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Golden Years

James Chappel’s thought-provoking Golden Years offers strategies to understand and address the needs of America’s aging population.
James Chappel’s thought-provoking Golden Years offers strategies to understand and address the needs of America’s aging population.
NonfictionArtLifestylesArt

About Face

Jonathan D. Katz’s About Face celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising with deep scholarship and thrilling artworks.
Jonathan D. Katz’s About Face celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising with deep scholarship and thrilling artworks.
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Business & Finance

A midlife crisis at 25

Review by bookpagedev

For the disillusioned 20-somethings who are dissatisfied with work, life and love, Jason Ryan Dorsey has a wake-up call. More than a career guide, My Reality Check Bounced: The Twentysomething’s Guide to Cashing In on Your Real-World Dreams tackles the ennui that many college grads feel after hitting the real-world rut of overtime and credit card bills. Dorsey’s message is one of empowerment: Stand up and create your own life. NOW. That’s what Dorsey did when he dropped out of college to self-publish his first book, Graduate to Your Perfect Job, now required reading at 1,500 schools. That experience lets Dorsey connect and empathize with his audience without sounding cynical. None of his concepts are groundbreaking, but Dorsey puts old ideas into today’s language. He gets readers motivated to wake up every morning by creating a future picture. Networking becomes plugging in and chapters end with instant messages that detail specific actions to start immediately. Included throughout are examples of self-defeating thoughts that bounce ( My happiness is out of my hands. ) and motivational ideas you can take to the bank ( How I feel about my life is determined by how I choose to live my life. ) For boomerangers, the restless grads who have moved back home with their parents and are awaiting pointers toward a new life, Dorsey’s message should serve as an emphatic kick in the butt.

For the disillusioned 20-somethings who are dissatisfied with work, life and love, Jason Ryan Dorsey has a wake-up call. More than a career guide, My Reality Check Bounced: The Twentysomething's Guide to Cashing In on Your Real-World Dreams tackles the ennui that many college grads…
NonfictionMilitary HistoryHistory

The brutal reality of the Vietnam War

Review by Pete Croatto

The literature of the Vietnam War does not feature much hagiography, just stories of inner torment, senseless deaths and shattered ideologies. What’s tragic—and overlooked—is that the soldiers were not the only ones who endured an unimaginable hell. In the sobering Kill Anything That Moves, Nick Turse provides an exhaustive account of how thousands upon thousands of innocent, unarmed South Vietnamese civilians were senselessly killed by a military that equated corpses with results.

Turse’s book, a graphic collection of rapes, shootings and wanton disregard for human life, is a difficult, frequently depressing affair. By the end, it reads as a parody of machismo taken to fatal, troubling extremes. But this actually happened. Who’s to say it won’t happen again?

Relying on interviews, government documents and other research, Turse breaks down how these atrocities came to pass. Recruits in basic training became killing machines; indeed, they were rewarded for a high number of kills. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s game plan for the war boiled down to “killing more enemies than their Vietnamese opponents could replace.” The U.S. military did little to protect Vietnamese civilians, essentially shooting anyone running away or wearing black. A bit of clerical fudging turned farmers, children and the elderly into kill-crazy Vietcong.

It went on like this for years, with the infamous massacre at My Lai serving as just the most publicized example. The incidents become a blur of awfulness, a rush of power run amok. Kill Anything That Moves is a staggering reminder that war has its gruesome subplots hidden underneath the headlines—but they’re even sadder when our heroes create them.

The literature of the Vietnam War does not feature much hagiography, just stories of inner torment, senseless deaths and shattered ideologies. What’s tragic—and overlooked—is that the soldiers were not the only ones who endured an unimaginable hell. In the sobering Kill Anything That Moves, Nick…

Biography

Leading man

Review by bookpagedev

One of Hollywood’s most likable stars, James Stewart was far more complex than his aw, shucks demeanor suggested. Marc Eliot has culled previously published information, Stewart’s personal notes and diaries, and a smattering of new interviews notably with Stewart’s daughter, as well as co-star Kim Novak for the insightful Jimmy Stewart: A Biography. Stewart’s personal life included romances with dazzling leading ladies (including Ginger Rogers and Marlene Dietrich), as well as heroic World War II military service and a patriotic devotion that didn’t waver with the death of his eldest son in Vietnam. His career spanned seven decades, and included a successful string of films with Alfred Hitchcock, as well as beloved classics like the Frank Capra-directed holiday chestnut, It’s a Wonderful Life. As Eliot’s book reveals, it truly was.

Los Angeles-based writer Pat H. Broeske is the co-author of biographies of Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley.

One of Hollywood's most likable stars, James Stewart was far more complex than his aw, shucks demeanor suggested. Marc Eliot has culled previously published information, Stewart's personal notes and diaries, and a smattering of new interviews notably with Stewart's daughter, as well as co-star Kim…
Biography

The Misses Hepburn

Review by bookpagedev

Alas, Audrey Hepburn was just 63 when she died. But the life she lived was fascinating, even inspirational, as revealed in Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn. Though veteran celebrity biographer Donald Spoto has largely relied on previously published materials, it’s the way he uses the information infusing it with passion for and knowledge of his subject that makes this book such a pleasure.

