Review: In This Light: Thoughts for Christmas

In This Light: Thoughts for Christmas by Justin Welby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is prime time for all things Christmas in the last week of November. I'm Christian and have a family, so we are busy with Christmas planning and procuring. I listened to this book on audio. I remember hearing some nice, short anecdotes and essays, but on audio, given the holiday-shortened attention span, not much stuck with me. Given the other reviews on Goodreads, I think this deserves better. I'd suggest finding a way to take this one slow, a story or two at a time. This is difficult on audio, so I'd suggest the paper version. I could see this rating as high as a 4 or as low as a 2 with a more thoughtful reading, so I'll mark it a 3.

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Review: Propaganda

Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Have I read too many business books and books on persuasion and sales? This seems like a tame book on the introduction of the concept of public relations as a means to persuade opinion, and sales or action if that's the intent. Every time Bernays uses the word "propaganda" he seems to mean "PR", and that's the way I read it. You can just picture a movie of men in peak-lapel suits in art deco highrise offices meeting about the new propaganda plan, while smoking Lucky Strikes. It seems that propaganda was originally a bit more innocuous than post WWII, where the word is tied to the Nazis, lies, and evil. Unless I missed it, Bernays doesn't recommend lying or intent to deceive. I didn't notice any recommendations to destroy the competition. His examples were more focused on boosting the positive, often through publicity stunts. He provides mostly anecdotal evidence that this method works, unlike more modern books on persuasion that can point to scientific studies in addition to anecdotes. To understand current mainstream media and news, you'll need a more modern book.

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Review: Dhalgren

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I remember seeing this book in the sci fi section of the Waldenbooks at the mall when I spent hours there as a teen. But I never saw anyone reading this book. And I never heard of anyone talking about it. Ends up it's a bear of a book. The audio runs well over 34 hours at normal speed, almost a work week. What do you get for your work week? A book that is confusing, overwrought drama and beautifully written social analysis in turns. Other reviewers have pointed out the weaknesses, the boring action, the odd behavior, characters running around to accomplish little, the mundane conversations. It takes some effort to keep your interest up, even when listening to someone read it to you. What I liked about this was the world that the author built. Something has befallen this American city, so that time isn't experienced the same way for all people, there are occasional unexplained phenomena, like two moons for a night. And there are heavily armed department stores, odd poetry, and a city with declining population, no jobs, no trade, and groups of gangs that like to show off their electronically manipulated presence. Kinda similar to 2020 Portland. At times it reads like something Delillo wrote, but at other times it reads like a racy Harlequin. Not a fun read, but I'd read more by the author to see where he went.

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Review: The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City

The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City by Sharon E. Wood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this book up because it dealt with the history of Davenport, Iowa, the nearest metropolis to the small town I grew up in (assuming you disregard Iowa’s most exciting city, Bettendorf). I’ve been very lucky in local (to me) history books, choosing to read quite a few very good books. This was no exception. I found “The Freedom of the Streets” was a very interesting story of unintended consequences, driven by data and the conglomeration of many sources.

This is the kind of a history book that I really enjoy. As I read through, I found that the chapters built on each other to tell a complete story. The book begins with the stories of several women in Davenport who earned their own living, in the period roughly from 1870 through 1910. These women, beyond being suffragettes, also wanted women to not be held back by society in making their own money. To help, the created the “Lend a Hand Club”, sponsoring businesses and creating a club room in Downtown Davenport where women members could have lunch during their work day. They also decide to help reduce the scourge of prostitution by lobbying for, and eventually paying for and choosing, a prison matron. The matron shepherds female prisoners through the criminal system, focusing on showing the prisoner the error of her ways and hopefully rehabilitating her to society. Sounds reasonable, right? The following chapters show how this good deed turned bad. After the matron chosen by the town’s leading women works for a few years and moves on, a new matron is hired by the city. The new matron did not have the same loyalties as the previous, focusing on the needs of the mayor and police and not on the needs of the society women. At the same time, Davenport had grown into a men’s entertainment mecca, with over 100 taverns and open prostitution. Davenport’s 21 year old mayor comes up with a plan to license the prostitutes, enlisting the matron and town doctors to the scheme. The book continues to show how this plan ended up in play for decades, and the impacts on underage women. Along the way you are introduced to more than a dozen women, from doctors and tavern owners to prostitutes and juvenile “offenders”, and their stories are told in unexpected detail. (Tax records are a wonderful source.) Quite an interesting story.

I found that the history was very well compiled. There were times as I read a paragraph, I tried to think of how many different sources went into the data and analysis and was always amazed at how thorough this felt. I’d guess there are over 1000 references in the bibliography. The author mentions sources quite often, including written records from the prison matron over the decades, town censuses, and even maps showing the location of residences of people mentioned over time, including taverns and houses of prostitution. When I think about being a historian, this is the kind of writing I think illustrates the best of it.


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Review: Forego

Forego by Bill Heller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With the “Forego” volume in the Thoroughbred Champions series, I have completed reading every one of the 24 books in the series over 14 years. I’d say two to four a year was about the correct rate. Why? These are all racehorse biographies, and there are only so many ways to tell a racehorse biography. You get to where you start wondering when the jockey would show up in the story, and how long the chapter on the breeding outcomes would be. This was one of the better ones, with some interesting writing and an owner that showed some concern for the horse (not all do). I will summarize the series by saying that these books will appeal to a wide audience. I read these along with my father, while he was alive, and my father-in-law. My fathers both grew up in the era where horseracing was America’s pastime, and by reading these books they filled a void in one of the hobbies they had during their boyhood. I enjoyed the history, and the view of how all sections of the country, from the usually rich owners to the usually not rich jockeys and grooms to the obsessed trainers. Horseracing required quite an amalgamation of people and classes, allowing for different angles in approaching these stories. Well done, Eclipse Press.

