While not technically a children’s book, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins was my fastest read since, well, and please don’t judge me, Twilight.
A fellow librarian recommended this book, and during my recent illness I was not disappointed. Katniss is a wonderful narrator, an individual that doesn’t realize how admired she is, but most of all and intelligent young woman that has the skills to keep herself and those she loves alive. I_LOVED_THIS_BOOK!
You can sign up here to keep an electronic log of your reading and to see what others are reading. Then come into the library to fill out one of these:
Every other week we’ll have a drawing to give away a $15 gift card. Each review you turn in counts as 1 entry for our biweekly drawing. You may submit as many as you want, but you can only win once.
Our first drawing is July 9, so get those reviews in! You can drop them off at the desk, and we’ll give you a raffle ticket for each one.
At the end of the summer, we’ll be compiling the reviews into a book to display in the library. You’ll be able to check out what others were reading this summer and what they thought. You might find some great new reads!
I loved this book!
It is a broad and sweeping romance with prominent elements of mystery and horror. But it remains endearing. Set in the politically unstable and corrupt environment of post World War II Madrid, the tone is sad, dark and poetic.There are some scenes in the book that are so disturbing that I had to put the book down for a moment, only to quickly pick it right back up.
The overall theme of the book is obsessive passion. My take is that passion is a good thing to a degree, but when it reaches the point of obsession, it can be dismal and toxic.
This book is a big recommend!
You need to know how and when things tip.
What tipped 500 people to start dancing together with within the span of 2 minutes? Peer pressure right*? Not always the case as Malcolm Gladwell explains in The Tipping Point. He suggests they’re are other forces at work that make us do things on automatic or unconsciously.
One of the bits that really got me was the context behind the six degrees of separation. Gladwell writes “doesn’t mean that everyone is linked to everyone else in just six steps. It means that a very small number of people are linked to everyone else in a few steps and the rest of us are linked to the world through those special few.” He later alludes to these people as connectors, social glue that spread the message. He uses this awesome example about a boy over hearing a British officer discussing attacking the Americans and how he spread the word that led to a massive militia ready to fight to the surprise of the the Brits! That particular passage blew my mind. Apparently its an historical legend told to every American school child. I live in a place called Canada, so thats my excuse!
He later on mentions the value of the weak tie. That they’re are people that seek pleasure and value in casual meeting, unlike others who feel they don’t have the energy to maintain meaningful contact with everyone.
He then discusses the maven, who are data banks, which provide the message. Lastly there is the salesman, who is the persuader, when we are unconvinced they convince us and are as critical in word of mouth epidemics as the other two groups. He later expands from the Law of the Few, and talks about the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context.
Lets just say I’m now a huge fan of Malcolm. I’ve read an article by him before and also the first chapter of Outliers before giving it as a gift to my brother for Christmas. Looks like I need to borrow that from him now.
Again Gladwell is unstoppable in his search for understanding the human condition. I think all marketers need to read Chapter 2 especially, where he talks about the word of mouth ‘epidemic’. The entire book is a quick read, but its very in depth. Also, I believe its valuable to push into subjects you aren’t familiar with, as later on you can base that understanding towards reads that are above your level. Anyways THIS ONE IS FASCINATING stuff and I will have to re-read again soon.
* according to Seth Godin, its Guy #3.
Remember those cartoons from the 1960’s — a thinly-inked sketch of a bearded man on a street-corner with a sign that says “The world is ending” and people walk by as if he’s invisible? It’s time to pay attention. In Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture, the bearded and quite sane Thom Hartmann calmly and elegantly spells out how to avoid the impending armagedden. Hang with me here — do you know what blows my mind…?
You’re familiar with Al Gore’s work on the greenhouse effect. And, I’ve been reviewing books in this space that advocate eating raw, eating grains, eating vegetables to lose weight or to heal diabetes. Hartmann says in Threshold that a sudden worldwide shift to vegetarianism”would have more impact on global warming than if every jet plane and car in the world would fall silent forever.” Not to make light of this, but we would also lose extra fat. Talk about a win-win. Healthier people, healthier planet.
That’s one of Hartmann’s thresholds. (By the way, I excitedly told my younger son Justin who has his BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology those stats — but it was already common knowledge for him.) The second threshold is economic. Hartmann argues there is no such thing as “free trade” — it is costly as hell (my words) for the middle class, not to mention the lower class. I privately “joke” sometimes that we live in the “United Corporations of America.”
The third threshold is population — there are seven-billion of us crowding the planet, while fewer of us grow the food it takes to sustain us. Meanwhile, terrible diseases — for which there is no cure — claim hundreds of millions of people.
Threshold is the social studies book I wish kids would read in school.
Hartmann tells of Denmark whose citizens never worry about their next job, illness, or higher education. Government pays for it. And, he reveals the beautiful story of Caral, a civilization in Peru, that existed for one-thousand years with music and peace.
There are evil-doers in Hartmann’s book — they are the sociopathic CEO’s and deregulation. And he has solutions — one, being to correct a centuries old mistake — revoking corporations legal ability to claim the rights given persons.
Theshold is a remarkably brilliant book. It arrived today, and I was compelled to read it cover to cover the moment it slipped out of the package.
There is no them, Hartmann seems to say, only us.
Body Soul & Spirit Expo, Keynote Presenter, Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy ~ Vancouver Convention Centre, October 23-25, 2009
Body Soul & Spirit Expo, October 23-25, 2009, Vancouver BC, Canada
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Organizer: Chandler Stephon Armstrong
Website: Body Soul & Spirit Expo Vancouver BC
Contact Chandler Toll Free: (87… or info@bodysoulspiritexpo.com
Saturday, October 24, 2:30 PM ~ Convention Center Theater
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Body Soul & Spirit Expo
Vancouver Convention Centre, Vancouver BC, Canada
“Awake Joy ~ The Essence of Enlightenment”
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Appointments are available to everyone. If you do not attend the conference or if you would like to be sure of availability, contact Katie now to request an appointment time at awake@katiedavis.org.
Visit Katie Davis in the Keynote Exhibitors Booth:
Book signing, meet the author, free drawings, intensive coupon redemption, schedule a private appointment or register for the Magnificence! Retreat in Maui, Hawaii February 11-16, 2010.
