The Children Of Ash And Elm: A History Of The Vikings, Price - B

     In the Scandinavian creation myth, the first man and woman were Ash and Elm. In the middle of the first millennium, two events transpired that disrupted the routine of life in Scandinavia. The first was the long collapse of the Roman Empire, which disrupted established trade routes, and the second was a massive volcanic eruption that shrouded the skies with a 'dust veil' that reduced temperatures for decades. This 'Mighty Winter' may have reduced the population by half. The new societies that arose from this chaos were more centralized and militaristic. 

     "There was no single convenient event or factor that set the 'Viking Age' in motion." The urge to seek overseas wealth, along with a desire to expand trade, were linked to the social challenges of providing opportunities for younger men disenfranchised by inheritance laws and minimal marriage prospects in a polygamous society. "Raiding and commerce were two components, almost two varying expressions, of the same phenomenon: the pursuit and consolidation of power, expressed through the acquisition and redistribution of portable wealth." The generally accepted starting point for the raids that terrified the British Isles for centuries is the 793 attack on Lindisfarne. "The Vikings were back the following year, and they knew what they liked: isolated, undefended, but very rich monastic houses." Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands and France were all attacked. The raids became larger and larger; one in Ireland referred to a 'flotilla'. Starting in 834, they came with hundreds of ships and thousands of men. Seasonal raids evolved into a continuing Viking presence. Coastal attacks led to deeper intrusions, including raids up the Seine to Paris, the Rhine to Aachen and the Thames to London. The Vikings eventually occupied northeastern England, the area known as the Danelaw.

     The Vikings travelled east, as well as west, throughout the Baltic region and down the Volga as far as Constantinople, and even the Silk Road. They went north, founding the Faroe Islands and Iceland. This diaspora brought wealth and a degree of stability and prosperity to Scandinavia. It took a vast number of people at home in Scandinavia to build and supply the warships that travelled far and wide. The vast majority were enslaved and the capture of slaves was a primary objective of the raiders. The overseas Viking presence led to the colonization of the aforementioned Danelaw, the urban centers on Ireland's east coast and Normandy.

     The Vikings were exposed to Christianity even before their raiding began. Christianity eventually took root and did so contemporaneously with the slow consolidation of political entities into states and kingdoms. In the 10th century, Denmark and later Norway began to adopt the new religion. Sweden came much later.  

     In the 10th century, Icelanders accidentally discovered Greenland and sent out colonists. From Greenland, intrepid explorers went to North America, wintered there and fought off unwelcoming locals. Recent discoveries have shown that the Vikings landed in northern Newfoundland. Some believe the Newfoundland site may have been used as a landing place for further exploration for as long as a century.

     "As might be expected, the social, political, economic, and ideological motors that drove the Scandinavian transformation of the eighth to eleventh centuries wound down in different ways, at different times, and paces in different regions." England was unified under William the Conqueror, victor at Hastings, just after the defeat of Harald at Stamford Bridge. Vinland was too far and not sustainable. Greenland was abandoned when the tusks it traded with the continent were replaced by ones from Africa and Asia in the early 15th century. In the end though, the interchange of peoples and ideas, the willingness to accept change and the new religion led to the establishment of a more stable order,  one where raiding was no longer necessary or desirable.

     

The Fortress: The Siege Of Przemsyl And The Making Of Europe's Bloodlands, Watson - C

     "This book tells the story of one fortress-city that was pitched into the calamity and on which, for a few months early in the First World War, the fate of all Eastern and Central Europe rested. The city was called Przemysl." The city, in central Galicia, was a crossroads between east and west, a place where Jews, Polish Roman Catholics, and Greek and Russian Orthodox believers lived. The people of Przemysl who enjoyed the freedoms and prosperity of the Empire were to see their lives and world destroyed by war.

     The chaotic collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's eastern front in August, 1914 sent thousands of soldiers, stragglers, deserters and refugees into the city. The army's better troops marched past the city and the general staff issued an order: "The Fortress Przemysl will, for the moment, stand on its own and is to hold at all costs." The 35 outdated forts spread in an arc on the city's eastern side were manned by second-tier, older troops. Orthodox churchgoers and Ukrainians were evicted, and many were summarily executed over concerns about their loyalty. On September 23rd, the Russians surrounded the 131,000 soldiers in the city. As ancient as the forts were, the Russian artillery was equally outmoded thus necessitating an infantry attack. The Russians made an all-out effort on October 7th that failed to crack a single fort and the following day a Hapsburg relief army was on its way to Przemsyl. The fortress was holding back the Russian advance.

     Although stalled at Pryzemsyl, the Russians occupied eastern Galicia and began a program of returning it to its "primordial Russian roots." They required use of the Russian language, banned Greek Orthodox services and foisted Russian Orthodox practices on the population. They did all they could to erase the Polish and Ukrainian cultures. They turned a particularly vicious eye on the Jews. Cossack cavalrymen began pogroms that sent half of the 40,000 Jews fleeing to Austria. Soon, the Tsar's army authorized a mass deportation of Jews to the east.

     By November, the fortress was once again surrounded and isolated. This time, the Russians would not attack. A long siege and starvation was now the strategy. As the noose tightened, a running joke was that the difference between Troy and Przemsyl was that at Troy, the heroes were in the belly of the horse and at Pryzemsyl, the horses were in the bellies of the heroes. Three ill-conceived, poorly-led and badly-fought relief attempts over the winter caused the Hapsburg armies over half-a-million casualties. By March, 1915, the defenders were sick from lack of food and barely hanging on. On the 22nd, they surrendered and the Russians marched in. 

     The Russian occupation was short-lived as the Germans recaptured the city on June 1. At war's end, the city became part of the new country of Poland. Two decades later, in 1939, the USSR brutally occupied the city. They in turn were followed by the Nazis in 1941. The Soviets returned in 1945 and when the boundaries between Poland and Ukraine were redrawn, the city wound up again in Poland.

     

     

Under Pressure, Pobi - B

     This is the second novel in a series featuring Dr. Lucas Page, a NYC-based astrophysicist occasionally called in by the FBI. A series of bombings throughout the metropolitan area lead the FBI to ask him  for help. He and a few youngsters he teaches at Columbia sort out of the mass of facts a pattern that solves the crimes. As is almost always the case, the sequel here is not quite up to its predecessor.

Out Of Time, Klass - B

    This is a fascinating novel featuring an eco-terrorist and a computer-engineer FBI agent on his trail. The Green Man has committed five major acts of destruction, each accompanied by a manifesto pointing out the damage being done to the environment and the fact that the planet is on its last legs. He is highly skilled and principled, but has killed innocents and that is why he is the most-wanted man in America. No one has a clue who he is or where he is from until Tom Smith begins to apply his unique investigative skills to the pursuit. This is an intriguing and enjoyable read.

When Time Stopped: A Memoir Of My Father's War And What Remains, Neumann - B+

     In 2001, Ariana, a Venezuelan woman in her early 30's and living in London, returned to Caracas when her 80 year-old father died.  She had grown up in the aristocratic world of Venezuela's elite. Her mother's family had come from Europe centuries ago, and her father immigrated after WWII. Her father had never disclosed much about his past, but left for her a trove of archival material. Her relentless research led to her discovery of the struggles her grandparents and father went through as Czechoslovakian Jews during the Nazi terrors.

      Her father, Hans was the second son of Otto and Ella, a happily-married couple and owners of a successful paint factory in Prague. The Neumann's applied for US visas, and even converted to Catholicism, but all in vain, as the Germans occupied Prague in March, 1939. That year, the family moved to their country home in Libcice; they lost their business the following year. In May, 1942, Ella was sent to Terezin. Otto was exempted because he was on the Jewish Council and Hans because he had an exempt job. Otto was deported to Terezin in November. When Hans received a third notice, it was understood that there would be no more exemptions and he would be headed to Terezin or Poland. The manager of the paint factory hid Hans in an improvised space in the factory. A friend proposed a bold move. Come to Berlin and work with him as a chemist in a sophisticated paint/enamels factory. Armed with a fake identity, Hans, now Jan, moved to Berlin in 1943. He went to work and made himself an indispensable part of the company, a defense contractor. The firm appointed  him and his friend as firefighters for night work during the bombings of the city. Late that year, word reached Prague that Otto and Ella had been sent to Auschwitz. Hans' luck continued when he obtained permission to return to Prague in early April 1945. He survived the war, as did his brother, Lotar. After the communists took over in 1948, the two brothers moved to a welcoming Venezuela. They opened a paint factory with the same name as the one their parents' had in Prague.                                             The fascination of this book is the story of the author.  Sadly, her family's experiences in Europe have been told many, many times. At freshman orientation for international students at Tufts, someone suggested that with a name like Neumann, she must be Jewish. She was so shocked, she called her father, who hung up on her. When the Wall came down, Hans was invited to Prague and he and Ariana visited for a brief time, during which he broke down in tears at the station from which the Jews were deported, but still did not elaborate on his family's past. He did however write an extensive memoir about his time in Berlin that Ariana eventually unearthed. Her commitment, dedication and determination to research her families history is truly inspiring. This is a beautiful story of love and devotion.