I have my complete set of these books for sale on eBay. I wrote up a long description of the books that may be of interest to those interested in reading them, reproduced for your entertainment:

The Thoroughbred Legends Series was published by Eclipse Press between 2000 and 2005. Running to 24 books, all books were published in hard cover, with a photo of the subject horse glued to the front cover, and with a fabric placeholder sewn into the binding. The publishers also released a subset of these volumes in paperback editions, but the paperbacks are not included in this set. The hardbacks were mostly sold with a cream colored dust cover, but not always. Given the number of second hand books in the series sold without a dustcover, I do not believe all were sold with a dustcover, at least not for their entire sales life. I recall some book closeout stores carried a few copies of these books sold as new, but without dustcovers. There are also varieties of dustcovers. Some had cutouts to allow the horse photo on the cover to be visible. Others had the horse photo printed on the dustcover. One dustcover was not cream-colored but a dark brown. Because the books hardcovers were well designed, with the photo, a gold embossed title, and a black embossed series name “Thoroughbred Legends”, these are pretty books with or without their jackets. The hardcovers are either green, blue, brown, or red with matching endpapers in a horseshoe pattern.


Titles

1. Man O' War by Edward L Bowen, green hardcover
2. Dr. Fager by Steve Haskin, blue hardcover
3. Citation by Pauhla Smith, red hardcover
4. Go for Wand by Bill Heller, brown hardcover
5. Seattle Slew by Dan Mearns, green hardcover
6. Forego by Bill Heller, blue hardcover
7. Native Dancer by Eva Jolene Boyd, red hardcover
8. Nashua by Edward L Bowen, brown hardcover
9. Spectacular Bid by Timothy T. Capps, green hardcover
10. John Henry by Steve Haskin, blue hardcover
11. Personal Ensign by Bill Heller, red hardcover
12. Sunday Silence by Ray Paulick, brown hardcover
13. Ruffian by Milton C. Toby, green hardcover
14. Swaps: The California Comet by Barry Irwin, blue hardcover
15. Affirmed and Alydar by Timothy T. Capps, red hardcover
16. Round Table by John McEvoy, brown hardcover
17. War Admiral by Edward L Bowen, green hardcover
18. Exterminator by Eva Jolene Boyd, blue hardcover
19. Secretariat: Racing's Greatest Triple Crown Winner by Timothy T. Capps, red hardcover
20. Genuine Risk by Hallie McEvoy, brown hardcover
21. Kelso by Steve Haskin, green hardcover
22. Damascus by Lucy Heckman, blue hardcover
23. Assault by Eva Jolene Boyd, red hardcover
24. Bold Ruler by Edward L Bowen, brown hardcover

Those two types of dust jackets were ones with a photo and ones with a cut-out dust jacket, or perhaps peek-a-boo dust jacket would be more descriptive. These dust jackets had a square cut out that allows the photo affixed to the hardcover to be viewed. Eclipse Press/Blood Horse obviously put a lot of effort into this set of books, and it shows.

I began reading this series when I won my first volume from a Blood-Horse Magazine online contest in 2006. I put this collection together over the next 14 years. These books have been read by my father-in-law and me, and some bought used were probably read by others. This series is very readable. The books are short, averaging around 150 pages, and include pictures illustrating key points in the horse’s life as well as the people involved. These books can be read by young and old, and all take a common formula and provides some interesting anecdotes to set each horse apart. This would be a great addition to your personal library if you want to share the enjoyment of horses, racing, and history with younger and older generations. Older readers will be reminded of the horses popular in their youth, while younger readers will learn how racing and horse-keeping has changed over the years. I liked the mix of people involved. You are introduced to wealthy owners (and a couple of cowboy owners), as well as the many working men (mostly men) that run horse farms and training facilities. You get the unexpected and the expected wins, but also the surprising losses. And you get to see the work that goes into raising champions. A nice series of books.

Referenced in most books: Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont Stakes, Breeders Cup, Triple Crown, breeding, training, owners, races, progeny, ancestry


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Review: Infinite Spaces

Infinite Spaces by Joe Earle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read this short ebook in hopes of understanding how Japanese gardens are designed, and hoping to see some interesting illustrative photos. This didn't really hit the mark. The text was mostly snippets of ancient texts, I guess, about how to design gardens, mostly by feel. One piece of advice I recall is that if you use rock that has fallen from a mountain that has landed wrong side up, keep using it wrong side up. There are dozens of seemingly flip suggestions here like that. I was also disappointed in the photos. I would expect to see multiple photos illustrating the sections of the book, which were divided by features (rock, water flow, trees, etc.). However, the photos didn't seem to illustrate the features being described, nor the advice being offered. And the gardens shown were typically one photo, where an idea of how the features look from different perspectives would have been quite valuable. Another issue was that the pictures in the ebook version were dull and grainy. Not my favorite.

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Review: Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life

Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education in Business and Life by Donald J. Trump
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Trump comes across as a gruff, New Yorker, businessman version of Dale Carnegie, providing business and life advice much like you'd expect in a self-help book. The advice was pretty common for these types of books, of which I've read dozens. I liked that this was a collection of short writeups, like newspaper columns, that held together loosely, often based on something that happened on 'The Apprentice' or in business. You got the feel of the author here, and it's not how the "news" portrays him. The first essay was unexpectedly very positive toward Obama, for instance. Overall, a nice motivational read from a larger-than-life personality, written in the middle of his run on 'The Apprentice'.

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