GuyReading

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

2012-02-19T11:31:00.001-08:00

Does the world need another book about World War Two? Can anything new be learned from such well-trod territory? In Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, the answer is definitly yes. Hillenbrand tells the tale of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who, like numerous other athletes of the era, had a his career suspended by The War. The list of athletes who died in the conflict is one of the many fascinating side details she spices her book with while telling the tale of one man. This is a book where you definitely don't want to skip the foot notes. We learn about the nearly-suicidal early days of the air war against Japan, the plight of sailors and airmen cast adrift at sea, and the inhumane conditions of Japanese prison camps. Even scholars of The War in the Pacific will still be shocked at the treachery Zamperini was forced to endure. Unlike most other veteran's tales, Unbroken focuses almost as many pages on his life before and after The War as on his days as an airman. A perfect example of the impact of world-changing events on one individual's life.

Superman Vs. The Ku Klux Klan; The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled The Men of Hate by Rick Bowers

2012-02-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has read Freakonomics is already familiar with the tale. In 1946, just after finishing off the Nazis, Superman needed new villains to fight. Who better than the white supremacists here at home? Soon, Superman was fighting for Truth, Justice and The American Way over the radio against a fictional, but very real, hate group called the Clan of the Fiery Cross. Rick Bowers tells the tale in Superman Vs. The Ku Klux Klan. In alternating chapters he details both the creation of Superman and the rise and fall of the Klan. The two paths don’t intersect until the end, but we pick up plenty of fascinating information along the way. We get to learn about the real-life heroes who battled the Klan, among them southerners who were once members. Bowers also gives plenty of details about how The Man of Steel went from the brainchild of a couple of unknown teens to an overnight comic book sensation who would soon dominate the airwaves. Best of all is the grand finale, where Bowers sheds new light on the secret Klan codes that wound up in the radio broadcasts. An informative book that proves that entertainment can be relevant without losing its punch.

Search and Destroy; Why You Can't Trust Google Inc by Scott Clelan and Ira Brotsky

2012-01-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

Just because a company's slogan is "don't be evil" doesn't mean they're not, and the team of Clelan and Brotsky certainly think Google is. This book is the most lopsided view you'll find about the most powerful company in the world. The points brought up are valid, but more nuanced arguments are needed. The writers complain that Google allows people to post copy-written materials, esp. with their newly acquired site, Youtube. Fair point, but do we want an internet that makes search engine's accountable for what people post? Couldn't that lead to vast self-censorship, completely changing the very nature of the Web? They also take issue with Google's refusal to bring up certain sites that the company objects to, but should a private company be forced to link to Web sites it doesn't approve of? These are intriguing questions that have to be answered somewhere else. Scott and Ira have nothing positive to say about a company that has arguably made life better for many. They bring up valid points, most notably Google's invasion of individual privacy and it's attempts at an information monopoly, but there's another side to the story not being told here. This book will most likely only preach to the converted.

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick and William Simon

2012-01-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

When one thinks of hackers, an image of a kid spending hours in front of a monitor trying to break codes comes to mind. One of the many surprises to come from Mitnick's narrative is how much hacking involves the art of the con, or "social engineering" as he calls it. Most of his break-ins involved convincing people at local phone companies to give him restricted information, and some of his break-ins were literal. He was hacking before there was even a term for it, and was such a pioneer in the crime that the law wasn't sure how to charge him. Starting his career as a teenager in the 70's and hacking up until the early 90's, he used any number of ways to get into restricted areas of cyberspace. A lot of the technical jargon was lost on me, especially since quite a bit of the technology no longer exists. Still, the results of his hacking (or more accurately, "phone freaking") are a joy to read about. Blocking other callers so he was the guaranteed winner of radio contests, getting phone numbers of celebrities, and overriding a drive-thru speaker to shout insults at customers are among the many stunts he pulled as young criminal. For anyone who liked the movie Sneakers, this is the real thing.

Just My Type; A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield

2012-01-03T06:04:00.000-08:00

If you’re my age or older, you remember the first time you looked at the menu of options across the top of a new Microsoft Word document, saw the word “font”, and wondered what that was. Then you clicked on the option and to your amazement, you could now write your paper in as many as twelve different types! Simon Garfield explores the history of fonts in his book, Just My Type; A Book About Fonts. He explains how the term went from being an obscure bit of jargon known only to printers and graphic designers to a household word. He devotes different chapters to different fonts, always employing the font at hand to tell its story. We also get a history of printing, how fonts were once hand-crafted from wood and metal, and the surprising controversy fonts have caused. Not only has there been half-joking attempts to ban Comic Sans, but there was one font the Nazis branded as the work of Jews and hence made illegal. Courier, the friendly font that turns a three page paper into a five pager, gets surprisingly little mention. Nor is there much talk about how fonts impacted academics, which would be closer to the hearts of many readers. This book is more for the artists and graphic designers out there, but for the rest of us it’s still a fun read about a topic that, until the digital age, barely registered with most people.

Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

2011-12-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

Bill O’Reilly is both a showman and a former teacher, and both skills come into play in his (with co-author Martin Dugard) first history book, Killing Lincoln; The Assassination that Changed America Forever. His telling of Lincoln’s murder is a gripping page-turner that reads like a thriller. In fact, it’s a little too much like a novel in that he makes no use of footnotes or even a bibliography. He also tends to dwell on topics less because they are relevant and more because he knows the readers will be interested in them. Why so much coverage of Armstrong Custer ? Was the “secret code” that an amateur historian supposedly revealed worth the space O’Reilly gives it? Does he really think Lincoln’s own Secretary of War had a hand in killing him? There is a lot of sensational stuff here that makes for good entertainment but poor scholarship. April 1865 by Jay Winik covers much of the same territory much more professionally

The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios by Eric Rasmussen

2011-12-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

First, an important point; this book does not focus solely on Shakespeare works that have been stolen, like some sort of true crime thriller. Instead Rasmussen devotes chapters to some of the more famous First Folios known to exist. The Folios were rare, expensive, and highly sought after when published, and have been ever since. Over time, some were stolen, others smuggled, others stumbled upon in old English houses. Each chapter is devoted to a different copy. They may have all come out of the same printing house and have (almost) the same content, but each has its own story to tell. After reading this book, you'll get a better understanding of 17th century printing techniques, life for actors during Shakespeare's time, and a peek at the intriguing world of rare book dealers. There are more First Folios in existence than Rasmussen covers in this relatively short read, but Rasmussen reveals the gems that are worth writing about.

Back to Our Future: How the 1980's Explain the World We Live In Now- Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything, by David Sirota

2011-07-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

The 80's has a rap as a silly decade of break-dancing and big hair, but Sirota believes some serious cultural changes took place, and not for the better. Celebrities who are famous for being famous, selfishness as a value, anti-government rhetoric, and most menacingly, militarism, all began with the Reagan years. His case isn't always convincing. He refers to Michael Jordan as the first celebrity to be famous for being a celebrity, as if Mike were a non talent ala Paris Hilton. As for his chapter on cultural militarism, selling violent toys to children has been the norm since toys were being made for children. It's true that Reagan stoked the flames of public mistrust of the government, but that had been building ever since the Nixon era. Sirota builds his arguments dissecting cultural ephemera most of us Gen Xers never gave much thought, such as the introductory voiceover from the A-team, the cinematography of ET, and the plot of Ghostbusters Two (which he's seen over forty times). Some of his assertions are simply not correct. He claims that the science teacher from ET isn't filmed only from the waist down, supporting his assertion that government officials are the only adults shot from an angle that makes them appear faceless. In fact, we never see the teacher's face either. He states that Lando is the only sexually aggressive character in the Star Wars universe, backing up his claim that racism was prevalent in 80's culture. Any human resources manager would say that Han Solo and even Jabba the Hut do their fair share of sexual harassing. His most convincing argument is the increasing unwillingness of politicians to question the military. The eighties was the decade when Americans went from distrusting the military to tying yellow ribbons around the old oak tree. What Sirota doesn't consider is that as memories of Vietnam faded, enthusiasm for the military would sprout once again. While one may not always agree with his assertions, it is nice to see someone give the eighties the serious intellectual treatment more often reserved for other decades.

Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice by Guy Walters

2011-07-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Nazi hunting is not as sexy as it sounds, at least that's the conclusion Guy Walters leaves us with in Hunting Evil. For the most part, catching Nazis required a combination of luck and legal wrangling. Adolf Eichmann was captured because his son dated a smart Jewish girl who recognized the surname. Many Nazis were found hiding in the U.S., but it would take years of legal maneuvers to bring them to justice, and even then many received short sentences. Indeed, what is most revealing about Walters' book is the number of people and organizations willing to help these fugitives hide for decades, from The Vatican to numerous intelligence services. The biggest surprise is Walters' revelations about Simon Wiesenthal. Far from being the elite Nazi hunter with hundreds of scalps to his credit, he was primarily a charlatan who played a role in ruining the life of an innocent man. Ultimately though, Wiesenthal and others hunting war fugitives do more good than harm. Even if they can't catch everyone, their existence at least means that those who have escaped justice still have to look over their shoulders.

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic by Professor X

2011-06-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

Do firemen, cops and nurses need to know how to write research papers, or to have read the classics? Such notions are sacrilege in many academic circles, but these are legitimate questions coming from Professor X. This anonymous instructor has for over ten years been working as an adjunct at two institutions of higher-learning. He teaches introductory English classes for the same reason his students take them; he has to. He's got a family and a mortgage, so out of desperation he teaches at the bottom rung. His students turn in course work at a 7th grade level, and most of the better stuff turns out to be plagiarized. Professor X teaches hard, and the students still try hard, but he makes the case that their money and his time are both being wasted. He is, incredibly, arguing for less education. The more people are required to go to college, the further into debt they fall. Some might find his conclusions a bit snobbish, as he is arguing that only intellectuals need the mountain of education many jobs now require. Still, no one can argue he doesn't know what he's talking about. Just because a soldier has served on the front lines doesn't make him a strategy expert, but his perspective is worth listening to.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

2011-06-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

William E. Dodd had the thankless task of being the first American ambassador under Hitler’s regime (indeed, he got the job after about a dozen better-connected men turned it down). His memories of the country were rooted in his younger student days, when the land was still best known for its philosophers and scientists. Dodd and his family would soon learn how much had changed. In The Garden of Beasts is Erik Larson’s portrait of this American family. Larson focuses primarily on William E. Dodd and his daughter Martha, a charming socialite who dated more than a few important men in her time. Larson does not follow his alternating chapters formula as strictly as he did in Devil in the White City, but the narrative does switch between William and Martha. Both Americans gradually find fascism creeping into their lives, until they can no longer defend a country they once loved. William receives numerous reports of Americans being attacked by Nazi thugs, while Martha senses a gradual tension in her conversations with both friends and lovers. The first sign of trouble is when she throws a party at the embassy. She expects to host fascinating people and be privy to interesting conversations. Only, most of Germany’s better writers and artists have already emigrated, and quite a few other guests are so destitute they simply came for food. This is not her father’s Germany.
Larson has once again uncovered a little-known story from America’s past, and the result is a unique look at how a dictatorship can slowly seep into private lives. He reveals unique characters even most history buffs will be unfamiliar with. There is Rudolf Diels, a suitor of Martha Dodd who was the first Gestapo commander and had scars from too many fencing matches. He would be replaced by Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most evil men in history who nevertheless played the violin so passionately he wept. These are the details villains from old war movies are made of.
If the book has any flaw, it’s that Larson inserts dialogue in scenes where no one can know for sure what was spoken, particularly in Martha’s chats with her many boyfriends. The dialogue between her and the Russian Boris Windogradov at times sound like they were lifted wholesale from Harlequin. This is a minor setback however. Even those well-versed in the history of Nazi Germany will find much new here.

Alex And Me by Irene Pepperberg

2011-06-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

When children, we think of parrots as having intelligence and personality because of their ability to talk. As adults we’re told they’re merely mimicking sounds without comprehension, hence the phrase “parroting”. Pepperberg convincingly outlines her case for animal intelligence in Alex and Me. Her research implies we may have to rethink just how we see parrots in particular and animals in general. Her 20 years of research with an African Grey, Alex, suggests that parrots have emotions, reasoning abilities, and know the meanings of the words they say. Alex developed a set of personality traits that only a thinking animal could have, including a taste for mischief and a tendency to put on airs. The wisecracking parrots from Disney cartoons may not be so far-fetched after all. Her book is rife with anecdotes that add up to data, describing experiments in which Alex eventually learned colors, shapes, objects and even some math skills. Her theory that parrots have intelligence comparable to a small child’s is perhaps a bit overblown, but reading this book will make you see birds and other creatures in a totally different light.
Warning: Pet lovers might want to stay away; Alex spoke his last words a couple years ago, and his death makes up the last chapter.

Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness by William Bernhardt

2011-06-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

Elliot Ness is synonymous with Chicago. Few people know that he did arguably his best work in Cleveland, where he cleaned up the city's police and fire departments and made good use of recently-invented traffic lights to cut down on car crashes. All of his achievements were overshadowed by a series of gruesome murders by someone identified only as the Torso Killer, so-named because that was often all that was left. William Bernhardt draws on these facts as the basis for his novel, Nemesis. The book is something of a historical thriller, sticking close to the facts until the end when Ness, unlike the real life policeman, solves the case. Indeed, Bernhardt's Ness can do almost no wrong, which is too bad. The real Elliot Ness was a complex character, a Prohibition enforcer who became an alcoholic, a Boy Scout who made thousands of Cleveland's poor homeless. Bernhardt does not ignore these facts, but he does portray them in the best possible light. He implies that Ness' decision to burn down Hooverville really did save lives, and that the case went unsolved merely because of politics. The Elliot Ness of reality was infamous for seeking good publicity. It's hard to believe he wouldn't approve of Bernhardt's effort here.

Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan, by Del Quentin Wilber

2011-05-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

Wilber’s book reads like an extended episode of 24. He lays out the John Hinckley shooting chronologically, starting with Ronald Reagan’s trip to St. John’s Church the morning before and ending with The President’s triumphant speech to Congress not quite two weeks later. We get the events of the attempted killing minute by minute, day by day, and flashbacks don’t pop up more than needed. It’s a concise, 225-page, just-the-facts approach to a crucial day in history. Wilber mostly lets the facts speak for themselves, but this is not to say there’s no commentary at all. He’s convinced that Reagan showed his true colors in the wake of his near-death and came out on top, sparking popular support that never waned. Whatever one may think of Wilber’s thesis, no one can argue that he doesn’t give us enough information to judge for ourselves.

The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story From Buchenwald to New Orleans by Mark Jacobson

2011-05-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

In every war there’s a tendency to discover that myths about the other side weren’t true. Hussein wasn’t harboring any WMDs, and his soldiers never snatched any babies out of incubators. In 1945, the world was shocked to learn that the anti-Nazi propaganda was not nearly as horrifying as the truth; this was one of the few times the atrocities were worse than the propaganda. One rumor never confirmed was the report that the very skins of Jews had been turned into gloves, purses and lampshades.
Through an odd set of circumstances, Jewish reporter Mark Jacobson got a hold of an item that may be the genuine article. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina a friend forwarded him a lampshade rumored to have been made in Buchenwald. Jacobson takes the item to various scientists and other scholars to uncover the truth. There is more at stake here than genuine curiosity. The provenance of this lamp could prove whether one of the creepier Holocaust tales to be true. Indeed, Jacobson seems more interested in what the lampshade means to society than in the actual object itself. He interviews everyone from camp survivors to Holocaust deniers like David Duke. Interesting conversation, but why doesn’t he track down the owner of the New Orleans home where the item was supposed to have been found? Why doesn’t he investigate the house’s history to find out who had lived there? Instead, he veers off course wildly, so that readers will learn about as much about Katrina’s impact on New Orleans as the lamp itself. We learn a lot of interesting facts about this tragedy and get to read some fascinating interviews, but I still closed this book thinking a better investigation was warranted.

Stealing Lincoln's Body by Thomas J. Craughwell

2011-04-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

It's perhaps fitting that Lincoln, by far one of the most interesting individuals to occupy the White House, would even in death almost suffer a fate unlike any other president. In 1876 a group of counterfeiters, of all people, plotted to abscond with the Great Emancipator in an attempt to extort money and spring a fellow criminal from jail. It was a theft planned by disorganized crooks that nearly succeeded due to the Secret Service's own incompetence. Craughwell details this crime, along with the history of Lincoln's tomb and the fate of his remains in Stealing Lincoln's Body. While this isn't the most important book about Lincoln out there, Craughwell dishes out fascinating details about the plans for Lincoln's burial (both before and after the desecration), the history of counterfeiting in America, and the peculiar handling of Lincoln's remains after the crime. One of the more unique tales of the Lincoln saga.

In the President’s Secret Service by Ronald Kessler

2011-04-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Kessler takes a hard look behind the shades in his book about the President’s bodyguards, and does not like what he sees. The Secret Service is sagging with lowered budgets, increased demands, and poor training that led to the “gate crashing” debacle at Obama’s inauguration. This slim book is also a history of the Service, from its early days in the Civil War to its modern role as a guardian force. Included are some of the bizarre, forgotten attempts on different presidents, such as the grenade tossed at Bush and the shootout in front of Truman’s home. Agents from yesteryear spill all about the private lives of their protectorees, and spare no one. Neither Democrats nor Republicans will be pleased with the up close and personal look at some of our nation’s leaders, but some fare better than others (Jimmy Carter and Al Gore were jerks; Clinton and Reagan every bit as friendly off camera as on). Given the book’s small size, Kessler at times seems to be covering too much. The frustration of agents not being allowed to transfer to different cities is probably not worth a whole chapter. He also brings up the same points over and over again, constantly repeating phrases like “cut corners” and “management”. We get it, already. Hopefully, someone in Washington does too.

Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery by Jennie Erin Smith

2011-04-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: this book is not for people afraid of scaly things. A sentence like “They stuffed a king cobra in one of Penny’s suitcases, and filled her purse with lizards” will make most of us a bit squeamish. But to the people Smith profiles in Stolen World, such scenarios are mouth watering. Smith writes about the bizarre subculture of reptile smuggling and dealing, particularly in exotic snakes, and the desperados who inhabit it. The two main players she focuses on are Tom Crutchfield and Hank Molt, but plenty of other unique reptile lovers pepper the tale. They all share a willingness to climb any mountain (sometimes literally), pay any bribe, and break any law to come home with a rare animal. At times Smith seems to be a little too much in bed with her subjects. She writes admirably of their derringdo, but notes only casually that some of these snakes are left to rot for weeks in suitcases or boxes. She implies at least tacit agreement with the smuggler’s assertion that their breaking of the law is not really a big deal, even in regards to extremely endangered species. Still, the stories she tells are stranger than fiction, and well worth reading.

Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough

2011-03-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

Pretty Boy Floyd. Baby Face Nelson. Ma Barker. The names sound so much like Dick Tracy villains that it’s not uncommon for people to think they were fictional characters, and Hollywood has done its share in confusing legend with truth . In his book Public Enemies, Burrough separates fact from fiction in 600 exhaustively researched pages. He chronologically lays out the events of 1933-34 that would burnish the reputations of many otherwise unremarkable criminals, such as Machine Gun Kelly, Creepy Karpis, and of course, John Dillinger. In doing so, he dispels many of the myths. Ma Barker really was the innocent old woman she pretended to be, and forget everything Warren Beatty taught you about Bonnie and Clyde. Even those with a thorough knowledge of 1930’s crime will still be interested in Burrough’s take on affairs. His depiction of J. Edgar Hoover is more sympathetic than most, especially regarding the Bureau Director’s rivalry with star Special Agent Melvin Purvis. He covers so much ground that it can be confusing to keep all of the names straight. Rather than devoting a chapter to each bad guy, he instead writes about the events in a timeline fashion. The result is that people pop up suddenly after not having been mentioned for over a hundred pages. Fortunately, he includes a cast of characters at the beginning to help readers remember who’s who. Public Enemies is a readable mini-encyclopedia of the Depression-era criminals that still turn up in American pop culture today.

The Dead Janitors Club by Jeff Klima

2011-03-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

Klima’s book is like a gruesome crime scene. Morbid, but you can’t look away. Klima found himself out of work and sick of numerous retail jobs (including one in a porn shop), when he was offered a career as a crime scene cleaner. Dazzled by promises of a six figure income, he bought a pair of rubber gloves and a few other cleaning supplies and accepted a bizarre job cleaning up remnants of murders and suicides. No formal training, no license required. Klima soon learns the job is not as glamorous or profitable as it looks, but hangs in there, hoping to “make it” in this relatively new field. His book is rife with anecdotes, but not all of them are crime scene related. He devotes entire chapters to the already well-trod territory of frat initiations and college parties. He also comes off as a quite unlikable guy. He’s an agnostic who aggressively mocks other peoples religious beliefs, including those who are paying him to clean up after the violent deaths of their loved ones. Then there’s the fact that he pilfers a few objects here and there from scenes he’s paid to sterilize. He does redeem himself at the end, sort of, but it’s hard to believe there’s not a better book on the topic.

Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Wild by Lee Sandlin

2011-03-07T18:02:00.000-08:00

Most of us understand that our suburbs and cities cemented over what was once forest or rolling prairie. Not as many of us realize that our rivers are every bit as tamed as the sprawling countryside, with man-made alterations that have changed their directions. As impressive as the Mississippi may look to a modern traveler, she is now very much under the yoke of man. She is majestic, but tamed.
In the 19th century it was a different story. The Mississippi was once a sprawling waterway that hosted wicked storms, preying pirates, and key battles. Sandlin reminds us of those dark days in Wicked River. The book is organized chronologically, but is not a complete history. Instead it’s a collection of anecdotes about life on the river before it was thoroughly controlled by engineers. The chapters stand independent, each devoted to a different aspect of life on the river. Sandlin runs the gauntlet from the record quakes that changed the river’s course to the key role the Mississippi played in the Civil War. Even the most ardent Civil War historians are likely to learn something new from his description of Antietam. Peppered throughout this history are the numerous characters who lived and died by the Mighty Missip, including boatmen, murderous thieves, hucksters, slaves, soldiers, and of course, Mark Twain. Read this book and you will never look at the Mississippi quite the same way.

"The Book" by Augen

2011-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

I chose not to review a book this time, but rather a whole new way of reading, albeit probably not one you've heard of. I have dug in my heels against ebooks until recently. It's not so much the sentimental feel of a book that has prevented me from joining the digital revolution. Rather, I have a hard time paying for books I can't sell, trade, donate, or keep. Coupled with the fact that Amazon keeps tabs on everything you read J. Edgar Hoover-style, and I decided to stick with paper for now. Then I went to Menards.
I never thought I'd buy an ebook reader while waiting in line with a sack of road salt, but Menards sells a device, Augen's "The Book". For $89 you get a gizmo that reads ebooks, plays music and movies in MP3 and MP4 format, and even has wi-fi. Unlike the more popular readers, it lacks the e-ink that's so easy on the eyes. Also unlike one certain ereader which will remain nameless (it rhymes with bindle), The Book does indeed work with my library's ebook collection. This was a surprise since The Book does not come up on the list of library ebook-friendly devices, but after initial set up I have been enjoying my reader for about a month. I'm able to change the font size, it's back-lit so I can read in poorly lit or dark rooms, and I can take a hefty number of books with me anywhere. It even comes with a free leather case. You won't find a device that does more for less cash. The Book is clearly the most bang for the buck.
The bad news: the wi-fi is slow and clumsy at best. There is no dedicated service, so you have to find a Starbucks. The process of loading library ebooks onto my device is also a bit cumbersome; I have to load them onto my laptop, then transfer to the Augen. It has to be one computer only. After trying to use it on my computer at work, it not only didn't work there, but no longer worked on my laptop. Somehow, The Book knew I had been unfaithful, forcing me to sync it with my home computer all over again.
Then there's the library ebooks themselves; they expire after three weeks. You are cheerfully told that you don't need to worry about returning library ebooks, but that's because they simply evaporate after the due date (no, you can't renew them). I now have twenty days to read a 600 page book, so I'll see you later!

Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth By James M. Tabor

2011-02-10T17:25:00.000-08:00

Just when it seems there’s nothing left on this earth to explore, a handful of devoted climbers have found man’s last frontier is not out there, but deep within. In the last twenty years a devoted group of explorers have been in a race to discover and map the deepest cave on earth. The two forerunners in this contest are American Bill Stone and Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk. The two men are polar opposites, one a divorced playboy, the other a steady family man. Both have in common their passion for finding the deepest spot in (literally, in) the world.
Tabor’s description of what these men and their devoted team members endure for this legacy is breathtaking. There is the intense physical endurance climbers everywhere have to survive, plus the psychological terror of constant complete darkness held at bay only by flashlights and headlamps. Throw in the fact that electronic communication is impossible under thousands of feet of rock and you’ll be amazed anyone picks this hobby. Readers of Krakauer or other mountaineering epics will consume this tale of men and women taking on the planet’s toughest spots; not the mountain tops high above, but the gaping caverns miles below.

Jack Black And The Ship Of Thieves by Carol Hughes

2010-11-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

When little boys dream of becoming pirates, the sort of men Jack Black falls in with are the type they have in mind. Jack miraculously lands on this ship after falling out a Zeppelin captained by his father. Led by the aptly-named Quixote, this crew of rogues prove to be an ultimately good-natured sort. They take only what they need, don't hurt anyone, and generally have a jolly time sailing the seas. The one area they avoid is the polar North Sea, as it is patrolled by a self-running mechanical ship called Nemesis that's indestructible. But the North Sea is exactly where Black's father is, due to his massive airship having crashed there. It's up to Jack Black, the Ship of Thieves, and a daredevil woman pilot to come to their rescue.
While not as far-removed from reality as other steampunk novels (see the Matt Cruse trilogy), Jack Black has it's share of science-fiction past, most notably the self-running warship. Its 220 pages should be short enough for even the most reluctant readers. A fun story that has just enough out-of-this-world gadgetry to be interesting but not too far out there for those who are not devoted fantasy fans.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (illustrated by Dave Mckean)

2010-11-10T09:24:00.000-08:00

The afterlife doesn't look so pleasant in Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Basically, you're stuck for all eternity in whatever cemetery you're buried in. That's why, when a little boy's family is killed and the child wanders into a graveyard, the soul of his murdered mom has no choice but to let the spirits of the cemetery watch over him. Hence, Nobody Owens, as the boy is eventually Christened, is raised by an entire graveyard full of ghosts. His only guardian with a physical presence is a mysterious human (?) named Silas. As Owens comes of age he must eventually face the man who killed his family.
An obvious homage to Kipling's Jungle Book, Gaiman's tale is readily accessible to older children but plenty entertaining to adults. There are references to Celtic traditions and modern politics (you'll find yourself Googling the 33rd President of the United States), but prior knowledge of these topics isn't needed. Unlike some of Gaiman's fantasy tales for adults, The Graveyard Book is a pretty straightforward telling. One need not be a fantasy junkie to enjoy this unique coming-of-age story.

