This is a life-is-stranger-than-fiction book from the same author who wrote Seabiscuit. In this World War II era biography, Hillenbrand explores the life of Louis Zamperini. Once the trouble-maker of his neighborhood, in high school Zamperini focuses his talents on running, even making the Olympics for the 5000 meter race in 1936. His experience in Berlin was an adventure for the 19 year old, with memories of eating to excess, meeting people from around the world, and placing 8th in his race. But there were […]
Everything History Should Not Be
I’m so angry that THIS was my half-cannon ball….. I’m working on researching “Godey’s Lady’s Book” for an annual historic fashion show I run, and there’s a striking lack of historical documentation about this famous magazine other than manually plowing through 60 years worth of the magazine itself, and frankly, I don’t have that kind of time. So I thought I would do a bit of digging about the founder and his editor, Sarah Hale, to shed some light on the gaping holes I have […]
Spoiler: She dies at the end.
“It is not difficult to understand why Caesar became history, Cleopatra a legend.” I heard of this book thanks to The Daily Show. I love bios about royal women and the author is obviously super-smart. So I went out and bought the book, and I promptly left it unread for a couple of years. (That’s a bad habit of mine.) The whole kerfuffle over Sony’s film adaptation brought it back to my attention. Stacy Schiff gleefully debunks everything you thought you knew about Cleopatra. No, she wasn’t Egyptian. Not only was she Greek, she came from the same Macedonian stock […]
A great book marred by the absence of vampires.
Perhaps the most spectacular thing about this book is that it takes arguably the most mythologized president in US history – Abraham Lincoln – and builds a compelling and detailed account of his life and administration without losing any kind of emotional impact. We all know what happens, here. We all know who Lincoln was (more or less), and we all know that he was one of the greatest presidents (more or less), and we all know that this ends in tragedy. But the simultaneous […]
The Phantom Menace of Presidential Memoirs
I think I did a good job while reading George W. Bush’s Decision Points in differentiating the man from his presidency. I was able to judge the book not by the character of its author, but by the character of its content, and I came away with an appreciation for the man that I had never had before. So I was interested to see how Bill Clinton’s voluminous memoir would impact my perceptions of the man and his presidency. A man, incidentally, whose accomplishments I […]
All Fluff and No Substance Makes “Nicholson” a Dull Read
If nothing else, Marc Eliot’s biography of Jack Nicholson reminded me why I don’t typically read biographies of still living people when the subject has no involvement with the book. In relying exclusively on archival interviews and firsthand accounts from a handful of Nicholson’s friends Eliot has put together a superficial account of a man whose life is anything but superficial. Nicholson: A Biography recounts all of Jack’s life from his childhood to arriving in Hollywood up to 2013, yet when it was over I […]
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