And In The End: The Last Days Of The Beatles, McNab - B+

        New Year's 1969 saw the world's most famous band on the cusp of dissolution and bankruptcy. Paul organized a 'Get Back' project, whereby they would create straight-forward music without all the production sophistication of Sergeant Pepper and the White Album, while being filmed for a tv documentary. John was taking heroin, bereft of ideas and annoying everyone by insisting Yoko be ever-present. George was tired of his songs and ideas being ignored by Paul and came very close to quitting in January. John introduced Allen Klein, a famous NY manager, to the group and insisted that Klein be given free rein to fix Apple Corps' financial problems. The contretemps between Klein and Paul would prove to be the final rift on the road to the break-up. Somehow, they managed to pull off the 42 minutes of perfectly performed  music on the roof of 3 Savile Row on January 30, for their first live performance since September 1966. 

     The month of March saw Paul and Linda and John and Yoko marry. John and Yoko spent a week in bed in Amsterdam to promote world peace. Back in London, the band actually began working on the songs that would eventually comprise Abbey Road. Concurrently, John and Paul almost came to blows at a meeting involving an attempt to recover their copyrights from London investors. In May, they lost the copyrights to their classic creations. They all took off for different overseas vacations, with John and Yoko in Canada, where they recorded Give Peace A Chance. Back at Abbey Road, the Get Back tapes sat without any resolution toward completing the album. When everyone returned to London, Paul suggested they defer Get Back and make an album like they used to. With George Martin on board, they were going back to Abbey Road.

     Away from their business problems and in the studio, with John delayed because of a minor auto accident, Paul, George and Ringo began finishing the 9 almost complete songs. George introduced Something and Here Comes The Sun, solidifying himself as a writer on par with his two famous bandmates. John showed up with Yoko and two beds, but managed to contribute Come Together. The Fab Four found the old magic that July in the studio. In the early hours of August 21st, the four men left Abbey Road for the final time. The iconic album cover is considered the end piece of the decade and the group. 

    The following month, all but George were at a meeting to sign the new paperwork for a deal with EMI/Capital. Klein had deftly renegotiated the Beatles' royalties to everyone's satisfaction. Paul pitched John about going back on the road when John told him "I'm leaving." Abbey Road was released a week later to mixed reviews, but blockbuster sales and Beatlemania-like enthusiasm from the public. The Beatles were no more, but the news was kept under wraps for months. It wasn't announced until May of the following year. The fighting over Klein and the structure of their work continued for decades. 

     In the end, this is a sad read for any fan. But the music remains fresh and awe-inspiring even after half-a-century has passed. 

The Night Of The Assassins: The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot To Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin, Blum - B-

      This book is a very well-written story all about a coincidence. The Big Three decided on a first meeting, and Stalin convinced FDR and Churchill to come to Tehran. Unbeknownst to them, a German SS General was busy hatching a plan to  sabotage the oil wells that fueled the British war machine.  When the Germans learned of the summit, they hatched  a plan to assassinate the Allied leaders. As the Big Three were on their way to Tehran, the Soviets easily captured almost all of the Germans who had been flown in for the attack. The KGB learned that there were, however, six men still in Tehran, and that led the Soviets to request that FDR stay at their embassy in order to reduce his travel time from the American embassy. The Germans intended to access the British Embassy through the water tunnels that supplied the city on the night of Churchill's 69th birthday party, November 30, 1943. After the Soviets put a bounty on the six Germans,  they were led to the house they were hiding in. When the saboteurs realized they had no chance, they blew themselves and the house up. The events in Tehran remained a closely-held secret until early in the 21st century. 

Twilight Of The Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945, Toll - A *

     This is the third, and final, volume of the author's majestic narrative of the war in the Pacific. We pick up with FDR in Honolulu to meet with the theater commanders in July of 1944. The strategic issue was the direction of the American attack on Japan. One school of thought was to approach through Taiwan and China, and of course MacArthur insisted on going through the Philippines. Spruance suggested taking a direct line through Iwo Jima and Okinowa. The eventual strategic conclusion was to pursue both the Philippines and the Iwo Jima - Okinowa axis.

     The Task Force that comprised the Fifth/Third Fleet (the number changed as the commanders, Halsey and Spruance, alternated) sailed west from Guam in September and launched air attacks on the Philippines. However, the first order of business was the taking Peleliu by the 1st Marine Division. A well-armed veteran garrison of 11,000 men awaited them. A network of 500 tunnels protected the Japanese, while the Marines suffered in the 100+ degree heat on the surface. It took weeks and 6738 Marine casualties including 1300 dead to clear the island. Peleliu was proportionately the costliest battle of the war in the Pacific. There were but a handful of Japanese survivors. With Halsey approaching from the east and MacArthur from the south, the Philippines would soon see the Americans return, and Japanese headquarters prepared for its final all-out naval effort. Indeed, the plans for the Imperial Navy's defense of the archipelago wasn't much more than for the fleet "to die a glorious death." MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte on Oct. 20th, the same day that Japanese authorities approved the use of kamikaze pilots. The Combined Fleet approached the Leyte Gulf, where the Americans were landing, on three different lines. On the 23rd, two US submarines sank five ships approaching Palawan Island. The next day, American pilots sighted the main fleet, which featured the two largest battleships ever made, the Yamato and the Mushasi. It is believed that it took 40 torpedoes and twenty bombs to sink the 72,000 ton Mushasi on the 24th. The stage was set for the Japanese fleet to sail into Leyte Gulf on the morning of the 25th. Unknown to those supporting MacArthur's landings, Halsey had sailed north to engage what he believed to be the last of Japan's carriers and had left the northern approach undefended. The main Japanese fleet pursued and inflicted damage on the American CVE's (junior carriers) before surprisingly  retreating back to the west. Halsey returned south and American planes pursued the retreating Japanese. Over the course of the four-day battle, almost 300 ships manned by 200,000 men had fought in four separate engagements. The Imperial Navy had lost four carriers, a dozen surface ships and most importantly, over 500 planes. It would never again play a meaningful role in the war. Halsey's sally to the north and the Japanese disengagement on the 25th, when added to the fact of Leyte Gulf being the largest naval battle in history has led to endless analysis and conjecture about what is now considered the 'last' naval battle.

    In addition to the sequential island hopping and attacking that MacArthur and Nimitz undertook, there were two other equally important and devastating attacks made upon the Empire. The first was submarine warfare that eventually strangled Japan's economy. The home islands imported all strategic materials, primarily coal and oil, without which an industrial society cannot function. Almost all of their oil came from Indonesia, thousands of miles away and fully susceptible to US subs. By 1944, the country was running on fumes as tanker after tanker was sent to the bottom. In October, 1944, US subs sank 328,000 tons of merchantmen and 104,000 tons of oil tankers. The same year saw the introduction of the B-29 Superfortress to the mid-Pacific and the beginning of the strategic bombing of the Japanese home islands. The Marianas (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) would base the superforts at approximately 1500 miles fromTokyo. On Nov. 24th, 110 planes took off for the first 15-hour round trip flight to Tokyo. 

     The Japanese vigorously fought back against MacArthur's forces on Leyte. Japan poured in reinforcements, stymying MacArthur's advance. The island was not cleared until mid-December after 60,000 Japanese had died. The US then invaded Mindoro, and used its two airbases to begin bombing Luzon, home of Manila and Corregidor. Luzon was invaded on Jan. 9, 1945. The US landed over 68,000 men before noon. The US entered the capital a month later. Some of the war's most intense urban fighting ensued, along with extensive Japanese murder of civilians, and atrocities on the scale of Nanking eight years earlier. In the weeks it took to eliminate the occupiers, the city was destroyed. MacArthur declared the Philippines campaign over in June, the Japanese held out in the mountains until August and war's end. They lost over 200,000 on Luzon and almost 400,000 in the Philippines in total.

     Iwo Jima lay equidistant between the Marianas and Tokyo. It contained an airfield capable of supporting US bombers. Its commanding general had been ordered to fight to the last man. The island was all rock and the Japanese dug in, tunneled and prepared to fight an almost underground battle. "Fifteen hundred subterranean bunkers were connected by 16 miles of corridors." Someone said "The Japanese weren't on Iwo Jima. They were in Iwo Jima." US naval and air forces pummeled the island daily for months. Twenty-two thousand Japanese awaited the 75,000 Marines who began landing on February 19th. Every inch was contested and by nightfall of the first day, 40,000 Marines held about 10% of the island. Suribachi fell on the 4th day. The flag-raising image captured by an AP photographer is arguably the most famous picture in American history. The battle and the carnage continued unabated for a month. One company lost eight commanders; another landed with 133 men and left with 9. The Marines suffered 24,053 casualties, including 6140 dead. A few hundred Japanese were captured. The cost of capturing Iwo was steep, but its airfields proved invaluable in the closing months of the war.

     Building the support systems for up to 1,000 B-29's on the Marianas was a colossal undertaking. Once in the air, the superforts struggled with the distance to Japan, the weather and the opposition, leading to a 5% loss-rate per mission. When it became apparent that high-altitude daytime precision bombing was not working, LeMay switched the USAAF mission to night- time low-altitude incendiary bombing of Japan's cities. The first mission was on March 9th and 334 superforts were on their way to Tokyo. The firebombing of Tokyo was the most devastating day in the history of war, killing over 100,000 and rendering a million homeless. Raids on Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe followed.

    The Battle of Okinowa from April 1 to July 2  was the largest amphibious action in history. Fifty-thousand Yanks landed on the first day without any enemy opposition. On the 6th, Japan sent  700 planes south from the home islands in a series of traditional and kamikaze attacks. Over the course of the campaign, the Empire launched 10 massive kamikaze attacks and almost daily smaller ones hitting 200 ships and killing 4,900 Americans.  After the first week, as the Americans advanced, the fighting intensified as the 86,000 defenders were as deeply dug in as at Iwo. "In the end, the soldiers and marines had to dig their enemies out of the ground and kill them." The three months of combat led to the highest American casualties of the war, 49,151, with 12,250 killed or missing. As each portion of the island was occupied, it became part of a massive construction project. Okinowa was to be the primary base for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japan.

