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The Icon and the Idealist

The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
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Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

John Naisbitt first developed the concept of high tech, high touch in his 1982 bestseller Megatrends. He theorized that in a world of technology, people long for personal, human contact.

Naisbitt re-examines this idea in his latest book, High Tech/High Touch.

What an appropriate time to be checking our technological pulse, an age when most everyone is wired with pagers, cell phones, e-mail, voice mail, and faxes. Ê High Tech/High Touch states its premise up front: The two biggest markets in the United States are consumer technology and escape from consumer technology. It then proceeds to chronicle the advancement of technology in our lives, the dangers it imposes, and our instinct to both embrace and escape it.

The authors gathered their research by culling thousands of newspaper articles and interviewing dozens of experts in science, medicine, sociology, psychology, education, business, and theology. They seek to pinpoint where we are today, and provide us with a roadmap for the future. They place us in what they call a Technologically Intoxicated Zone, a netherworld where we are bombarded with technological stimuli. Here is their partial list of the symptoms: we fear and worship technology; we blur the distinction between real and fake; we accept violence as normal; and we live our lives distanced and distracted.

And how do we struggle to bring the high touch back into our lives? According to the authors, we seek meaning through religion; we buy self-help books; we pop Prozac, Viagra, and other supplements; we seek a tangential connection to nature by driving sports utility vehicles and buying clothes from L.

L. Bean.

There are no surprising revelations in High Tech/High Touch. Every trend and development outlined seems obvious. And the authors offer no unique answers to save us from our technological overload. Their solutions are simple: pull the plug on the computer and TV, turn off the cell phone and beeper, and spend more time with family and friends.

The book isn’t so much a crystal ball as it is a mirror, allowing us to reflect and leaving us to decide whether there is too much high technology and too little humanness in our lives. ¦ John T. Slania is a freelance writer and journalism professor in Chicago.

John Naisbitt first developed the concept of high tech, high touch in his 1982 bestseller Megatrends. He theorized that in a world of technology, people long for personal, human contact.

Naisbitt re-examines this idea in his latest book, High Tech/High Touch.
…

Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

One of the most significant changes in the last 20 years has been the development and awe-inspiring acceptance of the World Wide Web. People use the Web to communicate around the globe. The story of how such technology came to prominence is engrossing, particularly when the creator of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, writes it himself, as he does in Weaving the Web.

From the early days in the 1980s when the author was developing the Web in one lab in Switzerland to the ubiquitous technology used by countless millions today, the author details the roadblocks and breakthroughs that built the World Wide Web. It is the story of twin development: the technology and software to access the Web, and the creation of a vast world-wide infrastructure of servers and information to populate the Web. Berners-Lee effectively walks the line by giving enough technical details for the reader to understand what went into the Web’s creation without drowning the average non-technical reader in computer science lingo and archaic programming terms. Berners-Lee spends more time discussing the psychology of how he conceived the Web, and how he wanted the pieces and details to work together.

No technology is developed in a vacuum, however, and Berners-Lee does an excellent job of giving credit to those whose inventions and inspirations gave the Web key boosts during its nascent stages. In fact, the egos and personalities that had to mesh for the Web to work make for some lively reading and give what could have been a book solely about technology an added depth.

Most interesting, however, is the author’s view of the World Wide Web’s future. The technological leap the Web has made is but a small step compared to the direction Berners-Lee would like it to go. In the last two chapters of the book, he proposes a future Web that has profound and lasting social and business effects that are not even considered today, and if his future endeavors match the tireless effort he put into the Web’s first 20 years, it is easy to imagine what his follow-up book will detail. ¦ Dean Miller is an associate publisher for Que computer books and a freelance writer based in Carmel, Indiana.

One of the most significant changes in the last 20 years has been the development and awe-inspiring acceptance of the World Wide Web. People use the Web to communicate around the globe. The story of how such technology came to prominence is engrossing, particularly when…

NonfictionMemoir

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

In 2011, the Chinese government imprisoned the prolific artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei for 81 days on charges of “economic crimes”—though the real reason was his outspoken political activism. Though harrowing, the experience spurred Ai Weiwei to see the parallels between his father’s tumultuous life and his own. Now, in his moving and passionate memoir, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, Ai Weiwei looks back on growing up during China’s Cultural Revolution and recounts the extraordinary life of his father, the exiled poet Ai Qing.

