The Heritage by Howard Bryant - Book Review

The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patiotism by Howard Bryant (Beacon Press, 2018, 288 pages, $26.95/18.99) begins and ends with Colin Kaepernick, the black American football player who, when he’d had enough, decided to take a knee during the playing of the national anthem before kickoff of his now former team, the San Francisco 48ers in protest against the treatment of young black men at the hands of police across the country. Between these bookends lies a rich history of the political and social involvement of black athletes from the 1920’s to he present. Bryant writes highly readable prose, supported by anecdote and statistics to show the evolution and devolution of the super-stars during three distinct periods. The book is persuasive and interesting. Many people who read it will nod as the book rushes by and cheer at the conclusions. Lots of readers, less inclined to hear and understand, won’t like what they read.

After introducing the problem and model represented by Kaepernick, Bryant takes the reader back to the mid-twentieth century by introducing one of my own musical and political heroes, Paul Robeson, who, as a black student at Rutgers in the 1920’s twice recognized as a consensus All-American football football player and class valedictorian, graduated from Columbia Law School and established himself as an actor, singer (Old Man River and Water Boy), flirted with Communism before being deprived of his passport by the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and became a hero of the civil rights movement before his death in the 1965.

Bryant recognizes black athletes as creating a heritage of advancement and courage in the face of pre-war Jim Crow America and the world of increased opportunity represented by their return to an America changed by World War II and Harry Truman’s elimination of racial discrimination in the armed services. There athletes, represented by the likes of Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Joe Lewis, Jim Brown, Kurt Flood, professor Harry Edwards, Muhammad Ali and others established the place of black athletes to play and to speak out. Many, like Kurt Flood, John Carlos, and Muhammed Ali all sacrificed years of their professional lives as the organized sport and public resistance shortened or ended their careers. Their sacrifices and successes served to pave the way for others.“We had to take care of each other,” former baseball player and manager Dusty Baker said. “There weren’t that many of us. You knew the game didn’t always want you. You had to pass on what you knew, like, prepare the ones that were coming. That was your responsibility.” While sports provided an entree to wealth and fame, black intelligence and thoughtfulness were denied or ignored.

The second era, characterized by Bryan as the period of “Shut up and play!” featured the emergence of superb athletes who were able to dominate their sport, but were, at the same time, willing and able to characterize themselves as virtually race-less. While obviously men of color, their demeanor and dominance of their sport occurred in a time where their salaries as players were dwarfed by their income from product endorsements and public appearances. Athletes like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, O,J. Simpson preferred to duck social issues, while living lavish lifestyles and not speaking out on social issues, despite the fact that many able and talented black athletes were not being rewarded in the ways that they the stars,were. Bryant argues, “that for all the money, the players were still black, and the minute any one of them ran afoul of the white mainstream public, either by decline in play or by specifically taking a political stand that advocated for African Americans, that same public would be quick to turn on him.”

Then, two commercial airliners were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 killing 2997 people and the world changed. Patriotism blossomed. The U.S. had eliminated compulsory military service in 1973, and all our armed services were staffed by volunteers. These two events ushered in a period of patriotic fervor eagerly promoted and paid for by professional sports. Policing that increasingly used military hardware and former members of the military to staff its force. Meanwhile, proliferating police illegal shootings and violence against the black community coincided with patriotic celebrations held in stadiums and on playing fields around the country. A new era of resistance to black issues came up against a new voice of African Americans with the money and the self-awareness to speak out on the issues confronting them as they became the majority of athletes in both the NFL and the NBA. Bryant characterizes this period as “The Awakening.” Black athletes’ voices were heard and their money was spent to help speak for them. LaBron James, Carmello Anthony, and, perhaps most visibly, Colin Kaepernick became symbols of the new willingness to speak out and contribute cash to causes. Bryant comments, “The real reclamation is when you decide to get on the bus. Where do you get on the bus? Where will you participate? The question will be, ‘What did you do for the people? What did you do with your wealth? Can I impact the life of a young person when it counts, not when it’s safe?”

Howard Bryant

Howard Bryant is a sports journalist and television personality appearing on both the radio and television. He often appears on the ESPN program The Sports Reporters as well as NPR’s Weekend Edtion. He has steadily risen from local beat to national prominence as a reporter and commentator. The Heritage is his fifth book.

Any white reader expecting The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patiotism by Howard Bryant (Beacon Press, 2018, 288 pages, $26.95/18.99) to provide comfort, should be warned. This book, read with an open and attentive mind will make you uncomfortable. Bryant’s narrative is compelling, his story-telling superb, his use of examples cogent and on-point, and the case he builds strong. The nexus of racism, changed definitions of patriotism, courage and avarice, and white complicity to silence the black athlete are difficult or impossible to deny. I highly recommend this book to any reader eager to understand the role of sport within today’s politics and divisions. I was provide the book as a pre-publication download by the publisher through Edelweiss. I read it on my Kindle app.

