Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Gottlieb's 'Avid Reader' highly recommended for the wordy


Like so many other memoirs, I was led to Avid Reader: A Life (2016) by the obituary of the author, Robert Gottlieb (1931-2023), the exalted editor, writer, and publisher of many modern classical titles and periodicals, including, but not limited to, the renowned LBJ series by Robert Caro, the fifth and last volume already ten plus years in the making. Research takes time, Caro is often quoted as saying.

I did try Cato's The Power Broker (Gottlieb, editor) a while back but knowing little about New York, except a bit about Manhattan, I just couldn't get into it, you know how it is with some books you just can't get into, and thus, laid it aside never to pick it up again. 

In cre a ble!  

But Gottlieb's memoir is another story although filled with many unrecognizable names to me, like reading one of those chapters in the Bible where the names go on and on and on.  Anyway, Avid Reader is a must if there's anyone in the publishing world who has yet to read it. 

Earlier this year at the National Press Club, I saw Gottlieb's daughter, Lizzie (who is frequently referenced in Avid) and her film Turn Every Page  about the writing and working relationship her dad shared with Mr. Caro, a delightful film and relationship which I probably liked better than the book since Mr. Gottlieb comes across in the book as a boorish know-it-all, a conceited and uppity man about town, although he insists he did not like dinners out with friends, partying, did not do sports, but ballet?  Oh, yes.  (For the ballet uninitiated, that part went on too long.) 

He's much more likable in the film. 

In Avid, he spares no gloss when it comes to offering negative commentary about writers like Salman Rushdie, Lillian Ross, Pauline Kael and many more. He often mentions the breakup of friendships.  Quelle surprise!

It must be that if you are anybody in the New York's publishing world, your inclusion in the book is important, good or bad!  (Some press is good press, and bad press is press, and no press is bad! Bad! Bad!) 

It sounds like he was estranged from his first child, Roger, from his first marriage to Muriel Higgins, since Gottlieb seldom mentions him nor does he include Roger in the credits or dedicate his book to his great offsprings like he does Lizzie's sons but what do I know about good family relationships?

Avid Reader is a highly recommended title, but is that a typo with the omission of a closing parenthetical mark midway down on page 78?  

Alas!  He is gone!

patricialesli@gmail.com

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Another must for journalists: Carl Bernstein's book

 


You know it's a "must." He's a "must" for anyone who's a news-aholic, and/or in the writing business (which in Washington, D.C. is everyone!)

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom details Carl Bernstein's five years working for The Washington Evening Star, beginning when he was in high school and ending with his start at the Washington Post, mostly covering the years, 1960-1965.

He describes the ins and outs of what it’s like to be on staff of a major newspaper, how to get there (call and call and call the editors again!), the background and coverage of the major events of the times (JFK's inauguration, JFK's assassination, Sputnik, the 1963 March on Washington) and even, a fake obituary which he and others planted in the Post. (He admits he was chiefly responsible.)

He recounts working with editors (with few negative stories about anyone, save Bill Hill), flying to scenes, and abandoning school for his passion.  All information helpful for any fledgling or would-be writer, to learn what it takes or took back then to get hired by a paper, although challenges now do not mirror challenges then.

At the end, Bernstein includes welcome updates in brief biographical sketches of his tale's main characters, most whose names I couldn’t keep straight anyway, except for Joanne's. 

When I became aware of the section, the first name I hunted was Bill Hill's, a main character Bernstein omits since he did not like Hill for various reasons and whose absence at the end is rather childish. But, maybe Hill would not cooperate and update Bernstein because, like many of the characters, he is dead. 

In addition to the rear listings, adding a one- or two-sentence description of the majority of the cast would have been helpful  to keep names straight.

Other book weaknesses (which, no doubt, his many friends have failed to mention in their glorification) are the title and the cover, great examples of mediocrity.

Blue on blue is dull on dull and Chasing History?  

Huh?  

What does this mean?  How about Carl Bernstein's Start-Up for starters?  

I know Carl Bernstein did not choose the jacket design or the title and he probably argued with the publisher who, of course, knows more about publishing than the author.  Hahahahaha.  

And Carl, I was stunned, stunned (!) that you accepted the assignment of the weather page redesign when Bill Hill pulled out all the plugs to try and resuscitate the Star, which, of course, now lies buried in the cemetery of newspapers with so many others.

At age 78, Carl, it's time to hurry up and finish your second and final volume, thank you very much.

Whoops!  I mentioned Hill's name only four times!


patricialesli@gmail.com


Sunday, December 5, 2021

Book review: 'The Columnist' by Donald A. Ritchie, highly recommended for journalism scholars



Who's the Drew Pearson now? I can think of no one who fits the bill.

