Two Book Reviews Sent In By A Reader

Down below I will post the complete note I got from a reader. I normally would not do this, but there was too much work put into this note to let it simply vanish after I had the pleasure of reading it.

The reader talks about two new books. The first book, on fracking, I had mentioned earlier and  had planned to purchase. The second book, by David Letterman, I can say with some certainty, I will not be purchasing.

So, here's the note from a reader (below the break).

**************************************

I noticed a couple book articles in the New York Times I found interesting. The first is a review of apparently a rather superficial book on the fracking boom:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/books/the-frackers-by-gregory-zuckerman.html?ref=books

Here are two paragraphs:

The stories collected here, in Mr. Zuckerman’s telling, ostensibly demonstrate that private enterprise can take you places that big government, which has focused on solving the energy crisis with green initiatives, cannot. The author wraps his heroes in the American flag, when they don’t wrap themselves in it first. Mr. Hamm’s success, he thinks to himself, will “confer extraordinary blessings on the nation.”

 

If there is any joy to be had in reading about the triumphs of these men (and they are all men), it comes from watching them stick it to the energy world’s complacent established players.

And a review of a new illustrated satire book by David Letterman and Bruce McCall that satirizes the lifestyles of the uberrich:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/books/david-letterman-scold-of-the-0-1-percent.html?ref=books&_r=0

Again, a bit from the review:

David Letterman is not only an author of This Land Was Made for You and Me (But Mostly Me), a new humor book he created with Bruce McCall. He is also a target of its pointed populist satire, and he knows it.

 

“We’re at the top of the list of dopes with too much money, who go to Montana and buy up land,” Mr. Letterman, the longtime host of CBS’s “Late Show,” said recently, referring to himself and the few people who can call themselves his economic peers. . . .

 

Mr. McCall said he did not see any hypocrisy in someone as well off as Mr. Letterman taking comedic aim at issues of financial inequity and wealth distribution. “George Soros is a liberal, too,” he said. “You don’t have to be stupid and poor to be a liberal.”

The reader comments:

What gets me is that the first reviewer can’t disguise his distaste at having to even contemplate what those macho, sexist, dumb hick conservative frackers in flyover land are doing, whereas the second article lavishes ironic praise on the urban liberal elitists like Ted Turner and Letterman who use their money to impose their will on impoverished rural people in Montana, etc., by buying up huge chunks of land: they’re ok, because we understand them, they’re sort of artistic and neurotic and make fun of their wealth. Comparing the two gives such a clear picture of the perspective of at least part of the media elite.

 

This can seem trivial, but I’m sure it’s a large part of why the drilling in Pennsylvania halts once you hit the New York border.

Great, great observation. Maybe I will page through the new book on fracking at Barnes and Noble before I purchase it.

Again, a huge thank you to the reader for sending me this note. His observation about New York elites is very, very perceptive.