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This book has four long plays very well written. Two things which I loved about this book was the theme chosen for the plays and secondly the character names chosen in the plays. Agatha Christie has done a great job in choosing the character names; it’s all very coherent to the scenes. . It pretty much makes the reader imagine the ambience while reading the book, that’s how enthralling the writing is. One more noticeable factor being the detail level of each scene, any person who wants to put up a play can just blindly read this book and put up a great show.
Out of the four plays couple of them are just outstanding namely “And there were none” and “Appointment with death”. In the former play ten strangers are invited to an island to lodge. They all arrive there and are in for a surprise of their life time. Their host who invited them is nowhere to be seen, but a strong message is delivered. The message being that they will all be killed for their misdemeanors. The author goes on to describe each characters profile in depth at this point of moment and also the way they start guessing who their unknown host could be. Just before they are done with the discussion one of them is killed and they start jumping to conclusions. The book keeps you stuck to your desk because this is the place where the story gets real interesting and it’s at full pace. Within no time more people die and everyone’s death plot is so very well planned that it confuses the others badly. The suspense is so very well maintained and the plots are so immaculate, it keeps making the readers guess as to whom the culprit is but till the end the guess is wrong. The author has thought out of the box, kudos you have pulled out a great play.
The second one is again a murder mystery but this one has a completely different set of characters in a totally different situation proving the authors ability of creativity. The overall delivery of this play is just mind-blowing just for the fact that this would have happened in many peoples lives. The story is about an old rich lady who is counting her days due to a heart disease. She happens to be uneducated and hence in fear that her sons will one day leave her, has made their lives miserable by not educating them too. She curtailed every single freedom of theirs. Whenever they asked her about why they were not educated, she used to say we have all the money on earth and that we need not work at all. However her daughters in laws were a rebel and wanted their husbands to work too, much to the dislike of their mother in law. The kids too wanted to go out and lead a normal life like everyone. The old lady dies all of a sudden one day and the police inquire everyone who was present along with her. There is enough evidence for everyone to be thought of as a murderer; for once I was wondering who killed the poor lady. The author’s narration was with such eloquence that no one could have guessed the ending; it just kept me glued to the book. The old lady in fact had committed suicide and just wanted to prove everyone that she was still in control of the lives of her kids even after death. It will become pretty evident that the first person who goes out of the family and joins work would have been the murderer, and hence each one will stay back and at the end of the day things would not change. However finally they find out that this was a setup and that she committed suicide.
The real reason why I liked this story was that we would have encountered such characters in our life at some point or the other. Domination, despotism is something no one can stand, but the ugly fact about it being every one has a taste of it at some point of time. The best stories or the movies are the ones where you can relate your life to it, that’s what this play is all about. Agatha Christie, hats off for choosing such an intricate and controversial subject but yet one of the best ones.
The third play is “The hollow”, this one is also a decent play but not living up to the reader’s expectations who have read the first two. The fourth one is “The mouse trap”, unfortunately this is one of the most boring plays in the book. I don’t know why she named the book after this play, wrong choice made madam. An absolute waste of time to read this last play, there is good enough plot but the story looks very straight forward with not much thrill maintained.
Overall a great book with the queens English, definitely worth reading any day. It can be one of the best gifts you can give your friend, a book that can go on to your library collection for sure. Special thanks to Nithya, my friend who lent me this book.
Balaji
Title: The Enchantress of Florence
Author: Salman Rushdie
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4/5
The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a mysterious woman, a great beauty believed to possess the powers of enchantment and sorcery, attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It is the story of two cities at the height of their powers – the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor Akbar the Great wrestles daily with question of belief, desire, and the treachery of his sons, and the equally sensual city of Florence during the High Renaissance, where Niccolo Machiavelli takes a starring role as he learns, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. Profoundly moving and completely absorbing, The Enchantress of Florence is a dazzling book full of wonders by one of the world’s most important living writers.
Several years ago I attempted to read The Satanic Verses. Twice. I couldn’t get more than a few chapters in. After that, I wrote Salman Rushdie off as a bad writer, and one I could never enjoy. I know – it was an unfair judgment to make based on one book. When I then saw The Enchantress of Florence on several of last years ‘best of 2008’ lists and decided to give Rushdie one more try.
It’s a story where men can bring their dreams alive as well as escape into them. The story, including all the little details, is quite beautiful and I loved how it seemed like such a fairy tale. I also enjoyed how funny this book was at times, as well as vulgar and seems as though it is intended to be a parody of the time.
There were lots of little hidden jokes and meanings in the text. I’m sure that I didn’t pick up on them all. For example, in the beginning, the Emperor fights the ruler of the kingdom of Kuch Nahin, which means “nothing”. The Kingdom of Nothing. I also liked how he made the distinction between Jodha Bai and Mariam-uz-Zamani. Mariam was his real wife while Jodha Bai was a phantom. I interpret this to be Rushdie’s way of pointing out how the historical figure which people call Jodha Bai was never Jodha Bai – the name was incorrectly given to Mariam-uz-Zamani much later and so this is why Jodha Bai is a fictional being while Mariam is very real.
I didn’t like the parts that took place in Italy. I thought they were a little boring and a little complicated. I mostly enjoyed the parts that took place in the Mughal Court.
I’ve heard and read that The Enchantress of Florence is one of Rushdie’s easiest reads. If that’s the case, I’m not sure if I’d enjoy his previous works. But I really loved this one.
Cities of the Plain is the final book in the border trilogy, and it primarily works as a companion to All the Pretty Horses as it continues John Grady Cole’s story three years later. Cole again falls in love, this time with a Mexican prostitute named Magdelena. She becomes the holy grail and the two agree to marry and start a life together. Once Magdelana’s pimp, Eduardo, learns of Cole’s plans to buy her freedom, he sets a plan into motion to thwart it, culminating in a gothic knife battle on the flooded streets of Juarez.
The book mines similar territory as All the Pretty Horses, including fate v. free will and Romanticism v. Realism. Both use the backdrop of forbidden love and the wild west to frame these themes. And both books are excellent—full of poetic writing and intense action.
The blind maestro, who John Grady Cole asks to be his padrino, plays the part of Chigurh from No Country or the old woman in All the Pretty Horses as he tries to talk Cole out of his stubborn idealism. He tells Cole,
“Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it yet another. In a vast and endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life” (195).
