Review: Of Tigers and Men: Entering the Age of Extinction

Of Tigers and Men: Entering the Age of Extinction by Richard Ives
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book has a depressing conclusion that the age of wild tigers is in its final years ... irrevocably. That is not why I am rating this book so low. Along the voyage of uncovering this animal's plight from central India to southeast Asia, he finds many words to complain and delineate what aggravates him in travelling and seems to entirely miss what must have been stunning, impressive, and meaningful. Also, not a single picture to help us realize these exotic locales.

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Review: Pirates of the Cell

Pirates of the Cell by Andrew Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The more things change, the more they stay the same? This interesting if dated 1985 overview of viruses says of influenza, "A further pandemic appeared in 1977 when an H1N1 variant surfaced, and with immunity against this form now firmly established we await the next shift that will set the pandemic cycle in motion..." Says Wikipedia, "Influenza A (H1N1) virus is the subtype of influenza A virus that was the most common cause of human influenza (flu) in 2009, and is associated with the 1918 outbreak known as the Spanish Flu."

So old and dry (it is a text aimed at college bio majors), this work still held my interest. Profuse illustrations help make the point and I may never tire of that population betwixt living cells and molecules: viruses, prions, and (new to me) "Viroids". They are among the smallest infectious pathogens known, larger only than prions. The other tale in this work is the manifold and complex defenses of the body: killer cells, phagocytes, B-cells, T-cells, etc. The carcinogenic nature of some viruses and how viruses can be harnessed are topics the surface of which are only scratched here.

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Review: The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-Boats

The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-Boats by William Geroux
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic I read of England's maritime-focused Southampton and this has a focus on WW II and since for the America's maritime nexus in Mathews County, Virginia. Here many men served and died as part of American's merchant marine working to deliver commerical and military goods across the North Atlantic while being preyed upon by U-boats. I have read that the United States Merchant Marine has much less than 500 ships, now. This story tells of that civilian organization pressed into service when needed from its highpoint in the fight against the Axis on two oceans to its present, humble scope. Much of this story is told from specific incidents and the lives of specific Matthews men.

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Review: The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago

The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Chicago being inspired here is the 1926 play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins> and later adapted into films and a famous musical. Maurine Watkins, as a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were a rare breed and an important part of this story as Watkins covered by "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan—both of whom had shot down their paramours in a time when Chicago was obsessed with lethal women and justice for such femme fatales. Watkins was also involved in covering the Leopold and Loeb thrill killings. This book is in three acts: Dawkins getting into the trade, the courtroom denouement of the Belva and Beulah killings (a pair of names better matched than Thelma and Louise!), and Dawkins' career as a playwright and writer.

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Review: Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City

Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was drawn to read this book after finding it was a basis for the cable series featuring two of my favorite actors: Steve Buscemi and Michael Shannon - bonus this is narrated by Joe Montegna! Much more than prohibition era, the arc of this tale is from the undeveloped island owned by a Revolutionary War vet to rail era development to prohibition to the decline post-WW II and post-Mafia casino era of Wynn, Donald Trump, and more. The crime drama television series created by Terence Winter and airing on HBO plucks from this the best material from the rise of organized crime's success in Atlantic City and historical criminal kingpin Enoch L. Johnson. The book goes into detail on the syndicate operations involving Luciano, Meyer Lansky, et al.

This book is also a primer on bossism, the U.S. historical system of political control centering about a single powerful figure (the boss) and a complex organization of lesser figures (the machine) bound together by reciprocity in promoting financial and social self-interest. Bossism depended upon manipulation of the voters and thus always had some aspects of corruption and fraud, here centered around a Republican Party machine. Control of blocks of votes with favoritism and force enabled bosses and machines to secure the nomination and election or appointment of candidates for public office; the officers thus chosen respond by advancing the interests of the machine.

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Review: Zombification: Stories from National Public Radio

Zombification: Stories from National Public Radio by Andrei Codrescu
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I never really dug Condrescu's NPR bits, but thought maybe his ESL pronunciation was biasing my judgement, so gave this collection a chance - read them in my own voice, as it were. I am still "meh" about the material: it seems like incomplete thoughts lacking punch - all texture without structure and feeling like a draft of a possibly better essay. Still, there were highpoints. I did not know he lived in Louisiana, or at least did during this dated Reagan Era compendium, and I like most his ruminations on that nearest faraway place of this diverse nation. His insights into Roumania are, of course, enlightening. Well traveled he touches on my own Detroit home city with a humble recollection of the 1967 Detroit riot and the persecuted artist Tyree Guyton.

