Richard Munson’s splendid biography of Benjamin Franklin provides an insightful view of the statesman’s lesser known accomplishments in science.

Biography, Literature, Nonfiction

Didion and Babitz

Lili Anolik’s Didion and Babitz is a freewheeling and engaging narrative about two iconic literary rivals and their world in 1970s Los Angeles.

Crafts, Hobbies & Home, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Garden Wonderland

With its seamless integration of gardening principles with advanced design ideas, Garden Wonderland is the perfect gift for new gardeners—or anyone in need of a little inspiration.

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I don’t care if I ever get back

by bookpagedev

History

History

The USS Arizona

Review by bookpagedev

by Edward Morris

appears at a particularly propitious time, given the current comparisons between the surprise Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor and the recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Among the many American ships and planes hit by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941, the USS Arizona was the greatest single loss. Under relentless bombing and strafing, the mighty warship exploded and quickly sank, taking to their deaths 1,177 sailors and Marines.

Jasper, a journalist; Delgado, an archaeologist and historian; and Adams, a photographer and shipwreck preservationist, unite to tell the story of the Arizona from its construction in 1914-15 to its destruction and eventual resurrection as a national monument. While the authors rely on previously published accounts to sketch in the big picture, they turn to several of the Arizona’s survivors to describe the dramatic battle scenes. The chapters leading up to the actual attack, however, are slow-going, involving the survivors’ recollections of their generally mundane shipboard duties. As is often the case with multiple authorship, the writers repeat details and incidents. They also attempt to add cosmic weight to this intrinsically important event by adopting a breathlessly reverential tone instead of the dispassionate one that sound history calls for. Thus, the people who died are all “heroes,” and their final resting place is “sacred.” On the plus side, the first-person accounts and the authors’ lucid reconstruction of the Arizona’s final hours are vividly cinematic and wholly absorbing. There is also a wealth of supporting material, including 16 pages of photos, a complete list of the Arizona’s dead and surviving and a citation of the major battles in the Pacific war. The book is a revealing glimpse into that other day that shook the world.

Edward Morris writes on history, music and other social matters from Nashville.

Women, horses and healing

by bookpagedev

Nonfiction, True Crime

Nonfiction True Crime

The truth and then some

Review by John T. Slania

by John T. Slania

What do an accused killer and an accomplished writer have in common? More than one would suspect, as revealed in the engaging page-turner True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa. The story begins with New York Times Magazine contributor Michael Finkel being fired after he is caught making up a source. Finkel is in a funk until he receives a call informing him that someone has stolen his identity. That someone turns out to be a suspected murderer named Christian Longo. For weeks, Longo has been in Mexico telling people he is writer Michael Finkel. Now Longo is under arrest, charged with killing his wife and three young children.

Intrigued, Finkel strikes up a relationship with Longo, periodically visiting him in prison while he awaits trial. But most of their dialogue occurs through the exchange of letters. A friendship develops as Longo writes lengthy letters describing the slow destruction of his career, his marriage and his family. But he stops short of confessing to the murders. Finkel, meanwhile, explains in his letters how the pressures of fame drove him to fabricate information in the magazine story.

Finkel and Longo develop an unlikely bond because they share several things in common: both admit to having been liars in the past, both now pledge to stop telling lies and both believe their relationship will lead to their redemption. Finkel believes his career will be revived by writing a book about Longo's life, while Longo believes the book will set the record straight.

True Story is hard to put down. Finkel employs his journalistic skills to write a clear, concise, fast-paced narrative that unfolds in a series of short chapters. The tale reads like a gripping mystery: the reader doesn't know until the final pages just how truthful Longo is, or whether he can convince a jury of his innocence. Meanwhile, Finkel grapples with his own ethical issues, and whether he can convince the public that he will now always tell the true story.

John T. Slania is a journalism professor at Loyola University in Chicago.

