Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer/Review

Peter Schweizer (Author)

One of the biggest scandals in American politics is waiting to explode: the full story of the inside game in Washington shows how the permanent political class enriches itself at the expense of the rest of us. Insider trading is illegal on Wall Street, yet it is routine among members of Congress. Normal individuals cannot get in on IPOs at the asking price, but politicians do so routinely. The Obama administration has been able to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to its supporters, ensuring yet more campaign donations. An entire class of investors now makes all of its profits based on influence and access in Washington. Peter Schweizer has doggedly researched through mountains of financial records, tracking complicated deals and stock trades back to the timing of briefings, votes on bills, and every other point of leverage for politicians in Washington. The result is a manifesto for revolution: the Permanent Political Class must go.

About the Author

Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2008-9 he served as a consultant to the White House Office of Presidential Speechwriting and he is a former consultant to NBC News.  He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Review, Foreign Affairs, and elsewhere. His books include The Bushes, Reagan's War, and Do as I Say, Not as I Do.

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade (November 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0547573146
ISBN-13: 978-0547573144 
Genre : Politics & Social sciences

Review
The Permanent Political Class is far more patriotic and intelligent than lazy Americans!,
By Hassan Z. Brockovich Sr.

In this revolutionary tome, the author boldly establishes that all average Americans--members of the military, moms and dads, those in the boy scouts--are all inferior in comparison to the elites in the political class of both parties...and I wholeheartedly agree. Schweizer has meticulously researched all the evidence, which is why I agree with him totally.

According to his earth-crushing investigation, the permanent political class is in power in Washington, D.C., because average Americans are all just lazy, stupid and unmotivated, while the political class is savvy, aggressive and very ambitious. I could not agree more; after all, how can you explain that the political class keeps lying to the average voter...yet the average voter keeps sending them back every election cycle to Washington, D.C., to screw them over some more?!?!? This groundbreaking research should be on everyone's Kindle, I dare say!

What I find particularly eye-opening is the persuasive power of Schweizer's argument. He says that the political class deserves to be in power because they have the deviousness to stay there. I couldn't agree more because the political class is so intelligent that they--get this!--compel CEOs to let them buy lucrative shares in IPOs at very low prices in exchange for passing favorable legislation for those CEOs! And all the while, the stupid idiot people of America--that would be you and me who have a 9 to 5 job, worship God and like to go to a ballgame every now and then--just carry on with their ignorance-is-bliss lives while the political class keeps enriching their wealth, power and influence in this way!! Genius...simply genius!
After being shellshocked by reading this, I have to agree with the thesis of Schweizer. The majority of Americans who is not among the permanent political class in Washington, D.C., is simply stupid and deserves to be poor and struggling. Conversely, I also believe in the author's words praising this same political class as the smartest and brightest of America. After all, they are the ones who are in power, have all the money and keep conniving with other rich people to permanently keep the 99% of us all down, poor and ignorant! All hail the permanent political class in this country!
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Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie /Review

"Massie once again delivers a masterful, intimate, and tantalizing portrait of a majestic monarch."—Publishers Weekly

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

BookDetails:
Hardcover: 656 pages/Publisher: Random House (November 8, 2011)
Language: English/ISBN-10: 0679456724 & ISBN-13: 978-0679456728
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs

Review

Catherine II, Empress of all the Russians, was always known as one of the most powerful and hard working people in history. Many writers and historians have not always been sympathetic to her regarding her private life and have overlooked her achievements when ruling Russia. But, Mr. Massie has written a stellar biography of Catherine that tells the reader what an accomplished and remarkable woman she became.

Catherine was born in Stettin, in 1729. Stettin was then Germany and is now Poland. Her father was Prince Christian Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst, a prince of a lesser-known family among the many principalities in Germany. Her mother, Princess Johanna of Holstein-Gottorp, was much younger than the Prince but was from a much higher-ranked family. She was given the name: Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst. After Sophia was born, her mother became bored with the provincial life of Stettin, where her husband was a high ranking officer in the Prussian Army.

As Johanna was related to many noble families in Germany, she took every opportunity to travel to the courts of Zerbst, Hamburg, Brunswick, Kiel and even Berlin. Many years before this, Johanna's brother Prince Karl August of Holstein-Gottorp had gone to Russia to marry the Princess Elizabeth Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great. Before the wedding took place, the Prince died of small pox, leaving Elizabeth heart-broken.

Elizabeth's nephew, son of her sister Anna came to St. Petersburg when his parents died at Elizabeth's behest and was named as the heir to the throne of Russia as his mother and Aunt were daughters of Peter the Great of Russia. In November of the year 1741, Princess Elizabeth seized the throne with the help of the Imperial Guards, formally declaring that her nephew Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp the heir to the throne. When she brought him to St. Petersburg she changed his name to Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, the future Tzar Peter III. Peter was now 14 years old and it was time to look for a bride for him. Elizabeth remembered fondly the family of Karl August, whom she had been engaged to marry and invited the Princess Johanna, sister of her deceased fiance and the Princess Sophia to come to St. Petersberg to meet the heir to the throne and plan a wedding between the two young people. Sophia's name was changed to Catherine II and she went on to marry the future Peter III.

She was treated badly by Peter and looked for companionship elsewhere with young men of the court. The favorite being Gregory Potempkin by whom, it was said, she had her child Paul, who became heir to the throne. While she was Empress, she dealt with the many trials and tribulations of her country and looked after the welfare of the Russian people. She was praised by many and, as usual, condemned by some - and the author has remarked on all of her triumphs and failures. Her family, friends, enemies, lovers, etc. are all told about in abundance. Including her mother, forever making plans that made her look good, and her husband who had nothing to do with her, ignoring her most of the time.

