bookpagedev

HistoryAmerican History

The career of an aviation legend

Review by bookpagedev

intrepid, enigmatic Charles Lindbergh would have been 100 this year. The man who gave wings—literally—to the anything-goes, can-do optimism that characterized America in the early 20th century made himself into a myth by completing the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Today, although astronauts outrank aviators in terms of mystique, the country’s fascination with Lindbergh continues. Dominick Pisano and F. Robert van der Linden, both curators at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, take an in-depth look at an American legend in Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. Illustrated with hundreds of black and white pictures, as well as new color photographs of the Spirit of St. Louis itself (the object of many a souvenir scavenger), this special volume brings to life the early days of aviation, while telling the story of an ambivalent hero.

Lindbergh began his flying career as a risk-it-all barnstormer and airmail pilot before setting his sights on wider horizons. Despite his history-making accomplishments, his life was rife with controversy. The kidnapping and death of his son, along with his controversial social and political views, made him a reluctant target for the media. Pisano and van der Linen thoroughly explore the conflicts that eventually drove the flyer and his family to Britain. With fascinating specifics on aviation equipment, visuals of vintage flying gear and an introduction by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve, this volume soars.

intrepid, enigmatic Charles Lindbergh would have been 100 this year. The man who gave wings—literally—to the anything-goes, can-do optimism that characterized America in the early 20th century made himself into a myth by completing the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Today, although…

HistoryBlack History

Black comedy

Review by bookpagedev

A welcome departure from the grim accounts in the Arsenault volume comes via Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. Novelist Paul Beatty, whose own works The White Boy Shuffle and Tuff are satiric triumphs, personally selected this compendium of routines, speeches, folktales, poetry, snippets from theater and film, even some rap lyrics. Some are delivered in pristine English, others in wildly profane fashion, but together they illuminate the wealth of the black comedic tradition. Though few readers would associate Dr. W.E.

B. Dubois or Sojourner Truth with hilarity, their contributions are just as funny as those of Hattie Gossett or Wanda Coleman. Not quite a history of black comedy, Hokum serves more as a reference guide through various eras, showing how humor and comedy have changed over the years, and how laughter and wit have sometimes been as effective in the fight against racism as marches and votes.

Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paper and other publications.

A welcome departure from the grim accounts in the Arsenault volume comes via Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. Novelist Paul Beatty, whose own works The White Boy Shuffle and Tuff are satiric triumphs, personally selected this compendium of routines, speeches, folktales, poetry, snippets from…
Nonfiction

Father’s Day: Gifts for dear ol’ Dad

Review by bookpagedev

When it comes to writing about history, it’s difficult to imagine a harder-hitting pair of reporters than Mark Bowden and Stephen Ambrose, the dynamic duo behind Our Finest Day: D-Day: June 6, 1944. Authoritative yet accessible, this dramatic, interactive account of the largest military operation ever launched contains reproductions of artifacts from the National D-Day Museum. Filled with classic quotes and photographs, the book is a great way to experience history first-hand. An official “Orders of the Day” letter issued by Ike to the Allied soldiers, a guidebook of France and a map of that country’s coastline with areas targeted for invasion are a few of the pieces readers can remove and peruse. Drawing on first-person accounts from the soldiers and officers who served at Normandy, including journalist A.

J. Liebling, the text, written by Pulitzer Prize nominee Bowden, offers excerpts of authentic letters and diary entries. From preparation to actual invasion, Our Finest Day examines techniques and tactics, battle plans and strategies choices made by the superpowers that ultimately altered the course of history. Ambrose contributes a fine, if brief, introduction to this cleverly packaged war-time primer the perfect gift for a patriotic father.

The intrepid, enigmatic Charles Lindbergh would have been 100 this year. The man who gave wings literally to the anything-goes, can-do optimism that characterized America in the early 20th century made himself into a myth by completing the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Today, although astronauts outrank aviators in terms of mystique, the country’s fascination with Lindbergh continues. Dominick Pisano and F. Robert van der Linden, both curators at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, take an in-depth look at an American legend in Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. Illustrated with hundreds of black and white pictures, as well as new color photographs of the Spirit of St. Louis itself (the object of many a souvenir scavenger), this special volume brings to life the early days of aviation, while telling the story of an ambivalent hero. Lindbergh began his flying career as a risk-it-all barnstormer and airmail pilot before setting his sights on wider horizons. Despite his history-making accomplishments, his life was rife with controversy. The kidnapping and death of his son, along with his controversial social and political views, made him a reluctant target for the media. Pisano and van der Linen thoroughly explore the conflicts that eventually drove the flyer and his family to Britain. With fascinating specifics on aviation equipment, visuals of vintage flying gear and an introduction by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve, this volume soars. Here’s a little something that’s sure to make Dad smile: packed with fun activities and rugged bits of wisdom, 101 Secrets a Good Dad Knows by Walter and Sue Ellin Browder is a clever little paperback that collects all the lessons fathers, by tradition, teach their kids. With instructions on everything from flying a kite to skipping a stone, 101 Secrets celebrates timeless diversions that have been passed on from generation to generation. Lessons in making a paper boat, whistling with a blade of grass and building a campfire make this a one-of-kind book. Many of the skills (carving whistles, tying flies) are illustrated, and each is prefaced by a timeless maxim, like the following: “The difference between a useless stick and a useful stick is in the person who picks it up.” What could be wiser? Full of tried-and-true know-how that will never go out of style, this good-humored anthology is the perfect way to bring families together on Father’s Day.

