Obama's Wars

 Bob Woodward

Bob Woodward has  been given greater access to the White House, than any journalist I can think of, in the George W, Bush and now Obama administrations. His four books about George Bush's pursuit of the war showed an arc from admiration for, to disillusionment with, the pursuit of war, particularly in Iraq.


This is the first, presumably, in a series which will record the Obama administrations efforts to bring the Afghan war to a conclusion. The problem is that there are no clear goals to this war. According to Woodward, General McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan at the beginning of Obama's term, and Defense Secretary Gates presented President Obama with a series of requests for more troops and an untenable plan to defeat the Taliban. Defeating the Taliban is described, by Woodward,  as an impossibility, because they are a non state, like al-Qaeda itself, loose, amorphous and shifting like sand.

Obama ordered a review, asking for options, recognizing the problem with stating that the defeat of the Taliban was problematical, yet all of the options given to him by the military were presented as untenable, with the exception of  a large "surge" dedicated to defending the population of Afghanistan from Taliban attack. The Pentagon's own analysis, however, showed that more than 80,000 US troops would be needed to make the entire country safe from Taliban attack, yet this many troops could not be gathered for the effort. The request was for 40,000: half of what was needed to do the job. Another unattainable goal, increasing the Afghan military and police to 400,000, was part of this plan. 

Obama asked for options and was given plans for a small deployment of 10,000 to train the Afghan army and the full, but not available 80,000 troops, or a surge of 35,000 instead of 40,000, but with the option to add a few thousand more if needed.  Eventually the 35,000 plus plan was what he went for.  "Defeating" the Taliban was changed to "degrading" them, making them less capable of causing serious damage in Afghanistan, meanwhile, building a 400,000 strong Afghan military/police to take over as we quietly exit stage left.

July of 2011 was set as the start date of a U.S. draw down.  Right now that withdrawal is beginning. This all looks like Nixon's "peace with honor" plan for Vietnam. I expect the fall of Kabul in the next couple of years. Unfortunately, this is probably the best we can do in the situation.

Einstein's God

Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit

Krista Tippett

You may already know that Krista Tippett is the host of the Sunday Morning NPR interview show that recently changed it's name from Speaking of Faith to On Being. This book illustrates why, after years of broadcasting the show, it was decided to change it's name. The conversations pursued are often only tangentally religious, except in the most broadly defined and Unitarian sense.

The book is made up of a series of radio interviews transcripts with introductions and commentary by Tippett. Each interview is with someone involved in the sciences and each interview attempts to derive some spiritual nuggets from the interview.


The first is with physicist Freeman Dyson, who knew Albert Einstein in the '50's when they were both at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Einstein is credited with saying "God does not play dice with the universe," which has been interpreted as a statement of faith in a personal God. Not so, says Dyson, who opines that Einstein's God was the mathematically elegant and mysterious nature of the universe, as demonstrated by his own special and general theories of relativity. Einstein objected to the random nature of results being found in quantum physics. It turns out he was wrong. God does play dice with the universe on the subatomic level.

Einstein's God contains interviews of thirteen scientists, two of whom are also religious figures, V.V. Raman, a physicist who is also a scholar of Hinduism and John Polkinghorne, a British physicist and theologian. Others interviewed are a biographer of Charles Darwin, several psychologists, an astrophysicist and a rheumatologist.The conversations are about the conflict that Darwin felt between his religious faith and his revolutionary theory of evolutionary biological change, the  biological basis of revenge and forgiveness, the spiritual effect of clinical depression, the possibility of harmony and acceptance between scientific pursuit and religious faith . . .

On those rare occasions when I have been awake early enough on a Sunday Morning to catch a broadcast of the program I have never failed to become engrossed in the conversation between Tippett and her guest. I did find it a bit more difficult to follow some of these interviews on paper. Perhaps my personal devolution has advanced to a stage where my own opinions intrude too much into what Tippett & co. are saying.

This post is in the 61st



Published at Her Ladyship's Quest.

Is There Such A Thing As Literary Non Fiction?

A Literary Blog Hop post courtesy of The Blue Bookcase

The Blue Bookcase hosts a weekly "Literary Blog Hop," asking bloggers to answer a question of a literary nature on their literary blogs. Today's question is a no brainer: "Is there such a thing as literary non fiction.

Let's consider some examples. This week the first volume of the Autobiography of Mark Twain was published by the University of California. One might question how much of any autobiography is really non fiction but this is surely a work of literary value. My copy is on order. Look for a review on this blog soon.

I recently reviewed Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. I wouldn't claim that my review is timeless prose, but I have high hopes for Theroux. He may make it as a writer some day. I'm not just saying this because his parents lived down the street from me when I was a lad.

Now let's take a look at John McPhee. After discovering The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed back in the dark ages of my youth, my next McPhee book was Oranges. Here is a man who captures the readers imagination, not just writing about a commercially failed amazing feat of engineering, but writing about agriculture, geology, long haul trucking and migratory fish. McPhee is a literary craftsman of the highest order.

What makes a book "literary" anyhow? I know it when I see it, yet can't define it. I don't think there is a genre that could not contain some work worthy of the name. Fantasy novels might not be considered literary, but what about The Lord of the Rings? Illustrated children's books? The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren or The Night Before Christmas. Graphic novels? Now there you've got me.

Perhaps you could suggest a graphic novel that you consider to be "literary." Leave a comment if you have a suggestion.

This Book Is Overdue!

How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
Marilyn Johnson

Since it's National Library Week according to the banners hanging all over the public library in my town, I though it would be nice to review a book about librarians. What do those people do all day?

After her first book, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (P.S.) was published, Marilyn Johnson was looking for another socko topic to write about and found it in the library. Johnson may be the next John McPhee, able to tease out a fascinating book on even the most mundane subject.

