Rather Outspoken by Dan Rather & Digby Diehl

Part Of The Synopsis From Dust Jacket: 

For half a century, Dan Rather has covered the major news stories of our time:  the civil rights movement, the assassination of JFK, Vietnam, Watergate, 9-11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib.  For 24 of those years, he was the network "face" of TV journalism as the anchor of the CBS Evening News.

At the end of his tenure, he became part of the news himself.  Now for the first time, Dan tells the real story of his final months at CBS, including his removal from the anchor chair in the wake of the controversy surrounding the story of George W. Bush and the Texas Air National Guard.  He also exposes the frantic and secret behind-the-scenes machinations that followed.  These clandestine maneuvers unmasked the "independence" of the investigation by the Thornburgh commission, revealing a News Division that had, Rather believes, temporarily abandoned its principles in order to enhance the bottom line of the parent company.

I was going to start this review off with the last paragraph, but after some more thought, I decided it wouldn't be a fair way to start things off.  Instead I'm going to admit why I wanted to read this particular book.  I think, like most people who have picked Rather Outspoken up, I was wanting to hear Dan Rather's account of what happened behind the story that brought an end to his career at CBS.  For that reason alone, I think this book is worth the read.

I was never one of those who thought Mr. Rather or his producers did anything wrong in their coverage of the story.  From everything I knew then, and know now, what happened to them felt like a raw deal.  Now that I've read the book, and understand everything that went on behind the scenes, I'm even more convinced that Mr. Rather paid a steep price for telling the truth.  His account of the way political and business pressure interfered in the way news was and is being told, scares the hell out of me.  It should scare everyone who cares about the public's right to know what our government does and how our corporations behave.  His story is not only an example of what can happen when things go wrong, but it's a call to arms.  It's a defense of the concept that journalism should be separated from politics and business considerations.  Sadly, I think it's a call to arms that has come just a bit too late.

I almost wish that this memoir only dealt with that one situation.  I would love to be able to divide that aspect from the rest of the book.  But I can't.  I have never gone into a memoir/biography with a higher opinion of the subject, than I had when I turned the last page.  It's been a fear I've had for years, so now that it's finally here, all I can say is that it made me sad. I hate the idea that I can read a book and come away with less respect for someone.  But less respect is what I'm left with.  I know it's hard for anyone writing a book about themselves to leave their ego out of it.  A good writer should be able to minimize the way that ego is expressed and how it will come across on the page.  I'm not sure what happened, but it seems as if the opposite took place.  Instead of the ego being minimized, it seems as if the ego was expanded and forced into every sentence.  I can't imagine someone in Mr. Rather's place wouldn't have a good sized ego, I just dont' want to be reminded of it on every page.  I'm positive that Mr. Rather is a terrific journalist, has covered stories in such a way that made a difference, and is an all around great guy.  I just don't want Mr. Rather telling me that himself.  Let it come across in the storytelling, not in the tonal voice of the narrative.

That ego got in the way of everything else for me.  It kept what should have been an informative read from being anything other than a justification of his life.  I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that last concept, I just wish wish he would have been able to mesh the two ideas together in such a way that didn't leave me feeling cooler towards him.

A Train In Winter by Caroline Moorehead

Part Of Synopsis From Back Cover:

They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives; a singer at the Paris Opera, a midwife, a dental surgeon. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, secreted Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of fifteen who scrawled "V" for victory on the walls of her lycée; the eldest, a farmer's wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Strangers to each other, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazi occupiers. 

Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class, as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie. 

In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only forty-nine would return to France.  

I have been reading a lot of great books, both non fiction and fiction, that deal with WWII.  It's not a subject I had sought out on purpose, but for some reason I was presented with books this year that I could not turn down.  For the most part, they blew me away with their narrative voices and I walked away feeling as if I had not only learned something, but my emotional thinking was altered as well.  So when I agreed to review A Train In Winter, I was betting on the same thing happening.  I wish that that bet would have payed off.  


