Review: The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

First off, lively and versatile narrator is worth the price of admission for his performance here and that should not go unmentioned. After that, why Bryson can gave travel most of the continental United States and find mostly a bilious reaction and heaps of disparaging remarks to offer escapes me. I am glad this is not the first Bryon book I have read and am also glad I have never been at the receiving end of his cynical and cruel wit.

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Review: They Showed the Way: Forty American Negro Leaders

They Showed the Way: Forty American Negro Leaders by Charlemae Hill Rollins
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I think this Top 40 of "American Negro Leaders" is aimed at high school students, hence its brevity and embrace of the exclamation point. The order is alphabetical to imply no ranking, but Du Bois does get more pages than, say, sculptor Edmona Lewis. I would like a pic of Lewis' work and maybe the "Shoe-lasting machine" of Jan Ernest Matzeliger, but there are no images in this compendium. Perhaps an update edition would be nice. Some representatives post-WWII like Paul Robeson and Flip Wilson, maybe even something as edgy as Pryor would liven things up. Still, in a work that seems to celebrate the post-Slavery black American, list forty pioneers and leave out Sojourner Truth?

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Review: If I Made It, So Can You

If I Made It, So Can You by Virginia Graham
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A fast and easy read from a woman who still sounds ebullient and energetic. She recounts beings a cosmetics spokesperson to radio personality ("Betty Baker") to stage actress and eventually pioneering female talk show host with Girl Talk and her own hour-long show. She drops tidbits we wish she would recall more on: Alice Cooper as a most interesting guest, Agnes Moorehead's Xmas paryy, etc.

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Review: Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal

Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal by Max Brand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Introductions make a big deal of the racism in this text begun in 1943 and published near 40 years after the author's death. I counted many "Japs" and one "Nip", hardly extreme considering the blatant racism o WWII. I find the racism in "Gran Turino" disturbing, but that language of these veterans strikes me as rather tame, even reserved. This is 1st-person narratives of survivors of 212 stationed at Guadacanal and valiantly stopping the "Japs" from retaking Henderson field. Stories of a pilot's first kill in a dog fight stand out, as well as interacting with natives in tracking down a survivor and a pilot who rammed into a Zero later finding the pilot bobbing in the sea. Stern stuff.

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Review: Color

Color by Donald Pavey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A coffee table book from Architectural Digest. The focus is much more on science of color (optics, pigments) and cultural expressions and interpretations of color (red in advertising for would-be winners, black associated with death and thus rarely used in cigarette packs, etc.) rather than much focused on architecture. The last half of the book or so given over to sections for each major color blue, orange, etc.

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Review: Levittown: Two Extraordinary Families, One Ruthless Tycoon, and the Fight for the American Dream

Levittown: Two Extraordinary Families, One Ruthless Tycoon, and the Fight for the American Dream by David Kushner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I knew so little about Levittown; there were many such towns, founder Bill Levitt was a racist assuring covenants no longer valid in the United States... This book is the story of a brave family that broke the Levittown color barrier, their supporters, and the enemies that fomented a race riot to unsuccessfully move them out.

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Review: Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal

Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal by Max Brand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Introductions make a big deal of the racism in this text begun in 1943 and published near 40 years after the author's death. I counted many "Japs" and one "Nip", hardly extreme considering the blatant racism o WWII. This is 1st-person narratives of survivors of 212 stationed at Guadacanal and valiantly stopping the "Japs" from retaking Henderson field. Stories of a pilot's first kill in a dog fight stand out, as well as interacting with natives in tracking down a survivor and a pilot who rammed into a Zero later finding the pilot bobbing in the sea. Stern stuff.

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