Absolute Monarchs: A History Of The Papacy, Norwich - B -

                                               John Julius Norwich is one of those great writers of wonderful histories. I've read a number of his books and thank David Brewer for recommending this one to me. In his introduction, the author states that his "task has been simply to look at what is perhaps the most astonishing social, political, and spiritual institution ever created and to give as honest, as objective, and as accurate an account of it as I possibly can."  There is little actual history to go on in the early centuries. For instance, if Peter was a rock upon which to build a church, there's no evidence of anything of the sort.  The first real mover and shaker in the church was Constantine the Great who made Christianity official in the early 4th century.  A century and a half later, by the time of Leo the Great, all temporal power had passed east. A vandalized Rome had but the Papacy left.  Another century on, Gregory the Great was able to consolidate temporal and spiritual, affording the Church the opportunity to survive and prosper as the principal institution in the diminished west.
                                               Early in the 7th century, Christianity was sundered. "The lands which had seen the origins of Christianity were all lost, never to be properly recovered. The eastern empire was hideously maimed.  Perhaps, ..it was Mohammed who made Charlemagne possible." Charles Martel stopped the Arab invasion at Tours in France in 732. It would take another 7 centuries before they were evicted from Spain. The crowning, as Emperor, of Charlemagne by Leo III on Christmas day in 800 is one of the most significant events in European history. The west once again had an Emperor - and he had been crowned by the Pope. Soon thereafter, Charles's empire withered, but the Papacy prospered.  By the turn of the millennium, a sequence of popes in loose partnership with the Holy Roman Emperors ( neither holy nor Roman, per Voltaire) expanded Christianity to Hungary, Poland and northern Germany.  Unfortunately for a united Christendom, the east and west sanctioned  the final Great Schism in 1054. Yet in the west, the Papacy was supreme in matters temporal and spiritual. In 1095, Urban II called for the Papacy's great foreign policy adventure in the middle East, the chance to save the Holy Lands from the infidel Saracens - the First Crusade. "On July 15, 1099, amid scenes of hideous carnage, the soldiers of Christ battered their way into Jerusalem, where they slaughtered all the Muslims in the city and burned all the Jews alive in the main synagogue." Thus, began Europe's two century dalliance in the Middle East.
                                                The early centuries of the millennium were dominated by a test of wills, the interminable battle for titular control of Europe between the popes and the emperors. Endlessly, the German emperors would travel to Italy to supplicate themselves, to conquer, to dominate and select popes. The source of much of the conflict was investiture: the right to appoint bishops and abbots. This struggle was over power and wealth and would manifest itself in different places for a very long time.  It led to the seven decade Avignon papacy in the 14th century.  The next century brought the Renaissance, the loss of Constantinople, the Sistine Chapel, the Spanish Inquisition and the division of the New World between Spain and Portugal.  The Reformation led by Martin Luther in 1517 further diminished the world of Roman Catholicism and led to a century and-a-half of war, now with religion as a disruptive cause. The Enlightenment opened the Church up to significant challenges, and it was followed by the severe anti-clericalism of the French Revolution and Napoleon's attempts to end the Papal States.
                                                 The Pope's role as temporal ruler was finally ended in 1871, hopefully putting behind the Holy See its history of war, dynastic intrigue, deception and conduct wholly unbecoming to its stated mission as Christ's vicar on earth.  The 20th century opened and closed with two superb modern Popes. Leo XIII tried to find and articulate a role for the Church as a standard bearer for the common man worn out by the industrial revolution, and John Paul II, the first Polish pontiff, stood firm in the battle against communism.
                                               All in all, this is a good read. I found it somewhat surprising that certain events of consequence, such as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War or the Turks reaching the gates of Vienna are not mentioned as part of the background to this history. But, perhaps with hundreds of popes and endless fighting in Italy, there is not room for too much of the bigger picture.

Money: The Unauthorized Biography, Martin - Inc.

                                               The mission of the author is to disprove the generally accepted theory that the concept of money evolved as a replacement for barter systems, and that it initially used commodities, such as silver and gold, for coinage. "Currency is not money. Money is the system of credit account and their clearing that currency represents."  The coins invented in the 6th century BC simply represented the agreed upon system of valuation. The magic was in agreeing on a value and adopting it into everyday life.  The Romans had a fully sophisticated, almost modern financial system that succumbed when they did. The concept of universal economic value does need governments to provide the skeletons to hold the systems in place.  In essence, "money is a social technology - a set of ideas and practices for organizing society". In the end, I was once again unable to complete a book with economics at i's heart.  Perhaps John Lennon sang all that we need to know: "that's what I waaaant".

In The Wolf's Mouth, Foulds - C +

                                               This novel came to my attention because it was highly praised by reviewers. It is the story of an Englishman, an American of Italian descent, and a Sicilian-American whose paths all cross in Sicily after  the liberation in 1943.  It is beautifully written and extraordinarily effective depicting the random violence of war.  But there is no real narrative, no particular beginning and ending, just a well-written novel.

The Silkworm, Galbraith - B

                                               I'm not sure why I fell for the second in the new series about Cormoran Strike,  J.K. Rowling's rather odd private detective.  In this one, we delve into the publishing world and the gruesome end of a crazed writer. He is 'done in' in a manner set forth in his as of yet unpublished, and obviously final book.  I'm not sure what it is about Strike, but he is not as appealing or interesting as most of the usual British investigators, public or private.  Here, he once again out foxes the police and applies some of his eccentric genius in what I have to admit is a rousing finish. The Times reviewer  (a fellow bestselling author) suggests that the series could be as successful as some of the big ones in the UK - but, I have my doubts

Ring Of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I, Watson - B +

                                            Returning to the study of  Europe in the early 20th century, one is struck by the foolhardy willingness with which monarchs, parliamentarians, statesmen, diplomats all considered all out war as a viable national policy. Here we look at 'the great seminal catastrophe'  from the perspective of the two major Central Powers. Stung by the Serbs, A-H felt war was the appropriate response, the Russians were all in in their support for the Serbs, the Germans equivocated and, very quickly, the lights went out.  In both empires, the war was considered defensive, started by the Russians and thus, a source of solidarity and determined nationalism.  We know that the Germans had a plan and they almost succeeded in the west and were deft enough to win in the east. Not so the Hapsburg armies. The Serbs repulsed them in less than a week and the Russians routed them within a month. Before the Germans turned the tide at Tannenberg, the Russians had raped, pillaged and plundered their way across East Prussia and Galicia in a manner that presaged the events of a generation later. Indeed, the author states that, between the Russians and the internecine bloodletting amongst the incredibly diverse races in the Hapsburg Crown lands, the 'bloodlands' started on this, and not the later, Eastern front.  Jews and ethnic Germans were particularly abused in the attempt to Russify the newly captured lands. "The Tsarist army's invasions in the east....offer the closest link between the the campaigns of 1914 and the genocidal horrors of the mid-twentieth century." The refugee crises that followed had differing consequences. The Germans welcomed their East Prussian neighbors and strengthened their resolve.  The Austrians deplored the hundreds of thousands Galician Jews and Ukrainians, felt put upon by their arrival and were angered that their breadbasket had been destroyed - not a positive or constructive civic response.  As the war progressed, though, it was the British who assumed the mantle of the archenemy in Germany. The blockade was, per the international rules of the era, illegal. Thus Britain's 'starvation war' grew into what the Germans were fighting.  As the war wore on, the Central powers knew they were over-matched and Germany militarized its society in order to find a strategy of survival.  Food shortages led to widespread starvation and a collapse of civic order in both empires. Then in early 1917, the Germans made the decision that guaranteed the loss of the war - they authorized unrestricted submarine warfare - and assured the US would join the Entente.  The irony of the timing of their decision is that the British were nearly bankrupt, the French as spent as they were, and most importantly, the Russians were a month away from removing the Tsar. The eventual collapse of Tsarist Russia, followed by the Bolshevik plea for peace offered Germany a chance to win prior to the American arrival changing the balance of forces. They shot their load in 1918, failed, and pretty much fell apart.  Let me set forth some of Watson's closing thoughts. "The First World War was a catastrophe for central and eastern Europe. The new republics that replaced the old,  discredited empires were themselves undermined by the war's bitter legacy. Impoverished, insecure and frequently with large, resentful minorities, most proved unstable. War had rent the fabric of their multi-ethnic societies and disastrously exacerbated racial divisions, bequeathing lasting antagonisms above all against older Jewish and new German minorities. Within a decade, there was little left of Wilson's new democratic order, for most of the east had fallen under the rule of autocratic strongmen."
                                                 As most of my reading on this topic for the past half century has been from the British or Entente perspective, this book has been an eye-opener.  It delves deeply into what was happening, what was thought and how the war was managed by the two key central powers.  Thus, I commend it to someone seeking to round out their understanding of the Great War. However, as good as this book is, I found that its lack of attention to the goings on on the fronts to be a minus.The author is writing about matters from the perspective of the two Central powers, but assumes a vast knowledge of military history by his readers.  I'd vote for some more background on the actual fighting itself.

