Thursday Next - First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
Category: Fiction Grade: A
In keeping with the new series review policy, this review will be a short one.
As with all the Thursday Next books, this was terrific. The premise is that Next is a detective working for the Literary Crimes division of the police. She is able to cross between the real world and the fictional world. In other words, don't bother to pick up any book in the series unless you're a fantasy fan who can suspend belief. If you do, you're reward with a fun romp filled with literary references and characters along with extremely clever (and often silly) word play. My favorite in this book -- two detectives have jumped in to a story and have been warned that somebody is actually, at that time reading the book. Of course, it'll just confuse the reader if he notices two unexpected, anachronistic characters hanging around so the pair has to hide since, as anybody knows, detectives are better off "Dead than Read".
I hope that Fforde has as much fun writing these books as I do reading them.
A small warning -- this is a series that you definitely want to read in order so, if it sounds appealing, go back and pick up The Eyre Affair.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Tales from Q School
Tales from Q School by John Feinstein
Category: Sports Grade: C+
Like a lot of non-golfers, Tiger has made me an avid golf spectator. Between that and my often reported belief that Feinstein is the best sports writer out there, I decided to pick up his latest, Tales from Q School. Q School is the shorthand name that golfers use to describe the three round qualifying tournament that gets golfers on to the PGA tour. You don't hear much about it unless you watch the Golf Channel in the late fall. This is because most of the golfers whose names are familiar are exempted out of the qualifying tournament for things like being one of the top money winners in the previous year. Tiger, for example, has never had to go to Q School.
That makes Q School one of the tensest events that a golf pro can enter. For most events on tour, whether the "big league" PGA tour or other circuits for less known players, if you don't do well, you typically just have to wait for the following weekend when another tournament will start fresh with everybody at even par. In Q School, though, if you have a bad weekend (or even a particularly bad day), you won't get another shot at the big time for a full year until the next Q School. I.e. this tournament (a series of three tournaments) determines whether a golfer can actually make a living playing golf for the upcoming year. Because of all the exemptions, Q School is populated mostly by either young players trying to break in to the sport or older players trying to hang on for one more year. All of this keeps the tension level high.
Feinstein uses his standard technique of embedding himself in the sport for the duration -- in this case three consecutive weekends -- and really getting to know the players involved. The book is all anecdotes and interviews. Most of the stories revolve around drives that find the rough or four foot putts that go an inch wide. These, in this book, typically cause the golfer to miss the cut by a stroke - missing the ability to make a living by the tiniest of margins.
Unfortunately, this is also what makes the book less than Feinstein's best work. While he gives a view to dozens of golfers (almost all of which you've never heard of), the stories get to the point where they all look alike. The book is highly repetitive and, ultimately, pretty boring. It's only worth picking up if you're a hardcore golf fan.
Category: Sports Grade: C+
Like a lot of non-golfers, Tiger has made me an avid golf spectator. Between that and my often reported belief that Feinstein is the best sports writer out there, I decided to pick up his latest, Tales from Q School. Q School is the shorthand name that golfers use to describe the three round qualifying tournament that gets golfers on to the PGA tour. You don't hear much about it unless you watch the Golf Channel in the late fall. This is because most of the golfers whose names are familiar are exempted out of the qualifying tournament for things like being one of the top money winners in the previous year. Tiger, for example, has never had to go to Q School.
That makes Q School one of the tensest events that a golf pro can enter. For most events on tour, whether the "big league" PGA tour or other circuits for less known players, if you don't do well, you typically just have to wait for the following weekend when another tournament will start fresh with everybody at even par. In Q School, though, if you have a bad weekend (or even a particularly bad day), you won't get another shot at the big time for a full year until the next Q School. I.e. this tournament (a series of three tournaments) determines whether a golfer can actually make a living playing golf for the upcoming year. Because of all the exemptions, Q School is populated mostly by either young players trying to break in to the sport or older players trying to hang on for one more year. All of this keeps the tension level high.
Feinstein uses his standard technique of embedding himself in the sport for the duration -- in this case three consecutive weekends -- and really getting to know the players involved. The book is all anecdotes and interviews. Most of the stories revolve around drives that find the rough or four foot putts that go an inch wide. These, in this book, typically cause the golfer to miss the cut by a stroke - missing the ability to make a living by the tiniest of margins.
Unfortunately, this is also what makes the book less than Feinstein's best work. While he gives a view to dozens of golfers (almost all of which you've never heard of), the stories get to the point where they all look alike. The book is highly repetitive and, ultimately, pretty boring. It's only worth picking up if you're a hardcore golf fan.
Monday, August 20, 2007
The Last Chinese Chef
The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones
Category: Novel Grade: A
As most of you know, Carolyn and I don't have the same taste in books at all. We tend to like different subject matter and different writing styles. Because of that, of course, even as much as we both read, we seldom recommend books to each other. Most of the time, when I recommend something to her, it's either about 19th century New York or 14th century England. Most of the time, when she recommends something to me, it's got something to do with food. Of the few books I recommend to her, she likes some of them. Of the few books she recommends to me, I almost always like them. As you've probably figured out by now, The Last Chinese Chef is Carolyn's latest crossover recommendation and her record is intact -- it's about food and I really enjoyed it.
OK, it's not really about food. The novel is the story of woman who learns of a paternity suit filed against her dead husband's estate by a Chinese woman. When she learns that the paternity claim is at least possible, she heads to China to try to clear things up. She happens to be a food columnist for a "Gourmet"-like magazine and the magazine gives her the assignment to interview a American/Chinese/Jewish chef who comes from a long line of Imperial chefs in China, including the mid-twentieth century author of a book called The Last Chinese Chef.
Mones, who spent several decades in business in China, has used true Chinese cooking (not American-Chinese which is completely different) as the framework to enclose her story. The chef is competing in a contest that involves the top chefs of China. He is a traditionalist who has studied the cuisine of China. He has come to understand that cooking is about not only about the chef and the food, but also about the gourmet, the ambiance of the meal and, most importantly, about the community that forms around the sharing of food. The concept of eating a meal alone is completely foreign to the Chinese culture.
There's a lot in the book about the various dishes that the chef prepares -- trying to combine the flavors, the textures, the visual qualities, the misdirection - that makes a Chinese banquet something extraordinary. Anybody who knows us well knows that food and shared meals are an important of our lives. This book plays in to that feeling. It makes you want to eat; it makes you want to share a quality meal; it even makes you want to cook!
Chinese cooking is actually the perfect metaphor for this book. The parts are OK - the story is decent; the writing is pretty good; the characterizations are interesting. It's a lot like the ingredients of a good meal - garlic is OK; ginger is pretty good; pork and fish can be interesting. But put everything together in just the right way and, like this book, you end up with something memorable.
Does anybody know an Austin restaurant that cooks authentic Chinese food?
Category: Novel Grade: A
As most of you know, Carolyn and I don't have the same taste in books at all. We tend to like different subject matter and different writing styles. Because of that, of course, even as much as we both read, we seldom recommend books to each other. Most of the time, when I recommend something to her, it's either about 19th century New York or 14th century England. Most of the time, when she recommends something to me, it's got something to do with food. Of the few books I recommend to her, she likes some of them. Of the few books she recommends to me, I almost always like them. As you've probably figured out by now, The Last Chinese Chef is Carolyn's latest crossover recommendation and her record is intact -- it's about food and I really enjoyed it.
OK, it's not really about food. The novel is the story of woman who learns of a paternity suit filed against her dead husband's estate by a Chinese woman. When she learns that the paternity claim is at least possible, she heads to China to try to clear things up. She happens to be a food columnist for a "Gourmet"-like magazine and the magazine gives her the assignment to interview a American/Chinese/Jewish chef who comes from a long line of Imperial chefs in China, including the mid-twentieth century author of a book called The Last Chinese Chef.
Mones, who spent several decades in business in China, has used true Chinese cooking (not American-Chinese which is completely different) as the framework to enclose her story. The chef is competing in a contest that involves the top chefs of China. He is a traditionalist who has studied the cuisine of China. He has come to understand that cooking is about not only about the chef and the food, but also about the gourmet, the ambiance of the meal and, most importantly, about the community that forms around the sharing of food. The concept of eating a meal alone is completely foreign to the Chinese culture.
There's a lot in the book about the various dishes that the chef prepares -- trying to combine the flavors, the textures, the visual qualities, the misdirection - that makes a Chinese banquet something extraordinary. Anybody who knows us well knows that food and shared meals are an important of our lives. This book plays in to that feeling. It makes you want to eat; it makes you want to share a quality meal; it even makes you want to cook!
Chinese cooking is actually the perfect metaphor for this book. The parts are OK - the story is decent; the writing is pretty good; the characterizations are interesting. It's a lot like the ingredients of a good meal - garlic is OK; ginger is pretty good; pork and fish can be interesting. But put everything together in just the right way and, like this book, you end up with something memorable.
Does anybody know an Austin restaurant that cooks authentic Chinese food?
The Tenderness of Wolves
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
Category: Novel Grade: B
This debut novel by Penney isn't bad. It's a murder mystery of sorts that takes place in the Canadian wilderness of the 19th century. That's part of the problem for me - I don't usually enjoy wilderness fiction. My guess is that, if you normally enjoy reading this kind of book, you'll probably like this one.
It's a fairly complex story that gets kicked off by the murder of a trapper in a small Canadian town in 1867. A seventeen year old boy disappears at the same time as the murder and the assumption is made that he's the culprit, although a half-breed is accused in the meantime. The representatives of the Hudson Bay Company come to town to try to arrest the murderer. There are so many angles at this point that the book gets fairly confusing. The boy's mother takes off with the escaped half breed to try to find the boy. There's a storyline about a couple of village girls who disappeared decades before; a Utopian village of Norwegians; a viscious ex company man and a stash of missing furs.
All in all, it did hold my interest to the end, but barely.
Category: Novel Grade: B
This debut novel by Penney isn't bad. It's a murder mystery of sorts that takes place in the Canadian wilderness of the 19th century. That's part of the problem for me - I don't usually enjoy wilderness fiction. My guess is that, if you normally enjoy reading this kind of book, you'll probably like this one.
It's a fairly complex story that gets kicked off by the murder of a trapper in a small Canadian town in 1867. A seventeen year old boy disappears at the same time as the murder and the assumption is made that he's the culprit, although a half-breed is accused in the meantime. The representatives of the Hudson Bay Company come to town to try to arrest the murderer. There are so many angles at this point that the book gets fairly confusing. The boy's mother takes off with the escaped half breed to try to find the boy. There's a storyline about a couple of village girls who disappeared decades before; a Utopian village of Norwegians; a viscious ex company man and a stash of missing furs.
All in all, it did hold my interest to the end, but barely.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Satan's Circus
Satan's Circus by Mike Dash
Category: History Grade: B
No, it's not what you think. There are no demons, pitchforks or hellfire in the book. It's not the latest from Steven King. It turns out that the "vice" area of Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th century was called, that's right, Satan's Circus. In some parts of this area there were as many as twenty brothels to a city block. In an area about 25 blocks by 5 blocks you could service just about any bad happen you had - drinking, gambling or just about any kind of sex.
I've really gotten to like reading about this era in New York history. Of course, there's a lot about Tammany Hall. Boss Tweed is long gone by the 1880s - the Tammany leader through most of the book is Big Tim Sullivan. This is the heyday of some legendary New York gangsters - especially, the Jewish gangs led by Arnold Rothstein. There are almost no honest cops in Manhattan although there are a lot of cops (and politicians and judges) who take great care to distinguish between "clean graft" and "dirty graft" which, of course, makes the lines hard to draw.
The focal point of Dash's (non-fiction) book is a very famous murder trial that took place right at the dawn of the 20th century. A local gambler who has tried and failed to start his own club several times, is now heavily in debt to Big Tim. The gambler, Herman Rosenthal, decides to raise some money by selling his story to the press - a story that features a corrupt cop named Charley Becker. Rosenthal provides some basic information that results in sensationalized stories. Rosenthal is supposed to meet with a reporter to lay out the details and the proof and, surprise, surprise, ends up dead instead. The book details the murder and Becker's trials.
The book got a slightly lower grade than it actually deserves because Dash spends a lot of time talking about what's going on in New York during the 19th century, a period that I've already read a lot about. So, if you don't know much about Tammany Hall and the ethnic gangs of New York, you'll probably enjoy the book even more.
Category: History Grade: B
No, it's not what you think. There are no demons, pitchforks or hellfire in the book. It's not the latest from Steven King. It turns out that the "vice" area of Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th century was called, that's right, Satan's Circus. In some parts of this area there were as many as twenty brothels to a city block. In an area about 25 blocks by 5 blocks you could service just about any bad happen you had - drinking, gambling or just about any kind of sex.
I've really gotten to like reading about this era in New York history. Of course, there's a lot about Tammany Hall. Boss Tweed is long gone by the 1880s - the Tammany leader through most of the book is Big Tim Sullivan. This is the heyday of some legendary New York gangsters - especially, the Jewish gangs led by Arnold Rothstein. There are almost no honest cops in Manhattan although there are a lot of cops (and politicians and judges) who take great care to distinguish between "clean graft" and "dirty graft" which, of course, makes the lines hard to draw.
The focal point of Dash's (non-fiction) book is a very famous murder trial that took place right at the dawn of the 20th century. A local gambler who has tried and failed to start his own club several times, is now heavily in debt to Big Tim. The gambler, Herman Rosenthal, decides to raise some money by selling his story to the press - a story that features a corrupt cop named Charley Becker. Rosenthal provides some basic information that results in sensationalized stories. Rosenthal is supposed to meet with a reporter to lay out the details and the proof and, surprise, surprise, ends up dead instead. The book details the murder and Becker's trials.
The book got a slightly lower grade than it actually deserves because Dash spends a lot of time talking about what's going on in New York during the 19th century, a period that I've already read a lot about. So, if you don't know much about Tammany Hall and the ethnic gangs of New York, you'll probably enjoy the book even more.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The Book of Lost Things
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Category: Fantasy Grade: B-
This is pretty standard post-Potter, coming-of-age fantasy novel. It's well written and it got of to a terrific start with a wrenching, emotional portrait of a young boy who believes that his obsessive-compulsive routines might keep his dying mother alive. The closing of the book is also a beautiful contrast to the usual "happily ever after". While I picked this one up thinking this was a book aimed at the Potter crowd, it's definitely a far more adult story that it seemed from the book jacket.
The rest of the book isn't bad. If you'd never read any other fantasy novels or seen other fantasy movies, it would have been perfectly enjoyable. The problem with it is that Connolly has borrowed plot devices from so many other sources that, after a while, it just gets both distracting and annoying. Maybe he was going for homage, but it comes across as just derivative. The basic crossing to another world comes from the Narnia series. The first character the boy comes across in the new world is the Woodsman -- an over sized man with an isolated cabin who is more comfortable in the world of trees and animals than people - can everybody say Hagrid? There are talking animals a la the Pullman series (if you don't know Pullman's work you will when the first of the movies "The Golden Compass" comes out in the fall). Most blatantly, Connolly takes major chunks from the Wizard of Oz -- the Woodsman is much like the Tin Man, there's a "white stone road" that will take the hero to the "king" who will know how to get him home - there's even a gang of harpies who behave exactly like the flying monkeys!
Very unoriginal.