This story is grand and glorious as are Robert Massie's previous works: (Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great: His Life and World). The story is accurate, the characters very true to life, with much style and detail. For readers of history, this is a gem. A life story of an extraordinary woman

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SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden /Review

Chuck Pfarrer (Author)
Description

The true story of the killing of bin Laden by author and former U.S. Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer
On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. a satellite uplink was sent from Pakistan crackling into the situation room of the White House: "Geronimo, Echo, KIA." These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, ended Osama bin Laden’s reign of terror. SEAL Target Geronimo is the story of Neptune's Spear from the men who were there.  After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details in an exclusive account of what happened as he takes readers inside the walls of Bin Laden’s compound penetrating deep into the terrorist’s lair to reach the exact spot where the Al Qaeda leader was cowering when the bullet entered his head. SEAL Target Geronimo is an explosive story of unparalleled valor and clockwork military precision carried out by the most elite fighting force in the world—the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six.

Praise
“Chuck Pfarrer writes with the brilliant eye of a novelist and the real-world authority of a soldier who has fought in the world’s most mysterious corners. He’s not only a poet and soldier, but also a deeply read historian. Pfarrer has written a true page-turner about the inside story of Operation Neptune’s Spear. There is enough action here, enough human drama, enough fascinating history, to keep you reading until dawn—you simply have to know what happens next. SEAL Target Geronimo is first-rate storytelling. It’s an amazing story, written about a world no one knows better than Chuck Pfarrer himself.”
--Doug Stanton, author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers
About the Author
Chuck Pfarrer is a former assault element commander of SEAL Team Six. He has written op-eds for The New York Times and the Knight Ridder syndicate, and appeared as an author and counterterrorism expert on C-SPAN2, NPR, Alhurra, IPR, Voice of America, Fox News, and America Tonight. Pfarrer serves presently as an associate editor of The Counter Terrorist, the American Journal of Counterterrorism. Pfarrer is the author of the bestseller Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL. His Hollywood credits include writing and producing work for Navy Seals, Darkman, Hard Target, The Jackal, Virus, and Red Planet. He lives in Michigan.
Product Details
    Hardcover: 240 pages
    Publisher: St. Martin's Press (November 8, 2011)
    Language: English
    ISBN-10: 125000635X
    ISBN-13: 978-1250006356
     Nonfiction

Review
By Hassan Z. Brockovich Sr.

Chuch Pfarrer is a good and captivating writer--not as good as one of the greats of American literature, Dr. Seuss, but sort of close to him--but a lot of what he reveals in this novella makes me ashamed to be an American. Full confession: I am hardcore, Obama-voting and liberal, but that played no role in my opinion on this novella. It's just that some of the "stuff" (read: mischief) revealed by Pfarrer makes me wonder whether US taxpayer dollars are really being spent wisely on a bunch of testosterone-overloaded Navy Seals.
For example, Pfarrer reveals that some of the Navy Seals--get this...get this...--were actually high-fiving and cheering like a bunch of high-school kids about to get laid when they realized they got been Leiden!! What the heck kind of example does that set for the rest of the world, huh?! What does that kind of evil sadism say to the peaceful Arabs and Muslims whom we are "fighting" in the age-old American tradition of US hegemony for the purpose of establishing a global warming foothold in the Middle East, huh??? I'll bravely tell you what it says: It says that the US does not have respect for the beautiful and misunderstood traditions of the splendorous Muslim culture...that's what!
For this reason, my opinion about being slightly glad that been Leiden was killed in an unconstitutional and secretive US drone strike has changed 183%. I now hang my head in shame every time I see an Arab dude or someone with a dark enough complexion that he could be an Arab. Still I recommend that you dig deep into your life savings and buy this book because of its educational value. Since the best president in US history (Obama) has now lowered the unemployment rate to an excellent 9.0%, you should have just enough disposable income to afford this book and maybe...half a pack of gum (over the next three months).

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The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack /Review

The End of Normal
by Stephanie Madoff Mack

Description

An explosive, heartbreaking memoir from the widow of Mark Madoff and daughter-in-law of Bernard Madoff, the first genuine inside story from a family member who has lived through- and survived-both the public crisis and her own deeply personal tragedy.
When the news of Bernard Madoff 's Ponzi scheme broke, Americans were shocked and outraged, perhaps none more so than the unsuspecting members of his own family. After learning that their father's legendarily successful wealth management company was "all just one big lie," Mark and Andrew Madoff turned their father in and cut off all communication with both parents. Mark and his wife, Stephanie, strove to make a fresh start for the sake of their two young children, but Mark could not overcome his sense of betrayal and shame-he and other family members were sued for $200 million in October of 2009. He hung himself on the two-year anniversary of his father's arrest. Left to raise her children as a single mother, Stephanie wrote this memoir to give them a sense of who their father really was, defend his innocence, and put her personal statement on record once and for all. In this candid insider account, she talks about her idyllic wedding to Mark on Nantucket, what it was really like to be a part of the Madoff family, the build-up to Bernard's confession, and the media frenzy that followed. It is about the loss of the fairytale life she knew, adjusting to life with a man she hardly recognized anymore, and the tragic and final loss of her husband.