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The Chesapeake Bay in Focus by Tom Pelton - Book Review

The structure of Chesapeake in Focus: Transforming the Natural World by Tom Pelton (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 280 Pages, $24.95/19.31) is designed to appeal to both the general reader and to the environmental specialist. In undertaking to appeal to two audiences who share similar concerns, but not identical levels of expertise or understanding, author Tom Pelton has taken on a difficult task, which he, largely, achieves. In each section, he seeks to maintain a focus divided between the various constituencies involved, aware of the contextual history of the use and misuse of the Chesapeake Bay, and describing the efforts to save the Bay from both those who love it and those who couldn’t care about it one way or the other.

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. At least a dozen rivers contribute to its 200 mile long course through Maryland to the sea, with the Susquehanna River, originating in Lake Otsego, in central New York as the largest. Other major rivers include the James, Patuxent, Potomac, and many more. The opening section of the book takes readers to each of the major tributaries to Chesapeake Bay, telling something of its historical and ecological importance, as well as describing its beauty and degradation. As I read, I realized that my own acquaintanceship with the Bay and its contributing rivers goes deep into my own life.

As a youngster, I attended a camp on Lake Otsego, the source of the Susquehanna River, the largest and longest river flowing into and helping form Chesapeake Bay. My early Susquehanna canoeing experience was on a river usually no wider than 25 or 30 feet, at the end of the day skinny dipping in it with my friends. As a high school student, I sailed the upper reaches of the Bay with my mother and sister in small sailboats based near Northeast, MD. As a young married couple, Irene and I spent a wonderful weekend on the Eastern Shore with a school classmate’s family, and later camped on the James river for a weekend with them. As adults we’ve camped on the eastern shore near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, crossing the bridge several times on our way to Myrtle Beach. We’ve walked the shores of the Potomac with our friend Katy Daly and visited Washington, DC, Williamsburg with our kids, and Annapolis. The Chesapeake Bay has often been part of the background of our lives. And it’s been slowly dying for decades, killed by farmers, watermen, politicians, developers, cities, politicians, and more, each seeking to meet their own needs, while ignoring the environmental, recreational, health, and safety needs of a 200 mile long body of water that has been a part of our history since before English explorers landed there in 1607.

Pelton begins the story by describing the Bay and its constituent tributaries, the rivers feeding it and the lands surrounding them. To do this, he must describe cities placed along the river which often introduce raw sewage into the river, farms whose owners permit runoff from commercial fertilizer and animal excretion, factories that allow dangerous chemicals to enter into the river, and developers who build along the Bay as well as in the great suburbs around Baltimore, Washington and other cities, allowing rain and sewer runoff to further pollute the Bay. He also describes the rugged independence of farmers and watermen who refuse to accept responsibility for pollution and over fishing. Pelton uses profiles of politicians, farmers, and environmentalists to give a human face to what might otherwise be only dry statistics, although there are plenty of these, also.

In a series of marvelous portraits, he describes the life cycles of crabs, oysters, striped bass, eels, and sturgeon, showing how each species relies on clean water being in the Bay for reproduction as well as being left alone enough to be allowed to reproduce in sufficient numbers to survive. He also profiles some of the humans who use and rely on the Bay to bring the conflicts and needs of various groups into sharper focus.

Finally, Pelton looks at the policy solutions which often place the needs of rural America in conflict with both cities and suburbs as they each seek to function effectively in an ever more competitive economic environment, and in the face of a changing climate that further threatens the life of the Bay and the existence of towns, cities, and institutions located on and near it. In formulating solutions and policy suggestions for saving the Bay, he suggests that without strong regional and national cooperation at the government level, there may be little help for the Bay. He cannot escape the reality that such cooperation in an age of decreasing cooperation and increasing competition for ever scarcer tax dollars make the likelihood of such cooperation visionary beyond current realities. The larger national implications of his policy prescriptions lead inevitably to consideration of national and worldwide action which, sadly, probably won’t happen under current circumstances.

Tom Pelton

Tom Pelton is the host of the public radio program The Environment in Focus. A former staff reporter for the Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune, he has also written for the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Harvard Magazine, and other publications. He has served on the staff of various environmental organizations focused on the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay in Focus by Tom Pelton, is a readable, useful, and important book for the environmentally aware, those who love the Bay, policy makers, and as a case study of the broader implications of regional, national, and international planning efforts in an age of selfish individualism and political rigor mortise. While at times the narrative gets pretty deep into the policy weeds, it is largely highly readable, even entertaining. Serious readers interested in these issues will find much of value. I was provided a pre-publication electronic copy of the book by the publisher through Edelweiss which I read on my Kindle app in my Amazon Fire.