Category: Fantasy Grade: B-
This is pretty standard post-Potter, coming-of-age fantasy novel. It's well written and it got of to a terrific start with a wrenching, emotional portrait of a young boy who believes that his obsessive-compulsive routines might keep his dying mother alive. The closing of the book is also a beautiful contrast to the usual "happily ever after". While I picked this one up thinking this was a book aimed at the Potter crowd, it's definitely a far more adult story that it seemed from the book jacket.
The rest of the book isn't bad. If you'd never read any other fantasy novels or seen other fantasy movies, it would have been perfectly enjoyable. The problem with it is that Connolly has borrowed plot devices from so many other sources that, after a while, it just gets both distracting and annoying. Maybe he was going for homage, but it comes across as just derivative. The basic crossing to another world comes from the Narnia series. The first character the boy comes across in the new world is the Woodsman -- an over sized man with an isolated cabin who is more comfortable in the world of trees and animals than people - can everybody say Hagrid? There are talking animals a la the Pullman series (if you don't know Pullman's work you will when the first of the movies "The Golden Compass" comes out in the fall). Most blatantly, Connolly takes major chunks from the Wizard of Oz -- the Woodsman is much like the Tin Man, there's a "white stone road" that will take the hero to the "king" who will know how to get him home - there's even a gang of harpies who behave exactly like the flying monkeys!
Very unoriginal.
Boomsday
Boomsday by Christopher Buckley
Category: Novel Grade: A
Buckley is definitely the best political satirist writing today. In the past, however, he's tackled fairly safe topics. His most well known book that was made in to a movie a few years ago was Thank You for Smoking. In that book, Buckley made hilarious fun of the so-called death lobbyists - the folks who work the Washington power structure looking out for the best interests of the tobacco, alcohol and gun industries. In Boomsday, with equally funny results, he tackles a much touchier topic - the cost of government benefits for the Boomer generation. He illustrates the big fallacy of Social Security - that its an insurance program. I.e. that the money that a worker contributes during his life somehow pays for the benefits that worker will draw after retirement. The reality is a lot scarier and, in some ways, more sinister. It's today's workers that actually pay for the benefits of today's retirees. With the retirement of the Boomer generation, the largest in history, a rapidly increasing chunk of today's wages will have to be used to pay retirement and health care benefits.
What Buckley postulates in this book is effectively a potential tax payer rebellion. He's a satirist so he comes up with lots of new benefits that are being approved by the federal government mostly because of the power of the Boomer lobbyists (a theme?) - e.g. a new Social Security benefit to support the latest Boomer trend -- designer mausoleums! A blog written by the book's heroine (?) stirs up the young to, among other things, attack Florida golf courses as a form of protest.
What makes the book hysterical and more than a little uncomfortable, is the blogger's proposed solution to the problem - tax incentives for "voluntary transition" at age 70. I.e. government funded suicide. A taxpayer would get benefits like elimination of all estate taxes just by agreeing to "transit" to a better place. The blogger proposes the solution as merely a way to bring attention to the issues, never expecting or really wanting the solution to become law. What makes the book scary and, at the same time, funny, is that (a) of course, the financial analysis proves beyond a doubt that the scheme would make Social Security solvent forever and (b) not surprisingly, an opportunistic politician decides that he can ride the issue to the White House. Again, the numbers work -- if you can get all the "U30s" (the under 30 crowd) to get mad and vote, you can safely ignore everybody else.
Buckley then pulls out the whole bag of tricks for a Washington satirist -- a spin doctor who gets caught organizing a golf tournament in North Korea to encourage good will, an LBJ-like cynical President, a hypocritical tele-evangelist (whose downfall is the funniest part of the book) and even a Larry Ellison like ego-entrepreneur.
The book is an easy entertaining read - a good beach book, even if its a little late in the season. If you don't mind being a little ashamed of the fact that you think this stuff is funny, give it a shot.
Category: Novel Grade: A
Buckley is definitely the best political satirist writing today. In the past, however, he's tackled fairly safe topics. His most well known book that was made in to a movie a few years ago was Thank You for Smoking. In that book, Buckley made hilarious fun of the so-called death lobbyists - the folks who work the Washington power structure looking out for the best interests of the tobacco, alcohol and gun industries. In Boomsday, with equally funny results, he tackles a much touchier topic - the cost of government benefits for the Boomer generation. He illustrates the big fallacy of Social Security - that its an insurance program. I.e. that the money that a worker contributes during his life somehow pays for the benefits that worker will draw after retirement. The reality is a lot scarier and, in some ways, more sinister. It's today's workers that actually pay for the benefits of today's retirees. With the retirement of the Boomer generation, the largest in history, a rapidly increasing chunk of today's wages will have to be used to pay retirement and health care benefits.
What Buckley postulates in this book is effectively a potential tax payer rebellion. He's a satirist so he comes up with lots of new benefits that are being approved by the federal government mostly because of the power of the Boomer lobbyists (a theme?) - e.g. a new Social Security benefit to support the latest Boomer trend -- designer mausoleums! A blog written by the book's heroine (?) stirs up the young to, among other things, attack Florida golf courses as a form of protest.
What makes the book hysterical and more than a little uncomfortable, is the blogger's proposed solution to the problem - tax incentives for "voluntary transition" at age 70. I.e. government funded suicide. A taxpayer would get benefits like elimination of all estate taxes just by agreeing to "transit" to a better place. The blogger proposes the solution as merely a way to bring attention to the issues, never expecting or really wanting the solution to become law. What makes the book scary and, at the same time, funny, is that (a) of course, the financial analysis proves beyond a doubt that the scheme would make Social Security solvent forever and (b) not surprisingly, an opportunistic politician decides that he can ride the issue to the White House. Again, the numbers work -- if you can get all the "U30s" (the under 30 crowd) to get mad and vote, you can safely ignore everybody else.
Buckley then pulls out the whole bag of tricks for a Washington satirist -- a spin doctor who gets caught organizing a golf tournament in North Korea to encourage good will, an LBJ-like cynical President, a hypocritical tele-evangelist (whose downfall is the funniest part of the book) and even a Larry Ellison like ego-entrepreneur.
The book is an easy entertaining read - a good beach book, even if its a little late in the season. If you don't mind being a little ashamed of the fact that you think this stuff is funny, give it a shot.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
The Wind-up Bird Chronicles
The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
Category: Novel Grade: B+
That's two by Murakami this summer and I think I'm becoming a fan. His books are definitely not for everybody - he's sort of a magical-realist. The two books I've read so far, this one and the much shorter After Dark, both blur the lines between reality and fantasy. Chronicles is probably the author's best known and definitely his longest book. It winds together a bunch of different plots lines - something I'm not usually in to. Here, the focus of the book is the narrator's disintegrating marriage, but there's also strange story lines about a teenage girl up the street, a very weird "psychic treatment", a charismatic Japanese politician and an involved story about violence during both of Japan's mid-centuries wars - with China and then with the Soviet Union. In spite of the book's 600 page length, Murakami, at least in this book, is amazingly efficient with his prose. The tiniest details come back to be wound in to the story later in the book. Ultimately, all of the story lines tie together in what, finally, is a beautiful, but disturbing book.
The writing is lyrical, even in translation. Most of the book is told in first person - it's the kind of book where you can hear the narrator telling you the story in a quiet voice. The translator, Jay Rubin, has apparently done most of Murakami's books and it's hard to imagine the talent required to take prose like this and make it poetic in another language. Reading Chronicles really made me wish I could read Japanese to see what this writing is like in the original.
This book isn't nearly as dense as the masterpiece of magical realism - One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez. If you liked Solitude, or if you always wanted to read something like it, but weren't willing to invest the effort to get through, you might like Chronicles. It's definitely enough to keep me moving through the Murakami library.
Category: Novel Grade: B+
That's two by Murakami this summer and I think I'm becoming a fan. His books are definitely not for everybody - he's sort of a magical-realist. The two books I've read so far, this one and the much shorter After Dark, both blur the lines between reality and fantasy. Chronicles is probably the author's best known and definitely his longest book. It winds together a bunch of different plots lines - something I'm not usually in to. Here, the focus of the book is the narrator's disintegrating marriage, but there's also strange story lines about a teenage girl up the street, a very weird "psychic treatment", a charismatic Japanese politician and an involved story about violence during both of Japan's mid-centuries wars - with China and then with the Soviet Union. In spite of the book's 600 page length, Murakami, at least in this book, is amazingly efficient with his prose. The tiniest details come back to be wound in to the story later in the book. Ultimately, all of the story lines tie together in what, finally, is a beautiful, but disturbing book.
The writing is lyrical, even in translation. Most of the book is told in first person - it's the kind of book where you can hear the narrator telling you the story in a quiet voice. The translator, Jay Rubin, has apparently done most of Murakami's books and it's hard to imagine the talent required to take prose like this and make it poetic in another language. Reading Chronicles really made me wish I could read Japanese to see what this writing is like in the original.
This book isn't nearly as dense as the masterpiece of magical realism - One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez. If you liked Solitude, or if you always wanted to read something like it, but weren't willing to invest the effort to get through, you might like Chronicles. It's definitely enough to keep me moving through the Murakami library.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The Double Agents
The Double Agents by W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV
Category: Military Fiction Grade: A
OK - new rule. I read a fair amount of serial fiction. Griffin is probably the best example. As I've said in the past, I've probably read more books by him than any other author (39 and counting). In general, a series is either good or bad without a lot of variation from book to book. So from now on, series fiction will get really short reviews - it's just getting hard to think of something clever to say about what's essentially one long book.
This one is the sixth book in the Men at War series about the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA. It takes place during World War II. Griffin always throws in some element of soap opera - there's always at least a few heaving breasts - but is books are uniformly entertaining and action packed. This one is too. Enough said.
(Actually, there is one thing out of the ordinary about this one -- David Niven, Peter Ustinov and Ian Fleming are all a major part of one of the story lines.)
Category: Military Fiction Grade: A
OK - new rule. I read a fair amount of serial fiction. Griffin is probably the best example. As I've said in the past, I've probably read more books by him than any other author (39 and counting). In general, a series is either good or bad without a lot of variation from book to book. So from now on, series fiction will get really short reviews - it's just getting hard to think of something clever to say about what's essentially one long book.
This one is the sixth book in the Men at War series about the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA. It takes place during World War II. Griffin always throws in some element of soap opera - there's always at least a few heaving breasts - but is books are uniformly entertaining and action packed. This one is too. Enough said.
(Actually, there is one thing out of the ordinary about this one -- David Niven, Peter Ustinov and Ian Fleming are all a major part of one of the story lines.)
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Blood and Thunder
Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
Category: History Grade: B+
For some reason this period of history - mid 19th century - is not one I've been terribly interested in or read a lot about. The American westward expansion more than doubled the size of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase. It also involved the virtual destruction of almost all Native American tribes in the Southwest. Maybe its because the stories of this period have been so sensationalized over the years, but I don't know that I've ever gotten all the way through a history book about this era.
While, in a lot of ways, Sides has really overwritten this book, with way too much flowery language, the primary hook he decided to use is pretty engaging. The focal point of the book is the life of Kit Carson -- the real life of Kit Carson, not the mostly fictitious stories that were made up and published about him in "blood and thunders", the nickname for the adventure stories told about the west. According to Sides, Carson was actually a pretty mild-mannered man who was only rarely the vicious Indian fighter of legend. He was a quiet mountain man - a trapper in his early days who preferred the isolation of the trail to life in a city. He became a renowned scout and, later, a military leader. He was, most of the time, a friend to the Indians and was married to a Hispanic woman. His home, famously, was in Taos, New Mexico, but he spent much of his life on the trails from coast to coast. In his day, he was, reluctantly, the symbol of westward expansion.
While the book roams all over the country, it geographic focus is Santa Fe. Not surprisingly, given that the timeline runs from the 1830s to the 1870s, much of the story is about the subjugation of the Native Americans. As with most histories of this period, Americans don't particularly come across as the good guys, but Sides is balanced enough to show why the Anglos moving west considered the Indians their enemies. Ultimately, he makes it pretty clear that the aggressive, city-oriented, hierarchical society of the whites could never have coexisted with the nomadic, leaderless tribes, especially like the Navajos. In the end, Sides doesn't make what happened to the Indians acceptable, but he does go a long way to making it understandable.
This is really the story of frontier warfare. The period, though dominated, by the constant skirmishes with the Indians, also includes the war with Mexico and the Civil War. I had never really thought much about how the Civil War played out in the Southwest but there were some pretty major battles there. The Civil War became largely an excuse for the Texas-dominated branch of the Rebel army to attempt to annex the western areas of New Mexico that they had coveted for so long.
This turns out to be a good general introduction to the history of the Southwest. Sides' focus on the people of the era, particularly Carson, make for a very readable overview.
Category: History Grade: B+
For some reason this period of history - mid 19th century - is not one I've been terribly interested in or read a lot about. The American westward expansion more than doubled the size of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase. It also involved the virtual destruction of almost all Native American tribes in the Southwest. Maybe its because the stories of this period have been so sensationalized over the years, but I don't know that I've ever gotten all the way through a history book about this era.
While, in a lot of ways, Sides has really overwritten this book, with way too much flowery language, the primary hook he decided to use is pretty engaging. The focal point of the book is the life of Kit Carson -- the real life of Kit Carson, not the mostly fictitious stories that were made up and published about him in "blood and thunders", the nickname for the adventure stories told about the west. According to Sides, Carson was actually a pretty mild-mannered man who was only rarely the vicious Indian fighter of legend. He was a quiet mountain man - a trapper in his early days who preferred the isolation of the trail to life in a city. He became a renowned scout and, later, a military leader. He was, most of the time, a friend to the Indians and was married to a Hispanic woman. His home, famously, was in Taos, New Mexico, but he spent much of his life on the trails from coast to coast. In his day, he was, reluctantly, the symbol of westward expansion.
While the book roams all over the country, it geographic focus is Santa Fe. Not surprisingly, given that the timeline runs from the 1830s to the 1870s, much of the story is about the subjugation of the Native Americans. As with most histories of this period, Americans don't particularly come across as the good guys, but Sides is balanced enough to show why the Anglos moving west considered the Indians their enemies. Ultimately, he makes it pretty clear that the aggressive, city-oriented, hierarchical society of the whites could never have coexisted with the nomadic, leaderless tribes, especially like the Navajos. In the end, Sides doesn't make what happened to the Indians acceptable, but he does go a long way to making it understandable.
This is really the story of frontier warfare. The period, though dominated, by the constant skirmishes with the Indians, also includes the war with Mexico and the Civil War. I had never really thought much about how the Civil War played out in the Southwest but there were some pretty major battles there. The Civil War became largely an excuse for the Texas-dominated branch of the Rebel army to attempt to annex the western areas of New Mexico that they had coveted for so long.
This turns out to be a good general introduction to the history of the Southwest. Sides' focus on the people of the era, particularly Carson, make for a very readable overview.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Category: Fantasy Grade: A+
Well, I did manage to get a few hours sleep last night but, other than that, I read this one straight through. I might be one of the older ones to do this, but definitely not the only one.
Every generation needs some work of art that makes a parent want to pass it down to his children. For most of the second half of the 20th century, that art was probably in the form of a movie. For me, it was the Wizard of Oz. It's my first memory of a going to the movies - Aunt Mina took me. I couldn't have been more than six or seven but that afternoon, sitting in the Paramount, is one I'll never forget. That movie was magic - the change from black-and-white Kansas to full color Oz, the cleverness of the yellow brick road and the lollipop guild, the terror of the flying monkeys (that I watched while cowering behind the seat in front of me) - these are the images that I couldn't wait to share with my kids when they were old enough. For those younger than me, it might be E.T. or Star Wars, but those moments were probably captured in movies.
