Books I've Read Recently

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* Apollo 13 by James Lovell. Surprise, surprise...the movie wasn't entirely accurate. For instance, the adapted air filter was developed over a period of time (a day or two, if memory serves), not as a last minute emergency procedure. Still, the movie was great and I very much enjoyed the book.

* The Martian by Andy Weir. A popular novel that is not quite as good as the hype had led me to believe but better and far more original than most popular fiction.

* So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. Loved it. Mostly about the use of Twitter as a cudgel against whoever happens to screw up in the wrong way at the wrong time. "Clever and thought-provoking, this book has the potential to open an important dialogue about faux moral posturing online and its potentially disastrous consequences." –Publisher's Weekly

* Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Michael Zuckoff. An interesting book with a not entirely satisfactory conclusion. The story of several planes lost in Greenland during World War II and the quest to find them and save their crews. Interwoven with the main narrative is an accounting, involving the author, of a recent effort to find one of the planes buried far beneath the surface of the ice.

* Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings. "Compellingly different . . . a panoramic social history that not only recounts the military action with admirable thoroughness, crispness and energy but also tells the story of the people who suffered in the war, combatants and civilians alike." 

—The Wall Street Journal

* The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. Written by a German soldier about his time serving on the Eastern Front. Very good book and apparently authentic.

* The Bunker by James P. O'Donnell. "A powerfully vivid documentary reconstruction of Adolf Hitler's final days." -- New York Times

* Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer by David Roberts. Roberts is a good writer, and if you loved "Into the Wild" by Krakauer you will probably like this. It is a bit of a slog at times though.

* The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mt. Everest by Conrad Anker and David Roberts. Fascinating account of finding legendary climber George Mallory's body on Everest.

* Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy by David Roberts. Perhaps too detailed for the casual reader, but it was one of my favorite reads in recent years. (See short review below).

In 1856, two groups of Mormon emigrants using handcarts to transport their belongings got a disastrously late start on their westward trek to Utah. Unexpected October blizzards and the lack of restocked supplies left them stranded in Wyoming, coping with frostbite, starvation and disease. While Mormon retellings of this story have emphasized the subsequent daring rescue, Roberts sees the whole episode as an entirely preventable disaster from start to finish. Moreover, he fixes the blame at the top, arguing that Brigham Young, then president of the church, consistently undervalued human life, created dangerous situations with regard to provisions in order to pinch pennies and dissembled after the fact about not having any knowledge of the emigrants' late start. Roberts builds a persuasive case, arguing from dozens of primary sources and using the emigrants' own haunting words about their experiences. He competently situates the tragedy within the context of the 1856–1857 Mormon Reformation, a time of religious extremism. This is a solid and well-researched contribution to Mormon studies and the history of the American West. (Sept.) 

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Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon

A easy and enlightening read about the first documented journey through the Grand Canyon.  I've read a bit about the Colorado River and Grand Canyon, yet I gained a whole new appreciation for the river's unique challenges.  I've read some comments that complain that the writer used too many flowery metaphors and comparisons to demonstrate the river's power.  I strongly disagree with the criticisms.  I found the writing to be excellent and the detailed explanations to be truly informative.

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

 

 A story that might have been just interesting, Norman Mailer's treatment is superlative and rightfully won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980.  The Executioner's Song is the kind of book that is very long but not overly long, since it's endlessly fascinating.  The relationship between the notorious killer Gary Gilmore and Nicole Baker proves the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction.  One cautionary note about the book is that the content of the letters between Gilmore and Baker is most decidedly R rated.

Miscellaneous recommendations...

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner by Nina Munk (Excellent)

ESPN: The Uncensored History by Michael Freeman

The Reckoning by David Halberstam  (About the auto industry, focused mostly on Ford and Nissan)

Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U2 Affair by Michael Beschloss 

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering American on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson (Highly recommended; funny and interesting)

I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after 20 Years Away by Bill Bryson

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson (Very funny book about growing up in Des Moines, IA in the 1950s)

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson (Good but not great)

The Conquerors by Michael Beschloss (End of World War II)

The Last 100 Days: The Tumultuous and Controversial Story of the Final Days of World War II by John Toland

Car: A Drama of the American Workplace by Mary Walton (Truly fascinating story of the development of the second generation Ford Taurus)

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry's Self-Destruction by Robert J. Dewar

This is one of the most interesting books I have read on any subject.  The author worked in a Ford transmission factory in the late 1970s and his time there is the focus of the book.  Even if you're not interested in the auto industry, the human interest element alone is fascinating, if not outright shocking.
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One Last Shot: The Story of Michael Jordan's Comeback by Mitchell Krugel

