Review: What Americans Really Want...Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears

What Americans Really Want...Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears by Frank Luntz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dr. Frank I. Luntz draws on experience as a secret shopper, focus group runner, and consultant in industries as varied as automotive, financial services, and more. While much of this 2009 book talks about the rise of Obama, the wisdom from industry and of the American consumer has much broader value and keeps this work from being very dated. Certainly entrepreneurs and marketers will find much value here. There is sociological knowledge in the assessment of thoughts and motivations of the tech-savvy young and the politically important seniors. Luntz leads this all and summarizes to a family values and back-to-religion culmination that doesn't reach me while I very much appreciate his impressive insights into workings of the American consumer and voter.

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Review: Life under the Stuarts

Life under the Stuarts by Falcon Educational Books
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is really is really an anthology of essays from different authors on various topics of Stuart life in England: Art, Science, Politics, etc. Most of this is mode-of-life stuff: clothing, dancing, Puritans attacking Christmas and Maypoles, etc. However, what I find most interesting here is the Post-Cromwell meding of monarchical and parliamentary power that suggests the seed of our own Republican ideals.

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Review: The Prodigal Rogerson: The Tragic, Hilarious, and Possibly Apocryphal Story of Circle Jerks Bassist Roger Rogerson in the Golden Age of LA Punk, 1979-1996

The Prodigal Rogerson: The Tragic, Hilarious, and Possibly Apocryphal Story of Circle Jerks Bassist Roger Rogerson in the Golden Age of LA Punk, 1979-1996 by J. Hunter Bennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Short but engaging -- this is a biog off-and-on again Circle Jerks bassists Roger R. This was certainly enough to get me to sign up for the publisher's newsletter. This overview of the punk rock career of the duplicitous junkie "Rogerson" is stitched together from quotes from bandmates, scenesters, family members, etc. In a way, this reminds me of some aspects of Dee Dee Ramone: bassist music director/composer brought low by his substance abuse demons.

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Review: Trust Me: The True Story of Confession Killer Henry Lee Lucas

Trust Me: The True Story of Confession Killer Henry Lee Lucas by Ryan Green
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

True crime author Ryan Green steps up with a better narrator Steve White. Also, he ventures from Australian murderers to tackle Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole. This can't be done appropriately without considering how the frequent baseless confessions from either criminal casts doubts on who their victims were and how many there were. This is clearly stated at the end, but the dialogue-driven intro and putting the reader into the car with victim Adam Walsh in a way that is more detailed than can be documented puts much of this into the realm of historical fiction.

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Review: Leonardo Da Vinci: A Study in Psychosexuality

Leonardo Da Vinci: A Study in Psychosexuality by Sigmund Freud
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ah, Freud - I admire the chutzpah of reaching out across the centuries to psychoanalyze Da Vinci. In a way, it is easy. All is rooted in sexuality, so that premise is already laid. A lengthy introduction by a convinced psychiatrist explains that Freud could draw all on secxuality because he extended the definition of sexualtiy so broadly .. that it meant nothing? Basically it seems the argument hear for Freud undercut Freud. And then, hey, Freud - sometimes a vulture's tail is just bird feathers.

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Review: Samurai!

Samurai! by Martin Caidin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this a fascinating autobiography by WW II Japanese Zero pilot and ace Saburō Sakai. He recounts in detail many dogfights and his recountings challenge specific military history on some points that will appeal to WWII buffs. While I do appreciate his arc from dominance ver the early P-39 Airacobra through to take over of the skies by more numerous and capable Hellcats and Mustangs, it is the broader view I appreciate the most. Sakai makes a good cases that it was an Allied error to pass by Iwo Jima in order to retake The Philippines. Also, he paints a picture of Japan hampered by an elitist pilot training program passing over many solid candidates. He also describes the lack of cooperation between Japan's Navy and Army branches that I have read of elsewhere. Further, Sakai expresses his consternation on visiting home of a populace unaware of the realities of war, something fostered by the Imperial obscuring the truth. It implies that a civilian population longer exposed to aerial bombing, etc. may have conceded without being exposed to nuclear weaponry.

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Review: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are by Carl Sagan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really admire the ambition of Sagan and Ann Druyan to embark on the multi-volume examination of the roots of humanity beginning with this tome. At times, however, I feel they could of gained in cohesion and clarity what they may have lost in breadth had they constrained themselves to a single opus. This just seems to wander at times, which makes me wonder...

However, it is a wondrous topic and the pair bring humanity down from a self-ascribed special realm closer to the animals, which are raised up. (Especially chimps and bonobos.) This was an excellent read after Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? which is a slimmer and more concise consideration of many of the same topics using updated research.

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