Review: The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America's Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919

The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America's Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918-1919 by James Carl Nelson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting history of Americans fighting with their allies in Russia against the Bolsheviks through and beyond the WWI Armistice. And doing this in the frigid North of Russia. The book provides a combination of perspectives: the strategic perspective that shows how the fighting was perceived in Russia and by the military leaders of the Allies, and the personal perspective of the soldiers. Strangely, the most memorable part for me was that the strategic perspective wasn’t that memorable. This fighting didn’t seem to have much purpose, and had little historic impact. Many of the military leaders seemed to be, at best average and at worst, drunks. Also memorable were the individual stories of the American men, many killed, most all dealing with frigid cold. I’ll remember this as the “forty below” book – you knew you would hear of a temperature that low and of military action or hunkering down without shelter in that weather, time and again. I appreciated the ending, where the author continued the story to explain what happened to the remaining Allied soldiers and the continuing Bolshevik revolution when the Americans went home. I listened on audio. I found that it was difficult to follow the many place names without a map handy, and I would suggest an understanding of a battle map, or at least a map of the cities, towns, and rivers in the area of Archangel.

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Review: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well written story of a light skinned black man at the turn of the century, seeing the world in turns as white and as black. The observations of our main character cover his entire life, from upbringing through schooling, his work in a cigar factory, becoming a famous player of ragtime music, and touring the world accompanying a very rich man. Although written around a hundred years ago and covering a time before that, this book seemed somewhat current in the way it described the ways people think and act when it comes to race, contrasting the perceptions of rich and poor, Europeans and Americans, Northerners and Southerners, partiers and businessmen. The writing had the feel of Twain, not in depth or pith but in descriptive voice. I felt like the author had a goal in what to present and put together a good plan in this book. I enjoyed the book, and I feel like I learned something. Cigars and ragtime – I’m in.

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Review: One Year to an Organized Financial Life

One Year to an Organized Financial Life by Regina Leeds
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Given the title, I was hoping this would provide details in what to save in terms of finances, organization ideas, and record keeping requirements. I have read many magazine articles that offered advice on these same topics, but I figured that, given this was book length, I’d learn more detail. Instead of diving into the details of these topics, the author broadens the coverage to include topics beyond organization and record-keeping to general personal finance, including ideas on how to shop for the holidays, differences between IRA accounts, and the like. As a generic personal finance book, it was mostly OK, hitting most topics but missing a few. As for the organization of a financial life, I was surprised to see the author recommending destroying receipts early on, then mentioning later that some of those receipts might be required for recordkeeping for, say, real estate basis. And I was looking for suggestions on how to handle receipts and recordkeeping for product warranties. Not covered here, to my surprise. I also expected some coverage of information tracking, like tracking of net worth, as well as scanning and data organization. Not here. Overall, in many ways about what you’d expect if it had a broader title, but not quite deep enough for the title it has. If you haven’t read a magazine article on personal financial recordkeeping, this would cover it as a readable but incomplete introduction. If you already have a system or some knowledge, this isn’t necessary.

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Review: Saving Savvy: Smart and Easy Ways to Cut Your Spending in Half and Raise Your Standard of Living and Giving

Saving Savvy: Smart and Easy Ways to Cut Your Spending in Half and Raise Your Standard of Living and Giving by Kelly Hancock
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I seem to read a book every year or two on couponing. They all seem to share the same basic information on clipping and using coupons. I found this one added on some more recent advice on organizing coupons and using web sites that catalog available coupons and coupon books. And there’s scripture added, along with the author’s repeated suggestion to donate from the bonuses you save via couponing and bulk/sale buying. If you haven’t read a couponing book and don’t mind the religious tact, this is a fine introduction. For experienced deal mongers, it’s a reasonable reminder or update.

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Review: The Builders

The Builders by Maeve Binchy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having read many of Binchy’s earlier novels, I wondered what I would find in what looked to be a short story, where she didn’t have the luxury of many pages to weave her tale. She didn’t need it. Binchy tells the story of a housing contractor who visits the neighbor lady to the house he’s working on, and they develop a relationship. You meet the lady’s family and understand her story, and there is a plot tying the families together. While the basic story seemed quite similar to bits of others of Binchy’s novels, this worked well as a complete, stand-alone story. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the way that Binchy told this story in a very simple manner, without much flowery language. I didn’t realize until after I finished that this was written for an Irish literacy project, providing stories by Irish authors to help people learn to read. Wonderful idea, and well done.

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Review: Chicago's Wrigley Field

Chicago's Wrigley Field by Paul Michael Peterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

If you have a friend that has visited Wrigley Field many times in the past, and like to show you slides of his trips, you've had a preview of what this book has to offer. This is one of those books with plenty of photos. And you get mostly what you expect here - pictures from around Wrigley Field, mostly of the stands. While there are some historic photos, and some pictures of baseball professionals (players, and Bill Veeck), a good percentage of these photos are like family photos from trips to the park. My interest waned while going through this and seeing pictures aimed not at the park but at someone's kids. I'd have liked to see more of the behind-the-scenes locations within the park, like the press boxes, the ramps, the restaurants, the grounds crew storage. I don't recall even seeing a picture from inside the scoreboard here, and they show that a lot on TV. Hit and miss.