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Review: How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating and quick read about the mysterious and at times contradictory ways we get pleasure, and to a large extent feel aversion.

There are a lot of enlightening historical tidbits here I didn't know, like a simple chemical test to identify super-tasters along with a lot studies backing up facts about how we place value on ownership and contact around a basic theory of essentialism.

Back when I was at GM, it was remarked prices changed, but you could always get extra work or effect a thank you with a box of donuts. Similarly, doing studies they find they cannot get affluent MIT students to participate in a study for $2, but a candy bar less than two bucks will work. These are some of the human idiosyncrasies studied.

Coming away from the book, I was most impressed with the scientific study of this essentialism: why mothers only want the bronzed booties of their children, why idols' clothing fetches a higher price without dry cleaning and why children that believe you can duplicate a silver cup don't want your duplicator near their wubby. While the authors don't overtly state this, they have found a basis for belief in the supernatural and a tendency for reverence that both develop at an early age in the human mind.

There is a lot of overlap and synchronicity with You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself and The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us.

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Review: Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures

Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great, quickly paced (nearly breathless) foray into the world of an FBI art crime undercover agent. A nice "double feature" with The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, this tells the story of some of the recent (last several decades) art heists and their denouement or most recent chapters: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, the small self-portrait on copper by Rembrandt stolen from Nationalmuseum in Stockholm along with Renoir's A Young Parisienne and Conversation in an armed robbery in December 2000 and recovered in Copenhagen in 2005, and more. It seems many of the cases have an international dimension and long, drawn-out stings leading to dramatic seizures.

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Review: Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds by Robin Olds
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this side-by-side with Yeager: An Autobiography: two books about fighter pilots that went from before the jet age to become WW II aces, military airmen in Vietnam and help usher in the space age. Both had careers that skipped over direct involvement in Korea with Olds somewhat stagnant in the military bureaucracy. While Yeager was in a light bomber in the south of the conflict zone, Olds was having dogfights with MiGs in the much hotter north. Both Yeager and Olds recall the incident of Jack Broughton and his career-ending strafing of a Soviet ship in Haiphong Harbor (the "Turkestan incident"). Yeager recalls toeing a line on military discipline in the court-martial but stating it came out in court complete proof the American flyers were first fired on from the ship. Olds recalls it as political This incident, and others, were for both pilots a clear beginning of disenchantment with careers in the American military. Olds also became disenchanted with his marriage to Ella Wallace Raines, an American film and television actress. She a Hollywood actress, he a fighter pilot stationed even at a time in Libya made a complex two-body problem that proved, ultimately unsolvable.

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Review: Yeager: An Autobiography

Yeager: An Autobiography by Chuck Yeager
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this side-by-side with Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds: two books about fighter pilots that went from before the jet age to become WW II aces, military airmen in Vietnam and help usher in the space age. Both had careers that skipped over direct involvement in Korea with Yeager making a Korean Conflict cameo as one of the first American pilots to fly a MiG-15, after its pilot, No Kum-sok, defected to South Korea. Of course, Yeager has a chief pioneering accomplishment for breaking the sound barrier and this goes into the technical and hysterical obstacles. I am a bit confused, by then, didn't we have rockets and ballistic object that went supersonic? Maybe not. Life out in the desert testing range in isolation and effective poverty is told with an engaging technique of "other voices" as used in American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. Not only Yeager's wife, but pilots and others have contributed their recollections and points of view of the maverick and courageous airman. Both Yeager and Olds recall the incident of Jack Broughton and his career-ending strafing of a Soviet ship in Haiphong Harbor (the "Turkestan incident"). Yeager recalls toeing a line on military discipline in the court-martial but stating it came out in court complete proof the American flyers were first fired on from the ship. This incident, and others, were for both pilots a clear beginning of disenchantment with careers in the American military.

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Review: Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd

Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

This is a detailed band memoir, delightful for the fan with insights on each roady and solo album, however minor. Syd Barrett looms large throughout and in this telling I get the impression less of his as an acid casualty and more as a crackpot with latent mental issues that would have become crippling regardless of episodic drug usage. Also, the wasted energy and opportunity of the Gilmour-Waters dysfunction makes album and tours of lot art a present absence in this storied band's career.