The Wrong Enemy; America In Afghanistan, 2001-2014, Gall - B

                                               Gall is a NY Times reporter, the daughter of a British journalist, who covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and a lifelong supporter of the Afghanis. It is my belief, after over forty years of reading books by Times reporters, that they write the best first drafts of history (see Karnow, Halbertsam, Sheehan, Friedman etc.)  Gall makes it clear in the prologue - and this is no surprise to anyone - that it is Pakistan that has taken our money, played a nefarious game, supported Islamic terrorism and is the "right" enemy.  We ventured into the 'graveyard of empires' just after 9/11, as the Taliban had sheltered and nurtured Al Qaeda. Within two months, both were vanquished.  Many moved to Pakistan, where they prospered, particularly after a Pakistan election in 2002 empowered the religious right. Due to Pakistan's historic strategic interest in controlling Afghanistan and  shared tribal (Pashtun) connections, the north-west provinces of Pakistan became a staging area for the Taliban's eventual return home. Both the military and the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) paid lip service to America's interests, while supporting the Taliban.  The Taliban resurgence in southern Afghanistan was met with a NATO response that kept them at bay but began to alienate the countryside. Errors leading to civilian casualties in the air war caused endless distress.  As the Taliban strengthened in Afghanistan, they exerted their power back across the border in the tribal areas, virtually replacing the Pakistan government. The Karzai led government and NATO could not staunch the Taliban in Afghanistan. A resurgent Taliban was ready to capture Kandahar by 2010, leading to  Obama's surge of an additional 33,000 US troops. Once again, the Taliban were routed. The author feels that the Taliban, Pakistan's proxies, are down but not out. She feels that with the US and NATO leaving,  they will reprise their success in Afghanistan.   She is of the school that says we are leaving too early.
                                             As good as this first draft is, it lacks perspective and background. It never really explains the 'whys' behind the success of the Taliban. They overcame the mujahideen, who had worn out the Soviets, but there is scant information to explain how they wound up governing the country. The US's strategic plan is also skipped over. Perhaps we didn't have one. We went to defeat Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts. Why did we stay after they were defeated in 2001-2?  I'm not sure I remember and there's no elaboration here.  Indeed, the author sort of flash-forwards  half a dozen years at one point. Of perhaps greatest importance, why did we funnel over $25B to Pakistan to be our ally in the GWOT?  What has that accomplished?  Gall points out in closing that Pakistan is a major exporter of terror.  The British, I believe, tried to invade Afghanistan and could not.  The Soviets were embroiled there for a decade and failed. We have been there for almost a decade and a half. The sobriquet 'graveyard of empires' seems appropriate to me.

The Final Silence, Neville - B

                                             This is the fourth Belfast Novel featuring Jack Lennon and like its predecessors, it screams dishonesty, violence, betrayal, deceit, indifference, and a dark and dreary background. It's not just that the weather is rotten, it's that hundreds of years of conflict can add up to a community as bad as the weather. Lennon survives, manages to get his daughter away from his insidious in-laws, and has a shot at getting a disability pension. I just saw an interview with Neville, who is reasonably young and committed to staying in Belfast. So, there will be more.

The Burning Room, Connelly - B +

                                               This is the 21st book in the Harry Bosch series. What can you say?  Harry gets better with age. Connelly is a master. I believe this series is recognized nationally as one of the best out there. The fact that this was published on  Monday, Nov. 3rd points to it as a significant reason for the very recent settlement between Amazon and the Hachette Group.  Harry is teamed with a young Mexican-American woman who has recently been assigned to the cold case unit. They are assigned a murder case where the victim just died, even though he was shot ten years ago. Lucy wrangles the addition of a twenty-one year old arson/murder/robbery on to their plate and they solve the two cases concurrently. There is the usual wonderful background information on the City of Angels and its geography. The only unsettling thing is that Harry is very, very close to the end of the line with the LAPD. It's going to take some creativity to keep this going

Invisible City, Dahl - B +

                                              This is the first book in an intended series about Rebekah Roberts, a cub reporter for the mythic NY Tribune, a flat-out distasteful tabloid. Her back story is bit odd.  Her mother is a Hasidic Jew who had a fling with Rebekah's religious, albeit Christian, dad, gave birth and left to return to her people. Rebekah is a recent grad of the University of Central Florida journalism school, a stringer for the paper, and a young resident of the up and coming Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. She is very conflicted, but primarily angry, about her mother.  She is assigned to a story about the murder of a young Hasidic woman and the novel turns into a searing indictment of the Hasidic community.  If half of the story is true, I'm embarrassed for the City for giving them so much leeway and appalled that such a community can prosper in this country. They are allowed a tremendous amount of autonomy because of their political clout. That autonomy extends to their murder victims not requiring autopsies. Their children do not stay in school through the minimal age required by law. Their medieval family practices and structures are apparently accepted in Family Court. Divorcing parents who leave the community aren't allowed visitation because it would interfere with the child's religious training. They utilize a self-policing vigilante system. Most appalling is that they treat their woman no better than the Wahhabi's in Saudi Arabia. Their rationale is that they must remain a strong, self-reliant community after what happened in Europe seventy years ago. The plot is pretty good, although I thought it slipped in the end. I'm looking forward to the next few.

The Rule of Nobody: Saving America From Dead Laws and Broken Government, Howard - B

                                               This is a fascinating, brief (only 183 pages) book about how our country's love for the rule of law has made our society much, much weaker than it should be.  The message is that government ( at all levels) does not work and is horribly inefficient in almost everything it does - the proverbial law of unintended consequences. Howard is a noted lawyer, commentator, and author who I saw on Fareed Zakaria's GPS show a few months ago. I believe the book is apolitical. His enemy is incompetence and he clearly states that an efficient government need not offend either the right or the left. His first example is the Goethals Bridge connecting Staten Island to New Jersey. The Port Authority concluded that the best way to modernize the Bridge is to raise its roadbed, thus allowing SuperPanaMax tankers to pass under and keep the Port of Newark competitive.  Many years later, nothing has happened because of the assessment process. He points out that since the approach roads would be the same and there is no increase in traffic, perhaps environmental impacts could be fast-tracked. Not in modern America, because we have endless laws that prescribe how things must be. There must be an environmental study, and in that study, time was spent on whether it was a good thing for the Port to be competitive. After all, this might lead to more traffic in Newark. Also, it took a year to complete the study of the project's impact on historic buildings within a ten mile radius.  Western Staten Island is industrial and there isn't a historic building anywhere near, but there are a lot in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Other examples of rule governed policies are: a cafeteria worker fired from a school for feeding a hungry child whose pass had expired, a lifeguard fired for saving a life after he crossed a beach boundary line when he should have called 911, a fireman prevented from saving a drowning man by his boss, because he did not have the proper certification, and on and on endlessly, until you don't know whether to laugh or cry. On a larger level, he tells the story of the cotton subsidies for farmers put in in 1933. They were part of staving off the Great Depression. Today we spend $2.5B on cotton subsidies and the WTO condemned us and slapped sanctions on goods sent to Brazil. Brazil had initiated the objections about our subsidies. Our Congress would not eliminate the subsidies and was pained to see innocent bystander industries punished because of their exports. So, we solved the problem by sending $147M annually to Brazil's cotton farmers. His suggestion is that we need less reliance on rules to be followed and more focus on outcomes.  He provides some great examples in the area of nursing homes. America has so many rules that homes will wake people from a sound sleep in order to comply with eating time requirements or place comatose a patient in play groups in order to comply with play ratios. In Australia, the industry has been revolutionized by using outcome based rules.  They simply require that people be taken care of humanely and with consideration. There's a reasonably long section on government philosophy and a suggested list of constitutional amendments. As I think we all know, we could figure this out if we left the politicians out of it. That is not likely because only legislators can change the Constitution or anything else in the good ole USA.