 

When it comes to writing about history, it's difficult to imagine a harder-hitting pair of reporters than Mark Bowden and Stephen Ambrose, the dynamic duo behind Our Finest Day: D-Day: June 6, 1944. Authoritative yet accessible, this dramatic, interactive account of the largest military…

HistoryBlack History

Riding for rights

Review by bookpagedev

Raymond Arsenault’s Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice covers a shorter, more specific time frame. The Freedom Riders were a courageous, racially integrated group of volunteers who traveled together on buses from Washington, D.C., to the heart of Dixie. They openly defied segregation laws and bore the brunt of vicious attacks, including firebombings and physical assaults that occurred in full view of the police. The sheer brutality that was presented on the front pages of major metropolitan newspapers shocked the Kennedy administration into finally protecting the Freedom Riders. Arsenault’s book goes into exacting detail about rides, destination points and vicious acts of retribution during the pivotal year of 1961. It outlines a story of supreme courage against unspeakable cruelty and disgusting bigotry, and presents the Freedom Riders as one group that probably hasn’t gotten the recognition it deserves for its crucial role in the civil rights movement.

Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paper and other publications.

Raymond Arsenault's Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice covers a shorter, more specific time frame. The Freedom Riders were a courageous, racially integrated group of volunteers who traveled together on buses from Washington, D.C., to the heart of Dixie. They openly defied…
Fiction

The dark side of the campaign trail

Review by bookpagedev

America, as conjured up in Mark Costello’s novel about a Secret Service team protecting the vice president during the first stages of presidential primary season, is a rich and exceedingly anxious nation. Costello portrays the electoral process as a sequence of photo ops, stage managed to achieve two objectives: make the candidate seem like a man of the people and keep the people (including potential assassins) well away from the candidate.

Costello distributes his plot among the revolving cast of characters who make up the “Dome.” In Secret Service lingo, the “Dome” is a contingent of agents assigned to protect a politician. The team’s leader, Gretchen Williams, is a single black mother with a healthy dread of riot and an instinctive reluctance to lead this particular team. Under her is a group that includes remnants of the old Reagan guard, still licking their wounds about Hinckley; a sexpot exiled from the president’s daughter’s detachment for committing some vaguely erotic crime of lse majestŽ; and Vi Asplund, our anchoring point of view. Vi comes from New Hampshire, the state that has elevated the presidential primary into an art form. Her brother, Jens, still lives there, cranking out elegant code for BigIf, producer of a computer war game featuring apocalyptic serial killers and mutants.

While BigIf magnifies the horrors that lurk in the dark side of the America psyche, the Dome is professionally fixated on finding their real embodiments the people who blow up abortion clinics, who send threatening letters, who seem to be stalking the candidates. Gretchen, trying to explain her job to her son, thinks, “Someday she would tell him all about it, how she felt out there, hanging on the VP’s flank, deep in what agents called vacant mode, a stone defensive Zen, the mind both clean and empty except for what it sees.” Costello writes with authority, moving with perfect echolocation among the vernaculars of a dozen niche occupations while building the story’s momentum to its surprise ending. Readers looking for the next Franzen or DeLillo should check Costello out. He’s the real thing. Roger Gathman is a freelance writer in Austin, Texas.

America, as conjured up in Mark Costello's novel about a Secret Service team protecting the vice president during the first stages of presidential primary season, is a rich and exceedingly anxious nation. Costello portrays the electoral process as a sequence of photo ops, stage managed…
HistoryBlack History

Defining a culture

Review by bookpagedev

Noted historian Nell Irvin Painter goes back even further than the days of the covered wagon with Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings: 1619 to the Present. Painter blends striking visual depictions with extensive analysis, covering everything from the extent of the African slave trade in North and South America to slavery in the U.S., Reconstruction, and the emergence and development of black culture, politics, economics and community life. She blends candid photos, stills and action shots of key community leaders and hard-working regular folks by artists ranging from Romare Bearden to Kara Walker, and her descriptive portraits are equally diverse, including familiar figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and lesser-known names such as Olaudah Equiano (one of the first African slaves able to record his own account of captivity). Exhaustive yet easily understood and digested,Creating Black Americans supplies plenty of knowledge without ever becoming pedantic or dry.

Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paperand other publications.

Noted historian Nell Irvin Painter goes back even further than the days of the covered wagon with Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings: 1619 to the Present. Painter blends striking visual depictions with extensive analysis, covering everything from the extent of the…
Nature

Change in the weather

Review by bookpagedev

We’ve been lied to. That’s what Eugene Linden tells us in his formidably researched Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations, a cautionary document that challenges public complacency about global warming. Scientists have, for years, agreed that human activity has seriously altered Earth’s atmosphere to the point where we may be facing severe climate change. But that’s not the story that gets out from our elected officials and from the national media. Linden’s book spends a lot of time in the past, documenting the sudden and mysterious collapse of several advanced civilizations. Why did the Norse Greenland colonies fail? Why did the Mayans abandon their cities? Linden says the answer to these long-pondered mysteries lies in sudden climate change. His emphasis on history puts a face on climate change which can throttle a culture through drought, starvation and disease.

The same could happen to us. Evidence of climate change flickers bursts of extreme climate instability transitional to permanent change are already upon us, Linden suggests. This evidence comes from multiple fronts these days, not just from the ice core blanketing Greenland, but also from oceanic water and sediment samples. Who dropped the ball and forgot to tell the public at large? The majority of scientists who publish in peer-reviewed journals believe human activity could provoke severe climate change in the foreseeable future. But reporters give equal weight to the minority opinion of less credentialed scientists and to scientific experts specifically hired by major industry to downplay the threat of global warming. It’s true that scientists have reached no consensus about the type of climate change we’re looking at or what impacts it will have, but, as Linden notes, ignoring the threat of climate change until every question is settled is a bit like refusing to run from an oncoming tsunami. Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

We've been lied to. That's what Eugene Linden tells us in his formidably researched Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations, a cautionary document that challenges public complacency about global warming. Scientists have, for years, agreed that human activity has seriously altered…
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

A real-life firefighter’s scorching tale

Review by bookpagedev

<B>A real-life firefighter’s scorching tale</B> Earl Emerson, a 24-year veteran of the Seattle Fire Department, is best known as the author of two popular series featuring Thomas Black and Mac Fontana. In <B>Vertical Burn</B>, he introduces a new character, Seattle firefighter John Finney. Firefighting is a family tradition for the dedicated Finney, with grandfather, father and brother all in the profession.

"It was the most interesting job in the world. Getting up in the middle of the night to do who knows what. Anything could be out there waiting for him. Absolutely anything," Emerson writes. As it turns out, something very bad is waiting for Finney. One night, and one devastating warehouse fire, change his life forever.

Only Finney is convinced that the Leary Way fire on that fateful June evening is arson. Adding to the mystery, Finney’s crew arrives first on the scene when at least five truck companies should have been dispatched ahead of them. Events spiral out of control. Finney escapes the burning building; his partner does not. Heat stress and carbon monoxide poisoning cloud his recollection of the events.

Firefighting, like all professions, has its cardinal rules. Foremost, it’s bad to lose a partner in a fire, but unforgivable to be the cause of that loss. The worst thing a firefighter can do is panic, and Finney stands accused of just that. Burned, depressed and tormented by survivor’s guilt, Finney becomes obsessed with the Leary Way fire. As a result, his credibility and career suffer. However, as Finney attempts to unravel a sequence of apparent coincidences, his life gets much worse. Is it a sinister conspiracy or a case of paranoia? The tension escalates as Finney tries to save not only his career, but possibly his life as well.

Emerson gives us a ringside seat to firefighter protocol and procedures intermingled with relentless suspense. The details are realistic, including techniques to clear smoke from buildings, engines versus ladder rigs and the Knox Box (which allows firemen to enter commercial buildings without breaking down the door). <B>Vertical Burn</B> sizzles with excitement, plenty of Pacific Northwest atmosphere and a harrowing finale. It’s a convincing tale populated with the courageous individuals who fight fires and the scoundrels who set them. <I>C.

