Nonfiction Book Reviews

I’m not sure how to describe 1 Dead in the Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose. It was very depressing, yet at times made me laugh and gave me hope for this world.

I guess I could start with the easy stuff: The author is a columnist at The Times-Picayune, the local newspaper for New Orleans. The book is a compilation of his daily columns, starting after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Some of the columns were darkly funny, some of the columns were just plain dark.  Some of them gave you a renewed confidence in mankind, others made you question how people that horrid could have lived for so long.

I can say one thing for sure: This was an eye-opener of a book.  I have never been to New Orleans, and so I witnessed the destruction on TV with horrified detachment, much as most of America did.  A few months after it happened it faded from view and I forgot about it, to be honest.  I didn’t want to, and I didn’t mean to, but life does have a habit of going on.

1 Dead in the Attic was a needed reminder that although I may have moved on, life in New Orleans didn’t, at least not in the same way.  Many people suffered through bouts of depression; some people committed suicide because of it.  I’ve never lived through anything like Hurricane Katrina, and I had never thought about what would be happening a year after the storm hit, or two years, or three.  If I had, I would have realized on an intellectual level that people would be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but I never got that far.

I’m feeling rather guilty now for my negligence, but that can’t be blamed on Rose.  He doesn’t set out to make the readers depressed.  It’s just how I reacted.

Lest you think the whole book is depressing, let me share one of the funnier columns with you.  Although Rose stayed in New Orleans after Katrina, the rest of his family went to Maryland and stayed for several months, so he would travel back and forth between the two cities regularly.  Here is a column about one such trip:

[B]efore each journey, I check with my kids by phone to see what they need from our house in New Orleans.

Of course, they need everything, they tell me.  Every toy, every article of clothing, every piece of furniture, everything that hangs on the walls, every piece of building material down to the studs.

“Itemize,” I urge them.

“Barbies,” they tell me.

“I can do that,” I tell them.

And so my chore began one afternoon, as I crouched and crawled into their secret places in our house - small, dark spaces I have never been in, places that are not hospitable to people larger than, say, a dorm refrigerator.

In the process, I discovered that there has been a population of approximately fifty Barbies living under my roof.  I did not know this.

An absurd number, I was thinking, but then I remembered that I used to collect empty egg cartons when I was a kid and I probably had a couple hundred - a closet full of them - before my mother brought the hammer down on that curious little hobby of mine.

Truth is, I don’t recall even the barest notion of why I collected egg cartons nor what I did with them.   I just did.  So who am I to tell my kids they have too many Barbies?

Let them be, I say.  I mean, I turned out okay, right?

Don’t answer that.

~Page 81 - 82 of 1 Dead in the Attic by Chris Rose

He is extremely easy to read; I’ve had good luck with newspaper writers in the past, and this book was no exception.  He is a talented writer.  He is frank and direct, and everything is so real that you feel as if you too lived through the destruction that Hurricane Katrina wrought upon New Orleans.

My only critique of the book was that the columns were not in chronological order, nor could I see that there was any rhyme or reason to how they were published.  It was disconcerting to see that we had jumped back in time three months for no apparent reason.  I eventually stopped paying attention to the dates of the columns so it would stop bothering me, an easy fix.

Overall, I give 1 Dead in the Attic 4.75 out of 5 stars.  And my thanks to Mr. Rose for publishing it.  I needed to read this book.

Havs

Have you ever read a book because you felt you “had to” as a part of your general education? That’s why I picked up Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan - it seemed like one of those books that I “had to” read, as a citizen of America and all that good stuff.

Despite that inauspicious beginning, I ended up loving the book. I was shocked by how readable it was, and spent the next week telling everyone that they needed to read it too.

This is a 921 (meaning it’s an autobiography) but Alan Greenspan being who he is, the majority of the book focuses on the financial system of the world. The book actually starts out on September 11th, 2001, then jumps back and focuses on his early life, and goes forward in time from there.  In the excerpt below, he’s talking about his first job out of college, where he was charged with finding data and making it accessible to businessmen and union leaders.

I think this passage really spotlights the fundamental gap between me and him, since I’d rather have my teeth extracted with no painkillers than mess with numbers on a regular basis, but that’s why he was Chairman of the Fed and I’m…well, I’m definitely not.

There was no room to work in the library’s crowded stacks, so I would lug armloads of materials to my desk. Usually I’d have to blow the dust off the books. The chief economist would assign the research projects, and in just a few months people began to tab me as a guy who knew all the data. In a sense, that was true.

It became my passion to master all of the knowledge on those shelves. I read about the robber barons; I spent hours over the census of population of 1890; I studied railroad freight-car loadings of that era, trends in short staple cotton prices for the decades after the Civil War, and myriad other details of the vast American economy.

