Collins, in her 2012 book examines the wide-reaching impact of the Lone Star State on American politics, business and society. Thanks to its geographic size, population, wealth and political conservatism, for years Texas has helped shape the rest of the nation. According to Collins, its lax banking regulations led to both the savings and loan crises of the early 90s and the financial services fiasco of the recent Great Recession. The state has produced three American presidents, with all three responsible for America going to war. In education, the state gave birth to the No Child Left Behind Act and its love of Christian fundamentalist-friendly high school text books is helping dictate what students read across America. The state’s business model of low taxes and lax regulation is music to the ears of CEO everywhere.

Some parts of Collins’s book I found engaging and interesting, overall I found her book a tad uneven. While Collins does her share of skewering and exposing, what I admired the most about her book was her ability to make me think about other ways Texas impacts the rest of the United States. Compared to other states its size like New York and California, it severely under funds it’s higher education system. Therefore, when out-of-state college graduates move to Texas to work, it saves Texas from having to pay for their higher education. Because Texas refuses to adequately help subsidize healthcare for its citizens, chances are those citizens, if they move outside Texas, eventually become costly health burdens because their chronic conditions were left untreated. In a similar fashion, the state’s refusal to allow sex education and easy access to birth control has resulted in Texas having an astronomical teen pregnancy rate. Many of those mothers and their children will require expensive social services.  If they elect to move from Texas, someone else will be forced to pick up the tab.

In keeping with the belief there’s two sides to any issue, recently I noticed on Book TV’s website there’s already a new book that praises Texas as model for how things should be done. Erica Grieder’s Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas for obvious reasons looks like it would make an interesting follow-up read to Collins’ book. Needless to say, I can’t wait to read it. 

Moscow, December 25, 1991 is a detailed and intelligent look back on the collapse of the USSR. The book alternates between the lead-up to Gorbachev’s resignation on Christmas night and decades that preceded it. However, in essence the book is a study in contrasts between Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

O’Clery depicts the two leaders as complete polar opposites. Gorbachev, admired in the West comes off in Moscow December 25, 1991 as charming, urbane and intelligent. Yeltsin, on the other hand is portrayed as a buffoonish, backwoods, impulsive drunk. (Immediately upon arrival during his first visit the United States he was so drunk he had to take a piss behind the airplane as it rested on the runway. During a later visit he was caught by US Secret Service agents late one evening drunk while hailing a taxi in his underwear. Asked where he was going at that hour Yeltsin told the Secret Service he was going out for a pizza.) Possible due to a combination of his drunkenness, impulsiveness and the intense political and personal pressure he was under, according to O’Clery, Yeltsin attempted suicide at least three times during his political career.

Yet it was Gorbachev who made disastrous political appointments to his inner circle. These appointees would go on to feed the Soviet leader bogus and inaccurate information. Misinformed and deceived, eventually the Soviet Union under his command entered a state of crises and decline. Later, after being overthrown by many of those same trusted leaders Gorbachev never recovered politically. Yeltsin on the other hand, in spite of his legion of shortcomings, was nevertheless perceived by many Russians as a reformer and an outsider. With key allies and sympathizers (especially in the military) he was able to take control of the political chaos and position himself as leader of a non-Communist Russia.

What blew me away the most about O’Clery’s book is the staggering volume of inside information.  The book is filled with detailed accounts of secretive high-level meetings, many of them involving either Yeltsin, Gorbachev or both. Somehow, O’Clery was able to pull off this impressive piece of journalism without interviewing either former leader.

Due to the impressive amount of detail crammed into an average-length book, naturally it’s not a lightning fast read. However, thanks to O’Clery’s attention to detail, especially when it comes to all the pivotal behind the scenes stuff, this ends up being an impressive and illuminating book. It’s also fired me up to read other books about the former Soviet Union including Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster and When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry. Inspired by Moscow, December 25, 1991 hopefully I will.

