Shelved: Roundup of Book Posts December 16 - 31, 2023

 

Razor Girl.  Book 2 of 2 Andrew Yancy series.  Carl Hiaasen.  Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2019.  432 pages.

Stormy Weather.  Book of 3 of 7 Skink series.  Carl Hiaasen.  Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2021.  448 pages.

Florida Roadkill.  Book 1 of 26 Serge Storms series.  Tim Dorsey.  William Morrow Paperbacks, 2006.

I went for another run through some "Florida Man" fiction recently:  two Carl Hiaasen titles that I found at a used bookstore (a rarity to find them on a shelf, I'm told) and a Tim Dorsey title.  Dorsey passed away in November at age 62 and has been called the "Father of Florida Man Fiction."  Again, they're fast, often fun, poolside or beach reads, not exactly memorable, or even distinguishable, or life-changing.  More defining genre characteristics come to mind.  Here are some more "Florida Man fiction" commonalities:

1.  Everybody in Florida is an alcoholic, sex addict, and/or drug addict.

2.  Everybody in Florida is a scammer, con artist, criminal, or liar.

3.  Many, many Floridians have Daddy issues, both male and female characters.

4.  One reason they're so popular among Floridians and regular visitors is that they are chock full of real-life locations or very thinly-disguised real locations with fake names.  Every paragraph contains the names of local restaurants, bars, hotels/motels, highways and other landmarks.  The reader can easily picture the location and feel a familiarity because they've been there.

5.  Most books seem to contain at least one character who is an outspoken environmentalist, valiantly trying to sound the alarm over overdevelopment, even resorting to violence if necessary. 

6.  Each book contains truly inventive and violent methods of assaulting, torturing, or murdering people.  It seems as if "Florida Man fiction" writers have a really sick and twisted side of their personalities that they successfully exorcise by writing.

7. Florida Man fiction authors like to name check each other and plug each other's books in their own books. It's quite a tight clique.

As formulaic as the writing is, I do have to admit that a stampeding herd of Ernest Hemingway look-alikes (Dorsey)  is pure genius.

The Fixers:  Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling, and the MGM Publicity Machine.  E.J. Fleming.  McFarland & Company, 2004.  325 pages.

Think back on all the scandals you've heard of in the entertainment industry.  All of them, the most disgusting and disturbing and shocking.  Then consider that, no matter what rumors or stories you've heard, NOTHING compares to the real-life true scandals that occurred routinely in Hollywood under the old studio system:  slander, libel, rape, perversion, drugs, alcohol, and murder.  And a huge chunk of it happened at MGM studios, at the direction of studio head Louis B. Mayer and his closest aides, Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling.  Mannix and Strickling were MGM's "Fixers."  For three decades, when MGM stars and employees were involved in criminal activities, trapped in a sex scandal, got into an automobile accident, or caused some sort of public scene, they didn't call police or ambulances or doctors.  They called Mannix or Strickling, and the fixers took over.  They sent the proper "authorities" with bags of money to pay off any witnesses or injured parties in order to keep the event out of the news.  In order to fix the problems, policemen, nurses, doctors, ambulance attendants, reporters, bartenders, servers, morgue attendants, medical examiners, and district attorneys were all paid by MGM to report misbehavior to the fixers and to hide it from the public.

Fleming has published numerous books about Hollywood scandals over decades, and he writes in the introduction of this book that he only published stories that he was able to corroborate with evidence.  There were many more stories that he did not write because of lack of corroboration.  The stories that he does include are enough to destroy any positive feelings you might have had about the "Golden Days of Hollywood" or about the legendary stars of that era.  Fleming paints a picture of a Hollywood populated by closeted gays, lesbians, and bisexuals who were often forced into "lavender marriages" to conceal their truths from the public, drug addicts and alcoholics, rapists, pedophiles, bullies, and murderers.  The fixers' loyalty was to the studio. It was their job to procure drugs, arrange abortions, create cover stories to explain hospital and asylum stays, pay off injured civilians, cover up suicides, assaults, rapes, and murders, and, quite probably, even to arrange murders  --- all to protect the studio's investments in its stars.

In this book, you can read about the tragic lives - more tragic than any Hollywood screenwriter could possibly dream - of Clark Gable, Wallace Beery, Rudolph Valentino, Spencer Tracy, Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, George Reeves, Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, and Judy Garland, and many others.  Their stories will forever change your perception of Hollywood.

