Category: Book Reviews

June 17, 2010

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson * (of 4)

The book is deadly boring. It might have made a decent one-pager in a fluffy magazine. Johnson is obsessed with obituaries, which, admittedly, can have...

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June 17, 2010

Confederates in the Attic: America’s Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz *** (of 4)

A nice Jewish boy from the D.C. suburbs treks across the south meeting Civil War re-enactors, Daughters of the Confederate States of America, poor-whites with...

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June 17, 2010

The Civil War by Bruce Catton **** of 4

I listened to it on tape. It’s a short history of the Civil War. Gettysburg takes about six minutes. The Monitor and Merrimack about two....

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June 17, 2010

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan **** (of 4)

This book is a commitment. It contains seven interior books, 150 pages apiece. It is worthwhile, however, for anyone who cares about the hubris of...

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June 17, 2010

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

I finally read it. The first story about Johnny Appleseed is astounding. The second story about tulips is interesting. Marijuana: enough already. I know four...

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June 17, 2010

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall **** (of 4)

The author immerses himself in the ultra marathoning community and finds, and compellingly describes, the kind of people that run 100 miles, up and down...

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June 16, 2010

The Billionaire’s Vinegar by Benjamin Wallace *** (of 4)

I had no idea there were still bottles of wine worth drinking from the 18th and 19th centuries or that collectors frequently amassed cellars with...

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June 16, 2010

The Best American Travel Writing 2007 Edited by Susan Orlean *** (of 4)

On the upside, no kidding, Orlean and the series editor really do skim the cream from thousands of annual travel articles. On the down, there...

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June 16, 2010

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose ** (of 4)

A story of Easy Company during WW II that trained as the most elite paratrooper unit in the Army and fought in the Battle of...

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June 13, 2010

An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina *** (of 4)

A painfully clear explanation of the genocide that overtook Rwanda as seen through the eyes of a man who survived and simultaneously saved the lives...

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