    Beginning in July, the navy sailed unopposed into Japan's home waters and began daily carrier-based airplane attacks and naval bombardment of Kyushu Island. Conventional bombing continued with 843 B-29's in the air on August 1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on the 6th and Nagasaki on the 9th, combined with the Soviet entry into the war led Japan to sue for peace. The US Navy anchored in Sagami Bay on Aug. 27th to begin the occupation. MacArthur, now Supreme Commander in the Pacific, arrived three days later. The official signing took place on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor on Sept. 2nd. The Greatest Generation had completed its most important mission.

Squeeze Me, Hiaasen - B+

     The author specializes in overly satirical send-ups of life in Florida. His books are very funny and this one is hysterical. He layers onto the usual crew of wacky locals a cast of characters at the winter White House in Palm Beach. It's called Casa Bellicosa and the Secret Service call name for the Trump-like prez is 'Mastadon'. One of the prez's admirers, a member of the wealthy widows gang known as the Potussies, is consumed by a python at a PB fundraiser and off we go. If you have never thought the current administration could make you laugh, read this book. One of the better lines is a reference to the Potussie-sponsored 'Very Unimpeachable You' gala where Mastodon  plans to sing 'Leather and Lace' with Roseanne Barr. Funny as hell.

You Can Go Home Now, Elias - B+

     This is an extraordinary novel, all the more interesting because it is set in contemporary Queens, NY. It is a police procedural, as well as an exposition on abusive husbands, their victims and life in a battered women's shelter. Our homicide detective discovers that the husbands of women in the shelter keep winding up dead and decides to go undercover. She is also the daughter of a Planned Parenthood physician murdered by a religious fanatic and is someone with revenge as a high priority. The finale jumps the shark, but on the whole, this is a page- turning very good read.

The Second Life Of Tiger Woods, Bamberger - B+

    All stories about Tiger cover a lot of ground, but the primary focus here is on the twenty-two months between his DUI in Florida and his fifth Masters in 2019. Memorial Day weekend in 2017, Tiger was questioned by the Jupiter police and failed a roadside sobriety test. Tiger had no alcohol or illegal drugs in his system, but rather an overload of prescription drugs. As he had had back fusion surgery a few months earlier, it makes some sense that he was taking the pain killers. Of course, this book ranges far and wide, covering his unbelievably complex childhood, his amazing career, and his totally spectacular fall from grace after his 'car crash' Thanksgiving weekend in 2009. For background, the biography by Benedict and Keteyian that was posted on this blog in May, 2018 reviews all of those matters in exquisite and superb detail. The endless surgeries had led Tiger to tell Gary Player at the 2017 Masters Champions dinner that he believed he was finished with golf. He hoped to be able to play with his kids again. Fortunately for Tiger and golf, the fusion surgery was successful. By the end of 2017, he was playing again; by the the summer of 2018, he had come in second at the PGA and won the year-end Tour Championship at East Lake. At the Wednesday night Golf Writers Association of America dinner before the 2019 Masters, Tiger stunned the crowd with his gracious, humble and modest speech. The book beautifully describes his win that week, his first Masters in 14 years and major in 11. For any sports fan, that Sunday was so special that it brought tears to many eyes and can be favorably compared to the greatest moments in sports history.

Fire In Paradise: An American Tragedy, Gee and Anguiano - B

     The Paradise wildfire of 2018 was the deadliest in America in over a century. The California town was totally destroyed. Paradise lies 150 miles northeast of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada foothills. About 42,000 people lived in and around the town. Pre-contact native Americans used fire to pare, cleanse and rejuvenate the forests. Once the US Fire Service began suppressing fires in the west, the landscape changed. Where once there might have been dozens of tress per acre, there now were hundreds. Climate change has raised temperatures in a region suffering from extended drought. California has entered an epoch of 'megafires'.

     That November, the winds came blowing in from the deserts to the east of the Sierra's. On the morning of the 8th, a PG&E wire fell to the ground. A fire started in heavy brush in a steep,  inaccessible ravine. Within an hour, it was moving fast and wreaking havoc. As ash and smoke soon covered the town, evacuations began. Some elected to stay behind and just about everybody else jammed the two roads leading out of town. Houses were burned, roads buckled, all utilities including water failed, cars were burned out hulks, the sky was black, and embers were flying everywhere. Paradise was doomed. By the end of the day, the fire was 31 square miles. It was emitting heat at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.

     The next day, the body count began. People were learning that their loved ones were found in cars, in their houses and in one instance, in a wheelchair waiting outside for help. The fire had been so intense that it was not possible to identify human remains. People had been cremated.

     Seventeen days after the fire began, extensive rain officially contained the fire. In early December, people were allowed to return to Paradise where 18,804 homes, businesses and other structures were no more. Eighty-six people were dead. FEMA announced it would take a year to clear the fire debris in town.  Many chose to move on. For PG&E, the likely cause of the fire, 2019 would see a wave of litigation that led to it filing bankruptcy. Between insurance and PG&E settlements, enough money flowed into Paradise that rebuilding soon began. The senior officers at CalFire thought the area was too susceptible to fire and acknowledged that they personally would not live in the area. California remains stymied by drought, climate change and an ever expanding forest fire season.

The Good Shepherd, Forester - B+

     This fabulous book is the 1955 novel that is the source of the the film 'Greyhound', screenplay by Tom Hanks, who also stars.  It is the totally gripping story of 3 days in the life of Capt. Krause, commander of the USS Keeling, a destroyer escorting a convoy in early 1942. Krause supervises the Polish, British and Canadian ships that are also part of the escort. Every moment, and every action are seen through his eyes. In the early days of American involvement, the Germans had the upper hand and Krause's convoy faced almost constant attack in the middle of the Atlantic. It was the portion of the ocean that neither British nor North American based air support could reach. The pace is relentless, the weather is freezing, the merchantmen are difficult to control and the wolf pack attacks and attacks. The pressure on each and every combatant is almost unbearable. Days on end without sleep, and on the third day, air support and a naval escort. Seven of the 37 ships in the convoy were lost, as was the Polish destroyer. Two, possibly three, subs were sunk. The novel is so thrilling and accurate that it was used as a teaching tool at Annapolis.

The Shooting At Chateau Rock, Walker - B+

     This is the 15th in the Bruno Correges series set in fictional St. Denis in the heart of the Perigord. As the author has done in the past, he introduces a wider European topic into the world of the small market town. Here a fraud perpetrated against an aging farmer leads to corruption on a European scale perpetrated by Russian oligarch. The author is a retired historian writing crime novels in his beloved south of France.

K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Kepner - B

      The pitches are: the slider, fastball, curveball, knuckleball, splitter, screwball, sinker, changeup, spitball and cutter. 

      The slider is midway between a curveball and a fastball, breaking toward the pitcher's glove side and perceived by hitters to be a fastball. Steve Carlton, a lefty, was the best at it. The goal is to have the batter commit to a fastball and swing over the pitch. It's been around since Christy Mathewson and breaks about four-six inches. Bob Gibson, who posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968, was also a  master.

     "The best pitch in baseball is a well-located fastball." The fastest ever thrown was 105 mph by Reds rookie reliever Aroldis Chapman in 2010. Velocity has increased significantly in the last decade leading to more strike outs, homers and longer games with more pitching changes.

       The Hall of Fame says that the first curveball was thrown in 1867 by Candy Cummings. It is thought that the best curveball throwers ever were Sandy Koufax and Mordecai 'Three Fingers' Brown, who pitched for the 1907-08 Cubs. Great curveball pitchers like Koufax or Nolan Ryan also have had powerful fastballs, as the pitches complement each other perfectly.

    Knuckleballers all confess that it was a pitch they found in an act of desperation. Niekro was the exception, as he learned it from his dad. The pitch is actually thrown with the fingertips and seeks to have zero spin. It happens to be very, very hard to throw. "Knuckleball pitchers are painstakingly self-made." The two best, and only Hall of Famers who threw the pitch, were Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Niekro, Jr.

     The splitter or split-finger fastball evolved from the forkball. Thrown with pressure from the index finger it breaks away from a lefty. The best ever was Bruce Sutter, who relieved for the Cubs and Cards on his way to Cooperstown with 300 saves. The key is a big hand with long fingers. Roger Craig championed the pitch as a coach and manager. The pitch thrived in the 70's, 80's and 90's and has fallen out of favor because it is believed to cause elbow injuries. The screwball is another pitch that has fallen out of favor because of its impact on pitcher's elbows. The greats were all Giants: Mathewson, Hubbell and Marichal. It's the opposite of a curve, breaking toward the right handed batter.

     The sinker is a fastball thrown with a narrower grip parallel to the seams and not on them. The best were Lemon, Drysdale and Maddux. Obviously, the ball drops when it gets to the plate.

      The changeup is very hard to learn. It is the only pitch where the pitcher does not place his index finger on the ball. It uses the same arm motion as the fastball and is a cousin to the screwball, sinker and splitter at 10 mph slower than the fastball. Johnny Podres closed out the Yankees in game 7 in 1955 with a changeup and spent decades as a coach teaching the pitch. Another great was Pedro Martinez, whose H of F plaque mentions the pitch.