For that group of high school kids that was hanging around bookstores Friday night waiting for midnight (who read the first Potter when they were 8), that feeling is unquestionably tied up with Harry, Ron and Hermione. Because of this attachment that will be passed on to the children ten years from now, I'll happily nominate Rowlings as the most influential writer of the last hundred years. She could easily be considered this because she's written the best, most approachable, not to mention longest, at almost 5000 pages, fantasy series ever - far outstripping, in my humble view, authors like Tolkien or Lewis. Much more importantly, she has single-handedly created millions on millions of kids who find magic between the covers of a book. She's extended the life of the book, in the face of 21st century technology, not to mention being the savior of the small, independent book store.
Think about so-called children's literature before Harry. The books that come to mind - Charlotte's Web, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys - were just plain juvenile. Children's authors really believed that kids couldn't handle a challenge -- big words, complex plots, well developed characters and, most obviously, thick books. Rowlings has changed all that by asking her readers to raise their ability to handle her stories instead of lowering her style to match their ability. In today's world of TAKS testing, grade inflation and six-year college degrees, it's a lesson that our educators should take to heart - making kids reach makes them smarter.
I'm not actually going to say a lot about Deadly Hallows - if you're not a fan, you probably think I'm nuts. If you are a fan, you've probably already started it or plan to so and you'd kill me if I gave away the story points. Suffice it to say that, to me this was the perfect topper to this series. It's a great book on its own with enough complexity and action to keep you glued, but it also gives a solid dose of closure to the series. While I'm a little sad to see the series end, it does end with this book -- I hope the Rowlings has more stories in her, but she should definitely let go of Potter.
Category: Fantasy Grade: A+
Well, I did manage to get a few hours sleep last night but, other than that, I read this one straight through. I might be one of the older ones to do this, but definitely not the only one.
Every generation needs some work of art that makes a parent want to pass it down to his children. For most of the second half of the 20th century, that art was probably in the form of a movie. For me, it was the Wizard of Oz. It's my first memory of a going to the movies - Aunt Mina took me. I couldn't have been more than six or seven but that afternoon, sitting in the Paramount, is one I'll never forget. That movie was magic - the change from black-and-white Kansas to full color Oz, the cleverness of the yellow brick road and the lollipop guild, the terror of the flying monkeys (that I watched while cowering behind the seat in front of me) - these are the images that I couldn't wait to share with my kids when they were old enough. For those younger than me, it might be E.T. or Star Wars, but those moments were probably captured in movies.
For that group of high school kids that was hanging around bookstores Friday night waiting for midnight (who read the first Potter when they were 8), that feeling is unquestionably tied up with Harry, Ron and Hermione. Because of this attachment that will be passed on to the children ten years from now, I'll happily nominate Rowlings as the most influential writer of the last hundred years. She could easily be considered this because she's written the best, most approachable, not to mention longest, at almost 5000 pages, fantasy series ever - far outstripping, in my humble view, authors like Tolkien or Lewis. Much more importantly, she has single-handedly created millions on millions of kids who find magic between the covers of a book. She's extended the life of the book, in the face of 21st century technology, not to mention being the savior of the small, independent book store.
Think about so-called children's literature before Harry. The books that come to mind - Charlotte's Web, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys - were just plain juvenile. Children's authors really believed that kids couldn't handle a challenge -- big words, complex plots, well developed characters and, most obviously, thick books. Rowlings has changed all that by asking her readers to raise their ability to handle her stories instead of lowering her style to match their ability. In today's world of TAKS testing, grade inflation and six-year college degrees, it's a lesson that our educators should take to heart - making kids reach makes them smarter.
I'm not actually going to say a lot about Deadly Hallows - if you're not a fan, you probably think I'm nuts. If you are a fan, you've probably already started it or plan to so and you'd kill me if I gave away the story points. Suffice it to say that, to me this was the perfect topper to this series. It's a great book on its own with enough complexity and action to keep you glued, but it also gives a solid dose of closure to the series. While I'm a little sad to see the series end, it does end with this book -- I hope the Rowlings has more stories in her, but she should definitely let go of Potter.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Bloodthirsty
Bloodthirsty by Marshall Karp
Category: Mystery Grade: A
It was a little risky to pick this book up. There's a little extra pressure to reviewing it. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might remember that I reviewed Karp's first book, The Rabbit Factory. It was a fun book and I gave it an "A-". Much to my surprise, the next week, I got an email from the author thanking me for the review. We swapped a couple of emails and he told me was working on a sequel featuring his LAPD detectives, Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. I'm guessing that Marshall is still lurking out there in the blogosphere and, eventually, will probably read this review. (Marshall - if you do, drop me an email and say hello!) Given that, I was a little concerned that the new book would be a bust and I'd have to decide whether to give it a bad review or chicken out and pretend I didn't read it.
Fortunately - no problem. This book was even better than the first one - partly because the characters are now familiar. The big difference between this and the first book is that there are fewer distracting side plots in this one. The main storyline has plenty of twists to keep you guessing. More important for a mystery fan, Karp gives you enough clues to figure out where the story is going if you're really, really clever. I wasn't, but, once he hits a plot twist, you can look back in the book and see the clues that you should have caught. It's really frustrating to a mystery fan when other authors takes a turn that has absolutely no setup.
While I really enjoyed the plot in Bloodthirsty - a serial killing with a strange M.O. - Karp's strength is still character development. His primary characters, Lomax and Biggs are interesting, funny and, riding a little high trying to sell the Rabbit Factory story to the movies. But these aren't just cops - they're husbands/boyfriends, fathers, sons, friends - and essentially all of the supporting characters are completely three dimensional. My favorite is still Lomax's father, Big Jim - a character that could probably star in his own book.
As in the first book, Karp isn't aspiring to create high literature here. He's written another entertaining read and has me ready to get in line for the third book (or a movie?). Marshall, if you reading this - go back to work!
Category: Mystery Grade: A
It was a little risky to pick this book up. There's a little extra pressure to reviewing it. If you've been following this blog for a while, you might remember that I reviewed Karp's first book, The Rabbit Factory. It was a fun book and I gave it an "A-". Much to my surprise, the next week, I got an email from the author thanking me for the review. We swapped a couple of emails and he told me was working on a sequel featuring his LAPD detectives, Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. I'm guessing that Marshall is still lurking out there in the blogosphere and, eventually, will probably read this review. (Marshall - if you do, drop me an email and say hello!) Given that, I was a little concerned that the new book would be a bust and I'd have to decide whether to give it a bad review or chicken out and pretend I didn't read it.
Fortunately - no problem. This book was even better than the first one - partly because the characters are now familiar. The big difference between this and the first book is that there are fewer distracting side plots in this one. The main storyline has plenty of twists to keep you guessing. More important for a mystery fan, Karp gives you enough clues to figure out where the story is going if you're really, really clever. I wasn't, but, once he hits a plot twist, you can look back in the book and see the clues that you should have caught. It's really frustrating to a mystery fan when other authors takes a turn that has absolutely no setup.
While I really enjoyed the plot in Bloodthirsty - a serial killing with a strange M.O. - Karp's strength is still character development. His primary characters, Lomax and Biggs are interesting, funny and, riding a little high trying to sell the Rabbit Factory story to the movies. But these aren't just cops - they're husbands/boyfriends, fathers, sons, friends - and essentially all of the supporting characters are completely three dimensional. My favorite is still Lomax's father, Big Jim - a character that could probably star in his own book.
As in the first book, Karp isn't aspiring to create high literature here. He's written another entertaining read and has me ready to get in line for the third book (or a movie?). Marshall, if you reading this - go back to work!
Richistan
Richistan by Robert Frank
Category: Current Affairs Grade: B+
This book is almost embarrassing to review. Frank, a Wall Street Journal writer, spent years reporting on the wealthy. He came to the conclusion that the rich (in the U.S. in this book) really live in a different world. He decided to travel through the world and describe the lifestyles he found. His first quick conclusion was that millionaires are a whole lot more prevalent than they used to be (even adjusted for inflation). He divides Richistan in to four different "states" - Lower Richistan ($1-10M net worth), Middle Richistan ($10-100M net worth), Upper Richistan ($100M-$1B) and, of course, Billionaireville ($1B+).
He spends most of time in the last two states and discovers that inflation in those states is dramatically worse than in the "real world". The competition for the best, the most and the biggest keeps the uber-rich continuously spending. The 500 foot yacht is no longer unusual. The 30,000 square foot home is becoming common among this group. On the other hand, the demographics of the group is pretty different than in the past -- people are younger, dress less formally, don't use chauffeurs and, often, keep working long past having "enough" money. Philanthropy has become a more participatory activity with fewer gifts to "name" charities and more do it yourself social investing. The chapter about this actually focuses on an Austinite - Phillip Berber and his Glimmer of Hope Foundation.
Interesting world.
Category: Current Affairs Grade: B+
This book is almost embarrassing to review. Frank, a Wall Street Journal writer, spent years reporting on the wealthy. He came to the conclusion that the rich (in the U.S. in this book) really live in a different world. He decided to travel through the world and describe the lifestyles he found. His first quick conclusion was that millionaires are a whole lot more prevalent than they used to be (even adjusted for inflation). He divides Richistan in to four different "states" - Lower Richistan ($1-10M net worth), Middle Richistan ($10-100M net worth), Upper Richistan ($100M-$1B) and, of course, Billionaireville ($1B+).
He spends most of time in the last two states and discovers that inflation in those states is dramatically worse than in the "real world". The competition for the best, the most and the biggest keeps the uber-rich continuously spending. The 500 foot yacht is no longer unusual. The 30,000 square foot home is becoming common among this group. On the other hand, the demographics of the group is pretty different than in the past -- people are younger, dress less formally, don't use chauffeurs and, often, keep working long past having "enough" money. Philanthropy has become a more participatory activity with fewer gifts to "name" charities and more do it yourself social investing. The chapter about this actually focuses on an Austinite - Phillip Berber and his Glimmer of Hope Foundation.
Interesting world.
The Quest
The Quest by Wilbur Smith
Category: Historical Novel (sort of) Grade: B
Wilbur Smith is a very prolific writer of mostly historical fiction. The Quest is the fourth book in his series about ancient Egypt. The series focuses on Taita, a eunuch and advisor to the Pharaohs of Egypt. He's a "long liver" having lived through the reigns of four or five Pharaohs. The previous three novels have been reality based. This one flies way off in to the realm of fantasy. In doing so, Smith becomes extremely derivative. This book reads like a compilation of the stories of Tolkien, Rowlins and others. There are quests, reincarnation, witches, fantastical healing and, frankly, ultimately, it was too much. The book managed to hang on to a B rating because Smith really writes amazing ancient battle scenes - a little gory, but engaging.
If you're interested in Egypt, I still recommend the earlier books in the series, especially the first one, River God. Definitely don't start with this one.
Category: Historical Novel (sort of) Grade: B
Wilbur Smith is a very prolific writer of mostly historical fiction. The Quest is the fourth book in his series about ancient Egypt. The series focuses on Taita, a eunuch and advisor to the Pharaohs of Egypt. He's a "long liver" having lived through the reigns of four or five Pharaohs. The previous three novels have been reality based. This one flies way off in to the realm of fantasy. In doing so, Smith becomes extremely derivative. This book reads like a compilation of the stories of Tolkien, Rowlins and others. There are quests, reincarnation, witches, fantastical healing and, frankly, ultimately, it was too much. The book managed to hang on to a B rating because Smith really writes amazing ancient battle scenes - a little gory, but engaging.
If you're interested in Egypt, I still recommend the earlier books in the series, especially the first one, River God. Definitely don't start with this one.
Friday, July 13, 2007
The Black Swan
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Category: Philosophy Grade: B+
This book made my head hurt.
Taleb, by background, is a trader. I guess I hadn't really grasped the fact from the reviews and the jacket cover that this was really a philosophy book. That made it, at times, hard to follow. In addition, Taleb's tone is very confrontational. He's obviously not out to win friends among the financial and philosophical community. He even trashes icons like the economist Paul Samuelson and his followers.
Taleb's basic premise is that most things -- life, history, the financial markets - are driven not by predictable, analyzable continuity (or by bell curves), but by Black Swans. The term comes from the fact that, for centuries, most scientist believed that all swans were white based on thousands and thousands of observations. I.e. nobody had ever seen a swan that wasn't white so, therefore, all swans must be white. This theory had to be thrown out when the unexpected happened -- scientists found black swans in Australia. More specifically, a Black Swan, per Taleb, has three characteristics -- its unpredictable, it has major impact and, most of the time, it can be analyzed (not necessarily correctly) in hindsight. The best examples of Black Swan in the recent past are 9/11 and Katrina (and, more personally, the massive floodings in Marble Falls this summer). Note, not all Black Swans are negative. Again from personal experience, the success of AOL has to be considered a Black Swan - one that worked out pretty well for me.
Taleb points out that predicting based on experience is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Essentially, "if you don't study history, you're doomed to repeat it" doesn't work for him. The classic example he uses is the "Thanksgiving turkey" scenario. If you're a turkey, for a thousand days you're pampered and well fed. After a thousand observations, it's reasonable for you, the turkey, to assume that tomorrow will be another day like yesterday. Surprise, surprise - instead of getting dinner, you are dinner on the 1001st day! The general conclusions from this is that you can't draw definitive positive conclusions from any number of positive observations. You can, however, draw negative conclusions from a single negative observation. For example, thousands of white swans don't prove that all swans are white, while a single black swan proves that not all swans are white. He also warns against transposition errors -- "not all swans are white" is not the same as "all swans are not white".
From a practical point of view, Taleb's conclusion is that professional predictors are useless. In fact, he claims that they're worse than useless since they don't accept the fact that they could be wrong. Since a lot of research in the financial world is devoted to building more and more elaborate economic and market models, this is naturally a controversial position.
Ultimately, of course, since Black Swans are, by definition, unpredictable, you can't really plan for them. You can, however, plan on the assumption that some Black Swan will happen. On the negative side, most of us do this -- we buy insurance. Insurance always seems like a useless thing to do, until the Black Swan happens. Just ask the uninsured Katrina victims. On the positive side, you can put yourself in position to take advantage of positive Black Swans - e.g. join start up companies.
Reading contrarians like Taleb is definitely worthwhile. I actually happen to identify with his writings, but even if he just makes you think more critically, he's worth reading.
Category: Philosophy Grade: B+
This book made my head hurt.
Taleb, by background, is a trader. I guess I hadn't really grasped the fact from the reviews and the jacket cover that this was really a philosophy book. That made it, at times, hard to follow. In addition, Taleb's tone is very confrontational. He's obviously not out to win friends among the financial and philosophical community. He even trashes icons like the economist Paul Samuelson and his followers.
Taleb's basic premise is that most things -- life, history, the financial markets - are driven not by predictable, analyzable continuity (or by bell curves), but by Black Swans. The term comes from the fact that, for centuries, most scientist believed that all swans were white based on thousands and thousands of observations. I.e. nobody had ever seen a swan that wasn't white so, therefore, all swans must be white. This theory had to be thrown out when the unexpected happened -- scientists found black swans in Australia. More specifically, a Black Swan, per Taleb, has three characteristics -- its unpredictable, it has major impact and, most of the time, it can be analyzed (not necessarily correctly) in hindsight. The best examples of Black Swan in the recent past are 9/11 and Katrina (and, more personally, the massive floodings in Marble Falls this summer). Note, not all Black Swans are negative. Again from personal experience, the success of AOL has to be considered a Black Swan - one that worked out pretty well for me.