It's not that I didn't find the story being told compelling, because I did.  I found the women (and men) featured in this book to be both heroic and engaging.  What happens to them after they are captured broke my heart and reaffirmed for me the inhumanity that we, as a species, can show to each other.  They are true heroes and deserve all the recognition and honor that we can bestow upon them.  My issue with the book, and I'm sure it's more of me comparing this book to others that I have read this year, is the tone of the narrative voice.

I don't think cold is the right word for it, but it comes close to the way I reacted to it.  In the beginning of the book the author throws a lot of names, dates, and events at the reader, hoping that he/she will be able to follow along and not get bogged down in facts.  The author shows her skill as a biographer and historian, but the human side of the story seems to get lost in the shuffle.  There are moments where the women shine through the recital, but it's pretty sparse.  As the book continues, the narrative changes a bit, especially after the women are captured and put into the camp.  But even then, as the women take more shape and the author lets us to get to know them on a more personal level, there still seems to be a level of detachment there that I was just not able to get over.

I'm glad I read the book and even happier to learn even more about a period of history that seems to, the more time passes, get glossed over in our schools.  The women whose stories are being told, deserve to be remembered for their courage and strength.  I just wish I had been able to connect with the author's style a bit more.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book.  Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.

The Book of the Dead by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson

Part Of The Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

As the authors themselves say, “The first thing that strikes you about the Dead is just how many of them there are.” Helpfully, Lloyd and Mitchinson have employed a simple—but ruthless—criterion for inclusion: the dead person has to be interesting.


Here, then, is a dictionary of the dead, an encyclopedia of the embalmed. Ludicrous in scope, whimsical in its arrangement, this wildly entertaining tome presents pithy and provocative biographies of the no-longer-living from the famous to the undeservedly and—until now—permanently obscure.
Organized by capricious categories—such as dead people who died virgins, who kept pet monkeys, who lost limbs, whose corpses refused to stay put—the dearly departed, from the inventor of the stove to a cross-dressing, bear-baiting female gangster finally receive the epitaphs they truly deserve.

Out of the ninety billion humans that lived and died on this planet, the authors narrowed it down to just shy of 70 who whether famous or not, lived some of the most compelling lives you would ever want to read about.  This was a fun book that allowed me to learn more about figures that though familiar with, I didn't know all that much about.  Issac Newton, Ada Lovelace, Nikola Tesla, Tallulah Bankhead,  and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, are just some of the notable historical figures that I learned more about in this book than I ever did in high school or college.

As enjoyable as that is though, what I really loved about this book is that I was introduced to people I had never heard of before, but should have know about.  I met Edward Jenner, an English doctor, who discovered a way to eradicate smallpox.  This is a man we should have learned about in school or in college at least and I never heard of him until this book.  I also met Mary Seacole, a Jamaican born woman who did so much to help out the troops during the Crimean War.  She is a fascinating woman and I have every intention of hunting down her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. 

My reading wish list has grown quite a bit since I read this book.  I've also added two books written by another woman I first met within these pages.  Mary Kingsley was a one of the first women to explore Africa and considering she was from the Victorian era, that's quite a feat.  She wrote two books, Travels in West Africa and West African Studies, and they are both books that I now want to read.  I'm also going to see if I can find any work by the Portuguese write Fernando Pessoa.  The man wrote, mainly unpublished even today, under a hundred different names.  The most amazing thing is that the writing style was completely different for every name.  I'm utterly fascinated by it and want to learn more.

This was a fun, engaging book that while not being able to give complex biographies of those humanized within it's pages, gives the reader a real sense of who these people were.  At least for me, it gave me all the more reason to keep reading about them to find out even more.

I found a short interview with the authors over at NPR if anyone cares to listen to it.

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

Part Of The Synopsis From The Back Cover:

In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one volume life of Washington, this crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.