L. Ross reads, writes and reviews in Pismo Beach, California.</I>

<B>A real-life firefighter's scorching tale</B> Earl Emerson, a 24-year veteran of the Seattle Fire Department, is best known as the author of two popular series featuring Thomas Black and Mac Fontana. In <B>Vertical Burn</B>, he introduces a new character, Seattle firefighter John Finney. Firefighting is…

Biography

Kisses and the dreams built on them

Review by bookpagedev

Michael D’Antonio’s new biography, Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams, is more than a rags-to-riches American success tale. D’Antonio, a Pulitzer Prize-winner for his Newsday work, does an excellent job of using the story of the 19th-century chocolate magnate’s life to illustrate how business can be combined with visionary altruism, a welcome chronicle in today’s age of corporate scandal and greed. The book goes beyond the dry facts of Hershey’s life to sketch the larger social, political and economic forces that played into his success.

Despite a great deal of luck and hard work, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Hershey. His first job at an ice-cream parlor sowed seeds for a life in sweets, but he soon endured a series of failures, including bankruptcy with two different candy companies, and a botched attempt at making cough drops, before he opened the Lancaster Caramel Company in Pennsylvania in the 1880s. Eventually, his highly successful strategy would be to offer Americans a nickel chocolate bar, a sweet alternative to the expensive European versions on the market.

What sets Hershey’s story apart from other top businessmen is what he chose to do with his wealth. With visions of a utopian community, he founded the town of Hershey in the cornfields of Pennsylvania as well as a residential school for needy children. Today, more than 13,000 residents live in this bucolic small town, where the downtown streetlights are shaped like giant Hershey’s Kisses, and golf course fairways stretch out from the lawn of the chocolate factory. The hook of Hershey is the recent battle over how to manage the town and school 60 years after Hershey’s death. A proposed sale of Hershey to gum giant Wrigley in 2002 was squashed by concerned residents, who feared what would happen to Mr. Hershey’s town if an outsider took charge. Today, questions remain about how to move Hershey company and town forward, without the vision and personal leadership of the great man himself. Lisa Waddle is a writer and pastry baker in Nashville.

 

Michael D'Antonio's new biography, Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams, is more than a rags-to-riches American success tale. D'Antonio, a Pulitzer Prize-winner for his Newsday work, does an excellent job of using the story of the 19th-century chocolate…

Travel

Paris when it sizzles

Review by bookpagedev

The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the eight days I was there. None of that mattered; all was just as it should have been. Drinking hot chocolate at Angelina’s, walking home in the rain after a 21-sample cheese-tasting, or watching street vendors sell Eiffel Tower trinkets under the real thing, Paris was wonderful. This spring, two books give readers the chance to live or relive the dream of spending April or indeed any time in Paris.

Paris is to haute cuisine as it is to haute couture. Understandably, Gourmet has featured stories about the city since the magazine’s inception. Many of these essays have been collected in Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing From Gourmet. Far from consisting only of food stories though the pieces on particular restaurants, chefs or dishes are, well, scrumptious the writings are also portraits of the city itself, its inhabitants and those fortunate enough to land assignments there. They range from Don Dresden writing about how chefs and customers alike cope with the cream and butter shortages of postwar Paris to Joseph Wechsberg (author of several pieces in the book) writing about the lost joy of walking through the city. But food is the main topic of Remembrance of Things Paris and reading it on an empty stomach is probably not a good idea.

Foodies and fashionistas aren’t the only ones attracted to the French capital, as demonstrated by the wide assortment of writers found in Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology, edited by Adam Gopnik. This fascinating collection is arranged chronologically starting with pieces by influential thinkers such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams and Thomas Paine. Popular culture is represented by a Cole Porter lyric, an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and a piece by modern dancer Isadora Duncan. James Baldwin writes of spending Christmas in a Paris jail, while James Weldon Johnson head of the NAACP in the 1920s writes of experiencing equality for the first time during a 1905 visit. The variety of people represented in the book from Mark Twain to Elizabeth Bishop to M.L.

K. Fischer, for example and the wide spectrum of their experiences gives Americans in Paris a broad appeal, making it accessible to an audience beyond that of Francophiles and lovers of literature.

Both these books are good for reminiscing about or anticipating a trip to Paris. Read them from a comfortable chair at home, during a transatlantic flight or at a small cafŽ table in the city itself.

The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the eight…
Travel

Just like home

Review by bookpagedev

There’s an entire subgenre of travel literature about English people who seek out better weather and spicier food than they find at home. In The Caliph’s House, travel writer Tahir Shah shares his family’s experiences with Dar Khlalifa, a ramshackle old estate in one of Casablanca’s least desirable neighborhoods. The story features exotic locales and plenty of culture shock, but is largely one of renovation, as the Shah family live huddled on the floor in one room for nearly a year while walls are moved, a stairway installed, and age-old techniques used to create colorful mosaics and traditional terracotta tiles. They must also contend with Jinns and a house staff whose suggestions for appeasing those angry spirits include avoiding the toilets completely, sacrificing at least one lamb per room and asking the kids to sleep in the oven while the Jinns are fooled by life-sized mannequins in their beds.