The first half of the memoir is dedicated to Ai Qing, who, along with his family, was forced into exile in 1957, the year Ai Weiwei was born. Because of his status as a writer and poet, and his strained relationship with the Communist regime, Ai Qing was viewed as a threat and forced to do back-breaking work in a labor camp, such as cleaning camp latrines and pruning forests, all while facing constant public humiliation and sometimes physical abuse. As conditions became more dangerous for political prisoners under Chairman Mao Zedong’s rule, Ai Qing’s family was relocated several times, with precipitously worsening conditions. At one point, they were sent to “Little Siberia” in northeast China, where they were forced to live in a lice- and rat-infested dugout.

Through it all, Ai Qing remained stoic and never allowed anything to break his spirit. He did his work well, never complained and waited patiently for the punishment to end. Although Ai Weiwei was still a child at the time, he, too, knew better than to complain. He hated the blind obedience to Mao but understood that it was necessary. After Mao’s death in 1976, Ai Weiwei’s family moved to Beijing, and in 1979, Ai Qing was considered fully rehabilitated by the government and no longer a “rightist.” He continued writing and publishing poetry, and one of his poems was read during the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The second half of the memoir turns to Ai Weiwei’s life—his artistic study in the United States, his move back to Beijing, his career as an artist and his many encounters with political censorship. He writes of his arrest and imprisonment with clarity and detail, and readers can feel the anxiety of political turmoil and the power of disobedience as he defies Chinese authorities, over and over again.

Sprinkled throughout the book are lovely black-and-white sketches and drawings by Ai Weiwei, as well as many of his father’s emotive poems. These pieces of art remind readers that, although this memoir is a political and personal history, Ai Weiwei is first and foremost committed to artistic expression.

This heart-rending yet exhilarating book, translated by professor of Chinese Allan H. Barr, gives a rare look into how war and revolution affect innocent bystanders who are just trying to live. It’s simultaneously an informative political history of the last 100 years in China, an intimate portrait of familial bonds through the generations and a testament to the power of art.

Ai Weiwei’s heartrending yet exhilarating memoir gives a rare look into how war and revolution affect innocent bystanders who are just trying to live.
Memoir

A delicious behind-the-scenes look at the rich and famous

Review by bookpagedev

From our archives: the 1999 photo memoir from Dunne, who died at age 83 on August 26.
Dominick Dunne, author of such best-selling novels as The Two Mrs. Grenvilles and An Inconvenient Woman, gets behind the camera, literally and figuratively, as he dishes the dirt on his Hollywood and society cronies in this deliciously tawdry volume.

The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper is aptly subtitled, since the author spends most of the pages talking about the fabulous people he has met throughout a long, if not always distinguished, career in the film and television industries. Dunne’s photographs of the rich and famous are a major component of the book. The snapshots of family and friends are at least as entertaining as the text.

Dunne was born into a well-heeled family in Connecticut, went to the right schools, met the right people, married the right woman. He decided at a young age what he wanted to do with his life: I had always been star-struck, one of those kids who preferred movie magazines to baseball cards. His early days as a stage manager opened many doors. Life became a series of parties and get-togethers with the likes of Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Roddy McDowell, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and countless others. And, to be fair, the social circles included not just the stars, but those around them hairstylists, chauffeurs, and secretaries are treated with respect and affection as well.

But Dunne writes not only of the good times. He imparts, with painful honesty, how he got caught up in the drug culture of the ’60s. That, coupled with the breakup of his marriage, carried him down into a period of desperation. The bottom fell out when he was arrested for trying to smuggle marijuana across the Mexican border. Though he managed to avoid incarceration, he fell out of favor with those with whom he had found such fascination and entertainment. To paraphrase Dunne: There is no sin except failure. The ostracism sent him to the brink of suicide.