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Loser's Bracket by Chris Crutcher - Book Review

I met Chris Crutcher at a National Council of Teachers of English convention in Orlando (could have been Anaheim) in the late 1980’s where he was giving a presentation on Young Adult fiction. He was a trim, handsome, athletic looking man who was a school counselor and an athlete. Someone asked him what set young adult fiction aside from other fiction works. He responded, “The length.” I was intrigued, bought a couple of his books and devoured them avidly. I was teaching English at the time and chair of a large English Department in a Pennsylvania school district. I enjoyed the books, thought them useful for non-readers and less able students in our district, and encountered strong resistance to using them as assigned reading when I suggested it to my colleagues. Since heading in other directions, I rarely read Young Adult (also called Adolescent Literature) these days, but when I do, I usually enjoy a good read dealing with the problems of developing young people whose feelings are close to the surface and whose experience is limited, to be interesting and arresting reads while not demanding too much of me. They deal with the real problems adolescents encounter: popularity, over-weight, dis-functional family life, adjustment to sexuality, and maturation, and more. These are all real problems that young people often find it difficult to discuss with adults. Thus the novels can provide help to them, or a platform for such discussions. As such, reading them can be crucial to helping with problems young people are encountering in their real life in ways that can displace the problem onto others they encounter in the pages of a book. They can discuss these issues with other kids or adults who know how to listen in constructive and useful ways. English teachers who say, “I’m a teacher, not a therapist” are missing the point as well as a chance to involve their students in literature which can turn them into lifelong readers.

Loser’s Bracket by Chris Crutcher (Greenwillow Books, 2018, 256 pp, $17.99/9.99) is told in first person narrative by Annie Boots, both a gifted athlete and student, whose life has been fractured. Her mother Nancy is over-weight, an alcoholic and drug abuser. Her sister Sheila a drug abuser in and out of rehab, an absent father, and Sheila’s son, who has his own problems. Nancy has been removed from custody, and Annie has been fostered by an upper middle-class family named Howard, which has its own problems, but, despite the father’s controlling needs to make her a star athlete, which she is anyway, Annie’s in a good situation while yearning to stay connected to her biological family. The story revolves around the interactions between and within these two families and the custody system. Annie describes the situation in breezy, accessible language with a degree of understanding and anxious good humor. She comes across as likable and insightful while trying to deal with her own problems.

In the guise of a book club held at the local library, and definitely not in school, Crutcher includes a chapter about the writing process that, for any student struggling with writing anything contains some of the best advice I’ve ever read about how to achieve a desired outcome, no matter what emerges and how surprising it might be. Annie, carrying all her load of Nancy, her mother, Sheilla, her sister and Sheila’s missing son, as well as her foster parents and all the talents and skills she has remains, as she has been throughout the book, an open conduit to experience with a blockage for internalizing what she learns. As the story moves along, the characters learn that unlike in the books they read to each other, they are the authors of their own stories. Thus, the novel moves the characters and the reader toward an understanding of each of our capabilities for taking charge of our own lives. The disappearance of her brother creates dramatic tension, keeping the story moving forward as does the tension between Annie’s foster parents and within her biological family.

Chris Crutcher

Chris Crutcher is the critically acclaimed author of twelve novels, an autobiography, and two collections of short stories. He has won three lifetime achievement awards for the body of his work: the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Outstanding Literature for Young Adults, the ALAN Award for a Significant Contribution to Adolescent Literature, and the NCTE National Intellectual Freedom Award. Drawing on his experience as an athlete, teacher, family therapist, and child-protection specialist, he unflinchingly writes about real and often-ignored issues that face teenagers today. He lives in Spokane. (Amazon profile)

Chris Crutcher writes stories that address issues not unlike similar issues dealt with in any novel focused on adults, but revolving around the lives, concerns, and developmental problems of teenagers. Telling this story in first person put the reader inside the skin of an adolescent girl facing and surmounting problems that would be difficult for anyone. He uses lively dialogue bringing the kids to life while the adults are not the adult stereotypes often found on television and in lesser books. These are real people living real lives. Loser’s Bracket is not just a good young adult novel, it’s a good novel. I was supplied a digital copy of the book by the publisher through Edelweiss. I read it using my Amazon Fire tablet.

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Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World - Book Review

Louis Golambos’ new biography Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 296 pages, $23.65, 25.58) presents a picture of Dwight David Eisenhower, the thirty-fourth President of the United States, from the perspective his career as it prepared him for becoming Supreme Allied Commander of American forces in Europe during World War II, which propelled him into the presidency, succeeding Harry Truman in 1952 and serving as President until 1960. As a general, during World War II, he was widely, and justly, credited with having used superior organizational and political skills to coordinate allied efforts towards ultimate and complete victory, while garnering the recognition and popularity to achieve a huge electoral victory in 1952. As president, he again balanced a variety of national and international interests to lead America back towards peace while establishing the military might that staved off war with Soviet Russia. Furthermore, he coordinated efforts to bring the Korean conflict to its lingering conclusion, despite never being able to broker more than an armistice there. Most prominent in the biography is Golambos’ emphasis on Eisenhower’s preparation for and assumption of leadership, while his domestic and personal life is downplayed.

