Book Review: The Brain Dead Megaphone

In one of my former lives I was a book seller, in the quaint town of Cannon Beach, Oregon. I worked for a wonderful family of teachers who, for 10 years, made a valiant effort to keep Ecola Square Children's Bookstore vibrant and alive.
  In 2003 we all said goodbye, and the little bookstore on the south end of town is now condos above shops.  The discount chains and  internet sales washed over us like one of those big waves on the beach which come fast and hard, and are impossible to outrun.
During those ten idyllic bookstore years I wrote book reviews for The Independant Booksellers monthly, 'Booksense' .
I so miss those days of opening a box filled with publisher's advance copies, all free.  I could read and review what I chose. For a book nut, that put me in the vicinity of heaven.
I am still reading, between yoga classes, tutoring gigs, farm work, and projects.  I give you my latest inspiring find:
The Brain Dead Megaphone, a collection of essays by George Saunders. It works as a summer vacation read, more elevating than a romance or a mystery, and still as engaging as a clever novel. It is a collection of his work from the past 5 years, timely, pithy and humorous stuff written in Saunder's spare, cunning style.  One can see why his work appears in GQ magazine. He is of the rare type of writer, a journalist. A real investigative journalist, whose prose will show, not tell, whose ideas are colored with his life experience as well as the ironies and dichotomies of whatever issue he is attempting to illuminate.

The first essay is about what it means to have a commercial media which is like a megaphone, out shouting the polite discourse of a culture, a community, any normal venue for humans to connect as they need to do. Another essay follows him through a night on the Texas/Mexico border with a group of armed minutemen. Sound like anything you've ever read? It is a refreshing take on the world we find ourselves in, (forgive the hackneyed phrase) - post 9-11.

Saunders allows that he is a Republican, as in the party.  For this I might forgive him, because his ideas do not mirror the dearth of thoughtfulness contained within the usual discourse coming from that camp.  It's a complicated time, but we need to keep connecting, and someone who paints a good picture is worth my attention.


Now, back to harvesting garlic and coriander seeds.....