It wasn’t drudgery - far from it. Instead of reading Gone with the Wind, I was happy to immerse myself in “Copper Ore Deposits in Chile.” ~Page 33 of Age of Turbulence

Great for him and America that he was that way, and even better for me that I don’t have to be.

Although I enjoyed reading about his background, the really interesting part for me came when he started talking about dealing with the different presidents. He’s libertarian (meaning, a capitalist first and foremost - most of his book is spent passionately defending capitalism as the best way of life) but his position was nonpolitical in nature, and he tried to stay out of the political spotlight.

His behind-the-scenes look at each of the presidents was an eye-opener for me. The president who seemed to be the most aligned with Greenspan when it came to economic policy was actually Bill Clinton, and Greenspan had heaps of praise for his policies on economic decisions.

He talks briefly about the Monica Lewinsky affair, and says how disappointed he was in that happening, but he didn’t seem to let it affect his judgment on whether or not Clinton made a good president.

Overall, the book was quite a-political, which I really liked, because I hate having one point of view or another forced down my throat when the book is supposed to be about something else entirely. Now if the book is labeled as a political book (like a book from Rush Limbaugh or something) then fine, at least I know it going into the book. When people try to slide their views in subtly, it really drives me nuts.  Greenspan doesn’t do that.

After going through the presidents up to President Bush, and then his eventual retirement from the Federal Board, Greenspan then dives into what he thinks about each region of the world: China, India, Russia, South America, and more. He talks quickly about why the country is where it is, what changes he thinks they need to make to become more prosperous in the future, and what he thinks will actually happen.

To me, this was the most fascinating part of the book. To have someone as knowledgeable as him give a broad overview of a country and its economic policies was engrossing. I was almost late to work several times, because I didn’t want to put the book down.

After all this, the book finally ends up doing what I was worried about all along: It got boring. He gets into the fine details of how the financial world hums along, and even though I know that understanding all of this would make me a much more informed person, it was just too much for my non-math brain. Here’s a quick excerpt - tell me if you understand this:

A detailed calculation by Federal Reserve Board staff employing data from more than 5,000 nonfinancial US corporations for the years 1983 - 2004 found that growth in the sum of deficits of those corporations where capital expenditures exceeded cash flow persistently outpaced the growth in corporate value-added. The sum of surpluses and deficits, disregarding sign, as a ratio to a proxy for corporate value-added exhibits an average annual increase of 3.5% per year.*

To clarify, it says in the footnotes:

*The surpluses (and deficits) are measured as income before extraordinary items, plus depreciation, minus capital expenditures. The proxy for corporate value-added is gross margin, or sales less cost of goods sold. ~ Page 356 of Age of Turbulence

So glad we cleared that up…

Unfortunately, Greenspan goes on in this fashion for several chapters. At first, I tried to understand it, and then I gave up. I am soooo not a math person. I just started skimming until things got interesting again, and they did. The book ended on a great note, and I finished in awe of the knowledge that Greenspan possesses, and also quite sad that the book was finally finished. At 531 pages, I really should have been celebrating its completion, but it was such an interesting book, I wanted to keep learning.

If you have any interest whatsoever in finances, politics, the economy, or just the world in general, you really can’t miss when it comes to this book. Everyone I’ve talked to who has read it thoroughly enjoyed it, so I know I’m not the oddball out here.

Overall, it rates 4.5 out of 5. I wish I could give it higher, but there’s just one too many dry spots.

Havs

A while ago, I read some posts put up by a blogger, Michael Yon, on his website, Michael Yon Online.  I thoroughly enjoyed his posts and so when a gentleman came into the library with fliers advertising Michael Yon’s new book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, I was excited to request that the book be ordered for our library.

I just finished reading it - I read it over the course of two days because I simply couldn’t put it down.  I’m kind of at a loss for words on how to describe the book, so I’ll start with the easy part: A little background about Michael Yon.

He’s a former Green Beret turned journalist/photographer.  He has spent more time embedded with US combat troops in Iraq than any other journalist in the world.  He is completely independent - he does not work for any news organization and is not paid by anyone.  He is equally critical of both the Republicans and Democrats, and he doesn’t pull any punches.  His picture of a soldier carrying a wounded little girl has become iconic (it’s the front cover of his book).

Now for my critiques of the book: It is composed of different “dispatches” (his name for blog posts) that he had written while in Iraq.  They are not connected and do not flow well.  They are not prominently dated, and he jumps around from year to year with no apparent rhyme or reason.

Basically, the book tries to be chronological, but fails miserably.  Also, if you were a dedicated reader of his website, you really don’t need to buy his book (other than if you want the info in a printed and bound form for some reason).  A good editor should have come along and straightened the flow and timeline out, but didn’t.

Speaking of good editing, you can tell that Michael Yon is photographer first, writer second. He’ll change the subject halfway through a paragraph, and never go back to the original subject, leaving the reader confused.  He also had some typos in here that bugged me (again, good editing.  Who worked on this project??)