The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey

2010-10-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

In the era of GPS, just about any map looks like a relic. For an eclectic group of people, maps are gems, some worth millions. Where there's money to be made crooks are inevitably going to sprout. Miles Harvey documents the career of one such map thief who proliferated in the mid 90's, Gilbert Bland. Harvey has two problems in writing this biography. First, his subject refused to have anything to do with the project. Second, Harvey desperately wants Bland to be a much more romantic figure than he is. Harvey refers to Bland as an "enigmatic antiques dealer" but as the story unfolds he comes across as a common crook who stumbled into a unique niche. Bland had been in and out of jail decades before he began haunting academic libraries for loot, and was already a deadbeat dad. Unlike certain other antiques thieves, Bland was pretty much in it for the money, razoring out rare maps and selling them for cold cash.
This isn't to say "The Island of Lost Maps" isn't worth a read. Harvey includes a fascinating history of map making, and a unique take on the world of map collecting. Harvey may have been a typical thief, but his crimes were anything but, making this story worth reading.

The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran by Dirk Hayhurst

2010-10-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

No matter how cool certain jobs may seem, those who do them will tell you that it's not as glamorous as it looks. Dirk Hayhurst's account of life in the Minors, playing as a pitcher in the San Diego Padres farm system, takes the gloss off life as a semi-pro ball player. He's a pitcher who's constantly moved up and down the ladder, from A to Triple A and back again. He spends a lot of time on sweaty buses and in cheap motels, all the while making less money than a full time Wal-Mart greeter. Yes he does something he loves, but now that he's in his fifth year in the Minors and 26, he has to either make it or get out. He cannot, after all, live with his grandma the rest of his life. His account has exactly the kind of Bull Durham-like tales you would expect, stories involving pranks, lousy road trips, and of course, women. Any females who want a blunt view of how men behave when there aren't any of their kind around would do well to read this book. An honest look at the lives of the thousands of athletes who toil in obscurity for a shot at the dream.

Free For All by Dan Borchert

2010-09-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

The library is not what it used to be. Far from being massive, church-like structures where nary a word is spoken, the typical modern library is likely to be buzzing with activity. This activity is sometimes in the form of teenagers co-mingling, children running loose after story time, or adults gathering to make business deals. Sometime this activity isn't quite so legitimate, such as drug deals, fights, and insane homeless people. When you allow anyone to walk through your doors, that's exactly who you get.
Dan Borchert documents numerous anecdotes he compiled during his years as an employee of the Los Angeles Public Library System. Given the location, the stories he tells aren't as scary as you might expect. Still, he does have to deal with dope-dealing patrons, troublesome teens, and in one bizarre case, fist-fighting moms. The more troublesome incidents are balanced by a sweet grandmother who brings in baked treats and young patrons who count the library staff as their friends. This book is for anyone who wants to work in a library or is just curious about the goings on at one of the few institutions that truly is free for all who enter.

Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love by Dave Zirin

2010-09-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

Reading Zirin's book feels a bit like sitting next to a drunk, well-informed sports fan. He is not pleased with the current state of the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and even one English soccer team, and he doesn't mind saying so. Most of his vitriol goes towards baseball, and for good reason. What has scandalized all sports in recent years, namely mushrooming salaries, tax-payer funded stadiums for private ventures, and steroids, have a tendency to pop up more often in America's Pastime. Zirin rants about everything in modern sports he can't stand, from the big (rich owners taking their teams elsewhere) to the small ($8 beers). Most, but not all, chapters are devoted to one team with one incompetent owner mishandling the strings. Given the small size of the book, an entire chapter on religious services in stadiums doesn't seem justified (he only casually mentions such services take place after the game). His chapter on the NHL is particularly intriguing for anyone who's wondered how a winter sport wound up in cities like Phoenix and Nashville. Whatever the topic of each self-contained chapter- a reader can skip around if he prefers - Zirin's scorn is mostly reserved for the rich, white owners, and he knows just how to handle them. Get rid of them. More teams should be publicly owned ala Green Bay, the team he praises in his closing epilogue. Cheeseheads everywhere will no doubt agree with his love of the Packers, but he doesn't explain how to implement this change. The NFL specifically has rules against any more teams owned by shareholders, and it's not likely any of the other leagues would get on board. Zirin's book is heavy on criticism and light on solutions, but anyone who's burned through a week's wages at the old ball game will find much to identify with here.

8 Men and a Duck: An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island by Nick Thorpe

2010-09-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Often when we read about people who embark on seemingly impossible journeys, they come off as infallible heroes. What is inspiring about Thorpe's book is the everyman-as-hero approach to the story of eight adventurous, but not extraordinary, men who embarked on a voyage to Easter Island via reed boat. Like Thor Heyerdahl of Kon-Tiki fame, the purpose of the expedition was to prove that South American natives were capable of reaching Pacific islands. Unlike the famous Heyerdahl, none of these men had much in the way of sailing experience on even a conventional boat, including captain Phil Buck. The story has all the trappings of a reality show, complete with bickering crew members, suspense, and comic relief in the form of inexperience. People fall overboard, get drunk, and fight over the trivial, led by an often too relaxed captain (upon learning that they may lose their electric power, he makes the following decision: "Give me a while to think about it.") How the sails were made is a perfect example of just how amateur an operation the adventure was. The author himself complained that they still had no sails even though the launch date was in a few weeks, so the captain put him in charge. Thorpe downloaded some plans off the internet and got to work. As always with adventure travel stories, not all goes to plan, especially since this crew is led by someone who doesn't plan much. Thorpe's report is a refreshing challenge to anyone who thinks that attempting the impossible is only for a certain class of superhuman.

A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols

2010-08-22T16:13:00.001-07:00

In 1968, as man was headed to space for the first time, another group of adventures were attempting a different milestone here on Earth; a quest to become the first to solo sail around the globe. Nine men of different (though mostly English) backgrounds and varying levels of experience attempted to win the race sponsored by a British paper. Only one completed the trip. Another almost certainly would have won but decided he preferred the peaceful life at sea instead of the glare of the spotlight. Another went mad and vanished, and still another would commit suicide. Nichols gives enough details to keep the various yachtsmen straight, and even includes a convenient list of competitors on the first page. The pictures of the different vessels are worth looking at, but the captions accompanying them annoyingly give away details that take the suspense out of the story for those of us who knew nothing about the race beforehand. If one has to look the pictures, make sure your hand covers the bottom margin. Otherwise, a gripping tale of man versus the sea.

The Cave and the Cathedral: How a Real-Life Indiana Jones and a Renegade Scholar Decoded the Ancient Art of Man

2010-08-09T14:58:00.000-07:00

Long after humanity has expired, one of the last traces of our existence to vanish will be one of the first created, the pictures ancient man painted on the insides of caves. While paintings on cliff sides and in caves exist all over the world, the European ones created by Cro-Magnons are the works Amir D. Aczel focuses on. These artworks are unique not just for their beauty, but also their locations. In order to access some of the paintings, one has to descend far, far into the caves, including one gallery that requires a potential visitor to crawl on his belly for half a mile. What motivated ancient humans to painstakingly create such works of art in such odd places, and just what do the drawings, mostly of animals, represent? These are the questions Aczel sets out to answer, by visiting the Paleolithic caves in France and Spain that are open to the public. The subtitle is a bit misleading, leaving one to think the book is about only two scholars. In fact, Aczel reviews multiple theories about the how and why of these primitive but beautiful drawings. It is two men, one a 19th-century priest, the other and ex-French Resistance fighter, that he concludes provided the most plausible theories. Helpful photos and sketches accompany many of his descriptions. A book that will make you want to grab a flashlight and catch the next plane to France.

Did Lincoln Own Slaves?: And Other Frequently Asked Questions about Abraham Lincoln by Gerald J. Prokopowicz (read by Norman Dietz)

2010-08-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

Whether you call him Honest Abe or the Great Emancipator, or if you’re a revisionist who laughs at such hagiography, there is no disputing that our 16th President has inspired more mythology than any other. As is always the problem with legendary figures, fact and fiction have gotten increasingly blurred. To help sort out the mess is Gerald J. Prokopowicz. In Did Lincoln Own Slaves, Prokopowicz answers the most common FAQs about Lincoln. Having worked at the Lincoln Museum in Ft. Wayne for years, he’s heard them all, and he has compiled the answers to the more common questions in this book. Each chapter is compiled of Q and A’s about different periods of Lincoln’s life. Whether or not Lincoln was gay, owned slaves, wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope, and all of the other more common imponderables are answered here. This Q and A style is especially well suited for audiobooks, since a long attention span is not needed to follow the brief paragraphs. Unfortunately, truth is not always stranger than fiction. Many of the more fantastic stories about the man turn out to be false, but just as many fascinating ones sprout in their place. Even those who’ve read more than a few books about Lincoln would benefit from Prokopowicz's, as many of the more apocryphal stories have been repeated by respected Lincoln authors, including Gore Vidal and Carl Sandburg. An indispensable book for anyone wanting to know the truth about our first Republican President.

Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel

2010-07-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

Kenneth Oppel rounds off his steampunk Matt Cruse Trilogy with Starclimber. In keeping with the trilogy's pattern of each adventure taking place at a higher elevation than the last, this story mostly unfolds outside of Earth's atmosphere. This time the Canadian cadet and his secret love, society girl Kate de Vries, embark together on a trip to space as part of a bold expedition funded by a couple of wealthy Canadian philanthropists. Canada and France are competing to launch the first humans into outer space in the 1920's, France by building a massive skyscraper, Canada by use of a ship called Starclimber. The craft is in fact a souped-up cable car that rides a wire into space and back, the cable held up by a counterweight on the other end 20,000 miles above Earth. Kate, Matt, and the rest of the crew are to travel there and back, collecting as much information as they can about life in space. That's the plan anyway, and naturally things veer wildly off course. Mysterious UFOs and a terrorist group known as the Babelites are among the hazards they face, but Matt's first-person narrative assures us that (almost) everyone will turn out fine. A couple of loose ends are left hanging, while others are a little too conveniently resolved, but readers of Oppel's previous efforts (Airborn, Skybreaker) are nonetheless in for a fun ride.

The 7th Knot By Kathleen Karr

2010-07-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

The 7^th Knot is full of spooky mystery, taking place in slimy dungeons and castles staffed by cloaked figures. It’s also a load of fun, involving zeppelins and mountain hideaways. At the same time it’s easy to understand how the book may not appeal to it’s intended preteen audience. The plot revolves around such figures as Albrecht Durer and King Ludwig the Second, Germans not well known to most young Americans. The lead characters are a pair of adventurous brothers, Wick and Miles, 15 and 12 respectively, the older a cigar-smoking troublemaker, the younger an explosions-obsessed science wiz. The two are shipped to Europe by their weary mother to help their uncle select high-end art for wealthy American industrialists. The boys are bored by anything expect nudes, but soon find themselves deep in the search for their missing servant, Jose Gregorio. This quest leads them into the Bavarian Alps and forces them to confront a mysterious cult that is a forerunner to the Nazis. The story moves quickly enough, but Karr spends a lot of time setting up the story that isn’t very long. The 7^th Knot is that odd-sort of young adult book that is more likely to appeal to adults than preteens.

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides

2010-07-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

The 60's provided America with enough high-profile assassinations that the country may as well have been a third world dictatorship. It speaks volumes that the murder of Martin Luther King was not the most high profile killing of that decade, and maybe not even that year (Robert Kennedy was shot a few weeks later). Maybe it's because assassinations were so common or maybe it's because there aren't as many conspiracy theories, but not as much has been written about MLK's shooting as one might expect. Sides fills this gap with Hellhound on His Tail. The book alternates between the killer James Earl Ray and the civil rights leader he gunned down. Minute details about both men are fleshed out, making them all the more human. We get descriptions of both King and Ray eating, taking showers, shaving, and some less than flattering details about King's numerous affairs. That MLK had a Clintionian sexual appetite does not demean the man, but instead shows a human side of a hero who even while he was alive was worshipped by many. At the height of his fame, people merely wanted to touch him. It was his unquestioned status as leader of the Civil Rights Movement that painted a target on his back, and it was inevitable that someone would take a shot. Hampton Sides meticulously describes the events that led up to that fateful night in Memphis, including the garbage strike that brought King to town and Ray's vigilant stalking. Sides expertly builds suspense even though the result is already known, then details the intense hunt for King's killer. The last third reads like a police procedural, with intense descriptions of finger printing, ballistics, and a thousand other clues that led to Ray's capture. Ray proved a tough catch, a streetwise inmate that had already escaped from a prison that had never been breached. A couple of lucky breaks and he may have never been caught. If there are any flaws, it's that Sides skips to meat of the matter. We get essentially no information about Ray's trial, and not much regarding his motive for the killing besides the obvious fact that he was a racist. This is more of a nonfiction thriller than a scholarly study, packed with fascinating tidbits for anyone unfamiliar with the King assassination. For readers who enjoyed Swanson's Manhunt, this is another riveting account of a murder that shook a nation.

Firehouse by David Halberstam (read by Mel Foster)

2010-07-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

The late David Halberstam was the king of the men-in-groups genre of nonfiction. His books dealt primarily with men doing guy things, be it playing baseball or fighting the Korean War. One of his last contributions was Firehouse, a tribute to the firemen of Engine 40, Ladder 35. On September 11th, 13 men from that firehouse went to the World Trade Center; only one returned. Halberstam's book is really a collection of obituaries, detailing the lives of the lost and the inner workings of a New York City firehouse. While his tribute is touching, it's also uninteresting. Anyone looking to learn a few tidbits about firefighting or the attack on 9/11 would be better-suited looking elsewhere (Report From Engine Co. 82 for firefighting; 102 Minutes for the attack on 9/11). This is a book about relationships between men, and also between the wives who became widows. You hear all sorts of details about people you'll never meet, but Halberstam doesn't make it interesting enough to keep the reader engaged. While Halberstam is to be commended for immortalizing these heroes, his previous works suggest he could have done better.