Author Talk

The Lost Tomb:  And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder.  Douglas Preston.  Grand Central Publishing, 2023.  320 pages.

I have read most of Douglas Preston's collaborative novels written with Lincoln Child and a couple of his nonfiction works, particularly The Monster of Florence and The Lost City of the Monkey God, and I have enjoyed them.  Preston is more than a novelist though; he is a journalist, often published in National Geographic, The New Yorker, Natural History, Smithsonian, and others.  His deep interest in archaeology and history is evident in everything he writes.  The Lost Tomb is a collection of 13 of his past articles, from 1989 forward.  These are stories that have special meaning for Preston; they have inspired and shaped his novels over the years.

The stories are about mysteries that are familiar to many like Dyatlov Pass where a group of Soviet mountain climbers were mysteriously killed, the discovery of ancient Egypt's largest tomb complex in the Valley of the Kings, and the mysterious money pit of Oak Island.  Several of the stories deal with ongoing archaeological debates about the peopling of the Americas.  Exactly who were the First Americans and how  and when did they arrive?  Who were the Clovis and Folsom peoples and where did they come from?  He also investigates major paleontological discoveries like Hell Creek Montana and the site of the asteroid crash that ended the Cretaceous Period and the Age of the Dinosaurs.  There are even stories about two of the biggest crime events in recent Italian history, the "Monster of Florence" serial killer case in which Preston found himself inadvertently deeply involved and the murder for which American student Amanda Knox was prosecuted.  Those stories leave the reader with serious doubts and questions about the Italian legal system.

Each and every story is fascinating, and each one is updated at the end.  For Preston and Child fans, it's extra fun to get a glimpse of the "origin stories" of several of their novels.  One can see direct lines from germination to fictionalization.

Author talk

Our Man in Tokyo:  An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor.  Steve Kemper.  Mariner Books, 2022.  448 pages.

Before reading this book, I knew very little about Japan in the decades before World War II.  In the U.S., I think that we are very Eurocentric in our interest in World War II, and the Pacific too often gets short shrift.  Few Americans have knowledge of much of anything leading up to Pearl Harbor or between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.  Our Man in Tokyo is a great step in filling that gap.

The 1930s were a chaotic decade in Japan.  The completely powerless Emperor oversaw a dozen different governments (Prime Ministers and Cabinets) rise and fall. Japan was in reality a military dictatorship dominated by ultra-nationalistic, power-hungry, hardline conservative generals and admirals who called all the shots. The military and secret police controlled every aspect of Japanese government and society, all in the name of the Emperor but totally without his input or involvement.  The Japanese press whipped up nationalistic Japanese fervor, touting Japanese superiority, condemning American and European interference in Japan's natural dominance of Asia and the Pacific, attacking and destroying moderate politicians, and preparing the population for war.  The press was totally controlled by the military. Political assassinations, coups, and their attempts became a regular part of Japanese life.  Assassins and insurrectionists proclaimed that they acted out of loyalty to the Emperor, and they were generally praised, made into heroes, and went unpunished or lightly punished.

Joseph C. Grew, a friend and college classmate of Franklin Roosevelt, was Our Man in Tokyo from 1932 to 1941, the American ambassador.  He was America's point man in Asia for the decade. He grew to really know and appreciate the culture of Japan, and many moderate Japanese seemed to respect and appreciate him.  He had access, knowledge, and insight that no other foreign diplomat had. He tried his best to change the collision course that Japan and the US seemed to be on, often putting himself at odds with Secretary of State Cordell Hull and other State Department higher-ups who seemed partial to China and may even have intentionally nudged the ship of state on that collision course.  Author Kemper used Grew's own diaries, State Department correspondence, and first-hand Japanese accounts to paint a very detailed picture of US-Japanese relations and the state of the Japanese government at the time.

I enjoyed the book a lot and learned much.  It makes a fantastic companion read with Erik Larson's book In the Garden of Beasts, about US Ambassador William E. Dodd in 1930s Berlin.

#histocratsbookshelf #histocratsbotd #histocratsread #bookstagram #ourmanintokyo #stevekemper #wwii #diplomatichistory #foreignpolicyhistory #wwiiinjapan #pearlharbor #pacifictheaterwwii 

Author Talk

Never Caught:  The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.  Erica Armstrong Dunbar.  37Ink, 2017. 272 pages.  