Libraries and librarians, however, are far from mundane, as it turns out. Johnson writes about librarian bloggers, some of whom almost get fired for writing funny stories about library patrons. She writes about librarians who create libraries in Second Life, the 3D virtual world, about Radical Reference, which put librarians equipped with smart phones on the streets of New York, during the 2008 Republican Convention, to provide protesters with real time information about police actions, fast food and available rest rooms.

There is a library in New York that belongs to the American Kennel Club, crammed with books and artifacts about dogs. Johnson, who doesn't care for dogs, was so fascinated by it that she fantasized about going to work for the librarian there. A reference librarian at the New York Public Library made it his business to go to extreme lengths to help writers find what they need for research their books. He became a celebrity in the publishing world, cited in the acknowledgments, that no one reads, of countless worthy tomes.

Here are a few of the library blogs mentioned in This Book Is Overdue!:
Free Range Librarian
Librarian in Black
Annoyed Librarian

You can read about the Community Virtual Library, which is in Second Life, without actually visiting it, at infoisland.org, or go ahead and sign up, what could it hurt?

This post is in the 43rd




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keywords: libraries, librarians, non fiction

Book Review Blog Carnival the 33rd Edition

Due to a series of unfortunate events, not attributable to Lemony Snicket, I am posting the 33rd edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival here, on my own book review blog - a day late and a dollar short. While you are here you might want to click on the little MP3 player icon over in the sidebar and listen to the new recording I made of Jimmy Durante's song which I named this blog after. Please visit and leave comments on some of the many blogs that have submitted book reviews to this carnival.

Without further ado, here is the 33rd Book Review Blog Carnival.

fiction

Jim Murdoch at The Truth About Lies, has written a review of The Invisible City by Emili Rosales. Jim says "The narrator receives an old manuscript about an ambitious project dreamt up by King Charles III. The manuscript contains hints about a lost masterpiece by the Venetian painter Tiepolo, and the site of the Invisible City is where he used to play as a child. The Invisible City is a gripping historical mystery and a compelling examination of the forces of power and love."

KerrieS reviewed  Executive Lunch by Maria E. Schneider at MYSTERIES in PARADISE. "This is the first time I have reviewed a book you can only buy as an e-book. crime fiction, with a larger than life heroine Sedona O'Hala, offered the chance to try an executive lifestyle in return for catching some thieves."

KerrieS also reviewed If the Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr posted at MYSTERIES in PARADISE. "Crime fiction set in Berlin in 1934, in a Nazi Germany hoping to host the Olympics in 1936."

Stephen Shaw of Craving Books has reviewed The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood."The Year of the Flood" is fine literary speculative fiction." I can't read his review because I'm in the middle of reading the book - one of my silly rules.

Stephen Shaw compares In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke, to The Year of the Flood which he calls "Romantic and haunted."

A.F. Heart writes about Knockout by Catherine Coulter   at Mysteries and My Musings. "13th in the FBI Thriller series opens with FBI Agent Dillon Savich as a customer in a bank when it gets robbed. It is a gripping read from the first sentence with two plot lines."

A.F. Heart also reviewed Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron. "#15 in Deborah Knott Mysteries. While at a legal conference, Judge Knott finds the body of a fellow judge and investigates."

Nymeth reviewed In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, at things mean a lot."In the Time of Butterflies is a fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabal sisters. In the 1950's, the sisters opposed the regime of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, and as a result three of the four were murdered."

Surbhi Bhatia reviewed A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce at The Viewspaper.

Surbhi Bhatia reviewed A Case of Exploding Mangoes also at The Viewspaper .

Siddharth Garud, at Indian Eagle's Diary, presents 2 States by Chetan Bhagat.

emancave reviewed The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind at e-ManCave.com.

Sarah at SmallWorld Reads reviews The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver posted. It's in my to be read pile. Guess I'll skip this one, too.

children's books

Jeanne of Necromancy Never Pays, host of our last carnival, reviewed The Box of Delights "This is a book for all ages, particularly good for reading out loud on dark December evenings."

non fiction

Serena presents New Rules for Mortgages at Taylor-Brown Real Estate Talks.

Sparky Bates read Predictably Irrational - by Dan Ariely and reviewed it at Accidental Reads.

Rick Sincere brings us some holiday cheer with Christmas Carols: The Odd and the New at Rick Sincere News and Thoughts, saying, "A review of "The Daily Telegraph Book of Carols," by Ian Bradley"

BWL found a great sounding title: How to Smell a Rat by Ken Fisher. Read about it at Christian Personal Finance.

jim presents Frequent Flyer Master at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Effortless Abundance reviewed The Soul Truth  bu Shiela and Marcus Gillette at Effortless Abundance.

Susan Gaissert wrote about The Accidental American on her blog at My Political Side. "This is an excellent book about immigration from the viewpoint of immigrants who exemplify the American dream and American values."


Jim Murdoch must be talking about me in his review of Whiffling in Liff or what to buy a constipated logophile for Xmas  at The Truth About Lies." Everyone who loves words loves books about all the weird and wonderful words there are out there that hardly ever get used: foreign expressions, colloquial terms, slang words, gobbledygook, technobabble, queer place names … and every year new books come out that collect these under various guises. A discussion of the work of Adam Jacot de Boinod with nods to Douglas Adams and the plethora of bathroom readers out there."

Terry Holliday reviewed Walking in This World - Starting Over by Julia Cameron at My Creativity Blog. Terry says "Terry Holliday begins a series of articles based on Julia Cameron's book titled, "Walking in This World". Terry challenges readers to work through all 12 weeks with her." Is she related to Bob Dole?