      The last great spitballer was Preacher Roe who played over seventy-years ago for the Dodgers. The pitch was banned in 1920. In that era,  games were often played with one ball. A baseball covered with tobacco juice became unacceptable for a sport trying to improve its image after the Black Sox scandal. Notwithstanding the ban, many pitchers used variations of it including Whitey Ford, Lew Burdette, Gaylord Perry, and Don Sutton.

     Mariano Rivera, legendary Yankee closer with the lowest career ERA, 2.12, of anyone born after 1889, was the master of the cutter. It is a cut fastball, thrown off center with a drop at the plate. Old-timers say the pitch has been around forever. Indeed, it's what Mazeroski hit off Ralph Terry in the 1960 game 7.

     Thanks to Jack Blair for the recommendation. If you enjoy the game and its history, you'll enjoy this book.

     

      

Black Water Rising, Locke - B-

                 This was the author's first novel published over a decade ago. The plot involves Jay Porter, a young black lawyer who inadvertently witnesses a crime and because he had had a serious run in with the police when a student a decade ago, decides to just ignore it. Of course, he gets sucked in and has to try and get to the bottom of it. While doing so,  he uncovers some serious environmental misdeeds, and we leave him as he initiates a major lawsuit against the powerful oil establishment of Houston.

American Dirt, Cummins - B +

     This very good novel is set in Mexico. Lydia owns a bookstore, is married to a journalist and raising eight year-old Luca in Acapulco when her world falls apart. One of the customers at her store, Javier,  is the leader of a cartel who literally goes ballistic when Lydia's husband writes an article about him. The cartel kills sixteen members of Lydia's family. Only she and Luca survive and they are soon on the run.  Their flight to 'el norte' is filled with danger every step of the way. Like many others, they ride 'el bestia', the cargo trains that head north. Javier's men are all looking for her and she uses every conceivable survival skill to get to the border and hopes the coyote they use is honest. 

    The tale is a harrowing and frightful one. Thanks to my friend Wendell for the recommendation.

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965, Yang - B

     In 1924, the US proscribed immigration in, and limited almost all immigrants to the northern European countries that had been the first to populate America. Those from eastern and southern Europe, as well as those from Asia, were not wanted and were not allowed. Over the next forty years, immigration came to a near halt and only a few gave consideration to reinstating America as a 'melting pot'. The 1965 changes in the system unintentionally set America on a path that will someday lead to a non-white majority. 

     The 1924 law was a direct reaction to the decade from 1905-14, when millions came from Italy, Poland, and Russia; amongst them were innumerable Jews. The establishment said they would not assimilate. Future immigration would be based on the ethnic percentages that reflected America in 1890, before all the undesirables came. The law was supported by the American Federation of Labor, which feared that wages would be suppressed, and by the Immigration Reform League which simply did not want non-Nordics in the country. A fear of communism was also rampant after the Russian Revolution. For those from the western states, the undesirables were Asians. The country had passed The Chinese Exclusion Act in the 19th century. The new 1924 law also excluded Japanese. Italians and Jews, according to one eugenicist, would make America "darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more mercurial, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder and rape."

     As Europe came to grips with the rise of Nazism, the national origins quota system might have allowed some to enter. However, a directive by Pres. Hoover stymied almost all immigration by providing that visas would only be available to those who would not become a financial burden to America.  America's refusal to consider helping the Jews of Europe in the 1930's and 40's kept the door closed to many, many in need. After the war, Pres. Truman ended the financial burden obstruction in an attempt to aid the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in Europe.  He asked Congress to allow displaced persons to exceed the annual national origins quota. A 1948 bill allowed in only 100,000 people; two years later, and with the help of a Democratic Congress, the number was raised to 400,000.  

    Throughout the 1950's, there were small modifications made to the national origins system, but the conservatives and anti-communists held their ground. JFK came to office fully supporting a whole scale adjustment to the immigration system. But, like his civil rights legislation, reform of immigration was blocked by the unholy alliance of southern Democrats and western Republicans. A bill was introduced that established two criteria for immigration: one was people of ability who could add to the national welfare and the second was reuniting families. Kennedy's assassination and Johnson's landslide election led to a torrent of legislation, including The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. It capped immigration at 170,000 per year from the Eastern hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western. LBJ signed the bill in front of the Statue of Liberty. No one realized in 1965 just how transformative the law was. A quarter century later, the top ten countries sending immigrants were all from the third world. Since immediate family members did not count toward the annual caps, actual immigration was materially larger than anticipated. Today, there are as many foreign born American as there were a century ago.

      

The Mistress of the Ritz, Benjamin - B

             This rather interesting novel is inspired by a true story.  It is primarily about the marriage of Claude and Blanche Auzello, he a Frenchman and she an American. They were married in 1923 just before Claude became manager of the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The hotel became his life and he served successfully for decades, including the four years of occupation from 1940-44. The occupation was a challenge as the German high command lived at the hotel and Claude served them throughout the four years. Unbeknownst to each other, both Blanche and Claude undertook dangerous missions for the Resistance. Blanche was imprisoned for months just before the city's liberation. Probably the most important take away here is the role of the famous hotel in Paris' always enduring mythology.

The Order, Silva - B+

     This addition to the Gabriel Allon series is both atypical and brilliant. Allon is not tracking down enemies of the state of Israel, but is assisting a Vatican archbishop in the midst of a Papal Conclave. The late pope and Allon were friends because of the assistance the Mossad had once provided  to the Vatican dealing with Islamic terrorists. The fictional pope, Paul VII, was about to hand over to Allon the Gospel of Pontius Pilate when he was murdered in his study. There is of course no such gospel, but the author uses its concept as a vehicle to discuss two thousand years of anti-semitism. In the gospel of Matthew after Pilate washes his hands of the fate of Jesus of Nazareth, the Jews of Jerusalem cry out, "Let his blood be on us, and our children". These nine words are the basis of the condemnation of the Jews by the church as Christ killers, when in reality Jesus was executed by the Romans, and the decision to blame the Jews came when Christianity was struggling to survive a few centuries later. In addition to the discussion of this issue, the novel also has  its standard fare of conspiracies, action and intrigue.

     The author also addresses the issue that haunts long-running series set in the present. Gabriel has been working for the Mossad for almost 50 years and has to be about 70. He and Chiara buy an apartment in Venice and he promises to retire in two years. We'll see.

The Split, Bolton - B-

      The title refers to the principal character, Felicity Lloyd, who suffers from multiple personality disorder. Dr. Lloyd is a glaciologist for the British Antarctic Survey. When under extreme duress, the terrors of her childhood cause personality disruptions that she neither understands nor remembers. She is assigned to the station on South Georgia Island and knows that someone from her past is on the way there. 

The Ugly American, Lederer and Burdick - A

     This novel was published in 1958. The cover of the book refers to it as 'The Classic Bestseller Whose Title Became A Synonym For America's Failed Foreign Policy'. Most of the events depicted occurred earlier, during the French war in Vietnam. It takes place in fictional Sarkhan in Southeast Asia.

    It is less a novel telling a story than it is a brilliant political document set out in a series of vignettes. To read this expose of our incompetence is to marvel at the book's insight and vision. It is hard to believe it was written almost a decade before President Johnson  escalated the war.

     Our ambassadors in Asia come off poorly, in particular,  the first sent to Sarkhan. Lucky Sears lost his senate seat, would have preferred a federal judgeship and took the job as consolation. He didn't know where the country was on the map, certainly couldn't speak the language and didn't particularly care about Sarkhan, and didn't understand he was being mocked in the local press. And, no one told him.

     Whether in Sarkhan, Vietnam, Burma or Cambodia, the one thing American leadership was not interested in was the work and input of Americans on the ground and in the know. A Jesuit in Burma was labeled a dissident for living in the country and successfully organizing a Burmese peasant response to communist influence. His crime was to do it from the ground up, not the top down.  American and French field officers soundly defeated a Vietminh battalion after adopting tactics espoused by Mao. They were rejected by generals who said that the officer corps of a nation that created Napoleon did not need to read Mao. An Iowa 'egg man' who tried to improve and enhance the health and productive capacity of chickens was forced to resign his position for not toeing the line on enhanced roads and military equipment. The American who rejected roads and more roads in lieu of aiding farmers pump more water to their fields was ugly and his chapter was 'The Ugly American'.  Ironically, either frm usage or the intent of the authors,  the general acceptance of our arrogant policies is what became known as "ugly".  The one senior American who understood Sarkhan, had studied its language and culture was a career foreign service officer. When he took the advice of the Americans and Sarkhanese who knew the needs of the people and asked Washington for embassy staff  who read the language, wouldn't bring their families and personal autos, commit to a two year terms, forego the luxuries of the PX and study the communist texts, he was recalled.

     The authors end with a chapter called 'A Factual Epilogue', in which they point out that this is fiction but fiction based on true stories. They close with, "We have been offering the Asian nations the wrong kind of help. We have so lost sight of our own past that we are trying to sell guns and money alone, instead of remembering that it was the quest of the dignity of freedom  that was responsible for our own way of life. All over Asia, we have found that the basic American ethic is revered and honored and imitated when possible. We must, while helping Asia toward self-sufficiency, show by example that America is still the America of freedom and hope and knowledge and law. If we succeed, we can not lose the struggle."