Natchez Burning, Iles - B

                                               I've read quite a few books by Greg Iles, most set in and around Natchez, Miss. and all very good. The books are legal/criminal thrillers with a tremendous amount of detail about race relations in the deep south. Iles is a southerner and I think I've learned that only a southerner could depict the concurrent closeness and distance between blacks and whites in a place like Mississippi.  Interracial friendship and love go hand in hand with visceral hatred and violence, in a way that can only happen because so much of life is shared in the south, as opposed to the north where segregation is the norm.  In this novel, which I believe is the fifth in the series and the first of a trilogy involving crusading young lawyer, now Mayor, Penn Warren is confronted by his local DA with the fact that his father, local medical legend, may have facilitated the death of his former nurse. Viola Turner had worked for Dr. Tom Cage forty years earlier when they had been lovers and she fled north after the locals killed her civil rights activist brother and gang-raped her. She had come home to die and Tom had been ministering to her.  Swirling around the death of Viola is the investigation of the historic and on-going activities of the local KKK spin off, the Double Eagles, who're suspected in a dozen deaths.  Clearly, Tom did not kill Viola, although he refuses to discuss anything about their relationship based on the doctor-patient privilege. If the Eagles did, it's not apparent.  So, the DA arrests Tom.  His son Penn, Penn's fiancee newspaper editor, a local journalist, the FBI, the local police, and just about everybody is now engaged in the pursuit of how Viola died and much more importantly, what happened forty years ago and how is it still a secret.  As the noose tightens around the necks of the Double Eagles, their supporters in and around two states  and the statewide corrupt police authorities all lash out with all they have.  They come very close to killing Penn, his dad and his fiancee, Caitlin.  They are saved by two very unlikely heroes. Iles is a great storyteller, with an incredible feel for the deep south and a remarkable ability to write about its nuances and subtleties. That said, this book is way too long at 788 pages. My grade kept deteriorating as it kept going on, and on.  Having read a Grisham novel a week ago, I kept thinking about how efficient a writer he is. This author should try to emulate that approach.

Gray Mountain, Grisham - B

                                                It is hard to believe that this is Grisham's 29th book, 25th if you only want to count the legal thrillers.  He has provided some memorable stories over the last twenty-three years.  This one falls a bit shy of the usual high bar.  A fourth-year associate loses her job in Manhattan as a consequence of the collapse of Lehman Bros. and, notwithstanding degrees from Georgetown and Columbia and a childhood in D.C. as the only child of two lawyers, Samantha Kofer takes a non-paying Legal Aid internship in rural southwestern Virginia two days after being furloughed. Grisham can still write, but this is not just the usual highly complex story, although it is the usual good v. evil drama. What it is is a thorough polemic tearing apart the coal industry for its abuse of the land, total disregard for the law, lack of ethics, domination of the political and legal institutions of the five states that mine coal in the region, and indifference to human suffering. He really goes after them. According to this novel, Big Coal never pays on the black lung cases. They just appeal and appeal until they have to pay, five to seven  years after the initial claim, when in all likelihood, the claimant is either at deaths door or has already crossed over. Black lung is completely untreatable and is depicted as an absolutely horrible way to go. Also, the companies never repair the strip-mined landscape because it's less expensive to not do so and instead, to pay some light fines. If the coal industry is half as bad as depicted here, its owners and mangers should  all be condemned to a life in underground mines.  Samantha and others in the legal community make a difference, take on Big Coal and appear to be on the road to living happily ever after.

Alan Turing: The Enigma, Hodges - B -

                                               I decided to read this thirty-year old-book because it is the basis of the new movie 'The Imitation Game', wherein Benedict Cumberbatch plays Turing so extraordinarily well that it piqued my curiosity. This is the definitive biography, perhaps because only a mathematician could write about one of the maths greats of the 20th century. After all, Turing dreamed up a machine that was an early computer. So, the good news is, it is a well-written book. The bad news is there's a lot of math in it. There is also a tremendous amount of detail about the intellectual background of the era, as well as on society's perceptions of homosexuality. Turing was brilliant, socially awkward and a homosexual, thus making his education years ones to be endured. He studied at Kings College, Cambridge, stayed on as a don, spent time at Princeton and in 1937 published 'Computable Numbers',  the conceptual foundation of the Turing Machine.  In 1938 he was one of the first mathematicians to join the team that was working on the German Enigma machine challenge. The day after the war began, he became full-time at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park.  Turing worked in Hut 8 and was in charge of the German naval code section.  There was no epiphany moment, but rather slow, increasing skill at deciphering that led to times of  full access to German signals. As they were part of the Secret Service, their information went directly to the PM and not to the various military branches. Churchill visited in the summer of 1941 and was introduced to Turing. "He used to refer to the Bletchley workers as the goose who laid the golden eggs and never cackled." A few months later, Turing wrote to Churchill and requested a significant increase in personnel and funding.   The PM's response was brief and to the point. He told his staff, "make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done."  By the middle of 1942, 50,000 decrypts per month were providing the British with the upper hand, which they and the Americans used to defeat the Afrika Korps and then win the Battle of the Atlantic. They maintained their advantage because, even when the Germans believed their positions had been exposed, they tended to blame it on Allied spying. They never would entertain that their signals had been intercepted. They had too much faith in Enigma. Alan then switched over to Hanslope to work on radio direction finders and voice encipherment. As the war wound down, Turing knew he could go back to Cambridge, but his horizons had expanded, he wanted to build a machine, a 'brain'.  He went to Manchester and here, once again, the author delves deeply, very deeply into the science and maths behind Turing's work. In early 1952, Alan made the mistake that would cost him his reputation and his life. He reported a petty burglary that had been committed by someone that he had sex with and then acknowledged it all in writing to the police. The naive genius was comfortable with his sexuality,  not at all ashamed, certainly aware that it was illegal to have 'indecent relations', but not that all hell would break loose.  Prosecuted and convicted, he opted for a year of chemical castration, rather than prison. When he came off probation in 1953, the Manchester University Council  voted  him a ten-year specially created Readership in the Theory of Computing.  A year later he took his life. "It seemed an isolated act of self-annihilation."  Turing's seminal role in the war came before the public sparingly in the 70's and then in the 90's a play and a tv movie brought him to wider acclaim. In 2009, PM Gordon Brown apologized for his mistreatment and the credits for the above-mentioned movie said that the Queen pardoned him in 2013.  As fine a book as this is, it is only for those with a strong scientific and mathematical curiosity.

Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof, Solomon - B

                                               Tevye first appeared in a series of stories in the 1890's and in a 1905 Warsaw production written by Sholem-Aleichem, the pen name of Sholem Rabinowitz, from Kiev. Rabinowitz was a pioneer of the use of Yiddish, the language of the shtetl.  It was the Yiddish theater in NY that brought him to America a year later.  And in 1919,  a few years after his death, the work of Sholem-Aleichem triumphed in America in 'Tevye der milkhiker'.  The play became a worldwide favorite, was actually performed in NY in 1939 by a traveling Soviet company and was made into a movie the same year.  After the war, an English play 'The World of Sholem-Aleichem' brought Tevye to a wider audience and in 1957 'Tevye and his Daughters' was produced in NY. The three men who put Fiddler together were Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein.  Jerome Robbins was brought in as director, Zero Mostel signed on as Tevye.  Jerome Robbins is the hero of the story as he masterminded endless changes and adjustments to make it the Fiddler we know and love. Previewed in Detroit and Washington, the show premiered in NY on Sept. 22, 1964 and has been a worldwide phenom ever since.  The movie came out in 1971 and to this day, Fiddler remains a revered and oft-produced staple of the live theater, here and around the world.
                                             This is a very well-done, thoughtful and serious book that delved into the topic in much greater detail than I did. There is background information on Sholem-Aleeichem and the eastern European world that produced him and Tevye.  The world of NY theater for the fifty years that preceded Fiddler is thoroughly explored, as is the role of Fiddler in Jewish culture.  After-all, these are folktales that morphed into the theater of the new world at a time when America's Jews became completely mainstream, then became part of American culture and by now have re-impacted 21st century Judaism.  Of course, I am listening to the Broadway album (and let's acknowledge that it's as good as it gets) as I type.

The Undertaking, Magee - B

                                               I'm not sure why, but I very seldom come across WW2 novels.  This is a rather interesting plot for the telling of the slow motion horror of being a German soldier on the eastern front and a woman in Berlin.   Peter and Katherina marry in the fall of 1941 through the Marriage Bureau, he to get some time off and she to get a shot at a widow's pension. To their surprise, they like each other and fall in love.  After their very brief honeymoon, he heads back east and their lives head their separate ways. She has a child and lives well in mid-war Berlin, for her father is friends with a man in power and they find themselves in a fabulous apartment, recently vacated by Jews. Her belief in the system doesn't appear to be too sincere; she is just someone going with the flow. He despises the war and winds up caught in the maw of Stalingrad, where he crosses the Volga to surrender.  Peter somehow survives, and eight years after the war ends, returns to Berlin. Katherina was one of the millions raped and is raising her half-Russian son, her own son having died earlier. He cannot accept the prospect of raising the bastard and leaves for anywhere where there aren't Russians.  All in all, this is a first-class effort and one that conveys the brutality of lives torn asunder seventy years ago in central Europe.
                                            I wonder if there are not that many novels of the war or if, as a reasonably well-read student of the war, I am immune to novelizations of the times. After all, no novel can provide greater detail or insight into the incredibly well-documented hell that was the world of this war.