Golambos emphasizes the development of Eisenhower’s character growing up in relative poverty in Abilene, Kansas where his father was an angry, disappointed smart person who never achieved the social or economic position he thought he deserved, leading to an often violent approach to discipline with his six sons. Meanwhile his mother, Ida, was a deeply religious, warm, effective mother who dealt lovingly and thoughtfully with her developing sons. According to Golumbus, Ike’s early career at West Point and in the Army was dominated by the conflict between his two contrasting parents, leading to a strong and effective leadership style with his subordinates but to his having a difficult time dealing with authority at West Point and later which, in his early Army career, retarded his advancement.

His slow rise in the post war Army was worsened by his resistance to authority, often showing a temper he sought throughout his career to control. Early, he showed himself to be a prescient analyst of the future needs and directions of the Army, often rejected by superior officers trained in the pre-war environment of horses and then trench warfare. Eisenhower understood and promoted the importance of the tank as the coming major offensive weapon against the resistance of his superior officers, leading the retarding of his advancement. His assignments often emphasized training positions which also allowed him to coach football, but kept him as a staff officer. Meanwhile Douglas MacArthur and others who had earned combat stars, moved up the Army hierarchy.

He was lucky to be noticed by General Fox Connor who became his and Patton’s mentor. Conner mentored Ike as his Chief of Staff in Panama. He had the qualities to teach Ike how to manage the bureaucracy above him by attention to detail while developing confidence in his own ability to lead. He gained greater responsibility and was assigned to training tank troops under George S, Patton who was in Pershing’s command. Sent to train tank officers in Gettysburg, he continued to rise, but without distinction. He was deemed by his superiors to treat “others with respect and gave careful attention to their needs. He demanded discipline without being petty.” A pretty good description of the parenting he had received from his mother. Ike’s rise in the Army depended upon insights from two mentor/sponsors who recognized in him qualities not readily apparent to others. Fox Conner during the period between WWI and WWII and General George C. Marshall’s appointing him to be the top general in the planning for the invasion of Europe, which, at the time seemed to be a “stunning” move on Marshall’s part.

This book contains important lessons about leadership within a bureaucracy that rising or potential leaders should learn if they are to succeed. The book has significant relevance to those who would seek advanced leadership in any setting – business, schools, politics, or the military. The progress of Ike’s career and the Golumbus’ account of his weaknesses and strengths point to skills which should be emphasized in leadership programs in graduate school as well as learned by potential mentors and those seeking leadership themselves. Golumbus’ skill in relating these lessons to the historical herky-jerky prograss of Ike’s career is carefully structured and presented in such a way as to make it palatable to all the but the most heedless people who find themselves stymied in their ambitions.

At the close of the war Eisenhower accepted the presidency of Columbia University, a role he was totally unsuited for, while preparing for his run at the presidency. In assessing Ike’s role as president, Golumbos points to his achieving world peace and insuring American prosperity, while developing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to resist Soviet expansion in eastern Europe. Eisenhower’s entire career path had prepared him to use guile, charm, and power in equal proportions to maintain the U.S. at the top of world influence. He spent lavishly on retaining military strength while campaigning ceaselessly for peace, all with his world famous Eisenhower grin.

The book contains only one mention of Ike’s relationship to his driver Kay Summersby, but there’s a longer and more useful note that helps redress that oversight. Also, his deteriorating relationship with his wife, Mamie, who became a difficult alcoholic as she aged, is hardly discussed in the text, which focuses very successfully on Ike’s developing leadership skills, his ability to work across a wide range of personalities, organizational goals, and systems to achieve what Golambos calls a “middle way.”

Louis Golambos

Louis Golambos is professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University. He edited The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, a massive twenty-four volume collection.

Eisenhower is often seen as a plodder who emerged from a very long development period, rising to the demands of command during World War II and then rode his fame to two terms as President. He is revealed. Eisenhower: Becoming the Leader of the Free World  (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 296 pages, $23.65, 25.58) in this very thorough account of his professional military and political life, as a talented leader, able to encourage subordinates to obtain the best from them with a vision far greater than he is often given credit for having. Almost one third of the text is devoted to references and extensive notes. Golumbos has made a substantial contribution to understanding of this important military and political leader of the second half of the twentieth century. I read the book as an electron pre-publication copy provided by the publisher by Edelwiess: Beyondthe Treeline. I read it on my Kindle app.

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A-List by D.P. Lyle - Book Review

A-List by D.P. Lyle (Oceanview Publishing, 2017, Oceanview Publishing, $14.95/$9.99) is a lively, detective procedural set in New Orleans, which always provides lots of local colorful characters to story lines. Kirk Ford, a movie star with a “pretty” face has woken up in his hotel room with the dead body of his current girl friend lying beside him. That’s the entry to the plot of the second outing of the Jake Longley Novel by D.P. Lyle, a veteran writer of crime fiction and real crime books. Jake Longley, something of a slacker son ex-baseball player son of P.I. Ray Longley, proprietor of Longley Investigations, is eyeing the beautiful, lithe, Nicole Jemison as she exercises and he fantasizes, when the phone rings, providing an entry into the fast-paced, intriguing world of this second book in a new series set in New Orleans, where the death occurred. In strong, hard-boiled detective writing, A-List starts off with plenty of snappy dialogue, strong place-setting description, and driving plot to capture the reader and propel the story forward with these two likable problem solvers whose looks and tastes for life and each other make them both attractive and the nutrient for the pleasant diversion to come.

