Review: From the Earth to a Star: My Incredible Life

From the Earth to a Star: My Incredible Life by Seamus Burke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I tracked this book down from a reference to it in [b:Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women|178148|Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women|Ricky Jay|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312005285s/178148.jpg|172090]. I really enjoyed reading it and it caused me to see out this rare, privately printed memoir and I had inter-library loan it and wait for weeks. I thank Burke & Jay for making me so excited to track down a book again, something I haven't felt since Amazon.com, Google Books, etc. made such hunts to easy. So, I wanted to know the secrets of "enterology" - the trick of getting both into and out of locked trunks and sewn tissue bags. In the intro, Burke says he will not reveal, but will explain. After that there is a fascinating life of poverty, street singing for money, fighting for Achi Baba in 1915 during the World War I Gallipoli campaign, and penning songs for performers during the variety/vaudeville heyday before the rise of the revue forced him to discover "automatic drawings" (rather like exquisite corpses done from the middle out, they festoon the book) and the powers of enterology before finishing out a career as assistant to Gracie Fields. How was enterology done? Burke asserts it was a trance-like de-materialization and a mystery to him. Looking at the unconvincing photographs I wonder if this is an Irish tall tale repeated by Jay (maybe with a wink) and something that never happened, or didn't happen as described. Why did Burke skip over his own career as imaginative playwright? I am unable to find any evidence his enterology occurred outside such sources as himself and Jay....



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Review: My Lobotomy: A Memoir

My Lobotomy: A Memoir by Howard Dully

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Some how, I missed the popular 'Sound Portraits' episode that introduced Dully to the world. This book is an expression of all the material and coming to grips with being lobotomised through the mechanizations of a wicked step mother when he was twelve. You cannot fit all that into a 22-minute radio documentary. This goes more into detail on the written reports Mr. Freeman (I can't call him "Dr.") made on this case and how Howard took decades to rebound. Besides meeting the famous brain damager, Howard has Zelig-like brushes with others, like Napoleon Murphy Brock of The Mothers of Invention, Olympians, singer Connie Stevens, etc. Dully shows remarkable forbearance and lack of vindictiveness in what is a quest for understanding, not blame. This paperback edition has added material that includes MRI results showing his young brain compensated mightily for the damage of the ice pick assault.



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Review: My Lobotomy: A Memoir

My Lobotomy: A Memoir by Howard Dully

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Some how, I missed the popular 'Sound Portraits' episode that introduced Dully to the world. This book is an expression of all the material and coming to grips with being lobotomised through the mechanizations of a wicked step mother when he was twelve. You cannot fit all that into a 22-minute radio documentary. This goes more into detail on the written reports Mr. Freeman (I can't call him "Dr.") made on this case and how Howard took decades to rebound. Besides meeting the famous brain damager, Howard has Zelig-like brushes with others, like Napoleon Murphy Brock of The Mothers of Invention, etc. Dully shows remarkable forbearance and lack of vindictiveness in what is a quest for understanding, not blame. This paperback edition has added material that includes MRI results showing his young brain compensated mightily for the damage of the ice pick assault.



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Review: The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers

The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers by Bryan Christy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was a fascinating look into the claustrophobic world of reptile smuggling: claustrophobic because there are few smugglers at the top with elite chased by a few (underfunded Fish & Wildlife Service officers) and the smuggled reptiles are crammed into socks and pillow cases. Even adding to the enclosure, key personnel here have similar backgrounds and overlapping history. One feels for the mistreated, unfortunately profitable animals and the animal police held back by lack of resources and toothless laws.



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Review: Snuff

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



These Pratchett novels are like comfort food; warm and welcoming. I like to dip into one from time to time for especially the pithy quips that feel like equal parts Douglas Adams and Stephen Wright: "male intuition" and pickle jars that are never empty when stirred up with a spoon. this one had a lot of social commentary with the civil rights battle for a goblin underclass.

I think I like this writing the most since it makes me think of the humour and imagination of [a:Douglas Adams|4|Douglas Adams|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1189120061p2/4.jpg].



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Review: Columbine

Columbine by Dave Cullen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It is hard to imagine a book more definitive on the tragedy than this one, so I had to give it four starts. It has the timeline and details of the killer's attack (with all the ineffectual timed bombs and effective pipe bombs I didn't recall), the ineffectual and glacial police response (and cover up of pre-attack investigations) and the later life arcs of key survivors and participants. The attack is played out early on and something about this audiobook (maybe that it was spoke to me and not read by me) seemed almost excited, dare I say gleeful, about it. That was rather unsettling.

One thing the book makes clear is out these teens surprised law enforcement with their arsenal and the their level of weaponry. The point is made is that this contributed to a trend in police taking an active response to an active shooter. Now, in Ferguson, MO we see the pendulum has swung to far in the direction of militarization of the police.



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Review: Columbine

Columbine by Dave Cullen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It is hard to imagine a book more definitive on the tragedy than this one, so I had to give it four starts. It has the timeline and details of the killer's attack (with all the ineffectual timed bombs and effective pipe bombs I didn't recall), the ineffectual and glacial police response (and cover up of pre-attack investigations) and the later life arcs of key survivors and participants. The attack is played out early on and something about this audiobook (maybe that it was spoke to me and not read by me) seemed almost excited, dare I say gleeful, about it. That was rather unsettling.