The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong by David Shenk (read by Mark Deakins)

2010-07-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

There is no such thing as natural talent, asserts David Shenk. Beethoven, Edison, Michael Jordan, all made it to the top by putting in thousands upon thousands of hours. While this assertion has been made before, most notably in Malcom Gladwell's Outliers, Shenk takes a more scientific approach in the relationship between genetics and life success. While acknowledging the importance of DNA, he posits that not only is biology not destiny, it's not even a safe bet. Our genes dictate very little about us and contrary to popular opinion, our brain structure and genetic code can actually be changed by how we live. Taxi drivers brains' are wired a certain way because of their job, not the other way around. This does not put us totally in the driver's seat, since we only have so much control over our environment, and zero over how we are reared. Shenk proposes we all can be great at something, as long as we take that something and devote almost all of our spare time to it. A nice thought, but Shenk is a bit of an extremist with his genes-aren't-all-that theory. At one point, he actually claims that eye and hair color are not genetically determined. He praises Jordan's hard work on the basketball court as the sole reason for his success, but surely MJ could not have soared to such heights if he were a foot shorter. Couldn't it be that Beethoven and Edison had an edge the equivalent of Jordan's height that wasn't as easy to discern? And if simply spending more time on it makes you better, why are some writers Shakespeare and others, well, bloggers like myself? While Shenk may get a bit overboard with his theory, his underlying claim, that success in any field has to be earned, is sound. It's nice to have this fatherly principle backed by actual lab results.

The Lost City of Z by David Grann (Read by Mark Deakins).

2010-07-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

There were few blank spaces on the globe left in the mid 1920’s, but plenty of gentleman explores were willing to fill them with knowledge. Most were driven by the glory of being the first person (besides natives) to be at a particular spot on the earth. One explorer in particular was hoping to achieve immortality by uncovering a fabled place, ” Z.” It was the city Cortez’s men had dubbed "el Dorado", and while Fawcett was too scholarly to expect to find a city of gold, he had high hopes at finding a massive, lost civilization. That the idea struck many of his colleagues as nutty couldn’t sway him. With massive Maya ruins found deep in the heart of Mexico, the idea of a lost city in the middle of the rain forest no longer sounded so far-fetched. Many had died in journeys such as these because of naivety or lack of experience. Fawcett, however, was one of the more experienced and knowledgeable adventurers of his day, having gone on several expeditions in the Amazonian wilderness already. He showed a natural skill for communicating with native tribes and an uncanny ability to not get sick in jungles teeming with malaria and countless other maladies. Indeed, it’s best not to listen to this book while eating. Grann's description of the bizarre creatures that crawled inside of explorers’ bodies are nauseating, bringing up images of the X-Files. Grann alternates chapters between the life and fate of Fawcett with his own first-person account of trying to follow Fawcett's trail deep into the rain forest. We learn as much as can be known about Fawcett’s fate and the truth about Z. Anyone who has enjoyed Krakauer’s adventurous nonfiction will not be disappointed by this true story of obsession.

Little Nothings – The Curse of the Umbrella by Lewis Trondheim

2010-07-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

Graphic Novel artist Lewis Trondheim turns his talents to nonfiction in his collection of snippets, Little Nothings. He chronicles daily life in France, a sort of Garrison Keillor in Paris. Among his nothings are the miracle of rainbows, his son’s fascination with video games, and perhaps inevitably, the hassles of travel. The drawings make good use of color, directing the eye to the important details, and his more extensive landscape drawings are the most exquisite set of watercolors you’ll find in a collection of comics. His different observations are mostly a page or two long, making it the sort of graphic novel you can (and probably should) consume a few morsels at a time.

Blockade Billy by Stephen King

2010-06-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

In his latest work Stephen King introduces two quick tales that are both a bit long to be short stories but not quite long enough to be novellas. The first story, Blockade Billy, is about the talented but mysterious catcher for the New Jersey Titans, a fictional Major League team that rams head with the likes of the Yankees and Dodgers in the 1950’s. The titular character is a teenaged player so nicknamed because of his prowess at keeping runners from crossing home plate. He is well on his way to being the rookie of the year, so long as a certain secret never surfaces.
The second story, Morality, is an aptly-named tale about an elderly minister and the devil’s bargain he offers to his caretaker and her husband. Little can be said about this story without giving too much away, but try to imagine a cross between Indecent Proposal and Leopold and Loeb.
In both stories King neatly builds up the tension without much actually happening. It is to his credit that he manages to keep Blockade Billy suspenseful without any real horror happening until the final pages. He also peppers Billy with colorful phrases from the crusty old ex-coach, who talks like someone reading the voiceover of a Ken Burns documentary (“I got to the park early that day –before God gets out of bed, actually...”). As for Morality, the tension is thick but the ending a bit anti-climatic. Traditional King fans may be disappointed, but both stories are perfect studies in keeping the reader’s attention.

The Millionaires Unit: The Aristocratic Flyboys Who Fought The Great War And Invented American Air Power by Marc Wortman

2010-06-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

One of the key moments in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is when his poll of congressmen proves that few of our nation’s elected leaders have progeny in the military. Hard as it is to believe now, there was a time when being the son of a millionaire meant an expectation to be among the first to enlist after a declaration of war. At Yale, the sons of tycoons and former presidents (and fathers of future tycoons and presidents) were some of the most gung-ho about going to war in the years leading up to World War One. Entire college military units were organized, the boys drilled on campus, and one elite clique even formed its own little air force, The Yale Aero Club, later dubbed the “Millionaires' Unit”. Flying was a rich man’s sport in the early 20th century, and the wealthy young men bought their own planes with their fathers’ support. They were among the handful in the nation who even knew how to fly, and would be part of the first wave of American flyers to fight overseas. Wortman describes not only their experiences as soldiers, but also as students. He details the intensity of the Harvard-Yale longboat races, the swank balls that allowed the boys to actually touch females, and the all-important “tapping” of students for the coveted secret societies. Only later do we learn about the types of planes, the intense dogfights, and the often unglamorous bombing raids the young men launched against the Germans. There was much wrong with the Aero Club; they were not only all white males, but also without exception Protestants of Western European descent. But what was wrong with the Unit is also what made it right; these sons of privilege, with the world at their feet, eagerly served the nation that put them on such a pedestal. This tradition would continue into World War Two and through Vietnam, then come crashing to a halt as a result of The Counter Culture. All told, this is a good read for those who want to learn about an extinct way of campus life, and the dawning of combat flight.

Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption and New York's Trial of the Century by Mike Dash

2010-06-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

Only one cop has been legally executed in the United States, Charley Becker, and it was for murder in the infamous section of Manhattan known as Satan's Circus. Mike Dash uses Becker as a sort of vessel through this time and place. For anyone looking for a Devil in the White City read-a-like, this is similar material, but a different city. Once again we have crime, corruption, and Machine politics at the turn-of-the-century. Only this time the city is New York, and the Machine is run by the notorious boys of Tammany Hall. Becker, a German cop in a mostly Irish police force, adapted quickly to profit handsomely from the graft that ran rampant. Most cops were on the make, but Lt. Becker profited so well from shaking down gambling dens and houses of ill-repute that he was able to build a house in suburbs, a rare luxury for policemen of the day. When a gambler-turned-stool pigeon named Rosenthal was shot by four armed men, all fingers pointed, eventually, to Becker.
Dash is surprisingly sympathetic to his biography's subject, noting holes in the case against him and questioning whether the big cop had any hand in the murder at all, even if his guilt as a corrupt peace officer was never in doubt. The problem for Becker was that the same judges he needed to win an appeal were now working under Governor Whitman, the very man who initially charged Becker when he was district attorney. Ultimately, Becker appears to have been killed by the same corrupt system that he exploited for his entire career.

Tyrannosaurus Sue: The Extraordinary Saga of Largest, Most Fought Over T. Rex Ever Found by Steve Fiffer (read by Jim Bond)

2010-06-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

Millions of people annualy visit Sue, the massive T. Rex skeleton that is the star of Chicago's Field Museum, without comprehending just how difficult she was to extract. Oddly, digging her massive frame from the South Dakota earth would prove the easy part. Getting her out of the grip of the US government and into private hands became the ultimate struggle. Fiffer details this struggle in Tyrannosaurus Sue. Readers looking for scientific data or details about the dig might be disappointed, as this book is mostly concerned with the legal fight. The science and history of paleontology are covered, but this is more Grisham than Crichton. Only no fictional author could dream up such an odyssey.
In 1990, Sue Hendrickson, the amateur scientist after whom the dinosaur was named, made the discovery of what is still the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. Hendrickson essentially vanishes after the first act, which is testimony to the fact that the real battle began after the creature was dug up and polished. A total of four parties would lay claim the multi-million dollar find; the Larson brothers, who organized the dig; Maurice Williams, the owner of the property; the Sioux Tribe, to which Williams belonged; and the US Government. Fiffer details the legal wrangling thoroughly, maybe too much so. Entire chapters consist of little more than court transcripts. Nevertheless, this is a fascinating read about the politics of science. Ultimately, Sue's story is a morality play about what happens when a group of people stumble across a rare treasure.

Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of The Berlin Airlift by Richard Reeves and Johnny Heller

2010-05-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes evil can be stared down with kindness, as happened in Berlin in the unstable years after Germany’s surrender. The Allies divided Berlin, like all of Germany, into four zones of occupation. The Soviet Union, no longer wanting to share the city with her friends-turned-foes, attempted to blockade the city and starve it’s populace into surrendering to Communism. The American-led response would become the stuff of legend. For not quite a year, the newly-formed Air Force dropped thousands of tons of food, coal, and other necessities to the people of West Berlin, who had become America’s unlikely bed fellow in the fight against Soviet tyranny. Reeve’s book about this turning point in European history is much more academic than other accounts. The legendary dropping of candy to German children is given little coverage. Instead, this is a work primarily of numbers; how many tons, how many pilots flying how many planes, the exact beginning and end of the Berlin Airlift (and all relevant dates in between) make up the meat of this book. The data can be a bit hard to keep track of while driving to and from work, but this is still the perfect audiobook for anyone who wants a general but thorough telling of the Berlin Airlift.

Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley by Sally M. Walker

2010-05-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

You read the title right. The Civil War, not World War One, was the first time ever that a submarine sunk an enemy ship, when the H.L. Hunley destroyed the Housatonic. The Hunley itself did not survive the attack, sinking into the murky Atlantic and bringing her secrets with her. Not until 1995 was she discovered by a team organized by adventure writer Clive Cussler. Sally M. Walker simply lays out this tale in her children’s book “Secrets of a Civil War Submarine”. The first half of the book’s one hundred pages details the history and engineering of the craft. Her straightforward style assumes little knowledge on the reader’s part, which is handy for those of us without any understanding of submarine technology. With the help of several illustrations, Walker explains the basic physics that allow submarine travel and the simple technology that made the Hunley work. The second half explores the details of the finding, salvaging, and examining of the Confederate vessel. Civil War buffs will be more interested in the earlier portion of the book, but the latter chapters are no less fascinating. This book is a concise Civil War package for tweens and Civil War affecianados.

The Library: An Illustrated History by Stuart A. P. Murray

2010-05-21T06:37:00.001-07:00

In an era when the library's future is questionable, at least if certain short-cited political leaders have their way, it's important to take a step back and realize how important libraries have been to civilizations past. These educational institutions were so treasured that they were often among the first buildings to be looted by mauraurdering invaders, their books and tomes seized as booty. Murray's book is indeed an illustrated one, with dozens of fascinating photographs and drawings that document the evolution of the library, from the cradle of civilization through the digital age. The book ends with a catalog of thirty or so of the world's more prominent libraries. This list is a bit dull but still has tidbits of quirky data, such as the mammal bones cataloged in the National Library of China. All told, an essential book for those who want a concise history of a vital educational institution.

The Balloonist by Stephen Poleskie

2010-05-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

Much of the technology that would make 20th century warfare so deadly debuted in the American Civil War. The War Between the States saw the first use of the submarine, ironclad ships, and air power. This last breakthrough was made possible by the use of hot air balloons that could reach heights of over 1,000 feet, easily high enough to scout enemy positions in battles where the lines were not far apart. In The Balloonist, Poleskie zooms in on one balloonist (or aeronaut, to use 19th century parlance), Thaddeus Lowe. Other daring path-breakers experimented with balloons during the war, but none as extensively or successfully as Lowe. The scientist pioneered the process of sending telegrams from his flying machines, hypothized correctly about air currents and prevailing winds, and devised ways of inflating balloons far from gas mains. While a fascinating topic, this biography has its flaws. First, there are no illustrations, leaving the reader to only imagine the peculiar flying contraptions Lowe built. Second, Poleskie spends quite a bit of time discussing the Civil War in general, when he should be focusing more on this unique aspect of it. Lastly, he mentions only in passing some of the other aeronauts of the Civil War, giving us just enough of an interesting peek that we want to learn more, but don’t. The brief paragraph about the Confederate attempts at air reconessance is not enough. This biography will be enjoyed by Civil War buffs, but could be a bit dry for everyone else.