While Jake seems to be a reluctant detective and Nicole a willing and talented apprentice, the chemistry between the two jumps off the page. They often appear, almost, as willing, attractive sex kittens eager to roll around in the hay or luxuriate in the shower before getting on with the business of solving the crime. However, considering the present climate, this might not be an auspicious theme for a contemporary who-done-it’s interpersonal plot line. Nevertheless the setting and situation are made for a good story. The murdered girl is the niece of Tony Guidry, identified as a local mobster well connected with the political and law enforcement authorities. The initial bail hearing with its gawking crowd in the background sets the hierarchy of power in notoriously corrupt New Orleans. It’s up to Jake and Nicole to find the keys to this very promising romp.

Lyle uses well-wrought, fast-paced dialogue to reveal character and plot. He is a real pro at this, combining punchy, brief description with dialogue to make the book a consistent page turner. This combination often differentiates the newcomer to genre fiction from more experienced writers. Early in this reading, the first with this writer for me, I couldn’t tell whether the dramatic tension resulting from these strong story telling traits would continue. His continued precise, vignette descriptions of characters and settings throughout the book display his ability to sustain the tone. Such sparse immediacy is often the work of very careful paring down to essentials found in good popular writers of contemporary fiction, where readers insist on getting on with it.

As the story proceeds, it develops that both Kirk and the dead Kristi had Ketamine in their systems, suggesting the possibility that a third party has somehow entered the locked room to strangle Kristi. The book is flawed, with a guilty suspect emerging too soon, as the trick in a who-done-it is to introduce the character, yet keep guilt hidden as long as possible, allowing the guilty person to emerge as a surprise. This separates it from a procedural, where we may know the guilty party but find intrigue in the process of discovering who it is. Let me know if you find the same issue.

A-List contains an interesting emerging father/son relationship between the seemingly shiftless Jake, a former major league pitcher whose career was shortened by injury, and his father Ray, the head of Longley Investigations and a smart, hard-working guy who always puts work first. It adds some depth to Jake who turns out to be less of a slacker than he tries to appear.

D.P. Lyle

Lyle is at his best when revealing plot and character through dialogue. Setting becomes the backdrop for the revealing dialogues he creates between his people. He has a clear idea of what motivates each one as characters emerge in their discussions with others, each one letting the reader in on important details. He is an experienced writer who has written several other series as well as several books about how to write detective fiction. After many years practicing medicine as a cardiologist, he now writes non-fiction about forensic medicine with an eye toward supporting other crime writers. He also maintains The Crime Writer’s Forensics Blog.

A-List by D.P. Lyle (Oceanview Publishing, 2017, Oceanview Publishing, $14.95/$9.99) resonates with skill, insight, and the plain hard work of good writing. But, about ¾ of the way through the book, I think I solved the crime. This is a disappointment in a book with fairly intriguing characters, lots of excellent dialogue, and the always intriguing setting in New Orleans, to discover a plotting flaw that may give away the doer through a plotting error. Nevertheless I enjoyed this book while discovering a new, to me, writer who has the added attractiveness of having written several other series as well as books designed to help aspiring and practicing mystery writers cope with technical details about writing. I read A-List as a pre-publication electronic book provided by the publisher through Edelweiss on my Kindle app.

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Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson - Book Review

Walter Isaacson’s huge biography Leonardo da Vinci (Simon & Schuster, 2017, 624 pages, $35.00/16.99/14.88) big, thick, heavy, beautifully illustrated provides a wonderful journey through the life, mind, and works of a genius who lived more than 400 years ago, but whose creativity, versatility, and imagination rebound through the ages to still affect our sensibilities today. Isaacson, whose previous biography of Einstein I also read and reviewed, stands as one of the major public intellectuals in America. Because he, himself, approaches his subjects with such appreciation and wonder, his books serve to open the minds of their readers, making the subjects accessible to ordinary folks.

Was Leonardo truly the greatest genius of all time, or did he happen to come along when all the conditions were right for a single person to capture and embody huge chunks of the world’s knowledge and experience? Science, math, engineering, art, sculpture, and technology were all encompassed in his studies and interests. His observational skills were without peer. He has obsessive about following through on questions that occurred to him, for instance, insisting on a comprehensive knowledge of anatomy to build invisible skeletons under the skins and clothing of his paintings.