Saving the cranes

by bookpagedev

Humor, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Humor

Offbeat books keep the season jolly

Review by bookpagedev

by Allison Block

Looking for gift books that are quirky and clever, but won’t break the bank? This holiday season, table the coffee-table tomes and ponder the powers of mock and droll. From curious anecdotes to far-out-and-funky facts, these four irreverent reads offer plenty of yuk for your buck. The ideal book for the burned-out academic, The Ig Nobel Prizes: The Annals of Improbable Research (Dutton, $18.95, 240 pages, ISBN 0525947531), documents a dizzying array of dubious accomplishments. From research probing the blissful state of ignorance to a study proving toast does indeed fall more often with the buttered side down, author Marc Abrahams offers amusing anecdotes to make readers cackle and chortle, and perhaps even scratch their heads and think. Learn how Professor Andre Geim of the Netherlands and Sir Michael Berry of Bristol University in England employed magnets to levitate a frog, a reptilian rendering that earned them the Ig Nobel Physics Prize in 1997. Flare your nostrils over the awarding of the Ig Nobel Biology Prize to the inventor of airtight underwear complete with a replaceable charcoal filter to remove bad-smelling gases before they escape. (One hopes the demonstration for that one was at least ahem brief.) As editor and cofounder of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, Abrahams is clearly up to this brain-straining task. A resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an applied mathematics graduate from Harvard, he is father and master of ceremonies of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, the university’s annual honoring of the dishonorable.

You know that saying, “You had to be there?” Now you can be there without all the hassles. In What It Feels Like (Three Rivers, $12.95, 144 pages, ISBN 0609809768), the editors of Esquire have gathered gripping accounts from citizens who’ve swallowed swords, been attacked by swarms of killer bees, or walked on the moon. By turns “grizzly” (“What It Feels Like to Be Attacked by a Bear”), devilish (“What It Feels Like to Undergo an Exorcism”), and debauched (“What It Feels Like to Participate in an Orgy”), this slim volume of the vicarious renders the heights and depths of human experience, bringing readers up close and personal with a plethora of precarious states. Ever wonder how to detect counterfeit bills, make snowshoes from tree branches and strings, or put together a radio from scratch? Tap into those transformative powers with Cy Tymony’s Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things (Andrews McMeel, $10.95, 176 pages, ISBN 0740738593). Author of three books and a regular on ABC’s AM Chicago, Tymony has been creating high and low-tech inventions all his life. A cross between MacGyver and the professor from Gilligan’s Island, he’s penned a compelling collection of clues for getting out of a jam or just passing time on a dull winter day. From changing milk into plastic to constructing a compass without a magnet, this celebration of fascinating gadgets and gizmos is the perfect marriage of techno-geek and tongue-in-cheek. Everyone (well, almost everyone) knows that the chance of getting struck by lightning is 576,000 to 1, but what are the odds of achieving sainthood or dating a supermodel? From the likelihood of winning the lottery to achieving matrimonial bliss with a princess or prince, ponder the finer points of fate with Life: The Odds and How to Improve Them. In this compulsively readable gathering of fascinating stats, figures and facts, anything’s fair game: the glorious (Being Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor), the gratuitous (Striking It Rich on Antiques Roadshow), and the fortuitous (Avoiding an IRS Audit). Harvard Law School graduate and finance expert Gregory Baer indulges his frivolous side in this breakdown of bona fide chances, from getting away with murder (about 2 to 1 odds) to garnering a Rhodes Scholarship (37,500 to 1).

Looking for gift books that are quirky and clever, but won't break the bank? This holiday season, table the coffee-table tomes and ponder the powers of mock and droll. From curious anecdotes to far-out-and-funky facts, these four irreverent reads offer plenty of yuk for your…