Last weekend I said enough is enough and grabbed my copy of A Woman in Amber. After starting it I breezed through A Woman in Amber in only a few days. For the most part I’m glad I finally read it. While it didn’t rock my world like I hoped it would, nevertheless I still enjoyed it.

In her memoir, Nesaule recounts her life beginning with her early childhood in the later days of WWII as her family was forced to flee her native Latvia to escape the invading Red Army. Upon arrival in Nazi Germany, her and her family, along with other refugees, were briefly interned and then conscripted into forced labor. After suffering at the hands of the conquering Red Army and spending five years in a British-run displaced persons camp, eventually Nesaule’s family was offered asylum in the United States and re-settled in the Midwest. Living in a hardscrabble neighborhood in Indianapolis she learned English, studied hard and because of her hard work, determination and intelligence was awarded a college scholarship. While attending Indiana University she was swept off her feet by worldly but douche bag guy who she later married over the vehement protests of her parents. Bad marriage and all, she would later go on to become a successful college professor.

Some parts of A Woman in Amber I liked more than the others. I found her descriptions of life in Latvia interesting, as well as those she spent in the displaced persons camp. In what became a pleasant surprise to me, I loved her recollections of attending American high school and how she finally mastered English. Another such surprise were the challenges her and her family had to overcome as refugees living in an economically depressed part of Indianapolis. (At one point her family lived across the start from a small brothel and was frequently awoken late at night when drunken johns mistakenly banged on their door.)

I wasn’t as much a fan of the last part of the book, in which she spent a lot time meditating upon the trauma and disappointment of her failed marriage to an alcoholic and abusive husband.  All writing is a product in some form or another of its time and place. In the 90s not only did memoirs gain in popularity but more and more people turned to familial introspection as a tool for psychological healing . With that in mind, it looks like A Woman in Amber is indeed a product of its time.

The staggering civilian death toll in Eastern Europe before, during and after WWII for years had been overlooked by most historians until fairly recently. Fortunately, more and more books are being published which explore this tragic part of history. Reading A Woman in Amber has rekindled my desire to read a quartet of relevant books. Both Orderly and Human and The Savage Continent I’ve been wanting to read ever since they were mentioned on Claire’s blog. I’d also like to read Bloodlands and The Lost. (Fortunately for me, Bloodlands is currently on my desk right just waiting to be read.) Inspired by A Woman in Amber, maybe sometime soon I will read all of these promising books.

A few months ago I read somewhere online that a new book on the Mossad had recently been published. Luckily for me, during my last library visit I happened to spot a copy of Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal’s Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service. After grabbing it without hesitation I slowly made my way through the shelves in search of yet more books that I’m sure I didn’t need. About a week later of letting Bar-Zohar and Mishal’s book sit on my desk ignored and unread I finally cracked it open. After only a few pages I felt like kicking myself for not starting it sooner. Wow, what a great book.

I found Mossad to be well-written and fast-paced. With each chapter devoted to a specific secret mission things move quickly. While I’ll admit I know more about the Mossad than most Americans, I’ll also happily confess I learned a heck of a lot of new information about the spy agency from reading this book. From the agency’s early days in the late 40s to the Mossad’s recent sabotage and assassination operations against the Iranian nuclear program it’s all here. Like any decent book of this type, it chronicles the agency’s triumphs as well as its failures.

Besides being a book about daring spy adventures, it’s also a book about the importance of quality leadership. We all know that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, but according to Bar-Zohar and Mishal’s book, with few exceptions, behind every successful mission there was a competent Director and/or mission leader. When things went haywire, almost always it was due to bad decision-making in the field or poor leadership at the executive level. In the shadowy world of intelligence, just like in business leadership counts.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book I have no problems recommending, especially to readers who like books about the Middle East or espionage. If after following my advice you would like to follow-up Mossad with a few other good books, I’d also recommend The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Power by Ronen Bergman as well as Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice by Guy Walters. Both books are very good.