Leonardo, born in Vinci, a town near Florence, Italy in 1452, the illegitimate son of notary Piero da Vinci, who was able to help promote his artistic efforts despite never having legitimated his brilliant son Leonardo, was apprenticed to an artist in Florence where he soon distinguished himself as a master of perspective, color, and drafting. Throughout his long and illustrious career, Leonardo moved restlessly from Florence to Milan to Rome, and eventually to France, where he spent his last years attached to King Francis I and died in 1519. Leonardo is renowned for his great paintings The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper as well others. Beyond painting, his achievements and ideas in engineering, technology, anatomy, military science, mathematics and further were recorded in his journals. Many of his discoveries and speculations were lost for hundreds of years, because he neglected to publish his writings and drawings, while abandoning or procrastinating in completing many of his most famous paintings. Despite this, on his death he was recognized throughout Europe as one of history’s greatest geniuses, a reputation which has only become brighter through the ages.

Mona Lisa

If you’re a person who goes to museums or enjoys paintings and painting, you’ll never look at a canvas or drawing with the same perspective (pun intended) after reading Isaacson’s chapter on the “Science of Art,” which explores Leondardo’s deep and inter-related developing ideas spreading far beyond art into the realms of science and math. “Just as he blurred the boundaries between art and science, he did so to the boundaries between reality and fantasy, between experience and mystery, between objects and their surroundings.” (270) Thus the sciences become metaphysical, moving into the space where observation interacts with belief and knowledge.

Isaacson makes the discovery, search, acquisition, and verification of Leonardo’s work into exciting detective stories, bringing the tales into the present day while remaining thoroughly in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Names like Bernard Berenson and Kenneth Clark vie with Sforza and Ludivico as important in the Leonardo story, giving the whole book a shade of a contemporary thriller without the boiler plate of Dan Brown. A hint of a Mona Lisa smile flits around Isaacson’s mind as he weaves the story of how art, technology, and science first combined in Leonardo’s ceaseless search for more remains alive with the search for the Master. The chapter on La Bella Principessa, a previously unattributed drawing, provides as good detective writing as any novel while its owner covers Europe and the U.S. to confirm the insight which had first prompted him to purchase the piece.

Leonardo's Drawings

Leonardo’s intellectual development from being a believer in experience as the best teacher to combining his own current experience with traditions and knowledge handed down from antiquity in writing, architecture, mathematics, science, optics, engineering, sculpture, and art help him create the qualities that so characterize the Renaissance as re-birth and new birth of how to know. Much of Leonardo’s writing becomes a treatise on ways of knowing. Isaacson delights in exploring Leonardo’s mind through his almost limitless works distributed worldwide to libraries, museums, and private collectors. Leonardo’s experiments with using shadows, colors, shapes as well as his thought experiences recounted with words and illustrations suggest the breadth and intensity of his quest. “Just as he blurred the boundaries between art and science, he did so to the boundaries between reality and fantasy, between experience and mystery, between objects and their surroundings.” (270) Thus the sciences become metaphysical, moving into the space where observation interacts with belief and knowledge.

Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson, University Professor of History at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN, and editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Leonardo da Vinci; Steve Jobs; Einstein: His Life and Universe; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; and Kissinger: A Biography. He is also the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. In Leonardo da Vinci, he emerges as a benevolent character himself, taking joy in his own searches as he seeks to fathom the genius of this exceptional character in human history.

Perhaps no artist, no character, in history has left so much data while remaining such an enigma. Yet, as Isaacson brings his narrative to a close, Leonardo becomes increasingly difficult to encompass. His passions, his intelligence, his ceaseless questioning followed by obsessive studies helped lead him to some understanding of the answers he sought leaving those viewing his work with a certain frustration. While giving so much, Leonardo, like his most famous painting, holds himself slightly aloof, leaving uncertainties for us to contemplate for eternity.

Isaacson challenges the reader. In his discussion of Leonardo’s thoughts about how water flows and eddies, he interrupts the discussions to say, “Try noticing all that when you next fill a sink,” (432) stopping the reader to consider staring deeply into the bowl of water after shaving. His own delight at exploring Leonardo’s world, his insatiable curiosity and his ability to illustrate revelations clearly and precisely intrigue and elevate the author’s own thinking. Isaacson’s books on Leonardo, Franklin, Einstein, and Jobs detail the exploration of the world through the eyes of geniuses most of us can’t fathom ourselves, let alone illuminate for the thoughtful reader. I bought my own copy of Leonardo da Vinci and give it my highest recommendation.

Some thoughts on how to read this book: I bought Leonardo di Vinci as a hardback book on the recommendation of a commentator who mentioned the quality of the photographs, which are very good. However, if I were to purchase it again, however, I would buy it as a Kindle book, even though, at present, the Kindle version is more expensive than the hardback. I found it advantageous to access the largest image available on Google Images using my browser to focus in on small details as I read. Many of the details Isaacson writes about emerge on such close attention. It would be better still, to be able to examine the originals in detail. Unfortunately…..