Drew Pearson (1897-1969) was a muckraking journalist who helped send four members of the U. S. Congress to prison, had two U.S. senators censured and was not timid when it came to writing and broadcasting scandals, making a few mistakes along the way, but, hey! Who's perfect?

The Columnist: Leaks, Lies, and Libel in Drew Pearson's Washington is a must for journalism students and 20th century American history buffs who need or want another revealing look inside what makes Washington tick.

Mr. Pearson was a man who dug deep, who persisted, who was hated by most of the presidents he covered, including
President Harry S. Truman who threatened to shoot Mr. Pearson because of the columnist's criticism of Truman's daughter and wife. (Pearson predicted a Thomas Dewey win.)

Pearson was unafraid of lawsuits and was sued many times, losing only once.

The infamous Joseph McCarthy, feared by most, bore the wrath of Mr. Pearson's writings and broadcasts.
Pearson stood firm in his denunciation of McCarthy but Pearson had advantages most did not: He had a bully pulpit with his column, radio and TV broadcasts, comparing McCarthy's tactics to Salem's witch-burnings.

At Washington's fancy Sulgrave Club, the demagogic McCarthy physically attacked Pearson at a dinner party until stopped by none other than U.S. Senator Richard M. Nixon.

Some of Pearson's sponsors were intimidated by his attacks on McCarthy and dropped his radio broadcasts. His anti-McCarthy crusade
cost Pearson his friendship with the columnist Walter Winchell whom Pearson labeled a "McCarthy cheerleader."

Upon Pearson's death, Jack Anderson (1922-2005), a Pearson protégé and Pulitzer Prize winner, took over the column and renamed it, "Washington Merry-Go-Round. Although Wikipedia claims it's the longest-running column in American history, the most recent column I could find is dated July 15, 2021.

The book has a striking cover, is well researched, and its 367 pages include 90 of index, an extensive bibliography, and notes. The author, Donald A. Ritchie, is historian emeritus of the U.S. Senate.



patricialesli@gmail.com



Thursday, November 4, 2021

Book review: 'The Woman Who Stole Vermeer'

 


Rose Dugdale is 80 years old this year and practically an icon in Ireland where she romped and fought the British for years.

Always proud of her participation in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (which often denied links to her criminal acts), she sought to aid revolutionaries who worked to transfer IRA prisoners.

Adopting a new identify to contrast with that of her wealthy background, she used her largesse like a modern-day Robin Hood to benefit those in need, including criminals who were not adverse to violence when they deemed it necessary to achieve their goals, and she joined right in.

Johannes Vermeer, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, 1670-1671, is one of the paintings Rose Dugdale helped steal. It is featured on the cover of The Woman Who Stole Vermeer by Anthony M. Amore/Wikimedia


Her metamorphosis is the thrust of the book, The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True* Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist by Anthony M. Amore, an interesting biography, especially for art enthusiasts, crime  readers, and scholars of feminist history.

Her attitudes were shaped by the 1960s antiwar movement raging in the U.S., a trip to Cuba, and the growing feminist revolution. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Oxford University.

Despite her revulsion of and public derision in courtrooms of the wealth and lifestyles of her parents, they never abandoned their daughter, always trying to maintain a relationship, any relationship. Ms. Dugdale took advantage of them, stealing from her own family.

For years she was able to elude police who considered her dangerous and often tried to track her.

She helped drop "bombs" of milk churns on a police station in 1974, the first helicopter bombing attack ever recorded on a police precinct in Ireland. (The bombs failed to detonate.)

In courtrooms, Ms. Dugdale frequently became angry over receiving a lighter sentence than her chums, a reflection, perhaps, of her status.

Her many successful criminal ventures embarrassed the government until she was captured after leaving her driver's license in a stolen getaway car.

She's the only woman to have conducted a major art heist, targeting the Russborough House, reportedly the "longest house" and "one of the finest great houses in Ireland" with one of the finest national private art collections. She knew the place well, better than her comrades who could not identify the priceless works of art, but Ms. Dugdale could. 

The robbers gagged and kidnapped one of the owners who thought he was the target of a homicide. (He wasn't).

Confined for nine years, in prison she gave birth to her only child and, later, after the boy's father, Eddie Gallagher was captured (and sentenced to a longer term), they were married inside the walls, the first recorded marriage of convicts while in prison in Ireland.

For those who follow crime and are continually perplexed by the still missing paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (1990), this is a good read. The author, coincidentally, is director of security for the Gardner.

The National Gallery of Art's retired curator Arthur Wheelock, a Vermeer expert, is quoted several times in the book which lacks an index.