Rhiana read  Saving Ben by Dan E. Burns, PhD. Find out who Ben is at A Frugal Life - Just the Two of Us.

biography

Clark Bjorke, that's me, read Pops byTerry Teachout. My review is at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book!. I have included some YouTube clips of Satch, so plan to spend some time with it.

Rod reviewed Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open on his blog Tennis Chump."Andre Agassi's book chronicles his journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance in transforming himself from the kid who hates tennis to one of the game's greatest ambassadors - well worth a read."

Book Review Blog Carnival #25

The twenty fifth Book Review Blog Carnival is available for your reading pleasure at This Girl's Bookshelf. Stop by and take a look at the 30 reviews listed. Be sure to leave a comment, even if it's just to say hello and please link to the carnival from your own blog if you have one. Help us spread the word.

The Element

Ken Robinson, Ph.D.
with Lou Aronica

According to a popular myth there is a calling for each one of us, something that we are so good at and love doing so much that it doesn't feel like work at all. Ken Robinson advocates for the existence of this perfect occupation. He calls it being in one's "element," and recommends looking for that element in our own lives and pursuing whatever calling it presents us. Unfortunately, Henry David Thoreau's often quoted "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" is more true now that when he wrote Walden in 1854.

Robinson never mentions this, but I believe that finding such an "element" for each and every person on Earth would be a good argument for the existence of a personal, omniscient and ever present God. Who else could organize the world in such a way that every single person would born with such a perfect fit to one or more pursuits? The evidence is not in favor of this hypothesis, though, as Thoreau has pointed out. Very few people ever find an "element."

Robinson uses examples, such as Paul McCartney, Julia Child and one of my favorite people, physicist Richard Feynman, to illustrate his thesis. Each of them did find something to do that was eminently suitable to his talents and each of them enjoyed his job immensely, not to mention making a pretty good piece of change at it. These very talented, very lucky people were able to take advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves and they all created careers for themselves doing what they loved doing. Most of us are just not that talented, or that lucky.

Dr. Robinson wants to encourage each of us to find our "element" and to help our children find theirs.I found his argument against the emphasis on standardized testing in schools, the core of "No Child Left Behind," to be highly cogent. As Robinson says, "I doubt there are many children who leap out of bed in the morning wondering what they can do to raise the reading score for their state." His basic thesis, however, I find to be messy, new age claptrap. Not that I am against people pursuing their dreams, but I think it's important to have a fallback position in case it doesn't work out.

After reading The Element I am ready to quit my job in order to pursue my dream of becoming a rock star. Or maybe not. He did mention being good at it.

The Twenty Third Book Review Blog Carnival

The twenty third edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival has been posted at Bart's Bookshelf. Bart has done a bang up job, even tracking down cover art for all 29 books reviewed by the carnival participants.

If you review books and would like to participate you may submit a review for the next carnival at Blog Carnival, which handles the submission process. Inkweaver Review will host the next carnival on August 16th.

Book Review Blog Carnival XXI

Welcome to the twenty first Book Review Blog Carnival. This carnival is published every other Sunday on a different blog. You my submit a book review post from your own blog, for the next carnival here.




We have a wide selection of book reviews this week, starting with:


Fiction:

On his blog The Truth About Lies, Jim Murdoch reviews Australian writer Gerald Murnane's new novel, The Plains, a dense story about a filmmaker who spends years researching a film on the seemingly featureless Australian outback and its people. In place of the salt-of-the-earth sheep farmers one might expect to inhabit central Australia the narrator encounters an idealised world filled with aesthetics and intellectuals; wealthy landowners divided into factions idly speculating on metaphysics; I don't believe there's a sheep in the whole book.

Jim Murdoch also wrote a review of The Very Thought of You by Rosie Allison. Jim says it's a story about love, but not a love story. Jim doesn't read love stories.

Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All has read the oldest book in this edition of the carnival, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, first published in 1764, a trailblazing work that practically makes itself its own parody .

Joy, writing in This Girl's Bookshelf compares the movie version of Chocolat the the book by Joanne Harris.

Nymeth reviewed Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai on her blog Things Mean A Lot. It is a coming of age story set in Sri Lanka.

Sandra read Doris Lessing's 1988 novel The Fifth Child for her blog Fresh Ink Books.

Sandra also reviewed Doris Lessings Ben In The World and Becoming Abagail by Nigerian writer Chris Abani. People who have time to read annoy me.


Science Fiction:

Jeanne, of Necromancy Never Pays, says that she has changed her mind about Joan Slonczewsk"s Daugher of Elysium, which she now sees as a far less optimistic than she thought when she read it after it's debut in 1993. Children will do that to you.


Romance:

Guest blogger Zarabeth writes about Miranda’s Big Mistake by Jill Mansell on Love Romance Passion.

Normal Girl's Guide to Great Books reviews Summer Blowout by Claire Cook., a summer read by the Author of Must Love Dogs.


Mystieries:

KerrieS reviews a Norwegian mystery novel, The Redeemer. by Jo Nesbo, on her blog, Mysteries In Paradise. I guess the existence of Norwegian mystery novels should not be a surprise to me or to Garrison Keillor.

KerrieS also read and wrote a review of Peril and End House by Agatha Christie. Poirot's 6th novel, and his biggest challenge yet. Even the great Hercule Poirot can be swayed by sentiment.

KerrieS must be on vacation, because she had time to read and write a third review, of Shadow by Karin Alvtegen. This one is a Swedish mystery novel.


Children' Books:

Nathan at Inkweaver Review
has written a review of Penny from Heaven, by Jennifer L. Holm, a Newbery Honor Award book about a young girl living in the 1950’s.