Details
    Hardcover: 253 pages
    Publisher: Blue Rider Press (October 20, 2011)
    Language: English
    ISBN-10: 0399158162
    ISBN-13: 978-0399158162
    Genre: Health, Relationships , Marriage
Praise

"[An] explosive memoir...[Madoff Mack] reveals what it was like to marry into the Madoff family and how she coped when it imploded."

-People

"[P]erhaps the most truly 'insider' account of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme to date...engrossing from the start...Madoff Mack's account contains personal details that make the book worth reading....[F]ascinating."

- Forbes

"The End of Normal gives an intimate account of Mark Madoff's two years of torment over the infamous swindle that wiped out thousands of investors and-by his wife's account-left him a man broken beyond repair."

- Associated Press

"This is a love story wrapped up in a news story, and that's tricky to tell, because there is a really deep bond between these two people, Stephanie and Mark....Stephanie is just coming forward because she wants people to hear her, and her husband's, version of what their life has been. It's as pure and as simple as that."

- ABC's 20/20

Review
This is a beautifully written book full of pain and love and loss. It is a very personal look at the deepest pain caused by Bernie Madoff. Of all the many people that Bernie hurt and the pain and loss that he caused, those who suffered the most were his family. He took their money and their futures (as he did with many people) but he also stole their past and their foundations. I knew Mark and never for one minute believed that he had any knowledge of his father's evil until he confessed in December 2008.
Stephanie gives voice to the agony that she and Mark went through at the hands of Bernie, as well as how the media, bloggers, and public exacerbated that pain. Mark was unable to share his story with the public and very much wanted to let the world know his truth. I had hoped that he would one day be in a place emotionally and legally to be able to tell his story. Sadly, that was not to be, but Stephanie does a fantastic job of letting the world into their private space and painting a true picture of Mark.
The book also shows the heartache and pain that suicide brings to those left behind. Stephanie does an excellent job of conveying the questions, pain, and process that suicide of a loved one brings. Her journey is sad and her loss is real, but the book also manages to be a beautiful love letter to Mark and his children.

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Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga /Book Review

Aravind Adiga

Hardcover: 400 pages

Publisher: Knopf (September 20, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0307594092

ISBN-13: 978-0307594099

Literature & Fiction

“Magnificent . . . A richly evoked, Dickensian world that explores the chasm between rich and poor, the venal and the incorruptible . . . Adiga succeeds in giving a voice and a sense of humor to the powerless. . . . All human life—and longing—is here. Marvelous stuff.”

—Sebastian Shakespeare, The Tatler

Description

Searing. Explosive. Lyrical. Compassionate. Here is the astonishing new novel by the Man Booker Prize–winning author of The White Tiger, a book that took rage and anger at injustice and turned it into a thrilling murder story. Now, with the same fearlessness and insight, Aravind Adiga broadens his canvas to give us a riveting story of money and power, luxury and deprivation, set in the booming city of Mumbai.

At the heart of this novel are two equally compelling men, poised for a showdown. Real estate developer Dharmen Shah rose from nothing to create an empire and hopes to seal his legacy with a building named the Shanghai, which promises to be one of the city’s most elite addresses. Larger-than-life Shah is a dangerous man to refuse. But he meets his match in a retired schoolteacher called Masterji. Shah offers Masterji and his neighbors—the residents of Vishram Society’s Tower A, a once respectable, now crumbling apartment building on whose site Shah’s luxury high-rise would be built—a generous buyout. They can’t believe their good fortune. Except, that is, for Masterji, who refuses to abandon the building he has long called home. As the demolition deadline looms, desires mount; neighbors become enemies, and acquaintances turn into conspirators who risk losing their humanity to score their payday.

Here is a richly told, suspense-fueled story of ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none: the new India as only Aravind Adiga could explore—and expose—it. Vivid, visceral, told with both humor and poignancy, Last Man in Tower is his most stunning work yet.

Press Review

“As with The White Tiger, [in Last Man in Tower] Adiga describes an India that is avaricious, acquisitive and insecure. His earlier work told the story of a desperate, rural poverty; Last Man in Tower depicts a genteel middle-class impoverishment of imagination and hope. Whether it is through the fight for water or the battle to board the commuter trains, Mr. Adiga captures with heartbreaking authenticity the real struggle in Indian cities, which is for dignity. A funny yet deeply melancholic work, Last Man in Tower is a brilliant, and remarkably mature, second novel. A rare achievement.”

—The Economist 

“As well-paced as any crime story. Every one of the huge cast of characters is brilliantly drawn. I’m aghast with admiration. There is no one writing fiction as good as this in Britain or America.”

—Reader’s Digest

“Evocative, entertaining, and angry . . . All of Adiga’s gifts for sharp social observation and mordant wit [come] to the fore. . . . Teeming with life and skullduggery.”

—The Telegraph

“A subtle and nuanced examination of the nature of personal corruption . . . [Adiga] continues his project of shining a light on the changing face of India, bringing us a picture that is as compelling as it is complex.”

—he Guardian

 “Timely . . . An unsettling novel, well suited to the febrile and shifting city it seeks to reclaim.”

—The Observer

“Richly comedic . . . Beautifully done. . . . Funny and engaging as he can be, Adiga never forgets the seriousness of his subject . . . A morality tale for the modern age [that is] as honest as it is entertaining.”

—The Times

"Acute observations and sharp imagery . . . An indictment of the hypocritical mores of the middle class, prepared to cut corners and take recourse to ‘number two activities’ in its hurry to move up in life. Like all cautionary tales, it embodies more than a little truth about our times.”