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Review: A Short History Of Music

A Short History Of Music by Alfred Einstein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I must confess, I bought this years ago under the mistaken assumption that it was authored by [a:Albert Einstein|9810|Albert Einstein|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1397746759p2/9810.jpg]. It sat on my shelf for a couple of decades, and now I have read it. My copy has neatly inscribed in it "Sow not your seed in anger, nor in hatred nor in fears, for he who sows in anger shall for certain reap in tears." I find this kind of creepy and I think it is from novelist [a:Fred Mustard Stewart|111286|Fred Mustard Stewart|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-d9f6a4a5badfda0f69e70cc94d962125.png].

any hoot, for this author the history of music is the history of Western classical music and is written for the lay musicologist that can glibly move from monody to the Phrygian mode, as the author basically introduces. In the gamut from ancient civilizations to Bartok, I find the mini biographies most interesting. It is also at this point the author steps out from behind the podium to wax poetic to praise genius:

"...only those who know certain major movements of [Mozart's], such as the finale of the A major Quartet or the wild, disconsolate mirth of the Quintet in D, written a year before his death, and have rightly understood the daemonic fatalism with which they glow, will see the true significance of the clarity and joyousness Mozart could set off on such a dark background. For them the magical, athematic melodies, which
are a characteristic of the later Mozartian rondo form and seem to bid the wheel of inexorable destiny
stand still for once, will become a joy that will never fade."

"There comes a point in the Mass, in the Agnus Dei, at which the burden of the message devolves upon pure instrumental music; while in the symphony, out of the orchestral complex, human voices emerge at last, as
the final and most explicit utterance of the composer's purpose..."

"The successors of Verdian opera are little works, of no significance in the historic tale, for their composers were little men." (Ouch!)

Full Text



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Review: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Dawkins really fights the fight for evolution. Part of me wishes he would write about the wonders of biological diversity and not worry about convincing Creationists. Aside from Dawkins' cogent reasoning and evidence for the factual basis for evolution, more compelling material comes from Dawkins reveling in such wonders of nature as the wandering vagus nerve exhibited in a giraffe necropsy, UV flower markings, complex pollen spreading, or sharing revulsion in wasps parisitizing live tarantulas.

This audiobook edition is effectively co-narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward with tones indicating when to review a downloadable reference guide.



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Review: Statistics A User Friendly Guide

Statistics A User Friendly Guide by Gerald C. Swanson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



...This text feels like a good fit for students struggling with a first course in statistics. Non-STEM students requiring statistics in the classroom or later in their careers will find this helpful in learning or as a reference. Guiding the reader are exercises throughout and the book is self-contained with the typical tables for t distribution, F ratio critical values, etc.

[See my entire review at MAA Reviews.]



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Review: Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises by Timothy F. Geithner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I really enjoyed this book from Geithner. I found his honest, self-deprecating and reflective manner refreshing in books I have read on our many years of financial crises. Geithner had a ringside seat to many such crises in his years in public service: Asia, Japan, Mexico, etc. before becoming embroiled in the birthing of TARP onto a ringside seat for the throes of the PIIGS. I feel about done with book son this subject: the complexity our financial system and the political heave-hos are starting to bore me.

My reading has summed up this way for me: The American financial crises spanned multiple presidencies of both parties and the system, basically, worked avoiding something like the Great Depression despite corruptive greed and senseless risk taking.

A minor part in this book is candid glances into the Obama Whitehouse, like that Obama like Five Guys but Geithner who has been in a bubble of pulbic service doesn't know for that burger joint, or eve the honey badger meme.



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Review: Storming to Power

Storming to Power by Time-Life Books

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



While I am rating this the same, I did not enjoy it as much as the first in the series: [b:The New Order|709662|The New Order|Time-Life Books|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-6121bf4c1f669098041843ec9650ca19.png|695930]. However, I see it as possibly the necessary, less interesting middle act sandwiched between tension-building exposition and dramatic conclusion. The story is of Hitler's methodical, purposeful accumulation of political power covers nearly a decade of rallies and manoeuvring. In this, we learn how he was a political chameleon ("no you can't make highways"/"yes, we do the autobahn and it was always my idea", etc.) and betrayed friends with the same ease with which he crushed enemies. Up next, I will find out how this story ends in [b:The SS|860082|The SS (Third Reich Series)|Time-Life Books|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1203726521s/860082.jpg|845522].

Overall, this series is proving to be better than expected.



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Review: Fueling Innovation and Discovery

Fueling Innovation and Discovery by Dana Mackenzie, National Research Council

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The angle of showing the contribution of mathematics in our lives here is at a very high level and touches on math-based IPOs (Google, etc.), imaging for medical science, bioinformatics, etc. The effect is a call for eager minds to choose math as a rewarding career.



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Review: The Letters of Machiavelli: Newly Edited and Translated

The Letters of Machiavelli: Newly Edited and Translated by Allan Gilbert

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This is a fascinating book, if only for seeing into the thinking and life of a 16th Century luminary of Florence at a time when Popes commanded armies (with surprising fallibility) and letters had to be hand delivered by friendly messengers (with unsurprising lack of reliability).

Some things I didn't like about the presentation: the letter-specific notes collected in one, large introduction when it would be better to intersperse them so that they were strategically places alongside relevant letters. Also, maybe not every letter to Machiavelli would have been helpful, but I am sure a few to several would have really helped. As a minor point, relying Machiavelli's first name should have stopped after any risk of confusion with family members was past.

I was surprised how crude and chummy Machiavelli was in letters to an ambassador (not about him personally, but how this is indicative about how base and common such communications could have been then). I was also surprised to learn how meteoric and inexplicable was his rise to government, but the vagaries of fortune once tied to the De Medici family made tragic sense. I was also surprised how involved and opinionated he was in military affairs.



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