Non Fiction:

Global Implications begins a series of weekly book reviews on the subject of Iran with The Devil We Know by Robert Baer.

Serena Trowbridge enjoyed The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, despite herself, and tells us why at Culture and Anarchy.

GrrlScientist wrote, in Living The Scientific Life, a review of Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land by Nina Burleigh. This book describes one of the greatest hoaxes of all time as the author follows the path of several ancient biblical artifacts from illegal archaeological digs in Israel through shady antiquities markets and even into the display cases of several famous museums around the world.

GrrlScientist also reviewed Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days by Vanessa Farquharson. Wow, I've been saving the environment all my life and didn't even know it.

Stephen Martile writes about Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, in his blog Freedom Education.. Steve bought this book in 2006. He must be well on is way to a huge fortune by now, don't you think?

Grant McCreary, of The Birdir's Library, reviews Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience
by Jeremy Mynott., a book that asks why and how people look at, and watch, birds.

Bruno Vigneault, of How To Make A Miracle Happen, watched the video version of What the Bleep Do We Know again. Those miracles are harder to make than it seemed at first.

In Science On Tap Arj has a few quibbles with astronomer/blogger Phil Plai's Death From The Skies, starting from it's cover design. I immediately recognized the cover as a parody of a 1950's science fiction movie poster. Arj calls it ""National Enquirer-like."

I submitted a review of my own, which is located just below this post, Street Gang is a history of Children's Television Workshop and Sesame Street.


Travel:

Thursday Bram will give away one copy of Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo by Beth Whitman, to a lucky person who leaves a comment on her review at Working Your Way Around The World.

Book Review Blog Carnival Number Five

Welcome to the Book Review Blog Carnival. Every other Sunday the carnival appears, like Brigadoon, on some blog somewhere, with links to book reviews all around the world. If you write book reviews on your blog we would love to have you participate. Submissions can be made at Carnival Dot Com for the next carnival, which will be published on December 7th at Imaginary Lands.

We have a large group of book reviews for you today.

In Fiction:

Marina, of Momma Writes About Books reviews The Blessing Way the first in Tony Hillerman's Navajo Police mysteries.

Marina has also reviewed The Pearl Diver, by Jeff Talarigo. This is the story of a Japanese woman who is sent to a leper colony, where she loses her identity and becomes a caregiver for the other patients.

Coralie writes about Stephen King's The Stand in her blog Happily Oblivious. It's a post apocalyptic story in which the cause of the mass die-off of humanity is an accidental release of a biological warfare germ by the U.S. government. Oops!

Ruth Schaller at Books Books and more Books read The Family Bones by Kimberly Raiser. If you inherit a property in a small town with a name like Astral, just call a realtor. It will save you trouble.

Charli was unimpressed by Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Find out why at Bloody-Kisses.org.

Alessandra, of Out of the Blue, has found the winner of the best title award with her review of The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things by Carolyn Mackler.

Serena Trowbridge reviews Susannah Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu on her blog, Culture and Anarchy. Culture I get, but anarchy?

Serena Trowbridge also read The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, which is a story of the Queen (yes, that one) discovering the wonders of literature at the bookmobike.

NathanKP of Inkweaver Review writes about Things Hoped For, by Andrew Clements., a science fantasy mystery novel.

NathanKP also reviewed Un Lun Dun by China Miéville. This book is a through the looking glass journey from London to it's opposite - Un Lun Dun. Get it?

Heather J. of Age 30+ ... A Lifetime of Books has a review of the classic Jules Verne novel The Mysterious Island! Verne, or the translator, or Heather seems to have used a lot of exclamation points!

Tanya, of Children's Books: What, When & How to Read Them predicts that Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson will win the National Book Award for young people's literature. That happened Wednesday, so now we know, but, really, she predicted it before.

Jason Isbell, writing in Tired Garden, reviews Shade by John Olson, which is not a gardening book.

switch2life thinks that The 3 Mistakes of My Life. is so similar to author Chetan Bhagat's other books that Bhagat must use some kind of software to grind out books like sausage, although sausage may not be the kind of image an Indian novelist would want to be associated with.

Jeanne, from Necromancy Never Pays read Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin', which is not about bicycle racing. It is the story of a girl, Jill who becomes a boy, inevitably Jack, for a few days each month. How inconvenient.

Alyce reviews My Lady of Cleves by Margaret Campbell Barnes on At Home With Books. It's the story of Henry VIIIths wife number four. Henry could learn a lot from Larry King.

Kindlelicious would like to recommend Chris Moriarty's Spin Control. That is if you have a Kindle to read it on.

Keira writes, in Love Romance Passion, about her favorite book, Sleepless at Midnight by Jacquie D’Alessandro. I lie awake at night sometimes, too, but nobody writes romance novels about me. (With good reason)


In Non- Fiction:

Marina, of Momma Writes About Books has a short review of The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron. I took the self-test on Elaine's website. Not surprisingly, I scored "insensitive boor."

Barry Wright III has submitted a review of an ebook, The Life Uncommon by Nacie Carson, on his blog 3style life. No word on what has happened to Barry Wrights I and II at this time.

Woman Tribune reviewed The Wilde Women by Paula Wall. Even during the depression, Wilde women don't get the blues.

Nigel Beale, of Nigel Beale Nota Bene Books has discovered The Idler's Glossary a book about creative idleness. It could be a manual for bloggers, at least according to my wife, who wishes I would get up and do something useful.

Christina M. Rau reviews Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno on her blog Livin' The Dream (One Loser At A Time) . Are the MSP (mainstream publishers) missing out on a good thing?