* The publisher's web copy of the cover lacks the word "true" while the copy I have includes it.

patricialesli@gmail.com


Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Book review: 'The Assassination of Trotsky'

A Diego Rivera mural depicts Trotsky with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "true champions of the workers' struggle." Part of the Rivera mural El hombre en cruce de caminos, 1934, in the Bellas Artes building, Mexico City/Joe Photo, Boston, Wikimedia

Without emotion or attitude, Nicholas Mosley gives a "blow-by-blow" account of the murder of Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), between the time of the first assassination attempt on his life on May 24, 1940, and the last, successful one when he died the day after being stabbed by an ice pick*, August 20, 1940.

Regrettably, Mr. Mosley's documentation is omitted, save for the short bibliography at the end with six titles listed. The best insight into the person is  Trotsky's autobiography and his writings, Mr. Mosley says.

Leon Trotsky House where he was stabbed and where he lived from April, 1939 - August, 1940 Mexico City/Photo by Rod Waddington, Kergunyah, Australia, Wikimedia Commons


Mr. Trotsky left "works of some genius"; he was "a man with a marvelous literary eye and style," Mr. Mosley writes. 

I ran across the book title in the Wall Street Journal's column by Peter Stothard of the "Five Best [Books] on Political Vengeance," and per usual, the best library, the Fairfax County Library, got it for me on interlibrary loan.

The book is short (184 pages) and a fast read, written in 1972 in the "encyclopedic" style when Trotsky's grandson, Seva, was still living in the house. 

The first attempt on Trotsky's life saw about 20 assassins invade his home and shoot up the house (bullet holes, extant). Trotsky, his wife, Natalie Sedova, and Seva, miraculously survived without severe injury (Seva was shot in the foot while hiding under his bed) causing the chief of Mexico's secret police to question whether the attempt was fake and even happened.

Later that summer, bodyguards surrounding the house were lulled by the familiarity of a Trotsky acquaintance, a secret Stalinist, who arrived at the house on August 20 to discuss "a document" with "the old man" but stabbed him instead.

The murderer had several names and backgrounds: Jacques Mornard, Frank Jacson, Ramon Mercader. At the time, Mexico had no death penalty, and he was sentenced to 19.5 years for premeditated murder and six months for illegal possession of arms. 

Later, his parole request was rejected because the killer was considered "socially dangerous," and the courts decided it was hard to grant parole to a person "if no one knew officially who he was." 

Trotsky lived until the next day when he died at a hospital. When it lay in state, an estimated 300,000 filed past his body. 

Lenin had ostensibly "appointed" Trotsky his successor of the Soviet Union. Stalin was "rude" and unpolished, rough like the countryside, his origin.

Chasing Trotsky, his greatest rival, throughout Europe, Stalin delayed Trotsky's execution for years to avoid public fallout. After all, it was good public relations to keep him alive and have a scapegoat; Stalin could blame him for everything: the wheat crop failure, the pig swine fever, railway problems, factory destructions, even "nails in butter"!  

Trotsky knew he was a targeted man.

Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, arrive in Mexico, January, 1937, with Frida Kahlo behind them/Photo by unknown author, Wikimedia Commons


Eventually, after their itinerant European residencies, Trotsky and his wife found their way to Mexico in 1937 and the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the latter who claimed credit for getting them admitted to the country. (After Trotsky's death, Rivera, man of honor that he was, said he was working for Stalin to lure Trotsky to his death site.) 

The Trotskys lived with the artists for about two years until, several stories go, Rivera flirted with Trotsky's wife (and vice-versa) which, combined with political disagreements, ended the happy arrangement.

American supporters helped raise money for Trotsky's last residence which became the scene of the murder.

Leon Trotsky's grave in Coyoacan, Mexico City/Photo, Wikimedia


His ashes and those of his wife, who died in 1962, are entombed at the Coyoacán house, open now as a museum.

The Trotsky home is definitely on my "must see" places whenever I get to Mexico City. 

*It is on view at Washington's International Spy Museum.  The weapon was missing for several decades until it was found under a bed and went on the market.  

Patricialesli@gmail.com

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Rating the Trump books


I haven't read the estimated 4,500 Trump books which is the amount the Guardian estimates has been published since he took office in 2017, but I have read a few which I rank for you below.

My choices are based on new information, style, interest, content, documentation, readability.

If you only have time to read one, the best, most interesting, the one which is most captivating, whose author still commands a daily audience (if you follow him on Twitter) is:

1.  Michael Cohen's Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump. It's short and fast. In retrospect (I read it last year), I can't believe it's 432 pages for it seems like half that, which gives you an idea of the speed per page.