Taleb points out that predicting based on experience is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Essentially, "if you don't study history, you're doomed to repeat it" doesn't work for him. The classic example he uses is the "Thanksgiving turkey" scenario. If you're a turkey, for a thousand days you're pampered and well fed. After a thousand observations, it's reasonable for you, the turkey, to assume that tomorrow will be another day like yesterday. Surprise, surprise - instead of getting dinner, you are dinner on the 1001st day! The general conclusions from this is that you can't draw definitive positive conclusions from any number of positive observations. You can, however, draw negative conclusions from a single negative observation. For example, thousands of white swans don't prove that all swans are white, while a single black swan proves that not all swans are white. He also warns against transposition errors -- "not all swans are white" is not the same as "all swans are not white".
From a practical point of view, Taleb's conclusion is that professional predictors are useless. In fact, he claims that they're worse than useless since they don't accept the fact that they could be wrong. Since a lot of research in the financial world is devoted to building more and more elaborate economic and market models, this is naturally a controversial position.
Ultimately, of course, since Black Swans are, by definition, unpredictable, you can't really plan for them. You can, however, plan on the assumption that some Black Swan will happen. On the negative side, most of us do this -- we buy insurance. Insurance always seems like a useless thing to do, until the Black Swan happens. Just ask the uninsured Katrina victims. On the positive side, you can put yourself in position to take advantage of positive Black Swans - e.g. join start up companies.
Reading contrarians like Taleb is definitely worthwhile. I actually happen to identify with his writings, but even if he just makes you think more critically, he's worth reading.
Social Commentary
I've tried to avoid doing a much of any social commentary on this blog since, if I get started, I'd probably be spewing propaganda for weeks. However, I ran across a brief article in the latest Newsweek that really summed up a whole lot of today's problems for me.
The article was about a new trend, which I generally support, to hold parents responsible for the crimes of their minor children. Even though I'm a liberal on most issues, I do believe that the primary responsibility for giving kids a moral basis lies with the family, not with the schools or the government. I think there's a roll for everybody to play, but the lynch pin is the home. So, it makes sense to me that, if kids go wrong early, there should be consequences for their parents.
But come on -- let's at least be logical about this and send the message we want kids to get. In Louisiana, a parent can be fined $250 if their child joins a gang. Not much, but a start. In California, if a parent provides, intentionally or accidentally, a gun to a child who then goes on to seriously injure or kill somebody, the parent can be fined $30,000. OK, better. However, there is now a federal law that says, if a child illegally downloads a song from the Internet, the parent can be fined up to $150,000!!!
Now that we have are child-rearing philosophy straight, let me provide the obvious advice to those of you who still have kids at home. If you're thinking about buying your child an mp3 player, forget it. It's a whole lot cheaper to get them a handgun! And if you really want to be financially responsible, forget the Kazaa account, take the kid shopping for gang colors!
Makes you proud to be an American!
The article was about a new trend, which I generally support, to hold parents responsible for the crimes of their minor children. Even though I'm a liberal on most issues, I do believe that the primary responsibility for giving kids a moral basis lies with the family, not with the schools or the government. I think there's a roll for everybody to play, but the lynch pin is the home. So, it makes sense to me that, if kids go wrong early, there should be consequences for their parents.
But come on -- let's at least be logical about this and send the message we want kids to get. In Louisiana, a parent can be fined $250 if their child joins a gang. Not much, but a start. In California, if a parent provides, intentionally or accidentally, a gun to a child who then goes on to seriously injure or kill somebody, the parent can be fined $30,000. OK, better. However, there is now a federal law that says, if a child illegally downloads a song from the Internet, the parent can be fined up to $150,000!!!
Now that we have are child-rearing philosophy straight, let me provide the obvious advice to those of you who still have kids at home. If you're thinking about buying your child an mp3 player, forget it. It's a whole lot cheaper to get them a handgun! And if you really want to be financially responsible, forget the Kazaa account, take the kid shopping for gang colors!
Makes you proud to be an American!
Monday, July 02, 2007
The Good Guy
The Good Guy by Dean Koontz
Category: Thriller Grade: A-
And back to entertaining garbage... This book has three parts -- a brief ten page section to set up the premise, an involved chase scene and, finally, a relatively brief explanation of why everything happened. The premise is pretty clever -- a man (our hero) walks in to his favorite bar. After a few minutes at the bar, a stranger walks over, hands our hero $10K and a picture of the woman our hero is supposed to kill and leaves the bar. A few minutes later, a second stranger walks in to the bar and walks up our hero to ask for his assignment. The hero, having figured out that he has somehow gotten in to the middle of a murder-for-hire, gives the second stranger the money and tells him "never mind", thinking that'll make everybody happy and keep the woman alive.
Of course, it doesn't work out that way. The contract killer figures out what happened and, because of professional pride and the fact that he enjoys killing people, decides to go ahead with the murder. In addition, he figures that, since our hero can identify him, our hero will have to go to and, since the murderer is a sporting man, he calls our hero and tells him so!
I haven't given away much here. The setup I've described all happens in the first ten pages or so. Then, most of the book is devoted to the cat and mouse game between the murderer and the hero and, of course, the intended victim since we need an attractive, quirky female lead to make the action interesting. Surprisingly, Koontz is then able to give us 300 pages of non-stop, very entertaining action. As I said, its basically one long chase scene and, like the best Die Hard movie, it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole way.
The last section - the explanation of why anybody wanted to kill this reasonably nice woman in the first place - is the weak point of the book and cost it a couple of points. It was a little lame and felt like Koontz finished and realized he'd left this big issue hanging out there.
The weak points aren't enough to kill the fun of the story and the pace of the action. This is a great summer read. Perfect for sitting by the pool or waiting for the sun to come out.
Category: Thriller Grade: A-
And back to entertaining garbage... This book has three parts -- a brief ten page section to set up the premise, an involved chase scene and, finally, a relatively brief explanation of why everything happened. The premise is pretty clever -- a man (our hero) walks in to his favorite bar. After a few minutes at the bar, a stranger walks over, hands our hero $10K and a picture of the woman our hero is supposed to kill and leaves the bar. A few minutes later, a second stranger walks in to the bar and walks up our hero to ask for his assignment. The hero, having figured out that he has somehow gotten in to the middle of a murder-for-hire, gives the second stranger the money and tells him "never mind", thinking that'll make everybody happy and keep the woman alive.
Of course, it doesn't work out that way. The contract killer figures out what happened and, because of professional pride and the fact that he enjoys killing people, decides to go ahead with the murder. In addition, he figures that, since our hero can identify him, our hero will have to go to and, since the murderer is a sporting man, he calls our hero and tells him so!
I haven't given away much here. The setup I've described all happens in the first ten pages or so. Then, most of the book is devoted to the cat and mouse game between the murderer and the hero and, of course, the intended victim since we need an attractive, quirky female lead to make the action interesting. Surprisingly, Koontz is then able to give us 300 pages of non-stop, very entertaining action. As I said, its basically one long chase scene and, like the best Die Hard movie, it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole way.
The last section - the explanation of why anybody wanted to kill this reasonably nice woman in the first place - is the weak point of the book and cost it a couple of points. It was a little lame and felt like Koontz finished and realized he'd left this big issue hanging out there.
The weak points aren't enough to kill the fun of the story and the pace of the action. This is a great summer read. Perfect for sitting by the pool or waiting for the sun to come out.
The Secret Life of Houdini
The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman
Category: Biography Grade: B-
It's hard to imagine but, in his day, mostly the early years of the 20th century, Houdini was about as big a superstar as it gets. This was an era before any kind of real mass media -- even the movies only kicked in late in Houdini's career. Born Erik Weisz in Hungary in 1874, the man who would become Harry Houdini was moved to the United States early in his life and became Elrich Weiss. He adopted the name Houdini as a tribute to a French magician named Robert-Houdin - a man that Houdini eventually turned on, publishing a book exposing him as a fraud.
Houdini was really one of the first to understand the values of self-promotion. Everything he did in his early life was designed with one purpose - to promote the career of Harry Houdini. For example, when he first became an escape artist and for most of his career, he would, on arriving in a new town for a show, head straight for the local police office. There, he would challenge the local cops to secure him in any combination of standard-issue handcuffs, leg irons, even jail cells and proceed to astonish everybody (including, of course, the assembled press) with his ability to escape. Throughout his career, he maintained close relations with not only local police all over the world but also the leaders of the Secret Service and Britain's MI-5. In one of the controversial aspects of the book, the authors show reasonably convincing evidence that Houdini acted throughout his life as an unofficial resource for these spy agencies.
Late in his career, Houdini became a crusader against the Spiritualist Movement, the religion that was predicated on the ability to speak, through mediums, to the dead. Especially after the death of the mother to whom he was devoted, Houdini desperately wanted to uncover the path to communicating with the dead but eventually, through his unique knowledge of showmanship and scam, came to denounce every medium he came across as a fraud. He repeatedly offered big rewards to any medium who could show an ability to communicate that couldn't be easily duplicated with the trick's of Houdini and, of course, never had to pay off. He became a major antagonist to the movement that was spearheaded by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Doyle, late in his life, was the most visible advocate of Spiritualism.
As a life story, Houdini's is fascinating. As a biography, this one leaves a little to be desired. Like a lot of today's movies, it could have used a much more forceful editor. Big chunks of the book prove highly repetitive -- Houdini was locked in chains, then escaped; Houdini was locked in other chains, then escaped -- over and over and over again. Once his career took off, Houdini never had much trouble filling an audience but, after all the repetition, its hard to understand how.
This book does give great pictures of the vaudeville/entertainment world of the early 20th century and a terrific overview of the Spiritualist Movement. It could have been a great one if somebody had convinced the author to trim a hundred pages or so.
Category: Biography Grade: B-
It's hard to imagine but, in his day, mostly the early years of the 20th century, Houdini was about as big a superstar as it gets. This was an era before any kind of real mass media -- even the movies only kicked in late in Houdini's career. Born Erik Weisz in Hungary in 1874, the man who would become Harry Houdini was moved to the United States early in his life and became Elrich Weiss. He adopted the name Houdini as a tribute to a French magician named Robert-Houdin - a man that Houdini eventually turned on, publishing a book exposing him as a fraud.
Houdini was really one of the first to understand the values of self-promotion. Everything he did in his early life was designed with one purpose - to promote the career of Harry Houdini. For example, when he first became an escape artist and for most of his career, he would, on arriving in a new town for a show, head straight for the local police office. There, he would challenge the local cops to secure him in any combination of standard-issue handcuffs, leg irons, even jail cells and proceed to astonish everybody (including, of course, the assembled press) with his ability to escape. Throughout his career, he maintained close relations with not only local police all over the world but also the leaders of the Secret Service and Britain's MI-5. In one of the controversial aspects of the book, the authors show reasonably convincing evidence that Houdini acted throughout his life as an unofficial resource for these spy agencies.
Late in his career, Houdini became a crusader against the Spiritualist Movement, the religion that was predicated on the ability to speak, through mediums, to the dead. Especially after the death of the mother to whom he was devoted, Houdini desperately wanted to uncover the path to communicating with the dead but eventually, through his unique knowledge of showmanship and scam, came to denounce every medium he came across as a fraud. He repeatedly offered big rewards to any medium who could show an ability to communicate that couldn't be easily duplicated with the trick's of Houdini and, of course, never had to pay off. He became a major antagonist to the movement that was spearheaded by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Doyle, late in his life, was the most visible advocate of Spiritualism.
As a life story, Houdini's is fascinating. As a biography, this one leaves a little to be desired. Like a lot of today's movies, it could have used a much more forceful editor. Big chunks of the book prove highly repetitive -- Houdini was locked in chains, then escaped; Houdini was locked in other chains, then escaped -- over and over and over again. Once his career took off, Houdini never had much trouble filling an audience but, after all the repetition, its hard to understand how.
This book does give great pictures of the vaudeville/entertainment world of the early 20th century and a terrific overview of the Spiritualist Movement. It could have been a great one if somebody had convinced the author to trim a hundred pages or so.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
After Dark
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
Category: Novel Grade: B+
I should have known to expect a philosophical novel that isn't quite what it seems to be. Murakami is a very popular Japanese author whose novels have been translated into 38 languages. He recently received the Kafka Prize. On top of that, our friend at the bookstore saw me pick this one up and commented -- "That's a good one of his to start with -- it's short!". So I can't say I wasn't warned.
Anyway, I did end up enjoying the book. It's a little stilted as is pretty common for books written in a foreign language and translated to English. (There is a lot of music mentioned in to the book - I wonder if the translator replaces Japanese jazz titles with American ones for the translation?). The book is about two sisters in Tokyo. Mari, the one we meet first in the middle of the night in a Denny's, is the focal point of the realistic part of the novel. Her sister, Eri, on the other hand, has been asleep for the last two months and we see her, in her sleep, moving between her bedroom and another room reflected in the TV in her room. Nothing much really happens, but it's actually kind of cool the way Murakami weaves what's essential a magical realist novel. Not sure I know what he was trying to say, but he said it really well.
Category: Novel Grade: B+
I should have known to expect a philosophical novel that isn't quite what it seems to be. Murakami is a very popular Japanese author whose novels have been translated into 38 languages. He recently received the Kafka Prize. On top of that, our friend at the bookstore saw me pick this one up and commented -- "That's a good one of his to start with -- it's short!". So I can't say I wasn't warned.
Anyway, I did end up enjoying the book. It's a little stilted as is pretty common for books written in a foreign language and translated to English. (There is a lot of music mentioned in to the book - I wonder if the translator replaces Japanese jazz titles with American ones for the translation?). The book is about two sisters in Tokyo. Mari, the one we meet first in the middle of the night in a Denny's, is the focal point of the realistic part of the novel. Her sister, Eri, on the other hand, has been asleep for the last two months and we see her, in her sleep, moving between her bedroom and another room reflected in the TV in her room. Nothing much really happens, but it's actually kind of cool the way Murakami weaves what's essential a magical realist novel. Not sure I know what he was trying to say, but he said it really well.
The Book of Air and Shadows
The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber
Category: Novel Grade: B-
I picked this one up because I had read a kidlit book that Gruber wrote last year and it was decent - not great, but decent. This is one of his adult novels and it falls in the same category. This is one of the many "son of DaVinci Code" books that I usually avoid. You know, modern day people discovery some ancient secret launching an across-the-ages thriller. In general in this category, you never really know whether what you're reading about is an actual ancient mystery or a modern day scam. Same with Gruber's book. It's got a very been there/done that feel to it.
In this case, the "discovery" revolves around a set of 17th century letters that talk about a plot to spy on Shakespeare and, ultimately, talks about an undiscovered play that is supposedly buried somewhere in England. An unknown Shakespeare play, especially one written in his own hand would, as you might imagine, be worth millions, if not hundreds of millions. Gangsters get involved - in fact rival groups of gangsters; a professor gets tortured and murdered; a lawyer and a wannabe fill maker get involved; there are a couple of mystery women; an ex-wife; an OCD kid... Gruber tries to jam so many different plot lines in to the novel, that, after a while, it just gets too confusing. He never gets the reader to the point where you really care much about these people and their complicated lives.
