Review: Damascus

Damascus by Lucy Heckman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another of the Thoroughbred Legends series, this one comes from near the end of the series. I found the writing in this one was a little harder to read than some of the others. The author writes a lot of background on Damascus’ ancestry, with more horse names per page than most of these books. I noted quite a few of the pages were dedicated to Damascus’ sire, Sword Dancer – so many that I thought the author had been angling to write Sword Dancer’s entry in this series, but added that content to this Damascus book instead. Compared to the rest of the series, this was much the same, notwithstanding the overwhelming number of horse names – ancestry, progeny, and related. Best read with the Dr. Fager volume, given these contemporary racehorses battled for Horse of the Year for 1967 and 68.

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Review: Rockford & Interurban Railway

Rockford & Interurban Railway by Mike Schafer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have read a number of these Arcadia Publishing books with the sepia tone photographs on the cover that consists of many historic photographs. This one fits the bill. But compared to most, I found the number and the variety of historic photos to be a truly outstanding collection. The authors have found dozens of photos of the interurban of Rockford, as well as it's subsidiary electric trolley, most all from it's very short life, mostly in the first 25 years of the last century. If you want to get an idea of life in Rockford, Freeport, Beloit, and neighboring towns from that time period, this gives you a good background. I have read a number of train books recently, including photograph-heavy books, and this one has by far the largest percentage of photos of smiling conductors wearing spotless uniforms in front of their machinery. The pride shines through. Interesting read, especially if you are interested in the area.

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Review: Napkin Notes: Make Lunch Meaningful, Life Will Follow

Napkin Notes: Make Lunch Meaningful, Life Will Follow by Garth Callaghan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I expected a touching story of how the author wrote notes to his daughter and put them in her lunch for a number of years. The unexpected part was the author's own story of dealing with multiple cancer diagnoses over the years, providing him with an incentive to follow through with his plan to write these notes and to make lunch for his daughter, and to ensure he readied enough notes to cover the daughter for her years through high school graduation. The author tells this story, and the story of the fame that napkin notes brought him, as well as provides some suggestions for writing your own notes for your own loved ones. Nice. I listened to the audio version of this book. The author reads most of it, but the author's daughter reads a few sections as well. She did a fine job, but the parts she read were written by her father referencing himself, and it came across as a bit confusing when you first realize that when she says "I" she means her dad.

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Review: Previews and Premises

Previews and Premises by Alvin Toffler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought I had read all of Alvin (and Heidi) Toffler’s futurist books, but I had missed a few of the less popular ones. I was pleasantly surprised to find this hardback in a library sale, and enjoyed the musky old-book scent and the Kroch’s & Brentano’s price sticker. The book came out the year I started a well-paying job and started buying books at places like Kroch’s, so it was nice to harken back. About the book: Reading it was like revisiting the heady late 70s, where futurists talk about trilateralism, the promise of interactive cable TV, and the false fear of Japanese productivity. Toffler was the only author I read that talked about Marxism, and here it is a constant theme. This is not the typically “authored” book. The book is a culmination of a number of interview questions and answers, and the interviewers seemed very much in the academic/philosophical world, and many of the “questions” asked of Toffler were thinly veiled attempts to shoot down his theories or cause him to say something contradicting something else he said. The games of academics. Toffler has none of it. Good for him. This was mostly just a rehash of “Future Shock” and “The Third Wave” concepts, but told in this q&a manner you might expect from a hosted television talk show. And no surprise, Toffler talks about filming documentaries and giving speeches about his concepts throughout. There is a little bit of personal autobiography that adds to the interesting parts here, but overall, I’d suggest this only for those that want additional background or slightly deeper discussion of his two top books, from around the same time those books came out. Now to get back to my interactive cable TV.

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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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