2.  John Bolton's The Room Where It Happened:  A White House Memoir, filled with lots of anecdotes and behind-the-scenes glimpses of what went on when Mr. Bolton spent 17 months in the Wild House. Lots of unexpected humor by means of the author's snarky comments. 592 pages.

3.  Mary Trump's Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man.  She, of course, is his niece and a clinical psychologist.  Very quick. Short and not so sweet. 240 pages.

4.  Bob Woodward's Rage. A little dry in places, but, if you get this far, worth a read. 480 pages.

4.  (A Tie with Woodward's) Peter Strzok's Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. TrumpI listened to this book by a former FBI assistant director.  Why the author doesn't sue Trump for defamation is beyond me. Perhaps Trump's office at the time protects him who can say whatever he wanted since that's what his content is. 387 pages.

I read about half of Brian Stelter's Hoax:  Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth until I finally realized (dumb me!  Read the sub-title!) it really was about Fox and who cares about Fox? Mr. Stelter is the host of CNN's Reliable Sources which airs every Sunday at 11 a.m. and which I try not to miss. 448 pages.

If you have recommendations and/or comments, please write up!  Thank you.

I be done with Trump and his books (I hope!).


patricialesli@gmail.com

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

John Bolton's hilarious 'Room' of their own



You just thought Trump's White House was chaotic. Readers, not only was it chaotic, but John Bolton is here to tell you it was lots more than that!


I may not agree with the author's politics, but I can sure laugh at his anecdotes from his short (17 months) tenure in the Wild House. 
It's nothing short of rockhouse madness.

Bolton must have carried a secret microphone/recorder inside his breast pocket for his recollections of so many fine details of the day-to-day chaos in Trumpland, described in The Room Where It Happened.

I detected no conceit, no self-applause, no boastings in his memoir. When Trump complimented Bolton's "'troika of tyranny'" speech, Bolton reminded him that one of the president's own speechwriters had written it (p. 249). 

Bolton's snide comments ricochet throughout the book; some of the highlights:

He writes more than once:  "You couldn't make this up" referring to the daily frenzy engulfing the administration (258). 

His background on Venezuela and the Middle East makes all those WAPO editorials easier to understand. 

"God only knew who he [Trump] was talking to or whether he had just gotten a case of the vapors* because things were still uncertain." 

After an attack in the Gulf of Oman, Trump believed "that if you pretended bad things hadn't happened, perhaps no one else would notice" (392).

("I found these weekly trade meetings so chaotic I largely left them for {Charles} Kupperman to attend, which punishment he didn't deserve, but life is hard" (460).)  Kupperman was the deputy national security advisor. 

At the G20 trade summit in Buenos Aires, no one knew "from one minute to the next" what Trump would say. He envied Xi Jinping's lifelong term as Chinese ruler and told Xi, "that people" in the U.S. were clamoring for an end to the president's two-term limit. 

Writes Bolton: "I was aware of no such chatter" (297).

Bolton didn't like Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin too much. 

At the G20, Bolton writes Mnuchin spent the day "beavering" with China's #3 man, Liu He (296).  After all, Mnuchin was a "panda hugger"(290).

Munchin got all excited at China's agreement to purchase more soybeans "just as if we were a Third World commodity supplier to the Middle Kingdom" (297).

During the Venezuelan revolution, Mnuchin worried about the banking sector and the risk to credit card companies. Bolton reminded him that the thousands protesting in the streets, "the poorest people" did not have, nor were they "thinking about Visa and Mastercard!" (269). 

Bolton was only too happy to announce to principals that he thought "Treasury was not entitled to its own foreign policy" like Mnuchin desired (273). 

Mnuchin spent so much time in the White House, on presidential trips and in California ("who for some reason was in California again" (258)*) that they "'hardly recognize him in his building,' said [John] Kelly disdainfully" (241).

Mnuchnin, was "basically a Democrat" who maintained "his campaign for doing nothing" (252).

Bolton was not a big fan of Defense Secretary James Mattis either whom he continually portrays as a cry baby. 

If "his view didn't prevail, which was standard operating procedure for him: stress that timing was urgent, which is what Mattis said when it suited him, and predict doom and gloom if he didn't get his way" (176).  "Mattis obstructionism at work" (190) ....Trump never liked him either: "a Democrat." 

Preparing for the meeting with Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Bolton worried about the "daily explosions everyone became inured to in the Trump White House."

Bolton says another Trump-Kim Jong Um summit looked "depressingly inescapable" for Trump was hot-to-trot and get a deal done with Kim. It was not to be.