Category: Novel Grade: B-
I picked this one up because I had read a kidlit book that Gruber wrote last year and it was decent - not great, but decent. This is one of his adult novels and it falls in the same category. This is one of the many "son of DaVinci Code" books that I usually avoid. You know, modern day people discovery some ancient secret launching an across-the-ages thriller. In general in this category, you never really know whether what you're reading about is an actual ancient mystery or a modern day scam. Same with Gruber's book. It's got a very been there/done that feel to it.
In this case, the "discovery" revolves around a set of 17th century letters that talk about a plot to spy on Shakespeare and, ultimately, talks about an undiscovered play that is supposedly buried somewhere in England. An unknown Shakespeare play, especially one written in his own hand would, as you might imagine, be worth millions, if not hundreds of millions. Gangsters get involved - in fact rival groups of gangsters; a professor gets tortured and murdered; a lawyer and a wannabe fill maker get involved; there are a couple of mystery women; an ex-wife; an OCD kid... Gruber tries to jam so many different plot lines in to the novel, that, after a while, it just gets too confusing. He never gets the reader to the point where you really care much about these people and their complicated lives.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Silas Marner
Silas Marner by George Elliot
Category: Novel Grade: A-
And so another touchstone of my teenage years falls. In my memory, the two worst books ever written, both required reading in high school, were The Red Badge of Courage and Silas Marner. Last summer, I discovered that Crane's novel was actually really good. Earlier this summer, if you remember, I made some snide comment about Silas Marner in one of my other book reviews. Almost immediately, Christian challenged me, saying it was actually one of his favorites. He's got degrees from Duke and Yale so I, of course, figured he was being elitist and trying to show off his knowledge and sophistication and so, I accepted his challenge and agreed to read the book. I asked our friend who owns the little book store that we use to order it for me. She laughed and said she remembered it to as the worst book she ever read.
What a surprise! This is actually a beautiful little book. The prose, being 150 years old, is a little dense for my taste with paragraphs that can run three or four pages. Given that, however, it was a much more complex story than I expected with incredibly well drawn characters. There are only two things that I can come up with to blame my past feelings about the book. The one I believe is true is that this is just a terrible book to give to 16 or 17 year old kids. Jason even said he had to read the book in middle school! Kids that age just aren't prepared for a book like this and I stick with my belief that, at that age, this is a good book to kill any interest in literature that a kid might have. The other, and probably true theory, given that parts of the story weren't familiar to me at all, was that I actually dodged the assignment in high school and only read parts of the book (or, more likely, read the Cliffs Notes).
This is only a couple of hundred pages long and is a pretty quick read. If you want to challenge your memories of those horrible books from high school, give it a try. You may be surprised.
Category: Novel Grade: A-
And so another touchstone of my teenage years falls. In my memory, the two worst books ever written, both required reading in high school, were The Red Badge of Courage and Silas Marner. Last summer, I discovered that Crane's novel was actually really good. Earlier this summer, if you remember, I made some snide comment about Silas Marner in one of my other book reviews. Almost immediately, Christian challenged me, saying it was actually one of his favorites. He's got degrees from Duke and Yale so I, of course, figured he was being elitist and trying to show off his knowledge and sophistication and so, I accepted his challenge and agreed to read the book. I asked our friend who owns the little book store that we use to order it for me. She laughed and said she remembered it to as the worst book she ever read.
What a surprise! This is actually a beautiful little book. The prose, being 150 years old, is a little dense for my taste with paragraphs that can run three or four pages. Given that, however, it was a much more complex story than I expected with incredibly well drawn characters. There are only two things that I can come up with to blame my past feelings about the book. The one I believe is true is that this is just a terrible book to give to 16 or 17 year old kids. Jason even said he had to read the book in middle school! Kids that age just aren't prepared for a book like this and I stick with my belief that, at that age, this is a good book to kill any interest in literature that a kid might have. The other, and probably true theory, given that parts of the story weren't familiar to me at all, was that I actually dodged the assignment in high school and only read parts of the book (or, more likely, read the Cliffs Notes).
This is only a couple of hundred pages long and is a pretty quick read. If you want to challenge your memories of those horrible books from high school, give it a try. You may be surprised.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Roll the Bones
Roll the Bones, The History of Gambling by David G. Schwartz
Category: History Grade: B-
My first surprise with this book was that there is such a thing as a professor of gambling! The author is Director of the Center for Gaming Studies at UNLV. Who knew.
The next surprise was that you could write a textbook about gambling history. The book is very comprehensive - spanning gambling from the folks who starting gaming with the astragalus, foot bones from a variety of animals right through to the explosion of online gambling in the last decade. Like a textbook, this was interesting, but, for the most part pretty dry. You wouldn't think it was possible to write a dry book about gambling but it is.
There are some high points -- the early stages of the creation of Vegas; the rise of horse racing around the world - but over 100 pages about the development of lotteries can get pretty boring.
You're not likely to enjoy this book unless you're a big fan of gambling, so don't bother. The summary you're led to is that gambling is absolutely basic to human nature and that virtually all attempts to ban or severely restrict gambling have crumbled in a relatively short period of time. So, if you have to drive too far to get to a casino, just hang on.
Category: History Grade: B-
My first surprise with this book was that there is such a thing as a professor of gambling! The author is Director of the Center for Gaming Studies at UNLV. Who knew.
The next surprise was that you could write a textbook about gambling history. The book is very comprehensive - spanning gambling from the folks who starting gaming with the astragalus, foot bones from a variety of animals right through to the explosion of online gambling in the last decade. Like a textbook, this was interesting, but, for the most part pretty dry. You wouldn't think it was possible to write a dry book about gambling but it is.
There are some high points -- the early stages of the creation of Vegas; the rise of horse racing around the world - but over 100 pages about the development of lotteries can get pretty boring.
You're not likely to enjoy this book unless you're a big fan of gambling, so don't bother. The summary you're led to is that gambling is absolutely basic to human nature and that virtually all attempts to ban or severely restrict gambling have crumbled in a relatively short period of time. So, if you have to drive too far to get to a casino, just hang on.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Empire
Empire by Orson Scott Card
Category: SciFi Grade: C+
Card is actually a pretty good writer. His two series - the Ender SciFi series and the Alvin Marker fantasy series are both classics. I'm still waiting for him to hit a home run (or even a solid double) outside of these two series. This book definitely isn't the one.
The premise here is that, in the very near future, the Red State/Blue State divisions in the United States actually lead to civil war. The underlying warning -- that today's polarization leads to an openness to manipulation by a smart, silent group of hidden powerful people - is as old as literature. It wasn't until I got to the end that I realized that what Card had been chartered to do in this book is write a novelization of an upcoming video game and, boy, does it feel like that. You get the impression, at times, that the action has been plotted by a committee of 14 year old boys. There's all kinds of video-game-oriented weapons and lots of shoot-em-up action. The plot is also very disjointed -- you sometimes feel like you're watching a Die Hard movie that's had 5 minute chunks snipped out every once in a while.
I do, though, have to throw out one interesting thing about Card. He was really one of the first to believe in the value of an online presence for a popular author. His current online community, www.hatrack.com, started out as a dedicated forum on AOL close to twenty years ago. I still remember the day that he came to headquarters to discuss how the forum would be set up. Since most of us, back then, were certifiable nerds, that was a very well attended meeting. He was a strange guy -- overweight, Mormon, very conservative for the times -- but he absolutely understood the power of an online fan club. Today, he actually releases most of his books a chapter at a time as he writes them on his web site and actually listens to and incorporates feedback from his fans.
Check out the website or his early book, Ender's Game, but skip this one.
Category: SciFi Grade: C+
Card is actually a pretty good writer. His two series - the Ender SciFi series and the Alvin Marker fantasy series are both classics. I'm still waiting for him to hit a home run (or even a solid double) outside of these two series. This book definitely isn't the one.
The premise here is that, in the very near future, the Red State/Blue State divisions in the United States actually lead to civil war. The underlying warning -- that today's polarization leads to an openness to manipulation by a smart, silent group of hidden powerful people - is as old as literature. It wasn't until I got to the end that I realized that what Card had been chartered to do in this book is write a novelization of an upcoming video game and, boy, does it feel like that. You get the impression, at times, that the action has been plotted by a committee of 14 year old boys. There's all kinds of video-game-oriented weapons and lots of shoot-em-up action. The plot is also very disjointed -- you sometimes feel like you're watching a Die Hard movie that's had 5 minute chunks snipped out every once in a while.
I do, though, have to throw out one interesting thing about Card. He was really one of the first to believe in the value of an online presence for a popular author. His current online community, www.hatrack.com, started out as a dedicated forum on AOL close to twenty years ago. I still remember the day that he came to headquarters to discuss how the forum would be set up. Since most of us, back then, were certifiable nerds, that was a very well attended meeting. He was a strange guy -- overweight, Mormon, very conservative for the times -- but he absolutely understood the power of an online fan club. Today, he actually releases most of his books a chapter at a time as he writes them on his web site and actually listens to and incorporates feedback from his fans.
Check out the website or his early book, Ender's Game, but skip this one.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Water for Elephants
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Category: Novel Grade: A
This book seems to have become a staple of the book club circuit and its pretty easy to see why. It's a well constructed story with a really good ending. I will warn those of you with squeamish stomachs that one of the themes of the book is animal cruelty and, while it' not horribly graphic, it's definitely there.
Gruen has adopted a somewhat unusual structure for the book. The first three chapters cover the middle, end and beginning of the story and everything converges from there. Since this all happens in the first 15 pages or so, I don't feel bad about having a little bit of a spoiler. The bulk of the book takes place at a not-so-great traveling circus. In the opening pages, we get what is really the climax of the book - a murder (sort-of) and a stampede of all the animals in the circus menagerie and, we meet the book's narrator, Jacob Jankowsky. In the second chapter, we jump way ahead to Jankowsky at age 93 in a nursing home. Then in the third chapter, we go all the way to the beginning of the story -- with Jankowsky as a veternary student who learns that his parents have been killed in a car wreck. When he returns to school after the funeral for his finals, he is so distraught that he ends up running out of the exam room and, in desperation, hopping a train that's moving through town. It's only when he wakes up the next morning that he realizes that the train he's jumped belongs to the Benzini Brothers Traveling Circus and so, without really making a decision, Jankowsky becomes a circus-hand.
The book bounces back and forth between Jake in his 20s at the circus and Jake in his 90s at the nursing home. Most of the interesting parts of the story take place at the circus and leads you to the climax that you already know is coming, but didn't quite understand. You get a great view of circus life and the freaks, roustabouts and performers that populate it. You may wonder, during the book, why Gruen bothered to include the "old Jake" story line. It makes for some good comic relief but, in the end, becomes a critical part of the story.
Grit your teeth through the animal-cruelty parts (and know that it all works out for in the end). You'll enjoy this one.
Category: Novel Grade: A
This book seems to have become a staple of the book club circuit and its pretty easy to see why. It's a well constructed story with a really good ending. I will warn those of you with squeamish stomachs that one of the themes of the book is animal cruelty and, while it' not horribly graphic, it's definitely there.
Gruen has adopted a somewhat unusual structure for the book. The first three chapters cover the middle, end and beginning of the story and everything converges from there. Since this all happens in the first 15 pages or so, I don't feel bad about having a little bit of a spoiler. The bulk of the book takes place at a not-so-great traveling circus. In the opening pages, we get what is really the climax of the book - a murder (sort-of) and a stampede of all the animals in the circus menagerie and, we meet the book's narrator, Jacob Jankowsky. In the second chapter, we jump way ahead to Jankowsky at age 93 in a nursing home. Then in the third chapter, we go all the way to the beginning of the story -- with Jankowsky as a veternary student who learns that his parents have been killed in a car wreck. When he returns to school after the funeral for his finals, he is so distraught that he ends up running out of the exam room and, in desperation, hopping a train that's moving through town. It's only when he wakes up the next morning that he realizes that the train he's jumped belongs to the Benzini Brothers Traveling Circus and so, without really making a decision, Jankowsky becomes a circus-hand.
The book bounces back and forth between Jake in his 20s at the circus and Jake in his 90s at the nursing home. Most of the interesting parts of the story take place at the circus and leads you to the climax that you already know is coming, but didn't quite understand. You get a great view of circus life and the freaks, roustabouts and performers that populate it. You may wonder, during the book, why Gruen bothered to include the "old Jake" story line. It makes for some good comic relief but, in the end, becomes a critical part of the story.
Grit your teeth through the animal-cruelty parts (and know that it all works out for in the end). You'll enjoy this one.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Einstein
Einstein by Walter Isaacson
Category: Biography Grade: A
I couldn't put this one down. Take what was probably one of the most brilliant scientific minds of all time in an outspoken German Jew in the first half of the 20th century and it's not hard to see why you'd get an incredible story. If you look at the people, in history, who advanced our understanding of the world the most, there are only a handful of candidates - maybe Galilleo, Newton, Watson & Crick (DNA) and, of course, Albert Einstein. Even today, half a century after his death, his face is still one of the recognizable on the planet. But, while everybody knows him as the formulator of the Special and General Theories of Relativity, most people didn't know much about his life. With the popularity of Isaacson's book, hopefully, that will change.
To most of us, the fascinating parts of the book are the biographical parts. Don't get me wrong - there's a lot of science in this book. Between Einstein's inherent ability to make the complex understandable and a surprising knack by Isaacson to make the pictures even clearer, the science became much more comprehensible than I expected. There's a lot about relativity, the lack of an "absolute" definition of time and space and, even, quantum theory, that I understand far better after reading the book. That said, you have to adjust your reading style for this book to jump in to fast forward whenever the science gets over your head. I pride myself on being a pretty smart guy, but there were parts of this book where I had no clue what was being discussed. Everybody will have there own point where the concepts start to blur - just skip those sections.
What you're left with is the story of brilliant non-conformist who lived during interesting times. Einstein is probably the only scientist who ever achieved the status of international rock star. He was universally known and loved in an age before television. On his initial visits to the United States, he was greeted with parades and parties. Part of his appeal was that his science, while not always understood, was very highly publicized. He also, of course, looked the part of the "mad scientist". Closely related to his science were the relationships he maintained with some of the great names (in science, at least) of the times -- Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger and Oppenheimer, among others. It would have been amazing to have been seated at the table when these minds started discussing not only the nature of the cosmos, but politics, literature and just about everything else. These people, especially Einstein in his youth, were willing to make leaps of knowledge that overthrew centuries of accepted belief. Then you watch, as he grew older, Einstein flip from the rebellious creator of the relativity theory to the reactionary protector of that theory in the face of quantum theory.
The book also shows the personal side of Einstein's life. In his early life, contrary to legend, Einstein was actually a reasonably good student. The "genius who flunked math" turns out not to be true at all. Some of the other "legends", however, are real - most of his best work, including the Special Relativity Theory and the famous equation relating energy to matter, was done in a single year of his life, 1905, while he was very junior clerk at the Swiss Patent Office. He held that lowly job because it was the only one he could get, thanks to a connection, after several years of post-graduate unemployment. He was married twice - the second time to a first cousin. He was very outspoken when it came to politics -- he was, for most of his life a socialist, but his early pacifism was thrown out when faced with Hitler. He was a lifelong proponent of a world government as the only way to deal with a militarized, and especially a nuclear, world. He was a non-practicing Jew, really a deist, who became an ardent Zionist, but one who believed the Jewish moral character would be defined by how the Zionists treated their Palestinian neighbors. He was even, on the death of Chaim Weizmann offered the presidency of Israel, which he declined.
