bookpagedev

Review

Review by bookpagedev

ust is everywhere, both on planet Earth and throughout the cosmos. Usually regarded as an annoyance at cleaning time, this humble substance actually plays an important role in everything from the formation of stars to the falling of rain. A new book by noted science writer Hannah Holmes proves that the subject of dust is anything but dry.

In The Secret Life of Dust Holmes tells us that the substance which comes in a bewildering array of shapes, sizes and compositions may also be responsible for the extinction of several species, including the dinosaurs and, perhaps in time, our own. Holmes’ fascinating and deeply researched account assembles the views of a number of scientists who devoted their careers to studying this omnipresent substance. Dust coalesced billions of years ago to form the first stars, which in turn manufactured heavier atoms such as carbon, the basic building block of terrestrial life. When stars explode, they shatter into huge glowing clouds of gas and dust that become nurseries for new stars. Dark clouds of interstellar dust, though, can block earthbound telescopes and obscure these and other celestial marvels. A good deal of dust is manmade. As Holmes reveals, people don’t just create it through agriculture and industry. Like Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip, each of us walks the earth in a cloud of dust, shedding fragments of skin and bits of lint torn from our clothes through friction. With all that dust around, Holmes’ look at the hazards it can pose is rather unsettling. A more immediate threat than some far-off nuclear winter, dust of various kinds kills people every day all over the world. Lung diseases such as silicosis affect desert dwellers who inhale tiny sand particles; people contract cancer from secondhand smoke; and babies play on floors that are the inevitable destination of gravity-bound lead and chemical dusts. A welcome addition to The Secret Life of Dust is an appendix of Web sites that illustrate Holmes’ intriguing revelations about the topic. A gifted writer, Holmes turns a seemingly unremarkable substance into the stuff of a great story.

Gregory Harris is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis.

ust is everywhere, both on planet Earth and throughout the cosmos. Usually regarded as an annoyance at cleaning time, this humble substance actually plays an important role in everything from the formation of stars to the falling of rain. A new book by noted science…
History

Sailing with Columbus

Review by bookpagedev

While the main events of history paint the picture of our past in broad strokes, it is often the lesser known stories that fill in the details and enrich our understanding of events. The Last Voyage of Columbus, a new book by Martin Dugard, is of the latter variety, and in it we find a figure who, while familiar, is more human and thus more interesting than the Christopher Columbus we know from history textbooks.

Columbus is, in many ways, one of the most complex and enigmatic figures in human history. While certainly a man of vision, he was also stubborn to the point of absurdity; he was a superb navigator and sailor who often had trouble with the sailors he led; he was handsome and charming, so much so that if Queen Isabella had been other than the devout Catholic she was, he could have been her lover. Dugard’s portrait of Columbus has its origins in the discovery of an ancient shipwreck at the mouth of a river in Panama. While the evidence is inconclusive, it is possible that the wreckage is that of the La Vizcaina, one of four ships Columbus took on his fourth trip to the New World. This journey was more than Columbus’ last voyage it was his last shot. While Columbus fancied himself the administrator of all the lands he discovered, in truth there was nothing he could do to stop the flood of humanity to the New World. His only chance at everlasting glory (he thought) was to find China, or at least discover a way to get there. In pursuit of that goal, Columbus endured becalmed seas, hostile natives, a horrific hurricane and eventually a devastating shipwreck before finally making his way home to die two years later.

As Dugard shows us in this remarkable book, while Columbus may have thought himself a failure, and while he remained virtually unremembered for a couple of centuries thereafter (Amerigo Vespucci was mistakenly credited with the discovery), the truth finally resurfaced. And amazingly, the wrecked ship in Panama tells us that Columbus may have come within 38 miles of seeing his goal, the Pacific Ocean.

While the main events of history paint the picture of our past in broad strokes, it is often the lesser known stories that fill in the details and enrich our understanding of events. The Last Voyage of Columbus, a new book by Martin Dugard,…
Nature

Review

Review by bookpagedev

omething amazing started in the late 1970s and continues to this day. Whales, the largest mammals on earth and killers in self-defense of many men, began to show a willingness, indeed an eagerness, to be friends with humankind to a degree never before recorded. From gently nudging boats to begging to be petted, the behavioral turnaround among these behemoth creatures has captivated the imaginations and affections of thousands of whalewatchers.