In 1789, sixteen-year old Ona Judge was one of the few enslaved people taken by President George Washington  to run his official household in New York.  She was Martha Washington's personal servant and seamstress, and her job was to accompany the First Lady at all times and to attend to all of her personal needs.  New York represented a whole new world for her. In the city, she saw more black people than she could have even imagined, having lived her life in the insular, very heavily-majority black, world of Mount Vernon and the surrounding Virginia.  She also went from the wide open spaces of the plantation where she actually managed to have alone time occasionally to the cramped executive mansion where she shared space with her fellow slaves and with paid white servants when not working, losing privacy.  However, one of the greatest cultural chocks for Judge may have been exposure to both free and enslaved blacks, engaged in all sorts of positions and living varied lives.  Perhaps this was inspirational to her.

Fast forward to 1796.  The Washingtons were now in the temporary (until the new Federal City is completed on the Potomac) capital of Philadelphia, and Judge was one of the even fewer enslaved people from Mount Vernon chosen to serve.  Public and private sentiment against slavery was much more pronounced in Philadelphia than in New York.  There were even more free black people and free black institutions in Philadelphia.  Pennsylvania passed a law stating that any slaves brought into the state would be automatically emancipated after six month of residence.  This law forced the Washingtons to shuttle their slaves back and forth to Mount Vernon for short stays every six months.  Then, Judge learned that she was to be given to Martha's granddaughter as a wedding gift.  That convinced her to take action, an action that would mean permanent separation from her family still living at Mount Vernon.  As the Washingtons packed for their regular trip back to Virginia, she packed to run away, slipping out the night before the family departed.  

The Washingtons were dumbfounded.  How could this ungrateful wench give up her privileged life to run away? They decided that she obviously didn't make the decision on her own; she was spirited away, perhaps by a lover who left her destitute on some cold northern streets.  Ads were placed and rewards offered, but Judge was never returned.  Although historical evidence about Judge's life are pretty slim, this book is her story.  There's little mystery. The Washingtons knew exactly where she was a year after she escaped, and the story is not as dramatic as other escape stories. "Relentless" should never have been considered as a word in the title. The story of the Washingtons' personal chef, Hercules Posey, his own escape less than a year later, and life as a fugitive is probably more interesting.  (See 2020's fictionalized The General's Cook by Ramin Ganeshram.)  However, Never Caught is an interesting look at the intricacies and legalities of slavery as practiced by the Washingtons and in multiple states.

 

Shelved: Roundup of Book Posts December 1 - 15, 2023

 

 
Christian Longo Story                                                                        True Story Movie Trailer (2015)

True Story:  Murder, Memoir, and Mea Culpa.  Michael Finkel.  Harper, 2005.  312 pages.

In 2001, Oregon police discovered the bodies of a mother and her three young children. Husband and father Christian Longo was arrested in Mexico and charged with their murders.  As it turns out, Longo had used a pseudonym in Mexico, introducing himself as New York Times Magazine journalist Michael Finkel.  Finkel was totally unaware of Longo and the murders until after the arrest. He had his own troubles. He had just been fired from the New York Times for fabricating a story about labor conditions on West African cacao plantations, derailing his climb into the stratosphere of top-ranked journalists.

In the depths of his despair, Finkel learned of Longo's case and the use of his name and began a weird relationship with the accused murderer by letter, weekly phone calls from jail, and jailhouse visits.  He envisioned writing an article that might lead to his professional redemption, and it became this book. 

The story is incredible. Finkel comes across at times as an entitled, self-absorbed, arrogant elitist - just the type of person I picture writing for the New York Times Magazine. He also inadvertently  paints his editor  in a bad light for refusing to print his original story because it would make journalists look bad. As for Longo, it's  hard to wrap my mind around the fact that people like him exist: intelligent, cold, calculating, manipulative. He's able to speak so convincingly  of his love for his family, the same family he murdered. It's a disturbing story and a look into a truly disturbed mind.

Short history of Vidalia Onions

Histocrats 7 Questions with Author

Vidalia Onions:  A History of Georgia's State Vegetable.  Lee Lancaster.  The History Press,  2023.  160 pages.

I must admit that I was fully prepared to dislike this book even though I had ordered a copy as soon as I saw an ad pop up. I'm a native Vidalian and figure I know something about local area history and about the official Georgia state vegetable, the Vidalia Onion, but I am no expert by any means.  My family had nothing to do with onion production, except that a couple of my mother's cousins grew some, we ate a couple of hundred pounds every season, and my aunt was the very first "Vidalia Onion Queen" in about 1950.  In the back of my mind, I was thinking "what kind of a book could this young state Department of Agriculture kid (Yes, I'm reaching the point at which everybody becomes a "young kid.") write in a few months?".  