MJ, Lazenby - B -

                                               When we are young, we admire our sports heroes. We also have a great many of them. For me there were Dodgers, Olympians, and Knicks.  Things change when you are an adult. It becomes more a matter of being in awe of a skill set. I've enjoyed watching and have been enchanted by Dan Marino and Tiger Woods. But as a Bulls season ticket holder,  someone who saw Michael play in person over 200 times and watched him, I guess, over a thousand times on tv, it is almost impossible to describe the feelings one has for a super-star who plays for your home team.  Being a Bulls fan during that era was quite frankly, a lifetime highlight. It sounds trivial - but, it wasn't. How and why people can become so enthralled with their home team, be it baseball, soccer, football or any other sport is a fascinating topic. And how anyone could have his "will" to win, to never lose, to always be so competitive is almost incomprehensible. So, I opened this book with enthusiasm.  Over the course of more than 600 pages, the author tries to find the "why" behind Michael, and points in many directions. Likely, it was his desire to overcome his older brother Larry one-on-one in the backyard and earn his father's respect. Everything else, every player, every teammate, every coach is part of the picture, but certainly not the answer. His ability to manufacture extreme motivation out of long-past slights was part of the process. But, again, why? I'm not sure that is ever answered.
                                              Perhaps it's easier to set forth those things that surprise someone who has a good feel for the story.  I knew that his dad was no saint, but the degree of his depravity is a bit surprising. His oldest  daughter accused him of molesting her, he was fired from GE for theft and only escaped jail because he was Michael's dad. He was a thorn in the side of Nike, ran a business they created for him into the ground and is credited with causing so much trouble that Michael lost the one sanctuary he could rely on - his family.  He was facing a Chicago area paternity suit at the time of his murder.  I don't remember  that Doug Collins was, during his first NBA stint, not a particularly good coach, or that almost all of Michael's teammates didn't like him.  I never realized just how serious the gambling was.  Also, the Sam Smith book 'The Jordan Rules' which shed light on Michael's obsessions and difficulty as a teammate apparently tore the team apart. Everyone was angry and pointed fingers at each other about leaks. It was part of the reason Paxson retired and Grant and Cartwright left. Jackson and Krause fired Johnny Bach for being the 'leaker', when it turned out that Jackson was Smith's primary source. The Bulls team that Michael retired from the first time was a dysfunctional mess.  When he came back, he was meaner, more intimidating;  he, along with Jackson, totally dominated the second championship team.  I never knew what an SOB Reinsdorf was; he had to 'win' every negotiation and told MJ after the 1996 $30m contract that he would regret paying him that.  This, perhaps is the biggest shocker. No matter how good a businessman Reinsdorf is or was, pre-MJ the franchise was a joke. He may have been one of the luckiest people on the planet - Jordan 'made' him.  Yet, sadly,  MJ was no hero, as he proved with his Hall of Fame induction speech.  And that returns us to the most important take-away when reading about athletes. They are unfailingly human.  It is what they do on the court or inside the lines that moves us.  There has never been anyone like Michael Jeffrey Jordan and I'm glad that he and I came to Chicago at the same time.

The Murder Man, Parsons - B

                                               This is the second book in a new series set in the UK. Ironically, the first is not yet available in the US. Our hero and DCI is Max Wolfe. He's on the trail of a serial killer, while everyone else is pursuing the social media fanatic who claims to have done it. The key to the crime is the common experience these victims had together back in boarding school twenty years ago. According to the author, the English class system is alive and well.   There is just enough plot, action, human interest and deduction to make this work.

The Medici Boy, L'Heureux - C

                                               This book has been critically acclaimed and does do a fabulous job of recreating the world of Florence in the first half of the 15th century.  It is the backstory to the creation of Donatello's David, the first bronze statue of a naked human in Europe in over a thousand years.  Donatello has been long suspected of homosexuality because of this statue.  Thus, this is a long treatise about homosexuality in Florence, where it was accepted to a point. If a man could not afford to marry or pay a prostitute - well, you get the picture.  A sodomite younger than 18 was forgiven and it was only after a number of convictions that matters became serious. Upon a 5th conviction, burning at the stake was likely.   There is a tremendous amount of enlightening information about the art of the era, but the background story doesn't work for me.

Command And Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety - Schlosser - B +

                                             This intriguing book was a Pulitzer Prize finalist a year ago. It tells two stories in alternating chapters. The first story is about how close we came to a nuclear accident in Arkansas in 1980.  There were 18 Titan-II silos in a semi-circle about an hour north and west of Little Rock.  On Sept 18, 1980, near the town of Damascus, a technician dropped a socket that somehow smashed a hole in a stage 1 fuel tank and a slow leak began. The propellant leak was followed by a series of cascading failures leading to more leaks, falling and rising pressures in different tanks, and the release of 100,000 gallons of water into the silo.  "Flashing red lights on the control center warned there was a fuel leak, an oxidizer leak, a fire in the silo - three things that couldn't be happening at once." About 7 hours after the initial error, the first stage of the rocket  blew up, scattered the silo and the 180,000 pound blast doors over about half-a-mile and then the rocket rose a thousand feet into the air before the second stage blew up.  Although there was a night-to-day explosion, it was not the nuclear core, which was  defused the next day. One technician died and a few more were injured. Amazingly, the Air Force denied there was a warhead, refused to tell the local authorities anything (even declining to provide medical information to help their own men) and eventually punished most of the people at the site. A year later, the aged Titan II's were decommissioned, a decade after they had become obsolete.
                                             The second story is the more familiar one of the atomic and then nuclear programs from Einstein's letter through the entire Manhattan project and into the post-war era.  Reading about the fifties is always fascinating. We had unlimited resources and unceasingly deployed them. Planes, more planes, bombs and bigger bombs, rockets, early warning radar systems and extensive management commands were nothing the American military budget couldn't handle. I've always admired Ike's loathing of war and his constant rejection of the military's desire to strike first at the Soviets. But, more than anything else, I remain amazed at those who thought nuclear war winnable or survivable.  We should never forget that much of the massive build-up was pure politics and pure fear. We were always ahead of the Soviets. The one time they trumped us was in the late fifties when they deployed Sputnik because they had the rocket delivery system to propel massive weights into outer space. We did not have an early warning system for rockets, so the military came up with a 'Dr. Strangelove' system to advise the President if we had been hit. They placed thousands of radiation and flash  sensors on buildings around the country, wired into some rudimentary computer system and capable of presenting Ike with a visual pattern of the hits. How bloody useless that would be appeared not to have been considered. And, any reading of the era is never complete without total wonder at SAC's Curtis LeMay. He clearly was one heck of an organizational genius, a WW2 hero, but frightfully zealous in his belief in nuclear weapons. With half-lives of 24,000 years and hundreds of millions of years for plutonium and uranium respectively, one can only wonder what a post-apocalyptic world would look like.    Inter-service rivalries, i.e. the Army and Navy seeking to stop the Air Force's near monopoly of weapons, led to two of my favorite lunacies - the atomic land mine and the hand-held atomic rifle.
                                          For me, the Damascus story was the more interesting of the two.  I've read both of Richard Rhode's books and recently read a book called '15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation'.  Thus, the general background material was somewhat repetitive. If someone hasn't read all of those, this is a great and relatively brief primer on the topic.

Land Of Dreams, Sundstol - B -

                                               This is the first book of a Norwegian trilogy set in Minnesota, and my initial thought was, how odd is that?  Considering all the things Americans write about, clearly I was suffering from some sort of literary nationalism.  The story is set in and around the Duluth area, the westernmost point of the Great Lakes and in Superior National Park. The principal character and storyteller is Lance Hansen, a Park Service police man and local historian. The book goes into pleasant details about the Norwegian character and the history of the community.  It's an enjoyable tour of a part of the country I know next to nothing about. A Norwegian canoeist is found bludgeoned in the park and the investigative team is joined by a policeman from Norway.  The question is posed as to whether or not there had ever been a murder in the county before.  Lance, as the local master of the topic, begins to look into the the disappearance of an Indian in 1892.  Although it was never proved he was murdered, Lance slowly concludes he probably was - and by Lance's very own great-grandfather.  The murder is wrapped up with a suspect arrested (although he is innocent) about three-quarters of the way through the book.  Considering all of the mysteries I've read over the years, one might assume that I've developed some detection skills.  Not so. I never figure out "whodunit" - except here where it was clearly telegraphed.  I'm thinking of Groucho Marx's famous line about not wanting to be a member of any club that would take him. I'm not sure about the rest of a series, when it was so easy to figure out.