—Financial Times

“Ambitious . . . Memorable . . . Adiga is Dickensian in the extent of his cast. Around his two main characters he marshals more than 20 others . . . [He] lays out this most frenetic of megalopolises before us, by turns fascinating, sensual and horrifying, as his writing takes an impressive step onwards.”

—The Independent on Sunday

“Richly evocative . . . To make a building such as a block of flats the frame for a novel has rich possibilities in a modern world where lives are forever being forced together by collective structures. . . . Adiga [shows] considerable skill at evoking the quotidian lives, domestic and communal, of Tower A’s inhabitants.”

— The Sunday Times

Reader's Review

powerful character study, September 22, 2011

By Harriet Klausner

In Mumbai, India real estate developer Dharmen Shah wants to tear down the dilapidated Vishram Society Tower A building and construct a luxurious high-rise condo in its place. Many of the current residents have resided in harmony there for years in what is a melting pot mini community with Hindu, Muslim and Christians living there. Regardless of religious beliefs, everyone even Communists accept the exorbitant money offered by Shah though all knows this will end their community as none will be able to afford the new edifice.

That is everyone accepts the loot except retired widower schoolteacher Mr. Masterji. He refuses to sell his ethics to the developer. Once a welcome part of the middle class residents of Tower A, the teacher is now a pariah pressured to join the avaricious mob.

Last man in the Tower is a powerful character study that looks at the plight of a hold-out who adheres to his principles though he does not quote understand why. With nods to the movies Twelve Angry Men and Batteries Not Included, Aravind Adiga makes a strong case that an apartment building is a harmonious hamlet until the capitalists arrive with plenty of money. Readers will appreciate this deep look at what makes a community and how easily the facade can be nuked.

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Shelter: A Mickey Bolitar Novel by Harlan Coben/Review

Harlan Coben

Reading level: Young Adult

Hardcover: 288 pages

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile (September 6, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0399256504

ISBN-13: 978-0399256509

Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches

Description

A young adult debut from internationally bestselling author Harlan Coben

Mickey Bolitar's year can't get much worse. After witnessing his father's death and sending his mom to rehab, he's forced to live with his estranged uncle Myron and switch high schools.

A new school comes with new friends and new enemies, and lucky for Mickey, it also comes with a great new girlfriend, Ashley. For a while, it seems like Mickey's train-wreck of a life is finally improving - until Ashley vanishes without a trace. Unwilling to let another person walk out of his life, Mickey follows Ashley's trail into a seedy underworld that reveals that this seemingly sweet, shy girl isn't who she claimed to be. And neither was Mickey's father. Soon, Mickey learns about a conspiracy so shocking that it makes high school drama seem like a luxury - and leaves him questioning everything about the life he thought he knew.

First introduced to readers in Harlan Coben's latest adult novel, Live Wire, Mickey Bolitar is as quick-witted and clever as his uncle Myron, and eager to go to any length to save the people he cares about. With this new series, Coben introduces an entirely new generation of fans to the masterful plotting and wry humor that have made him an award-winning, internationally bestselling, and beloved author.

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Kill Me If You Can by James Patterson &Marshall Karp/Book Review

Kill Me If You CanJames Patterson (Author), Marshall Karp (Author)

Hardcover: 384 pages

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (August 29, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0316097543

ISBN-13: 978-0316097543

Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches

Product Description

Matthew Bannon, a poor art student living in New York City, finds a duffel bag filled with diamonds during a chaotic attack at Grand Central Station. Plans for a worry-free life with his gorgeous girlfriend Katherine fill his thoughts--until he realizes that he is being hunted, and that whoever is after him won't stop until they have reclaimed the diamonds and exacted their revenge.

Trailing him is the Ghost, the world's greatest assassin, who has just pulled off his most high-profile hit: killing Walter Zelvas, a top member of the international Diamond Syndicate. There's only one small problem: the diamonds he was supposed to retrieve from Zelvas are missing. Now, the Ghost is on Bannon's trail--but so is a rival assassin who would like nothing more than to make the Ghost disappear forever. From "America's #1 storyteller" (Forbes) comes a high-speed, high-stakes, winner-take-all thrill ride of adrenaline-fueled suspense.

REVIEW

It's the story of a young ex-Marine, Iraq and Afghanistan combat veteran, who finds a bag full of diamonds, worth several million dollars. He decides to keep the treasure, and a blood-soaked series of events ensues, for the Russian mob has a strong "proprietary" interest in those diamonds.

A pivotal event in this novel reminded me of a device that I have seen used in movies. One of the actors, at a critical juncture, turns to the viewers and points something out or offers some explanation. It just seems awkward to me, and I've never seen it done well. Similarly, a character in this book, at about the half-way point, explains that readers have been purposely misled about an important plot element! So a stunning shift in the story made no sense until we had the "inside" info. I found it all rather confusing and felt a little editing could have gone a long way.

Too much time is spent on international tourist hot spots in Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, and Nassau. These travelogues do not really keep the story moving. Also, some of the villains are almost comically over the top and stretch credulity.

However, author James Patterson (writing here with Marshall Karp) is a master craftsman of the page-turner. I have read and reviewed fourteen of his works for this site and (almost) never had trouble finishing them, even those I did not rate highly. It seems to me that Patterson's fail-safe method is to juggle three or more intriguing elements at the same time. At least one of them will keep most readers engaged.