Fools' River by Timothy Hallinan - Book Review

Fools’ River (A Poke Rafferty Novel) by Timothy Hallinan (Soho/Penguin, 2017, 368 pages, $26.95/14.99) is the eighth volume featuring expatriate Bangkok travel writer Poke Rafferty as he struggles to secure the world he has constructed around himself since settling into an environment he arrived to describe and stayed to reform, one life at a time. Rafferty, author of a series of travel books called Looking for Trouble which Hallinan describes as "about the things most guidebooks ignore: poor neighborhoods, the best street food stalls, the temples, towns, restaurants, and bars that haven't gone all farang and sacrificed their identities to appeal to foreign customers. Also tells you which highly touted tourist traps to avoid, and little skills -- how much to bribe a cop and for what, how to negotiate with a taxi driver, avoiding common scams, idiosyncratic laws, etc. They're sort of anti-tourist guides." Rafferty is well-acquainted with the world he inhabits, but never, when he arrived, anticipated finding love there himself nor seeking to build a family and a life in that world. Hallinan has created a full-bodied world which constantly seeks to invade and destroy the comfortable nest he provides for his wife Rose and their adopted daughter Miaow, each a product of child sexual exploitation and rampant sex industry that thrives in Thailand.

Fools’ River opens as a benumbed unnamed character awakens in a hospital-like setting attached to tubes and maintained in a drug induced state of confusion. It then jumps quickly to a vignette where Poke Rafferty’s daughter Miaow is helping Lutanh, her friend from acting class, purchase a pair of violet contact lenses, accompanied by Miaow’s friend Edward, whom Lutanh worships from afar. Edward’s father appears to be missing, which is why Edward wishes to meet with Poke. Meanwhile, Rose is pregnant and anxious. Rose, who Poke met when she was a bar girl/prostitute working in Bangkok’s thriving sex industry is four months into a difficult pregnancy, especially since she's had two miscarriages. She’s afraid to lose the child, and Poke fears losing her. Miaow, rescued as a child whose parents abandoned her to the streets when she was quite small, has recently triumphed as an actor in her school and is preparing to try out for a part in Pygmalion.

The chapter in which Hallinan fills in the story of Lutanh, from birth in a rural Thai village to through developing self-awareness to life as a bar-girl Katoey, a lady-boy in a seedy Patpong bar, provides one of the most vivid encapsulations of child exploitation and sex business in Thailand Hallinan has ever written. In one chapter he captures Lutanh’s story. Moving forward and backward through time and Lutanh’s own self-awareness, it sets one of the two central plot and character elements which will dominate this volume in Hallinan’s fine Poke Rafferty series.

It doesn’t matter, much, where the reader first encounters Poke Rafferty. Hallinan’s skill as a writer provides sufficient information and background about the characters and setting to make each novel an effective standalone. However, the increasingly complex world, viewpoint, and background of Poke, the character, and Hallinan, the writer, become most apparent not only from reading all volumes of this series, but from indulging in the currently running Junior Bender series, and the, sadly, ended and now, for at least one volume, revived Simeon Grist series from the late 1990’s. Believe me, reading the back stories won’t be a chore!

An episode in which Poke visits the apartment of Fran Dependahl, the wife of a victim in the plot to steal from sex addicts, provides a view of one of Hallinan’s many narrative strengths. He allows the story to emerge by providing quirky, idiosyncratic characters to add content and depth to the story. Their discussion of her library, their mutual love of books and her relationship with her husband is both funny and deep. Hallinan never seems to be in a hurry, suggesting that he respects his reader sufficiently to allow immersion in the story and sufficient imagination to collude with the narrative and the creator of the work in making sure the story is well-told. While many thriller writers have stripped their stories to bare bones action, Hallinan luxuriates in allowing character, plot and setting to reveal themselves. The story comes together with action packed sequences that are part of Hallinan's particular appeal. There's a cinematic accuracy which closely follows a variety of perspectives, as if different camera angles were required to present the entire story in adequate depth.

Timothy Hallinan

Timothy Hallinan is an Edgar, Shamus, Macavity and Lefty nominee who has written twenty-one published novels, all thrillers and mysteries, all critically praised. He currently writes two series, the Junior Bender series set in Los Angeles and Poke Rafferty in Bangkok, and in 2017 he also revived his earlier series, written in the 1990s about the over-educated slacker private eye Simeon Grist. The new book, the first since 1995, is "Pulped." Hallinan had a varied writing career in publicity and the film industry before becoming a full time writer. You can discover more about him and his other writings on his web site.

Fools’ River (A Poke Rafferty Novel) by Timothy Hallinan (Soho/Penguin, 2017, 368 pages, $26.95/14.99) allows the author to continue the important themes that dominate his novels. Poke is consumed with trying to maintain family, friendship, and loyalty within an environment filled with official corruption and rampant sexual exploitation in the context of Thailand, where Hallinan himself maintains a second home and Poke functions as an alien divorced from his homeland and culture. Hallinan presents a completely believable world in which the main character strives to set things right. The novels are enriched by quirky, often funny, and always interesting characters fleshed out with affection and compassion by the author’s command of language. His friends and antagonists on the police force, at the Expat Bar, and in each story have back-stories contributing to the total effect of his novels in ways seldom achieved by lesser writers. I was provided a copy of the book by the publisher in both hard copy and electronic versions. I read it on my Kindle app. Fools River has my highest recommendation. 