Neanderthal Man: In Search Of Lost Genomes, Paabo - B-

                                               I suspect most of us are at least curious, about our connection to our Neanderthal ancestors. As a client of 23andme.com, I am told that 2.9% of my DNA is Neanderthal. This book tells the story of how the science of DNA sequencing has evolved over the last two decades to the point that someone can state to the tenth of a point a person's genetic composition. Heretofore, scientists have been limited to studying fossils and, quite frankly, guessing what the heck has happened over the millennia.  The author, a Swede, trained in many places and settled in Germany, has been part of the process of studying DNA extracted from ancient bones. His curiosity began with mummies from Egypt, and moved on eventually to Neanderthal bones. Although the first bones found and identified as our 'cousins' were in the Neander Valley in Germany, the largest cache of Neanderthal bones are found in Croatia.  The author can write, and write well. However, I do not think that the greatest writers of all time could make pyrosequencing or DNA cloning very interesting to me. So, about half way through and overwhelmed by the science, I started skipping forward.  After processing billions of nucleotides,  the conclusion was drawn that almost all humans today have Neanderthal DNA. How that DNA was shared between two different species remains an item of scientific speculation. That conclusion shattered  many of the archaeological theses about human evolution.  I've always been intrigued by this topic and have read many of the older books about 'Lucy' and the battles between the Leakeys and the 'out of Africa' controversies v. multi-origin theorists. As more and more has been written about what the chemist's are doing, the conclusion I have come to is that the teams in the chemistry labs will be the ones who learn all about our past. That said, I think I'll limit my inquisitiveness to newspapers and magazines.

A Coffin For Dimitrios, Ambler - B -

                                               This book was written in 1939 and was recently cited by Alan Furst in a Times interview as an inspiration for his 'Night Soldier' series.  It's rather fun to start to think that, yes, it's a lot like Furst's books, until you realize, it's the other way around.  An Englishman, a writer, meets a Turk of mysterious official responsibilities in Stambul.  He learns of the death of a Dimitrios,  a shifty character of bad reputation. He decides to find out more, perhaps for a book, perhaps out of curiosity. So he begins to look into the story of  Dimitrios. Unknown to him, he is being shadowed. As he wanders the Balkans, we get a lesson on the Turk ethnic cleansing of the Greeks after the Great War, Bulgarian parliamentary politics, Italian - Yugoslav border conflicts, and then it's on to Paris, where he learns of Dimitrios years as drug dealer.  He also ascertains that the body of Dimitrios, found floating in the Bosporus, might actually be one of Dimitrios partners-in-crime. Plot twists in Paris lead to a shoot-out and an awfully good tale for the Englishman to write about. Or, is he writing about something else? If it inspired Alan Furst, that is high praise. And just like Furst's books, this is one of those where you can see and feel the fog surrounding you while you read.

Five Came Back: A Story Of Hollywood And The Second World War, Harris - B -

                                               This is the story of the relationship between Hollywood and the American military as told through the war-time service of Frank Capra, John Ford, George Stevens, William Wyler and John Huston. "They honored their country, risked their lives and created a new visual vocabulary for fictional and factual war movies."   Because the men who ran Hollywood were first and second generation Jewish immigrants, fearful of Washington and anti-semitism, they avoided the oncoming catastrophe until 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy' in April 1941.  Warner Bros. very happily presented America with a rousing 'Sgt. York' in July, but generally speaking, Hollywood was only dipping its toes in the water until Dec.7, 1941.  "Any trepidation the studios felt about making war movies vanished within weeks."  Wyler was making 'Mrs. Miniver' before Pearl Harbor and made it even more of a patriotic piece, leading to Churchill's praise and the best picture Oscar.  By the spring of 1942, Capra, Ford, Huston and Wyler were in uniform.  Stevens  followed in early 1943.  Capra began making 'Why We Fight', which the author contends was the most important filmed propaganda of the war.  I agree. The series of films are over-the-top, but nonetheless brilliant. Ford was the first to shoot actual combat scenes, which he shamelessly embellished in his 18 minute 'Battle of Midway'.  When FDR saw it, he turned to his Naval aide and said, " I want every mother in America to see this film". A year later, Wyler flew five combat missions over Germany and filmed the documentary 'Memphis Belle'.  For every success, though, there were an equal amount of failed efforts, occasioned by endless bureaucratic infighting, confused strategy, inter-service rivalries and politics. Ford and Stevens were on Omaha Beach on D-Day as part of a major effort to document the momentous landing. Some of what they filmed was so brutal that it wasn't released for fifty years.  The work got better and better as the last year of the war played out. Ford actually returned to Hollywood to film 'They Were Expendable' while still on active duty.   After Wyler was wounded, Stevens was the last of the major directors in Europe and was the man who filmed the harrowing death camp scenes, particularly the American arrival in Dachau. Long after the war, Stevens turned to his reels of everything he had filmed while preparing to direct 'The Diary of Anne Frank'.  After a minute of his 'Eyewitness To Dachau', he returned the film to its box. The directors received medals, commendations and Oscars before they returned to Hollywood. Steven's work was used as evidence at Nuremberg. Wyler had the privilege of making what is generally considered the best post-war movie, 'The Best Years Of Our Lives". The book only tangentially and infrequently mentions the hundreds of movies made in Hollywood about the war and thus for me was a bit of a disappointment .








                                             

Personal, Child - B

                                              This is the 19th Reacher book in the series.  He is tracked down by the Army and asked to come back to assist (unofficially) in the search for one of the world's best snipers. It seems there is an attack planned on a G-8 meeting in London and the leading candidate to do the shooting is someone Reacher put in jail fifteen years before. I believe Reacher has been out for twenty years, but this is fiction.  Applying his awesome deductive reasoning, as well as his physical skills, to a mosaic of international and criminal challenges, Jack saves the day.

Dead Water, Cleeves - C +

                                                This book is the latest in a series set in the Shetland Islands.  Thus, it passes an important test for me; ie. it takes me somewhere I've never been before.  The Shetlands are 110 miles north of the Scottish mainland, rather far from civilization.  They have been changed by the North Sea oil that has reordered Scotland in the last forty years.  A local man is back from London where he works for a national newspaper, hoping to land a scoop. Instead, he's found dead in a boat in the harbor. The hunt begins.  The team gathers, sorts out their responsibilities and, along the way, we learn about the Shelands, crofting, ferries, weather and most importantly, the decline of oil and the possible rise of green energy. Of course, a second corpse is soon on the otherwise peaceful scene.  The case is resolved, but quite frankly, the details about the Shetlands are a lot more interesting than the plot and the solution. I doubt I'll check out the earlier books.

The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio To Win The Presidency, Tobin - B +

                                              The author posits that FDR may have become President, but would not be the President he became, were it not for his polio.  He acquired the disease in 1921 at the age of 39.  Just about everyone was exposed to the polio virus in that era, and it was a very long shot to have the misfortune to be crippled by it. (The author prefers to use 'crippled' as it was the usage of the time.) Roosevelt was very, very ill. Hospitalized for months, he could not even sit up, his physician was afraid he was losing arm and shoulder strength, that matters were continuing to deteriorate, and that he could spend the rest of his life on his back in bed.  FDR was famous for never letting anyone know what he was thinking about anything and he never shared his feelings about his illness.   While everyone worried, he maintained his steadfast optimism and good cheer, and it is assumed, he determined to not let polio define him.  He would continue to pursue the Presidency. I've never given any thought to the rehabilitative effort that he, his family, his doctor and his nurses put into getting him on his feet and capable of his herky-jerky assisted "walking".  To say it was a massive undertaking would be an understatement.  The rehabilitation changed his relationship with his wife, mother and children.  He removed himself from their company for great periods of time, particularly to the south in the winter, as he concluded that it was only in warm weather or in warm water that he was making progress.  His progress was limited, and by the two-year mark it had stabilized. It was clear that the progress he had made because of his enhanced upper body strength that allowed him to use crutches while his legs were in braces was about as good as  it would get.
                                              FDR's comeback began at Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1924.  Al Smith's people wanted an establishment Protestant to nominate  him and no one was better suited for the job than the party's most recent VP candidate.  He used his crutches to cross the stage, hung onto the podium with all his might and brought down the house with his famous 'Happy Warrior' speech.  While FDR worked on his rehabilitation, his aide Louis Howe kept his name and tales of his improving health in the public eye.  FDR made some progress in his general mobility while at Warm Springs, GA and had hoped to continue there when the politics of 1928 intervened. In order to help carry NY, Smith felt he needed Roosevelt as the nominee for Governor. FDR refused all summer, but when push came to shove in late September, he accepted.  He had retained his ambitions, but Smith had accelerated the timing of his advance. When Smith lost, FDR became the leading Democrat in the US. With Hoover ensconced in the White House and the nation prosperous, 1936 was the objective.  Overwhelmingly re-elected in 1930 while  Hoover stumbled, FDR and his team moved their date forward.  Overcoming smears that he was syphilitic, FDR triumphed at the Chicago convention and at the polls in November, 1932,  His wife and  his closest aides thought his illness provided new character traits. The author agrees with oldest son, James Roosevelt,  that the experience strengthened  an already very durable and strong man.  The author also posits that his illness kept him away from the intramural wars in the party in the mid-20's, and gave him a story of courage and overcoming adversity that he was able to tell.   Once, an aide told him he couldn't do something, and he responded, "I've done a lot of things I can't do."
                                             Needless to say, this is a superb book and one that offers fabulous insight into one of our great Presidents.  His courage and willpower are obvious.  I am also struck by the fact that his family's wealth was just as important  to his political success.  Although he held titular jobs between 1921 and 1929,  almost all of his time and effort went into his rehabilitation.  His father's wealth supported him and his family the entire time.  The parallel with Jack Kennedy's career twenty years later is eerie.