His realism is matched by the pimp’s in the culminating knife battle and the man who addresses Billy in the epilogue. Cole’s romantic stubbornness costs him his life, and while other McCarthy works like No Country and The Road explore the shifting of old and new worlds, here he seems to explore different worlds (Mexico and the US, Billy’s world v. John Grady Cole’s, etc.). Though he does nod to the old codes in a closing description of Billy’s face: “There was map enough for men to read. There God’s plenty of signs and wonders to make a landscape. To make a world” (291). It is echoed in The Road’s closing discussion of the maps and mazes of the world.
While Cole loses his life, it’s not clear that McCarthy indicts him. In some ways he still stands for the old world values of honor and loyalty, though he is clearly more reckless in this novel than Horses. Taken together, they paint a picture of the ending of a way of life, perhaps as he did in his early Southern novels. Likewise, No Country and The Road explore a similar ending of an old way of life—that of pre-9/11 America.
A film is in pre-production slated for release in 2012.
Say what you will about the decomposing British class system, the follies of aristocrats have inspired some the finest comic scenes in Western literature. Few authors saw the excesses at closer range than Nancy Mitford, who drew on them for Love in a Cold Climate, a modern classic based in part on her storied and half-batty upper-class family. First published in 1949, this comedy of manners tells the story of the heiress Polly Montdore, an only child who flouts convention by marrying a middle-aged man who had been her mother’s lover. Mitford’s portrait of the young Polly sets the tone of a book that is witty and elegant without being aloof: “Polly was a withdrawn, formal little girl, who went through the day with the sense of ritual, the poise, the absolute submission to etiquette of a Spanish Infanta. You had to love her, she was so beautiful and friendly, but it was impossible to feel very intimate with her.”
www.twitter.com/janiceharayda
In this cool little book, Herve Kempf puts a refreshingly different (in a Frenchy sort of way) perspective on the crucial connection between the “social question” (i.e. growing inequality around the globe) and the ecological crisis (global warming, species extinction, loss of biodiversity, resource depletion, peak oil, pollution).
Kempf outlines the extent and nature of these crises and explores the issues around who should bear the lion’s share of responisbility. An entertaining and enlightening, if, naturally, somewhat depressing read…
The Director of the Henry Center, Doug Sweeney, a friend and mentor, has authored an important text entitled Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word (InterVarsity, July 2009). The book covers the life and Word-centered ministry of the colonial pastor-theologian, a subject area in which Sweeney has already produced numerous important works, including Volume Twenty-Three of the prestigious Yale Works of Edwards series.
The text’s 200 pages stretch over seven chapters that each address an aspect of Edwards’s biblically based ministry. The writing style is characteristically Sweeney: clear, thick, vivid, and doxological. Readers of all kinds–pastors, laypeople, Edwards devotees, and even the uninitiated–will benefit greatly from Sweeney’s comprehensive grasp of the Edwardsean corpus and his ability to distill that knowledge for readers.
This is historical theology for the church. The book succeeds in repositioning Edwards as, first and foremost, a minister of the Word. Sweeney calls for an Edwardsean conception of the pastorate–that is, a rich pulpit ministry centered on the Bible that cannot help but fill ordinary Christian living with the glory and grandeur of the gospel.
This is an important book, one that promises to transform modern conceptions of the pastorate. The text will also permanently affect one’s understanding of both Jonathan Edwards and the Christian life. Aside from George Marsden’s momentous Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale, 2003), Sweeney’s text is my favorite Edwards book. In fact, I would actually rank this as the superior abridged treatment of Edwards over Marsden’s recent A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards (Eerdmans, 2008), a fine book in its own right.
I love Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word. I encourage anyone who cares about theology, the church, and church history to buy it. It is the product of a distinguished scholar who loves God’s church and has devoted his own theological ministry to it. Here’s hoping that many will purchase this text, and that a whole generation will embrace the Edwardsean model of the ministry, seeking not to be Edwards, but to be like him in his love for the Word and his concern for the spiritual transformation of his people.
Readers can purchase Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word from InterVarsity Press or Amazon. Justin Taylor recently posted about the text. In addition, a diverse and distinguished group of commentators has praised the text. Selections below:
A “masterful analysis”–Harry Stout, Yale
“Admirable” and “authoritative”–George Marsden, Notre Dame
“Nourishing and tasty”–Gerald McDermott, Roanoke College
A “blessing to pastors, preachers, and spiritual leaders”–Kenneth Minkema, Yale
A “vibrant portrayal”–Sam Storms, Brideway Church
“Accessible and accurate”–Mark Dever, Capitol Hill Baptist Church
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Remember in the film version of The Jane Austen Book Club that Hugh Dancy’s character gives Jane Austen a try and asks the Maria Bello character to try science fiction? He particularly recommends Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Bello’s character resists and resists, but near the end of the film, when she is finally open to trying a new relationship and a new genre—she reads it, and buys the next ones. The books are soon placed on the hood of her car as Dancy draws her into an embrace—an embrace that comes to be because of shared love of literature. So much for my motivation to read this text. Now what were the results?
Le Guin’s introduction to this book addresses a reader just like me, someone who brings preconceived notions of what science fiction entails and who it is for to the reading. I was struck almost immediately by the strong command of language, and the seeming paradoxes reminded me very much of Oscar Wilde’s introduction to The Picture of Dorian Gray, also not in my usual preferred genre, but a work I enjoy and appreciate nonetheless.
We are in a new world here, and it took me some time to adjust (and even to understand what was happening and who was narrating, which is made more confusing by the shifting of narrator, a la Faulkner. The human beings are “five-sixths of the time, hermaphroditic neuters” who can both bear and sire children, depending on their partner during “kemmer.” While at first this difference from us feels a bit creepy, some interesting philosophy emerges about our notion of human sexuality, about duality being part of everything, about war, and about what constitutes a moral entity. The story via which these philosophies are explored is rather interesting (quite an adventure our two protagonists go on), so I enjoyed this book on both levels.
A taste of the philosophy:
1. In order to have war, people must be patriotic.
2. Men’s notions of their own manliness complicates their pride—and their ability to be completely forthright.
3. Without intuiting a moral entity in a fellow being, the perceiver can’t help but feel unease and chill.
But even if you read The Left Hand of Darkness for the plot alone, you won’t be disappointed.