     

    

Empires of the Sky: Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Mens Epic Duel To Rule the World, Rose - B+

     Inspired by a balloon ride in America, Count Graf von Zeppelin began to study and think about how to build, control and fly a lighter than air ship. When he turned his full-time attention to the issue in 1890, it was generally accepted that balloons should be cigar shaped, with many smaller cells comprising the total. Hydrogen was the best inflator and steering required a powerful propellant. The count befriended a local manufacturer of internal combustion engines, Gottlieb Daimler. Four hundred and twenty feet long and powered by a 14.5hp Daimler engine, the LZ-1 flew 3.5 miles in July, 1900. LZ-2 required a stiffer airframe, a better engine and better controls. The state provided financial assistance. But, the LZ-2 crashed in early 1906. Later that year, it flew for two hours and once again piqued the interest of the army. A twelve hour flight in the LZ-4 in 1908 cemented Zeppelin's relationship with the government and made him a worldwide phenomena. Meanwhile, the powered flights of the Wright brothers were drawing the approval of the American military. The count was committed to his airship as a weapon, while others encouraged its commercial use as a passenger carrier. Starting in 1911, the Zeppelins began commercial passenger service in Germany. Prior to the outbreak of war, the airships flew over 34,000 passengers on 1588 flights covering 107,205 miles.

     The initial army and navy efforts with converted airships were unmitigated failures. After a few years, the Reich built bigger and better airships which were able to fly to, and bomb, London. Anti-aircraft weapons and airplanes soon put an end to the Zeppelin's effectiveness. "The great majority of Zeppelin raids were a complete waste of time, money and life." The acceleration of construction of airships, the use of new materials and the breadth of missions flown positioned Zeppelins for success in the post-war era. 

     During the war, a Zeppelin had made a non-stop 4000+ mile trip and the successors to the Count, who had died during the war, believed in the future of long distance passenger travel. And they and most students of flight agreed that airplanes were not equipped to compete with the airships from Germany.  Hugo Eckener, the executive now in charge of Zeppelins, was prohibited by the Versailles Treaty from building a ship larger than one million cubic feet. In essence, he was limited to building small ships for local travel. His goal was to cross the Atlantic. In 1922, he made a deal to build the US Navy a 2.5 million cf ship. In October, 1924, he sailed it across the Atlantic and safely delivered it to the Navy in NJ. As Eckener dreamed of building a trans-oceanic business, aggressive American businessmen were also thinking about visionary air passenger options featuring gas-powered airplanes. Freed by the Treaty of Locarno in 1926, Eckener built the Graf Zeppelin and in 1928, the luxury airship crossed the Atlantic in 111 hours to worldwide acclaim. The return was a much quicker 71 hours. But, safety and practicality remained concerns in the eyes of many. To prove its durability and air worthiness, Eckener embarked on a round the world flight in the fall of 1929. He headed east over the USSR and landed in Japan in four days. Over the Pacific and on to the East Coast, where he was honored with only the 11th Gold Medal given by the National Geographic Society. He partnered with an American business and the following year, flew from Germany to Brazil to the US and back across the ocean. An international success was looming.

     Eyeing the Germans but convinced airplanes were the future, Juan Trippe, founder of Pan American Airways worked continually to establish a passenger airline on the back of his airmail business.  He initiated passenger service in the Caribbean on a seaplane, Sikorsky's S-40, the American Clipper piloted by Charles Lindbergh. Eckener was struggling to keep the Zeppelin company going under the new Nazi regime, which considered both Eckener and the airship relics of a bygone era. He was successfully managing regular Europe to Brazil runs, but still desired to conquer the Atlantic with a regular passenger service. With the support of the regime, Eckener began construction of the behemoth Hindenburg. In early 1936, the luxurious Zeppelin was ready. The Nazis the airship, took over control of the company and sidelined Eckener. Meanwhile, Trippe had pivoted to the Pacific and was building stops for his clippers on Midway and Wake islands. His China Clipper flew from San Francisco to Manilla late in 1935. Trans-Pacific passenger service was now a reality.

      On May 6, 1936, with fifty-one passengers aboard, the Hindenburg left for NY. The three day flight and its shorter return were a resounding success. It then undertook regular flights to Brazil, one of which carried a curious Juan Trippe and his wife. The following year, the Hindenburg was scheduled to land in Lakehurst, NJ on May 6th. The airship was late, the weather was not perfect and the ship came in a bit fast, causing a wire brace to snap. At 7:25 P.M., the ship burst into flames. "In roughly half a minute, a succession of wildly remote possibilities, none inherently dangerous in and of itself, turned into lethal certainty." Thirty-five of the ninety-seven travelers died. Although there was another airship built in Germany, it was only used domestically, mostly for propaganda purposes. As for Pan Am, the Pacific service was unprofitable and the Atlantic service began in May, 1939 and was suspended when war broke out.  Eckener survived the war and lived long enough to see the advent of the jet airplane. Trippe eventually conquered the airways making Pan Am the pride and joy of the US, the master of international flight. He built the skyscraper Pan Am building over Grand Central, retired in 1964 and died in 1981.

     This is a magnificent and wonderful book, a bit long at almost 500 pages, but well worth the effort.

     

     

      

The Marching Season, Silva- B+

                   In the follow up, Osbourne is working for his father-in-law, the new Ambassador to the Court of St. James. The Good Friday Accords have just been signed, but there is a protestant splinter group set on breaking the peace. The Society thinks that's a pretty good idea, as discord and violence keeps its members busy and wealthy. They recruit the former KGB man to assist and once again it is Osbourne v. Delaroche. Great stuff.

The Mark of the Assassin, Silva - B +

                This fabulous thriller is over twenty-years old and was written by the author prior to his beginning his successful Gabriel Allon series. It features a CIA agent, Michael Osbourne, on the tail of a KGB trained hit man, Jean Delaroche,  now working for the highest bidder. At the moment, that is The Society, a conspiracy interested in profit, not committed to any set of principles and made up of very senior people from around the world. The mission of The Society is to create and foster havoc, thus assuring their ongoing financial well being. There's a second in the series that will follow. 

The Quiet American, Greene - B+

                   This classic was written in Saigon in the mid-50's and that is the time and place of this novel. The narrator is British, and a somewhat world-weary reporter on the wars in Indochina. The French had been defeated the year before and the Americans were beginning their involvement. The quiet man of the title is Pyle, young, enthusiastic and an economic attache. His optimism and naievete costs him his life. As for our narrator, Thomas Fowler, he exhibits a cynicism and despair at the efforts of the west to try and understand Vietnam and to save them from communism. His statement, "it's their war, not ours" anticipates the foolishness that America would embrace in the following decade.

The Guest List, Foley -B

         This is another from the NYT summer reading list. It's a whodunit with a unique twist. In the prologue, someone is done in, but we don't find out who it is until almost the end of the book. The setting is an island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland that a couple has transformed from a deserted locale to a wedding destination. We meet the few dozen folks who are in the wedding party and their significant others,  the bride, editor of a popular online magazine, and the groom, star of a survival type reality tv show. As the bride, groom, best man, maid of honor,  a great friend of the bride and his wife tell their side of the story, more and more background,  some of it flat out awful, raises its ugly head. We learn that one person in our wedding party is a real SOB and that person winds up dead. The ending is a bit too contrived for me.

The Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt, Johnson - B+

    The pirate principal of this story, Henry Every, was born near Devon in the middle of the 17th century, and likely joined the Royal Navy as a teenager. He came of age in an era when there were conflicting examples of piracy. The Barbary pirates were universally condemned as enslavers and tyrants, while men like Drake were knighted and enriched for their roles as privateers. Every first appears in the historical record in the 1690's as a slave trader working for the Governor of Bermuda. In 1693, he shipped out as first mate on a ship that was part of a small squadron seeking to salvage sunken treasure in the Caribbean.  The following May, after the ship was stranded in Spain for over half-a-year, Every led a mutiny, re-named the ship the 'Fancy' and sailed south around the Cape of Good Hope and headed to the pirates' den of Madagascar. 

     Across the Indian Ocean, the Grand Mughal Aurangzeb, the Moslem ruler of India and easily the richest person in the world, was preparing his ship, the 'Ganj-I-Sawai' for sea. It was 1500 tons, one of, if not the largest ship in the world. It was carrying 800 dignitaries and 400 hands to Mecca for the hajj. It was also loaded with jewels, gold, spices and cotton.

     Every headed to the Gulf of Aden that summer and was met there by half-a-dozen other ships in his line of business. The pirates agreed on a concerted effort and selected Every as their leader. The 'Fancy' was so fast that a report was sent to the East India Company saying she sails "so hard now, that she fears not who follows her." On Sept. 7th, the 'Fancy' captured the 'Fath Mahmamadi' and  £60,000  of gold. The next day, they approached the much larger and better armed 'Ganj-I-Sawai' and were met with propitious fortune. The Indian treasure ship experienced an explosion on her gun deck and the 'Fancy's' first broadside dismasted her. The fortune the 'Fancy' absconded with was estimated as somewhere between 200-600,000. To  locate all of the treasure, they tortured the Muslim crew. They were surprised to find dozens of women including princesses, maids, and concubines aboard and proceeded in an orgy of rapine. Some of the  women threw themselves overboard. The  addition of  sexual violence to a heist that may have been the largest ever meant that soon, the 'Fancy', Every,  and the crew achieved international ignominy. 

