When it comes to books, I’m a traditionalist — at least in terms of format. Much like doing the crossword in a newspaper, I like holding the actual book in my hand and have always rejected audio or digital books.
Recently, a friend suggested the popular Thursday Murder Club for our inaugural book club read. Only problem? I was 68th on the hold list at the library. But the audio version was available so I decided to give it a go.
I’m not sure if Richard Osman’s cozy mystery was the right book to start with. It’s a fun novel with a delightful set of characters, but there are so many of them, and so many twists and turns that I was unable to follow each thread to the end. For this genre, the physical book has the ultimate advantage: being able easily to flip back to remind oneself of a salient quote or plot point. (An aside: Lesley Manville, best known in the US for her role on “The Crown,” is a phenomenal reader, conveying the individual characters and especially the humor.)
Nevertheless, the audio book experiment is far from over. I learned that I could pay attention to the book while pulling weeds, raking leaves or working on a jigsaw puzzle, so I decided to swap two nonfiction books I was struggling with to their audio versions. One is The Afterlife of Malcolm X, an excellent follow up read to his seminal autobiography, co-written with Alex Haley.
In his introduction to Afterlife, Mark Whitaker observes the seeming contradiction of Malcolm X: he is lauded by polar opposites like Black Lives Matter and Justice Clarence Thomas. I’ve always believed that it was Malcolm X’s focus on empowering individuals rather than focusing on their victimhood that explains this.
For Jewish people seeking to understand the anti-Semitism that has exploded among the far-left since Oct. 7, understanding some of the movements that Malcolm X influenced is essential, as political strains of the 1960s and 1970s are coming home to roost in the 2020s. One example: Eldridge Cleaver, one of the early leaders of the Black Panthers. In his book Soul on Ice, as cited in Afterlife, Cleaver justifies the rape of white woman as an act of insurrection. Sound familiar? The rhetoric heard especially on college campuses post-Oct. 7 has its roots in this kind of ideology.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com
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