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Review: Betty and Friends: My Life at the Zoo

Betty and Friends: My Life at the Zoo by Betty White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I like books, occasionally, that I can read in one sitting. I acquired this tonight and read it in the same. Endlessly lovable Betty White has strong ties to the L.A. Zoo and that, with zoos she has visited, features highly here with beautiful exotic pics by Tad Motoyama and other photogs and easy, breezy text sprinkled with Betty's cheeky and even edgy humor.

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Review: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions 1

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions 1 by Charles Mackay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Volume I of Charles Mackay's epic work of pop psychology from the early 19th Century features most saliently economic bubbles and financial manias such as the South Sea Company bubble of 1711–1720, the Mississippi Company bubble of 1719–1720, and (famously) the Dutch tulip mania of the early seventeenth century. According to Mackay, during this bubble, speculators from all walks of life bought and sold tulip bulbs and even futures contracts on them. Allegedly, some tulip bulb varieties briefly became the most expensive objects in the world during 1637. Mackay's accounts are enlivened by colorful, comedic anecdotes, such as the Parisian hunchback who supposedly profited by renting out his hump as a writing desk during the height of the mania surrounding the Mississippi Company. Two modern researchers, Peter Garber and Anne Goldgar, independently conclude that Mackay greatly exaggerated the scale and effects of the Tulip bubble, and Mike Dash, in his modern popular history of the alleged bubble, notes that he believes the importance and extent of the tulip mania were overstated. But, I think Mackay's colorful is maybe fanciful telling has forever cast the shape of this frenzied footnote to Dutch history.

This compendium also feels very modern for scoffing at relic reverence and the chancey justice of Duels and Ordeals.

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Review: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating history, while not as broad in scope as "The Poisoner's Handbook" suggests. With fascinating asides into such poisons as thallium, arsenic, and Marie Curie's radium the poisons of this book are endemic to the region and period covered: Prohibition Era NYC. That means such lethal spirits as re-natured alcohols, with wood, methyl, and ethyl alcohols. Besides swells and sots keeling over from these poisons, this is the story of the early days of forensic examiners in The Big Apple, specifically the resourceful yet criminally underfunded office of Charles Norris, chief medical examiner. A fascinating slice of New York crime history touching on memorable and famous cases.

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Review: The History of Money

The History of Money by Jack Weatherford
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to use gold and silver coins and the first to establish retail shops in permanent locations. This statement of Herodotus is one of the pieces of evidence often cited in behalf of the argument that Lydians invented coinage, at least in the West, even though the first coins were neither gold nor silver but an alloy of the two called electrum. This book covers an arc from before the first coinage to the predicted, cash-less future. As such, it is a breathless ride. There are couple of points of fact that give me pause on considering the reliability of this author's research. First, the author states "In God We Trust", which first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864 and has appeared on paper currency since 1957 (thank you, Ike), replaced the silver basis for the dollar. However, there is really a decade came there as they were printed through 1964: "Silver Certificates could be redeemed for silver until 1968. Although still considered a valid currency, Silver Certificates have not been issued since 1965." (I collected the "In God We Trust" transitional bills, so knew both still were redeemable in silver.) Then, the author claims Diocletian, Roman emperor from 284 to 305, switched confiscatory state persecution of Christians from them to pagans since pagans had the wealth Christians didn't, makeing it an economic policy. I don't think the emperor was moved by miracles or faith and also doubt the political scheming as being a significant motive for a ruler responsible for an empire-wide persecution that has been considered to be one of the bloodiest and most ruthless persecutions in the history.

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Review: Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop, from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears

Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop, from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears by Kim Cooper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A cast of contributors (from cartoonist Peter Bagge to the bizarre Partridge Family Temple to Greg Shaw) document the history of, and opine on, and celebrate the unknowns of bubblegum music. Pete Townsend once remarked, "some of the world's best music is bubblegum" and most of these contributors agree. Their overlapping and amorphous definitions of the genre cause the chronologically laid out volume to act as a history of pop music from the 60s to today with a focus on that music created with marketing in mind. Entertaining and enlightening, this lively tome sheds light on the names behind the manufactured sounds, the true stories of the real people leading or trapped in the movement, and institutions that fostered its growth. As educational as it is fun, this excellent collection of essays and interviews is a must for any music fan