Final Sacrament, Forrester - C

                                                I was obliged to start the 2nd book in the series (see 7/1 post) earlier than planned. Two years have passed, Clarenceaux appears to be safe, Elizabeth is somewhat disconcerted by the birth in Scotland of the boy who would succeed her decades later, and Lady Percy is desperate to find the proof of Elizabeth's bastardy and reinstate the Catholic church.   Clarenceaux has hidden the document, refuses to offer it to the Catholics, for they will revolt, and refuses to give it to the Protestants, for they will kill him, because he knows the truth. And herein lies the failure (as is so often the case with the middle book of a trilogy) of this story, because his decision confuses me. I'm not sure why he would have to die if he surrendered it. In any event, he stages a conflagration in a castle, kills his bitterest enemy, destroys the document and presumably survives. After all, there is a third book.

After The Music Stopped, Blinder - B +

                                               This is another book about the financial crisis. It is by Alan Blinder, Princeton Prof and former Vice-Chair of the Fed, a heck of a writer, and it is very good. His goal is to paint the big picture "whys" and not go into detail about the steps along the way.  He does that well, but there's no way to discuss the events without going through the narrative, a pretty familiar tale of woe. His charts are helpful and  they highlight just how out- sized the real estate bubble was.  When the bubble was combined with substantial leverage, crazy pay schemes, excessive liquidity, reduced regulation and complacency, the Great Recession was the result. He discusses the problems of late 2007 and Bear Stearns, as the preliminaries, leading up to Fannie, Freddie and what he calls Lehman Day - Sept. 15, 2008- the day the world came very close to stopping.  Two days later, the Fed extended an $85B loan facility to AIG, and TARP soon followed. The world's central banks all cut interest rates on Oct. 8 - the wagons were circled.  He feels strongly that what Paulson and Bernanke, followed by Obama and Geithner, did had to be done.  He cites evidence that without the bailouts and the stimulus, matters would have been materially worse. He faults Paulson for switching from buying 'troubled assets' to injecting capital into banks, and faults everyone for not selling the plan to America. The political failure to sell what was done to save the system is part and parcel of today's dysfunction. Also in for some sharp words are President Bush for cutting taxes while waging war,  President Obama for not successfully pursuing mortgage relief, and the Republican Congress for not even considering any reform measures.  He offers ideas for reform and points out that Medicare can not be sustained for the long term.  He is a skilled writer and a fine teacher. I won't say this is a must, but it's pretty good.

A Foreign Country, Cumming - B +

                                                As I read the second novel first, this is the previous one. Tom Kell is only eight months into exile when he gets the call.  The Service really needs some help  - Amelia Levene, his old friend and boss and the next  Chief, with an appointment on the books with the PM at 10 Downing Street,  has gone missing.  Someone needs to find her and Tom does in Tunis.  She's there with a man twenty years younger, who just happens to be the son she gave up for a French adoption as a twenty-year-old au pair three decades ago. But Kell is good, really good, and figures out that this Francois is a fraud. Her real son is being held by the DGSE, as the French try to pull one over on the next C of MI-6.  If she's dismissed for scandal,  it's business as usual on Her Majesty's Secret Service and the old school chums will let the French have their way in the Levant.  I'll leave the plot at this point for those who will read this and say I believe both books are worth the effort. This, and the newer one I read first, are excellent examples of spy craft  and go into significant depth two or three times per book on different ops.  For what ever reason, I thoroughly enjoy those sections (although I concede some may find it boring) and for me, they enhance the already superb plot.

A Colder War, Cumming - B +

                                             Tom Kell has been benched by MI-6 for passively participating in a joint venture with the Cousins that involved someone being rendered to Guantanamo.  Its has been in the process of being "looked into" for a year-and-a-half when the Chief asks him to do a personal favor - try and sort out why one of their mutual friends, Paul Wallinger, an  agent in Turkey, flew his Cessna into the side of a mountain.  A few weeks into the process, the Chief also tells him of her suspicions of a mole and offers him a chance to come back in from the cold. So he's off, but everywhere he turns bodies keep piling up. First, the Greek flight engineer who worked on Paul's plane commits suicide. Then Paul's mistress in Croatia, whom Tom believes is working for the Hungarian intelligence service is found dead.  After six weeks of intensive spying on the likely candidate, the mole is found in Istanbul, a disaffected Yank working for the Russkis.  The Brits proceed to try to take him in without an assist from the CIA.  I won't divulge the finale, but suffice it to say, it's a pretty good tale. I have enjoyed this so much that I've already downloaded the earlier book by the author about Tom Kell.

Countrymen, Lidegaard - B, Inc.

                                                This is an important book and one from which I learned a great deal.  I couldn't finish it, I believe because of the translation and  the extensive quoting from diaries.  As it is my third incomplete this summer,  I hope it just means a run of less than stellar picks and not a decline in patience.  The only Jewish community in occupied Europe (excepting to my surprise, Bulgaria) to survive the Holocaust virtually unscathed was in Denmark.  This is a history of how that transpired. It is based primarily on the diaries of two Jewish families. Long before the Germans occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940,  the Danes had made a conscious effort to resist Nazism's philosophical poisons, particularly anti-semitism.  When invaded, they did not fight or attempt to resist the Wehrmacht, leading to an almost consensual occupation.  The Danes were left in charge of day-to-day administration and the Germans used a very small occupying force.  Because they retained their sovereignty, they were the only occupied country ruled by the Foreign Office. During the so-called 'peaceful occupation', the Danes were able to take the position that there was no 'Jewish problem' in Denmark.   At the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the liquidation of the Scandinavian Jews was deferred, which meant the issue did not come to a head  until the summer of 1943.  By then the Germans were losing and wanted to impose a stricter regime on the Danes. Peaceful occupation came to an end with the imposition of martial law on August 29, 1943.  Denmark's 6,000 or so Jews were targeted for 'final solution'.  However, because they were so integrated into society, exactly how they could be extracted without substantial unrest was uncertain.
                                                Just to the north, neutral Sweden had maintained a sensible center-oriented government and society that eschewed the extremes of communism and national socialism.  They were shocked in 1942 when the Germans rounded up Norway's Jews.  In late September 1943,  Berlin ordered Copenhagen  to initiate a round-up of the Jews.  Word spread quickly after the Germans leaked the news and the Jews began to head toward the Baltic. There was a vast outpouring of civil and political opposition to the German's plans. "Germany went from being  a neighboring country that for strategic reasons had occupied Denmark under favorable terms to being an assailant perpetrating violence on the Danish people." Only a few hundred elderly Jews were picked up on the first night of the 'aktion' - the rest were in hiding or on the run. The Swedes, knowing that their trading with Germany put them in poor  standing  with the Allies, opened their coast and country to the Danish Jews.  Thus, the Jews of Denmark had a viable escape route. The most befuddling aspect of their escape is that the Germans more or less let them go.  It appears as if differences between the Gestapo, the Army and the Foreign Office, along with a high volume of agricultural goods flowing to the Reich, and a general reluctance to upset the proverbial applecart led to the Germans looking the other way. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that a free press in Sweden was reporting on events in Denmark.  In any event, over the course of a week,  almost all of Denmark's Jews (some were sent to  Theresienstadt, where they survived) escaped across the Baltic  to Sweden, where they were welcome.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The most impressive aspect of this story is the lack of anti-Semitism on the part of most of the Danes.  Starting with the King, who felt a responsibility to protect his people, everyone considered their neighbors and colleagues as not distinct because they, or their ancestors, worshipped differently.  It's a totally  refreshing  and pleasant  contrast to the rest of Europe and the Americas.  The second most fascinating aspect of the tale is the aggressive steps the Jews took to escape. They were not frozen in situ out of fear.  Amazingly (again in contrast to just about everywhere else - the author mentions Italy and Bulgaria as exceptions), their apartments, valuables and assets were there when they returned in 1945. All in all this is a very interesting story that is in total contrast to the usual anti-Semitism, violence, subjugation and destruction that played out almost everywhere else in Europe.

Hunting Shadows, Todd - B

                                               This is the sixteenth book in a series that I thoroughly enjoy.  Last year, I praised the series, but was disappointed with the fifteenth novel.  I was critical of the lack of the usual sense of place, the downplaying of Hamish's role and the plot in general.  The authors have made a fine comeback. In the opening chapters, I felt as if I were lost on the Fens and thankfully, Hamish  haunts Rutledge every step of the way.  Once again, one is almost overwhelmed by the pain in post-war WW1 England.  Loneliness, despair and a wonder about all the horror that had happened pervade every chapter. Northwest of London, two men have been shot by a hidden rifleman. Only a vet would have a rifle, the skill to use it and presumably a grudge against a former captain in the army. Why he also shot the local Tory MP candidate confounds Rutledge. There is no apparent connection between the two. As the investigation progresses, Rutledge becomes convinced that the murderer is a sharpshooter, trained as a sniper, and someone whom the trenches deeply affected. He pounds away relentlessly and eventually finds his man. A sharpshooter he was - but not in the Great War.

