Review: From Dawn to Decadence, Part I: 1500 to the Present

From Dawn to Decadence, Part I: 1500 to the Present by Jacques Barzun
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This part goes from 1500 to the late 18th Century, circa 1789. This is a vast, encompassing history as saga - a cultural history that is focused on philosophy, the arts, and technological innovation and largely skips over such usual history fodder as battles and bold explorers. There are two elements I really like about this presentation: in-place recommendations to further reading rather than a detached bibliography (including what to skim or what to read in-depth) and similarly at-hand immediate glossing for important facts of etymology and shades of meaning.

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Review: Bigger Than a Breadbox

Bigger Than a Breadbox by Steve Allen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is not so much a book by Allen, but a compilation by Leonard Feather with his commentary. Some pieces may be provided by Allen, but this is really an olio of notes, quotes, transcripts, and correspondence somewhat chronological so that it makes up for in biography what it lacks in cohesion. The jotted remembrances or transcripts are documents lacking zing, but some prepared texts are laugh-out-loud funny. This includes an old radio bit satirizing recaps for serials, which starts, "Yesterday, you'll remember, Agatha paled when Boger entered the library. It seemed as if only days before he had gone out of her life, vowing never to return. And now, here they were strolling along the beach, arm in arm. As they climbed the flagpole David spoke to her, softly..."

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Review: A Venom in the Blood

A Venom in the Blood by Eric van Hoffmann
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is an amazingly detailed telling of the horrible "sex slave" torture murderer couple Gerald and Charlene Gallego. They turned on each other after conviction and their crimes apparently had no witnesses or survivors. I am unclear how the author has all the details he does on the crimes - this is Bob Woodward fly-on-the-wall detail - but, the author said he diligently researched the work and coaxed interviews out of many reluctant family and associates. Also, I did some looking, and found no extensive rebuttal to the author's detailed litany of sadistic abuses perpetrated by these true ogres picking up runaways and unattended teens from parking lots, etc.

Unfortunately, the book skims over in an epilogue a murderous scheme that was Gallego relatives Hunt and Thompson's plot to carry out copycat crimes while Gerald was in jail, let alone many nefarious schemes by Gerald's sordid mother that apparently led to her own assassination. That epilogue should be amplified into a book itself. Apparently, that has been done. So, now I need to read it: Justice Waits: The Uc Davis Sweetheart Murders.

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Review: The Making of the President 1964

The Making of the President 1964 by Theodore H. White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hillary Rodham Clinton was a high-school Young Republican and "Goldwater Girl" in 1964 but swung to supporting Democrat Eugene McCarthy’s campaign in 1968 and George McGovern’s in 1972. "I wasn’t born a Democrat," she writes on page one of her autobiography Living HistoryLiving History, but was a "rock-ribbed, up-by-your-bootstraps, conservative Republican and proud of it" (page 11). Her 9th-grade history teacher was also a very conservative Republican who encouraged her to read Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater’s 1960 book, Conscience of a Conservative, which inspired Clinton to write a term paper on the American conservative movement. "I was also an active Young Republican and, later, a Goldwater girl, right down to my cowgirl outfit and straw cowboy hat emblazoned with the slogan 'AuH20.' … I liked Senator Goldwater because he was a rugged individualist who swam against the political tide."

I think this association with Clinton and similar contexts had given me the perception that "Goldwater Republican" meant someone more progressive or at least centrist compared to a typical Republican. However, as the excellent and detailed reportage clarifies, here, ultra-conservative Goldwater differs from today's libertarians (both big-L and little-L) in that he was an advocate for strong national defense and even a hawkish interventionist and pro-tactical nukes, etc.. This is the guy, remember, who suggested we should “lob a nuke into the men's room at the Kremlin." This alarmed many and reinforced LBJ's determination to defeat him - the Trump of his day it seems - and eventually out-hawk him with The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and run the unforgettable "Daisy" ad. I wish the book went into more detail on the Johnson machine that led to that ad and the organized operatives detailed to hound and disrupt the Goldwater campaign.


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Review: Crossword Puzzles - Volume 101

Crossword Puzzles - Volume 101 by Myles Mellor
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Each puzzle here contains some unfortunately poor clues, dragging down the entire book, such as "knawe" for "weed", "City in Scotland" being "Annant", etc. For me, a good crossword has some stumpers, but they they are contextually self-explanatory once solved and entertain with their wit. Mello and co-author Sally York made something too often merely tedious.

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Review: The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat

The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat by Eric Idle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I see there are later editions, which I recommend. I got my edition from Audible and it is not atypical of early Audible editions that it appears significant audio quality was lost in transfer. Here, Idle gives us his zany vision of his backstory to the poem "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" by Edward Lear. This is quite grand in scope bring in an Ice Age-threatened dinosaur, an evil quasi-deity, an edible rainbow like something from Roald Dahl's Wonka all revolving around pursuit of an ambulatory tree. This is an idea recalling Monty Python: The Walking Tree of Dahomey (with David Attenborough. Other Python flavors emerge, but this is a work to entertain children of all ages, without the crude jokes and stereotypes of many a Python skit. Give me this low brow humor any idea, but stripped of that we want Idle's characteristic deloivery and enjoy the several ditties he performs but those elements are lost in shoddy sound quality.

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Review: Earth (The Audiobook): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race

Earth (The Audiobook): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, I miss when The Daily Show was one of the best things on TV and re-reading this hilariously witty and insightful audiobook with not only Jon Stewart, but Wyatt Cenac, Samantha Bee, etc. allows me to re-live that comedic genius while simultaneously being humbled with realization of the foibles of the human race.

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