The picture you come away with is of a brilliant man who, amazingly for all the celebrity, was a genuinely nice and kind man. I know that sounds a little trite, but he seemed to be straightforward, open and down-to-earth through his entire life.
A quick word about the author -- this isn't the first of Isaacson's books that I've read or that has become a best seller. He's previous popular biography was Benjamin Franklin, An American Life. He rights in a clear, but insightful way and seems to have a knack for making the complex, whether its quantum theory or international politics of the 19th century, easy to grasp. I do now want to go back and read some of his older books, especially one called The Wise Men about the group led by Dean Acheson that defined U.S. foreign policy for the second half of the 20th century. His other book is a biography of Henry Kissinger. I'm amazed at a talent that can write over such a wide range. It's likely, especially now that David Halberstam is gone, that Isaacson could emerge as one of the premier historians/biographers for the next couple of decades.
Category: Biography Grade: A
I couldn't put this one down. Take what was probably one of the most brilliant scientific minds of all time in an outspoken German Jew in the first half of the 20th century and it's not hard to see why you'd get an incredible story. If you look at the people, in history, who advanced our understanding of the world the most, there are only a handful of candidates - maybe Galilleo, Newton, Watson & Crick (DNA) and, of course, Albert Einstein. Even today, half a century after his death, his face is still one of the recognizable on the planet. But, while everybody knows him as the formulator of the Special and General Theories of Relativity, most people didn't know much about his life. With the popularity of Isaacson's book, hopefully, that will change.
To most of us, the fascinating parts of the book are the biographical parts. Don't get me wrong - there's a lot of science in this book. Between Einstein's inherent ability to make the complex understandable and a surprising knack by Isaacson to make the pictures even clearer, the science became much more comprehensible than I expected. There's a lot about relativity, the lack of an "absolute" definition of time and space and, even, quantum theory, that I understand far better after reading the book. That said, you have to adjust your reading style for this book to jump in to fast forward whenever the science gets over your head. I pride myself on being a pretty smart guy, but there were parts of this book where I had no clue what was being discussed. Everybody will have there own point where the concepts start to blur - just skip those sections.
What you're left with is the story of brilliant non-conformist who lived during interesting times. Einstein is probably the only scientist who ever achieved the status of international rock star. He was universally known and loved in an age before television. On his initial visits to the United States, he was greeted with parades and parties. Part of his appeal was that his science, while not always understood, was very highly publicized. He also, of course, looked the part of the "mad scientist". Closely related to his science were the relationships he maintained with some of the great names (in science, at least) of the times -- Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger and Oppenheimer, among others. It would have been amazing to have been seated at the table when these minds started discussing not only the nature of the cosmos, but politics, literature and just about everything else. These people, especially Einstein in his youth, were willing to make leaps of knowledge that overthrew centuries of accepted belief. Then you watch, as he grew older, Einstein flip from the rebellious creator of the relativity theory to the reactionary protector of that theory in the face of quantum theory.
The book also shows the personal side of Einstein's life. In his early life, contrary to legend, Einstein was actually a reasonably good student. The "genius who flunked math" turns out not to be true at all. Some of the other "legends", however, are real - most of his best work, including the Special Relativity Theory and the famous equation relating energy to matter, was done in a single year of his life, 1905, while he was very junior clerk at the Swiss Patent Office. He held that lowly job because it was the only one he could get, thanks to a connection, after several years of post-graduate unemployment. He was married twice - the second time to a first cousin. He was very outspoken when it came to politics -- he was, for most of his life a socialist, but his early pacifism was thrown out when faced with Hitler. He was a lifelong proponent of a world government as the only way to deal with a militarized, and especially a nuclear, world. He was a non-practicing Jew, really a deist, who became an ardent Zionist, but one who believed the Jewish moral character would be defined by how the Zionists treated their Palestinian neighbors. He was even, on the death of Chaim Weizmann offered the presidency of Israel, which he declined.
The picture you come away with is of a brilliant man who, amazingly for all the celebrity, was a genuinely nice and kind man. I know that sounds a little trite, but he seemed to be straightforward, open and down-to-earth through his entire life.
A quick word about the author -- this isn't the first of Isaacson's books that I've read or that has become a best seller. He's previous popular biography was Benjamin Franklin, An American Life. He rights in a clear, but insightful way and seems to have a knack for making the complex, whether its quantum theory or international politics of the 19th century, easy to grasp. I do now want to go back and read some of his older books, especially one called The Wise Men about the group led by Dean Acheson that defined U.S. foreign policy for the second half of the 20th century. His other book is a biography of Henry Kissinger. I'm amazed at a talent that can write over such a wide range. It's likely, especially now that David Halberstam is gone, that Isaacson could emerge as one of the premier historians/biographers for the next couple of decades.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Buddha
Buddha by Deepak Chopra
Category: Historical Novel Grade: B+
Coming in to this book, I knew relatively little about Buddha or Buddhism. Once before, I tried Chopra's fiction and it wasn't bad. This book, a novelization of the life of Buddha, seemed like an interesting chance to take. It's short - only 250 pages - so it wasn't a big risk. It turned out, as you can tell from the grade, to be a worthwhile risk to take, although, as you'll see below it had an interested, an somewhat unexpected, impact.
The book is divided in to three sections, as was the life of the subject. In the first section, we see the birth and early life of Siddhartha. Born a prince in a far eastern kingdom, he ends up as the cause of much suffering when the king, after hearing a prophecy about his son's life, decides to raise him in an environment where no suffering is visible. To accomplish this, the king makes Siddhartha a prisoner in the palace and banishes anyone who is old, infirm or ugly from the court. In order to provide companionship to the boy, the king also invites (actually, summons) a cousin, Devadatta to live at court. Devadatta is destined to become the lifelong enemy of Siddhartha.
In the second section of the book and of the Buddha's life, Siddhartha, after wandering from the palace and discovering the nearby suffering population, abandons his life to become a wandering monk known as Gautama. He spends decades in wandering, struggling to become enlightened by learning the powers of meditation and deprivation. His near death leads him to a form of enlightenment and, as he is nursed back to health by a peasant girl, he enters the third phase of his life (and of the book) as the Buddha. In this phase, he returns to his father's kingdom for the inevitable confrontation with Devadatta to big enlightenment and peace ot the kingdom.
The book is well written and interesting. With the frequent appearance of the demon, Mara, and the tales of gurus who teach by remaining in motionless meditation for days at a time, the book takes on an edge of fantasy. Even though the story forms the basis for one of the world's major religions, it reminds me a lot of the fantasy novels of Tolkien or Pullman. Interestingly (and sorry if I offend), this leads inevitably to the fine line between religion and fantasy. The distinction seems to be a pretty basic one -- indoctrination. Raised with a belief in the reality of legend, a child comes to accept his or her religion as "gospel" (again, sorry for the pun). Viewed without the indoctrination, the legends are clearly recognizable as allegorical, sometimes beautiful, fantasy. The historical suffering caused by these conflicting fantasies, however, is very real. Makes you think, huh.
Category: Historical Novel Grade: B+
Coming in to this book, I knew relatively little about Buddha or Buddhism. Once before, I tried Chopra's fiction and it wasn't bad. This book, a novelization of the life of Buddha, seemed like an interesting chance to take. It's short - only 250 pages - so it wasn't a big risk. It turned out, as you can tell from the grade, to be a worthwhile risk to take, although, as you'll see below it had an interested, an somewhat unexpected, impact.
The book is divided in to three sections, as was the life of the subject. In the first section, we see the birth and early life of Siddhartha. Born a prince in a far eastern kingdom, he ends up as the cause of much suffering when the king, after hearing a prophecy about his son's life, decides to raise him in an environment where no suffering is visible. To accomplish this, the king makes Siddhartha a prisoner in the palace and banishes anyone who is old, infirm or ugly from the court. In order to provide companionship to the boy, the king also invites (actually, summons) a cousin, Devadatta to live at court. Devadatta is destined to become the lifelong enemy of Siddhartha.
In the second section of the book and of the Buddha's life, Siddhartha, after wandering from the palace and discovering the nearby suffering population, abandons his life to become a wandering monk known as Gautama. He spends decades in wandering, struggling to become enlightened by learning the powers of meditation and deprivation. His near death leads him to a form of enlightenment and, as he is nursed back to health by a peasant girl, he enters the third phase of his life (and of the book) as the Buddha. In this phase, he returns to his father's kingdom for the inevitable confrontation with Devadatta to big enlightenment and peace ot the kingdom.
The book is well written and interesting. With the frequent appearance of the demon, Mara, and the tales of gurus who teach by remaining in motionless meditation for days at a time, the book takes on an edge of fantasy. Even though the story forms the basis for one of the world's major religions, it reminds me a lot of the fantasy novels of Tolkien or Pullman. Interestingly (and sorry if I offend), this leads inevitably to the fine line between religion and fantasy. The distinction seems to be a pretty basic one -- indoctrination. Raised with a belief in the reality of legend, a child comes to accept his or her religion as "gospel" (again, sorry for the pun). Viewed without the indoctrination, the legends are clearly recognizable as allegorical, sometimes beautiful, fantasy. The historical suffering caused by these conflicting fantasies, however, is very real. Makes you think, huh.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
The Rising Tide
The Rising Tide By Jeff Shaara
Category: Novel Grade: A
Shaara is really emerging as the best author currently writing war-based fiction. He comes about his talent honestly. His father was the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Killer Angels, about the Civil War. Jeff Shaara hit the grand running by completing the Civil War series that his father started. He's gone on to write books about the Revolutionary War and the First World War. This book, The Rising Tide, is the first of a trilogy about World War II - more specifically about the war in Africa and Europe against Germany.
Shaara accomplishes a lot with a proven style. First, he believes that, while he writes about history, what he's really doing is telling a great story. While I'm a big fan of W.E.B. Griffin and his military novels, Shaara doesn't get in to any of the soap-opera aspects of the story that are such a prominent part of the Griffin books. Wives, family and sex play almost no part in Shaara's writing making his books more "serious" while, surprisingly not losing any of the entertainment value.
Second, Shaara has a key asset in his M.O. for telling these stories, one that he's used in every book so far, as I recall. While he doesn't write in the first person, Shaara always chooses a few people in the story to serve as multiple focal points. Each chapter in the book uses the viewpoint of a particular person to provide context for what's going on. This technique works because Shaara does such a good job of choosing his focal points. He starts by identifying a small number of the major players on both sides of the war. Here he's used Eisenhower, Montgomery and Rommel with a few chapters late in the book that focus on Patton and Kesselring, Rommel's superior. These focal points allow Shaara to tell the "high level" story -- the international politics, the strategy planning, the frustrations and gives us glimpses of the strengths and the weakness of Roosevelt, Churchill and Hitler.
What gives the book its emotional pull, however, is the second set of choices that Shaara makes in finding focal points. He always includes at least a couple of the normally faceless men who actually fight the war. In this book, he's pulled out two that not only show the agony on the ground, but also let Shaara talk about the new tools that began to be used in World War II. The two (fictional) men that Shaara singles out are Private Logan, a tank gunner, and Sergeant Adams, a paratrooper. Through these men, we get to see the on-the-ground reality - the mix of extraordinary boredom combined with the terror experienced by what were basically kids in the face of the most devastating war in history.
The combination of a terrific story and Shaara's style makes for a really incredible book. In keeping with the theme started in the last review, this is exactly the kind of book that we should be assigning to our high school students. While its well researched and, as far as I can tell, historically accurate (except for the completely cleaned up language), what this book really does, aside from entertaining and educating, is make the reader interested in learning more -- exactly what we should be trying to do with kids. Kids who grow up interested in history are far more valuable to them and to society than kids who learn (and may or may not remember) that date of D-Day.
Category: Novel Grade: A
Shaara is really emerging as the best author currently writing war-based fiction. He comes about his talent honestly. His father was the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Killer Angels, about the Civil War. Jeff Shaara hit the grand running by completing the Civil War series that his father started. He's gone on to write books about the Revolutionary War and the First World War. This book, The Rising Tide, is the first of a trilogy about World War II - more specifically about the war in Africa and Europe against Germany.
Shaara accomplishes a lot with a proven style. First, he believes that, while he writes about history, what he's really doing is telling a great story. While I'm a big fan of W.E.B. Griffin and his military novels, Shaara doesn't get in to any of the soap-opera aspects of the story that are such a prominent part of the Griffin books. Wives, family and sex play almost no part in Shaara's writing making his books more "serious" while, surprisingly not losing any of the entertainment value.
Second, Shaara has a key asset in his M.O. for telling these stories, one that he's used in every book so far, as I recall. While he doesn't write in the first person, Shaara always chooses a few people in the story to serve as multiple focal points. Each chapter in the book uses the viewpoint of a particular person to provide context for what's going on. This technique works because Shaara does such a good job of choosing his focal points. He starts by identifying a small number of the major players on both sides of the war. Here he's used Eisenhower, Montgomery and Rommel with a few chapters late in the book that focus on Patton and Kesselring, Rommel's superior. These focal points allow Shaara to tell the "high level" story -- the international politics, the strategy planning, the frustrations and gives us glimpses of the strengths and the weakness of Roosevelt, Churchill and Hitler.
What gives the book its emotional pull, however, is the second set of choices that Shaara makes in finding focal points. He always includes at least a couple of the normally faceless men who actually fight the war. In this book, he's pulled out two that not only show the agony on the ground, but also let Shaara talk about the new tools that began to be used in World War II. The two (fictional) men that Shaara singles out are Private Logan, a tank gunner, and Sergeant Adams, a paratrooper. Through these men, we get to see the on-the-ground reality - the mix of extraordinary boredom combined with the terror experienced by what were basically kids in the face of the most devastating war in history.
The combination of a terrific story and Shaara's style makes for a really incredible book. In keeping with the theme started in the last review, this is exactly the kind of book that we should be assigning to our high school students. While its well researched and, as far as I can tell, historically accurate (except for the completely cleaned up language), what this book really does, aside from entertaining and educating, is make the reader interested in learning more -- exactly what we should be trying to do with kids. Kids who grow up interested in history are far more valuable to them and to society than kids who learn (and may or may not remember) that date of D-Day.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Canon
The Canon by Natalie Angier
Category: Popular Science Grade: B+
In the introduction, Angier states her goal -- to make science interesting to people who don't seem to be interested in science. It's an admirable goal. As with other subjects (and as you've seen me rant before), our educational system seems to be intent on leaching the joy out of all the subjects in gets its hands on. When it comes to history, we teach dates, battles and icons instead of the really interesting stories of the real people who, for example, became our Founding Fathers. In literature, we make reading a chore by pushing Silas Marner on teenagers instead of making them love reading by giving the interesting and appropriate books to read. Similarly, Angier's correct contention is that we force kids to memorize periodic tables and molecular diagrams instead of teaching them to be fascinated by our universe, our planet and our biosphere. We work hard to make sure that by the time they're 18, our kids know a fair number of useless facts, but have no interest in lifelong learning.