About Michael Jordan's first season with the Washington Wizards, this book is one big cliche.  The author's obsession with putting the word "Air" or "Third Coming" into every other sentence is distracting at first but soon becomes pathetic, and obscures some interesting if less than revelatory narrative.  Take, for example, the following: "...asking Michael if his success of the past two months proved to all the doubters that he had refilled his Air supply."  Also, what's with writing a book before the story is done?  Yes, there's a later paperback version with a chapter on Jordan's second and last season, but that's just a gimmick if you ask me.  Wait to write the book until the story can be fully told.
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Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

It seems like everyone I mention this book to has already read it, so I won't go into much detail.  Probably the most notable thing about it is that Krakauer had only just become a bestselling author when he went on the journey to Everest, and the fact that he was intimately involved with such a fateful episode right after publishing Into the Wild is interesting to me.  The climb was originally supposed to be just the basis for an article in Outside Magazine, but Krakauer expanded it into a book when he felt that the length restrictions on the article had been too limiting.
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The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt

An account of the infamous 1996 Everest expedition that resulted in several deaths.  Boukreev was a Russian guide with an American group that climbed on the same day as Jon Krakauer's group, so the book covers much of the same material as Into Thin Air by Krakauer.  Boukreev doesn't come off too well in Into Thin Air, but after reading The Climb, I tend to think he was inaccurately portrayed.  Boukreev, after all, saved several lives by himself while everyone else, from guides to Sherpas to other climbers, was either unable or unwilling to help.  As good as Into Thin Air is, I think The Climb does a better job fleshing out some of the details.
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Second Coming: The Strange Odyssey of Michael Jordan from Courtside to Home Plate and Back Again by Sam Smith

Truman Capote spent six years working on "In Cold Blood," and agonized over the fact that he couldn't fairly publish it until there had been a conclusion to the story.  This attitude is rare these days; most writers seem to want to strike when the iron is hot and don't always care if the ending is neatly tied up in a bow.  Such is the case with "Second Coming," and the book suffers greatly as a result.  A sequel to "The Jordan Rules" by the same author, the book is endlessly fascinating and makes for good reading.  But I have two elephantine complaints.  The first, referenced above, is that the author just couldn't wait to spill everything about the behind the scenes drama and dysfunction; thus, the book was prematurely finished after Jordan returned from baseball for a few games at the end of the regular season in 1995 and the failed playoff run.  The story of Jordan's return did not end there!  He went on to win titles the next three years in a row.  It is not an academic complaint; the whole tenor of the book is informed with the notion that the comeback was suspect based on its lack of immediate success.  It would have been a dramatically different book if Smith had waited even a year to publish, after the Bulls won a record number of regular season games and a championship! This leads naturally into my second--can't be overstated--criticism: the implication that Jordan was washed up after his return from baseball.  While Smith never comes right out and says this, the vapor is in the air, and "Second Coming" proves that the pressure to "publish or perish" can lead to the death instead of a good idea.
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The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of a Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls by Sam Smith

"The Jordan Rules" is the most famous (or infamous) of all the books about Michael Jordan.  It was published in 1992, shortly after the Bulls' first title.  It caused quite a stir when published; I was in college at the time and remember hearing about it even though I wasn't a Bulls fan at the time.  Sam Smith was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune who traveled with the Bulls.  His level of access to the principles makes this book a veritable treasure trove of fascinating behind the scenes details.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and would highly recommend it to any sports fan.  That being said, the Bob Woodward expose style of writing doesn't necessarily speak very highly of Smith's character, in my opinion.  Simply having access, based on the needs of a journalist, and using that access to spill all of the juiciest details you know are two different things.  While Michael Jordan doesn't necessarily come off badly in the book, he was angered by it and its easy to see why.  The Bulls GM, Jerry Krause, was not exactly pleased either.  Still, what the subjects might consider invasion of privacy makes for fascinating fodder for the reader.
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Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller by Janet Leigh and Christopher Nickens

This book was written in a breezy and informal way, while I would have preferred a bit more of an academic approach.  Still, Janet Leigh offers some interesting insights into the film and the book contains a fair amount of enjoyable detail for the casual  fan. 
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Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey by Goran Kropp