The book weaves two taboos into the plot. A college professor has an affair with one of her students. The other taboo is far more scandalous. Many readers will find this part of the book revolting, although the authors handle it in an almost matter-of-fact manner.

There's nothing profound here. But there are stretches of high excitement, and I did keep wondering what would happen to those diamonds and the man who took them.

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Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield /Book Review

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts 

Simon Garfield (Author)

Hardcover: 356 pages

Publisher: Gotham (September 1, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1592406521

ISBN-13: 978-1592406524

Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches

PRAISES

"Whether you're a hardcore typophile or a type-tyro, there's something here for you: be it the eye-opening revelations of Eric Gill's utter and complete perversity, or the creation of the typeface that helped Mr. Obama gain entrance to the White House."

-Chip Kidd

"There is even a photograph of a quick brown fox literally jumping over a lazy dog. What a clever, clever book."

-Lynne Truss

"Did I love this book? My daughter's middle name is Bodoni. Enough said."

-Maira Kalman

"With wit, grace and intelligence, Simon Garfield tells the fascinating stories behind the letters that we encounter every day on our street corners, our bookstore shelves, and our computer screens."

-Michael Bierut, Partner, Pentagram Design, New York, and author of Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design

"Simon Garfield reveals an invisible world behind the printed word... the lives of the designers and the letters they've created have never been more clearly detailed with so much flair."

-Jessica Kerwin Jenkins, author of Encyclopedia of the Exquisite

DESCRIPTION

You are looking at it right now, and if it is doing its job, you don't even notice it. It might represent a creation that has taken centuries to come to its current state of perfection, or it might be something that a dedicated specialist worked on for years and brought out a decade ago. It represents artistry directed within a circumscribed realm. I am talking about the font in which these letters are presented. Thirty years ago, fonts were usually the interest of only a select few in the printing world, but now every computer is charged with fonts and everyone gets to be an amateur typographer (technically, the font is a specific set of metal parts, or digital files, that allows reproduction of letters, and a typeface is the design of letters the font allows you to reproduce, but you can see how the words would get used interchangeably). Simon Garfield is not a professional typographer; his role is bringing out fine nonfiction about, say, stamp collecting, history, or the color mauve. But he has an amateur's enthusiasm for fonts, and communicates it infectiously in _Just My Type: A Book About Fonts_ (Profile Books). This is not a collection of type designs, though there are many illustrations. In most cases it won't help you in finding out what font you happen to be looking at (but it will tell you how to do so in surprising ways). It is a book of appreciation for an art that is largely invisible, but is also essential.

REVIEW

I would not like to read pages set in any of the fonts in one of Garfield's last chapters, "The Worst Fonts in the World." On the list is Papyrus, which caused a stir when it was used extensively in the film _Avatar_. The expensive film used a free (and overused) display font, and font fans noticed. There was also a font war (also known as a "fontroversy") when in 2009 Ikea decided to change its display font from Futura to Verdana. The change inspired passionate arguments in mere bystanders, "like the passion of sports fans," says Garfield, and the _New York Times_ joked that it was "perhaps the biggest controversy to come out of Sweden." The biggest of font wars has had a comic edge to it, and it is the starting point for Garfield's book. Comic Sans is a perfectly good font. It looks something like the letters you see in comic books, smooth, rounded, sans serif, clear. Because it caught on and was quickly overused, there has been a "ban Comic Sans" movement. Even the heads of the movement, which is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, admit that Comic Sans looks fine, say, on a candy packet; but they have also seen it on a tombstone and on a doctor's brochure about irritable bowel syndrome. If you see a font and you wonder which one it is, you can take steps to identify it. Lots of people like to do this. It is especially useful to examine the lower case g. (The other character that reveals a lot is the ampersand, which, maybe since it is not a letter or a punctuation mark, appears in exuberant eccentricity even in some calm fonts.) That g has a lot of variable points; it might have a lower hook or it might have a loop, it might have a straight line on the right, or the upper loop might have an ear that rises or droops, and this doesn't even get into whether the upper loop is a circle, a long or wide ellipse, or has uniform width. Take a look at the g letters shown here, or in your regular reading matter, and you will be amazed at how variable a selection of even only a few can be. If you have your g, you can look it up in font books, but there are so many fonts now that no book comes close to showing them all. There's an application for the iPhone which allows you to take a picture of the letter in question, upload it somewhere, and then get suggestions of possible matches. Or you can go to a type forum and ask there, because there are lots of people devoted to hunting down this sort of thing. And they take it so seriously that, as on many internet forums, they get rather snarky about disagreements.

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The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson/Book Review

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Isabel Wilkerson

The National Book Critics Circle Award2011 WINNER

Hardcover: 640 pages

Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (September 7, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0679444327

ISBN-13: 978-0679444329

Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches

“Profound, necessary and an absolute delight to read.” —Toni Morrison

“The Warmth of Other Suns is a sweeping and yet deeply personal tale of America’s hidden 20th century history - the long and difficult trek of Southern blacks to the northern and western cities. This is an epic for all Americans who want to understand the making of our modern nation.” —Tom Brokaw

“A seminal work of narrative nonfiction…You will never forget these people.” —Gay Talese

“With compelling prose and considered analysis, Isabel Wilkerson has given us a landmark portrait of one of the most significant yet little-noted shifts in American history: the migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South to the cities of the North and West.  It is a complicated tale, with an infinity of implications for questions of race, power, politics, religion, and class—implications that are unfolding even now.  This book will be long remembered, and savored.” —Jon Meacham

“Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns is an American masterpiece, a stupendous literary success that channels the social sciences as iconic biography in order to tell a vast story of a people's reinvention of itself and of a nation—the first complete history of the Great Black Migration from start to finish, north, east, west.” —David Levering Lewis

DESCRIPTION

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.

