Review: Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A fascinating look into the botched economic recovery moves of the U.S. government with Bob Woodward-like detail often putting reader in the room for high-level, private conversations. At times it reads like Obama hagiography, but ultimately Suskind provides a balanced view pointing out Obama being overwhelmed by economic issues too complicated for him in the over-hopeful simultaneous attempts to also tackle health care while Tim Geinert handed Wall Street everything it wanted and the health insurance industry swept up as much profit in the resulting confusion.



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Review: A Better Place: Essays on Desire Utilitarianism

A Better Place: Essays on Desire Utilitarianism by Alonzo Fyfe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I really respect the author's prsentation of an independent, cogent vision of his self-conceived desire-based philosophy. The slim volume packs hours of engaging reading as it dense with thought-provoking theses.

As a philosophy, the system works to explain much human and even animal behavior. I am drawn to philosophy for descriptive value: understanding thinking and motivation. Fyfe effectively handles that dimension but aggressively promotes a prescriptive dimensio to his system with arguments that don't convince me. His examples from extremity (rape, hydrochloric acid, more rape, etc.) Give a tiring reductio ad absurdum theme to his examples.

Fyfe is least convincing to me that has bridged the chasm between "is" and "ought" so that he predicate and dictate a morality through his system. Interestingly, I came to realize of this spearation from [b:If This Be Heresy|13549785|If This Be Heresy|James A. Pike|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1331962015s/13549785.jpg|19116184] by Bishop [a:James A. Pike|1077819|James A. Pike|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg], but Fyfe introduced me to the excellent arguments of [a:David Hume|45726|David Hume|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1200110976p2/45726.jpg]. So, even when we disagree, Fyfe is educating me.

Still, I don't recall the last book I read that caused me to dog-ear so many pages and write so many notes. With even my disagreements so thought-provoking, I look forward to pulling this off the shelf in years to come see how Fyfe and I have diverged...or converged.



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Review: Charles Manson Now

Charles Manson Now by Marlin Marynick

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Manson is a key figure, of course, in this book which tells the story of psychiatric nurse Marynick's drifting into the Manson orbit from awareness to phone to live meeeting. Along the way are lots of Manson quotes, including from letters and calls to the author. Marynick tells of patients that committed unspeakable crims and goes into some details on non-race war theories of the Tate-LaBianca crimes: (1) an early Church of Satan project (Stanton LaVey, elicted from his self-absorbed musing), and (2) a drug deal gone bad through a Tex-Wojciech Frykowski connection with the following LaBianca crimes as an organized crime favor meant to insure Tex and company's protection (Stanton, "Vicki", and others.

Certainly there is much in detail on these theories in other sources, but this entertaining certainly stepping back and considering just in the general true crime cannon.



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Review: Inside the Giant Machine: Confessions of a Former Amazon.com Technologist

Inside the Giant Machine: Confessions of a Former Amazon.com Technologist by Kalpanik S

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This a real mess of a book: a discursive mismatch of Seattle culture clash for the Asian outsider, Silicon Valley longing, and buyer's remorse over an Amazon career.

Kalpanik does seem to have some convincing facts that Amazon is a modern day sweatshop, at least for warehouse workers and is even a soulless metrics-driven slog of working for The Man at Keeping-The-People-Down, Inc. even for white collar personnel.



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Review: Bleak House

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A nice audiobook edition of this monstrous classic. It seems a bit cruel that Dickens hangs to many characters in plots upon the clothesline of Jandyce & Jandyce to have it evaporate suddenly in the end like a reverse-deux ex machina. But, it works out for plucky Esther in the end and it is about the journey, I think. Dickens' satirical wit and colorful, cartoonish characters summon up a Monty Python-like production in my mind.



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Review: The Early Birds

The Early Birds by Arch Whitehouse

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book is a good read about the early history of human flight from (mostly failed experimentation) in heavier-than-air amid successful lighter-than-air (baloon) flights. Along the way, hoaxes, near misses, a colorful American-in-Britain named "Colonel" Cody (no relation) and a bleeding mass of wreckage and carnage plots the progress of the pioneers. The numerous prizes and innovation-spurring prize money reminds me of this current era of the "X-Prize" and such prize money tempted engineering feats such as commerical space flights and robot vehicles.

The book goes roughly from the 18th Century to World War I and is basically a story of Europe (led by France), an unreliable American showing and a lagging Britain.



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Review: Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll

Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock and Roll by Joe Oestreich

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is a really good memoir, whether you ever heard (of) Watershed, even like indie rock, etc. Oestreich has a life story to tell and a story of transition that makes it one of the better biographies and one that transcends the genre of rock bio.



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Review: Killer History: Why do they leave all the fun stuff out of the history books?