Please remember, if you decide to order this book, that the links lead to Amazon.com and are linked to my account, providing me with a small commission which contributes to funding this blog and our travels. Thanks. 

Act of Betrayal by Mathew Dunn - Book Review

Act of Betrayal: A Will Cochrane Novel by Matthew Dunn (William Morrow, 2017, 320 Pages, $18.35/12.99) is a spy thriller from the macho, uber male, perspective of super-spy Will Cochrane, who, for reasons I can't understand, has reached the seventh volume of an apparently popular series. After reading the first few chapters of this book, I decided it wasn't for me. I don't generally read thrillers heavy on the U.S. spy system, special forces, or other gung-ho, macho adventures featuring shooters, shooting, and graphic violence. Nevertheless, I asked myself, why don't you consider continuing to read, mostly in order to affirm your preconceived ideas about this kind of novel. Surprise! While still not finished and having reached the "desire to see how this all works out" stage, I started to became really engaged by the ambivalence and complexity of this novel, so that around 25%, the beginning of Chapter 11, into the book, I decided to stay to the end. However, by the time I finished, I was sorry to have given so much time and credability to a world view I abhor.

Act of Betrayal is filled with action, lots of heroics, and, particularly lots of spy, CIA, and FBI talk. Also, featuring unlikely heroics, and an increasingly awkward convoluted plot that becomes too garbled with characters and too violent to approach plausibility, the novel begins to drag. Never having read a novel focused on this particular audience before, I wished better to understand the appeal beyond the action. It seems to engage the orientation towards conspiracy, admiration for doomed assassins working for “truth” and willing to use huge amounts of violence to achieve it. Also, the character of Will Cochrane stands beyond any sort of verisimilitude. Alliances extend to men (and women) of achievement beyond reasonable alliances, as a secret power within the CIA, a former Israeli agent, and a Russian, combine their efforts to stop the villain(s). The evil encountered rises all the way to the oval office.

The story opens as Will Cochrane, the finest shot of any assassin in the world, undertakes, successfully, to shoot at 3000 yards,a mysterious, but certainly evil, uber spy traveling along the autobahn at high speed. Of course, his head shot obliterates with one shot the man identified to him, and then he disappears. Three years later he appears to have committed suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge after having murdered a number of “innocent” people. The top agents of both the FBI and the CIA have long since stopped seeking him, until certain familiar habits begin to re-assert themselves, and it becomes obvious that Cochrane is, indeed, alive and back at work. There follow 300 pages of twists and turns as Cochrane seeks to set matters right with little concern for his own life, committed to exposing the “truth.”

In the world of Act of Betrayal the ends always justify the means, even when they include the violent death of ill doers without anything approaching due process. The hero, no... protagonist, is the purest of the pure. Comments about him by others point to his always doing “what's right.” Will Cochrane is beyond competent, a deadly killer with a perfect body, super reflexes, and completely under his own control. He never hesitates to instantly obliterate every person he concludes is guilty. His actions are justified because they are “right.” Legality has little or nothing to do with his choices, because his own motives are “pure.” He's accountable to no one but himself.

Matthew Dunn

The following profile of Matthew Dunn is provided by the publisher: “As an MI6 field officer, Matthew Dunn recruited and ran agents, coordinated and participated in special operations, and acted in deep-cover roles throughout the world. He operated in highly hostile environments, where, if compromised and captured, he would have been executed. Dunn was trained in all aspects of intelligence collection, deep-cover deployments, small-arms, explosives, military unarmed combat, surveillance, and infiltration. Medals are never awarded to modern MI6 officers, but Dunn was the recipient of a very rare personal commendation from the secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs for work he did on one mission, which was deemed so significant that it directly influenced the successful conclusion of a major international incident. During his time in MI6, Dunn conducted approximately seventy missions. All of them were successful. He lives in England.” Wikipedia, however, places this description into doubt by preceding it with,  “according to his publicity agents,” casting the entire bio into question.

Act of Betrayal: A Will Cochrane Novel by Matthew Dunn (William Morrow, 2017, 320 Pages, $18.35/12.99) portrays a perfectly corrupt government salvaged only by a few hidden “true” rebels who, deeply embedded in various agencies, manage to save us from our own self-destruction. In this fictional world, there are a few “good” men and women with incomparable skills willing to endure the privation and suffering necessary to save the rest of us from the worst of us. I cannot recommend this novel to any reader save those already addicted to such tripe. I read the book in digital format supplied to me by the publisher through Edelweiss on my Kindle app. 

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