Eye of the Whale offers a persuasive and very readable study of the current state of whale-human affairs. Those who are sympathetic (like me) to the whales’ cause will find equal grounds in the book for alarm and hope. From Baja California, the birthing and nursing waters of the Eastern Pacific gray whale, to Siberia, where the Western Pacific population is on the verge of oblivion, environmental writer and activist (he was instrumental in saving the Atlantic striped bass) Dick Russell follows the migration pattern of the gentle giant. He seems to examine almost everyone and everything along the way that might have an effect on the creatures’ progress from geography and economics to the human heart itself.

Giving thrust to the story is the ongoing environmental fight against Mitsubishi, one of the largest corporations in the world, which sought to commercialize the Baja beaches resulting in the inevitable destruction of gray whale habitat. Another constant presence is that of Charles Melville Scammon, a 19th century whaler and sea captain whose written descriptions and drawings of whales and other sea creatures, landscapes and natural phenomena are included in the book and reveal a 21st century sensitivity.

“That intense, that immense and impeccable, eye” of the whale seems to cast a mythic spell over all those, even enemies, who have gazed into it up close. The number of the spellbound is increasing. Bruce Mate, an Illinois marine biologist interviewed by Russell, sees whales as avatars of a whole new world not all that far in the future. “I think, probably, in our children’s generation, we’re going to see remarkable changes in our relationships with certain forms of wildlife,” he says.

If so, Eye of the Whale will have played, in its enthralling way, a small but important role in the transformation.

Maude McDaniel writes from Cumberland, Maryland.

omething amazing started in the late 1970s and continues to this day. Whales, the largest mammals on earth and killers in self-defense of many men, began to show a willingness, indeed an eagerness, to be friends with humankind to a degree never before recorded. From…
Memoir

Life with father

Review by bookpagedev

Thomas Fleming’s Mysteries of My Father: An Irish-American Memoir is a heartening, sometimes painful, instructive tale about immigration that humanizes the ethnic clashes and odd dynamics cinematically explored in such films as Gangs of New York and In America. Fleming examines his father Teddy’s life with a mixture of anguish, warmth, admiration, exasperation and, ultimately, respect and love. Teddy Fleming is depicted as a strong-willed, wily individual, extremely devoted to his wife and son, but not always able to articulate his emotions or handle the turmoil inherent in his career as a politician in New Jersey. But he instills in his son the importance of loyalty, integrity and personal strength. Fleming, a noted historian and the author of 40 books, adeptly divides his territory here into biographical, reflective and analytical portions, paralleling his personal development and evolution with that of his parents. He takes the reader inside a colorful and sometimes rather bizarre environment in the process. Most importantly, Fleming shows how the lessons gleaned from his father and mother positively affected later choices he made. He also provides insight into early 20th-century urban America, using Jersey City as a mirror of an era when political maneuvering and strategy were far less subtle and community identity was the key ingredient in determining one’s destiny.

Mysteries of My Father opens with the moving story of the return of a gold ring Fleming had been given by his father. The ring had been lost three decades earlier while he was visiting the Argonne battlefield, the same place his father had fought in World War I. From that gripping start, the book simultaneously presents the history of the Fleming family and a wonderful coming-of-age narrative. These twin chronicles vividly show the reader how and why Thomas Fleming’s father played such a key role in his life and reaffirm the importance of parenthood in shaping one’s character. Ron Wynn writes for the Nashville City Paper.