Killer History: Why do they leave all the fun stuff out of the history books? by Marek McKenna

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



All-too-quick historical trivia in a Kindle edition absent the book's images, needed editing and littered with random hyperlinks made this an underwhelming read. The author is abviously a history fanatic with a lot of knowledge to share, but the delivery was lacking.

Did you know the Wright Brothers weren't actually the first to make a powered flight? That they weren't even second? (Of course, being the first to have a photographer on hand is what made the difference.) That was one of the best of the breathless, hurried vignettes.



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Review: The Search for the Green River Killer

The Search for the Green River Killer by Carlton Smith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Just got this back from a friend, so I am able enter a review under the correct edition. "The Search..." is an excellent title as this covers the crime from the police investigators' view. The dead-end trails, sought for clues and hopes dashed amid managing a large task force and trying to embrace and benefit from early computer technology tell an intriguing story of a community seeking to remove a killer.



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Review: Killer History: Why do they leave all the fun stuff out of the history books?

Killer History: Why do they leave all the fun stuff out of the history books? by Marek McKenna

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



All-too-quick historical trivia in a Kindle edition absent the book's images, needed editing and littered with random hyperlinks made this an underwhelming read. The author is abviously a history fanatic with a lot of knowledge to share, but the delivery was lacking.

Did you know the Wright Brothers weren't actually the first to make a powered flight? That they weren't even second? That was one of the best of the breathless, hurried vignettes.



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Review: 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This follow up to [b:1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|39020|1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|Charles C. Mann|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327865228s/39020.jpg|38742] has more relevance and is arguably an important read to understand currently agricultural and even cultrual aspects of the "homogecene" era prompted by the Columbian Exchange. Resonating with Pollan's [b:The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World|13839|The Botany of Desire A Plant's-Eye View of the World|Michael Pollan|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320488029s/13839.jpg|908398], Mann recounts the history of potatoes from Andean tuber to edible pesticide. Other amazing chapters of this microhistory is the Asian exchange with the galleon trade leading to a 16th Century Chinatown in Mexico City and Mexican silver en masse relocated to China.

I particularly enjoyed and got a lot out of the theme that this late 15th Century activity started a wave of globalism that ramped up quickly and we still feel today. Two examples of that were ex-Confederate refugee rubber plantation founders in Sao Paulo, Brazile (http://www.patsabin.com/lowcountry/confederados.htm) and the failed Darien scheme of Scottish colonists in Panama.



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Review: Richard Pryor: Black and Blue: The Unauthorized Biography

Richard Pryor: Black and Blue: The Unauthorized Biography by Jeff Rovin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This unauthorized biography ends with the production of Superman III and tells of Pryor's undulating series of rise and falls from Peoria brothel scion to parallel careers as actor, recording artist, TV performer, and touring comedian. Particularly interesting is the story of Laff Records and much material is given over to Pryor's mysterious burning accident and recovery.



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Review: The Pro: Lessons About Golf and Life from My Father, Claude Harmon, Sr.

The Pro: Lessons About Golf and Life from My Father, Claude Harmon, Sr. by Butch Harmon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I'm not a fan of golf specifically or even sports in general, however parts of this biography of golf great Claude Harmon, Sr. by his son, a wise curmudgeon and great athlete, were very interesting to read. There are multiple threads to this story I found interesting:

1] Tiger Woods transitioning from college to pro under the tutelage of the author. (This book ends while Woods is till on top of the world.)

2] The author's world-class father caring for a family while building a career in the changing pro golf circuit

3] The author's opinion on other gold pros, like the much hyped Michelle Wei and people like Greg Norman. He talks about some personally (like Norman) and others more tehcnially, like Wei.

4] The father and later son woring with and for the king of Morocco.



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Review: The Gamble: General David Petraeus & the American Military Adventure in Iraq 2006-08

The Gamble: General David Petraeus & the American Military Adventure in Iraq 2006-08 by Thomas E. Ricks

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A fascinating indepth analysis of changling military strategy in Iraq focused mostly 2006-7. Basically, this covers the period from obvious need of reassessment to a policy of greater engagement and ultiamtely the surge. From Bush to the dawn of Obama's involvement, this is centered around Petraeus' entre into the mess. It is particularly enlightening how cooperation and engagement went further than bullets and bombs and I was moved by the comment of British peace activist and Mideast expert (and Petraeus advisor) that she hated war but loved the U.S. military and that America "doesn't deserve it's military"

By and large, this recalls to me Sir Winston Churchill’s analysis of the American way of addressing challenges: "The Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing…After They Have Exhausted All the Alternatives". Unfortunately for Iraq, and us, the consequences of those alternatives will last into the forseeable future.



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