Dragon Sea: A True Tale of Treasure, Archeology, and Greed off the Coast of Vietnam by Frank Pope

2010-02-25T16:44:00.000-08:00

Plenty of books have been written about raising old warships (Shadow Divers, Raising the Hunley) or about finding sunken treasure (Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea). Pope, who was an academic directly involved in the salvage of the ancient cargo ship Hoi An, tells a unique story about the uneasy relationship between business and academics. Two men, one an idealistic archeaologist, the other a pragmatic businessman, combined forces to search not for sunken gold, but sunken ceramics. Mensun Bound and Ong Soo Hin needed each other to complete the salvage of the wreck believed to have millions worth of rare Vietnamese pottery. They are searching for something they hope is valuable, but cannot be certain, adding another layer of tension to an already tense situation. Plenty goes wrong with the excavation, mainly because the two major players have forged a marriage of convenience. Mensun was not interested in business but knowledge, Ong needed Mensun’s knowledge even though the man’s obsession with uncovering the truth may have cut into profits. As more and more unravels one is left to wonder if this excavation will prove a success, and the answer is up for interpretation. Most disturbing is the incredible risks the divers are expected to take. Gung ho as they were, it is nevertheless trying to be kept in a saturation chamber for weeks at a time, stepping out only to spend 12 hours on the ocean floor. That they are led by a cost-cutting micromanager only exacerbates the situation. A must-read for lovers of undersea adventure.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

2010-02-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, perhaps no good deed went more unpunished than that of Syrian-born Zeitoun. After the storm and during the flood, the brave Muslim floated in the eerie netherworld New Orleans had become in a used canoe, rescuing the stranded and feeding abandoned pets. It would give away too much to say what happened to him next, but it's sufficient to say his fate is a perfect microcosm of the federal government's complete mishandling of the disaster. The first part of the audiobook sets up the story, explaining how Zeitoun came to America and what led his white, American-born wife to convert to Islam before they met. The second half kicks into high gear but still occasionally goes back to the immigrant's life pre-Katrina. At times you'll find yourself wanting to fast-forward to find out what Allah has in store for him, but the flashbacks taper off as the story reaches its conclusion. This is not the most complete book about the Katrina, but it is a good listen for anyone who wants to see faces behind statistics.

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer

2010-02-12T17:39:00.000-08:00

As a child growing up in Manhasset, New York, J.R. Moehringer found the ultimate place where everybody knows your name, a bar called Dickens (later changed to the even more unlikely Publicans). His gambling uncle tended at the titular pub, and at a very young age Moehringer found himself being brought there time and again. The fatherless boy eagerly went along to seek the company of men, and at Dickens he found many, from cops to lawyers to poets. He and his mother relocated across the country and he went to Yale after high school, so there are entire chapters where the bar doesn't appear. The bar is more of an important background character than the main focus of the book. It may not be in every scene, but everything Moehringer learned about being a man stems from there. As a coming-of-age story, Moehringer hits all of the usual milestones (his first beer, his first cigarette, his first time, his first job, etc). His narration of growing up in the 70's may not be unique, but it is well-written, full of colorful characters. There is Fuckembabe, an employee who speaks so much Jabberwocky that he's named after the only phrase of his anyone can understand; Bob the Cop, a well-read police officer with a tragic past; and finally Steve, the popular bartender that everyone loves but nobody knows. A great book about male camaraderie.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose

2009-12-30T08:38:00.000-08:00

For one semester Kevin Roose, an irreverent liberal at Brown University, goes undercover Brasco-style to see what life is like at Jerry Falwell's bastion of holiness, Liberty University. He takes classes that deny evolution, attends bible study groups, and even sings in the very choir Falwell preaches to every Sunday. One feels a guilty pleasure in reading a book like this, since he often sits in on meetings where nothing is supposed to be reported elsewhere, most notably the bizarre support group for, ahem, men who chronically satisfy themselves. Roose himself is often conflicted about being a secular mole, but he becomes less skeptical of Liberty as the semester goes by. He disdains the constant insistence of belief over scientific fact and rampant homophobia. At the same time, he admires the constant support the students have for one another, the infectious energy of the religious services, and the sense of purpose most of the young people have. He walks away from Liberty not a convert, but someone who has respect for a campus that most people from his world hold in contempt. A good book for any liberal who wants to know how the other side works.

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

2009-12-17T12:06:00.000-08:00

This book is not quite what I expected. Instead of a humorous look at the weirder side of the military, I got declassified information about the dark side of US intelligence. The book starts out innocently enough, with a high-ranking Major General who believed wholeheartedly that he could walk through walls. That this experiment ended in nothing but a headache didn't discourage him. Instead, Major General Stubblebine ended up proposing all sorts of mystical ideas to the special forces men, who already were experimenting with some trippy concepts of their own. These ideas included being able to see objects thousands of miles away via psychic viewing, the ability to influence the direction of clouds in the sky, and the power to make a goat's heart stop merely by staring. Eventually, these concepts would lay the groundwork for other unorthodox, sinister experiments, leading to America's ultimate humiliation at Abu Graib. The path from Stubblebine's office in the late '70s to the scandals in Iraq and Gitmo is a bizarre trip. Ultimately this is not so much a story about whacky experiments as it is about what happens when a handful of people in powerful places believe that the ends always justify the means. Ronson's reporting on the odder side of national defense is far from trivial. Rather, he lends valuable information about the use of torture and others issues swirling around The War on Terror.

To Try Men's Souls by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen

2009-12-15T09:16:00.000-08:00

The team of Gingrich and Fortschen depart from their sci-fi alternate histories to write a historical novel based on Washington's crossing of the Delaware, a moment immortalized in Leutze's painting. The three main characters are Thomas Paine, the writer who wrote the words that appear in the title, a grunt soldier named Jonathan van Dorn, and General Washington himself. To those who have been following recent revelations on this battle, there is little new. David Hackett Fischer, in his book Washington's Crossing, already debunked many of the myths of this engagement. Many of the myths are true, and Gingrich and Fortschen make much of the shoeless soldiers marching in the snow, the icy conditions of the river, and the staggering success of the attack. The characters they draw are relatively predictable. Van Dorn is the green but heroic idealist, Washington the stern but fair commander. The only compelling character is Thomas Paine, a hard-drinking failed businessman who's only talent is writing, a gift that he puts to good use even if he doesn't make a dime. The audio could have been better. Many of the characters have similar-sounding voices, especially General Washington and Colonel Knox, and all of the female characters are voiced by the same woman. Stick with Fischer's Washingtons Crossing for a better account of this battle.

The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser

2009-12-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

On the evening of St. Patrick's Day, 1990, two phony policemen robbed Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of 500 million using less sophistication than liquor store robbers. They tied up the guards, destroyed the cameras, then ripped a few million-dollar paintings off the walls. No need to yoga-crawl under lasers or fool motion detectors. Like so much other crime, art theft is not as cool or sexy as Hollywood would have us believe.
What happened to the paintings, which include works by Rembrandt and Vermeer, has been the greatest unsolved mystery of modern times. Boston reporter Ulrich Boser takes it upon himself to find the paintings, to no avail, but it's an interesting journey into the world of stolen art. His take on this underworld is sadly sobering. For starters, the works are most certainly not decorating an eccentric millionaire's basement; such a person is another Hollywood fib. Instead he finds himself in a subculture that includes con-men, gangsters, and flat out killers. In short, those who deal in stolen art are no more or less sophisticated than drug dealers and gun smugglers, and in fact they often ply those trades as well. While it's comforting to think the works are in a climate-controlled room, watched over by a crazed lover, it's more likely they're in a cardboard tube like so many forgotten movie posters. We can only pray that whoever has them keeps the humidity to a minimum.

Paddy on the Hardwood: A Journey in Irish Hoops by Rus Bradburd

2009-12-04T18:57:00.000-08:00

What makes a successful assistant basketball coach in America pack up for tiny Tralee, Ireland, to lead a team less organized than a junior high squad? Paddy on The Hardwood is the unlikely story of Rus Bradburd. Fed up with the assistant coach's life of calling recruits and scheduling meetings, he decides to give it all up to master his two other passions: writing and Irish music. Taking the coaching position only to support himself while working on his first book and learning to play the fiddle, the Tralee Tigers soon become his full-time job. He endures at least as much stress as he did while coaching in America, though the basketball experience couldn't be more different. An action photo that includes a woman sitting along the rear sideline with a baby stroller captures the second-class status basketball has in Irish sports. The Tigers have to compete with badminton teams to rent the bathroom-tiled gym, his Irish players are eager but inexperienced, and his hired American gunslingers are talented but lazy. Still, he manages to whip the boys into a respected, if often heart-breaking team. In the meantime he manages to get in a few fiddle lessons and write a pretty decent sports book.

Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

2009-12-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

Matt Cruise is a teenage boy in a world much as ours was in the 1920's, except that airships are more than just doomed luxury cruise liners for wealthy Germans. In Oppel's alternate universe, zeppelins and blimps are used as extensivly as sea-faring vessels and trains. Matt Cruise is a fresh cadet at the Airship Academy, a sort of West Point for young men (gender roles are as unyielding in this dimension as they were in ours) hoping to work on these giant balloons for the rest of their lives.
It is as a trainee on one of these sky vessels that Cruise and the rest of the crew encounter the legendary Hyperion, a lost airship rumored to carry vast treasure. T he captain of Cruise's ship fails to reach her, but Cruise remembers the coordinates. He teams up with adventurous society girl Kate de Vries, a mysterious gypsy named Nadira, and Hal Slater, swashbuckling captain of a "skybreaker", a ship that can climb the 20,000 feet needed to reach the Hyperion. Full Cast Audio gathered a diverse cast of actors to play the various characters, using all sorts of colorful accents that bring up images of Pirates of the Caribbean. Skybreaker is a fun blast from the sci-fi past, featuring swaggering men, strong women, and even a few monsters that live 20,000 leagues above the sea. This novel is a sequel to Airborn, where Matt Cruise and the rest of this different world were first introduced. Reading Airborn before Skybreaker is recommended but not necessary.

Fire and Brimstone : The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917 by Michael Punke

2009-11-28T11:46:00.000-08:00

This book is in fact two books in one. The first is about the mining disaster mentioned in the subtitle. The second is about the colorful history of Montana politics that made the disaster possible. Punke alternates the two chapters in the style of Devil in the White City. A reader can skip the chapters regarding the politics and read exclusively about the copper mine fire, or vice versa, but this is ill-advised. The history regarding Big Sky Country in general and Butte in particular is fascinating. Punke's early historical chapters hone in on the aptly-named Anaconda Mining company (owned by Standard Oil), which was to Butte what the slaughterhouses were to Chicago. Anaconda successfully bought politicians and busted unions, facts that the disaster of 1917 only partially alleviated. The fire itself began in a key elevator shaft, ironically in an attempt to install safety equipment. Like most mining fiascoes, the problem was not the fire but the smoke and gas that it released. 164 of the approximately 400 miners would succumb to the fumes. The story is not without heroes; it was the leadership of two seasoned workers, in two separate incidents, that saved dozens of men.
Later chapters describe the anti-German hysteria that raged during World War One and the outrageously unconstitutional laws that it wrought. What this has to due with the disaster is questionable, but it still is an interesting local look at what was a national scandal.

Where's my Jetpack by Daniel H. Wilson

2009-11-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

The future is now the present, but it is not what we thought it would be. Once upon a time, the era after 2000 promised so much innovation that '2000 was tacked onto any invention meant to be futuristic. Alas, we humans still drive cars on Earth, have to do our own cooking and washing sans robots, and most notably, have no jetpacks. Wilson explains why the future has turned out to be such a bore in Where's my Jetpack?. He uses layman's terms to show why certain promises of the future are not here yet, and may never be. Some innovations are simply not possible due to the laws of physics; teleportation devices are extremely unlikely, simply because we humans are made of trillions of atoms and molecules. Jetpacks are also a dream that will never be realized until someone invents a much more efficient fuel. Other fantasies are limited by shear cost, such as moon colonies, hotels underwater or in outer space, and even a massive elevator that would take guests up to said space hotel. Other predictions, such as robot servants and hoverboards, may yet come true and even exist in minimal form. If nothing else, this book teaches us to be cautiously optimistic about the future. The practical electric car has been just around the corner for about 50 years now.

The Soloist : a Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve Lopez (read by Hughes, William)

2009-11-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

One of the joys of reading nonfiction is unpredictability. There is no promise of a happy ending in this story of a journalist who befriends a homeless man. Lopez first meets ex-Julliard student Nathaniel Ayers playing a two-string violin near the statue of his hero, Beethoven, in downtown Los Angeles. Intending only to write a short column about the schizophrenic musician, Lopez ends up becoming an advocate for the homeless in general and Ayers in particular. This book documents not just the sad ravages of mental illness, but also the challenges in trying to help. The laws dictating the rights of the mentally ill are murky, the services set up to help them underfunded. The biggest stumbling block at times is Ayers himself, who clings stubbornly to his shopping cart full of possessions and his life on the streets. Lopez learns to take things a day at a time and find joy in small triumphs, such as getting Ayers to spend the night indoors or show up for a meeting with a music teacher. It would be best to read this book before seeing the movie of the same name, since not knowing how the tale turns out is half the fun.

Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb (read by Paul Hect)

2009-10-31T08:16:00.000-07:00

The biggest fish ever caught by Nazi-hunters in the post-World War Two era was Adolf Eichmann, the infamous behind-the-scenes-manager of the Final Solution. The "Young Spy Agency" referred to in the subtitle was the Mossad, Israel's answer to the CIA. Many in and outside of Israel questioned the need to hunt down war criminals long after Germany's defeat, not to mention the legality of going after citizens in sovereign nations. But Ben Gurion and others in the Israeli government became increasingly convinced that if they did not pursue these men, no one would. Neither America, the UN, or West Germany showed any serious interest in bringing these killers to justice.
Bascomb meticulously details the back story of the notorious Eichmann case. All of the little tidbits that made the operation a success, the forged passports, the endless surveillance, the almost-uncrackable bureaucracy to get an El-Al flight sent to Argentina, are all here. Most fascinating, however horrifying, is the target Adolf Eichmann himself. Ruthless as he was, he was nevertheless so devoted to his family that he had them brought to his new life in Argentina. He eluded capture through extreme vigilance and caution, yet had too much pride to have his children go by any name besides "Eichmann". This act of hubris played no small part in his own capture.
If Hunting Eichmann has any flaw, it's that there is not much said about the capture of other Nazi officials. One almost gets the impression Eichmann was the only one the Israelis ever found, but there were others. It would have been nice to learn just what kind of precedent the Eichmann case set. Otherwise, a fascinating listen full of driveway moments.

Report from Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith (read by Lloyd James)

2009-10-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

For a brief period in the late 60's to early 70's, Dennis Smith was a fireman attached to Engine Company 82, in the then-impoverished South Bronx. His memoirs are as much a period piece about pre-Giuliani New York as they are about firefighting. The surprisingly dangerous false alarms, the abandoned buildings that are torched so often that the men have the routes thereto memorized, the complete apathy of the neighbors and bystanders, all make one understand how a fireman can be quickly disillusioned in what is America's most-glamorized profession. This brief audio book is a collection of anecdotes, making it an easy listen. A classic work about firefighting.

The Last Stand of Fox Company by Bob Drury

2009-10-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

Initially, The Korean War looked to be tied up after MacArthur successfully landed at Inchon and pushed the communists north to Korea's border with China. Chairman Mao, nervous about so many Yanks on his doorstep, launched a surprise counterattack that caught the Americans off guard. Caught up in this storm was Fox Company, a handful of Marines charged with keeping Toktong Pass open so the rest of the forces could escape an onslaught of over 100,000 Chinese soldiers. Hopelessly outnumbered, they defended the hill overlooking this pass, soon to be dubbed "Fox Hill". The Marines fought to keep this passage open for four nights and five days before making their own escape.

The above details are going to be new to most. The Korean War is a forgotten war, and the Battle of Fox Hill undeservedly ignored. Drury does his best to resurrect the memory of this fight. He gives countless details and anecdotes that are, frankly, hard to keep track of. His study is so in depth that one gets the sense of missing the forest for the trees. Prichard does a good job of telling the tale - one can't help but be reminded of Col. Potter from MASH - but the book is a difficult listen. They so often describe pincer movements and left flanks that one really wishes for a map to keep it all straight. Still, the little details are fascinating. Soldiers using corpses - both Chinese and American - to build barricades, or the Chinese habit of playing dead to shoot unsuspecting Marines, or the bizarre, almost bullet-proof Chinese jackets made of mere goatskin, are enough to keep the story lively. One may miss the forest for the trees, but there are some fascinating trees in there.

Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long by Richard D. White

2009-10-06T21:21:00.001-07:00

Anyone who wonders why so many supported Hitler or Mussolini should read up on American Huey P. Long. The robust Southernor was the Governor, then Senator, and finally King of the little fiefdom of Louisiana for a brief but memorable time in the Great Depression. White portrays a Southern tragic hero, a man who began with the best of intentions and gradually devolved into an eccentric tyrant. Long initially set out to do good but ultimately took more than he gave. He enfranchised thousands of poor (but only white) voters by eliminating the poll tax, then appointed sheriffs to make sure everyone voted correctly. He brought Louisiana State University up to national standards, then fired any faculty member who spoke out against him. He paved thousands of new roads that would fall apart shortly after his death, having been built by crooked contractors. So bizarre and corrupt was his legacy that the conspiracy theories surrounding his assassination aren't completely implausible. If this audiobook has any flaw, it's that Huey's killer, Dr. Weiss, makes a too-brief appearance. What made a law-abiding family man commit a crime that would get him killed for certain? Did he have any criminal record or history of mental illness? White doesn't say. Nevertheless, this is a brilliant study of the mad politician who was the inspiration for Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men.

Dillinger's Wild Ride: One Year that Made America's Public Enemy Number One by Elliot J. Gorn

2009-09-30T19:48:00.001-07:00

They say that overnight fame usually takes about seven years. If it isn't possible to achieve lasting fame literally overnight, then John Dillinger came close. In June of 1933 he was a no-name just released from prison. By the time FBI agents killed him in July of 1934, he had become a legend in his time. Elliot J. Gorn chronicles this unlikely journey in Dillinger's Wild Ride: One Year that Made America's Public Enemy Number One. Part of Dillinger's success was due to the same reason people find success in many careers; he knew the right people. Eleven years in the pen hooked him up with many a Chicago underworld figure. He also did not have the greatest of detectives pursuing him. The FBI was just coming into existence, and local police departments were often woefully understaffed and underfunded. So inept were the G-Men that even at the height of his fame, Dillinger was able to visit his boyhood home. The feds evidently had not staked the place out.
Gorn wrote his book chronologically. Wild Ride begins with Dillinger's unremarkable childhood and coming-of-age, then delves into his whirlwind, one-year crime spree. Given that the book isn't very long (200 pgs), he devotes much of the later pages to Dillinger's lasting fame and legacy. For anyone who wants to know about the accuracy of Johnny Depp's Public Enemies, this is an entertaining source.

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck

2009-09-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

This is an incomplete work. In the late 1950's John Steinbeck, already a household name due to The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, set out to update the tales of King Arthur into modern prose. It was his hope to reintroduce the stories of yesteryear to a new generation of boys, but he abruptly abandoned the project nine years before his death. In writing this book Steinbeck broke habit and worked chronologically, so the tales begin with the odd circumstances surrounding King Arthur's birth and end, agonizingly, just as things were starting to steam up between Lancelot and Guinevere. Steinbeck's rendering off these old tales is certainly more accessible than the Old English version penned by Malory in the 15th century. All the same, the book plods along and is really only for obsessed Steinbeck fans such as myself. The book reveals a lot about his creative process, especially the 70 pages of letters to his editors that detail the labor that went into this work. For Steinbeck scholars only.

The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean

2009-09-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

That people collect all sorts of odd objects, obsessively so, should come as no surprise to anyone living in our Ebay era. In The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean tackles an object that has been an obsession for many for over one hundred years, the beautiful, sometimes impossible to find, orchids. The book is supposed to be about John Laroche, the curious thief the title refers to. In fact, it delves into all sorts of topics, including the Seminole Indians, the Indiana Jones-type men who pioneered the art of orchid collecting, and numerous first-hand accounts of visits to orchid shows and nurseries. John Laroche is more the centerpiece in a drama that includes a rich cast of oddball characters and fascinating facts. Initially, Orlean set out to write a piece on Laroche for The New Yorker, when he was first arrested for attempting to steal the wily Ghost Orchid from the Everglades. Laroche cleverly had three members of the Seminole Nation do the actual bagging of these rare flowers, hoping to take advantage of the Tribe's murky legal status. Each chapter feels more like a separate magazine article, each interesting in its own right, but it's not always clear how the information contributes to the story. The section on Seminole Chief Osceola is fascinating, but it's not a given that it was completely necessary. All told, a fun book, however disjointed.

Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl

2009-09-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

It has long been a mystery to as of how primitive humans were able to reach such far-flung islands as Tahiti, Samoa, and countless of other spots of land thousands of miles apart. In 1947, six Scandinavian men set out to prove that primitive man was not so primitive after all. The earliest of Western explorers made numerous sketches of rafts used by the natives of South America, specifically Peru. Thor and his men built a raft of balsa based on these 18th-century blueprints, then cast adrift on dominant ocean currents to reach Polynesia. This was a bold undertaking in the pre-GPS, even pre-transistor radio era. Had the raft split apart in the first few weeks, as many predicted, there would have been no recourse. Nor was there any turning back should a man fall overboard, since their craft drifted as forcefully westward as a leaf towards a storm drain during a downpour. Thor manages to capture a lot of suspense even though it is a given that he and his crew survived (at one point, a man really did go overboard). As books from the 1940's go it's not too painfully politically incorrect, besides the occasional reference to "brown people". In any case, Thor and his crew proved the intelligence of a native culture from thousands of years ago, as their simple raft design proved more than sturdy enough. A classic travel narrative.

Travels by Michael Crichton

2009-08-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has read the late Micheal Chrichton's bestsellers would not be surprised to learn he had an insatiable appetite for science and exotic locales. The title of this nonfiction collection is a bit misleading, since the book not only deals with his adventures in far-flung locales like Bangkok and Ireland, but also his experiences right here in the US. When he goes overseas he writes about everything from headhunters to the hassles of shooting a movie. His writing stateside deals primarily with his years as a med student in the late 60's; what made him turn from a career in science to one in novel writing; and his experiments with the paranormal, primarily psychic phenomona and mysticism. His last chapters on this whimsical topic were not for me, I was much more interested in his actual "travels", but I suppose anyone looking for an alternate reality without drugs will find these chapters appealing.
One glaring omission is that he refers to his height without saying how tall he actually is. He was, in fact, 6'9. Knowing this puts a couple of his stories in perspective, so it would have been nice if he had mentioned this fact. Otherwise, though, a good read for anyone who wants to see what went on behind the scenes in the life of one of America's most popular authors.

Night by Elie Wiesel

2009-08-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

Elie Wiesel packs a hard punch into his short, 100-page memoir, noting how the Holocaust gradually crept into the lives of his small Jewish community. Tantalizingly sad is the fact that the family had a chance to emigrate but refused. None of them, even after hearing eyewitness accounts, could believe the unbelievable. Most shocking about Wiesel's memoir is when the events took place. He and his family where shipped to the camps in post D-Day 1944, by which time all but the most delusional of Nazis had to to know the war was lost. That the Germans were still rounding up and executing Jews until almost the cease-fire proves the bizarre obsession they had with eliminating them; killing the Jews took precedence over winning the war. Sadly, the Wiesels and so many others did not become aware of this horrific fact until it was too late. This book is right up there with Ann Frank's Diary as one of the essential Holocaust narratives.

Dean Koontz's Frankenstein Book One: Prodigal Son

2009-08-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

In then-modern day New Orleans (this novel was published just before Katrina), Victor Frankenstein is alive and well, having found numerous ways to freeze his age at a handsome forty-something. He is more ambitious then ever, creating an army of artificial humanoids to take over the world. By now he's gotten pretty good at creating humans - gone are the neck bolts and stitching - but his new monsters still have a tendency towards murder and mayhem. Then there is the problem of his first creature that he jolted to life 200 years ago, now going by the name of Deucalion and still a thorn in his creator's side. Finally, there is a God-made serial killer, more ruthless than any of Frankenstein's concoctions, who unwittingly plays a part in the scheme.
The plot is about as cheesy as it sounds and the story relies on a few unlikely coincidences, but none of that takes away from the fun. Frankenstein's creations are by far the most interesting characters, as they desperately try to become real humans and live their lives as they wish. Koontz manages to work in commentary on what it is to be human, but not so much so that is comes off as preachy. This novel is not quite as gory as some of Koontz's other works, but there is still enough blood for any who crave it.

Cinderella Man by Jeremy Schaap

2009-08-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

If the boxing world ever gave us a real-life Rocky Balboa, it would be James J. Braddock. Jeremy Schaap brought this near-forgotten fighter back to life in his biography "Cinderella Man", the inspiration for the film of the same name. The real life Jim Braddock really was a rising star in the 20's who crashed with the stock market, then made a stunning comeback after years out of the ring, at the age of 29. If he were boxing today, someone would cry steroids. But it was heavy work at the docks, plus an unintended hiatus from the sport that allowed his perpetually-broken right hand to heal, that led to his great comeback. Unlike Max Baer, the heavyweight who took his talent for granted, Braddock had to work hard for everything he had. Schaap is particularly disdainful of Baer, maybe a little too much so. One can't be the champ for four years, defeating men much larger than himself, by being "lazy" or "a clown". And was it so wrong for Baer to wear the Star of David while fighting Nazi darling Max Schmeling, even if Baer was only one-quarter Jewish? Maybe having a half-Jewish father did not make him a Jew according to The Talmud, but it certainly did according to Nazi Purity Laws. Seeing their man lose was still a huge blow to Goebbels & Co.
Whatever Baer's shortcomings, he gave Braddock a tough fight, and that's what people paid good money to see. 30,000 fans crammed into Madison Square Garden Bowl in the pre-Jumbotron era, almost all of them rooting for Braddock, almost all of them expecting him to lose. His victory personified the can-do spirit that would serve America so well in the decade to come.

Thomas Jefferson: Author of America by Christopher Hitchens

2009-08-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

Action speaks louder than words. In the case of Thomas Jefferson, words were action when he penned the document that founded a nation. That he did not live up to his own words makes him a complicated character. Christoper Hitchens nicely sums up the life of this conflicted man in Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. Hitchens considers Jefferson to be the very personification of the split personality America had at the time of its' independence. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence initially included bringing slavery to the New World as one of the Grievances Against the King. He also wanted the Constitution to call for a gradual end to the Peculiar Institution, as slavery was euphemistically called. He did all of this as a man who held over 100 slaves himself, one of whom he infamously fathered children with. Hitchens also touches on the hallmarks of Jefferson's terms as president, most notably his dealing with the Barbary Pirates and the Louisiana Purchase. Whatever one thinks of this third President, there is no disputing his crucial role in US History. As Hitchens points out, "Jefferson is one of the few figures in our history whose abscence cannot be imagined". No Thomas Jefferson and likely, no United States. This work is part of Atlas Books Eminent Lives Series, whose purpose is to concisely sum up the lives of historical figures. Hitchens does justice by Jefferson. My only critique would be his annoying habit of occasionally using the first person in a book that is almost completely in the third. Other than that, a good read for anyone who wants to learn the essentials of America's Third President.