Offbeat books keep the season jolly

by bookpagedev

Nonfiction

Nonfiction

Offbeat books keep the season jolly

Review by bookpagedev

by Allison Block

You know that saying, “You had to be there?” Now you can be there without all the hassles. In What It Feels Like, the editors of Esquire have gathered gripping accounts from citizens who’ve swallowed swords, been attacked by swarms of killer bees, or walked on the moon. By turns “grizzly” (“What It Feels Like to Be Attacked by a Bear”), devilish (“What It Feels Like to Undergo an Exorcism”), and debauched (“What It Feels Like to Participate in an Orgy”), this slim volume of the vicarious renders the heights and depths of human experience, bringing readers up close and personal with a plethora of precarious states. Ever wonder how to detect counterfeit bills, make snowshoes from tree branches and strings, or put together a radio from scratch? Tap into those transformative powers with Cy Tymony’s Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things (Andrews McMeel, $10.95, 176 pages, ISBN 0740738593). Author of three books and a regular on ABC’s AM Chicago, Tymony has been creating high and low-tech inventions all his life. A cross between MacGyver and the professor from Gilligan’s Island, he’s penned a compelling collection of clues for getting out of a jam or just passing time on a dull winter day. From changing milk into plastic to constructing a compass without a magnet, this celebration of fascinating gadgets and gizmos is the perfect marriage of techno-geek and tongue-in-cheek. Everyone (well, almost everyone) knows that the chance of getting struck by lightning is 576,000 to 1, but what are the odds of achieving sainthood or dating a supermodel? From the likelihood of winning the lottery to achieving matrimonial bliss with a princess or prince, ponder the finer points of fate with Life: The Odds and How to Improve Them (Gotham, $20, 256 pages, ISBN 1592400337). In this compulsively readable gathering of fascinating stats, figures and facts, anything’s fair game: the glorious (Being Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor), the gratuitous (Striking It Rich on Antiques Roadshow), and the fortuitous (Avoiding an IRS Audit). Harvard Law School graduate and finance expert Gregory Baer indulges his frivolous side in this breakdown of bona fide chances, from getting away with murder (about 2 to 1 odds) to garnering a Rhodes Scholarship (37,500 to 1).

Offbeat books keep the season jolly

by bookpagedev

History

History

Piece-able planet

Review by bookpagedev

by Lynn Hamilton

In A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, Simon Winchester covers the same historic territory, but devotes considerable attention to the science of shifting tectonic plates which bring about earthquakes. Winchester puts the entire episode into the context of science’s relatively new Gaia theory, which proposes that the entire planet is a living entity.

Winchester parts company with Smith on a number of key controversies. Unlike Smith, who believes much of the fire’s destruction was avoidable, Winchester writes of an apocalyptic blaze that defied any human attempts to thwart it: “No fire department anywhere in America, or probably anywhere in the world, could have possibly dealt properly with this conflagration, had they all the water that they could use. The 1906 fire was essentially uncontrollable . . . ” he writes. Winchester thinks dynamite was well managed to create fire breaks thatdid slow the spread of fire. Winchester draws heavily on first-person narratives of the time, noting that many who lived through the earthquake and subsequent fire had the presence of mind to write down their observations. Alexander George McAdie is noteworthy in this regard. Awakened from his slumber by the giant quake, the first thing he did was to note the time on his fob-watch. From there, he proceeded to time the quake’s duration all of 40 seconds.

American Prometheus

by Edward Morris

Oppenheimer, the film adaptation of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's richly documented American Prometheus, opens this week and focuses on Oppenheimer's across-the-board brilliance, his magnetic (but often caustic) personality and the shifting political milieus that led to his elevation and downfall. Read our review of the book!

Arts & Culture, Music

Music Arts & Culture

The blues all over again

Review by bookpagedev

by Julie Hale

A salty little music sampler, Squeeze My Lemon: A Collection of Classic Blues Lyrics is a compilation of choice outtakes from some of the most soulful songs ever captured on wax. These sound bites, culled from tunes by the likes of Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and Sonny Boy Williamson, have all the spirit and sass of the South. Full of lively metaphors, they’re brief and simple yet surprisingly profound, tackling timeless topics like death, religion, and love gone wrong. Squeeze My Lemon was edited by Randy Poe, a former executive director of the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. He’s grouped the lyrics into revealing categories (“Women-The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” “Blues and Booze”) that reflect the tough lives and world-weary attitude behind the music. The rootsy anthology also features a discography of recommended albums and a selection of wonderful black-and-white photographs of major blues figures, including Ma Rainey, Muddy Waters, Big Joe Turner and Howlin’ Wolf. With a foreword by B.B. King, this bouncy book will spice up your holiday season.

It’s only rock ‘n’ roll

by bookpagedev

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Nonfiction Politics Memoir

How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Maria Ressa

By Sarojini Seupersad

Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.