‘Revenge of the Wedding Planner’ is the story of Mags Grimsdale, a 40-something woman who works at Dream Weddings, a small wedding planning business run by her best friend Julia Sultana.
But Mags isn’t your average 40-something mother of four – she’s a goth with long black hair, has gargoyles in her house and is keeping a secret or two.
Julia sends Mags’ life into disarray when she dumps her latest boyfriend, can Mags keep it all together – her family, friendship and of course, Dream Weddings?
The plot sounded pretty interesting to me, and was pretty good to start with. Mags was quite a fun character to read, and her first person narrative made very pleasant reading, which stumbled along, describing well Mags’ life and her thoughts as well. However, that’s really where the good things about this book ended for me. All of the other character in the book (perhaps apart from Mags’ husband Bill) were all hideous – they were whiny, selfish, rude and generally not very nice people! Julia was the worst offender, and you have to wonder why Mags’ would still stay friends with someone who treats her like that! She was very selfish and quite a user towards Mags. Her background is explained (quite extensively I must add) by Mags early on in the book, but this didn’t make me any more sympathetic to her, quite the opposite actually. I think it was supposed to evoke sympathy from the reader, but just didn’t from me.
We also get to meet 2 of Mags’ children, Alexander and Alicia-Rose. Her daughter leaves the book a little way through (not through death!) so we don’t see much of her but Alexander on the other hand, seems to be the son from hell. I feel Owens has rather exaggerated with his character, to the point of being so incredibly annoying I found myself wanting to skip his parts because he was so irritating to me! Other characters through the book included Mags’ sisters, Jay; Julia’s boyfriend, and the odd wedding couple.
Now, the awful characters isn’t my biggest gripe with the book. I had a real problem with the amount of narrative in the book! Usually when I read a book, I expect to have an equal amount of dialogue and narrative from the author, but this book was so heavy with the narrative, it became very hard going after a while. I found myself checking how many pages there were until the end so that I could move onto another book because reading it at times was a real chore, and I was just bored with it. Dialogue betwen the characters was quite rare, and when it did occur, it was pretty short, and it soon launched back into its pages and pages of Mags’ narrative once more. Owens’ writing style itself is pleasant enough, Mags being quite funny to read, but the long narrative just wasn’t sustainable from the characters and just went on far too long for me, and therefore really dented my enjoyment of the book overall.
The story was pleasant enough, with a couple of twists and turns throughout, not to mention a quite explosive ending, but it just didn’t really do it for me unfortunately. I felt it was a little bland, far too narration-heavy, and the title didn’t really make much sense for me – where was Mags’ revenge?! I couldn’t see it anyway. I was really looking forward to this book but I was actually relieved when it was finished. I hate reading a book when it feels like a chore, and that is what this was for me. Very disappointing, I’m quite unsure about trying any more of her work after reading this.
PLEASE NOTE: This book was published in Ireland under the title of The Trouble With Weddings.
Rating: 2/5
How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
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This isn’t a formal review or anything, but I’ve been reading Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth for the last two days and I’m really impressed. I can’t say that I’ve learned anything new (yet, I’m only 4 chapters in) but I feel vindicated while reading because it’s reinforcing things that I’ve been saying for a long time. In fact, in the past couple of months I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the topics addressed in this book because I really want to take a more active teaching role at the church I’ve been attending. While F&S present the material a bit differently than I would they’re saying essentially the same things that I would say, but they’re saying them (probably) better!
It’s also kind of crazy that they started teaching exegesis with 1Corinthians since that’s the book I’d like to teach through first. As you all know, I’m a Pentecostal and I attend a Charismatic church. Charismatics are notorious for celebrating the very things that Paul rebukes the Corinthians for. There’s something wrong when one can read a text that explicitly condemns a certain practice (e.g., uninterpreted tongues in corporate worship) and then do that very thing while claiming to “stand on the Bible.” If I could get this book into the hands of every person I knew then I would. I think it would go a long way towards correcting this kind of Bible reading. Lord willing I’ll be able to take over some of the teaching responsibilities and share some of the things I’ve learned over the years and if/when this happens I’ll definitely be consulting this text a lot because it’s aimed at the audience I’d be teaching.
More thoughts to come I’m sure…
B”H
Tarpaulin Sky Press has just published a new work of fiction by Andrew Zornoza, Where I Stay, which includes numerous embedded photographs. Unlike W.G. Sebald and most other writers that have scattered images in a sporadic manner throughout their texts, Zornoza’s book places a snapshot on every right hand page, setting up a visual rhythm with two sets of text. The left-hand page is a diary entry, complete with date and place, while on almost all of the right-hand pages, in addition to the photograph, there is an italicized text that is usually briefer than the diary entry. Part of the puzzling pleasure of reading Zornoza’s novel comes in attempting to triangulate these three components.
The book opens with a 1938 quote from photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975), perhaps most famous for his Farm Security Administration photographs of the American Depression and for his collaboration with writer James Agee on the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941).
These anonymous people who come and go in the cities and who move on the land; it is on what they look like, now; what is in their faces and in the windows and the streets beside them and around them; what they are wearing and what they are riding in, and how they are gesturing, that we need to concentrate consciously, with the camera.
In spite of its title, Where I Stay is a restless book that moves all across the American West and even into Mexico. Time flows from August 2 to November 25, but otherwise there is no discernible progression. The narrator drifts, struggles, observes, and writes regular diary entries about day jobs, drugs and alcohol, death, loneliness, and brief attempts at friendship.
Compared to the diary entries, the italicized texts on the right hand page are generally more meditative and reflective.
Sometimes I wrote things down, fragments. But then I looked at them and they did not seem real and there seemed to be no purpose in writing them. There was nothing in them, other than things I did not want to remember.
The photographs, which are credited to five people other than the author, depict the bleak anonymous locales familiar to every hitchhiker: roadsides, truck stops, bus stations, laundromats, gritty streets. There are a few snapshots of people, none of whom receive the heroic treatment of Walker Evans’ sharecroppers. Only the occasional landscape image offers a possible solace – the open sky, the sunset, the forests that consume the old shacks and abandoned automobiles – but even those moments are undercut by the text.