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

2009-08-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

Typically, one is amused when reading science fiction from the past, with predictions of moon colonies and flying to work in a personal craft. Trevis' book, written in 1963 but mostly taking place in the late 80's, is a futuristic novel that is oddly timeless. His is not a story about what's to come so much as it is the ultimate tale of a stranger in a strange land. Thomas Jerome Newton, from the planet Athenia, comes to Earth in a desperate attempt to save his people from extinction. A sure cause if there ever was one, but as he spends more time on Earth and becomes more human, he inevitably realizes the hopelessness of his mission. He changes too much to be an Athenian, but not enough to become a true Earthling, ending up trapped almost literally between two worlds (and his fate is far worse than that portrayed in the film version). A sci-fi work that is not so much about the future as it is a symbolic tale about a man who fails to adapt to a different time and place.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid; a Novel in Cartoons by Jeff Kinney

2009-07-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

Most boys, wimpy or otherwise, don't keep journals. If they did, they might look something like the psuedo-graphic novel written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney. Greg Heffley is the eponoymous Wimpy Kid. His journal (he steadfastly refuses to call it the more girly-sounding "diary"), an idea from his progressive mom, details with words and pictures his daily life as a 7th-grader. Part of the book's popularity with pre-teen boys no doubt has to do with its brevity, as it can easily be read in one sitting. It's printed in large font and full of doodles, meant to look like a middle-schooler's notebook. It is something of a timeless work, dealing with the usual hassles of parents, girls, and teachers. Replace the references to CDs with records, and this book could've easily been drawn up 30 years ago. Decades from now, boys are sure to still be reading it.

Alan's War; The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope by Emmanuel Guibert

2009-07-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

We so often read about the men who stormed beaches or survived death marches that it's easy to forget the majority of soldiers from America's Greatest Generation saw no combat. Guibert corrects this oversight in his graphic novel, Alan's War. Guibert met American Alan Cope by chance while in France. Their friendship blossomed, and Guibert faithfully drew the war stories Cope told him. The drawings are oddly simple and detailed at the same time, with lots of white spaces in some drawings and others packed with minutiae. The novel is structured like an old man telling stories, and often the narrative jumps from one point in time to another so fast that you find yourself wondering if you missed a page. Still, Cope gives us a thousand interesting details about life in the Army, from showering and eating on a transport ship that is forever listing, to the horror of missing a train and thinking you'll be thrown in the brig. Though he never saw any firefights, the young soldier still came home with nightmares.
The only major drawback are the final chapters. The last fourth of the book deals with Cope's life stateside as his decision to return to Europe. We get descriptions of Sequioa trees and advice on eating spicy food. Not quite up to par with the rest of the novel, but the rest of the novel is worth the read.

The Forger's Spell; A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Edward Dolnick

2009-07-23T18:59:00.000-07:00

Some con men think up schemes so elaborate that one can't help but wonder why they don't put that energy into a more legitimate business. In The Forger's Spell, we are introduced to legendary forger Han van Meegeren, an unknown artist who dared pass off his own work as legitimate Vermeers. Creating biblical portraits in the style of the legendary Dutch painter was not all that made the scam difficult. There were also countless details, such as finding two-hundred-year-old canvases and frames, concocting paints equally as old, and making the portraits ancient-looking enough to get past the scrutiny of expertise. Fool the experts van Meegeren did, so much so that his "masterpiece" Christ at Emmaus might still be hanging in a museum had he not confessed to avoid charges of Nazi collusion. He then became an odd sort of hero for fooling Hitler's right-hand man, Herman Goering. Van Meegeren did not deserve the praise, as he would have just as likely sold his fakes to Roosevelt as any Nazi. That hardly mattered to the war-weary Dutch, glad to learn one of their own had tricked the overfed fascist who fashioned himself an art aficionado. The chapters on Goering and Hitler's literal caverns of secret art make for fascinating reads on their own. A good tale for any art history lover, or anyone who likes crime stories where only bad guys get hurt.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

2009-07-07T21:23:00.001-07:00

Typically, one gets more out of reading a book than listening to the audio CD, but David Sedaris is by far the best reader of his own work. His inflections and sound effects spice up his writing and add meaning that is hard convey with the printed word. Sedaris is always at his best when finding humor in the routine, such as his argument with an airline passenger or his struggles to give up smoking. Readers will not have as easy a time identifying with his stay in Japan or life in Normandy, but there's still the element of learning about places where you've never been. It's when he does weird stuff just for the sake of writing about it later, such as ordering a catheter that supposedly lets you sit through a whole football game, that he's at his weakest. One does not need to be a brilliant humorist to see the bizarre in something that any sane person would already find pretty strange. Nonetheless, anyone who's enjoyed his past narratives will find this a welcome addition to his repertoire.

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley

2009-07-02T06:14:00.000-07:00

One's life can be completely changed in a split second. For six young men at Iwo Jima it would be 1/400th of a second precisely, a photo snapped by an A.P. Photographer that would soon be seen around the world. James Bradley tells the stories of these Marines in Flags of Our Fathers. Bradley's own dad never spoke of the war, but it was always known in the household that he was one of the flag raisers. Not until dying did John "Doc" Bradley open up about the conflict, sparking a hunger in son James to get to the bottom of the story behind the most famous photo in US Military history. Flags of our Fathers is a brilliant collection of biographies of the six flag raisers and an intimate description of the Battle for Iwo Jima. Fascinating details (the last two Japanese soldiers did not surrender until 1949; the photo was of the second, not first, flag-raising) tell the bigger picture of the fight. Only three of the six would survive the conflict; the flag may been planted, but the battle was far from over. Of the remaining three, only John Bradley would have a peaceful, prosperous life. Rene Gagnon would try unsuccessfully to cash in on his fame. Ira Hayes would become the very symbol of the long-suffering veteran. One of the best World War Two books ever written and a great read for the 4th of July weekend.

Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt by Aida D. Donald

2009-06-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt may have been the last man's man to occupy the White House. He went on a near fatal safari, bagged dozens of animals on hunting trips 'round the globe (including elephants), tried to organize a fighting regiment to enter World War One, all after his two terms as President. Donald covers all of the familiar territory in Lion in the White House. Those already well-acquainted with the youngest President may not find much new here. For the rest of us, this book is a concise introductory course, covering all of the essentials; the sickly childhood that inspired him to become a "manly" sort; his time with the Rough Riders; his conservationist efforts; and lastly, his doomed attempt to seize the White House back from Taft. Indeed, the book is almost too short, ending abruptly with his death (last line: "The Old Lion is Dead"). We don't get the usual epilogue about his legacy, what impact he had on the Republican Party, what became of his remaining children, all details that would have been worth noting. Nonetheless, this a is a good quick listen for anyone who wants to learn about the man many historians consider the best President America ever had.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu

2009-06-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

In 1950's America, cowboys never swore and soldiers never bled. Enter Bill Gaines and his line of "Entertaining Comics". Women getting their heads lopped off and boys playing ball with body parts were among the more colorful tales between the covers of such titles as Tales From the Crypt and Crime and Punishment. The backlash from the adult world was predictable and inexcusable; psychologists and Catholic schoolteachers banned and burned these dime store dreadfuls. Hajdu tells this tale in The Ten Cent Plague. This book is not just about the censorship that plagued the world of illustrators, but also a history of the industry itself. Hajdu explains how comics went from appearing once a week in Sunday papers to full-fledged books of their own. The first nationwide comic strip, African-American artist, devoted comic book, and graphic novel are all here, along with a cast of real-life artists that includes Will Eisner, Al Jaffee and Stan Lee. The narrative drifts frequently from the core story about the attempt to drive comic books out of business, but the information gleaned is interesting enough that it's worth digressing.

That being said, there are some small gripes. Hajdu devotes a lot of space to describing illustrations, making one wish he could've just shown us a picture and saved a thousand words. He also never explains how, precisely, the comic book scare changed America. The book essentially ends in the late fifties after the industry agreed to sensor itself. Obviously, the stern Comics Code is no longer in place, but you don't learn what led to this change. But these are minor quibbles in a book that is fascinating for anyone who wants to learn about the history of comics.

Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood by Donovan Campbell

2009-06-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

There are two basic types of books about the War on Terror; the first person, you-are-there reports, and the analytical, why-we-should/shouldn't be there treatises. Campbell's narrative clearly falls into the former in his blow-by-blow account of daily life commanding a Marine infantry platoon in Ramadi, one of Iraq's most volatile cities. There is little in the way of the rights and wrongs of the war, but quite a bit about daily life in a combat zone. This life includes drinking from a water tank with a catfish in it, no showering for weeks, and doing all you can to not lose any men - only to lose some anyway. Campbell and his marines can never fully trust anyone in Iraq, a point summed up in an incident where they hand out candy to school children, only to have same children hurl rocks at them moments later. Such is life as a member of an occupying army. Forced to rely only on each other, this band of brothers bonds stronger than if they had been stationed in less hostile territory. Campbell ultimately finishes his tour and leaves the Corps, but his love of his men is so great that this almost comes off as a sad ending. David Drummond reads the dozens of different characters so distinctly, mimicking an impressive smorgasbord of accents, that it's easy to keep track of who's who. A great listen for anyone looking for a simple, straightforward account about the early days of the War in Iraq.

Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by Bill Mason and Lee Gruenfeld

2009-05-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

Mason's book about his life and times as a pro-jewel thief starts out intriguingly enough, with him nearly plunging to his death while trying to break into a high rise condo. Unfortunately, Mason doesn't keep up the pace. The chapters on his numerous capers are bookends to a long, fat middle about his run-ins with the law and justice system, with every court appearance and hearing duly noted. This isn't necessarily uninteresting reading, but I expected a lot more of the breaking-and-entering stuff, not a diatribe against a Kafka-like legal odyssey. Still, the bits on his bigger scores are fascinating and useful (never flip over the do-not-disturb sign). Mason insists he is remorseful even while trying to justify some of his break-ins (that owner a mini-golf course probably wasn't reporting all his income anyway!), leaving one with the sense that he hasn't yet totally come to terms with what he has done. His self-righteousness, saddled with the sleepy chapters on his dealings with numerous court authorities and police departments, combine for a disappointing read.

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck

2009-05-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

This is one of Steinbeck's more apolitical books. No subtle or overt socialism here, just a raw emotional story about a boy and his horse. Steinbeck beautifully captures sentiment without being too sentimental. He manages to show the complex relationships between the boy (Jody) his cold father (often referred to as Mr. Tiflin) and the horse trainer (the perfectly-named Billy Buck) while using few words. Neither the time nor the place of this novella are pinpointed, and that hardly matters. Jody's daydreams of derring-do while on the back of the titular pony are still going to strike a chord with anyone who was once a boy. As can be expected from Steinbeck, the tale is not without sadness and loss; horse lovers may want to stay away. For anyone else looking for a simple, timeless tale, this is a good quick read.

Vanished Smile; The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti

2009-05-05T07:16:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe the theft of the most famous painting in the world by far hasn't already been the subject of countless books, movies, and bad Geraldo investigations, or that the thief doesn't have the same notoriety as Jack the Ripper and Al Capone. In Vanished Smile, Scotti gives this bold crime the scholarly study it deserves. Anyone wanting to read or listen to this account would do well to not learn anything about the crime beforehand, since Scotti treats this as a whodunit. She also fills us in on the many other mysteries surrounding Da Vinci's masterpiece, particularly the question of who, exactly, Mona Lisa was. It doesn't give anything away to say the painting was recovered, but Mona would never be the same after her return. First, her own abduction made her an international icon exploited by everyone from Andy Warhol to Loony Toons, becoming so ubiquitous that Dennis Miller once defined bad taste as "Anything with the Mona Lisa on it that is not the Mona Lisa." Second, she now sits in her own room at the Louvre in a cage of bulletproof, non-reflective glass, a prisoner of her own fame. A good listen for lovers of art history and/or true crime.

Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers by Michael Abrams

2009-04-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

If an airplane is flying, than canoes are swimming, as one of Abrams' interviewees points out. The ultimate dream of a human being able to surf through the air outside of a machine and land as gently as a bird has still not been realized, but many men have tried. Abrams tells their stories in Birdmen, Batmen and Skyflyers. The first chapter narrates the earliest reports, some more reliable than others, of men strapping themselves into wood-on-canvas devices and launching themselves off the tops of church steeples or castles, almost never living to tell the tale. The remaining chapters are devoted to individual daredevils and whatever contraptions they devised to squeeze a bit more time in the sky. The gadgets are many; hang gliders, "batsuits" that connect to all four limbs like the proverbial bat, James Bond-type rocketwings, and numerous other contraptions that would make Wile E. Coyote jealous. Unfortunately many of these men met an early grave when a suit ripped or chute didn't fire. None of these pioneers have found a way to reduce velocity enough to softly glide to the ground. In the end, each jumper still has to deploy a chute, and no one interviewed was optimistic this could change. We can only hope that, for the sake of progress and fun, an inventive skydiver will prove them wrong.