Belgian-born, raised in Holland under Nazi occupation, Hepburn grew up longing to become a ballerina. She instead became a London chorus girl, appeared in print ads for soap and shampoo, and got small film roles. By chance, she was spotted by the writer Colette who deemed her perfect for the lead role in the stage version of Gigi, about a Parisian girl raised to be a courtesan. And so the unknown 22-year-old became a Broadway star and won a Tony. She next starred opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, winning an Oscar. In the era of va-va-voom stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, the reed-thin, flat-chested Hepburn was decidedly unique. She also had an allure that captivated Givenchy who would go on to design the fabulous clothes that made her a style icon. But if she was the queen of chic in films such as Funny Face and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, beneath the poised demeanor was an inner sadness. Hepburn battled lifelong depression. There were numerous (discreet) affairs, some of them with co-stars, and two unsuccessful marriages. But, she found joy in motherhood, and as a former child of war, she empathized with the suffering children on whose behalf she tirelessly worked, through UNICEF.

Los Angeles-based writer Pat H. Broeske is the co-author of biographies of Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley.

Alas, Audrey Hepburn was just 63 when she died. But the life she lived was fascinating, even inspirational, as revealed in Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn. Though veteran celebrity biographer Donald Spoto has largely relied on previously published materials, it's the way he uses…
Biography

When father is famous

Review by Robert Weibezahl

Charles Dickens is inextricably tied to the children he “fathered” in his fiction—Oliver Twist, Pip, Little Nell. In real life, the beloved writer sired 10 offspring (possibly 11, if unconfirmed reports of a child with his mistress, Ellen Ternan, are true), nine of whom lived into adulthood. Those children are the focus of Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens, an engaging work of Dickensiana that arrives at the tail end of the year-long celebration of the author’s bicentennial.

The borrowed title is ironic, for what Gottlieb shows us in this family portrait is that while the elder Dickens may have professed to expect great things from his children, in most cases he jettisoned those hopes somewhat prematurely. It is never easy to be the child of an accomplished parent, and Dickens was one of the most famous men in the world. The impatience he displayed when judging his children’s accomplishments, his refusal to give them a chance to come into their own in their own good time, must have been frustrating, particularly for his sons (given the times, and the less conditional affection he seems to have shown his daughters, the two girls may have suffered less).

Only two of the Dickens children achieved a level of accomplishment that would have pleased their father. Henry, second youngest son, went to Cambridge, became a lawyer and judge, and was eventually knighted for his services to the Crown. Kate, younger of the two surviving girls, became a much admired painter. Yet, as Gottlieb shows us, success is relative. The writer’s eldest and namesake, Charley, would prove himself as a publisher after his father’s death, and Alfred had a measure of success in Australia. Walter and Sydney died in their early 20s, too young to judge where their lives might have led. Mamie, most adoring of their father, became something of a religious eccentric. The peripatetic Frank died in Illinois, of all places, while the youngest, Plorn, lived in relative obscurity Down Under.

It is true that a number of the children were undermined by drink and profligacy (traits perhaps inherited from Dickens’ father and siblings, if not from the abstentious and prudent writer himself). But Gottlieb raises an important question: How would the Dickens children, particularly the boys, have fared if their father had been more patient, helping them finding their places in the world, rather than shipping them off to unsuitable careers and inhospitable climes? The man who imagined great life-arcs for the characters in his fiction seems to have had little imagination when dealing with his own offspring’s lives.

 

Charles Dickens is inextricably tied to the children he “fathered” in his fiction—Oliver Twist, Pip, Little Nell. In real life, the beloved writer sired 10 offspring (possibly 11, if unconfirmed reports of a child with his mistress, Ellen Ternan, are true), nine of whom lived…

Arts & Culture

Art meets science

Review by bookpagedev

Art history professor Martin Kemp (The Oxford History of Art) previously examined Leonardo da Vinci’s life in 2004’s Leonardo; now he concentrates on the artist’s notebooks in Leonardo Da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, and Design. Kemp speculates that da Vinci brainstormed and doodled as a way of thinking out loud; remarkably, his seemingly three-dimensional drawings are so complex, they continue to intrigue and baffle even today’s most scientific minds. Particularly interesting is Kemp’s documentation of recent scientific efforts to build Leonardo’s fantastic flying machines. In 2000, Adrian Nicholas successfully launched himself from a 3,000-foot height using a parachute modeled after a da Vinci drawing. Earlier, James Wink of Tetra Associates and Kemp collaborated on an ornithopter which mimicked another, more birdlike da Vinci flying machine.

Art history professor Martin Kemp (The Oxford History of Art) previously examined Leonardo da Vinci's life in 2004's Leonardo; now he concentrates on the artist's notebooks in Leonardo Da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, and Design. Kemp speculates that da Vinci brainstormed and doodled as a way…

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