     The sacrilege of the British pirates cast doubt upon the members of the East India Company leading to the incarceration of the entire garrison in Bombay. All realized that Every's actions put the company at risk and a writ was issued from London calling all Englishmen to pursue and capture the pirates. Every sailed for Reunion, purchased slaves, and then sailed to the Bahamas. The crew dispersed and Every and about twenty men sailed for Ireland in a small schooner. Soon thereafter, eight of his men were captured. Two turned state's evidence and the rest were hung at Execution Dock in London after a trial. As for Henry Every, he disappeared from the historical record. "He snuck back into the shadows." The lasting historical consequence of these events was an alliance between the Grand Mughal and the East India Company, tasking the English with the responsibility to protect ocean- going traffic in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

     

The Last Flight, Clark - B+

                         This novel is on the NYT summer list and it's a doozy. A successful woman married to the scion of a wealthy and famous family knows it's time. He's been abusing her for a decade, and with him about to announce for a senate seat from New York, it's now or never for her to leave. Her plan is upended when he sends her somewhere she wasn't intending to go, and in an act of desperation, she swaps identities and boarding passes with an equally desperate woman at JFK. The plane she was supposed to be on crashes and she's watching her funeral on CNN. Things are never that simple. This is truly fun.

Clean Hands, Hoffman - B

                        This fun novel was on the NYT summer reading list. It is set in today's NYC and opens with a law firm associate having his cellphone picked during a bump in Grand Central Station. When the firm's security people review the CCTV coverage, it appears as if the associate and pickpocket are working in tandem. Recovering the phone is the first priority and making certain the documents that were on it are not leaked is the next step. Off we go in a plot involving Russian thieves in Brooklyn, former CIA operatives in Manhattan, a DOD off the books operation and a story that pulls you in. 

Serenade For Nadia, Livaneli - B+

      This extraordinary novel is written by Turkey's most popular novelist. He tells the story through a narration by a 36-year-old woman in a clerical position at the University of Istanbul. Maya is assigned to accompany a visiting Harvard professor, Max, a German emigre who had spent a few years at the university from 1939-1942. We learn that dozens of Jewish intellectuals were brought  to Istanbul by Attaturk in 1933 when they lost their jobs in Germany to build the university and the entire education system in Turkey. Integral to the novel is the history of Max's wife, a Jew who made it to Romania and almost escaped to Palestine. She was one of 769 Jews who died when the overloaded ship, the 'Struma', was expelled by Turkish authorities from Istanbul, and torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea. The novel and the translation are spot on and recommended.

The Siberian Dilemma, Smith - B-

                       It's been almost forty years since Moscow Inspector Arkady Renko appeared on the scene and seven years since the last installment. He sets off for Siberia in this novel to find his live-in girlfriend, a reporter who went east in search of a story. The two most harrowing moments involve a bear attack that almost kills him and a race over the Lake Baikal ice in an SUV.  As incredulous as some of the story is, the essence of Arkady is his wit, which he still has, and the hopelessness of Russia, which is very much ever present.

Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, The Berlin Wall, and the Most Dangerous Place On Earth, MacGregor- B -

    This is a history of the 28-years of the wall that divided  Berlin and symbolized the breach between communism  and capitalism. The motivation for the E. Germans to build the wall in 1961 was emigration to the west. The best people were leaving for freedom and financial well-being. Over a decade, 2.1 million people, a sixth of the population, "simply walked out their front doors and never returned." On the morning of Sunday, August 13, E. Germany began to seal off the city of W. Berlin from the German Democratic Republic. Soon, a 97 mile barricade encircled the city. Within a month, it was a wall. There were a handful of crossings for Berliners with permission but only one for foreigners, diplomats and members of the occupying powers - Checkpoint Charlie. Under the terms of the Four Powers Agreement, all of the occupying powers were entitled to travel through each other's sectors. Very early in the fall of 1961, the US exercised its right to travel in E. Berlin and a stand-off with Soviet tanks brought the world to the brink at Checkpoint Charlie before both sides de-escalated. Over the course of the first year of the wall, the E. Germans and Soviets shocked the world when they killed those trying to escape. As Berliners despaired of their plight, the summer of 1963 saw one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War when President Kennedy, cheered on by virtually the entire population of W. Berlin, stood across from the Brandenburg Gate and made his famous ' Let Them Come To Berlin' speech. After his "Ich bin ein Berliner" line, he told his speechwriter that the day could never be exceeded in his lifetime. He rejuvenated NATO, inspired the Germans, and confirmed the American commitment to the city.  In 1965, the four powers and the two Germany's signed a treaty, which was the first time the US recognized E. Germany, and the all parties reconfirmed the rights of the occupying military powers. 

     In the late 1960's and into the 1970's, the focus of the Cold War moved elsewhere and Berlin reached a kind of stasis. Both sides lived their lives, and spying seemed to become the central occupation of the city. By the 1980's, a new generation  of E. Germans had grown up under the communist regime, felt little loyalty to the past, and simply wanted the better life they saw on W. German television. This was true throughout the Warsaw Pact as communism failed on every level. In the late 80's, W. Berlin featured major pop acts, such as David Bowie, Michael Jackson and Pink Floyd, playing near the wall. In July, 1988, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played a 4 hour set before 300,000 in E. Berlin. The concert was televised throughout E. Germany and became "the touchstone of a generation." The following year saw increased protests in Leipzig and Dresden, the end of the iron curtain in Hungary and Czechoslovakia and, in October, Gorbachev criticized Honecker while in Berlin. On the evening of Nov. 9th, a mid-level GDR functionary inadvertently and mistakenly announced that E. Germans were now free to travel, and failed to mention all of the restrictions that would continue to apply.  The story was broadcast by W. Berlin tv and within hours, thousands of Berliners were standing on and dancing on the wall. The following day East Berliners poured into the west. For all intents and purposes, the 45-year Cold War was over in a flash. By the following summer, the Berlin Wall was gone. The Soviets opted to not interfere, Checkpoint Charlie was dismantled and Germany was reunified.

Disappearing Earth, Phillips - B +

               This highly acclaimed novel is set in current day Kamchatka. There are 12 chapters, one per month beginning in August when two sisters disappear from the beach near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the regional capital on the Pacific shore. The mystery of their disappearance is the background to the stories of the women of this community, where natives dominate and Russians (white people) are the minority. The natives are one or two generations removed from reindeer herding, fishing and other ancient ways of life. Just about all of the men, native or white, are pretty unreliable in this matriarchy in a society beyond contemplation to us. This is an interesting story with intriguing background on the Pacific coast of Russia.

The Good Assassin, Vidich - B

                                 This time, the novel is set in Cuba in 1958. The corrupt American-backed Battista regime is on the ropes and failing on every level. The rebels are in the mountains and getting ready to finish off the government. A retired CIA agent is sent to see how the man on the ground is doing, because Washington is concerned that he is actively supporting the rebels. As the author's specialty is stories based on actual events, there was a rogue American in Cuba who reached the highest levels of the revolution, only to pay the ultimate price when he came under suspicion by Castro.

An Honorable Man, Vidich - B

                   The author specializes in CIA stories from the distant past that are based on actual events. In this novel, a double agent is suspected, and the CIA is desperately trying to find him in DC in 1953. He had been recruited in Europe after WWII and the Soviets deftly try to change the focus of the US investigation. Interestingly, the book explores the growing pains of the agency, its founding with the veterans of the OSS and its competition with the established and much more powerful FBI.

Germany: A Nation In Its Time, Before, During, And After Nationalism, 1500 - 2000, Smith - B+

     The main theme of this book is that Germany, over the course of five centuries, should be viewed through "radically different" lenses. The second message is that, for the vast majority of the years studied, Germany was a pacific land, often derided for its lack of "martial spirit". The third is an exploration of the role of compassion in national belonging. The book is divided into five distinct eras: Before Nationalism, The Copernican Turn, The Age of Nationalism, The Nationalist Age and After Nationalism. 

     I. At the mid-point of the second millennium, there were few maps and without maps, no sense of a Germany. It was simply the place where the German language was spoken. The advent of printing, the exploration of Africa and the discovery of America "set off a new curiosity about the world." The first maps of Germany delineated its borders as the Rhine, the Alps and the Danube, the Carpathians and Vistula and the Baltic Sea. In the middle of the 16th century, Munster published a "Cosmographia"that provided great detail and accuracy on Germany, its cities, mountains, rivers and boundaries. Germany was slowly becoming divided by religion as Protestantism took hold in all the cities and throughout the north. But unlike the rest of Europe where religious distinctions led to violence, the 1555 Peace of Augsburg created a Germanic patchwork wherein the local ruler could determine his community's devotion to either Catholicism or Lutheranism. However,  "[b]etween 1570 and 1648, the German lands went from a place of flourishing learning to a decimated ruin." The Thirty Years War destroyed Germany, compelling scholars to search for comparisons. The Black Death of the 14th century and the second thirty years of war from 1914-1945 are the two most oft-cited. Probably a third of the population died from battle, siege, hunger, privation and disease. The population loss was a greater percentage than that of the 20th century and it took much longer to recover, somewhere between 60 and 100 years. The war broke out in 1620 when Protestant and Catholic forces clashed over the possibility of a Protestant assuming the Bohemian crown and voting out the Catholic Hapsburgs. Both the Swedes and the French aggressively intervened in the 'Teutsche Krieg'. A contemporary chronicler called the soldiers of the era "booty stealers, plunderers, peasant tormentors, oppressors of people, tribute mongers, torturers, cowards, and deceits." The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia ended the war and brought both the Swedes and French into possession of German land. 

