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Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
@vermontgmg
Jun 25, 2020 • 19 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
FINAL NIGHTLY READING THREAD: And so we come to the end. Edition #101 of #GMGReads! Every night through this weird time, I've been tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online.
Tonight we wrap it up (for now). I want to thank everyone who has helped make this project fun; I never expected to write some 20,000 words of book recommendations when this started, stretching across more than 600 books....
But beyond sharing what I've already read, it's opened my eyes to just how much *more* there is to read in the world, both authors and topics! Knowledge is that rare quest where the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know....
Thanks to your suggestions, I've added more than 120 books to my already long "books-to-read" list—so that's like another three years or so of reading for me to power through just to catch up on your new suggestions! I really appreciate it....
I'll hope to do future #GMGReads from time to time, as subjects arise. I still have another dozen or so categories I sketched out that I never did, so some may come as the summer unfolds. There are a bunch of my favorite books I never even mentioned (TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY!) ...
(And, yes, I'm going to amass the recommendations on my website and will share that when it's collected together.)
Without further ado, tonight's final list—an idea that actually @jorge_guajardo suggested early on that struck me as a perfect coda: Best novel characters. Some books I've mentioned before, but each of these characters I continue to think about long after reading the book:
1) The whisky priest in Graham Greene's THE POWER AND THE GLORY has to be the most troubled soul I've ever inhabited as a reader: northshire.com/book/978014310…
2) I've never come across a character I've hated as passionately as the stepmom in Ann Patchett's DUTCH HOUSE. Why oh why is Andrea so mean?! She seriously kept me up at night stewing in my own agitation. northshire.com/book/978006296…
3) Two remarkable cautionary examples of the perils of ambition: The pianist in Frank Conroy's BODY & SOUL northshire.com/book/978038531… and the iconic Sammy Glick in Budd Schulberg's WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN: northshire.com/book/978067973…
4) If you ask me which fictional character I'd most want to have dinner with, hands down it's author Maurice Bendrix from Greene's END OF THE AFFAIR: northshire.com/book/978014243…
5) George Smiley, from John Le Carre, surely has to be the greatest spy in all of literature: northshire.com/book/978014311…
6) If I ever find myself in trouble, I hope either righteous drifter Jack Reacher, from Lee Child, northshire.com/book/978051515… or detective Erast Petrovich Fandorin, from Boris Akunin, will come to my aid: northshire.com/book/978081296…
PS: Speaking of thrillers, Olen Steinhauer's Milo Weaver is one of the great thriller characters of modern times and the network of "Tourists" a great conceit. Start with THE TOURIST: northshire.com/book/978125062…
7) One book stands out to me for its group tapestry of characters: Ann Patchett's BEL CANTO: northshire.com/book/978006083…
8)  Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, from Amor Towles' GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW, is about as good an example I've found of a character's life well and honorably lived:  northshire.com/book/978014311…
9) To read Virginia Woolf's novel inside the head of Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for her party is to never forget her: northshire.com/book/978015662…
10)  Lastly, two of the most crotchety but lovable people in literature: Ove, from Fredrik Backman, northshire.com/book/978147673… and Murray Tepper, from Calvin Trillin:  northshire.com/book/978037575…
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. Thanks so much for following along these last 101 nights. Who are your favorite characters from your reading? It's a deeply personal list, I know, but: SHARE! #avidreadersunite

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More from @vermontgmg

Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Sep 11, 2023
THREAD: Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Throughout the day, I’ll be chronologically tweeting quotes from my book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: An Oral History of 9/11, following Americans as they experience that day.... amazon.com/Only-Plane-Sky…
Sunny Mindel, Communications Director for the Mayor of the City of New York, Rudy Giuliani: "On September 11th, I was facing what I thought would be an easy day."
.@katiecouric, anchor, @TODAYshow: It was the perfect fall day, a little touch of autumn in the air. It was one of those back-to-school September days, full of possibilities, and, in its own way, a new beginning.
Read 62 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Nov 4, 2022
THREAD: The GOP knows it no longer can win free & fair national elections, and it’s doing everything it can to lock in its ability to rule as a minority.

It's a coordinated effort with 12 unique strategies I outline here in my new newsletter: .... doomsdayscenario.co/p/minority-rul…
The American system has been based on majority rule with protection for the rights of the minority—today, we’re seeing something more like the opposite. Here's how I think about the key parts of the GOP’s big-picture strategy to undermine American democracy...:
1) Open embrace of white nationalist, anti-immigrant, and antisemitism politics. The GOP understands its base is shrinking and it needs to militarize them in order to continue to hold power.... doomsdayscenario.co/p/minority-rul…
Read 16 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Nov 2, 2022
THREAD: I just published the first half of my inaugural newsletter essay, looking at America's failure of imagination and the GOP plot to enshrine minority rule in America. You can read the essay and sign up for the newsletter here: doomsdayscenario.co/p/the-coordina…
1) I've been playing around with this piece for nearly a year now and it captures my big-picture thoughts about how we're underestimating the risks to American democracy over the years ahead....
2) I’ve argued for the last year that we misunderstand what a “new” civil war might look like—imagining it has to look like the “old” Civil War, beginning with earnest men meeting in major cities and state capitals to draft formal articles of succession....
Read 7 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Oct 14, 2022
THREAD: In @SenatorLeahy's new memoir, there's a wild story in it that I haven't ever seen before—a rare glimpse into the shadowy way that the intel agencies interact with Members of Congress. It feels ripped from a political thriller movie...: phoenixbooks.biz/book/978198215…
1) In the midst of the Iraq War debate, Leahy was one of the few Senators pushing back against the Bush admin race to war and the threats of WMDs. He'd been reading the classified intel that the Bush admin was providing to Congress and had real doubts that it justified war....
2) The Sunday after he read the intel, he was out walking with his wife in his McLean neighborhood when "two fit joggers trailed behind us. They stopped and asked what I thought of the intelligence briefings I'd been getting."...
Read 11 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Sep 9, 2022
THREAD: As we near Sunday's 21st anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to share the podcast I did last year about the lingering questions of that tragic day.

What happened on Sept 11 and how it changed our world remains the most important story of the modern age....
The history we've come to tell of that day is incomplete—and sometimes wrong. "Long Shadow" examines the enduring mysteries that still surround 9/11 and it's a different history than you likely remember—but one that will help you make sense of the world the attacks left behind.…
Episode #1: Why weren’t more people rescued from the Twin Towers? Why did these iconic structures and architectural marvels fall so fast?
Google: podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6L…

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lon…
Read 10 tweets
Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Aug 31, 2022
SHORT THREAD here on something I haven't seen someone else comment on: The strangest document in this photo, the orange bordered "Secret//SCI" one in the foreground. "Secret//SCI" is an incredibly rare marking....
1) I checked today with three officials who have worked at the absolute highest levels of the US intelligence community and two of them had *NEVER* seen such a marked document in their careers.

"SCI" material is usually so sensitive that it is almost always "Top Secret"....
2) It's impossible to know what type of document might be "Secret//SCI" but that highly unique combination of markings implies it's a piece of intelligence where someone was paying extremely special and precise attention to the information inside.
Read 11 tweets

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