Mike Bergin has written a review of The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts, which I thought at first must have something to do with President Johnson but, as it turns out, is a literary journal with a birding bent. LBJ = "Little Brown Job" which is an oblique refrence to what I have heard of as LGBs or "little gray birds," a term of art in the Audubon set. OK, so it's not really a book. You can find the review on Mike's blog 10,000 Birds.

Corey Finger, also writing at 10,000 Birds, has reviewed Birds: The Art of Ornithology by Jonathan Elphick, which contains 300 color illustrations from the Natural History Museum in London. They're pictures of birds, Hon.

Laurie Bartels reviews Neuroplasticity and the Brain That Changes Itself on SharpBrains: Your Window into the Brain Fitness Revolution by Norman Doidge. I need to get me some of that.

GrrlScientist of Living the Scientific Life has read Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe. Oy, life wasn't complicated enough?

Dolfin from Lionden Landing submitted a review of Yoga Planet: 50 Fun Activities for a Greener World by Tara Guber and Leah Kalish,
Illustrated by Sophie Fatus, formerly known as My Daddy Is a Pretzel. I think I would have stuck with the first title.

Jim Murdoch reviews The Paris Review Interviews Vol. III , in which Martin Amis is quoted as saying All writers are Martians. Does that include bloggers?

Tim Gebhart, of A Progressive on the Prairie has a review of I Hate New Music by Dave Thompson. Thompson posits that rock music died in 1978 from an overdose of technology. I always thought it had something to do with a Chevy and a levy, oh well.

LAL wrote a review ofBook Review: Investing for Dummies for the blog LivingAlmostLarge. I wouldn't be caught dead reading a"For Dummies" book. I don't want to make to obvious.

Manoj reviews The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil on Unreal Blog. Could a computer like "Hal" be built some day, that possesses consciousness? Do we really have consciousness? Can I have a ham sandwich?

Callista has discovered a book about book bloggers, The Bookaholics' Guide to Book Blogs by Rebecca Gillieron & Catheryn Kilgarriff. She completes the circle by blogging about the book about bloggrs who blog about books at her blog SMS Book Reviews.

Liz Fetter reviews Art History For Your Children, a series of 48 titles, on many many different artists from every period in art history, on her blog Power In Art . There must be a mail in certificate for a PHD diploma in the back of the last volume.

Coralie writes in Happily Oblivious writes about Ten Men Dead by David Beresford, which deals with the 1981 hunger strike by IRA prisoners at Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland.

Douglas Karr of The Marketing Technology Blog writes about The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t" by Robert Sutton.

A last minute entry, Barry Wright III, of 3stylelife just finished reading The Sociology of Taste by Jukka Gronow. Is taste innate, he asks? Tell it to my plaid pants, I say. Still no word from Barry Wright I and II.

Book Review Blog Carnival the Fourth Edition

This week's edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival has been published at The Symposium. There are 33 book reviews in this edition which range from children's books to books on Constitutional Law. Drop by and do a little light reading.

If you submitted a post to the carnival in the last month and did not receive an email from me this morning, please email me at cbjorke at gmail dot com, so I can get you and your blog on the contributor list.

I will be hosting the next edition, here, on November 23rd. Please submit your book reviews at the usual location http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_5161.html.

The Invisible Constitution

Laurence H. Tribe


There is a great deal more in constitutional law than is contained in the spare, sparse language of the U.S. Constitution. Or at lease Laurence Tribe believes so. Mr. Tribe is a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School. Other than the justices on the supreme court, there is really no better authority on what constitutional law contains. Yet there is disagreement about this. Justice Antonin Scalia is well known for his strict adherence to the written words of the Constitution.

Consider, however, the words of article IX of the Bill of Rights: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Professor Tribe argues that the words of this clause are a huge gap through which truckloads of rights, unknown to James Madison or John Marshall, can be driven. How, then can we decide what is a right retained by the people and what is a kooky, left wing idea, best left in the dust bin of history?

Tribe offers six methods that jurists have used to think about, and argue for, these invisible constitutional rights. First the geometric construction, connecting the dots between different articles of the constitution. This is how the much argued right to privacy has been derived. Nowhere does the constitution mention the word "privacy." It does say, though "No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. " and "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." When you put them together you get a more general concept that the government should leave people alone, especially in their own homes, but also in their possessions and their bodies, in short - privacy.

Another method of constructing constitutional rights described by Tribe are the geodesic - building a dome, like Buckminster Fuller, again out of already existing rights, to protect the freedoms of the individual. The global is another, reinforcing ones argument by reference to laws and practices in other countries. Justice Scalia has been guilty of this practice himself, according to professor Tribe. The geological, unearthing evidence of the intent of the founding fathers in historical sources is the fourth method. The gravitational, where he makes an argument based on Einstein's relativity theory and argues that laws create distortions of the social space time continuum is another. (did I mention that some of this is kind of hard to follow?) And finally the gyroscopic, in which the force of previously made decisions in the court help to stabilize the interpretation of the constitution by weight of their precedent, even when they are wrong.

Professor Tribe is obviously a really smart person and he has had the help of some other really smart people over the years, including a young research assistant who has gone on to bigger things, a fellow named Barry Obama. I tended to go all glassy eyed reading some of Tribe's explanations. Me and Sarah Palin are probably not destined to sit on the Supreme Court, I would guess. He has almost made me a strict constructionist, but then he did convince me that strict constructionists are most strict when construction arguments against things that the personally don't care for and are a lot looser when they argue for something that suits them.

Book Review Blog Carnival #3

is up and running at Books, Books and More Books. My review of Michael Kinsley's "Please Don't Remain Calm is included in the carnival along with a boat load of other reviews from many other bloggers. Go take a look!