Part of the reason why I wanted to review this book was that despite a decent education, I'm not all that familiar with who George Washington was as a person or a General.  I think I was one of many Americans, that according to this book, viewed George Washington as a lifeless waxwork, worthy but dull.  Those are the author's words, not mine, but honestly, I would have to agree with him.  All I can remember from school is that he was Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, stayed at Valley Forge, crossed the Deleware, and became our first president.  Yeah, that's about it.  I respected him as one of the founding fathers, but really didn't know who he was as a person.  So as you can tell I'm not a scholar of American history so my review may be a little more pedistrain than some others you may read.  What I am though is someone who wanted to get to know the man, not the legend.

After reading 815 pages, I can honestly say that not only do I know him better, but I have a lot more respect and admiration for him. The author has done a masterful job of bringing our first president to life in a way I wasn't expecting.  Washington is portrayed as an ambitious man who is in a constant state of war with himself.  He is a very passionate person but he has such a tight control on his outward manifestations of that passion, that many people never saw that side of him.  He was a very guarded person whom inspired respect and admiration but very little affection.

He was a man sensitive to station and rank and never really got over the snubs he suffered during the French and Indian War.  Because he was a colonist, he was never granted to the same respect or commission that a British born officer would have.  That disparity rankled him and fueled some of his anti British feelings later on in life. 

His personality in general was just fascinating to read about.  He grew up never receiving a proper education and that bugged him for the rest of his life.  The early death of his father and oldest brother stayed with him as did his cool relationship with his mother.  Washington was an imposing 6 foot tall and by all accounts a dashing individual.  He was a ladies man who loved to flirt but had a deep and meaningful relationship with his wife Martha.  Though he was a slave owner he was conflicted on the subject and tried his best to not split families apart, but wouldn't tolerate runaways.  This was an attitude he carried into the military as well.  The man this book paints for us is intelligent, committed, loyal, but most of all human.  He has come down from that marble pedestal and become mortal once again.  I think his legacy is served mightily by that.

As you can tell I'm trying to give you a small taste of the man I met within this book but I don't want to go into a lot of it.  For one I'm not sure I would ever be able to get across all of it, nor do I think you want to read that long of a post about it.  What I do want to do is encourage you to read this book and discover for yourself that George Washington truly does deserve not only our respect and admiration, but our affection as well.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to review this book.  You can visit the tour page to discover other reviews and to learn more about the author.

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)?  Why did the Japanese kill Godzilla with missiles made of cadmium (Cd, 48)?  How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation?  And why did tellurium (Te, 52) lead to the most bizarre gold rush in history?

The periodic table is one of our crowning scientific achievements, but it's also a treasure trove of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession.  The fascinating tales in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, gold, and every single elements on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.

Why did a little lithium (Li, 3) help cure poet Robert Lowell of his madness?  And how did gallium (Ga, 31) become the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?  The Disappearing Spoon has the answers, fusing science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, discovery, and alchemy, from the big bang through the end of time.

Why wasn't this book around when I was taking Chem I and Chem II in college?  I floundered in those classes.  If I remember right I only passed one test between both of them, and that was with a 61.  Thankfully I had a rather understanding professor who would call me into his office twice a semester and question me about what I was learning out of the class.  He gave me a C for each class.  Now would this book have helped me with my grades, I doubt it, but it would have made some of the math a little more understandable for me.

Now this isn't a hard science book at all, which you should be able to tell by the synopsis.  This was a fun romp, and more importantly for me a romp that was easy to understand, through the history of the periodic table.  It didn't just cover how and when every element was discovered but the personalities behind those doing the hard work.  I think I learned more about Marie Curie and other famous scientists in this book than I ever did in all the years of school.

The best part of this book though was how it brought the science to life.  It  helped you to understand the significance of each element through the specialness of each one.  It was science book rolled into a celebrity memoir and finished off with a great poly sci case study.  In what other book would I learn why India has such a problem with iodized salt and that aluminum (aluminium) used to be the most precious metal in the world.