Review: Diary Of A Punk

Diary Of A Punk by Mike Hudson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Hudson, a seasoned newspaper writer tells his story of life in Cleveland punk band Pagans directly and succinctly. At times the prose reminds me of blunt descriptions by [a:Henry Miller|147|Henry Miller|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1402753635p2/147.jpg] and at its best, the way [a:Tosches Nick|2720810|Tosches Nick|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-a7c55399ea455530473b9f9e4da94c40.png] would tell it. Mike is not trying to impress with his craft, or even the extremities of his life: noise and vodka. Hudson look back on the tracks and the wreckage and summarizes what to me is rather sad: obviously reliving the joys in sorrows, he writes such presence of people he despised while living music, like more pretentious artists, but those bitter notes are not covered by a love for music at the end as attests to not even wanting a device to play recorded music.



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Review: Innovation on Demand: New Product Development Using TRIZ

Innovation on Demand: New Product Development Using TRIZ by Victor Fey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book provides a cogent, cohesive framework for proactively going after innovation in a logical, methodical manner. The TRIZ approach grew out of mechanical engineering, and that is the main thrust here. I feel as a software engineer I benefited from reading and I think anyone that has complex, heuristic engineering tasks can. If in doubt, start with Appendix 1 which gives creator Genrikh Altshuller's motiviations and follow that with Appendix 4 "Using TRIZ in management practice."

(Interestring, Altshuller sought to build better industry out of the ashes of WWII and Stalin locked him up, the Japanese at the same time picked up Deming's ideas discarded by the U.S. and triumphed on the global stage with improved quality.)

I didn't invest the time to learn all the diagramming techniques and lingo, but found the many real-world examples instructive like engineers' koans and even entertaining.



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Review: Fareed Zakaria at the 92nd Street Y

Fareed Zakaria at the 92nd Street Y by Fareed Zakaria

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



In this Q&A preceding the 2008 primaries and [b:The Post-American World|2120783|The Post-American World|Fareed Zakaria|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347716469s/2120783.jpg|2126220] is still interesting and prescient. Zakaria, of course, talks about the "rise of the rest" in a cogent, enlightening way, but also predicts the Obama (possibility of a) presidency and points out the failings of American in promoting military power over soft power and, in sympathy with Gladwell in [b:Outliers: The Story of Success|3228917|Outliers The Story of Success|Malcolm Gladwell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344266315s/3228917.jpg|3364437], rationing opportunity to a minority through an ineffectual education system.



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Review: The Trial [With Earbuds]

The Trial [With Earbuds] by Franz Kafka

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The translator's introduction makes a strong case that this translation was done with care and love, and I feel it comes across in the text. Unfortunately, audio re-dubs have such different audio quality as to be a distraction. Not enough of a distraction to take away from the unreal, dreamlike quality of Kafka's lucid vision of existential panic. What does it all mean? It all may mean nothing and be futile and pointless...





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Review: America's Great Depression

America's Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This book is very misleading in title and cover. Admittedly, I wanted some disaster porn: Hoovervilles, bread lines, and Wall Street fat cats jumping from windows. Now, I feel like I was sold a Hustler to find it was just a cover glued onto a copy of The Economist. The actual Great Depression is a side bar to this screed on Hoover-Roosevelt (government actions can be variously socialist and fascist) and fractional banking. Like a wild-eyed radical this work, which never should have been an audiobook given all the tables, extols the Austrian School of economics as dogma and yearns nostalgically for the gold standard.



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Review: America's Great Depression

America's Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This book is very misleading in title and cover. Admittedly, I wanted some disaster born: Hoovervilles, bread lines, and Wall Street fat cats jumping from windows. Now, I feel like I was sold a Hustler to find it was just a cover glued onto a copy of The Economist. The actual Great Depression is a side bar to this screed on Hoover-Roosevelt (government actions can be variously socialist and fascist) and fractional banking. Like a wild-eyed radical this work, which never should have been an audiobook given all the tables, extols the Austrian School of economics as dogma and yearns nostalgically for the gold standard.



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Review: The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by Thom Hatch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Hatch has done a telling that is brisk and scholarly; The Wild Bunch alive and explained. I guess the duo's exploits and destruction have launched as many conspiracy theories as JFK and I am in no position to discern the ultimate truth, but Hatch has seemed to have done a commendable job of presenting the probable and documented truth. This is the meat of a sandwich with Mormon outsider beginning and an end that explores the unfounded theories and impostors.