     II. "The German lands underwent fundamental political and ideological transitions, and these resulted in a paradigmatic shift in the way one knew and represented the German nation." The Germans turned to a new way of understanding their nation. Patriotism to the nascent nations of Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, and Austria grew. No one envisioned a singular nation, but rather a place where German was spoken in different countries.  The War of Austrian Succession raged around the world in the 1740's. Prussia had invaded Austria and annexed Silesia to begin the contest. The price of the war was high for Prussia, which lost 10% of its population. After the war, both Austria and Prussia increased the size of their armies. Both German nations joined Russia in the 1772 Partition of Poland.  The partition caused fear in Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, the Palatinate, and Wurttemberg,  all of which began to look to France and Britain as possible protectors.  "For the development of German nationalism, the German response to the French Revolution was absolutely crucial." As France began to develop a nationalist ideal which formed people into active citizens, both Austria and Prussia were still thinking about partitioning the rest of the Germany.  In 1796, France crossed the Rhine and began two decades of war, occupation and destruction. There was no German reaction, merely a "melancholic resignation".   The invasion ended the freedoms of the innumerable small cities and eventually, the Holy Roman Empire itself.  "Yet in the protracted period of war and occupation, a genuine German nationalism did, in fact, appear for the first time."  After Napoleon's defeat of Prussia at Jena in 1806,  "a    handful of intellectuals began to write in an unmistakably nationalistic mode."  Johann Fichte wrote 'The Republic of the Germans', envisioning a vast nation from the Baltic to the Adriatic, that dominated central Europe, and honored its war heroes,  its mothers,  dedicated its children to the fatherland, and allowed only Germans to be citizens.   Prussia freed its serfs, granted citizenship to all of its people and began to reform the army.  After Napoleon's  retreat from  Russia, King Frederick William called the Prussian nation to arms to defeat the Emperor. It was a Prussian army  arriving late in the day at Waterloo that delivered the coup de grace.  Germany then reverted to her peaceful ways for half-a-century.

     III.  The years after the Napoleonic wars were peaceful and entailed progress both socially and culturally. Throughout Germany, there was an increase in books published, bookstores and libraries grew in number, and the society was on its way to total literacy.  Prussia, Baden and Saxony built up excellent elementary school systems. Both Austria and Prussia appropriated fewer funds for their militaries.  Unfortunately though, suppression of new democratic ideals was widespread, as was incarceration. Germany also remained a developing nation, trailing almost all of the countries of Europe in every economic measure. Poverty, malnutrition, and infant mortality were pervasive. The revolutions of 1848 were about poverty, political rights and nationalism. A parliament in Frankfurt tried to envision a unified Germany and even offered a crown to the King of Prussia, who refused it. As throughout Europe, 1848 aspired to a new world, but didn't budge the old order. In the 1850's, as many as two million people per year left the poverty of Germany and emigrated to America. The advent of industrialization meant more and more Germans now lived in cities, and both Vienna and Berlin grew to over a million people. Both Austria and Prussia increased the funding for, and the size of, their armies.  In Prussia, a new prime minister, Otto von Bismarck, was in favor of a stronger army, and along with the Prussian nobility officer class, he led the move toward "the militarization of the nation." 

     "In central Europe, the return of war . . . would determine the space of nations." Austria was the more formidable power, with the third largest population and vaster financial resources allocated to the police and military. But Prussia, better equipped, with better access to rail transport and immeasurably better led,  routed the Austrians in their 1866 war. Bismarck solidified Prussian control of northern Germany and made no claim on Austrian land. Four years later, Prussian victory over France led to the creation of the German Empire and the absorption of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Baden and Wurttemberg. For the next four decades, Germany would become a nation with a focus more on a type of bellicose and exclusionary nationalism.

      IV. "Nationalism became the dominant ideology of the age not during the First World War but in a Germany shattered by its fallout." "Not enthusiasm but a sense of duty" was the response to the outbreak of war in 1914. There was "a tacit social contract whose core postulate was neither hate nor expansion but rather the duty to defend and die for the fatherland." They believed in "sacrificing for" the nation. As the slaughter went on year after year, people began to despise the war and in 1917, the Reichstag renounced all territorial gains and called for the cessation of all hostilities. When it was all over, the Weimar Constitution announced that the state derived its power "from the people." For the first time in German history, there was no monarch. The Treaty of Versailles removed twenty-million German speakers from the country, saddled the country with responsibility for the war and demanded reparations. The new Germany was a broken country, filled with the disabled, war-widows, fatherless children, and torn between the right and the left and financially overwhelmed.

     Hitler believed in racial purity and that in order to reinstate itself as a world power, Germany needed to rid itself of Jews. He foisted this central theme of his on his party and eventually, the entire country. Nazi Germany quickly became a one-party police state, in which the country's Jews were completely marginalized and isolated. When Poland was invaded, the Jews and upper echelons of Polish society were brutally murdered and suppressed.

      When the USSR was invaded, the SS was no longer under Army supervision and was free to pursue total war against communists and Jews.  The east became a charnel house for Jews, as the SS, as well as local thugs, unleashed a torrent of  indiscriminate murder and thievery. The decision to completely eliminate Europe's Jewry was likely made by Hitler in December, 1941 and was organized by Heydrich a month later. Although the death camps were already being utilized, they escalated to the systemic and total "final solution" of the continent's Jews in 1942-44. The Nazis achieved genocide. 

     V.  Notwithstanding all it had been through, post-war Germany looked back favorably on the Nazi years as "a good idea gone too far." W. Germany's economic miracle pushed nostalgia for the 1930's further into the past. In the 1960's, magazines and television began to deal with the Hitler years. A 14-part tv documentary, 'The Third Reich', was seen by 60% of the population. It stated that "we" were responsible. But even in the late 60's, the ability to compassionately mourn was still a decade away. The 1979 American mini-series 'Holocaust' brought discussion of what had been done to the Jews to the fore. A 1985 speech by Germany's president told the nation that they "must take on the past." Unification in 1990 led to a massive disruption in the east and an increase in anti-immigrant violence. The response was a compassionate protestation against prejudice that could not have happened in the 30's or 50's and was possible because a modern democracy had came to grips with its past. 

     The author closes by briefly addressing Germany today and the rise of the nationalist AfD, concludes that they remain a small (10%) percentage of the country. and that the nationalism of the past cannot build a society, only destroy it.

     This is an extremely challenging read, one that presupposes a familiarity with German and European history. It enlightens, particularly in the first half of the book. But, from Bismarck through 1945, I can't say that it sheds any truly new light on the greatest tragedy of 20th-century history.

     

Deaths Of Despair And The Future Of Capitalism, Case and Deaton - B+

      This book is a study of the rising death rates among middle-aged white Americans caused by suicide, drug overdoses and alcoholic liver failure. Few of these deaths of despair are among those with bachelor's degrees. "When the fruits of success are as large as they are today, so are the penalties for failing the tests of meritocracy." Fully 38% of the population is non-Hispanic whites lacking a college education. Their wages have stagnated for half a century. Their access to health care is inadequate, they marry less and have more children out of wedlock. Globalization is the oft-cited cause, but the problem is uniquely American as the advanced countries of Europe do not share our fate.  At the heart of the matter is the failed healthcare system and a political system geared toward keeping the rich at the top of the pyramid.

        The 20th century saw a major increase in wages, education and longevity. Since 1990, mortality rates have declined in northern Europe and risen amongst the less educated non-Hispanic white mid-life Americans (LEW hereafter). The key milestones were the  1996 FDA approval of Oxycontin and the 2013 introduction of fentanyl.  Mortality rates for male LEW's have increased by a quarter, while dropping 40% for those with a degree. The LEW's also suffer from poor health and regular pain compounding their problems. These are the people who have lost jobs and the sense of self-worth that goes with being engaged in society. "The social and economic upheaval that has swept through their lives is causing increasing numbers of them to take their own lives." Although educated whites drink more often than LEW's, the latter group is more inclined to binge drink, thus causing more liver damage. Physicians' concerns about pain management in the 90's led to the prescribing of painkillers, which were abused by LEW's and thus increased deaths from overdosing.

       "Inequality and death are joint consequences of the forces that are destroying the white working class." And it is the destruction of opportunity and hope that are the root cause of these deaths, as well as the limited access to health care and the  uniquely American lack of a safety net.  The collapse of the industrial base that provided employment for the LEW's has left them with jobs lacking in pride and money. Being an autoworker is more satisfying and remunerative than being a greeter at a Walmart. This inability to be able to afford to marry, the lack of commitment to offspring, and not being involved with religious or social groups all add up to greater despair. 

       Our country's greatest failure is its healthcare system. It is too expensive. It is "a cancer that has metastasized throughout the economy, strangling its ability to deliver what Americans need." We pay 18% of GDP for healthcare, and life expectancy has slid three years in a row for the first time in 100 years. Our physicians are paid twice as much as in Europe, pharmaceuticals cost three times as much and the same medical devices are also three times more expensive. Insurers and hospitals make significant profits.  Hospitals spent $450M on advertising in 2017. Employers hire fewer workers and pay those in their employ less because of the amount they spend on health insurance. The industry spent $567M lobbying in 2018, and $133M in direct gifts to Congressmen. The industry is in essence a shake down supported by Washington.

      Also threatening the LEW's are globalization and automation and unlike other industrialized nations, our inadequate safety net does not protect the displaced. As American companies grow larger, they are able to suppress wages, while focusing on enhancing the pay of their managers and providing outsized returns to shareholders. The balance between labor and capital has swung sharply to the side of capital.