PRAISES

“A landmark piece of nonfiction…. sure to hold many surprises for readers of any race or experience….A mesmerizing book that warrants comparison to The Promised Land, Nicholas Lemann’s study of the Great Migration’s early phase, and Common Ground, J. Anthony Lukas’s great, close-range look at racial strife in Boston….[Wilkerson’s] closeness with, and profound affection for, her subjects reflect her deep immersion in their stories and allow the reader to share that connection.”

—The New York Times

“The Warmth of Other Suns is a brilliant and stirring epic, the first book to cover the full half-century of the Great Migration… Wilkerson combines impressive research…with great narrative and literary power. Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.” Wall Street Journal

"The Warmth of Other Suns is epic in its reach and in its structure. Told in a voice that echoes the magic cadences of Toni Morrison or the folk wisdom of Zora Neale Hurston’s collected oral histories, Wilkerson’s book pulls not just the expanse of the migration into focus but its overall impact on politics, literature, music, sports — in the nation and the world." Los Angeles Times 

“Scholarly but very readable, this book, for all its rigor, is so absorbing, it should come with a caveat: Pick it up only when you can lose yourself entirely.”

—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Not since Alex Haley’s Roots has there been a history of equal literary quality where the writing surmounts the rhythmic soul of fiction, where the writer’s voice sings a song of redemptive glory as true as Faulkner’s southern cantatas.”—The San Francisco Examiner

REVIEWS

Publishers Weekly

Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin was falsely accused of stealing a white man's turkeys and was almost beaten to death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling, a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem after learning of the grove owners' plans to give him a "necktie party" (a lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster made his trek from Louisiana to California in 1953, embittered by "the absurdity that he was doing surgery for the United States Army and couldn't operate in his own home town." Anchored to these three stories is Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's magnificent, extensively researched study of the "great migration," the exodus of six million black Southerners out of the terror of Jim Crow to an "uncertain existence" in the North and Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates sociological and historical studies into the novelistic narratives of Gladney, Starling, and Pershing settling in new lands, building anew, and often finding that they have not left racism behind. The drama, poignancy, and romance of a classic immigrant saga pervade this book, hold the reader in its grasp, and resonate long after the reading is done. '

Booklist

From the early twentieth century through its midpoint, some six million black southerners relocated themselves, their labor, and their lives, to the North, changing the course of civil, social, and economic life in the U.S. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson offers a broad and penetrating look at the Great Migration, a movement without leaders or precedent. Drawing on interviews and archival research, Wilkerson focuses on three individuals with varying reasons for leaving the South—the relentless poverty of sharecropping with few other opportunities, escalating racial violence, and greater social and economic prospects in the North. She traces their particular life stories, the sometimes furtive leave-takings; the uncertainties they faced in Chicago, New York, and L.A.; and the excitement and longing for freer, more prosperous lives. She contrasts their hopes and aspirations with the realities of life in northern cities when the jobs eventually evaporated from the inner cities and new challenges arose. Wilkerson intersperses historical detail of the broader movement and the sparks that set off the civil rights era; challenging racial restrictions in the North and South; and the changing dynamics of race, class, geography, politics, and economics. A sweeping and stunning look at a watershed event in U.S. history.

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Only Time Will Tell (2011)/Book Review

(The first book in the Clifton Chronicles series)

A novel by Jeffrey Archer

Hardcover: 400 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition 

(August 30, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 031253955X

ISBN-13: 978-0312539559

Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.4 inches 

“I was utterly hooked. It was an absurdly enjoyable read.”

---Anthony Horowitz, Daily Telegraph (London)

Book Description

From the internationally bestselling author of Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph.

The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war.” A dock worker in Bristol, Harry never knew his father, but he learns about life on the docks from his uncle, who expects Harry to join him at the shipyard once he’s left school. But then an unexpected gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys’ school, and his life will never be the same again.

As he enters into adulthood, Harry finally learns how his father really died, but the awful truth only leads him to question, was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who spent his whole life on the docks, or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?

This introductory novel in Archer’s ambitious series The Clifton Chronicles includes a cast of colorful characters and takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford or join the navy and go to war with Hitler’s Germany. From the docks of working-class England to the bustling streets of 1940 New York City, Only Time Will Tell takes readers on a journey through to future volumes, which will bring to life one hundred years of recent history to reveal a family story that neither the reader nor Harry Clifton himself could ever have imagined.

Review

I love to read a good family saga. I used to eagerly read Susan Howatch before moving on to Edward Rutherford and the "Forsyte Saga". I love watching a family evolve through the years. This book has the earmarks of a great series.

The story revolves around the Cliftons, a lower class family of dock workers who have a son of exceptional talents, and the Barringtons, a wealthy family whose children seem remarkably decent and grounded. Harry Clifton, the son, has an outstanding voice that offers him a way to better himself through a scholarship to a fine school. Even with his talent, it takes a village to give him the tools to win the scholarship. The book tells the story from various character viewpoints so you can see the help given to young Clifton.