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Review: My Story: an Autobiography

My Story: an Autobiography by Mary Astor

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Thinking about this honest exposition of Marty Astor's love life, drinking and pills addiction, and hatred of the movie & TV treadmill makes me consider [b:My Wicked Wicked Ways|883107|My Wicked Wicked Ways|Errol Flynn|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-6121bf4c1f669098041843ec9650ca19.png|868384]. Is the salacious, tell-all autobiography a Hollywood invention of the mid-Twentieth Century?

Mary's story starts with parents, especially her father, that was incredibly ambitious for her; even maniacally so. Their plan succeeds and an incredibly sheltered Mary Astor becomes a contract player and has to individuate under artificial and extreme circumstances. Marriages and mania follow until Mary finds a path to peace through Catholicism and psychology. Both come from caring and competent priests. A divorce makes Mary's diary both a legal and public issue, but writing that caused so much stress is also an answer as this autobiography is the result of a therapeutic writing assignment.

Mary's honest and direct delivery makes this an engaging read. The only thing that keeps it from four starts for me is the architecture. The chapter divisions, for instance, seems just to segment material into even buckets. A little editing could have nudged this from very good to great.



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Review: The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It by Richard Hofstadter

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



Though it is a mid-Twentieth Century text, Hofstadter shows right off in the introduction that he has an intuitive grasp of the American mind: "Since Americans have recently found it more comfortable to see where they have been than to think of where they are going, their state of mind has become increasingly passive and spectatorial. Historical novels, fictionalized biographies, collections of pictures and cartoons, books on American regions and rivers, have poured forth to satisfy a ravenous appetite for Americana. This quest for the American past is carried on in a spirit of sentimental appreciation rather than of critical analysis. An awareness of history is always a part of any culturally alert national life; but I believe that what underlies this overpowering nostalgia of the past fifteen years is a keen feeling of insecurity. . . . American history, presenting itself as a rich and rewarding spectacle, a succession of well–fulfilled promises, induces a desire to observe and enjoy, not to analyze and act. The most common vision of national life, in its fondness for the panoramic backward gaze, has been that of the observation–car platform."



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Review: Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me

Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me by Howie Mandel

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A quick, easy read, Mandel deals lightly with heavy matters. This is particularly his OCD and ADHD which express themselves in compulsive hand-washing and other "germophobic" symptoms. As interesting is his unlikely entry into comedy on a lark during an open mic night and his non-humor humor, something like early Steve Martin. Mandel covers his fame on TV (St. Elsewhere, Deal or No Deal, etc.) and failures there as well as balancing his family life.



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Review: Pain and Gain - The Untold True Story

Pain and Gain - The Untold True Story by Marc Schiller

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This is the book written by the victim of the crime portrayed in the Pain & Gain movie. I wanted to read it to separate fact from fiction. Schiller's account tells a tale of weeks of privation, degradation and torture at the hands of crooks lacking in competency and humanity. It is an easy and lucid read with two main parts: imprisonment in the warehouse in near total sensory deprivation and working w/PI Du Bois to catch the crooks in a world where police, etc. do not believe his story.



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Review: Stephen Hawking's Life Works: The Cambridge Lectures

Stephen Hawking's Life Works: The Cambridge Lectures by Stephen Hawking

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A quick and high level overview of cosmology and cosmogony from an acknowledged latter-day master of its understanding and description. This includes Hawking radiation leading to the shriveling of black holes, string theory, and the time arrow. No math or proof, just enjoy and let the master explain how it is.



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Review: Murder in the Yoga Store: The True Story of the Lululemon Killing

Murder in the Yoga Store: The True Story of the Lululemon Killing by Peter Ross Range

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



They needed a better narrator for this and with principally female subjects, a female narrator would maybe have been best.

This is an unsettling tale of monstrous brutality unleashed by a sorry creature suspected of no more than serial, petty larceny. Why the murderous snap? Not explained here, nor is the appalling lack of action by Apple Store ear witnesses. But, what would I do?



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Review: Things I've Been Silent About: Memories

Things I've Been Silent About: Memories by Azar Nafisi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I was hoping to learn from Nafisi's book something about life in Iran, practically a closed country to me and especially in the turbulent history of Iran's revolution and the Iraq-Iran War. All that is a back drop to Nafisi's memoir, which covers abuse and adoration of literature, her parents and her professional career despite them. An achingly honest telling, this is a very telling and human tale of a triumphant and difficult life against personal and political odds.



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