Kirkus Reviews Book Blogger Networkhttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/author/eric-liebetrau/Posts by Eric Liebetrauen-usTue, 27 Sep 2016 20:06:34 -0000Reading the Gridlockhttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/reading-gridlock/By the time this column runs, one of my favorite parts of the year, the college football season, will be well underway&#8212;and I&#8217;ll likely be in midseason form cursing the ineptitude of my South Carolina Gamecocks. Regardless of their performance (depressingly, a 6-6 season would satisfy me), I will still enjoy the excitement of each college football Saturday.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/reading-gridlock/A Writer Who Spends Time with “Social Refugees”https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/writer-who-spends-time-social-refugees/As I continue to lose sleep over the horrifying possibility of a Donald Trump presidency (a condition I believe I share with millions of other sane Americans), my thoughts usually turn to those who are less fortunate than me. Because let&#8217;s be honest, no matter who becomes president, I&#8212;as a middle-class, straight, white male&#8212;will survive. On the other hand, I worry daily for the plights of women, ethnic minorities, the LGBT community, working-class Americans, and any of the other groups that have endured Trump&#8217;s vile, hateful, ignorant rhetoric.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/writer-who-spends-time-social-refugees/Memoirs in Augusthttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/memoirs-august/Unlike some of my colleagues in the world of nonfiction, I love memoirs. Sure, there are far too many published every year, and many don&#8217;t justify the cover price (the same could be said for novels), but a well-told, unique personal story is something to be treasured. This August, I want to highlight a trio of memoirs:https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/memoirs-august/Reading Through the Heathttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/reading-through-heat/Here in Charleston, we&#8217;re quickly moving into the brutally hot days of midsummer, which calls for one of three activities: boat, beach, or anything within an air-conditioned space. Regardless which I choose, there&#8217;s sure to be a book at hand. I have a couple more weeks to catch up on the spring/early summer books I missed&#8212;I just finished Charles Foster&#8217;s <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/charles-foster/being-a-beast/"><em>Being a Beast</em></a> and highly recommend it&#8212;but here are a few July books I look forward to reading, in alphabetical order (all quotes from the Kirkus review):https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/reading-through-heat/Seeking Magic and Loss on the Webhttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/seeking-magic-and-loss-web/The internet elicits a vast catalog of thoughts, emotions, and responses: joy, wonder, anger, awe, excitement, frustration, celebration, outrage, laughter, sadness, surprise, pride, disgust, etc., ad infinitum. Since its invention&#8212;and especially since the onset of what many experts call Web 2.0&#8212;countless articles and books have attempted to not only chronicle the history of the internet and its myriad uses, but also to capture the nature of our often fraught relationship with it.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/seeking-magic-and-loss-web/The True 'Qhttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/true-q/In many areas of the American South, there are fewer surefire ways to incite an argument than to discuss either the Civil War or the merits of a specific region&#8217;s form of barbecue. In Texas, beef is king; Kansas City does beef, pork, and nearly any other animal, all doused in plenty of sweet, tomato-based sauce. In my home state of South Carolina, it&#8217;s all about the pork, especially pulled pork from a pork shoulder (or &#8220;Boston butt&#8221;), often topped with a tangy, mustard-based sauce.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/true-q/Soccer Without Bordershttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/soccer-without-borders/When former German World Cup champion J&#252;rgen Klinsmann took over the reins of the U.S. Men&#8217;s National Team in 2011, American soccer fans were excited about the future of the team. Since then, the results have been decidedly mixed, with historic highs followed by inexplicable losses to inferior opponents&#8212;not to mention the controversial decision to leave Landon Donovan off the 2014 World Cup roster.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/soccer-without-borders/A Lion Re-emerges on Paperhttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/lion-re-emerges-paper/I usually don&#8217;t pay much attention to reissues, but I make exceptions based on a variety of factors, including the quality of the writer in question, the freshness of the new material, and whether or not the writer of the new foreword or introduction has anything intriguing to add. All of those factors are in play with Little, Brown&#8217;s April 26 reissue of George Plimpton&#8217;s sports books, including <em>Paper Lion</em>, one of my personal favorites.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/lion-re-emerges-paper/Life-Changing Musichttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/life-changing-music/Bob Boilen, the creator and host of NPR Music&#8217;s <em>All Songs Considered</em> and founder of the Tiny Desk Concert series, describes his first book, <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/bob-boilen/your-song-changed-my-life/"><em>Your Song Changed My Life</em></a>, as a &#8220;story of how a song can be a call to action, to pick up an instrument or a pen, to find your voice, to spill your soul and change your life&#8212;and, perhaps, someone else&#8217;s.&#8221;https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/life-changing-music/The Ways of Gunshttps://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/ways-guns/On the heels of three more recent mass shootings&#8212;in Kalamazoo, Michigan (6 dead), Glendale, Arizona (5 dead), and Hesston, Kansas (4 dead)&#8212;we are forced yet again to confront our relationship with weapons and what I&#8212;and millions of others&#8212;consider to be woefully inadequate gun laws.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/ways-guns/
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