Thomas Fleming's Mysteries of My Father: An Irish-American Memoir is a heartening, sometimes painful, instructive tale about immigration that humanizes the ethnic clashes and odd dynamics cinematically explored in such films as Gangs of New York and In America. Fleming examines his father Teddy's life…
Nature

Review

Review by bookpagedev

dward Abbey, the staunch defender of the natural world, can quit turning over in his grave now. His torch has been retrieved and lifted high by Kathleen Meyer, an environmental writer with as much wit and stylistic color as the man himself. Meyer’s Barefoot-Hearted is, in part, the story of her romance with Patrick McCarron, an old-fashioned blacksmith of Irish descent with whom she shares a rodent-infested, fly-ridden barn in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. Meyer proves once again that the material for great writing is almost always close at hand. You might think of flies, mice and bats as vermin, but through close observations of these intruders and much scientific and anecdotal research, Meyer turns her life with these critters into a complex treatise on man’s often unconscious inhumanity to wildlife. “Who is the real intruder here?” Meyer frequently asks. She is one of those rare writers who can pile on the zoological detail and make it as compelling as an Agatha Christie chiller. The book’s centerpiece is a chapter on bear cubs orphaned by hunters and high-speed drivers, and the animal advocates who undertake heroic measures to save them from animal control gas chambers. It’s a fascinating and sympathetic portrait of the American Black Bear, a creature, it seems, much more sinned against (by encroaching development, hunting and reckless huckleberry harvesting) than sinner. When she’s not regaling her readers with the sex life of the skunks who live under her barn, Meyer entertains with scenes from her relationship with McCarron, whose immunity to suburban conditioning makes her own environmentalism pale to light green by comparison. We’re talking here about a man who refuses to use pesticides, indoor plumbing or gasoline-powered vehicles. At one point in their adventure together, Meyer points to a pesky fly on her beloved’s shoulder. Patrick looks at the fly, looks back at Kathleen and says, “Pretend it’s a parrot.” The only reservation I have in recommending this memoir is that you may become so addicted to Meyer’s prose, you’ll want to read all her other books immediately. Unfortunately, there’s only one: the international bestseller How to Shit in the Woods. Kathleen, don’t make us wait 10 years for the next one! Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

dward Abbey, the staunch defender of the natural world, can quit turning over in his grave now. His torch has been retrieved and lifted high by Kathleen Meyer, an environmental writer with as much wit and stylistic color as the man himself. Meyer's Barefoot-Hearted is,…
Biography

A chef who wished upon a star

Review by bookpagedev

Most stars twinkle benignly from the heavens, enchanting us with their magical shine. But in the fevered firmament of haute cuisine, there are stars of a different sort that beam their powerful, far-reaching light from the pages of Le Guide Michelin, the hallowed culinary guidebook upon which a chef’s reputation can, like the proverbial souffle, rise or fall. In The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine, journalist Rudolph Chelminski chronicles the ill-fated career of celebrated three-star French chef Bernard Loiseau. A longtime friend of Loiseau, Chelminski renders a compassionate, though objective, portrait, including a succinct history and expose of the French food scene. Bernard Loiseau, like most of his famous culinary colleagues, began his cook’s life at the very bottom. From his grueling apprenticeship in the kitchens of Les Freres Troisgros (Chefs Jean and Pierre Troisgros’ famed three-star establishment), to his first day as head chef in a small Paris bistro, Loiseau had a single goal: to earn three Michelin stars. Thus, he lived a manic life of relentless toil, a punishing schedule of 16-hour days filled with the endless perfecting of his cuisine, constant public relations efforts and little-to-no time off. Eventually acquiring a once-legendary hotel and restaurant, La Cote d’Or, in the small town of Saulieu, Loiseau worked himself and his dedicated staff obsessively, finally garnering Michelin’s highest honor. The cost, though, was dear: on the afternoon of February 24, 2003, exhausted and worried about rumors that Michelin intended to rescind one of his coveted stars, the 52-year-old chef shot himself. Inevitable sorrow and industry outrage followed in the wake of this tragedy. Like a cathartic, Bernard’s desperate act released a torrent of feelings . . . that had been bottled up within the profession for decades, writes Chelminski.

Shortly before he died, fearing his fall from culinary stardom, Loiseau admitted to Chelminski, I pass my time trembling. Anyone who has ever dined in a Michelin-starred Gallic temple of gastronomy and even those of us for whom that experience awaits will find this revealing foray into the draconian, uber-competitive echelons of high cuisine fascinating if a bit repelling. Alison Hood trained as a chef, but left her toque behind for the writing life.