I was so surprised to read the reviews talking about it being the first book in a series like it was a big deal. There are so many series out there that it shouldn't come as such a shock. Lee Child has his Reacher, Bernard Cornwell has his Uhtred and Diana Gabaldon has Jamie and Claire. If you don't like waiting for the next book then wait until the entire series is out. Otherwise just relax and enjoy yourself.

Jeffrey Archer is a skilled story teller. The story moves right along and it is hard to put down. He's like John Grisham- not the most skilled writer but a great story teller. I read this at a fast rate and enoyed every moment of it. I found it to be a fun read.

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The Source Field Investigations by David Wilcock

The Source Field Investigations: The Hidden Science and Lost Civilizations Behind the 2012 Prophecies

David Wilcock (Author)

Hardcover: 560 pages

Publisher: Dutton Adult (August 23, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0525952047

ISBN-13: 978-0525952046

Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.7 x 9.2 inches

"David Wilcock is a leading thinker who makes a magnificent case in these pages that a golden age is indeed within our grasp."

-Graham Hancock, bestselling author of Fingerprints of the Gods

Book Description

Based on a hugely popular Internet documentary, this exploration of historic signs and symbolism determines what the future holds for humanity come 2012.

"If you believe there is no special significance to the year 2012, then prepare yourself for a guided tour through the most incredible scientific mysteries in the modern world, which may be the rediscovery of an ancient system of physics and spirituality that was once widely used and understood, but has since crumbled almost completely into ruin." -The Source Field Investigations

In his documentary The 2012 Enigma-viewed more than two million times- David Wilcock exposed many great secrets: DNA, consciousness science, wormholes, stargate travel, sacred geometry, three-dimensional time, the Mayan calendar, and much more. And in this book, his seminal work, he'll expose even more.

Calling upon fascinating areas of alternative science, Wilcock's unique philosophy connects the human species and the rest of the cosmos, proposing that it is in our power to usher in the Golden Age prophesied in so many ancient cultures and spiritual traditions. Unlike the doom- and-gloom viewpoints depicted in big-budget disaster films, Wilcock believes that 2012 may be a watermark for when a widespread acceptance of a greater reality will begin to occur-and in his book, he lays out many of the blueprints for such a Golden Age. 

Review

If you enjoy strange phenomenon tested in labs, repeatedly showing reality to be starkly different than mainstream science will accept, and giant pineal gland statues at the Vatican, you'll certainly enjoy this book. From Russian scientists to Nefertiti, David covers high science while tying it into ancient aliens/cultures, 2012, and ascension. The information he has already released in previous videos/articles is also still interesting to read about. By far the best though, is the new information he seems to have saved just for this book, which should give you chills. The book reads very well and keeps the style very casual, as if David were speaking at a conference. It's also simple enough that anyone is capable of understanding the science and ideas without any previous research into metaphysics and such. If you like David Wilcock's videos/articles/ebooks and are thinking about buying this book, absolutly do it, even just to help support him. And while you're at it, get a PrisonPlanet.tv subscription and a Ron Paul bumper sticker

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A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan/Book Review

Jennifer Egan

Winner of 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction

Paperback: 352 pages

Publisher: Anchor (March 22, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0307477479

ISBN-13: 978-0307477477

Product Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner

PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist

A New York Times Book Review Best Book

One of the Best Books of the Year: Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Daily Beast, The Miami Herald, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Newsday, NPR's On Point, O, the Oprah Magazine, People, Publishers Weekly, Salon, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, Slate, Time, The Washington Post, and Village Voice

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Readers will be pleased to discover that the star-crossed marriage of lucid prose and expertly deployed postmodern switcheroos that helped shoot Egan to the top of the genre-bending new school is alive in well in this graceful yet wild novel. We begin in contemporaryish New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing back, with Bennie, to the glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha, to a settled life. By then, Egan has accrued tertiary characters, like Scotty Hausmann, Bennie's one-time bandmate who all but dropped out of society, and Alex, who goes on a date with Sasha and later witnesses the future of the music industry. Egan's overarching concerns are about how rebellion ages, influence corrupts, habits turn to addictions, and lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn. Or as one character asks, How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about? Egan answers the question elegantly, though not straight on, as this powerful novel chronicles how and why we change, even as the song stays the same.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Critics loved Egan's newest novel, describing it as "audacious" and "extraordinary" (Philadelphia Inquirer). In the hands of a less-gifted writer, Egans's time-hopping narrative, unorthodox format, and motley cast of characters might have failed spectacularly. But it works here, primarily because each person shines within his or her individual chapter that offers a distinct voice and a fascinating backstory. A few reviewers mentioned the uneven nature of the chapters and the different stylistic experiments within them. Yet, hailed as "a frequently dazzling piece of layer-cake metafiction" (Entertainment Weekly), A Visit from the Goon Squad is a gutsy novel that succeeds on all levels.

PRAISES :

“Pitch perfect. . . . Darkly, rippingly funny. . . . Egan possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart.”-New York Times Book Review

“At once intellectually stimulating and moving. . . . Like a masterful album, this one demands a replay.”

—The San Francisco Chronicle

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“A new classic of American fiction.”—Time

“Audacious, extraordinary.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“A spiky, shape-shifting new book. . . . A display of Egan’s extreme virtuosity.”—The New York Times

“Wildly ambitious. . . . A tour de force. . . . Music is both subject and metaphor as Egan explores the mutability of time, destiny, and individual accountability post-technology.”

