a fascinating guy whose Wikipedia page is way more interesting than Annie...oh shoot I forgot her name already...

I like my serial private detectives (and McGee is kinda sorta one) to be resourceful and tough, but also flawed, intellectually-inclined, and a bit of a wise-ass.  I'm about 1/3 through the 21 McGee novels, and looking forward to the rest of them.

* if you're new to the Johnny Bingo Awards, you should know I just make up categories whenever I feel like it.  Speaking of which...

Best Book by a Newly Discovered Contemporary Writer

The Force, Don Winslow

When you read as much as I do, you sometimes worry you're going to run out of great books  But then one day you see a tweet about Don Winslow retiring from writing, and all sorts of book people with good taste are heartbroken about the retirement of Don Winslow, and I'm over here saying, "Uh, who is Don Winslow?"

So I did some research, and decided to read The Force by Don Winslow.  And I get why people are so upset.  Dude is good.  I am very much looking forward to reading The Cartel trilogy in 2023.

Oh, and I suspect he'll be back.  He's retiring from writing novels to make political videos opposing Trumpism.  Which seems like maybe not a long-term gig?

Best Book Recommended by a Friend

The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero, Timothy Egan

As a Civil War guy (not a buff), I was aware of Thomas Meagher as the general of the legendary Irish Brigade (or, The Fighting 69th).  But I had no idea that was only part of his extraordinary life.  

He was an Irish revolutionary, famous for his stirring oratory.  He was sent to the penal colony in Australia, from which he escaped in dramatic fashion.  A penniless immigrant in New York, he won the heart of a beautiful and wealthy socialite, who was devoted to him despite (or because of?) her family's disapproval.  After the Civil War, he became Governor of Montana, and died a mysterious death in the Old West.  And yeah, was one of the best fighting generals on either side of the Civil War.  

That, my friends, is a life.

(Hat tip to my bro-in-law Jocfun, who also recommended a Johnny Bingo runner-up, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz.)

Best Book by a Film Director

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino

This year I read two books by successful film directors, so let's make it a category!  Making Movies  by Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, and much more) is a highly readable, slightly dated book about how he makes movies.  From the script to working with actors to editing and lighting and so much more - it's a fine behind-the-scenes look at what it means to be a director.

But if you like QT movies as much as I do, I think you'll thoroughly enjoy his own novel based on his latest movie.  In part, it is a fleshing out of the story.  And in part, it is much more interior monologue from key characters.  But mostly it is an excuse for Tarantino, through his characters, to geek out on film.  

Best Book of the Year

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

This was one of the first books I read in 2022, so the words to describe it don't come easily.  But it reminded me a bit of some of Mark Helprin's finest books.  

Helprin is, to my mind, the most underrated novelist of my lifetime.  He didn't start out that way...one of his early novels, Winter's Tale, received (on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, no less) one of the most gushing reviews ever written:

"I find myself nervous, to a degree I don't recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance".  Benjamin Mott

Mott was not alone.  His first few novels all received this sort of adulation.  But the literary world lost interest in Helprin, I think perhaps because some of his politics, particularly in regard to Israel and Palestine, were unacceptable to the literary elite.  

Anyway Helprin's best novels have a mix of history, magic realism, philosophy and poetry that really speak to me.  A Gentleman in Moscow is more realism than magic.  And it has a core of stoic philosophy at its heart.

But spending a few hundred pages with Count Alexander Rostov will make you feel better about humanity, and perhaps about your own life.  

Congratulations to all the winners!

n.b. All the links to books here are to Bookshop.org.  I like the convenience of Amazon as much as the next guy, but if you want to buy online and still support independent booksellers, please shop at Bookshop.org.  

Barbarossa Redux: Russia in Ukraine

The Decision to Invade Often Ends Badly

I am very far from an expert on current events in the Ukraine.  I know enough to understand what is happening, and why…but not nearly enough to know what to do about it.

But let me say this: the decision to initiate war often ends badly for the initiator.

• The US decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (a decision which I admit I supported) ended (?) with an enormous loss of blood, treasure, and prestige – and an Iraq still in turmoil.
• The Soviet decision to invade Afghanistan led indirectly, if not directly, to the fall of the Soviet Union.
• Hitler’s decision to invade Poland ended in his suicide in a bunker and his country in ruin. 
• The Confederacy’s decision to fire on Fort Sumpter ended with no Confederacy, and their land in ruin.
• It’s not clear who fired “the shot heard round the world”, the opening shot of the Revolutionary War; but the British Crown’s decision to quell their American colonists’ dissent by force, ended with a loss of their American colonies.

Putin’s decision here reminds me less of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, though there are interesting parallels, than it does of Hitler’s invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa) in June of 1941.

That invasion was, obviously by hindsight but even for many in the German high command at the time, a horrendous tactical decision – the one that most obviously led to that bunker*.  But it was also one he had to make – because his worldview demanded it.  There was no way Hitler, supreme in continental Europe, turned back in his aborted invasion of England, was going to sit idly by with an enormous Communist bear on his Eastern borders.  His personal ideology demanded war and conquest.

·      *  If you want to argue for Hitler’s deployment of tanks prior to D-Day, that's fair

So, too with Putin.  He considers the fall of the Soviet Union to be an utter catastrophe.   He considers Ukraine as part of Russia.  Here is Putin yesterday:

"Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us — not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties."

He considers the loss of breakaway Soviet satellites as an intolerable loss of Russian honor and one he must reverse.  And he is gambling that the West doesn’t have the will to stop him. 

Do we?  What does that even look like?  I don't know, but I'm fairly certain it's not economic sanctions.  I suspect Putin cares as little about those as the Iranian mullahs and Kim Jong-un.  

One can’t help but think of a line attributed* to Churchill:  In the end, America will always do the right thing, only after they have exhausted every other option. 

* To paraphrase Yogi Berra, Churchill didn't say most of the things he said

Plug in “the West” for America, for this is Western Europe’s problem even more so, and perhaps there is cause for hope.  Perhaps Putin's callous disregard for his own people, his neighbors, and global order, may end for him in a gilded bunker.  Or worse.