So, you might ask, why do we care if our adult population is interested in science? OK - here comes another rant. Did you watch the first debate among the Republican candidates? At one point, the moderator asked all the candidates to raise their hands if they didn't believe in evolution. Out of ten candidates, three adult, very smart, very well educated men raised their hands!!!!! Sadly enough, that statistic is reflected in the population at large with a third of college educated people throwing the undeniably valid and undeniably beautiful system of evolution out the window. In another arena, a lack of understanding of our procreation system leads to truly silly policies like the federal government's stance on stem cell research - that it's OK to take minute blobs of jelly that may potentially become a fetus and freeze them forever or throw them in the garbage, but its morally wrong to use those cells to answer questions about diseases that kill people every minute! If we had an adult population that had even a basic understanding of the underlying science, maybe we could get off the dime.
Sorry -- back to the review...
The Canon comes close to succeeding in Angier's goal of making science more approachable. I'd say, if you could measure your interest in science on a 1 (fascinated by textbooks) to 10 (bored to tears by Planet Earth) scale, most science writing captures the ones and twos. This book probably extends to the threes and fours and maybe even the fives. In just 250 pages, Angier covers, well, everything with chapters on the scientific method, probability, physics, chemistry, evolution, biology, geology and astronomy. She gets reasonably in to the science but she leavens the details with lots of analogies that let you visualize really complex topics.
One downside to the book that I, eventually found annoying -- Angier is really a science journalist. She's used to writing columns and stories for The New York Times for which she's won the Pulitzer Prize. She writes with a somewhat flippant style - constantly trying to be funny or, at least, cute. For example, at one point she's talking about the difference in the body between sprinting and distance running (anaerobic versus aerobic) and says that with oxygen (aerobic) you can run "the whole day if you're training for the Olympics, or owe a lot of money to an unofficial lending source in New Jersey". In an essay, this kind of humor can be entertaining. For hundreds of pages, it isn't.
Other than that quibble, if you're even remotely interested in knowing more about the basics of science, this book isn't bad. Her subtitle aptly calls this book "A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science". For the most part, its fascinating.
Category: Popular Science Grade: B+
In the introduction, Angier states her goal -- to make science interesting to people who don't seem to be interested in science. It's an admirable goal. As with other subjects (and as you've seen me rant before), our educational system seems to be intent on leaching the joy out of all the subjects in gets its hands on. When it comes to history, we teach dates, battles and icons instead of the really interesting stories of the real people who, for example, became our Founding Fathers. In literature, we make reading a chore by pushing Silas Marner on teenagers instead of making them love reading by giving the interesting and appropriate books to read. Similarly, Angier's correct contention is that we force kids to memorize periodic tables and molecular diagrams instead of teaching them to be fascinated by our universe, our planet and our biosphere. We work hard to make sure that by the time they're 18, our kids know a fair number of useless facts, but have no interest in lifelong learning.
So, you might ask, why do we care if our adult population is interested in science? OK - here comes another rant. Did you watch the first debate among the Republican candidates? At one point, the moderator asked all the candidates to raise their hands if they didn't believe in evolution. Out of ten candidates, three adult, very smart, very well educated men raised their hands!!!!! Sadly enough, that statistic is reflected in the population at large with a third of college educated people throwing the undeniably valid and undeniably beautiful system of evolution out the window. In another arena, a lack of understanding of our procreation system leads to truly silly policies like the federal government's stance on stem cell research - that it's OK to take minute blobs of jelly that may potentially become a fetus and freeze them forever or throw them in the garbage, but its morally wrong to use those cells to answer questions about diseases that kill people every minute! If we had an adult population that had even a basic understanding of the underlying science, maybe we could get off the dime.
Sorry -- back to the review...
The Canon comes close to succeeding in Angier's goal of making science more approachable. I'd say, if you could measure your interest in science on a 1 (fascinated by textbooks) to 10 (bored to tears by Planet Earth) scale, most science writing captures the ones and twos. This book probably extends to the threes and fours and maybe even the fives. In just 250 pages, Angier covers, well, everything with chapters on the scientific method, probability, physics, chemistry, evolution, biology, geology and astronomy. She gets reasonably in to the science but she leavens the details with lots of analogies that let you visualize really complex topics.
One downside to the book that I, eventually found annoying -- Angier is really a science journalist. She's used to writing columns and stories for The New York Times for which she's won the Pulitzer Prize. She writes with a somewhat flippant style - constantly trying to be funny or, at least, cute. For example, at one point she's talking about the difference in the body between sprinting and distance running (anaerobic versus aerobic) and says that with oxygen (aerobic) you can run "the whole day if you're training for the Olympics, or owe a lot of money to an unofficial lending source in New Jersey". In an essay, this kind of humor can be entertaining. For hundreds of pages, it isn't.
Other than that quibble, if you're even remotely interested in knowing more about the basics of science, this book isn't bad. Her subtitle aptly calls this book "A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science". For the most part, its fascinating.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Vanishing Act
Vanishing Act by John Feinstein
Category: Young Adult Fiction Grade: B
As those of you who've followed this blog for a while know, I think John Feinstein is the best book-length sports writer working today. He's just released a new book about the pro-golf tour so you'll probably hear from me later this summer about his "mainstream" writing. When I saw that he had written a young adult sports-oriented mystery, I couldn't resist picking it up. It actually turns out to be the second book in a series and I didn't read the first one, but I don't think it matters much.
As with virtually all young-adult fiction these days, the stars of the book are kids - in this case, two 13 year old aspiring sports reporters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson. In the first book, that I didn't read, they apparently each won an essay contest and won press credentials to the college basketball Final Four. At that event, they stumbled on a point shaving scandal and saved the life of one of the final four players. That sets up this book which has the two of them, now with reputations, meeting in New York to cover the U.S. Open tennis tournament. As expected, they get involved in a crime, help to solve it and continue on their path to becoming the next star in sports journalism.
The bad news here is that Feinstein has, to some degree, fallen in to the trap that a lot of YA writers fall in to - he's written down to his audience. Because of that, the book, while it reads really fast, doesn't feel terribly well written. Rowlings, Pullman and others have proven that kids like to read well written books and that you don't need to dumb down the writing to capture their attention. The other problem the book has (and I know this sounds contradictory) is Feinstein has put dialog in the mouths of 13 year old kids that just don't seem to fit. Weird but what we get is author's words that sound too juvenile and hero's words that sound too adult.
The good news here is that Feinstein had actually written a pretty entertaining story. If you follow tennis at all, you'll find real people that you know -- Bud Collins has a major role in the story and Andy Roddick has a cameo. The characters are well developed and, other than talking like they were 30, they act like we'd expect them to act. While the story line is a little far fetched, it's realistic enough that in the crazy world of professional athletics, you wouldn't be completely stunned if it actually happened.
Fast read and not a bad book at all for anybody. Highly recommended for teenage sports fans.
Category: Young Adult Fiction Grade: B
As those of you who've followed this blog for a while know, I think John Feinstein is the best book-length sports writer working today. He's just released a new book about the pro-golf tour so you'll probably hear from me later this summer about his "mainstream" writing. When I saw that he had written a young adult sports-oriented mystery, I couldn't resist picking it up. It actually turns out to be the second book in a series and I didn't read the first one, but I don't think it matters much.
As with virtually all young-adult fiction these days, the stars of the book are kids - in this case, two 13 year old aspiring sports reporters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson. In the first book, that I didn't read, they apparently each won an essay contest and won press credentials to the college basketball Final Four. At that event, they stumbled on a point shaving scandal and saved the life of one of the final four players. That sets up this book which has the two of them, now with reputations, meeting in New York to cover the U.S. Open tennis tournament. As expected, they get involved in a crime, help to solve it and continue on their path to becoming the next star in sports journalism.
The bad news here is that Feinstein has, to some degree, fallen in to the trap that a lot of YA writers fall in to - he's written down to his audience. Because of that, the book, while it reads really fast, doesn't feel terribly well written. Rowlings, Pullman and others have proven that kids like to read well written books and that you don't need to dumb down the writing to capture their attention. The other problem the book has (and I know this sounds contradictory) is Feinstein has put dialog in the mouths of 13 year old kids that just don't seem to fit. Weird but what we get is author's words that sound too juvenile and hero's words that sound too adult.
The good news here is that Feinstein had actually written a pretty entertaining story. If you follow tennis at all, you'll find real people that you know -- Bud Collins has a major role in the story and Andy Roddick has a cameo. The characters are well developed and, other than talking like they were 30, they act like we'd expect them to act. While the story line is a little far fetched, it's realistic enough that in the crazy world of professional athletics, you wouldn't be completely stunned if it actually happened.
Fast read and not a bad book at all for anybody. Highly recommended for teenage sports fans.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
Category: Novel Grade: B+
There's no denying that Michael Chabon has both abundant talent and abundant imagination. In lesser hands, this book could have been an absolute disaster. In his, it's a readable, entertaining and very unusual book. The premise -- it's modern day Sitka, Alaska. This is a "temporary" settlement zone that the U.S. set aside for Jewish refugees after their imagined expulsion from the short-lived land of Israel in 1948. The story takes place in the last couple of months before "Reversion" - the plan by the fundamentalist twenty-first century government of the U.S. to give Alaska back to the Alaskans. Some of the Jews will be allowed to stay - most will have to leave for parts unknown.
That's the setting. Within the setting, most of the books is a murder mystery featuring detective Meyer Landsman. He's living in a flophouse hotel a few years after his divorce from the woman who is now his boss in the Homicide Division of Sitka Central. He's a totally mal-adjusted drunk and a so-so policeman. His partner, Berko Shemets, is a hulking half-Tinglit half-orthodox Jew. The story begins when Meyer is called downstairs by the manager of the flophouse to investigate the death of one of the other residents - a Jewish junkie who was shot in the head shortly after servicing his heroin habit.
For the most part, the "Jews in Alaska" premise doesn't mean much to the first third or the last third of the story other than to give Chabon a lot of chances to use Yiddish words and phrases and to include a lot of Jewish names. As the story develops, however, we're plunged in to the world of the Verbov Rabbi - a Hasidic cult who left Europe for Alaska and has become not just a messianic cult, but also the largest organized crime family in the district. You begin to see why I say that turning this in to a readable book takes a major talent.
While this isn't nearly in the league of Chabon's major work so far - The Amazing Adventures of Kavlier and Clay - it's still a great showcase for his abilities. He could easily be the best of a young crop of writers just making their way up the world of literary fiction. He's an incredibly visual writer that can make you see what he wants you to see with a few words. I'll give one example. The first time that Landsman goes to the Verbov community he finds that the core of the community is a near replica of the European village that the group came from, except for the fact that the houses are new and the streets are clean. Chabon tells us that the area at the core of the Verbov world is a "Disneyland shtetl" and, bingo, you have a near perfect picture in your mind of what he wants you to see -- in two words!
Overall, this is kind of bell-curve of book. It begins, even though there's a murder right away, as a very small, kind of personal book. It's the story of Landsman's disintegrating life set in the context of the destruction of the world he knows by the fast approaching "Reversion". The middle of the book shoots up like shape of the bell curve and becomes a huge story of cultural and geopolitical battles and gives full attention to the Jewish theme of the book. It then trails back in to Landsman's world and ends almost with a sigh.
Even though I gave the book a decent grade, I'm not sure whether I recommend it or not. I almost put it down a couple of times, although I'm glad I didn't. It's a fairly complicated story and, at times, hard to follow. I'm glad Chabon wrote this instead of a lesser talent. Even with all his talent, Chabon really skirted the edge of strange with this one.
Category: Novel Grade: B+
There's no denying that Michael Chabon has both abundant talent and abundant imagination. In lesser hands, this book could have been an absolute disaster. In his, it's a readable, entertaining and very unusual book. The premise -- it's modern day Sitka, Alaska. This is a "temporary" settlement zone that the U.S. set aside for Jewish refugees after their imagined expulsion from the short-lived land of Israel in 1948. The story takes place in the last couple of months before "Reversion" - the plan by the fundamentalist twenty-first century government of the U.S. to give Alaska back to the Alaskans. Some of the Jews will be allowed to stay - most will have to leave for parts unknown.
That's the setting. Within the setting, most of the books is a murder mystery featuring detective Meyer Landsman. He's living in a flophouse hotel a few years after his divorce from the woman who is now his boss in the Homicide Division of Sitka Central. He's a totally mal-adjusted drunk and a so-so policeman. His partner, Berko Shemets, is a hulking half-Tinglit half-orthodox Jew. The story begins when Meyer is called downstairs by the manager of the flophouse to investigate the death of one of the other residents - a Jewish junkie who was shot in the head shortly after servicing his heroin habit.
For the most part, the "Jews in Alaska" premise doesn't mean much to the first third or the last third of the story other than to give Chabon a lot of chances to use Yiddish words and phrases and to include a lot of Jewish names. As the story develops, however, we're plunged in to the world of the Verbov Rabbi - a Hasidic cult who left Europe for Alaska and has become not just a messianic cult, but also the largest organized crime family in the district. You begin to see why I say that turning this in to a readable book takes a major talent.
While this isn't nearly in the league of Chabon's major work so far - The Amazing Adventures of Kavlier and Clay - it's still a great showcase for his abilities. He could easily be the best of a young crop of writers just making their way up the world of literary fiction. He's an incredibly visual writer that can make you see what he wants you to see with a few words. I'll give one example. The first time that Landsman goes to the Verbov community he finds that the core of the community is a near replica of the European village that the group came from, except for the fact that the houses are new and the streets are clean. Chabon tells us that the area at the core of the Verbov world is a "Disneyland shtetl" and, bingo, you have a near perfect picture in your mind of what he wants you to see -- in two words!
Overall, this is kind of bell-curve of book. It begins, even though there's a murder right away, as a very small, kind of personal book. It's the story of Landsman's disintegrating life set in the context of the destruction of the world he knows by the fast approaching "Reversion". The middle of the book shoots up like shape of the bell curve and becomes a huge story of cultural and geopolitical battles and gives full attention to the Jewish theme of the book. It then trails back in to Landsman's world and ends almost with a sigh.
Even though I gave the book a decent grade, I'm not sure whether I recommend it or not. I almost put it down a couple of times, although I'm glad I didn't. It's a fairly complicated story and, at times, hard to follow. I'm glad Chabon wrote this instead of a lesser talent. Even with all his talent, Chabon really skirted the edge of strange with this one.
Friday, May 25, 2007
On the ground in Colorado
Not a book review, but just though I'd let you guys know that we safely made the transfer to our place in Colorado. The intent had been to get here today, but we actually drove straight through from Lubbock yesterday. We planned to have three easy days but - a warning - if you ever plan to stop for the night in Trinidad, Colorado, make other plans. First, the town is all torn up with road work. More importantly, there wasn't a roadside hotel that looked livable without a major hose-down with disinfectant! We decided to go on to the next town -- Walsenberg -- where we were to pick up a back road we use. There was one motel in Walsenberg - a 50s era Best Western. We were tired enough to stop but they actually had no vacancies! At that point, it made more sense to keep going. That's right at 600 miles for the day and we pulled in here about 7:30 - about 11 hours of driving. We were pretty exhausted but, this morning, after a good night's sleep, we're glad we pushed through.
We did continue our efforts to eliminate all cities and major highways from the trip up here. Thanks to a tip from the Davis's, we started using a back road last summer that takes us way around Pueblo - one of the armpits of the world. This trip, we added new back routes that eliminated San Angelo, Big Spring and Amarillo. The back roads are, of course, smaller roads but that was more than made up for by the almost complete lack of traffic. There were stretches were we didn't see another car for a half hour! The routes are a little straighter and without the stoplights of the cities, it probably cut an hour off the trip. When you couple that with some really pretty scenery instead of downtown Amarillo, it was definitely worth the detours. At one point yesterday, we went through a huge wind farm that must have had a 1000 wind turbines. They make for an almost extraterrestial landscape.