With several of my favorite book bloggers Brits and several more members of the Commonwealth, it’s tough for me to admit that I enjoyed Lyall’s book. While I don’t think she maliciously pokes fun at the Brits, she definitely has fun at their expense. Judging by her take on the more outlandish and comical aspects of British life it’s obvious it was written for an American audience. Her chapters devoted to drinking, the press and dental care (or lack there of) were probably my favorites. The chapter on hedgehogs I thought could have been left out. While I enjoyed the chapter which dealt with the sport of cricket, even after reading Lyall’s explanation of the game I’m still confused. (But after reading her descriptions of a match she attended one nice day somewhere in England I must admit it did sound rather charming and enjoyable.)

By no means would I consider The Anglo Files to be the definitive field guide to the British. I would however call it entertaining, opinionated and funny. I might also be bold enough to say that it contains no small amount of truth. And something tells me that more than one Brit would probably agree with me.

Unfortunately, we live in a world filled with over empowered, semi-educated nit-wits, who using the power of the Internet plague us with their outlandish conspiracy theories, urban myths and ridiculous lies. My own fair city of Portland, Oregon tends to be a Mecca for many of these kind of individuals. Seems like a quarter of my local Facebook friends, as well as numerous people I’ve encountered in coffee shops, book readings and parties believe the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the Bush administration, childhood vaccines cause autism and fluoridation leads to cancer. So, after being fed up with all this nonsense who could blame me for eagerly pouncing on Richard Roeper’s 2008 book Debunked!: Conspiracy Theories, Urban Legends, and Evil Plots of the 21st Century when I stumbled across a copy during my last library trip. After effortless making my way through his breezy book in only a few days I’m thankful that I did. While Roeper’s book might not be a masterpiece, it is however smart, funny and to the point.

Even though his book doesn’t go into a lot of detail I thought Roeper did an admirable job showing that just about all conspiracy theories share at least one fatal flaw: how do you keep conspirators quiet? Even if 9/11 was an inside job or Lady Diana was assassinated, how come none of the perpetrators has gone to the press to confess? No internal memos to share? No pangs of regret? Nobody pissed off enough at their boss to leak sensitive information to the media? One would think that the more elaborate the conspiracy, the greater the number of the conspirators and therefore greater the chances eventually one of them blows the whistle.

Reading Debunked! provided a refreshing bit of sanity. If, after reading my review you end up reading Roeper’s book yourself, there’s pair of books I’d highly recommend. One is Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch. The other is Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer. Both come highly recommended by yours truly.

Like a lot of great nonfiction, Bartlett’s book is character driven. It’s not just a game of cat and mouse. Bartlett spends a lot of time trying to get inside the head of both individuals, especially Gilkey. Through her many interviews she allows individuals to describe themselves in their own words and on their own terms. But with Bartlett at the helm providing insight and character judgement she keeps things balanced and authentic. She also throws in a bunch of stuff on book thievery throughout the ages, as well as a few assorted cases of obsessive book collecting.

Even when you get sucked into a book you’re really enjoying, frequently you get a little burned out and you have to take a break. Not so with The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. It grabbed me and kept me going until the end. This is a great book. Highly recommended.

I can honestly say that yes, from reading Callahan’s book I did learn a few new things about infectious agents such as viruses, parasites, bacteria and the ever so mysterious prions. But perhaps more importantly I came away from Infection with a new-found understanding that humans are walking warehouses of infection. From our very cells to our digestive tract to the skin that covers us, we are home to countless infectious agents, many surprisingly benign. According to Callahan only a miniscule minority of these agents cause horrible diseases. But of course, these are the ones that grab our attention. Rest assured, as one would expect Callahan covers more than a few of them in Infection. (After reading his concluding chapter devoted to the perils of the influenza virus I know now why scientists and other health officials take the thing so seriously. It can mutate and spread around the globe quickly. It can also kill millions almost as quickly.)

