Review: Our Man in Havana

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This novel set in Cuba makes fun of intelligence services, especially the British MI6, in their willingness to believe reports from their local informants. While actually, this book predates the Cuban Missile Crisis, but vacuum cleaner parts drawings masquerading as atomic missile installations appear anticipatory. Even the product lines like "Atomic Pile" show what was in the air at the time. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1959 starring Alec Guinness and I would like to see it as there's so much comedic material here that I think would translate well to the screen. I would give this four stars except for the killing by the protagonist of Captain Segura, a military strongman in love with his daughter Milly and intending to marry her. Real lethal violence is fine in fiction and entertainment for me, but it has no real place in this farce and contributes to making the final act feel rushed and lacking in the imagination of the earlier material.

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Review: Roseanne: My Life as a Woman

Roseanne: My Life as a Woman by Roseanne Barr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tackling life without cable, I came across on the local HD channels on ABC and have been enjoying episodes of her TV show Roseanne. I find it much better in depth and engaging with often delightfully absurdist endings as when much of the cast of Gilligan's Island appeared on an episode. This led me to read this memoir, which really predates the TV show. In fact, it is really a loosely knit series of vignettes and recollections with a special chapter about one of my favorite cities, New Orleans. It carts from childhood as a Utahn Jew in a sea of Mormons and finding an awkward path to the stand-up stage. This autobiography ends with Barr in her 30s and a mother in her first marriage to Pentland. Beside the interesting bits about a serious car encounter with a hood ornament embedded in her hear leading to brief institutionalization, Much stands out that feels like source material for the TV show: the drudgery of a housewife and a pent-up desire to write well-received books.

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Review: Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal

Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Quite entertaining and engaging memoir of a would-be around-the-world trek that ends up in the setting of the Maoist-Royalist Nepalese civil war tracking down and reclaiming orphans sold into servitude. This is the story of the founding of Next Generation Nepal budding from love and connection found in volunteering at an orphanage named for The Little Prince.



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Review: The definitive biography of P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742)?

The definitive biography of P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742)? by Peter Schickele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have long enjoyed and found hilarious the Peter Schickele hoax/farce of P.D.Q. Bach. I first was introduced through the now defunct Detroit classical music FM station WQRS. After collecting records, I now have enjoyed this detailed and encompassing book-length treatment of the joke. I think it hits my funnybone the same way Monty Python does and I see in reading these old chestnuts that some of this stuff has crept into my own repertoire and become part of my own sense of humor...

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Review: American Impressionism

American Impressionism by Amy Fine Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A "fine" collection of a score or more of American impressionists, arranged alphabetically after an introductory essay on painting genre. Nicely arranged with large images in the coffee table book, the descriptions tell us why this work is significant and aids understanding the elements of composition that make that one unique in the gallery of images. This is an educational, enlightening, engaging, and entertaining read to leaf through casually at any point. Cassat, Whistler, and Chase get specially detailed presentation.

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Review: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite being a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson, I very much more enjoyed this memoir of the Pluto reclassification compared to The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet. Tyson seemed to stumble into affairs after a presumptuous New York Times article about an exhibit and brought in outsider things I don't recall, like the American discovery of Pluto making the public cling to it. Brown, however, is well-known in the scientific community for his surveys for distant objects orbiting the Sun. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Particularly notable are Eris, the only TNO discovered that is more massive than Pluto, and is one of a number of dwarf planets in the Solar System; 90377 Sedna, a planetoid thought to be the first observed body belonging to the inner Öpik-Oort cloud; and 90482 Orcus. Eris (previously known as Xena) and its moon Dysnomia all figure in here highly. This is because Brown reflects back on a career mining the Kuiper belt for planetoids before Pluto was controversial and we had the classification "dwarf planet". Brown recounts juggling all the controversy while his daughter was born and growing and he discovered apparently underhanded dealings against his claim on another TNO, Haumea.

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Review: Jesus Land: A Memoir

Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been at least twice drawn into the documentary Kidnapped for Christ , where filmmaker Kate Logan captured the scene at Escuela Caribe in 2006. So, that prodded me to read this memoir covering the same venue for "culture shock" and other traumatic therapies perpetrated by New Horizon Ministries even though it is based in the 1980s. Scheeres title refers to a severe Christian landscape that stretches from her dysfunctional home to the Caribbean locale. Through her life she much abuse and lack of accepting love from her environment and this compelling recollection focuses on how she survived and how she was supported by the special bond with her brother, David.

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