      The authors do not believe that the answer to America's issues is a redistribution of wealth through the tax system. Rather, they suggest attacking each problem directly. They would suppress opioid sales and fund intervention therapies. They suggest emulating any of the world's successful universal health programs with an eye toward cutting profits and decreasing costs. Changing corporate governance by having workers represented on boards and expanding executives' concerns beyond their shareholders to the broader constituencies is encouraged. Raising the minimum wage and/or wage subsidies are preferred over universal basic incomes. Enhanced anti-trust action and a reduction in the length of patents are desirable. And most importantly, a college education should be less expensive to obtain and an apprenticeship system would  be attractive. America has solved problems in its past and can do so again.

Fair Warning, Connelly - B+

                                  It's unlikely that anyone is better at the cop/mystery/thriller genre than Connelly. His Harry Bosch series has been a dominant player for decades, and here he returns to a journalist who has appeared twice before in LA.  Jack McEvoy is now working for a website that focuses on consumer protection issues. He stumbles upon a crime committed by someone with illicit access to women's DNA from a new entrant in the burgeoning business of DNA analysis for the general public. The business is completely unregulated, and the crime he discovers leads us on a very exciting  chase. This is another great book from a wonderful author.

Bluebird, Bluebird, Locke - B+

                                  This novel is a few years old and is the prequel to 'Heaven, My Home' by the same author that I posted in April. The books should be read in sequence, and I strongly recommend both. Darren Matthews is a Texas Ranger, only the second black one in history, and the principal character in both novels. In this one, he is sent from Houston east to Shelby County to investigate the murder of a black man from Chicago. Butting up against local hatreds and plenty of secrets, he solves that crime as well as one from a few years back. The books are great mystery stories, but what makes them exceptional is the author's skill in dealing with race in communities where blacks and whites have lived side by side for generations, sharing the same space and the rural poverty that comes with it. The author is a young black woman from Texas, who is very good at her craft.

Knife, Nesbo - B+

                           The most recently translated Harry Hole novel is very, very good. A serial rapist who Harry had put in jail over twenty years ago is out, has threatened to kill Harry's wife and is raping again. When Rakel is murdered, Svein Finne is the obvious suspect, but he has an alibi. Harry has been so drunk and the killer so duplicitous that Harry begins to believe he murdered his own wife.  He eventually sorts out who the killer is, gives him a way out and turns the table on Finne as well, ending forever his preying on the innocent. This  is a perfectly crafted addition to a splendid series. 

Music By Max Steiner: The Epic Life Of Hollywood's Most Influential Composer, Smith - B+

      Steiner was born in 1888 into a famous Viennese family. His grandfather managed the 'Theater an der Wien' and produced operettas with Johann Strauss. His father, Gabor, conceived of and opened an amusement park, 'Venice in Vienna'. Gabor was ambitious, extremely hard working and creative. He opened Vienna's first moving picture theater. Max was encouraged to take up the piano by Strauss, and at nine composed his first song. He also met an extraordinary cast of talented people who performed for his father including Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, W.C. Fields and John Philip Sousa. Gabor was honored by the Emperor Franz Joseph for his contributions to the arts. Max graduated from Imperial Academy music school and began writing operettas in his teens. When Gabor went bankrupt in 1907, Max moved to London. His new career involved scoring music and traveling with shows and he even composed a ballet. He became musical director of the London Opera House. The outbreak of WWI cast him as an enemy alien and he immediately left for America. In New York, he made a great many friends and developed his skills as a composer, conductor and manager working for different producers on varied musical projects. He became an American citizen in 1921. He had the good fortune to collaborate with George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein. In 1929 as Hollywood was switching to talkies and focusing on musicals, RKO signed 41 year old Max and he was off to Hollywood.

       Within a year he was Musical Director, but RKO was losing a great deal of money as the Depression wore on. David O. Selznick was put in charge to save the studio. Selznick believed in the role of music and authorized a film to be scored from beginning to end. 'Symphony For Six Million' was Hollywood's and Steiner's first film accompanied by, and enhanced by, music. Max had created a new art form; the techniques are followed to this day. With RKO facing bankruptcy as 5,000 movie theaters were shuttered in the early 30's, Selznick left for MGM, and Merian Cooper came to RKO  to produce one of the most important and successful movies of all time. 'King Kong' saved RKO and made Steiner famous. It was released in March 1933 and the music fit the film perfectly. The score is considered a masterpiece, the foundation of all that followed. Decades later, Cooper credited it with the movie's enduring success. Soon thereafter, with 'Flying Down To Rio', Steiner began his collaboration with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In 1935, he received his first Oscar for the score of a John Ford film, 'The Informer'. A year later, he left RKO to join Selznick International Pictures.  Their first and very successful outing was 'Little Lord Fauntelroy'. Selznick paid Max well, but couldn't keep him busy, so he loaned him to Warner Bros. The score for 'Charge of the Light Brigade' was a success and Max  moved to Warner's full time. 'The Life of Emile Zola' won the Oscar for best picture and according to Jack Warner, Max's nominated score was the key. He scored 'Jezebel', the first of fifteen films for Bette Davis. Steiner worked constantly and often at an unimaginable pace. It was not unusual for him to score over a dozen films in a year. The beginning of 1939 saw him score 'Stagecoach' and 'Dodge City', while waiting for a highly anticipated phone call. Selznick had obtained the rights to and, in December of 1938 began filming, 'Gone With The Wind'. At the end of March, Selznick asked, Warner agreed, and Max went to work on what is considered one of, if not the greatest films ever made, and the most memorable music score of all time.

        The filming of GWTW was total chaos. Selznick used three different directors. Almost the entire cast was unhappy, particularly with the producer. Leslie Howard, Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable alternated their frustrations between the producer and director. For Max, the problem was time. Selznick did not provide enough time for Max to score a three hour film and constantly interfered with Steiner's work. Against a December 15th premier, Max announced in early November, he could not finish. Working frantically, the score was completed nine days prior to the 15th. Awards mattered to Max and he was crushed when the Oscar went to 'The Wizard of Oz'. He, de Havilland and Gable were Oscar losers amongst GWTW's eight wins. Notwithstanding his disappointment, the score brought him lasting fame. Max was pleased with his work on 'Sergeant York' which Warner's had set up to prepare America for war. Max's obsession with work and his disastrous lack of attention to his finances led to his third wife leaving him in 1941 as his personal life began a spiral downward that would continue for the rest of his life. Just before Pearl Harbor, he finished up a splendid job on 'They Died With Their Boots On'. He followed up with 'Stella Dallas', 'Arsenic And Old Lace' and won his second Oscar for 'Now, Voyager'.

         In the summer of 1942, he began his work on 'Casablanca'. 'Everyone Comes To Rick's' was a never- produced play that Hal Wallis acquired for Warner Brothers.  Wallis loved the song 'As Time Goes By', from a 1931 Broadway production, and insisted that Max utilize it.  Since the filming was almost over before Max started and the song was an integral part of the story, Max had no choice. He majestically incorporated 'A Time Goes By' and 'La Marseillaise' into the movie. The film and its score were, and continue to be eighty years later, beloved masterpieces, and the defining work of Max's career. He continued working constantly and won his third Oscar for 'Since You Went Away'.  His post-war successes included 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre', 'Key Largo' and 'Johnny Belinda'. In the early 50's, Max was over 60, struggling with an endless array of creditors, including the IRS, and completely failing the son, Ronnie, born to him and his third wife in 1940. As America turned to tv, movie attendance plummeted and all of the studios were suffering. Max's famous Warner Brothers' Orchestra was disbanded. He left Warner's in 1953 when his contract was not renewed. Columbia asked him to do 'The Caine Mutiny', which was his twelfth and final work on a Humphrey Bogart film. His last great piece of work was 'The Searchers', released in 1956. A few years later, he scored 'A Summer Place'. The theme from the movie became one of the most successful instrumentals in Billboard's history. At 71, Max Steiner had a hit single. He won a Grammy for Record of the Year. His rights in the song earned him $250,000 in a few months and solved a myriad of financial problems. He also prevailed in a twenty-year battle he led on behalf of score composers with ASCAP and soon money was pouring in from television's use of so many of his films. But, in 1962, his troubled and neglected son committed suicide. Max also was legally blind. He scored a few films in the decade and passed away at 83 in 1971. 

         I know nothing about music, but I've loved reading this book. It is extremely well-written and perfectly paced. Growing up in NYC, the three non-network tv stations ran a potpourri of material from quiz shows to cartoons to movies. There were dozens of film classics on every week.  I was fascinated by 'Kong' as a boy. The theme from GWTW is my favorite movie music and Casablanca is my all-time favorite film.  I believe that score music is a major American contribution to world culture, and reading about how it evolved in Steiner's time has been a pleasure.

               

The Last Trial, Turow - B

                   Sandy Stern is now 85 and a survivor of lung cancer. To a great extent, his life was saved by a drug created by a dear friend, Kiril Pafko, and because it is not on the market, Sandy accesses it illegally from overseas. When Kiril is accused of falsifying testing data, committing fraud and violating the insider trading rules, he turns to Sandy. Sandy's health, stamina and memory are all suspect, but he manages to handle the trial with his usual flair. There are some interesting sidebars along the way as Sandy puts his life and career into perspective. The author is a contemporary of mine, a graduate of Harvard Law, a practitioner with one of Chicago's most respected firms and the author of eleven best selling novels. This has been highly acclaimed, but frankly doesn't seem on par with some of his prior efforts.