Oct. 13, Lincoln City, Oregon
A parking lot by the sea, an ashtray on the dashboard. Windows racked open, the sound of cars, music playing from a boombox. I wake because the driver opens the passenger door. He puts his hands on the hood, lights a cigarette and smokes. Then he goes down the steps, faces the seawall, kneels and prays. It is early morning, nothing but gray and fog. A chill comes through the open window. I thought that seeing the ocean would be the end of something. It is not.
Mark Kurlansky – “The Food of a Younger Land” Riverhead Books 2009
Nowadays it’s fashionable to gripe about how bad the food we eat is. From movies like “Supersize Me” and the soon-to-be-released “Food Inc.” to books like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “Fast Food Nation” it appears America’s hunger for books and movies bashing our food system is insatiable (not that I am complaining) The title (and subtitle) of Mark Kurlansky’s newest book ”The Food of a Younger Land: A portrait of American food – before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional – from the lost WPA files” would lead you to believe this will be another tome bashing the way things are while praising the way they used to be.
Fortunately this is not the case. Kurlansky, who has also written entire books on Oysters (“The Big Oyster: History on a Half-Shell), Cod (”Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World”) and salt (“Salt: A World History”) has combed through hundreds of submittals from a pre-WWII New Deal program called the Federal Writers Program to develop this book. One of the projects undertaken by writers working under this program was “America Eats” where several writers were enlisted to write about American regional food traditions and that is where Kurlansky gets his material from.
It’s easy to fault this book for things that are missing. I found it almost astonishing that there was no submittals included regarding Wisconsin’s cheese making, or the Friday Fish Fry (Kurlansky does include an article on a Smelt Fry from Washington State), or the state’s rich brewing heritage. It could simply be because those submittals never were written or Kurlansky just didn’t deem them worthy of inclusion, understandable given the enormous task he undertook in researching and compiling stories for this book.
That doesn’t mean Kurlansky leaves Wisconsin completely out of the mix. Included in the book are articles on the Wisconsin Lutefisk Supper and Sourdough Lumberjack Pancakes, something I knew nothing about until I read this book.
I found some of the articles to be very bland, such as a one paragraph section on Oklahoma Kush (a baked dish of cornbread, onions, and lard or butter) but most of them make for an interesting read. It was fun to read about the controversy over how to prepare a mint julep (whether to bruise the mint or not) and I really enjoyed all of the submittals about east coast seafood traditions. Some of the entries will kind of surprise you. For example it almost seems implausible that 80 years ago one of the FWP writers had to inform America about “A Los Angeles Sandwich Called A Taco,” something every American over the age of 3 probably could identify nowadays.
The title (and probably more so the subtitle) lead readers to believe that these traditions were all killed off with the onslaught of the highway system, industrialization of our food, and chain restaurant, fortunately many of these traditions are actually still thriving today. Kurlansky prefaces each section with an update letting readers know what traditions are still going on, which are dying, and which ones are long gone.
Should you wish to try to make some of the dishes featured in the book (who is up for some Arkansas Possum or Montana Fried Beaver Tail?), Kurlansky has included the original recipes if they were included in the FWP submittals. I for one plan on trying the Grand Central Oyster Bar Oyster Stew and Mississippi Seafood Gumbo.
Despite some of the weaker articles I really enjoyed this book and I think any fan of food history will enjoy it as well. I am one of those who enjoys cookbooks with a story behind the recipes and this book provides stories behind some of America’s oldest and most recognizable foods from the Southern barbecue to clam chowder. Anytime you compile a hodge-podge of completed, half-finished, and unedited submittals from over 80 years ago it’s going to be a challenge tying everything into a nice cohesive package but Kurlansky has done an admirable job.
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Those those who enjoy this book may want to follow up by reading “America Eats!: On the Road with the WPA – the Fish Fries, Box Supper Socials, and Chitlin Feasts That Define Real American Food” by Pat Willard. Willard actually goes on the road in search of the foods and traditions from the Federal Writers’ Project.
Those searching for a more thorough discussion on Wisconsin food traditions have several other books to check out including a couple by Therese Allen: “The Flavor of Wisconsin: An Informal History of Food and Eating in the Badger State, “Home Cooked Culture: Wisconsin Through Recipes.”
Alfresco Developer Guide: Customizing Alfresco with actions, web scripts, web forms, workflows, and more
Jeff Potts
Okay, I know what your thinking, an Alfresco book review? Where did he find the time and what about Documentum? It is simple, I haven’t found the time. Not yet at least. This is going to be a multi-post review. More on that in a few paragraphs.
As for Documentum, it isn’t going anywhere. Regardless of what I might say, especially when I critique EMC World, I like the product more than ever. However, as Tony Byrne of CMS Watch likes to say, Every ECM product is perfect for at least one organization [paraphrasing]. For some, the answer isn’t a traditional ECM vendor or SharePoint. For some, the answer is Open Source. It may be the right answer based on the organizations infrastructure or it is just a strategy decided upon by the CIO.
There is the question of “Why Alfresco? Why not Nuxeo or some other open source provider?” I could tell you I went through an exhaustive survey and detailed research, but it boils down to three simple reasons:
There you have it. My selection criteria, which like many customers, isn’t based on the technology. That leads me back into my previous point…the time issue. I started reading Jeff’s book on my commute today and came to a realization, I’m going to have to actual use Alfresco to determine how well the book is written. That is going to require me to try the examples, which is something very challenging to do on my daily commute. People don’t like it when I use two or three seats on the metro or the bus.
So I am going to treat each Chapter as its own unit to review, and do it in my house. I am going to try a large number of the examples and see how it goes. I will gather overall thoughts for a wrap-up post that will contain links to all the individual posts. This will be a long process, so bear with me. I think the result should be interesting.
Keep in mind that the book is a year old and talks about the Enterprise 2.2 version and Labs 3.0 preview. Both are now on version 3.1 with a 3.2 preview version available for the Labs edition. Trying the code samples out with the latest version of Alfresco will also help test the shelf life of the book. I will have to note when I think any issues I have are version related versus book related. Jeff can’t be held accountable for changes in Alfresco, just for not getting an updated version out if there are lots of differences.