There's an entire subgenre of travel literature about English people who seek out better weather and spicier food than they find at home. In The Caliph's House, travel writer Tahir Shah shares his family's experiences with Dar Khlalifa, a ramshackle old estate in one of…
FictionHistorical Fiction

An epic re-creation of the Civil War

Review by bookpagedev

William R. Trotter has crafted a magnificent Civil War novel, epic in proportion and sweeping in its treatment of the last three years of that bloody conflict. The setting is North Carolina, a theater of the war rarely touched on in most historical accounts. Yet North Carolina was pivotal to the Confederate cause.

Wilmington is the center of the action, largely because of Fort Fisher, the biggest earthen fortification in the South. It embraced a mile of sea defenses, a third of a mile of land defenses. From under its protection poured the commerce so vital to the Confederate states. Because it was built of sand and dirt, naval shelling tended to throw up geysers of the mix without major damage to the fortification or its gun crews. Trotter is a masterful storyteller, and he makes the characters real and imaginary come alive for the reader. There is William Lamb, the fortress-building engineer; Belle O’Neil, the seductive siren and Confederate spy; Jacob Landau, the Bavarian Jew and prominent Wilmington merchant; Gen. Benjamin Butler, a vicious political infighter and corrupt official of the Union; and there is Zebulon Vance, governor of North Carolina and one of the Confederacy’s great political figures. Quite a few more lives are closely intertwined in the spinning tornado of a terrible war.

In a couple of instances, Trotter has fudged a bit with history, which he freely admits in an author’s note. There is no Shelborne’s Point or Uhwarrie River. Nor was there a CSS Hatteras. But these are minor matters, used only to move the story along faster.

Fans of Civil War narratives should be thrilled with Trotter’s latest effort, but casual readers with little interest in history should also find it enchanting and hard to put down. The author tells a gripping story of history very well indeed. Lloyd Armour is a retired newspaper editor.

William R. Trotter has crafted a magnificent Civil War novel, epic in proportion and sweeping in its treatment of the last three years of that bloody conflict. The setting is North Carolina, a theater of the war rarely touched on in most historical accounts. Yet…
Travel

Paris when it sizzles

Review by bookpagedev

The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the eight days I was there. None of that mattered; all was just as it should have been. Drinking hot chocolate at Angelina’s, walking home in the rain after a 21-sample cheese-tasting, or watching street vendors sell Eiffel Tower trinkets under the real thing, Paris was wonderful. This spring, two books give readers the chance to live or relive the dream of spending April or indeed any time in Paris.

Paris is to haute cuisine as it is to haute couture. Understandably, Gourmet has featured stories about the city since the magazine’s inception. Many of these essays have been collected in Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing From Gourmet. Far from consisting only of food stories though the pieces on particular restaurants, chefs or dishes are, well, scrumptious the writings are also portraits of the city itself, its inhabitants and those fortunate enough to land assignments there. They range from Don Dresden writing about how chefs and customers alike cope with the cream and butter shortages of postwar Paris to Joseph Wechsberg (author of several pieces in the book) writing about the lost joy of walking through the city. But food is the main topic of Remembrance of Things Paris and reading it on an empty stomach is probably not a good idea.

Foodies and fashionistas aren’t the only ones attracted to the French capital, as demonstrated by the wide assortment of writers found in Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology, edited by Adam Gopnik. This fascinating collection is arranged chronologically starting with pieces by influential thinkers such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams and Thomas Paine. Popular culture is represented by a Cole Porter lyric, an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and a piece by modern dancer Isadora Duncan. James Baldwin writes of spending Christmas in a Paris jail, while James Weldon Johnson head of the NAACP in the 1920s writes of experiencing equality for the first time during a 1905 visit. The variety of people represented in the book from Mark Twain to Elizabeth Bishop to M.L.K. Fischer, for example and the wide spectrum of their experiences gives Americans in Paris a broad appeal, making it accessible to an audience beyond that of Francophiles and lovers of literature.

Both these books are good for reminiscing about or anticipating a trip to Paris. Read them from a comfortable chair at home, during a transatlantic flight or at a small cafe table in the city itself.

 

The last time I saw Paris all right, the only time I saw Paris was a few years ago in April. It was neither warm nor cold, which meant I had no chance of packing the right clothes, and it rained seven of the…

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