Please Don't Remain Calm

Provocations and Commentaries
Michael Kinsley


Back in the dark ages of the 1990s, Michael Kinsley was Pat Buchanan's punching bag on the CNN news-talk program Crossfire. The show was so archaic in it's format that the two adversaries would often be seen to smile at one another and shook hands publicly on many occasions.

Kinsley left Crossfire to become the editor of a newfangled magazine on your screen called Slate, something invented by Microsoft. He has since written for real newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and even Time magazine. Please Don't Remain Calm is a collection of some of Kinsley's writings for all of these various publications dating from 1995 up until 2007. I would guess that another collection won't be appearing until some time in 2020. This will give you plenty of time to work your way through this one.

Many of the early pieces are quite clever and stand the test of time better than a stained blue dress. It is interesting to look back and remember how worked up we all were over issues that seem, frankly, to be trivial by today's standards. Midway through the book we are introduced to the misadventures of George W Bush. Things I would rather forget are on almost every page from that point on.

The book's title is derived from a piece written in 2006, reflecting on the actions of the passengers on United Flight 93 on September 11th 2001. Kinsley concludes that, unlike those passengers, he would have followed instructions and stayed in his seat. I'm not so sure. Those were a random group of ordinary people and hey acted as they did. Why not any other random group, even one including a journalist and bon vivant.

Generally I don't consider these collections of editorials as real books, and this is no exception. It was a bit like reading an out of date blog, except for the anachronistic use of paper as a medium of expression. And no YouTube videos.

Book Review Blog Carnival Second Edition

The second edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival was posted this morning at Novel Bloggers. My review of Suze Rotelo's "A Freewheelin' Time" is part of the carnival, along with a plethora of other reviews. Go take a look. Your books to read list will grow.

The next edition will be on Books Books and More Books on October 26th. If you would like to participate, submit your book review at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_5161.html.

The First Book Review Blog Carnival

Welcome to the first in what I hope will be a long lasting series of Book Review Blog Carnivals. These carnivals will appear periodically, hosted by different bloggers around the web. If you write book reviews on your blog you are invited to submit a review for the next carnival, which will appear on Novel Bloggers on October 12th. All submissions are handled through blogcarnival.com. Just click on the link and follow the easy to read directions.

If you would like to host a carnival, email me at the address in the sidebar.


Without further ado, here are the reviews. I have divided them into Fiction and Non Fiction sections. After that you're on your own.

Fiction:


Bloody-Kisses.org writes about On The Edge by Pamela Britton. This is apparently a romance novel, part of a series, with a NASCAR theme. You live and learn.


Naomi writes in Diary From England that a book of short stories, published to raise funds for charity and containing a Harry Potter prequil, written by J.K. Rowling, has broken the record for fastest sellout of a first printing.


Military Wife has submitted a post in Novel Bloggers The Internet Book Club, about The Notebook chapter of "Swans and Storms." I don't see the author's name listed in the post.


Bette Fetter reviews two books by Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, on he blog Power In Art The Seuss books are titled "The Shape o f Me And Other Stuff" and "My Many Colored Days."


Lizi Fetter writes, in Power In Art about the book Degas and the Little Dancer by Laurence Anholt, a fictional account of the creation of Degas' little dancer sculpture.


Writing on Scribed.com, Patricia Rockwell of Communication Exchange reviews Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn, a spy thriller set in Iraq. Hmmm, I knew a guy named Vince Flynn in high school, I wonder . . . . nah!


Alessandra writes in Coraline a spooky juvenile novel by Neil Gaiman. Not that the novel is juvenile, mind you, but it's intended audience is that betwixt and between age group.


Christina, of Livin' The Dream read a hollywood insider story, Whacked by Jules Asner. My first impression is that she hated, hated, hated it.


Ruth Schaller writes in Books Books and more Books! about Accidentally Dead by Dakota Cassidy.


Alyce reviews The Violets of Usambara by Mary Soderstrom on her blog At Home With Books. It is a Non Governmental Organization thriller, which must be quite nearly unique.


Joana at The Symposium has written a review of Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyers. It's the fourth installment in Meyers' Twilight Saga and you finally fget to find out how the vampires and the werewolves learn to live together - or something.


Tiffany Aller writes on Read and Release about Odd Thomas By Dean Koontz . A fry cook who talks to the dead, sure, OK, I'm cool with that.


Cromley has read The Big Overeasy a tongue in cheek crime novel about the murder of one Humpty Dumpty, featuring detective Jack Spratt and his sidekick Mary Mary. Read the facts at Cromely's World.


Michele Jacobsen, writing in A Reader's Respite reviews The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows, a novel about a WWII era book club on the isle of Guernsey.


Flash Gordon, that's right THE Flash Gordon, writing in Great New Books that Are a Must Read reviews The Confederate War Bonnet by Jack Shakely, a historical novel about Native Americans during the civil war.


Carrie White reviews Not Dreamt of in Your Philosophy, a short story collection by Lynn Veach Sadler in her blog 4 Star Rating.


Sarah Small, writing in SmallWorld Reads, has discovered A Death in the Family by James Agee. I was an English major, too and haven't read it yet. That's what's wrong with our educational system!


Bombastia has reviewed the entire, four book The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer at one go. Apparently Bombastia read the entire four book series at one go, too.


Pamela Rappaport , of Pamela-te-da, really didn't care for Carved in Bone by Jefferson Bass. Find out why.


On Children's Books: What, When & How to Read Them, TZT writes about The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall, 262pp RL 5.


Jim Murdoch, on his blog The Truth About Lies, which one might incorrectly think is a blog about politics, actually admits that he is attempting to promote Major Benjy by Guy Fraser-Sampson.


Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All compares Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird to books by Ayn Rand. That's a new way to look at it.