Note: Click below to see one of the birdmen, Jean-Albert, in action;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmZyB_ghpa0

The Bedford Boys by Alex Kershaw

2009-04-21T18:04:00.000-07:00

We can be grateful that so far, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan has given us an Omaha Beach, specifically the Dog Green Sector, the battle so vividly portrayed in the opening minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Not only were thousands of soldiers cut down in a few hours, but on that day one small town in particular, Bedford, Virginia, lost 19 men. Three more died in the subsequent Normandy Campaign, for a total of 22 sons gone. No other single town in American history has so disproportionately lost so much (nor will again, as the National Guard has since rewritten regulations to avoid another Bedford). In The Bedford Boys, Alex Kershaw has written a biography of a National Guard unit and the bucolic town that it served. The men of the 1st Battalion dated each other's sisters, knew each other's parents, and went to the same high school. More than one pair of brothers served together. Subsequently, some parents lost more than one son or son-in-law. While the boys mostly enlisted as a way to get extra cash during The Depression, they didn't shirk their duties when war came with a vengeance. Kershaw mostly avoids politics or critiques of the military strategy that led to the fiasco, instead letting the survivors and their relatives speak for themselves. Whatever one's opinion of war may be, no one will finish this book without an understanding of the terrible personal toll combat wreaks.

The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein

2009-04-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

On a quiet day in a sleepy Michigan suburb, residents awoke to find dozens of men in moon suits wandering through their yards (imagine the last half hour of E.T. come to life). The incident happened in the innocence of the pre-9/11 era, but it was still enough to awaken the gossipers of the neighborhood. It turned out the men were from the EPA and they were dismantling the science project of the mad and very young scientist, David Hahn, aka the Radioactive Boyscout. In this brief but informative tale, the author tells us about how David went from a seemingly ordinary to science-addicted youth. The teenager began with routine science projects, albeit the more destructive kind no longer permitted in our litigious era. He grew increasingly obsessed with his experiments, setting off numerous explosions and destroying his room along the way, until he took it upon himself to create the world's first practical breeder nuclear reactor in his own backyard. Any professional scientist would've been hard-pressed to build such a device even with all of the proper equipment; David had to work in his mom's pottery shed and scrounge radioactive materials from smoke detectors and old clocks. Short as the book is, the author still has a chapter devoted to the history of others who tinkered with radioactivity, including the Curries and the makers of the A-Bomb. A cautionary tale for amateur and professional scientists alike.

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

2009-04-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

Having been a devotee of John Steinbeck since I was 13, this novel is something of a let down. Normally Steinbeck's socialist novels are more subtle, showing us the human side of suffering wrought by unbridled capitalism. This tale of a fruit picker's strike has ideas gotten across via men delivering long speeches and characters that mostly represent one trait; Doc is the cynic, Mac the ultimate pragmatic, Jim the young idealist. The ending will be a surprise only to readers who don't know how a typical Steinbeck Depression-era novel ends. Anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with Steinbeck's work would be better off with The Grapes of Wrath or, if pressed for time, the read-in-one-sitting Of Mice and Men.

Beyond Glory by David Margolick

2009-03-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Many a faux wrestler has pretended to hail from the Soviet Union or Iran just so a good 'ol pure blood American could smack him down, letting viewers see a symbolic trouncing of whatever evil government we were up against. Just a few years before all out war erupted between America and Germany, there was a genuine boxing rivalry between a black American and a Nazi symbol of Aryan supremacy. Margolick details the two bouts between Schmeling and Louis in Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink. At times, Margolick chronicles the fights a little too thoroughly; the entire final chapter is essentially a collection of quotes from newspapers and fight broadcasts. His conclusion is that both fighters were pragmatists, doing the best they could as the main actors in a drama spinning out of their control. Both men wanted to be boxers, nothing more, and did all they could to leave politics out of the ring. Neither Louis nor Schmeling outwardly questioned the racist policies of their respective governments, but Margolck comes down harder on Schmeling, which hardly seems fair. Hitler was certainly crueler to his critics than any redneck segregationist. Still, the author does point out Schmeling's refusal to bow to the Nazis on every point, most notably his refusal to fire his American Jewish manager, Joe Jacobs (who was quite the pragmatist himself, even once flicking a quick Hitler salute while in Germany). An understanding about boxing is not necessary to enjoy this book. Schmeling vs. Louis always was, and always will be, more about the drama that surrounded the ring than the fights themselves.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

2009-03-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

The subtitle is misleading. Gladwell may be an advocate of thinking without thinking, but only when one's thinking is informed. Often, as in the tragic case of Amadou Diallo, acting without thinking can have tragic consequences. In this quick listen, Gladwell makes the case that an expert is someone who knows at first blink if a statue is a fake or a TV show will be a hit. The problem is these experts are so second nature that they can't explain their reasoning, and are reduced to chalking up their certainty to a "gut feeling". Hence, the Mary Tyler Moore Show almost never got past the pilot, and the J. Paul Getty Museum was duped into spending a fortune on fakes. At times, Gladwell is a little too enthusiastic about the experts he interviews, believing completely a psychiatrist who claims to know if a couple's marriage will last after seeing them interact for five minutes. It's hard to see record companies pouring millions into a certain band or singer or a TV Network producing a show based on just one or two experts instincts, but as usual, Gladwell makes for a fun read even if his conclusions aren't taken seriously.

The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley

2009-02-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

How do we know who, in times of crisis, will rise to the occasion and who will crumble? Is being a hero in one's DNA? Why do some of us freeze while others take action? How much does gender matter? Amanda Ripley tackles all of these questions in The Unthinkable, her guide to surviving a crisis. Plenty of anecdotes (The Virginia Tech shooting, 9/11) are peppered throughout her study. These tragedies are included to help us understand why people act the way they do when the unthinkable happens. Some of us may just have a worse brain for handling trauma, as would be the case with a select group of Vietnam vets who have a small hypothalamus. Yet she leans more towards nurture than nature. Some may be better wired for crisis, but we can all rewire ourselves. Training and experience give one more confidence. Naturally you can't be ready for anything and everything, but familiarizing yourself with the emergency stairwell next time you're in a hotel will make you more certain in an emergency, even when such knowledge doesn't apply. A good listen.

We'll Always Have Paris: Stories by Ray Bradbury

2009-02-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

In a couple of recent short story collections, most notably One More for the Road, Bradbury proved that the old man's still got it. Unfortunately in this collection he proves that there's a disadvantage to having so much clout that you can publish almost anything you want. Paris is a collection of previously unpublished material, not necessarily new stuff. Some of the stories, most notably The Reincarnte, are beautiful and unpredictable. Others, such as The Murder, have a promising build-up but fall flat. One gets the impression that some of these stories never quite got fully formed and hence were not published to begin with. People eager to read his more recent work would be better off with Farewell Summer or One More for the Road.

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

2009-02-02T16:14:00.000-08:00

The 40-hour, 5 day work week is a privilege as hard-earned as any other in America, and in The Given Day Dennis Lehane narrates the roots of the movement that made this happen. The central plot is about the Boston Policemen's Strike of 1919, but this does not come to a head until the final chapters. Along the way we learn about the surreal but deadly Molasses Disaster, the early days of the Labor Movement, and the horrid conditions of immigrant life in 1919 Boston. The build-up is driven by two men, Danny Coughlin, son of an Irish police captain and a patrolman himself, and Luther Laurence, a black craftsman on the wrong side of the law. Babe Ruth, J. Edgar Hoover, and Calvin Coolidge make cameos, but not in the contrived, and-then-I-bumped-into way that is more common in other historical novels. The story ends on a surprisingly unrealistic high note, but this is small potatoes in a briskly-moving 700 page story.

The Brothers Bulger by Howie Carr

2009-01-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

Anyone with romantic ideas of life inside the Mob will have those notions dashed after reading "The Brothers Bulger", Carr's account of how two brothers, James "Whitey" Bulger and Billy Bulger, terrorized and corrupted Boston through their two very different career paths. Whitey, the psychopathic ringleader of the Irish Mafia, sold drugs, had sex with children, and murdered young women, all while selling his friends to the FBI. Billy, for his part, used the Massachusetts state government as his own personal checking account. Neither man has ever been taken to task for his misdeeds. Billy was eventually run out of power but never spent a day in jail, and is still living off of his state pension. Whitey, meanwhile, has become a caucasian Osama, having been "seen" everywhere from Ireland to Uruguay. One need not be a Boston insider to enjoy this book. Michael Dukakis and John Kerry are just a few of the names that pop up in this story's telling of both white and blue collar crime. Still, this is a book better read than listened to. Details of various political scandals, such as 75 State Street, can be a bit hard to follow while changing lanes.

"The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank" by David Plotz

2009-01-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

For my first audiobook, I listened to David Plotz's part history, part personal quest about his research into the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, "The Genius Factory." The center character is Robert Graham, the eccentric millionaire whose purpose in life was to build an exclusive sperm bank of grade A seed from the world's greatest minds. Turns out most of the world's brightest wanted nothing to do with his project, forcing Graham to accept donations from men with questionable backgrounds and traits most mothers wouldn't their children to inherit. Plotz individually tracks down both the fathers and their anonymous offspring to get a sense of how the experiment turned out. Along the way we get a history of artificial insemination, the eugenics movement, and a brief bio of Robert Graham himself. Plotz meets dozens of children of the Bank, some who are geniuses, some who are not, leaving the reader to puzzle over whether or not extreme intelligence can be handed down. An audiobook that will make you want to get stuck in traffic!

"Jetpack Dreams" by Mac Montandon

2009-01-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

The jetpack is perhaps the most unrealized dream of the past future, along with cities in the sky and teleportation machines. Montandon traverses the globe, from Mexico to Ireland, interviewing the men (and they are all males) who devote their spare time to making the ultimate dream of the future a reality. These inventors all run into the same wall; building a device that won't burn the fuel too quickly so that the would-be pilot can do more than just hover for about 20 seconds. He also describes the history of the jetpack, from its promising future in the late 60's to its abandonment on the part of NASA and the military. As much as I was interested in Montandon's topic, I can't give his book the thumbs up. He devotes too much space to nauseatingly cute details about his wife and two adorable daughters, distractions which have nothing to do with jetpacks (or rocketbelts, as insiders call them). Even the chapter on American Rocketbelt Corporation, a tale of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy, comes off as a run-of-the-mill crime story that just happens to have a jetpack in it. Montandon ends with a chapter that will have you heading straight to his blog, but that, too, turns out to be a letdown.

Playing with the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, World War Two, and the Long Journey Home by Gary W. Moore

2008-12-30T18:15:00.000-08:00

It's a story right out of Hollywood; Gene Moore, the author's dad, a simple country boy but brilliant catcher, is signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers just before The War. The Dodgers convince the government to let some of their minor league talent play on a team for the US Navy. Abruptly this team is shipped stateside, where they will have to be actual soldiers watching over German sailors from the captured U-boat 505 (the very ship now sitting in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry). The sub is unique in being the only one captured by the US Navy intact, the rest either having been sunk or sabotaged before surrender. Knowing what a unique intelligence opportunity this is, the US military keeps the sub's capture a secret, letting the Reich believe the men to be dead and the sub at the bottom of the ocean. Meanwhile, the bored soldier/players teach the Germans how to play ball.
It would ruin too much to give away what happens next, but the story is interesting enough to keep reading. That being said, the text is extremely simplistic, more of what one would expect from a Hardy Boys mystery. Many characters laugh, smile or shrug after they're done speaking. Moore peppers his story with facts about the War for those who aren't history buffs, but do even C students need to be told Winston Churchill was Hitler's enemy? Moore also never explains why the Navy's baseball team was picked for such a key mission.
Still, once you get past the young adult writing, the story is fascinating enough to make this a worthwhile read.

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

2008-12-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

Why do two people with the same IQ end up leading two totally different lives? Why have we all heard of Bill Gates but not untold numbers of people with equal or greater intelligence? According to Gladwell, it's a combination of opportunity and the willingness to put in about 10,000 hours of hard work. Gladwell does not dispute that race and class play a role in one's success, but other factors, such as whether or not you were born earlier in the calendar year, or what type of food your ancestors cultivated, play a bigger part than you would expect. Canadian boys who happen to be born in January will be bigger and stronger than most of their fellow hockey players; cultivating rice requires constant diligence and attention, translating to better math scores for Asian kids. Part of Gladwell's conclusion is fatalistic; we can't control what month we're born in, or the food growing habits of our forefathers. There's a flip side, though; we can control how many hours we put into meaningful work, and sometimes, as in the case of Jewish lawyers in New York City, not being in the right ethnic group can be an advantage. Outliers is packed with fascinating anecdotes about people who succeeded or failed for reasons they would have never guessed. A must read for lovers of The Tipping Point or Freakonomics.

The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card by Michael O'keeffe and Teri Thompson

2008-12-19T16:47:00.000-08:00

In The Card, Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson take baseball's most treasured artifact to give us a tour of the quirky world of sports memorabilia collecting. The Holy Grail for baseball card collectors is the T206 Wagner. Originally produced by a tobacco company, only a handful were made before star shortstop Honus Wagner demanded the company cease and desist. The particular card O'keeffe and Thompson focus on is the "Gretzky T206", so-named because The Great One is one of many colorful characters to own The Card. It is in near-mint condition, a fact that made a few buyers suspicious and forced Gretzky to sell it without profit. Indeed, part of the problem with baseball memorabilia is that provenance can never be completely proven. How can even Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio be sure if a certain bat or glove was used by them 50 years ago? Ultimately a baseball artifact's worth depends wholly on whether or not the inside gang approves. The chapter about John Cobb and Ray Edwards, two black men who claim to have stumbled upon a T206 only to be shunned by the card-collecting community, makes for a fascinating, albeit tragic, piece in it's own right. The Card also includes a brief bio of the Hall of Fame ball player himself. One can only wonder what the humble Honus Wagner would think of the warring his portrait from a forgotten tobacco company has caused.

Note: Since the book's publication, The Gretzky T206 sold for $2.35 million, over a million more than it's previous owner paid.