The Prince of Risk, Reich - Inc.

                                               The author has written quite a few thrillers set in the financial world. I think this is my first (and last).  The two principals are a divorced couple: he runs a big-time hedge fund and she is the FBI supervisory special agent in charge of anti-terrorism in the NY area.  She's so sure of herself and committed to her work that she divorced him and didn't ask for a penny - of his billions. He is estranged from his dad, who happens to be the President of the NYSE. In the opening moments of the book, his dad, the Federal Reserve Chairman and the Secretary of the Treasury are killed on their way to the White House. They've uncovered a very sinister Chinese plot to eavesdrop on every decision maker in the world and undermine the West's finance.  The same night, the FBI agent (who keeps a picture of Hoover on her dresser and calls him Father) is involved in a massive shoot-em-up near JFK at which three of her colleagues die. They uncover a huge arsenal and deduce that there are plans for 24 terrorists to attack Manhattan. Told to take two days off, she refuses - too much at stake. Meanwhile, her ex travels to Connecticut to talk his dad's right hand gal. He hopes to find an explanation for the text his dad sent to him right before he died. He finds her body - still warm. No mas, no mas.
                                              I'm sure I read a positive review somewhere or it wouldn't be on my list.  Maybe I didn't. In any event, this is so contrived, cliched, and predictable that I don't need to read the last 2/3rd's to know that Bobby and Alex save the world- I mean Manhattan. Maybe they even get back together.

A Crack In The Edge Of The World, Winchester - B

                                            My thanks to Jane Carp for letting me have this volume from my dear friend Bob's library.  This is the story of the San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906.  In the preface, the author tries to imagine the event as seen Neil Armstrong-like from the moon with a powerful telescope.  He suggests "the planet very briefly shrugged".  Perhaps, it could be characterized as a "shudder".  In any event, from 5:12 to 5:14 a.m.,  the world of northern California was shaken to its core.   Policemen in the streets described it as waves coming in from the Pacific.  Scientists  have since concluded that the wave was moving at 2 miles per second.  Buildings shook and many fell as people, including the many members of the Metropolitan Opera staying at the Palace Hotel, rushed into the streets. Enrico Caruso told stories about his morning for years. The quake was felt 390 miles north, 370 south and 340 east of the city it is named for. "The earthquake shook the ground, it broke the buildings, it killed and maimed, and it spawned the fire."  The quake itself did 3-10% of the damage, fire did the rest.  With all the water mains ruptured, the fire raged for three days.   Over half of the city's 400,000 people were homeless, 3,000 were dead and 28,188 buildings were destroyed. Private, state and federal help poured into the devastated city.
                                            The consequences of the quake were many and diverse.   San Francisco lost its status as the preeminent city of California to Los Angeles.  The quake itself was downplayed and the civic boosters blamed the loss on the fire.  In a reconstituted city, they could work to fireproof buildings and enhance firefighting skills. Thus there was no need to worry about a repeat.  For those that choose to believe it was the will of God, there was a rise in evangelism. One of the most interesting and long lasting consequences was the result of all of America's records on Chinese immigrants being burned. Under the Exclusionary Acts, immigrants were allowed into this country if they had relatives. So right up to WW2, Chinese claiming to be related to Americans arrived at Angel Island to seek entry.
                                           In the actual reconstruction of san Francisco the slapdash temporary junk buildings that had covered the city were banned. There was a new code to govern new construction.  Over a hundred years later, the city is well-prepared for the 'big one'.  Every local, state and federal agency has directives and plans, as do many businesses.  And those plans are necessary. The US Geologic Survey has asserted that there is a 62% chance of a repeat by the year 2032. The North American and Pacific plates that have been moving in opposite directions at a rate of 1.5 inches per year along the San Andreas fault have not had any release in northern California in 108 years.  "The two plates are nearly 200 inches, about 17 feet, out of kilter. This means that an unimaginably enormous  amount of kinetic energy is currently stored in the rocks of the Bay area."

The Heist, Silva - B

                                               This book is the fourteenth in the Gabriel Allon series, and although last year's slotted him for the top job at the 'Office', that job is still a year away and he remains in the field.  The circumstances strain credulity more than usual, but the extensive background  on art history and Silva's storytelling skills overcome the weaker plot points.  While working on a restoration in Venice, Allon is asked by the Italians to investigate the murder of a man who sells stolen art.  The painting that may have led to the murder is a Carvaaggio that has been missing for four decades. Gabriel confirms that the missing 'Nativity' is indeed in play and sets up a trap.  His first attempt to recapture the painting fails but he ascertains that the man behind it all, the man trying to accumulate a string of stolen masterpieces, is none other than the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. The action then shifts from Europe to King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv,  home of Israel's intelligence service.  Gabriel's team plots to strip Assad of his financial assets and undertakes one of their legendary operations.  And so, off they go back to Europe to spin their web and entrap the Syrians.  In consideration of those who will read this, I will simply state the ending is one of those LeCarre-ish partially resolved and subtle conclusions.  Presumably, Allon will be Chief when we see him next summer.  One of the attractions of any series is the familiarity of not just the main, but also the secondary characters. His team of Israelis is the same one he's used for years and that is comforting in series like this.  Additionally, Silva uses a familiar cast of associates in London, Geneva, Corsica and Paris. I'm certain this series will be with us for quite some time.

A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln And The 1846 Invasion of Mexico, Greenberg - B

                                               This a superb treatise about the politics of an era lost in vague memories of Manifest Destiny and the Halls of Montezuma. After independence, the US prospered, but not so Mexico. Its population declined, there was significant racial conflict between the Europeans and the Indians, and it became what today is known as a 'failed state'.  There was virtually no centralized government and "between 1821 and 1857, the presidency of Mexico changed hands at least fifty times, almost always by coup d'etat".  The 'Texians' had achieved independence in 1836, and were clamoring for annexation. That the US would expand from coast-to-coast was a generally accepted principle. The only real questions were how far north and south on the way west, and who might we have to fight to get there.
                                              As the 1844 election approached,  all acknowledged that the Great Compromiser, the founder of the Whig Party, the master of the House and later, the Senate, Kentucky's Henry Clay would at long last achieve the prize he had been twice denied. The Democrats were in disarray. They nominated Polk, the 'Young Hickory' after Jackson recommended him for the highest office.  He was such a long shot that one Whig paper punned "the Democrats must be Polking fun at us".  Clay was opposed to  annexation because he knew it would lead to war. Polk made it the central theme of his campaign and he pulled off the upset. America was on the threshold of fulfilling its destiny - Texas, Oregon and California awaited. Annexation was approved by Congress and the President, and Texas joined the union on July 4, 1845.  A treaty with England led to Oregon becoming a US territory.  Polk provoked a border dispute, and in the summer of 1846 had his war with Mexico. The letter he sent to Congress stating that the US and Mexico were already at war was generally conceded to be a pack of outlandish lies, but the bloodlust for territory was overwhelming.  Fourteen votes in the House (including former President Adams) and two in the Senate ( John C. Calhoun abstained) were all that mustered the strength to resist.  And from day one Polk made it clear - Texas was a given - he wanted New Mexico and California too.  Within a year though, popular enthusiasm began to fade as American atrocities against the perceived racially inferior Mexicans began to see the light of day. A vigorous anti-war movement surfaced in the northeast and Whigs nationally remained opposed. The Wilmot Proviso ( excluding slavery from any territory taken in the war) passed the House, but not the Senate, thus further dividing opinion around the country  between pro- and anti-slavery supporters. The war, however,  went very well as Gen. Winfield Scott captured and occupied Mexico City on Sept. 14.  Polk waited for a surrender and an honorable peace - but it was not forthcoming.  The Mexicans opposed the occupation and initiated a low-grade guerrilla resistance.  Clay, who had lost his son in battle, protested the war, as did a young Abe Lincoln in his first Congressional speech. The war became so unpopular that many called for the US troops to come home and for Polk to forego his demands for territory.  There then arrived from Mexico, six weeks after it had been signed, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  It had been negotiated on Polk's terms by his diplomatic agent, Nicholas Biddle. This notwithstanding that Polk recalled Biddle after he realized the diplomat had come to oppose the war and the occupation. Biddle, with the support of Gen. Scott, ignored the recall. The Treaty accepted the Rio Grande as the Texas boundary and awarded New Mexico and Upper California to the US, thus achieving all of Polk's initial war aims.
                                              Polk had won the war, magnificently expanded the country, but lost the day.  The Whig General, Zachary Taylor, who had reluctantly participated in the opening invasion of northern Mexico succeeded him in the White House. Polk himself died a few months after he returned home to Tennessee.  Taylor supported the Compromise of 1850 allowing California to enter the union as a free state.  The war and its aftermath led to the inadequate presidencies of Taylor and Pierce and further exacerbated tension between the north and the south.  In his memoirs, one of the successful young West Point officers  said that the war "was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker one and that the Civil War was our punishment for that transgression". Ulysses Grant's opinion represented the late 19th century view of the war.  The author closes with, " It is one of the few American wars not commemorated in Washington D.C. There is no monument to the 1847 conflict in the nation's capital , not even a statue."
                                              Clearly, the Mexican-American War was inconsistent with our republican principles. We trumped up a phony war against a harmless neighbor. But, I can't help but conclude that the western half of the US prospered in our system in ways that it never could have in Mexico's.  And as a part-time resident of southern California and western Colorado, whose ancestors came to the US a decade after the war, I'm pleased with the consequences of Manifest Destiny.