—O, The Oprah Magazine

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“The smartest book you can get your hands on.”—Los Angeles Times

“It ends in the same place it starts, except that everything has changes, including you, the reader.”

—The New Republic

“Clever. Edgy. Groundbreaking. . . . Features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human.”

—The Chicago Tribune

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“Egan’s bravura fifth book samples from different eras (the glory days of punk; a slick, socially networked future) and styles (sly satire, moving tragedy, even PowerPoint) to explore the interplay between music and the rough rhythms of life.” —Vogue

“Brilliant, inventive. . . . Emboldening. It cracks the world open afresh. . . . Would that Marcel Proust could receive [a copy]. It would blow his considerable mind. . . . Expect to inhale Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad. Then expect it to lodge in your cranium and your breastbone a good long while.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer

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“Frequently dazzling. . . . Egan’s expert flaying of human foibles has the compulsive allure of poking at a sore tooth: excruciating but exhilarating too.”—Entertainment Weekly

“If Egan is our reward for living through the self-conscious gimmicks and ironic claptrap of postmodernism, then it was all worthwhile. . . . [A] triumph of technical bravado and tender sympathy. . . . Turn up the music, skip the college reunion and curl up with The Goon Squad instead.”

—The Washington Post

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“Brilliantly structured. . . . We are pulled right in. . . . [Egan is] a boldly intellectual writer who is not afraid to apply her equally powerful intuitive skills to her ambitious projects.” —Elle

“This is art at its best—as a bulwark against the goon, as it embodies everything at once.”

—Austin American Statesman

“Egan has accomplished the tricky feat of using metafiction techniques without sacrificing old-fashioned story-telling. . . . A Visit from the Goon Squad has a circuitous structure that seems almost designed for our Internet rewired brains.”—The Wall Street Journal

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Washington: A Life/Book Review

By Ron Chernow

Winner of 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction autobiography

Book Info-

Hardcover: 904 pages

Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (October 5, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1594202664

ISBN-13: 978-1594202667

TOP REVIEWS

From Booklist

With so much that can be said—and said positively—about this magisterial biography, it is difficult not to write a review as long as the book itself. Given the distinction of the author, who wrote, among other single and collective biographies, the glowingly reviewed Alexander Hamilton (2004), readers can safely assume from the outset that what lies ahead of them is a vastly enlightening, overwhelmingly engaging treatment of a great man. The subject of the book needs only, by way of identification, the one word that Chernow uses as his title: Washington. Another book on Washington? is a question rendered pointless by this one, which happens to be the author’s masterpiece. Definitive Washington is the point and effect of this biography. Our first president is thought of as more marble statue than living, hurting, loving human; however, Chernow’s Washington stands not in the opposite corner as hot-blooded and animated. Washington spent a lifetime practicing control of his passions and emotions; his innate virtues, undenied and even celebrated here, were sharpened and focused by the man’s suppression of a natural volatility. “His gift of silence” and of “inspired simplicity,” as the author so aptly terms Washington’s strongest suits, supported his consequent leadership as general and as president.

From Publishers Weekly

In his introduction, veteran biographer Chernow is clear about his goals. Using the recent "explosion of research," he wants to render George Washington "real" and "credible," to replace "frosty respect" with "visceral appreciation." In many respects, Chernow succeeds. He gives us a Washington who starts with limited education and means and, through a remarkable combination of timely deaths, an incredible capacity for hard work, a shrewd marriage, astonishing physical hardiness and courage, a propensity for land speculation, and a gift for finding influential patrons, transforms himself into a soldier, well-to-do planter, local official, and eventually the only real choice to command the Continental army, preside over the Constitutional Convention, and serve as the first president. Chernow makes familiar scenes fresh (like the crossing of the Delaware) and expertly brings the provisional revolutionary and early Republican eras to life. Along the way, however, he mistakes "visceral" for ardent; while he never hides Washington's less than saintly moments or shirks the vexed question of slavery, he often seems to ignore the data he's collected. Examples of shady dealing are quickly followed by tales of Washington's unimpeachable ethics or impeccable political savvy. At times it feels as if Chernow, for all his careful research and talent for synthesis, is in the grip of a full-scale crush. The result is a good book that would have been great if better edited, and if Chernow had trusted that Washington's many merits, even when accompanied by his faults, would speak for themselves.

"Tenaciously researched...This new portrait offers a fresh sense of what a groundbreaking role Washington played, not only in physically embodying his new nation's leadership but also in interpreting how its newly articulated constitutional principles would be applied...deeply rewarding."

-New York Times

"Just as he resuscitated Alexander Hamilton in a heralded 2004 biography, Ron Chernow now resurrects Washington...[A] remarkable book."

-Entertainment Weekly

"Today, books about Washington continue to appear at such an astonishing rate that the publication of Ron Chernow's prompts the inevitable question: Why another one? An obvious answer is that Chernow is no ordinary writer. Like his popular biographies of John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton, his 'Washington'...is vivid and well paced."

-New York Times Book Review

"Magisterial...the brilliant biographer Ron Chernow, author of the National Book Award-winning The House of Morgan, demonstrates in his magnificently written, richly detailed and always compelling Washington: A Life just how and why his subject attained such an exalted status."

-Book Page

"Whether he's debunking the legend of Washington's wooden teeth (ivory that cracked and discolored over time) or the purely fictional tale of the cherry tree, the massive yet briskly paced Washington: A Life is a rollicking read, sure to redefine perceptions and correct assumptions."

-Kirkus Reviews

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