All of that aside though, the book itself was excellent.  Case in point: When I read a book, I’ll fold down the corners of the book to mark a page that I think I might want to quote in my review of the book.  I try to find a couple of different sections that might be good to quote, so I have a nice variety to choose from in the end when I finally write up the review.

With Moment of Truth in Iraq, I realized that I was folding down every 10th page or so.  I basically just wanted to take the entire book and post it, because it was that good.  I cried a little, I laughed a little, I thought a whoooooole bunch.  Some of these stories that he reports are just amazing, and it’s hard for me to not tell you guys all of the best ones!

I finally decided on the following quote, because although it doesn’t encapsulate the exciting, nail-biting parts of the book, it does show his unique stance on the political point of view of this war:

All news organizations, from the newbie blogger to the New York Times, from right-wing talk radio to NPR, from CNN to Fox, all ultimately depend upon the financial support of their audiences.  So readers and listeners and viewers should not be surprised when media organizations tell them what they want to hear. 

Happy news for the Left was that US soldiers were demoralized and the war was being lost.  Happy news for the Right was that there was no insurgency, then no civil war; we always had enough troops, and we were winning hands-down, except for the left-wing lunatics who were trying to unravel it all. 

They say heroin addicts are happy too, when they are out of touch with reality. ~Moment of Truth in Iraq, page 214

Like I said, he really doesn’t pull any punches. He doesn’t try to make America look all good, or all bad.  He talks about the mistakes we made, and how we’re learning from them.  He talks about how Iraq is doing better now than ever before, and that the war is ours to win or lose.  It is an extremely thought-provoking book for people on both sides of the aisle.

This is one of those cases where the meat of the book is excellent enough that the drawbacks can be overlooked.  I highly recommend this book to everyone, Left or Right, whether you’re Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian.  I wish that every man and woman in America took the time to read this book, but especially the reporters for the mainstream media.  Perhaps they can take notes on how to really report on a war.

In the end, I have to give it 4.25 out of 5 stars.  With some editing help, it could have easily garnered 5 stars - it was that good.  Maybe next time Michael will contact me to help him out.

Hava

PS FYI, he’s put the first chapter up on his site - you have to download it as a PDF file.  That’s a great way to see if it’s something you would enjoy reading.

In honor of Independence Day, I decided that there was no better book that could I read and review than 1776: The Illustrated Edition, David McCullough’s account of the momentous year that our nation first declared its independence.

I had not read 1776 before picking up the illustrated edition from the library, so you’ll want to bear that in mind when reading my review.  I actually have 1776 on my bookshelf (given to me by my older brother several years ago) but I just never got around to reading it.  I spied the illustrated edition at the library a couple of weeks ago, and thought it just looked too cool to pass up. I’m so glad I checked it out!

1776: The Illustrated Edition is a large book - over a foot tall and almost 2 inches thick - but it needs that much space to hold all the author wanted to contain.  In a rare move, the book contains 10 different envelopes with a total of 61 pieces of paper that the reader can take out and peruse at their leisure.  Copies of maps, letters, and important documents are in the envelopes, and you get the feel that you’re on an archival mission, digging up scraps of paper from the past that are an important part of our history.  It’s really quite cool.

Along with the envelopes and papers, there are also pictures on almost every page of the book - portraits painted of various generals and leaders, or maps drawn by spies of where encampments were made…It’s a visual feast that I thoroughly enjoyed.  It was fascinating for me to read the ledger kept by George Washington as commander-in-chief, and to see the entries made where he paid for spies to collect information.

With all of this visual information, it would have been incredibly easy to go light on the text, but honestly, the story was even more intriguing to me than the pictures.  I read the book in two days, which is really fast even for me, but I just had to know “what happened next.”  I told my husband that, and he drolly replied, “We won the war, honey.” Thanks, babe.

Mr. McCullough has an absolutely amazing ability to make his readers feel as if they are living what he’s saying.  The story of taking Boston from the British literally had me on the edge of my seat.  It was a daring exploit that could have so easily gone wrong.  After I finished that story, I thought, “That was like the plotline for a Hollywood blockbuster!”

It was Mr. McCullough’s storytelling abilities that made me feel that way.  I’m definitely going to be reading more of his books, including 1776.  I’ll make sure to review it on here when I do.

Meanwhile, 1776: Illustrated Edition was just the reminder I needed this 4th of July that the founders of this country sacrificed and struggled and died so we could be free.  Several people, including George Washington, talk about how they are fighting for the millions who are yet unborn, so they could have freedom.

They fought for me.

I have never been so thankful for America and our founding fathers, as I was when I finished this book.

5 out of 5 stars.  For the budding historians out there, or anyone interested in American history, this book is an absolute cannot miss.

Hava