 

Most stars twinkle benignly from the heavens, enchanting us with their magical shine. But in the fevered firmament of haute cuisine, there are stars of a different sort that beam their powerful, far-reaching light from the pages of Le Guide Michelin, the hallowed culinary…

Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

reporter Jim Huber tells the story of his father’s terminal illness and the transformative effect it had on their relationship in his fine new memoir, A Thousand Goodbyes. In their last six months together, Huber and his father bridged the emotional distance that had lain between them for years to find authentic compassion and love. An Emmy award-winning journalist, Huber, in telling the life story of his father, realized for the first time that his success grew not only from his own hard work, but from the foundation provided by his parents. It’s an emotional journey that he writes about with admirable honesty and a fresh eye for the father-son relationship.

In 1998, 78-year-old Bob Huber discovered he had liver disease, apparently resulting from a tainted blood transfusion nearly five decades earlier. Despite the diagnosis, Huber, who worked as an underwater welder in the Pacific during World War II and delivered mail in Ocala, Florida, before retiring, displayed a strength of character his son could only admire. Huber has produced a poignant memoir in the spirit of Tuesdays with Morrie. The book artfully weaves together stories of Huber, his father and the scores of celebrities and everyday people the author encountered in his role as a sports journalist. Personal anecdotes of golf greats Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and other sports heroes are included.

Though he reported touching stories for his television show The Sporting Life, this time around, Huber is participant rather than reporter. He handles his new role with grace and skill, consistently avoiding the twin ditches of oversweet sentimentality and forced drama that mar so many memoirs. Huber brings the reader along in such a way that he or she is not expected to merely mourn with him. Instead, readers are invited to share in a more complex realization about universal themes how we are changed forever by what we desire and by the preciousness of our relationships with those we love.

Michael Epps Utley writes from Nashville.

reporter Jim Huber tells the story of his father's terminal illness and the transformative effect it had on their relationship in his fine new memoir, A Thousand Goodbyes. In their last six months together, Huber and his father bridged the emotional distance that had lain…
Children's & YA

The true story behind a sweet treat

Review by bookpagedev

Where do ice cream cones come from? Perhaps this isn’t the most perplexing question on anybody’s mind these days, but it’s a surprisingly controversial one. Just in time for the 100th anniversary of the invention of the sweet treat, author and illustrator Elaine Greenstein explores the intriguing origins of the cone in an effort to get to the bottom of a century-old mystery. Six men and one woman all claimed to have invented the ice cream cone, but only one thing is certain: children were enjoying the tasty treats at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. There’s even a picture to prove it! So who thought of the cold creation first? Some say it was Arnold Fornachou, an ice cream vendor at the World’s Fair. Others say it was Ernest Hamwi, a waffle vendor in the stand next to him. Some claim Abe Doumar, a souvenir vendor, dreamed up the cones. Others are sure it was David Avayou, who said he got the idea from “all those fancy paper cones he saw used in Paris.” And another candidate, Charles Menches, claims he got the idea from a lady friend when she handed him flowers. But who is the true inventor? Greenstein thinks she knows.

From the stalls of the St. Louis World’s Fair, to the gardens of Paris, to the streets of New York City, the author follows many leads, capturing along the way the energy of life in the early 20th century through her candy-colored artwork.

Greenstein’s detailed research and delightful prose make this colorful book a tantalizing page-turner. And since there doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence on how the true inventor came up with his (or her) idea Greenstein helps us imagine how it could have come about.

Regardless of who invented this summertime favorite (or what kind of cone one enjoys the most: wafer or waffle), Greenstein has gotten to the bottom of one very important truth: It’s a bad idea to bite the bottom of the cone when there’s ice cream in it! Heidi Henneman writes from San Francisco.

Where do ice cream cones come from? Perhaps this isn't the most perplexing question on anybody's mind these days, but it's a surprisingly controversial one. Just in time for the 100th anniversary of the invention of the sweet treat, author and illustrator Elaine Greenstein explores…
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

A mind-bending clash of worlds

Review by bookpagedev

English writer Charles Stross, whose books burst with pop-science ideas, intrigue, strong characters and even romance, continues his Merchant Princes series with the release this month of The Hidden Family. The series, launched just last December in the U.S. with the publication of The Family Trade, perhaps more accurately could be titled the Merchant Princesses, since the novels focus on journalist Miriam Beckstein and her cadre of mostly female co-conspirators.