On to Chapter 1…
Chapter 1: The Alfresco PlatformThere are no examples to try out, so I was able to read this chapter on my commute today. It was well written and covered the highlights of the Alfresco architecture. It defined all of the basic terms, though a few of them (like CIFS and WebDAV) were defined a few pages after they were first used. While I wouldn’t say I understand all of the details, Jeff makes an effort to point out that we, the reader, should know the architecture fairly well by the end of the book. The point in this chapter was to get a basic feel for the architecture to setup the subsequent chapters.
Jeff lays out the basics of what ECM is, points out that people have differing definitions, but stresses that it really isn’t important in this context. I’d have to agree with him. If I’m trying to customize Alfresco, which would be the primary reason I would open this book, the definition of ECM isn’t the burning question. Knowing that Alfresco can be used as a platform for ECM solutions is what is important to me.
Another key point of the first chapter are the concepts of Document Management and Web Content Management. These are presented as the two strengths of Alfresco. Jeff stresses that the Document Management is the foundation of other ECM solutions, such as Digital Asset Management, that Alfresco can be used to solve. The extra focus on WCM is due to the extra components that Alfresco provides to make it an effective tool for WCM.
I think the most important lesson is that I will be working hard. Jeff mentions that many things can be done through configuration and then refers to Munwar Shariff’s book, Alfresco Enterprise Content Management Implementation (looks like an updated version is in the works). Sounds like that might be a good book to start reading first. As I only have time for one Alfresco book at the moment, I’ll have to test the learning curve of Alfresco with Jeff’s guidance.
On the whole, this chapter is a good start to the book. Stay tuned for my Chapter 2 review in a few days.
I selected a themed bible to review for my next Thomas Nelson Book Publishers book review. Interesting to pick a Bible I know…but I enjoyed it!
The American Patriot’s Bible is chock full of interesting facts on American history. It is a New King James version, which is okay, but I personally would have preferred a New International Version or an English Standard Version. The only other thing I would change with the Bible is to have thumb tabs…simply a personal preference of mine! The texts are easy to read and I enjoyed the mini history lessons inserted in the beginning of sections and books in the bible. This bible is certinaly set up to provide a family history in the begining and could easily become a family heirloom. The bible includes pages to record births of children and grandchildren, the family tree, the family church record, special family history, ancestors of interest, Military service records, and family deaths. There is a comprehensive subject index dealing with outstanding characteristics of the American patriot, a decent sized concordance, and colorful bible maps to end the bible out. I would certainly recommend this bible for homeschooling families.
At work I read short stories. Many of them. I try to keep it systematic: one story from one book and then move on to the next book. I made an exception the other day–I read two stories by David Foster Wallace. Exceptions must be made in such cases. When I get to Sixty Stories by Barthelme, I’ll probably read a couple instead of just one. Stories that are ultra short are ultra short for the same reason short poems are ultra short. But a good story often makes you want to read another good story in succession. Maybe poetry works the same way.
Anyway, here are some pouts of 140 characters (or less), reviewing said stories.
“Chekhov and Zulu” by Salman Rushdiein East, West (Vintage, 1994)
Review: THREE STARS
Star Trek-obsessed terrorists really know how to talk to audiences like they don’t exist. Just where does this story take place, and what is all the coded fuss saying?
“Entropy” by Thomas Pynchonin Slow Learner: Early Stories (Back Bay Books, 1985)
Review: FOUR STARS
Replace the cute jazz pacifism of Kerouac with writing detective, harmful: a wallop noticeable more for the smeary aftermath than the slumped crack opening.
“The Fasting Artist” by Franza Kafkain The Transformation and Other Stories (Penguin, 1995)
Review: TWO STARS
It’s still tough to find a good translation of this classic. Hunger doesn’t have to mean archaic language. Starvation doesn’t have to mean words let out to dry.
“The Sandbank Sage” by Jack Kerouacin Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings (Penguin, 2000)
Review: THREE STARS
To get to know the Beats is to read them before they were Beats. Kerouac’s early work is an obvious quest-leg toward bop-prosody, but he hasn’t found his voice yet.
“Remains of the Night” by John McNallyin Who Can Save Us Now? (Free Press, 2008)
Review: TWO STARS
If you want to read about a faux-superhero/villain dejection called the Silverfish, check out this witty, disgusting, and highly blasé tale told by the bug’s butler.
Tides from the New Worlds: Her by Tobias Buckell
Installment 8
Her is a surreal work, combining science fiction and magical realism in a way that is incredibly unsettling and mind-bending. We follow a high ranking bureaucrat as he handles the ins and outs of working and living on a giant floating woman in space. They don’t know where she came from, they know only that she exists and is a source of useful materials. They mine her toenails, they cut her hair like trees, they use patches of her skin for cloth and paper. On her breast is a space port, in her eyes people swim and sail.
The vision of a planet as a woman has been used as a metaphor since the beginning of human kind. The term “Mother Earth” is well known, although often seen as hokey. Buckell paints a startling and disturbing view of what it would feel like to do to a person what we so casually do to the planet now. The answers are unsettling and sad, the brutality that is shown in the story is casual and thoughtless.
The questions raised are serious and hard to handle. Is it our right to treat our planet so callously? Is our casual taking of resources any different than plundering a sleeping woman? There is an almost unconscious undertone of rape and molestation, and the narrator goes through the story with a constant, slightly sick feeling.
I don’t know if Buckell was truly trying to send an environmental message, or merely evoke a sense of wrongness about taking and using a person or thing so unthinkingly, but either message is valid. There is also the idea that we may someday discover unbelievable things while traveling space, but I can only hope that by that time, we are a kinder, gentler race. As the anthology progresses, I think the story ideas get stranger and more imaginative, and it’s easy to see him growing as a writer as the stories get better and better. More to come soon.
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You can check out Tobias Buckell on his website, or follow him on Twitter @tobiasbuckell
The master post can be found here, Tides from the New Worlds
Genre: Popular science
Synopsis: Why do we do the things we do? This book gives examples of times when we behave in a way that seems rational but upon closer inspection is influenced by all sorts of factors you never would have even considered.
Thoughts: I don’t read a huge number of popular science books, but from what I have read, this one was fairly typical. I enjoyed the conversational tone and personal feel (there’s quite a few personal anecdotes and stories). The examples of predictably irrational behaviour were interesting, but I disagree with the introduction: I don’t think being aware of these things will actually make any difference in how I do things. My only complaint is that things were spelled out a bit too much and too many examples of the same thing were given.