Like I mentioned at the beginning, this is a very good introductory book. The writing is not bad, and much to my liking Callahan is not shy about throwing in a few pithy comments in order to drive home the importance of what he’s trying to say. I also thought his use of actual or in some cases created case studies helped put a human face on things when it came to tragic cases of infection. It is for these reasons why I have no problem recommending Infection to any reader seeking to learn about the world of infectious disease.

As promised, Killen, in his 2006 book examines the major events and personalities at play in 1973. While I thought 1973 had its shortcomings, overall I felt Killen did an admirable job examining an important yet overlooked period of America’s history: a period that some historians probably feel is too recent for scholarly research while some journalists and essayists feel is not contemporary enough to warrant attention.

There’s much I liked about 1973. His chapter on the repatriation of the Vietnam War POWs might have been my favorite of the whole book, since it contained a lot of information that was new to me. (For instance, I had no idea various political factions arose among the POWs during their imprisonment. With the officer-rank fighter pilots taking a hawkish stance while the enlisted ground troops adopting a sympathetic, almost anti-war stance the imprisoned POW population was in effect a microcosm of the American public with its divided opinion on the war.) I also enjoyed the chapter on the motion picture industry. I was surprised to learn that according to Killen, the early 70s was a brief but somewhat chaotic transition period for the industry. The conservative and sclerotic studios were faced with not only competition from television but growing alienation by the nation’s youth who felt alienated by Hollywood’s instance on making movies that were out of touch with the times. In desperation, the studios turned over the means of production to a small group of young directors like Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas to help produce a new crop of bold and innovative films. However, after a brief interregnum the old guard, backed by a combination of corporate financing and aggressive and sophisticated marketing tactics would soon recapture the industry.

Other aspects of the book I didn’t like as much. I thought Killen spent too much time talking about the Andy Warhol New York art scene. While Warhol’s enshrinement of the cult of celebrity certainly resonates today, the early punk band New York Dolls did not significantly impact the music world outside New York. (One could argue, thanks to the efforts of Warhol and his contemporaries, other and more influential acts would spring from this environment, bands like the Talking Heads, Blondie and the Ramones.) Instead, I thought Killen could have devoted more time to Roe v. Wade and Nixon’s visit to China. Lastly, like some reviewers I found his writing a bit dense at times. A little additional editing certainly would not have hurt things.

Despite its flaws, I still came away from Killen’s book with a greater understanding of the significance of what was going on in 1973. It also fired me up to read other books about the 1970s like David Frum’s How We Got Here: The 70s The Decade That Brought You Modern Life — For Better Or Worse, Jefferson Cowie’s Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class and Christian Caryl’s newly-released Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century. Someday maybe soon, I will. 

Even though I’m not a big fan of travel writing, I still had high hopes for Barry Unsworth’s 2004 book Crete. Before reading Crete, I don’t know a lot about the Greek island. Over the years I have heard that Crete, like other parts of the Mediterranean, has a long and fascinating history. From ancient time until the modern age, the island’s long list of occupiers has included Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottomans and Germans. Thought by many to be the birthplace of the Greek alphabet, legend has it’s also the birthplace of the god Zeus. So, one would think when such a potentially interesting place becomes the subject of a Booker-prize winning author like Barry Unsworth, the end result would be an entertaining and fascinating piece of travel writing. Unfortunately, I fear that it is not.

Maybe my expectations were too high, but I felt a bit underwhelmed by Crete. Even though Unsworth taught me quite a lot about the history, geography and inhabitants of Mediterranean’s fifth largest island (little did I know that Crete is home to Europe’s longest gorge) I still thought his book lacks something. Yet, sadly I can’t put a finger on what that missing element could possibly be. Who knows, maybe I just don’t like travel writing. At least I learned a lot about the island of Crete. So I guess I should be thankful.