Beckstein, who grew up an orphan in the Boston area, previously discovered she had an unknown identity as a long-thought-dead heir on a parallel Earth. This pre-industrial other world is ruled by aristocratic clans who can walk between their world and ours. Beckstein’s reappearance throws a wrench in the plans of a number of the clans and she is almost immediately targeted for assassination. To make things worse, everyone she meets seems to have a second, or even a third, allegiance. However, she also discovers that the clans have a secret enemy, a family of world-walkers who have been fomenting inter-clan war.

Working with her best friend from our contemporary world and two young family aristocrats, Beckstein tries to stay alive, works on the mystery of who murdered her mother and investigates new ways for the clans to use world-walking to their financial advantage. Their wealth has been predicated on being able to move goods without going through customs, but dodging the law only works when everyone involved is on the same side.

Stross is an energetic writer (with another much-anticipated science fiction novel, Accelerando, due next month) who creates page-turning reads. If his endings don’t quite hold up, it is a minor drawback that doesn’t spoil the fun. Readers will be relieved to learn that there is a lot to look forward to in The Hidden Family, including a finale that is all Gothic romance: regrets, a ball and a happy reunion.

Gavin J. Grant runs Small Beer Press in Northampton, Massachusetts.

English writer Charles Stross, whose books burst with pop-science ideas, intrigue, strong characters and even romance, continues his Merchant Princes series with the release this month of The Hidden Family. The series, launched just last December in the U.S. with the publication of The Family…

Leaders who don’t suck

Review by bookpagedev

<B>Leaders who don’t suck</B> The call to action from Bill George, the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, seems easy, but it may turn out to be harder than fixing "sucky" marketing or fine-tuning corporate strategy. In <B>Authentic Leadership</B>, George says that being a successful leader isn’t about adopting the latest style or persona, but about "being yourself, being the person you were created to be." Part biography, part Medtronic history, George’s story is a return to the heart and values that today’s CEOs desperately need. No one can dispute the leadership of the man who turned Medtronic into the world’s leading medical technology company, but George is the first to admit his faults. The competitive Harvard MBA grad who struggled to overcome his arrogance identifies and explains the five components of an authentic leader: purpose, values, heart, relationships and self-discipline. Plenty of personal stories describe how these qualities are represented by winning CEOs and companies.

It’s easy to see why George made such an inspiring leader. Not only are his timeless lessons compelling, but he also leaves the reader wanting to know more about the personal challenges and background that formed such important values.

<B>Leaders who don't suck</B> The call to action from Bill George, the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, seems easy, but it may turn out to be harder than fixing "sucky" marketing or fine-tuning corporate strategy. In <B>Authentic Leadership</B>, George says that being a successful…

Biography

Review

Review by bookpagedev

So much has been written about the controversial African-American author Richard Wright, who penned Black Boy and Native Son. There are four biographies, including the adoring 1973 book by Frenchman Michel Fabre and the scathing, no-holds-barred 1988 work by black poet Margaret Walker. Of the books written on Wright to date, the new biography by Hazel Rowley is more informative, comprehensive and insightful than any of the earlier efforts. Scouring the 136 boxes of Wright’s memorabilia at Yale University and hunting down letters written by the author to people around the world, Rowley has constructed a more complex, detailed view of Wright than previously seen. She explores his early impoverished beginnings in Mississippi, his time as a struggling writer in Chicago, his flirtation with the Communist Party, his critical and popular successes with his early novels and the later, more complicated works of his European years. His fascination with French philosophy and his harassment by the American government also receive fascinating treatment.

For Rowley, the artistic Wright and the political Wright are one. Always searching for a deeper understanding of himself and a truer writing voice, Wright hated compromise. Whether he was protesting the crushing discrimination of Jim Crow in his brilliant short story collections or speaking out against the global repercussions of colonialism in his later nonfiction books, his was a voice to be reckoned with.