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Review: Arkansas

Arkansas by John Brandon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just a strange trip careening through the lives of cornpone country drug kingpins and their affected underlings. What made this strange is the use of the kinds of characters you see in small towns, the go-getter, the guy with the odd hobby, the quiet tough, the guy who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else and who must listen to opera/NPR. Lots of trailer parks and thrift stores, gas stations and old cars. There’s action, and plot, but it hangs very loosely together. Entertaining, but not entirely enjoyable.

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Review: Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean

Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean by Joshua Bernoff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The author suggest not wasting your reader's time with extraneous stuff, and taking an active voice. Another suggestion - daily practice. Not too surprising, with plentiful examples (perhaps over-plentiful). Good for a refresher - you already know these things.

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Review: The Design of Future Things

The Design of Future Things by Donald A. Norman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Short, readable musings on the design of technology to help people and to replace people. Norman exposes some basic limitations of technology in automating human thoughts and actions, including inferring reason. He often looks at these issues through the lens of an automotive designer working on self-driving cars, but discussions on kitchen appliances also are in abundance here. This was written more than a decade back now and the thoughts expressed are more common now than when written. Nevertheless, the conversational, pop-science tone and understandable explanations makes this of interest.

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Review: The Wrecking Crew

The Wrecking Crew by Donald Hamilton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fun second book. If you have expectations set from listening to/reading the first book in the series, this meets those expectations. Action involving the other side’s spies, women and men to distrust, politics, the cowboy mentality, shadowy characters from Helm’s past life, and plentiful ruminations by our lead character on topics ranging from girdles to film photography. Helm is a Western American everyman, who is smart, skilled, occasionally aroused, and ready for action. And, as you'd expect, he's a bit dated. The audio version I listened to was narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, who sounds correct as an action-hero spy. I will listen to more.

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Review: Synesthesia

Synesthesia by Richard E. Cytowic
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having never noticed the concept of synesthesia before, I found this an excellent introduction, with engaging writing and enough detail to answer the questions that I came up with while listening to this audiobook. The author describes the different ways this trait manifests itself in different people and identifies some of the causes. He also conjectures people in history who exhibited this trait based on their writings or writings about them. Just the right length for an introduction to the topic…

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Review: To America

To America by Stephen E. Ambrose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just a famous historian and author, riffing on his personal thoughts about various historical figures, his career, and the state of the world. Being a famous historian/author, you expect to read a lot of documentation on reasons, and you get that here -- reasons why Ambrose thinks the way he does. For instance, although I don't believe he actually said that his favorite president was Teddy Roosevelt, he certainly makes the case. His thoughts on Jefferson -- over-rated. He covers other people and topics with the same level of thought he applies throughout. As interesting was his "inside baseball" discussion of the profession of historian, and of his own career autobiography. Historians like Ambrose are measured by their research and by their published output. Ambrose describes the impetus behind most of his books, with many interesting behind-the-scenes anecdotes involving professors and presidents and camping out in reservations. An interesting glimpse into Ambrose's career, life, and personal reflections on his subjects.

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Review: Going the Distance: The Life and Works of W.P. Kinsella

Going the Distance: The Life and Works of W.P. Kinsella by William Steele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve been a big Kinsella fan since I read his novels mixing magic realism and baseball, with locations very near to where I grew up. I read all his baseball books, and most of his Silas Ermineskin books. Certainly his characters were interesting, but the thought of local baseball becoming folklore really was the draw for me. Hearing stories about the irascible Kinsella added to the allure. What an interesting author to follow. In this biography, you learn about Kinsella’s life, including the many years he was not foremost an author. You learn of his youth, living with just his parents in remote rural Canada, lacking friends and likely building a strong imagination. Kinsella had a strong personality, and perhaps not surprisingly becomes a good salesman early in his career, then owns a pizzeria. Though writing throughout his life, he focuses on writing after profiting from his pizzeria. The book follows his career through his award-winning years and until his death.

On reflection, what you notice in this book is the extreme level of detail. The biography author had access to the author and was able to write in great details about things like classes, high school girlfriends, a substantial lovelife with quite a few partners, and book reviews. While I enjoyed this rare level of personal detail to some extent, there was quite a lot on his love life, more than I wanted to know. And he wasn't what I'd call a nice guy - he seemed to hate the people he worked for, especially college administrators. Describing him as a curmudgeon might by putting too light a touch on the subject, at least when it came to some areas like authority. I was also left with the feeling that the author used very few sources. Kinsella kept track of his life and his business of writing, and his wives (at least one of them) created substantial biographic and bibliographic references, including tracking book reviews and media mentions, many of which are discussed in this volume. What I didn’t notice was a lot of third party interviews related to the subject, and it feels like something is missing. If I had to guess, the author is an introvert, and this impacted the story he told, using Kinsella-provided written sources to an overwhelming extent. Despite that, this tells the story of a unique author. I found the story so varied that it kept my interest throughout. I liked the subject, and that kicked up my rating of the book.

A bonus to me is that the small college my daughter is attending, Augustana in Rock Island, hosted Kinsella during the summer after he wrote the novel that Field of Dreams was based on. Nice comment, and I missed it when it happened.

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