Chris Blattman

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And now I’m enthralled with the paper version

Across the country there were thousands of places just like it, places that were not only isolated but insulated, places that had gone through the growing pains of America without anyone paying attention, places that existed as islands unto themselves with no link to the great cities except that they all sang the same national anthem to the same flag at sporting events. They were the kind of places that you saw from a plane on a clear night if you happened to look out the window, a concentration of little beaded dots breaking up the empty landscape with several veins leading in and out, and then bleak emptiness once again.

It was a view that every traveler had seen a million times before, and maybe if you were a passenger on a plane bisecting the night, you looked down and saw those lights and wondered what it would be like to live in an Odessa, to inhabit one of those infinitesimal dots, to be in a place that seemed so painfully far away from everything, so completely out of the mainstream of life. Perhaps you wondered what values people held on to in a place like that, what they cared about. Or perhaps you went back to your book, eager to get as far away as possible from that yawning maw that seemed so unimaginable, so utterly unimportant.

After blogging my Friday Night Lights obsession, more than one person recommended the original book, a non-fictional meditation on Texas’ secular religion, by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist H.G. Bissinger.

Not only beautifully written, but borderline anthropology. I add the caveat because it’s too much fun to read to be called anything so academic.

And a mere $6 on Kindle! I love the age of e-books. Bargains plus instant gratification.

2 Responses

  1. OK, I love the immediate gratification of ‘one click’ Kindle purchases – so I got it too. Like ‘The Blind Side’, it sounds very exotic and strange to this non-sporty Australian. Those odd Americans.

    But then Amazon recommended ‘The Maids’ and I wanted it too. Good thing I’ve still got a small reserve of will power, so I only added it to my Wish List.

    With Valentines Day coming up… take a look at the School of St Jude Valentine cards. Go on.. you know you want one. http://ecard.schoolofstjude.co.tz/_product_84662/eCard_-_General_Donation

Why We Fight - Book Cover
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