Drama Queen reviews Final Sacrifice by Patricia Bray on her blog Imaginary Lands. It's sort of a new twis on "The PRince and The Pauper, the third book of a fantasy series, Chronicles of Josan. I think it's one of those where you should read the books in order, in order to know what's going on.


Non Fiction:


Penelope Anne from The Library at the End of the Universe reviews Under A Flaming Sky by Daniel James Brown., the story of a catastrophic fire that destroyed a Wisconsin town, with great loss of life, on the same day as the famous Chicago fire.


Book Calndar has submitted a review of Green Investing A Guide To Making Money Through Environment-Friendly Stocks by Jack Uldrich. Good luck with that. Any investing beyond putting some more bucks in my Roth IRA is over my head.


Book Advice.net has a review of The Freedom Writers Diary by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell. The reviewer is highly, did I say highly, exited about this story of educational success in an inner city school.


Douglas Karr of The Marketing Technology Blog doesn't care much for Content Rich Writing our Way To Wealth On The Web by Jon Wuebben.


Heather J writes in The Pages In Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home by Erin Einhorn which is the story of the author's mother, who escaped from eastern Europe during the holocaust at the age of three, and of the families that took her in, and the conflict which resulted years later.


Breenie Books has reviewed Withc School, First Degree by Donald Lewis-Highcorrell, which is not a Harry Potter wannabe novel. It is, in fact a textbook teaching Correllian tradition Wicca.


FIRE Finance has written a review of Do You Want To Become A Millionaire Quietly? . I'd rather be a noisy one, I think.


Shamelle, of Enhance Life reviews Who’s Pulling Your Strings? (How to Break the Cycle of Manipulation ...) by Dr. Harriet Braiker. If only I had known . . .


Cinderberry, writing in Stationery Fetish, has learned all about making paper airplanes from “The Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes” by Doug Stillinger. There are many airplane designs and some fancy paper in the book. Something new to fill time at the office?


Diana has read Laurie Notaro’s Idiot Girls Action-Adventure Club:True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life and written about it in Reading is Sexy!. That's why I became an English major, actually. The sight of those horn rimmed glasses and a "Complete Works of William Shakespeare" just drove girls wild.


Charles Euchner has discovered a fascinating book, The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life by Philip Zambardo and John Boyd. He writes about it in START SIMPLE, which it isn't.


Toni , of Wifely Steps, reviews Love the One You're With by Emily Giffen. Do you have a "one who got away" in your life? Well, here's some sage advice - don't tell the one you caught.


Callista liked The Reading Solution by Paul Kropp because, like her, it is from Canada. You can read about it in her blog SMS Book Reviews.


Fiona Veitch Smith presents Shakespeare: the World as a Stageby Bill Bryson in her blog, The Crafty Writer.


Rodney Smith, of Hippo Web Solutions, looks at Problogger - Secrets for Blogging your way to a Six-figure Income by Darren and Chris Garrett. Rodney was surprised and impressed that it was not a e-book. Paper, who woulda thunk it?


Ted, not the famous gathering of smart people, but just Ted, of CampusGrotto College Advice, reviews Ditch the Flip Flops and Ace your first Interview. Flip flops are a non starter apparantly. No wonder I didn't get that Wall Street job.


Stephen writes about How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! by Paul Chek on his blog Balanced Existence.


Malia Russell, writing on Homemaking 911, has reviewed Baby’s First Foods; A Mother’s Guide to Whole Grains and Family Nourishment by Theresa Powers.

The Bin Ladens

An Arabian Family In The American Century
Steve Coll
The Penguin Press
ISBN: 978-1*59420-164-6

After the September 11 attacks of 2001 there were rumors circulating about members of the Bin Laden clan whisked out of the country by the CIA and of secret connections between the Bin Ladens and the Bush clan. Conspiracy theorists have spun elaborate tales based on these stories. So who are these Bin Ladens and were they really here and why? Steve Coll reveals the true story of the Bin Laden family as much as it can be known.

Osama is one of 54 sons and daughters of Mohamed Bin Laden, a building contractor from Yemen who built a business empire by serving the needs and the whims of the Al Saud dynasty for whom Saudi Arabia is named. Under his leadership and that of his oldest sons, Salem and Bakr the Bin Laden companies have grown into an international multi-million dollar operation, building highways, renovating the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the major mosques in Mecca and Medina, creating the Saudi telephone system and investing in satellite communications, fitting out luxury private aircraft in Texas and buying commercial real estate and condominium developments in Florida. Returning from Afghanistan in the early 1990s, Osama Bin Laden became disenchanted with the society he found in his native Saudi Arabia. He soon broke with the Al Saud and king Fahd and exiled himself to Yemen and then Sudan. His family formally removed him from the Bin Laden business at this time. Theoretically he has been cut off from the Bin Laden family fortune since this time, before the embassy bombings, before the USS Cole and certainly before 911. By breaking with the Al Saud Osama broke with the golden goose from which the Bin Laden family fortune was laid. There is some question whether Osama has received funds from any family members however. Al-Qaeda has relied on donations from within the Arab world for it's operating funds and Bin Laden has been a major factor in getting those donations.

Those mysterious Bin Ladens who were spirited out of the country? A half brother living in Beverly Hills, another attending Harvard Business School, many nephews and a few nieces attending various colleges throughout the country. They were taken to Paris on a flight chartered by the family, with the cooperation of, and after being questioned by the FBI. No connection to Al-Qaeda was found for any of them.

The Bin Laden business empire continues to prosper, building airports, palaces condominiums and resorts in the middle east. Osama continues to live in exile, somewhere in the Afghanistan/Pakistan borderlands.