It is to Rowley’s credit that she pulls no punches in showing how Wright’s work met with intense resistance from editors and publishers, who forced him to rewrite large sections of his narratives because of their frank content about racism. Her disclosures about Wright as a lover, social animal, father and husband are particularly revealing, especially those concerning his interracial marriage a bond that was both unlawful and taboo at the time.

In the closing chapters, Rowley chronicles the decline of Wright’s skills and health as he worked even harder to analyze a world in total political and cultural flux. He was a man who never stopped writing, and many of his works remain unpublished. Overall, Rowley’s is a definitive, well-written biography of a major author, an African American who helped change how this country discussed issues of race, sex and culture. This is a superb book from start to finish.

Robert Fleming is the author of The African American Writer’s Handbook (Ballantine).

 

So much has been written about the controversial African-American author Richard Wright, who penned Black Boy and Native Son. There are four biographies, including the adoring 1973 book by Frenchman Michel Fabre and the scathing, no-holds-barred 1988 work by black poet Margaret Walker. Of the…

FictionWorld Fiction

A Spanish hero for the ages

Review by bookpagedev

If any country continues to clothe itself in the cloak of its history, it is Spain. Gloriously proud of their short-lived arc as a world power following Spain’s conquest of the New World, Spaniards are at the same time defensive of the aristocratic excesses of their blue-blooded imperials. Out of this dichotomy, Arturo PŽrez-Reverte has fashioned a hero as fine and tempered as the blade of Toledo steel he has mastered Captain Diego Alatriste, swordsman for hire.

PŽrez-Reverte’s reputation as a writer who seamlessly blends intellectual stimulation with breathless action was richly burnished with his last novel, The Queen of the South. In Captain Alatriste, which is the first of a series written years ago and now being released in English, the author visits an era when the glitter of New World gold masks a terrible truth Imperial Spain is corrupt and dying. Dukes and counts jockey for a playboy king’s favor, common Spaniards live on centavos and the Grand Inquisition still casts its fanatic shadow over them all. Woven through the book is a sense of desperation, of time slipping away as Spain squanders her fortune and her soldiers.

Amid the intrigue and betrayal, Diego Alatriste clings to the triple truths that govern a Spanish caballero’s life: honor, courage and friendship. Wounded during the Thirty Years’ War, Alatriste hires out his blade and raises the son of a dead comrade. Accepting a contract to waylay two English travelers, Alatriste’s refusal to butcher a courageous man sends ripples through the Spanish court, the Inquisition and the English monarchy. Suspenseful and literate, Captain Alatriste is a novel to be savored, and Alatriste himself is a man to be admired, but from a distance, lest the steel in his blade and his soul prove too high a standard. He is not just a hero he is all that Spain aspired to be, and, for too brief a time, might have been. Jorge Antonio Renaud writes from Texas.

If any country continues to clothe itself in the cloak of its history, it is Spain. Gloriously proud of their short-lived arc as a world power following Spain's conquest of the New World, Spaniards are at the same time defensive of the aristocratic excesses of…

Take some action

Review by bookpagedev

If you aren’t sure about Stevens’ far-out scheme, maybe you’d like some more traditional advice. Brian Tracy has years of experience as a strategist with over 500 companies worldwide. The short, intense chapters of his new book, Turbostrategy, quickly get to the point: Figure out what’s working and do more of it. Find out what’s not working and stop doing it.

It’s tough to put the brakes on a product or person that you love, but for the sake of profits, Tracy says, you gotta do what you gotta do. That’s the basis of “zero-based thinking” instead of struggling to fix, change or improve, you throw in the towel. The elegant simplicity of this strategy is what makes it so appealing. Why shouldn’t work be less work? Companies that have the guts to take an honest look at their products, customers and vendors and fire some of them will reap the rewards.

Tracy’s advice is geared to senior managers and CEOs, the folks with the decision power to make big changes (and the people most likely to attend his seminars), but anyone striving for a fast, flexible organization or career will appreciate this book.

If you aren't sure about Stevens' far-out scheme, maybe you'd like some more traditional advice. Brian Tracy has years of experience as a strategist with over 500 companies worldwide. The short, intense chapters of his new book, Turbostrategy, quickly get to the point: Figure…

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