I was pleasantly surprised.  Lancaster immediately scored points on page one by explaining the correct, native, pronunciation, "Vi-day-ya," no L.  then he wrote a perfectly fine, concise history of Vidalia and Toombs and Tattnall Counties, the area where the onions were first grown.  From there, he documents the onion's rapid rise to the special food status that it enjoys today as well as its position as Georgia's greatest single vegetable revenue producer, generating $150 million or so each year. Alas, he made no mention of my aunt's royalty, but she was always a queen nevertheless. Overall, it's a great book to add to my library.

Author Talk

The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West.  Chris Wimmer.  St. Martin's Press, 2023.  320 pages.  

1876 is a landmark year in American history.  The country celebrated its centennial with a major exposition in Philadelphia, where visitors marveled at exhibits showcasing inventions like the telephone.  Baseball team owners joined together to create the National League.  Mark Twain published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  Legendary Old West lawman Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down in a Deadwood saloon, and the James-Younger Brothers gang attempted to rob the bank in Northfield Minnesota.  In June of 1876, the US military suffered its greatest defeat of the Indian Wars at the Little Bighorn when Lakota and Cheyenne warriors devastated the 7th cavalry.  

In The Summer of 1876, Chris Wimmer attempts to weave together the stories of these men and events that made 1876 such a landmark year.  He doesn't quite succeed.  The stories are told well, but there's really nothing new here, and he never really ties everything together cohesively.  However, it all makes for an interesting snapshot of a particularly significant summer.

Author Talk

A Shot in the Moonlight:  How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South.  Ben Montgomery.  Little, Brown Spark, 2021.  304 pages.

On January 21, 1899, 25 masked and armed white men gathered in the middle of the night at the home of George and Mollie Dinning and their ten children in Simpson County Kentucky.  Dinning, formerly enslaved, worked as a farm laborer and farmed himself, and he had purchased 125 acres and built a home for his family. The mob accused him of stealing livestock, smoked hams, and other property and ordered to leave the county within ten days. Shots were fired, and one of the trespassers was mortally wounded. Dinning knew what was likely to happen next and fled in order to save himself and his family. The next day, the men returned, burned down the Dinning home and outbuildings, and drove Mollie and the children out of the county.  Dinning turned himself in to the sheriff and faced trial for murder, while mobs planned his lynching.

Fortunately, Kentucky had some white men step forward in support. Several major newspapers defended him and his right to defend his home and family. A former Confederate officer stepped up and served as his attorney, alongside other attorneys.  The sheriff, jailer, and soldiers protected him while he was in custody, and Governor W.O. Bradley closely monitored every development in the ensuing trials, exercising his authority to make them as fair as possible.  The Dinning cases, criminal and civil, became landmarks in the Jim Crow South, but they were largely forgotten until Ben Montgomery published A Shot in the Moonlight in 2021.  While the events and the outcome are not pretty, it's a story about seeking justice "in a time and place where justice was all too rare." 

23 Creatures and Characters Associated with Christmas

The Scary Book of Christmas Lore:  50 Terrifying Yuletide Tales From Around the World.  Tim Rayborn.  Cider Mill press, 2023. 144 pages.

"He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake. This lighthearted song is a bit more ominous in the context of other Christmas traditions. From beasts that threaten to cook children into stew to sinister crones who snatch little ones from their beds, you won’t find any dancing sugar plums here. Outside of the heartwarming Christmas tales we all know and love, there are an abundance of frightening stories to chill all who hear them to the bone."  (Amazon blurb)

Santa Claus is kind of creepy when you think about it, right?  He knows  all and determines if you've been good or not. The original St. Nicholas supposedly performed miracles like reanimating murdered and dismembered children.  And then Dr. Seuss went and created The Grinch.  However, there have been dozens and dozens of winter creatures created over hundreds of years around the world, and some of these have been conflated with Christmas celebrations or as companions of St. Nick.  Why winter creatures?  Winter was truly a terrifying time hundreds of years ago, especially among Europeans - cold, gloomy, dead, with the ever-present threat of illness or starvation, so people created stories and characters that reflected their despair and dread.  It seems like the most fertile ground for such stories was central Europe, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, for whatever reasons.