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

George Johnson
Knopf
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4101-5

Johnson is a science writer for the New York Times and has written this book as a top ten list of science experiments. I guess that makes him the Letterman of science. Johnson's list is not the ten greatest discoveries of science but rather a list of experiments done by individuals that he finds to be important, elegant and accessible. They are experiments conducted by individuals and were done on a very human scale, often on a table top.

Do you remember hearing about Galileo dropping things from the leaning tower of Pisa? Johnson believes that never happened. He gives a detailed account of the experiment that Galileo did, rolling balls of different materials down an inclined track, timing their descent by singing. This allowed Galileo to show that heavier objects do not fall faster than light ones and to figure out the math for the acceleration of falling bodies. Newton would develop his laws of motion based on Galileo's work. He talks about Isaac Newton but not about gravity. Newton did a series of experiments using prisms which revealed that light is made up of waves and showed that color is derived from white light.

There are several experiments in electromagnetism, Michael Faraday, James Joule, A.A. Michelson, Robert Millikan. Millikaa's experiments with oil droplets, magnetic fields and radium, in which he discovered the electron, are the most complex in the book. Johnson tried to duplicate them and was not successful, blaming himself for being unable to control the apparatus properly.

I don't know whether the experiments Johnson chose were the most beautiful or not. He left the impression that he wasn't so confident in his choices either.

Real Change

From the world that fails to the world that works.
Newt Gingrich
Regnery Publsihing
ISBN: 978-1-59698-053-2

Here's how the Newt starts his new book:

The media tell us America is a nation divided between conservative red states and liberal blue states. They tell us that red and blue are qqually divided - which is why elections are so close, why Congress seems gridlocked, and why nothing ever seems to get done in Washington.

But this is simply not true. The reality is the American people are united on almost every important issue facing our country. The real division is between red-white -and-blue America (about 85 percent of the country) and a fringe on the left (about 15 percent of the country).

Translation: I know that your, dear reader are a true patriotic American, not like those elitist lefties on your TV, telling you what to think. You are going to agree with me because I'm a true patriotic American, too. You and I know what's really going on, they can't fool us. Can I interest you in used car?

The Newt goes on to explain how a new less partisan politics is needed and how only the Republican party can bring this about because Republicans stand for truth, justice and the American way, unlike those evil Democrats, plotting their tax and spend takeover of the world by trial lawyers from Holywood. Real Change means more of the same in prettier packaging brought to you by the party of Exxon and Peabody Coal.

Real Change is a piece of excrement written by one of the architects of the current partisan, all or nothing, party loyalty before national interest, politics. Don't bother to read it. If you're a dittohead you can get the same stuff more entertainingly from that big mouth on your AM radio. If you're not it will be bad for your blood pressure. Newt is one of those politicians who is so crooked he has to screw his socks on in the morning.

Charlie Wilson's War

The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History
George Crile
Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 0-87113-854-9


Halfway through reading Charlie Wilson's War I went out and rented the movie. I had the picture of Tom Hanks on a white horse firmly entrenched in y mind the rest of the way through. It was an interesting exercise to see how much of a Cliff's Notes version of the story the movie really is. Charlie Wilson's War, the book, is a much more complete story than the film, and much more exiting.

Charlie Wilson's War has a cast of characters, real world people, who are like some demented screenwriter's idea for a film version of the A-Team. First is Wilson himself, a hard drinking playboy, who always has a beauty queen on his arm while jet setting around the world at the taxpayers' expense, who represents a straight laced, bible belt district in Congress and who gets the money to run the operation by wheeling and dealing on the hill; Gust Avrakotos, a rogue CIA case officer, working undercover inside his own agency, undermining the stated Afghanistan policy by overstepping his authority at every opportunity; technical wonder- boy Mike Vickers, Green Beret, weapons expert, he is a lowly GS 11 who isn't supposed to even know what's going on and he's the commanding general at CIA headquarters, calling all the shots; Muohammed Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistan, he has a secret program to develop an atomic bomb , meanwhile he is doing everything in his power to help the CIA defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Despite the movie tie-in, this is not a work of fiction. This is the story of a real CIA operation, which became the largest in history, thanks to the efforts of a congressman from east Texas who made it his business to find a way to shoot down the Soviet Union's Hind helicopters. Charlie Wilson, on a trip to Pakistan, was shown the devastation caused by these flying tanks, which were invulnerable every weapons that the Afghan Mujahideen had.

The CIA was providing the Afghans with World War I era Enfield rifles and some light machine guns to fight the Soviet Army with. The had a $5 million a year budget at the time. Their goal was to annoy and bleed the Russians and keep them on edge, as part of the longstanding policy of containment. Wilson thought that, with a way to shoot down those helicopters, the Afghans were capable of driving the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan altogether. He wanted to abandon containment and attempt to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was only a congressman. He succeeded.

By the time the Soviets left Afghanistan the CIA operation there was spending over a billion dollars a year, half of it provided by Saudi Arabia. Kalashnikov rifles, Stinger missiles, mortars, Swiss Oerlikon anti aircraft guns, and millions of rounds of ammunition were streaming in through Pakistan.

Those Afghan "freedom fighters" who defeated the Soviet army with the help of Charlie Wilson and the CIA, helping to precipitate the fall of the Soviet Union, are the same Afghans who now are fighting again in Afghanistan, some with us and some with the Taliban. The Arab volunteers who went to Afghanistan to join in the jihad against the Soviets are the core of Alkaida. The challenges we face today are a direct result of our success in facing down the last perceived existential threat to or way of life. The biggest shortcoming of the movie is that it mentioned none of this. Instead there was a scene where Wilson fails to get a pittance appropriated to build schools in Afghanistan. In fact there was a multi million dollar AID effort that went on for three years after the defeat of the Soviets, which was finally cut off because the Mujahideen were robbing the aid convoys.