His money running out, Dunne fled to the seclusion of Oregon where he managed to turn his life around. Drawing on people and events from his past, he began his second career as a novelist and essayist. Dunne’s experiences are certainly not representative of most folks’ lives, but for those who love the behind-the-scenes stories, The Way We Lived Then would make an excellent selection.

From our archives: the 1999 photo memoir from Dunne, who died at age 83 on August 26.
Dominick Dunne, author of such best-selling novels as The Two Mrs. Grenvilles and An Inconvenient Woman, gets behind the camera, literally and figuratively, as he dishes the…

Baggage

In Cumming’s second memoir, he pivots easily from sassy and self-effacing to sensitive and serious, perhaps because he embodies all those qualities himself.
Biography

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston’s life was one big question mark.

Liston didn’t know how old he was at any point in his life. He didn’t know how many brothers and sisters he had, although it was at least 10. Liston grew up dirt poor and virtually without education in Arkansas. About all he learned was that life was hard, and he could beat up anyone around.

All of those facts helped set Liston on his life’s path, in which he made large amounts of money . . . for other people. Fittingly, when police found his body in Las Vegas in 1970, they weren’t sure how he died or how long he’d been dead.

If all that weren’t enough, Liston was the wrong man at the wrong place when he was champion. America was nervously going through the civil rights movement in the early 1960s; she didn’t really want the title-holder to be a seemingly invincible Negro, as his race was called then who kept getting arrested and was said to have connections to organized crime.

It’s all fertile material for a new biography, particularly with the perspective of time, and Nick Tosches dives right in with his book, The Devil and Sonny Liston. The most impressive part of the volume is its research. Tosches interviewed almost every shady character who ever encountered Liston, and there were plenty of them. Tosches takes a different approach to biography in this book, and it reads as if it belongs in the true crime section of the bookstore. The actual boxing matches are given little attention. Instead, Liston’s early life and his connections with the mob are explored in depth. That’s a good decision on Tosches’s part. After all, there are other places you can read about Liston’s boxing career, but this book goes into previously uncharted territory. And the story is told in a breezy, adult, rat-tat-tat style that would have been right at home in the movie L.A. Confidential.

The Devil and Sonny Liston is an interesting look at an elusive star athlete and personality. It’s nice to see someone supply answers to some of those questions about Liston’s life.

Budd Bailey writes from Buffalo, New York.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston's life was one big question mark.

Liston didn't know how old he was at any point in his life. He didn't know how many brothers and sisters he had, although it was at least 10. Liston…

Bessie Smith

Jackie Kay’s biography of blues legend Bessie Smith is a mesmerizing, fierce mix of sorrow, love and resilience.
Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

A good memoir can be written about a series of interesting events, but the best memoirs have a unifying theme. Betty Fussell, food writer and food history expert, has written a unique memoir about her life in food and war. Reading My Kitchen Wars is as enjoyable as watching a gourmet cook or listening to an artist talk about her passions.

Fussell is not the first to relate food to war: The French refer to cooking utensils as batterie de cuisine, literally, the artillery of the kitchen. Fussell’s first months in the kitchen were indeed a struggle. She was no bargain of a wife and didn’t even know how to cook spaghetti. Her journey from simple macaroni and cheese to the awesomely elaborate menus of her dinner parties will impress and inspire. By the time women are taking off their symbolic aprons and leaving the kitchen, Fussell doesn’t want to, and you applaud her, because you know it’s a conscious choice. It’s fascinating to see how much things have changed since Fussell was a young woman. She describes her personal experience in terms of the general social trends of each decade, relating especially interesting and outdated tidbits, like Julia Child’s recommendation for an asbestos sheet in the oven, or the fact that men haven’t always been tending the barbecue.

My Kitchen Wars is also about the separation of men and women. The first real wall Fussell sees between them is war, which marks the men with an experience the women cannot know. They are divided once again and forever by domestic duty.

A good memoir can be written about a series of interesting events, but the best memoirs have a unifying theme. Betty Fussell, food writer and food history expert, has written a unique memoir about her life in food and war. Reading My Kitchen Wars is…

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