About a Swede who biked from Sweden to Mt. Everest towing all of his supplies, then climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen (a nearly impossible task).  There was a ghost writer who apparently did most of the writing, then it was translated into English by another party.  His expedition occurred in 1996, at the same time as the events chronicled in Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.  Considering the magnitude of his feat, the book is written rather breezily and it covers large portions of time in a few short pages.  By the time Kropp started climbing Everest though, I couldn't help but be drawn into the adventure and ended up admiring him.  After a bit of research I discovered the sad information that he died climbing a mountain in Washington state in 2002.  It's too bad, because it seems he was a good guy and became a bit of a philanthropist after his climb of Everest.  He wasn't exactly rich so its admirable that he used his success to help others.
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Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad

A good book, and one that proves again that you can't judge a book by its cover.  It looks like it's about a plane crash in the San Gabriel Mountains of California, and it is...but the "memoir" in the subtitle is more revealing than the photo and other crash/survival text on the front cover.  The first chapter starts with the plane crash, and each chapter after that (until near the end) alternates back and forth between childhood memories of Ollestad's loving, adrenaline junkie father, and the crash.  I've got a few quibbles with the ending, and I think the epilogue should have at least referenced his mother and stepfather who were major characters in the book, but I enjoyed it and read it quickly as a result.
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Car Guys vs. Bean Counters by Bob Lutz

In the late 1990s and early 2000s I often wondered why GM car interiors were so bland.  This really baffled me.  My parents had a Chrysler 300M, Motor Trend's Car of the Year when introduced, and it was nicer in almost every way than GM products, but particularly in the interior.  Bob Lutz explains why this was the case and how he changed it; GM cars now have interiors on par with the best in the industry.  Basically, Lutz explains how GM was a leviathan populated by people more afraid of making a mistake than they were in striving for product excellence.  When he became Vice Chairman of Product Development in 2001 he changed much of the culture.  I was excited to get my hands on this book and it did not disappoint.  What is disappointing is that Lutz was the exception rather than the rule in the American car industry.
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Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

Superficially a true crime book about two heinous murders committed in modern times by adherents of a Mormon splinter sect, it's as much or more a thorough and fascinating history of the origins and violent early history of the LDS church.  Krakauer does his usual superlative work in explaining how critical polygamy was in early Mormonism, why the church was forced to disavow it, and how the disavowal led to modern Mormon splinter sects or "fundamentalism."  It's an excellent read and highly recommended.
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The Grizzly Maze by Nick Jans

Timothy Treadwell is the subject of The Grizzly Maze.  (See the Grizzly Man post below).  Jans is a great writer and I very much enjoyed this book.  By the end, it is, perhaps, a bit redundant, maybe in an effort to pad the length.  Still, it is excellent, and I look forward to reading more of Jans' work.
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Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

This is a classic of the adventure/climbing genre, and rightly so.  From my perspective, the early portion of the book about an extremely difficult climb in the Peruvian Andes was a bit of a slog.  I'm not that familiar with climbing terminology and sometimes it's hard to visualize what is being described.  The latter 2/3 of the book deal with the writer's devastating injury high on the mountain, his mental and physical turmoil, and his almost unbelievable fortitude in fighting for survival.  It is beautifully written and well worth reading.
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Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

I thought this non-fiction book was about a young man who gave up all his worldly possession to live alone in the wilderness of Alaska.  In fact, the movie tie-in edition suggests as much.  That's a little misleading.  It's true that the protagonist was a modern day tramp who did not care for material possessions, but he had no plan to live permanently off the land (at least not in Alaska).  It was more of an extended camping trip.  However, this is about the only quibble I have about the book.  There's a reason why Jon Krakauer is one of the bestselling non-fiction authors out there, and his great success started with this book.  The story in his hands in gripping and fascinating.  Like Under the Banner of Heaven, and Into Thin Air, this book stayed with me long after I finished reading it.
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Better than your Average Biography

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Yes, Jobs was a jerk and a megalomaniac.  There's a reason why they don't say "nice guys finish first."  A walking contradiction, a cruel master, a visionary leader, Steve Jobs was a uniquely American success story.  The excellent writing and fascinating subject matter make this a better, more accessible biography than most.
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Murder in Connecticut

In the Middle of the Night by Brian McDonald
The author of this book about the brutal murder of a family in Connecticut has been attacked as an opportunist.  Perhaps he is.  The book is not a very good "In Cold Blood" clone.  It's a bit superficial and does not do the reader the favor of waiting for a conclusion to the trials before publishing.  Still, it is interesting.  And why is this book such a violation of the family's privacy when other publishers and authors (Ann Rule comes to mind) profit handsomely from "True Crime?" 
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