With his good buddy, Shinzo Abe of Japan, Trump lamented the fact that Abe's father was unsuccessful as a World War II kamikaze pilot, forgetting that, had his father achieved his goal, there would have been no good buddy Abe, born after the war. "Mere historical details." says Bolton (345).

Remember the columnist, Charles Krauthammer (1950 - 2018)? Not a Trump fan. He told Bolton he'd been wrong to characterize Trump as an 11-year-old: "'I was off by ten years'" (8).

While leaving the White House after his job interview, Bolton writes he felt like he was in a college dorm, with people going in and out doors. Wasn't there a crisis underway to try and repeal Obamacare? Bolton didn't recognize the place (18).

At the Trumps' first state ceremony with French President Emmanuel and Mrs. Macron: "Sadly for the press, nothing went wrong" (68). 

"Later, the black-tie state dinner was very nice, if you like eating until 10:30" p.m. With the John Kellys, the Boltons skipped the after-dinner entertainment and went home (70).

At Trump's Turnberry* Scottish golf resort, Greenpeace* breached security by flying an "ungainly contraption," akin to a "a bicycle with wings" hauling a flowing banner which said Trump was "below par." The Secret Service hustled Trump and later, Bolton and Kelly, inside before anyone could look at it too long, although Bolton wanted to prolong his viewing.

On a visit to London and Scotland, Trump called the US and UK relationship, "'the highest level of special,'" which Bolton called "a new category."

Trump repeatedly instructed his staff to avoid criticizing Russia too much publicly (179).

In a "discussion" with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump told the Turkish leader that Christians were "going crazy" about Turkey's incarceration of American pastor, Andrew Brunson, and Erdogan responded that Moslems in Turkey were "going crazy" and Trump interrupted him to say "they were going crazy all over the world."  

Writes Bolton: "If possible, the conversation went downhill thereafter" (184-185).

Don't forget Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN. Not only were the Turks unable to understand what she was trying to negotiate, neither could the Trump team (186).

The "Haley Problem" included her belief that the US ambassador to the UN was the Secretary of State. 

From everything Bolton heard "including directly from Trump, she and Tillerson [Rex Tillerson, secretary of state] cordially detested one another (well, maybe not cordially)." She wanted to visit India and visit the Dalai Lama:  "The purpose of this trip was unclear, other than getting a photo op with the Dalai Lama, always good for an aspiring pol" (238).

When Bolton was at the Justice Department, "we called the Southern District [of New York] the 'Sovereign District of New York' because it so often resisted control by 'Main Justice,' let alone the White House" (185-186).   

Discussion about the Korean War and its aftermath involved a continual re-education of the president as Bolton tried to enlighten him about that history.  

Why "were we still there?" Trump complained. "Every few days, someone would inadvertently press a button somewhere, and Trump would be repeating his lines from the same movie soundtrack" (210).

It's easy to understand why Trump did everything he could to stop, to stall, to change the content of this book (491). Like so many tomes, it reveals him to be the Emperor of No Content. 

* Although there are several references to Mnuchin and his trips to California, California is omitted from the otherwise good index, as are other words (vapors, Greenpeace, etc.). 

Coming up: I rate the Trump books!


patricialesli@gmail.com



















Thursday, December 31, 2020

Book review: 'Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up' is highly recommended

 

The chief message to journalists: Don't give up.

If I were in charge of reading lists for journalism students, this would be on it, a story within a story of how a civilization was decimated by the atomic bomb, and how the people bombed lived to tell about it.

Which they did to John Hersey, reporter and novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for A Bell for Adano, his first novel, the year before the bomb was dropped.

Lesley M. M. Blume's Fallout: The Hiroshima Coverup and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World (2020) follows Mr. Hersey's account of his interviews with six bomb victims and the secret production of the story in the New Yorker which published the report in a 31,000 word issue, the first time it devoted its entire issue to a single topic.

In the article which came out a little more than a year after the bomb dropped, Mr. Hersey describes the U.S. government's efforts to withhold the effects.

The story portrayed for the first time, Japanese as human beings, like me and you, ordinary people (p. 127). Until the story, Americans resisted considering their enemy across the sea as anything but murderers intent on destroying their nation. But the bomb drop on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 shattered the lives of civilians, children, families, people.

First atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan by B-29 superfortresses on August 6, 1945. Title from item. "Official photograph furnished by Headquarters, A.A.F. AC/AS-2"--stamped on back of print. "If published credit U.S. Army, A.A.F. photo"--stamped on back of print. Photo number: A-58914 AC. Forms part of the National Committee on Atomic Information records at the Library of Congress. PR 13 CN 1995:068 (1 AA size box)

Ms. Blum describes Mr. Hersey's three weeks in Japan interviewing survivors who became the focus of his article. How he got there and got "in" Hiroshima are important pieces of the story's puzzle.