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Review: All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music

All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With country music and its manifestations reaching ever deeper into the world's cultural psyche, All Music offers an in-depth encyclopedic guide to the massive genre. The book covers the extended bluegrass scene given greater popularity by O Brother Where Art Thou?, with entries from the close harmony traditionalists, Osborne Brothers, to such progressives as Darrell Scott. Doc Watson gets four pages and the FM country scene from Dwight Yoakam to popular western swing revivalists, Asleep at the Wheel, is here. The alt-country scene is present, too, covered from Bloodshot recording artist Robbie Fulks to the popular Old 97's. The entries are in the expected form for these successful All Music 'cyclopedias. That is, biographies and then key reviews with recommended starting points. This makes for over 10,000 rated reviews. The well-indexed tome includes style descriptions, a section for compilations and sound-tracks, essential albums by genre and two dozen rich essays on aspects of country music, like "Country on Film" and "Country Soundtracks." This is a valuable resource for the serious fan of any part of the varied country music spectrum. Where else would you find that The Residents, Savoy Brown, and Elvis Costello all drew on the early 70s countrified British pub rock group Chili Willi & the Red Hot Peppers for members?

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Review: Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History

Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History by Scott Andrew Selby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book covers the Antwerp diamond heist, dubbed the "heist of the century" and the largest diamond heist in history. The thieves stole loose diamonds, gold, and other jewellery valued at hundreds of millions of dollars in February 2003 from a vault in the Antwerp Diamond Centre, at the center of the secure gem district in Antwerp, Belgium.

This book debunks much of the facts of the Wired article on the crime which is the basis for the upcomingJeff Bridges starring "Antwerp" with JJ Abrams producing. While the authors did not have any inside dope on the scheme, it is as detailed and revealing through their investigation as any I would hope ever to read on the 1971 Baker Street robbery.

This is a good, true crime read that is well-paced and detailed.

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Review: Hoffa: The Real Story

Hoffa: The Real Story by James R. Hoffa
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

During the last several months I have read Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy Versus Jimmy Hoffa and The Hoffa wars: Teamsters, rebels, politicians, and the mob, so it feels good and right to complete this trifecta with Hoffa's own words. Also, one could say, final words as this book was complete just before his disappearance and released after that by his family with an afterword by transcriber Oscar Fraley and an affidavit from the family attesting to the veracity of this opus as Hoffa's own views. Hoffa's bias is not very confessional, but he certainly declaims that Robert F. Kennedy had it out for him and that the real rat in the Teamsters was his replacement Frank Fitzsimmons. During the book he lauds his ersatz foster son Chuck O'Brien was involved in the disappearance. Investigators and Hoffa's relatives have long suspected that Charles "Chuckie" O'Brien was involved in the disappearance. Here the aftermatter takes care to take O'Brien a few notches from Hoffa's esteem.

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Review: How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like

How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating and quick read about the mysterious and at times contradictory ways we get pleasure, and to a large extent feel aversion.

There are a lot of enlightening historical tidbits here I didn't know, like a simple chemical test to identify super-tasters along with a lot studies backing up facts about how we place value on ownership and contact around a basic theory of essentialism.

There is a lot of overlap and synchonricity with You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself and The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us.

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Review: Trips; Rock Life In The Sixties

Trips; Rock Life In The Sixties by Ellen Sander
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ellen Sanders' breezy, personal memoir of the 60s rock life is a friendly, easy and affecting read of this momentous pop culture movement. She explores the NYC coffeehouse scene and burgeoning clubs, the depravity of a Led Zeppelin U.S. tour, the joy of Monterey and apex of Woodstock, and the crash at Altamont. She has candid observations of Jagger, Morrison and more, especially in the Laurel Canyon scene in the fitful birth of CSNY, etc. A very good history for any fan.

The book is about 16o-some pages with lots of B&W pics, then some quick sketches of key artists and highlights of their discographies.

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Review: The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI

The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI by Richard Guilliatt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this detailed tale of over a year of cautious German raiding. Crew and prisoners in loath and like in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans in a little-known chapter of WWI. Some that was most interesting to me is the many layers to the disinformation onion here: government refusal to acknowledge raider over the prejudice-inciting phantasm of saboteurs and lack of transparency on naval capabilities. Also, rumours becoming facts in the retelling and crew/survivor falsehoods out of hyperbole or mendacity skewing the truth.

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