If you enjoy popular science books or you’d like to try one, then I would recommend this. It’s a quick read, so it’s not going to take up much of your time or require a good amount of effort. It’s fine to read out of idle curiosity as I did, but I wouldn’t overwhelmingly recommend it as it didn’t really stand out from the crowd for me.
Dan Ariely has a website which is probably worth checking out if you’re thinking of reading the book.
Warmbrunn, Erika. Where the Pavement Ends: One Woman’s Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China & Vietnam. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2001.
Reading books such as Where the Pavement Ends has a confusing effect on me. On the one hand, I start to think of my personal landscape as being too small, too confining. The need for movement and travel start to stir within me. On the other hand, I realize I am coddled, comfortable – too careful to conquer the great unknown. The idea of going where I don’t speak the language has always intimidated me. Okay. Scares the pants off me.
Where the Pavement Endsis not only a memoir about one woman’s eight month trek across Mongolia, China and Vietnam. It is also a compassionate commentary on Erika Warmbrunn’s five (and sometimes sixth) senses. She relates everything she sees (sharing some gorgeous photographs throughout the book), everything she hears, touches, smells and tastes. From learning to enjoy Mongolian tea to ignoring sheep’s tail and demanding to eat like the natives rather than a coddled Western tourist. From the spanning the vast landscapes and bustling cities mostly by bicycle (accepting rides every so often). Every leg of Warmbrunn’s journey reflects the culture she encounters. She relies on the kindness of strangers to have decent meal, a roof over her head and to expand her social awareness. She is eager to learn the language, drink in the customs, and learn something from everyone she meets.
A small sampling of the favorite lines: “…to make things new, you have to keep going further and further away from what you know” (p 11). This is the perfect definition of bravery, “I was completely intimidated, and I was absolutely at peace” (p 13). Another one, “In the absence of language, ritual becomes a way of communication, of making yourself a little less foreign” (p 42).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called simply, “Bicycling” (p 35).
The Secret Life of Prince Charming (2009) is the latest book from critically acclaimed writer Deb Caletti. Some have suggested that the cover art is misleading, suggesting to readers that they will find a peppy, romantic comedy type of book inside. If, however, the cover is taken more in terms of generalities, it is a perfect visual representation of this book’s core–a meditation on love, truth, family and, of course, relationships.
Seventeen-year-old Quinn has grown up in the shadow of bad relationships. She knows all the gory details of her aunt’s numerous breakups, the story behind her grandmother’s two collapsed marriages. Quinn and her little sister Sprout are also intimately familiar with their mother’s divorce from their father. Despite all that knowing, Quinn is still desperate for her father to be a part of her life.
Still, in order to combat all of those poor choices, Quinn has made herself into the responsible girl who makes good and wise decisions. That facade begins to slip away when Quinn starts to look more closely at her life and the objects that inhabit it. Quinn already knew that her father wasn’t perfect. Charming, witty, fun Barry can also be selfish, irresponsible and vindictive. When she realizes that Barry has amassed trophies from every one of his ex-girlfriends, Quinn knows she has to take action.
Such is the start of the road trip at the core of The Secret Life of Prince Charming. With the help of the half-sister she doesn’t know and the little sister who might see more clearly than either, Quinn sets out to right her father’s wrongs and return the objects to their rightful owners. What starts as a simple delivery mission turns into something more as each stop brings Quinn closer to the father she never really knew.
This book handles a lot of things in a masterful way. First and foremost the writing throughout the novel is, frankly, stunning. Quinn’s narrative is interspersed with snippets of advice from the women in Barry’s life talking about love and their own past relationships. In total this amounts to about half a dozen different narrative voices in one novel. The characters are all well-realized and truly unique.
Caletti also provides an interesting window onto the reality of divorce as seen by the children when no one is watching. Most of all, though, this story deals with what it really means to have an estranged father. Despite all of the evidence, Quinn loves her father and in many ways idolizes him at the beginning of the story. As the plot moves forward, Quinn is forced to address her mixed feelings for her father and acknowledge that the truth about him might be very different from the image she created over the years. (The idolization of father figures is not always something that makes sense to me but Caletti carefully examines the subject from all angles and integrates it well into the storyline.)
The Secret Life of Prince Charming is not a lot of things. It is not action-packed. It is not, in some ways, much of a romance. It is not fast paced. But this book is compelling and beautiful and highly recommended.
by
Jacqueline Carey
rating: 5 of 5 stars
One thing that amazes me with this novel is Carey’s scope as a writer. With the Kushiel sextuplet she was graceful and highly engaging with her intelligent main characters, spinning sentences like colorful and erotic thread; with this book, her main character is more physical and so her writing takes on a greater physicality and brevity. Parsed phrases create intense moments, highlighting the fearless nature of her heroine, the simplicity that she brings to bear in her worldview.
Unlike the shadowy origins that much of urban fantasy uses as a suspenseful trope, Carey makes us witness to the events leading to the birth of the girl who will enliven the myth of Santa Olivia. Occurring in a slightly off future Texas where the threat of rampant disease in Mexico has caused the U.S. to seal the border claiming rebel Mexican forces are threatening to overrun the States, focusing in on the town once known as Santa Olivia but now converted into Outpost – disappearing from public awareness as the entire town becomes locked down – Carey introduces us to a genetic experiment of human scale: men who were bred to be stronger and faster and more resilient.
It is one such man, fleeing his U.S. captors, who succumbs to a tryst with a local girl, causing the improbable pregnancy that leads to the birth of Loup (pronounced Lou, French for wolf, told with a somber yet tongue-in-cheek werewolf reference and not the overripe gravitas crappy romance novels would give to the name).
Born gifted with the same genetic alterations engineered into her father, life is rather challenging for Lou. But then, life pretty much sucks for all the residents of Santa Olivia cum Outpost. Not allowed to leave by the U.S. Army, able only to serve as the working class servants of the soldiers, stuck between warring factions of Outpost gangs trying to scratch the crumbs the Army leaves, the scene becomes ripe for an avenging angel – Zorro style. Carey could have thrust her novel into the trenches of high action/adventure with swashbuckling and ass kicking, creating a comic book heroine in Loup. She does not. There is plenty of action, but Carey does not allow her action sequences to spin out of proportion to the story, despite Loup’s heightened abilities. In my opinion, this makes the story more realistic and rich, for the true heroic aspects arise in the only sport allowed the town of Outpost: boxing.