So anyway, we're here. Today, of course, we'll spend a good chunk of the day running around to do the startup grocery shopping, try to figure out a way around town with all the summer road closures, hit the cheese and wine store, find where our favorite book store moved to and, of course, hit one of our favorite restaurants. I've already scheduled an A/V guy to visit this afternoon to look at this year's TV changes so the fun begins.
Finally, of course, the reading pace will pick up so you can expect an upsurge in the number of reviews. Once in a while, I'll throw in a weather report (today - sunny with a low in the 30s and a high in the mid-60s), just cause its fun to rub it in. As always, if you're sick of hearing from me, let me know and I'll be happy to take you off the list.
We did continue our efforts to eliminate all cities and major highways from the trip up here. Thanks to a tip from the Davis's, we started using a back road last summer that takes us way around Pueblo - one of the armpits of the world. This trip, we added new back routes that eliminated San Angelo, Big Spring and Amarillo. The back roads are, of course, smaller roads but that was more than made up for by the almost complete lack of traffic. There were stretches were we didn't see another car for a half hour! The routes are a little straighter and without the stoplights of the cities, it probably cut an hour off the trip. When you couple that with some really pretty scenery instead of downtown Amarillo, it was definitely worth the detours. At one point yesterday, we went through a huge wind farm that must have had a 1000 wind turbines. They make for an almost extraterrestial landscape.
So anyway, we're here. Today, of course, we'll spend a good chunk of the day running around to do the startup grocery shopping, try to figure out a way around town with all the summer road closures, hit the cheese and wine store, find where our favorite book store moved to and, of course, hit one of our favorite restaurants. I've already scheduled an A/V guy to visit this afternoon to look at this year's TV changes so the fun begins.
Finally, of course, the reading pace will pick up so you can expect an upsurge in the number of reviews. Once in a while, I'll throw in a weather report (today - sunny with a low in the 30s and a high in the mid-60s), just cause its fun to rub it in. As always, if you're sick of hearing from me, let me know and I'll be happy to take you off the list.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Mysteries of the Middle Ages
Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill
Category: History Grade: B
This book is the 5th in Cahill's seven book "hinges of history" series. He is superb at historical analysis looking for the key events and people that had major impact on the world. His previous books have looked at the Jews, the Irish and the Greeks plus an excellent book on the "historical" Jesus. There are quite a few historians who don't think much of anything critical happened in the Middle Ages. Cahill isn't one of them. He makes a great case that the events of this period of history, roughly the 12th through 14th centuries, went a long way to defining the modern world. In fact, the book's subtitle is pretty emphatic -- The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe.
You get a great view of some personalities of this period that most people know little about, even though the names are familiar. Hildegaard, a twelfth century girl from the Rhineland, was given to the church as an eight year old. She went on to become one of the first women in history whose writings were taken seriously by the all-male clergy. Cahill credits Hildegaard, along with Eleanor of Aquitaine with starting what has become a major revolution in the role of women in society. Cahill continues to show us a series of major figures of the era who changed the nature of sexuality and romantic love, literature and art -- figures like Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Dante and others.
I only have a couple of knocks on this book that dropped its grade a little -- actually one knock in two forms. Cahill has tendency, once in a while, to throw in anachronistic references to modern times -- e.g. a comment about Iraq in the middle of a discussion of the Crusades. At first I appreciated his effort to try to make century-old history relevant but, eventually, it just got distracting. The second knock is the ultimate representative of this problem -- in fact, just skip the last chapter. After this really informative and often moving book, Cahill goes off on a half dozen page rant about the modern Catholic Church, most of it about the pedophilia scandals of the recent past. Its a vicious attack - maybe even a warranted one -- just way out of place as the summary piece of the book.
Category: History Grade: B
This book is the 5th in Cahill's seven book "hinges of history" series. He is superb at historical analysis looking for the key events and people that had major impact on the world. His previous books have looked at the Jews, the Irish and the Greeks plus an excellent book on the "historical" Jesus. There are quite a few historians who don't think much of anything critical happened in the Middle Ages. Cahill isn't one of them. He makes a great case that the events of this period of history, roughly the 12th through 14th centuries, went a long way to defining the modern world. In fact, the book's subtitle is pretty emphatic -- The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe.
You get a great view of some personalities of this period that most people know little about, even though the names are familiar. Hildegaard, a twelfth century girl from the Rhineland, was given to the church as an eight year old. She went on to become one of the first women in history whose writings were taken seriously by the all-male clergy. Cahill credits Hildegaard, along with Eleanor of Aquitaine with starting what has become a major revolution in the role of women in society. Cahill continues to show us a series of major figures of the era who changed the nature of sexuality and romantic love, literature and art -- figures like Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Dante and others.
I only have a couple of knocks on this book that dropped its grade a little -- actually one knock in two forms. Cahill has tendency, once in a while, to throw in anachronistic references to modern times -- e.g. a comment about Iraq in the middle of a discussion of the Crusades. At first I appreciated his effort to try to make century-old history relevant but, eventually, it just got distracting. The second knock is the ultimate representative of this problem -- in fact, just skip the last chapter. After this really informative and often moving book, Cahill goes off on a half dozen page rant about the modern Catholic Church, most of it about the pedophilia scandals of the recent past. Its a vicious attack - maybe even a warranted one -- just way out of place as the summary piece of the book.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Obsession
Obsession by Jonathan Kellerman
Category: Mystery Grade: A
I rest my case. If you remember, three or four books ago, I reviewed a book of two novellas written by Kellerman, together with his wife Fay. I didn't think much of them and said, at the time, that they didn't reflect the abilities of the two authors. Obsession, the latest in Kellerman's Alex Delaware series, really illustrates what I mean. This book was terrific. The main characters, Delaware, his gay police buddy, Milo, his girlfriend Robin (who, thankfully has returned home in this book) and, of course, the dog Blanche (a replacement for Spike who died peacefully of old age) are familiar as old shoes. They're interesting people who happen to solve crimes. Kellerman makes you feel like you're riding around in the back seat rather than just reading about these folks. The central mystery of the book, a might-have-happened murder, while interesting and well told, is almost beside the point. Its just good to be hanging out with these guys again.
These are "low density" books - lots of dialog, lots of short sentences, fast pace - that make them great summer reads.
Category: Mystery Grade: A
I rest my case. If you remember, three or four books ago, I reviewed a book of two novellas written by Kellerman, together with his wife Fay. I didn't think much of them and said, at the time, that they didn't reflect the abilities of the two authors. Obsession, the latest in Kellerman's Alex Delaware series, really illustrates what I mean. This book was terrific. The main characters, Delaware, his gay police buddy, Milo, his girlfriend Robin (who, thankfully has returned home in this book) and, of course, the dog Blanche (a replacement for Spike who died peacefully of old age) are familiar as old shoes. They're interesting people who happen to solve crimes. Kellerman makes you feel like you're riding around in the back seat rather than just reading about these folks. The central mystery of the book, a might-have-happened murder, while interesting and well told, is almost beside the point. Its just good to be hanging out with these guys again.
These are "low density" books - lots of dialog, lots of short sentences, fast pace - that make them great summer reads.
You Don't Love Me Yet
You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem
Category: Fiction Grade: C+
I first got started reading Lethem when Carolyn recommended a novel called Motherless Brooklyn. It was a mystery starring a detective with Tourette's Syndrome. It was strange, a little manic (as might be expected) and an exhilirating read. I've read a couple of other Lethem's since and one thing that's clear -- you can't really expect anything particular from his books. He doesn't have a distinctive style or voice and he loves to experiment.
This short novel is just strange. It focuses on a group of friends trying to make it in an "artsy" band. These definitely aren't rock stars with all kinds of insecurities and strange behaviour. Lucinda, the bass player, ends up going to work for a friend and former lover who is a performance artist, sort-of. He's created a fake office and posted signs all over town urging people to call his hot line to complain. Lucinda ends up in a strange, almost purely sexual, relationship with one of the callers. The whole book is just watching these off-kilter personalities interact with each other. Its well written but, at times, seems to really drag. Ultimately, I don't think Lethem ever convinced me to particularly care about these people.
Warning -- there's a fair amount of graphic sex in this book.
Category: Fiction Grade: C+
I first got started reading Lethem when Carolyn recommended a novel called Motherless Brooklyn. It was a mystery starring a detective with Tourette's Syndrome. It was strange, a little manic (as might be expected) and an exhilirating read. I've read a couple of other Lethem's since and one thing that's clear -- you can't really expect anything particular from his books. He doesn't have a distinctive style or voice and he loves to experiment.
This short novel is just strange. It focuses on a group of friends trying to make it in an "artsy" band. These definitely aren't rock stars with all kinds of insecurities and strange behaviour. Lucinda, the bass player, ends up going to work for a friend and former lover who is a performance artist, sort-of. He's created a fake office and posted signs all over town urging people to call his hot line to complain. Lucinda ends up in a strange, almost purely sexual, relationship with one of the callers. The whole book is just watching these off-kilter personalities interact with each other. Its well written but, at times, seems to really drag. Ultimately, I don't think Lethem ever convinced me to particularly care about these people.
Warning -- there's a fair amount of graphic sex in this book.
At Canaan's Edge
At Canaan's Edge by Taylor Branch
Category: History Grade: B
This is the last volume of Branch's monumental trilogy called America in the King Years. Its an absolutely exhaustive (> 2200 pages total) history of the peak years of the civil rights movement in the United States. While not up to the level of the first volume, this is still a very readable book that leaves out no details about what was going on in the movement during the years from 1965 through the King assassination. As I had said with the second volume, the book suffers from the fact that, while significant progress was made in civil rights during this period, it was also a period filled with tragedy -- the racial violence in the South, the urban riots of Watts and other cities, the Robert Kennedy and King assassinations and, of course, the growing pain of the Viet Nam war.
The distractions that infected the civil rights movement in the early 60s, especially the divisions around Malcolm X, effectively take over the movement in this period. On the one hand, the non-violent philosophy on which the movement was based begins to break down as is seen in the riots and the emergence of the "Black Power" organizations led by defectors like Stokely Carmichael. The dissension and in-fighting inside the SCLC and other predominately black organizations also grew during this period fueled by serious arguments about what the roll of white Americans should be in these organizations and not-so-serious distractions like the ambition of Jesse Jackson and the just-plain-nuttiness of Adam Clayton Powell. Ultimately, the movement was largely overwhelmed by the anti-war movement, one that increasingly called on the time, power and conscience of King himself.
As always, when I read about this period of American history, I'm drawn to the contradictions of Lyndon Johnson. On domestic issues, Johnson could easily be one of the most courageous President's we've had. His complete personal devotion to the inequities of racism and the problem of poverty are undeniable. I still remember watching his speech before Congress urging them to pass the Civil Rights Act on the heals of the violence in Selma. Johnson was not a great speaker. His forte was going one-on-one in people's faces. He was awkward and stiff behind a podium. What this did, however, was that, when he was impassioned and eloquent, he really flew. The speech began simply -- "I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy." -- but the speech reached its emotional peak when Johnson really shocked the world with a few words -- "Because it is not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And--we--shall--overcome!" By invoking the anthem of the civil rights movement, Johnson virtually guaranteed passage of the bill in the most dramatic way, knowing he was probably losing the South for his Democratic Party for a generation.
Ultimately, as we know (and as is relevant today), Johnson showed a complete lack of courage when it came to Viet Nam. Its clear from recordings and notes that Johnson anguished over America's increasing roll in the Far East. There were times when he admitted privately there was no possibility of any meaningful victory there. But he seemed powerless to stop the slide in to the bog. In a lot of ways, Johnson lost his presidency and his position in history to machismo. He could have been (and in some ways was) one of the best of the 20th century. Instead, he'll always be remembered as the Viet Nam President.
A couple of other observations that have to be made after reading this series (some of which I've made before):
Category: History Grade: B
This is the last volume of Branch's monumental trilogy called America in the King Years. Its an absolutely exhaustive (> 2200 pages total) history of the peak years of the civil rights movement in the United States. While not up to the level of the first volume, this is still a very readable book that leaves out no details about what was going on in the movement during the years from 1965 through the King assassination. As I had said with the second volume, the book suffers from the fact that, while significant progress was made in civil rights during this period, it was also a period filled with tragedy -- the racial violence in the South, the urban riots of Watts and other cities, the Robert Kennedy and King assassinations and, of course, the growing pain of the Viet Nam war.
The distractions that infected the civil rights movement in the early 60s, especially the divisions around Malcolm X, effectively take over the movement in this period. On the one hand, the non-violent philosophy on which the movement was based begins to break down as is seen in the riots and the emergence of the "Black Power" organizations led by defectors like Stokely Carmichael. The dissension and in-fighting inside the SCLC and other predominately black organizations also grew during this period fueled by serious arguments about what the roll of white Americans should be in these organizations and not-so-serious distractions like the ambition of Jesse Jackson and the just-plain-nuttiness of Adam Clayton Powell. Ultimately, the movement was largely overwhelmed by the anti-war movement, one that increasingly called on the time, power and conscience of King himself.
As always, when I read about this period of American history, I'm drawn to the contradictions of Lyndon Johnson. On domestic issues, Johnson could easily be one of the most courageous President's we've had. His complete personal devotion to the inequities of racism and the problem of poverty are undeniable. I still remember watching his speech before Congress urging them to pass the Civil Rights Act on the heals of the violence in Selma. Johnson was not a great speaker. His forte was going one-on-one in people's faces. He was awkward and stiff behind a podium. What this did, however, was that, when he was impassioned and eloquent, he really flew. The speech began simply -- "I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy." -- but the speech reached its emotional peak when Johnson really shocked the world with a few words -- "Because it is not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And--we--shall--overcome!" By invoking the anthem of the civil rights movement, Johnson virtually guaranteed passage of the bill in the most dramatic way, knowing he was probably losing the South for his Democratic Party for a generation.
Ultimately, as we know (and as is relevant today), Johnson showed a complete lack of courage when it came to Viet Nam. Its clear from recordings and notes that Johnson anguished over America's increasing roll in the Far East. There were times when he admitted privately there was no possibility of any meaningful victory there. But he seemed powerless to stop the slide in to the bog. In a lot of ways, Johnson lost his presidency and his position in history to machismo. He could have been (and in some ways was) one of the best of the 20th century. Instead, he'll always be remembered as the Viet Nam President.
A couple of other observations that have to be made after reading this series (some of which I've made before):
- for decades, this country was largely run by J. Edgar Hoover. His flagrant disregard of law, chain-of-command and, in a lot of cases, decency, allowed him to control leaders of all kinds both in and out of government. This could be the closest the U.S. has ever come to a dictatorship.
- in an interesting reversal, Hoover's illegal wiretapping and bugging of King and the people around him, ended up giving us a significantly more complete picture of the movement than would have been possible by any other means.
- you can make a pretty good case that the people who pushed the civil rights agenda most effectively, if inadvertently, were the hard-core segregationists of the Deep South. The arbitrary killings, beatings, torturings plus the mostly petty laws designed only to keep the former slaves in their place were so morally reprehensible that even Americans who were ambivalent about the Negro couldn't help but be outraged.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)