His collaboration with the New Yorker's co-founder, Harold Ross, and an editor, William Shawn, were so secret, they kept the subject hidden from the magazine's staff who wondered about content missing for the next edition.

Two other journalists had earlier written about Hiroshima, but their reports were dismissed, although their reporting led to a requirement that reporters must be accompanied by an official.

Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett ridiculed "housetrained reporters" who simply wrote what the U.S. government wished (p. 30).

Worried about the U.S. military's response to the article, the New Yorker's trio passed it pre-publication for muster to Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project which developed the bomb. Surprisingly, with slight edits, he okayed it.

Tormented throughout his work, Hersey was horrified that a single bomb could cause so much destruction (p. 72).

One of the victims described eyes which melted, the liquid flowing down what used to be faces on people still alive.

Many ran naked through the streets.

Skin peeled off.

A baby choked on dirt swallowed in a collapsed house. The mother refused to relinquish her child's decomposing body for days (p. 85).

To escape the fires, some jumped into one of Hiroshima's seven rivers where bodies of massacred victims floated (p. 92).

Civilians appeared "like a procession of ghosts," one survivor told Mr. Hersey (p. 84).

Of 300 doctors in Hiroshima, 270 died or were wounded; nurses lost 1,654 of their 1,780 to death or injury (p. 89).

By November 30, 1945 the death count reached 78,000 with 14,000 people still missing.

Burned legs show the effects of atomic bombs on people who survived.Otis Historical Archives of “National Museum of Health & Medicine” (OTIS Archive 1)/Creative Commons, Wikipedia.

Partially incinerated child in Nagasaki. Photo from Japanese photographer Yōsuke Yamahata, one day after the blast and building fires had subsided. Once the American forces had Japan under military control, they imposed censorship on all such images including those from the conventional bombing of Tokyo which prevented the distribution of Yamahata's photographs. These restrictions were lifted in 1952 
 http://www.noorderlicht.com/en/archive/yosuke-yamahata/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66792817. 


On a press tour of facilities in New Mexico, Lieutenant General Groves told reporters that the number of Japanese who died from radiation was "very small" (p. 45) and that Hiroshima was "essentially radiation-free" (p. 46).

Speaking to the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, he quoted doctors who said death by radiation "is a very pleasant way to die" (p. 47). Mr. Groves had no apologies for the bomb drop, unlike some scientists who showed misgivings (p. 146).

The day after Victory over Japan was declared on August 14, 1945, a poll showed the majority of Americans approved the bombings, and almost 25% said they wished America had bombed more (p. 24).

After the story was published, the eyewitness subjects applauded Mr. Hersey's acuity in retelling their lives.

The article was printed as a book, Hiroshima, which became a worldwide phenomenon which has never gone out of print, selling three million copies and available in several languages. At publication it was picked up by 500 radio stations, including the BBC, and thrust Mr. Hersey into the limelight, a position he resisted.

The welcome epilogue brings the reader up-to-date with key characters, but a glossary of them would have amplified the content and made it easier to follow, a wish I have for most books I read.

This is a small book with an index of almost 100 pages which consumes almost a third of the total pages. I wished for more research, a longer book with additional "behind-the-scenes" descriptions.

Still, a book to be reckoned with and acknowledged as another chapter in America's gruesome past.

patricialesli@gmail.com





Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Book review: Bob Woodward's 'Rage'


Readers, he's much worse than you thought.

The first quarter of Rage is rather ho-hum, nothing much new as Bob Woodward sets the stage.  Momentum picks up when the Trump interviews begin.

This, with Michael Cohen's Disloyal, serve up a man as scatter-brained, tempestuous, vindictive, immature, hateful and superficial as one can possibly imagine any fictional character to be, but he is real, and, praise God, soon to leave Washington, D.C. for, we hope, forever.  Goodbye, you n'er do well!  2021 is looking better and better.

These books confirm my observation that Trump is not that smart. He's more like a toddler throwing temper tantrums. It's all for him or nothing. "I want my way! I want my way!" he bellows, and like a subservient parent, the media gives him "his way" (Cohen). The media elected him, says Cohen. Wait, this is a review of Woodward's book, not Cohen's. Where was I? (Now on to Bolton's.)

Interspersed in Rage are sections on Dr. Anthony Fauci, who, of course, plays a key role as coronavirus takes the spotlight and control from Trump and his sycophants.  The revelations about covid-19's strangulation of the U.S. brings one of the book's few humorous parts when Dr. Fauci describes Trump on page 354:  "His attention span is like a minus number.... His sole purpose is to get re-elected." 