Fragile By Design, Haber and Calomoris - A*

                                               In the fall of last year, the authors previewed this book in a 'Foreign Affairs' article that piqued my interest. Indeed, I was astounded, and still am, by one simple statement. Since the late 1830's, the US has suffered through 12 major banking crisis - Canada, none! My historic desire to read books about the 'dismal science' has been pretty low, perhaps exceeded only by my total lack of interest in books about banking systems.  But, how could our unbelievably successful nation have faltered so many times and still have wound up number one? I felt this was a must read.
                                               Banking systems are a function of national political will and design. In essence, you get the banking system your nation's politicians summon up. Without credit, a nation cannot grow and it is critically  important  that a system provide stable credit. The US has had ample credit, but in an inherently unstable system.  In this book, the US system is contrasted to that of a number of countries, but particularly those of England and Canada in what the authors call "The Game of Bank Bargains."  The starting point is that those in charge of the government partner up with aspiring bankers and create a set of rules.  The government charters the banks and passes laws that establish the rights of depositors, borrowers, creditors, investors and insiders. As the arbiter, the government has to juggle inherent conflicts of interest.  For example, how do you establish the rules of debt enforcement, when the people against whom debt may be enforced are the same people who elect the government?  The list of conflicts in a sophisticated modern democratic society are endless.
                                               The first important national financial institution was the Bank of England, established in 1694 to finance Parliament's wars with France and the expansion of the Empire.  It was the only joint stock company ( limited liability) with a banking charter allowed in England until 1825. "The Bank of England deployed its resources to serve government needs throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries."  Interestingly, it did very little to help finance the Industrial Revolution.  The tide turned against the B of E in the 1820's when other joint stock companies were allowed to charter banks, and the B of E began to establish branches around the country.  A central premise of this book is that strong national institutions with multiple branches are the key to economic growth and financial stability, whereas small dispersed single branch banks are incapable of spreading risk. The reforms of the early nineteenth century led to a burgeoning economy and a bank system that was essentially crisis free until 2007.
                                                The authors are American - one teaches at Stanford and the other Columbia - and it is our system that is the primary focus of this book.  The  Constitution is silent on banking and it was only by citing 'implied powers' that Hamilton was able to charter a national bank. The agrarian populists were opposed and in 1832 were able to revoke the banks charter. "From this point until roughly 1980, the coalition of small bankers and agrarian populists would dominate the politics of bank chartering and bank regulation." Thus, the US was poorly served by thousands of small state-chartered unit (one branch) banks that were non-competitive supporters of the local gentry. This inherently unstable system would pay low interest on deposits, make risky loans to its supporters and not have the wherewithal to survive liquidity crises. " By 1914, there were 27,349 banks in the US, 95% of which had no branches!" This system had spawned bank crises in 1837, 1857, 1861, 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1896 and most famously, 1907.  After the banking system was saved by J.P. Morgan, Congress authorized the Federal Reserve.  The Fed, however, did not change the underlying fundamental, it merely provided a national liquidity vehicle.  "As late as the early 1970's, only 12 states allowed unrestricted intrastate branching and no states allowed interstate branching." Disintermediation, money-market funds, the computer revolution, globalization, urbanization and the 1986 Tax Act all added up to the end of the 19th century agrarian system in the 1980's. Banks operating national branching networks accounted for only 10 percent of the US banking system in the early 1980's. By the mid-90's, they accounted for more than 70%.  As the US system finally achieved the ability to spread risk, politics intervened. Merging banks were scored by the regulators on many fronts, and one was compliance with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.  In order to assure support on the CRA issue, the banks dropped their credit requirements for poorer  urban borrowers. Banks committed  billions  in CRA lending to underserved  or low -income communities between 1992 and 2007. In turn, the government supported entities (GSE's) of Fannie and Freddie adjusted their rules to accept loans that had smaller down payments, riskier profiles, etc. If this new type of inherently aggressive loan was ok for the urban poor, it was clearly appropriate for the middle class. Three percent down payments became the norm and no-doc loans categorized as Alt-A and sub-prime became the rule not the exception. "The result was the rapid growth of mortgages with high probabilities of default for all classes of Americans." Both the Clinton and Bush administrations pushed the housing envelope because it not only brought the American dream to a much higher percentage of the population, but because real estate fueled the boom that was the '90's and '00's.  The merry-go-round brought in mortgage bankers who churned out loans, leveraged investment banks that packaged and sold the sub-prime stuff around the world and the rating agencies that approved it all.  Capital requirements were lightened by the regulators because it seemed like the boom would go on forever. "By June of 2008 there were approximately 28 million sub-prime and Alt-A loans outstanding with a total value of approximately $4.8 trillion.... roughly half of all mortgages outstanding were high risk."After it was over, a deposed bank CEO said that you had to keep dancing while the music played. The music stopped and the government was required to bail out the banks in order to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression.  The damage to the US will reverberate for decades.  The authors believe, and I believe they make their case, that a strong centralized system with branch banks is the key to financial stability and growth. They laud the Canadians. For almost two centuries, the Canadian branch banking system has spread the risk around the country. It has been so effective that they didn't even need a central bank until the Depression and brought on deposit insurance later than the US.  There were no liar loans, no no-down-payment loans and no negative amortization tables. Excess did not seep into their system and they suffered no Great Recession.
                                               Although it appears throughout this book that the authors discredit perceived truisms of American history (dismissing deposit insurance as inherently risky), and that at times, they carry some right wing libertarian message, I found this to be one of the most insightful books I have ever read. I feel as if blinders have been lifted from my eyes. Branch banking seems so terribly logical and efficient.  When I combine that fact with my personal conclusion that Congress is, and has been,  structurally incapable of governing in the best interests of the nation, I view this book as an economic epiphany.  It was reviewed for the Times by the man who wrote the Pulitzer-winning treatise on the Great Depression called 'Lords of Finance'. The article by Liquat Ahamed on April 11 this year is a superbly composed  must read. He does think that our recent travails are more complex than the authors concede while making their case here and focusing on the CRA. But, he does refer to the book as "brilliant" and that "it deserves to become a classic."




                                           

Mr. Mercedes, King - C +

                                               Apparently, this is Stephen King's first attempt at a detective novel and I, for one, am not moved. That's rather presumptuous of me, as the 'about the author' section of the book mentions that he has written over 50 books, all of which are worldwide bestsellers.  Wow - all - worldwide.  A rather creepy guy uses a Mercedes (thus, the title) to kill a bunch of people at a jobs fair waiting area.  A just-retired detective goes after him and, of course, with help from a very eclectic crew, stops him on the threshold of another sensational act of violence.  Any mass murderer is going to be weird, creepy or just plain crazy. But, the fact that this guy is creepy (I can't avoid the characterization ) pushes this very close to the horror genre. And since I think I've only read one of the above referenced fifty, it's just not for me.

Sacred Treason, Forrester - B

                                               This book is a fine example of what I like about historical novels.  It is well-written and well-researched.  It conveys some of the passion, emotion and detail that is often missing in the academic and general histories.   The reason it is so well done is that it is written by a professional historian dabbling on the side under a pseudonym, and presumably looking for a few extra pounds.  The setting is London in the 1560's at a time when Elizabeth I is still very vulnerable.  The Catholics are hoping for a restoration; Mary Queen of Scots is their logical hope, and the plot here is about the possibility that Elizabeth is illegitimate.  Anne Boleyn may, or may not, have been married to Percy. If she had been, a case can be made against Elizabeth.  The lead character is  Clarenceaux King of Arms, a Royal Herald and a designer of coats-of-arms.  He is part of the old religion's underground establishment, finds conclusive proof of the marriage of Percy and Anne Boleyn, but opts to play his cards close to the vest and not rock the boat of rebellion. William Harley will be back, as this is the first of an already published trilogy.