Loup’s older brother Thomas grows to be the heroic ideal of the town, training wholeheartedly and single-mindedly. Loup will get her turn in the spotlight, but the trajectory that Carey takes her on – growing and learning amongst orphans under the protection of the unorthodox Church, shadowing her older brother in the local boxing gym, performing “miracles” more akin to pranks as the original namesake child saint of the town, butting heads with the local bad boy tough who could easily be a stereotypical gang leader but in Carey’s hands becomes much more – plays alongside her brother’s development, benefiting from the comparison and example she finds, fleshing out the hopes and dreams of a small town forgotten and trapped.
Santa Olivia, as a novel of urban fantasy, pushes through many of the boundaries reinforced by previous novels of the genre. Carey continues to expand her craft and seduce her readers into her worlds just slightly askew of our own, spinning characters of coarse fabric and fine patterns, threading sexuality into her tales with skillful aplomb, and interweaving literary merit with the excitement of the genre and a subtle social commentary. Punches are not pulled, pelvic thrusts fully expressed. Santa Olivia packs the wallop of her main character.
View all my verbose reviews.
I haven’t posted for a while. Part of the reason for it is some feeling of apathy on my part. I keep encountering people who just refuse to hear my arguments about dangers of what Obama administration is doing domestically and internationally. On the other hand, not everything is bad: they do seem to make some responsible decisions, like the ones with restoring military commissions and blocking the release of photos of some GIs mistreating prisoners. Obama is now planning a trip to Europe and the Middle East. Apparently the trip includes a stop in Normandy to commemorate 65th Anniversary of the D-Day, a stop in Germany and in Egypt. The stop in Germany is what concerns me. I recently received an e-mail with a link to this story:
In a move aimed at healing the rifts of American foreign policy decisions, President Obama will make a trip to Europe next month, including a trip to Dresden, Germany. The trip will consist of several stops and the President will meet with the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany. Also slated are several policy speeches.
Perhaps the most controversial is a planned speech in which President Obama will formally apologize for American ‘war crimes’ during the Second World War. This would be particularly comforting to Europeans, who have long condemned American foreign policy actions, especially regarding civilians.
This speech will also be welcome in Germany, who had over 12,000,000 of its citizens killed during the war. Mayor Johann Krupp of Augensburg in Saxony stated to DW that the speech will "help my great-uncle’s soul rest. He burned to death during the Dresden bombings."
I then followed a link provided by Weasel Zippers. There it all seemed like some sort of satire. I could not find this story at the Deutsche Welle web site. Could it be satire? I started digging some more. I found this Gateway Pundit post on the subject with more links. Do follow those links and read the articles there. And if you have have time for just one of them, go to this Pajamas Media article. It does seem that Obama is planning to go to Dresden and apologize at the very least for the Dresden bombing. Bookworm also has a post on the subject of Obama going to both Buchenwald and Dresden, where she points out that the myth of Dresden bombing just to terrorize German population and the city of Dresden having no military value was started by none other than Josef Goebbels. And here we come to the book review. The definitive book on the subject of Dresden bombing is "Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945" by Frederick Taylor.
In the book Mr. Taylor proves beyond any doubt several things. First of all, the number of people killed was exaggerated 10-fold. As such, with 25 to 30 thousand people killed, Dresden did not have the most casualties of all the cities in Germany. The largest absolute number can be claimed by Hamburg, and the largest percentage of the population can be claimed by Leipzig. Further, Dresden also had significant number of legitimate military targets. First of all, it was the largest railroad junction in the Eastern Germany, through which the German Eastern Front was supplied. The Soviets requested in Yalta that Allies would bomb the German supply routes, and the Allies obliged. Dresden also had large tank repair shops, clearly a military target. Additionally, Dresden was home for a factory making communication equipment for the German Army and a factory making bombsights for the German bombers. The local cigarette factory was making rifle ammunition, since the equipment used for stuffing cigarettes can be also used for stuffing rifle rounds. Indeed, if you look at the history of Dresden, the ancient capital of Saxony, the claim that the city was devoid of any industry of military value would understandably seem as ridiculous as it really is. It is true that the city did not have much heavy industry, but it did have what in modern parlance would be called "high tech". All the jewelry historically produced in Dresden would just naturally evolve into it. The reason why Goebbels claimed the Dresden, of all other German cities, was an ultimate victim was because Dresden was a popular tourist destination before the war, particularly for the British and the Americans. The claim of Dresden victimhood was dismissed at the time. Obviously, in February of 1945 it was impossible to know that the war in Europe would end in May. But with the start of the Cold War the Soviets and their East German puppets were eager to paint the Western Allies in the bad light, so they resurrected the old Nazi lie. Now the blame-America-first crowd on the Left is eager to repeat it.
Other things that Frederick Taylor proves in the book are:
1. The blame for the high number of civilian death should placed squarely on the city Nazi leadership who built the nice bomb shelters for themselves, but neglected to provide adequate shelters for the population;
2. There was no strafing of the ground targets in Dresden by American escort fighter aircraft. Indeed, anyone who even played a Combat Flight Simulator game (this or this) knows that any air combat invariably sinks close to the ground, as the fighters maneuver and try to restore their air speed. So, imagine an American P-51 Mustang attacking a German Fokke-Wulf FW-190 from above and behind (a common mode of attack), close to the ground. The Mustang pilot lines up the German in his sights and opens fire. He scores some hits. But where do you think the bullets that missed the German aircraft go? That’s right, down to the ground. Now, what if you are a civilian on the ground and you did not see the Fokke-Wulf, but you did see the Mustang shooting, the tracers from its machine guns streaming to the ground? It would obviously seem to you like the Mustang was strafing something on the ground, even though the Mustang was in fact shooting at the German aircraft. Indeed, the air combat did take place during the day, when Americans bombed the railroad junction. But there were no ground targets to strafe, so there were no strafing attacks by the the American escort fighters.
The bottom line, this book should be required reading for anybody who wants to at least attempt to understand history. For President Obama it would certainly be better to read this book rather than the crap Hugo Chavez gave him.
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