Oh Yes

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen

Still slogging my way through RFK.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of reading biography are the reminders that people are not monolithic. People are not always of one mind, and this may seem obvious if one assumes that to mean that people's thoughts and opinions change throughout their lives, but what I really mean is that it is possible to be of multiple opinions simultaneously. It is, indeed, possible to both love and hate someone or to be in favor of two things which seem diametrically opposed (anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, perhaps).

Is this rational? Perhaps not. Is this human? Most certainly.

What is perhaps most striking about great individuals is the particular way in which these combating impulses coalesce, which particular ones come to dominate at which points in their lives. One of the recurring threads of the RFK book (reflecting Schlesinger's point of view, from what I know of his work) is that individuals can make a difference, can identify issues and effect real, positive change. It is, perhaps, the most romantic notion of the book; a vestige of that time when all the problems of society seemed solvable.

I keep asking myself if I believe in that and I'm really not sure. Some days I do and some days I don't. Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself. Because if you do believe that's true, then you're left with the obvious question: what are you doing to make things better?

We live in a society (assuming whoever reads this comes from the developed world) where all but the very lowest members remain within the top 10% of the world's population, in terms of privilege, opportunity and well-being. I personally come from an even smaller substratum, in or about the top 10% of that 10%. And often I cannot escape the feeling that I am wasting it, sitting around and waiting for something to fall into my lap.