No wonder Trump kicks up a fuss when he loses!  He will not believe it, and no one will tell the emperor he has no clothes.  He's nothing but a blunderbuss who recalcitrant Retrumplicans (Chris Cuomo) are afraid to challenge since the bully may sick a sickophant (sic!) their way! 

Mr. Woodward and Trump give serious discussion to the possibility that China deliberately set the U.S. on virus fire mimicking the SARS outbreak in 2002.

Mr. Woodward's epilogue ends:

 "When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion:  Trump is the wrong man for the job."  

For a second Rage edition, may I suggest the addition of a leaderboard for readers like me who find it somewhat difficult to keep all the players straight.   

Also, a correction for the location of the Feb. 11, 2020 event (page 244) found in "Source Notes" (p. 411) with Dr. Fauci at the Aspen Institute: It was held here, at Aspen's offices in Washington, D.C. not in Colorado . I know because I was there, and although unlikely, it is possible that the panel presented the same subject on the same day at the Aspen offices in Colorado. (One of the panelists was Ron Klain, later appointed to be President-Elect Biden's chief of staff. Also, it was the same day coronavirus got its official name, covid-19.


About the number of presidents (p. 391):  Although there have been 45 presidencies, there have only been 44 presidents since Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897).

patricialesli@gmail.com

Monday, August 31, 2020

Nyet! Book review: Candace Fleming's 'Family Romanov'


On July 17, 1918 the Romanov family of seven and their servants were murdered at this site in Yekaterinburg, Russia which was then the Ipatiev House. In later years, the Politburo and Premier Boris Yeltsin resisted the growing sacredness of the site and the pilgrims who visited the Ipatiev House and ordered it torn down in 1977. In its place, one of the largest churches in Russia, the Church on the Blood was erected.  It opened in 2003/Patricia Leslie
This statue honors the memory of the Romanov children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei at Ganina Yama where the bodies of the children, their parents, and servants were thrown into a pit, 9.5 miles from the murder site/Patricia Leslie
Lily fields at the Ganina Yama pit where the Bolsheviks threw the bodies which they burned with acid for two days before moving them to their second graves, a field 4.5 miles away. When this picture was made 100 years after the family assassinations, large photographs of family members hung on the wooden walkway which surrounded the lily field. Above are two of the Romanov daughters. Every year at the Church of the Blood in Yekaterinburg, thousands gather for services on the anniversary of the murders and then walk four hours to the iron pit at Ganina Yama for more ceremony/Patricia Leslie
The lily field at Ganina Yama with Nicholas II pictured at far left/Patricia Leslie
Fearing the Whites would find the bodies, the Bolsheviks moved them 4.5 miles from Ganina Yama to a field across these railroad tracks, the second burial site. This site was discovered in the late 1970s and kept secret until the Russian government changed in 1989/Patricia Leslie
 The second burial site of the Romanovs/Patricia Leslie
The entrance to the Chapel of St. Catherine the Martyr inside the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg, the third and last burial site of the Romanovs/Patricia Leslie
The Chapel of St. Catherine the Martyr, the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg, with the remains of the Romanovs and their servants, now saints of the Russian Orthodox Church/Patricia Leslie

At the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg/Patricia Leslie



It's as if a publisher ordered a writer to find the most negative research possible and turn it into a book, and that's exactly what Candace Fleming did with her 2014 The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia.

Fleming and her team found all things bad they could possibly locate about the Romanovs and then packed them into her book. Only when the family begins the last leg of their journey to Siberia and certain death, does Fleming show any sympathy and, maybe a little remorse, over the outcome.  


She describes the five children as "young savages" whose parents cared little about their children's education (not true). She ridicules an eight-year-old's behavior (show me a perfect eight-year-old), and the grammar of a 13-year-old. Tsk, tsk.

From criticizing the children to sneering at the family's pets, clothing, languages, childcare, schooling and illnesses, Fleming goes overboard to paint the family as n'er do wells, dilettantes with nothing more to do than smoke (Nicholas), frown and lay around (Alexandra), ignore
 their offspring and fail to keep up with their studies (the children).  (I suppose Fleming has never been a parent.) 

What was good about the Romanovs?  Oh, yes, the women played nursemaid during the War.

Even the speaker's condescending attitude makes its way onto the pages while she reads the book, no doubt given instruction to read in a haughty manner. She succeeds!

Designed to influence young readers, it's no wonder adults are not Fleming's market since anyone with a smidgen of Romanov knowledge would quickly recognize this portrayal as a lopsided, petty picture of a family sacrificed on the altar of politics.

On her website Fleming carries a trailer for the book which makes light of the family and their plight, accompanied by whimsical music.

Hundreds of books have been written about the family and this sad chapter of Russian history which elicit our sympathy and attempt to understand rather than ridicule. Who else does this? It may be the first time Fleming has been compared to Trump.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Book review: 'Justice in Moscow' by George Feifer


If Russian scholar and cultural historian George Feifer (1934-2019) had not died, it's unlikely I would have ever known about his book, Justice in Moscow (1964), which I found listed in Harrison Smith's engaging obituary of Mr. Feifer in the Washington Post last November. 


The book is all about the lower court system in Russia in the 1960s, and if the subject sounds dull, believe me, the way Mr. Feifer writes, it's anything but.

Written from an American perspective (Mr. Feifer was born in Paterson, N.J. and educated in the U.S.), Justice was one of several books Mr. Feifer wrote about Russia, including two semi-autobiographical novels. 

He first went to Russia in 1959 as a guide for an American automotive show and then later as an exchange 
student. That led to his affinity for and writing about Russian everyday life and the characters he discovered and befriended (one of whom he married and later divorced).
 
The book's dialogue can run for pages, but Mr. Feifer's excellent writing never leaves a reader wondering who is speaking. He brings the courtroom to life with his personal descriptions of domestic conflicts, minor crimes, and harsh penalties. (Shouts from the audience were [are?] permissible.)

Disagreements about childcare, living arrangements, alcohol's effects, and financial responsibilities filled the courts. Grandmothers often were handed parental roles while parents continued their flings. Marriage then (and now? Russia's divorce rate in 2016 was 60%, meaning there were more divorces than marriages) seemed like a sometime-thing which few took seriously.
It's a rare day in Russia when there are no weddings/Photo by Patricia Leslie, Tsarskoye Selo, 2018


Courts were open to anyone who wanted to come and see. On the occasions when the courtrooms were crowded and no seats were available, Mr. Feifer's dress (coat and tie) got him in. (Pages 200-201) 

Before trial, a two-to-four months' wait in jail for lesser crimes was not unusual. Many charged remained free, but Russia had no patience with those who failed to contribute to society. (88-89)

There was "the Soviet tendency to set an example by punishing the more affluent wrongdoers more severely. In the People's Court it is poor work in the factory, rather than a poor purse, that puts a defendant at a disadvantage." (79)

"Hooliganism" (being lazy without contributing to society) was a crime frequently mentioned. Russian citizens then could not understand the "American way," i.e., that many Americans live at societal expense. Mr. Feifer quotes a cleaning woman: "I just don't see how you can justify people living off capital instead of sweat." (198)  (A label commonly applied was known as "the Parasite Law.")

It was assumed that most of the accused were to be found guilty (216-17), and not every accused (save juveniles and mentally ill persons) were represented by lawyers. 

Mr. Feifer often observed "palsy-walsy" relationships between prosecutors and judges in courtrooms where the accused had no legal representation!

In some cases, the defendant's attorney was so harsh on the client, the attorney came across as a prosecutor, and in one courtroom, the attorney stated he didn't believe his own client! 

Many defendants relied on "the investigator" who supposedly acted as a researcher of the crime. Individuals had little protection in the courts which Mr. Feifer blamed on Peter the Great, Nicholas I, "and even the Moguls," rather than Stalin. (102)
Stalin's tomb at the Kremlin Wall, Red Square, Moscow/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018
At Red Square, Moscow/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018
Catherine the Great's gift of Peter the Great's statue welcomes visitors to St. Petersburg/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018

Unlike American legal hierarchy, Russian judges often abandoned the judiciary to become lawyers since the pay was about the same and attorneys' hours were shorter with opportunities to earn more "on the side." (234)

Mr. Feifer found lawyers to be better dressed than judges, friendlier to strangers (like himself), and full of questions about American legal practice. 

He observed many scars and amputations among Russian lawyers whose World War II experiences were evident.  "When these Russians talked about disarmament, there was a ring of honesty to their appeals." (237-38)


In the early 60s punishment for "economic crimes" was treated in the extreme. Despite earlier codes which defined sentencing for "currency speculation" to several years in prison, upper courts could change punishments to executions which they did. (247-248)

But rather than punishment and in "spirit of dedication to the Fatherland and to Communism," the book cites the primary purpose of Soviet courts was to educate the people about laws, discipline, and the respect of others related to "the rules of socialist living and behavior." (107)

Sixty years later and one wonders how this 1960s version compares to present-day Russia. With a thriving bureaucracy, it is doubtful much has changed.
 
A great book which I obtained through Fairfax County's interlibrary loan program.

Another wedding in Russia/Photo by Patricia Leslie, 2018

patricialesli@gmail.com