This book collects some of the scariest stories in one volume.  Not just Krampus, familiar to many people now, but also mischief makers like the Kallikantzari of Greece and Mari Lwyd of Wales and cannibals on the prowl for naughty children on which to feast like Pere Fouettard, Hans Trapp, Gryla, and Frau Perchta.  

This is a really fun read and a quick cultural history trip around the world.

Shelved: Roundup of Book Posts November 16 - 30, 2023

 

Author talk

All the Sinners Bleed.  S A Crosby.  Flatiron Books, 2023.  352 pages.

"Mystery/Thriller/Suspense" is not a usual genre for me to read, but I've read great things about author S.A. Crosby, and he is one of the guest authors at February's Savannah Book Festival, so I decided to give his latest a try.  It ended up being a good read. The "Mystery/Thriller/Suspense" part is a pretty good thriller that definitely kept me engaged, but there's more to Crosby's books.  He's gotten a lot of attention because he's very good at writing thrillers through the southern history lens.  His books incorporate all the southern threads:  race, class, poverty, religion, change, and resistance to change.  

All the Sinners Bleed's main character is Sheriff Titus Crown, former FBI agent and the first black sheriff in a rural Virginia county.  He has a lot to deal with. Memories of his last major FBI case, which left him mentally and physically damaged, affect every aspect of his personal and professional life as he steps into his new role as Sheriff of the county he was born and raised in.  He knows the people, their stories, and their attitudes.  A year into his tenure, a serial killer emerges, and it becomes Titus' job to stop him.  History is a major part of the story, the characters' histories, the community history, and southern history in general.

Great quote from the book:  "It occurred to him that no place was confused about its past or more terrified of the future than the South."  

James Garner on The Tonight Show

The Garner Files.  James Garner and Jon Winokur.  Simon & Schuster, 2011. 288 pages.  

James Garner may be the most beloved man in the history of the entertainment industry.  No one has ever had a bad word to say about him, and co-stars, crewmembers, and friends speak in glowing terms. Men love his common sense, humble, smart, and funny on -screen characters, and women love his tall, dark, handsome, sensitive, and humorous side. As the saying goes, women want to be with him, and men want to be him or at least be buddies with him.

I'm no exception.  "Maverick" is my all-time favorite western tv show and character, and I still watch often.  I watched "The Rockford Files" as a kid and still watch occasionally.  I discovered his autobiography from a social media reel that quoted from it.  The man was everything you would expect.  James Bumgarner grew up in Depression-era Oklahoma, and he had a really hard life with an alcoholic father and an abusive step-mother.  He got into acting because he didn't want to be a carpet-layer, and he carved out a fantastic career.  The whole book is a great read, and my impressions of Garner are confirmed.  He does seem to really have been a great guy.  OK, he did have one major defect:  even the scent of garlic or onions made him physically ill, but I can overlook that.

Garner, Maverick, and Rockford fans will really enjoy the book with all of its behind the scenes stories.  Garner created two of the most unique, interesting, and beloved characters in television history.  "Maverick" and "The Rockford Files" are both genre-benders that have endured for decades.  Throughout his career, Garner hated all of the trappings of Hollywood stardom, the awards, the pretensions, the publicity, and the business aspects.  He simply saw acting as a job (better than laying carpet), and he did his best at it.  Along the way, he treated co-stars, crew members, and fans respectfully and became one of the most admired and universally loved people in entertainment history.

CBS Sunday morning segment 

Thank You (Falettin Me Be Mice Self Agin): A Memoir.  AUWA, 2023.  320 pages.  

I have always been aware of Sly and the Family Stone. Peripherally, growing up in the 70s and 80s. Mostly country music was played in our house, and my older brother was listening to rock, especially southern rock, but I heard Sly Stone music and caught variety and talk show appearances here and there.  Then, he seemingly disappeared.  I discovered funk as a teen and saw huge connections between Sly Stone and Prince, Rick James, George Clinton, and The Time, so I went back and dug slightly deeper into Family Stone music, still didn't know much beyond the hits.

As Sly and the Family Stone climbed the charts, Stone, aka Sylvester Stewart, fell into the trap of drug addiction and developed an unprofessional reputation of no-shows, tardiness, abbreviated and bad performances, incoherent interviews, tantrums, excess, and even gunplay.  As a result, he disappeared from the music industry. (Actually, he still worked, sometimes in front of very small audiences.) Thankfully, he's now in a period of sobriety, at age 80, and he tells his own story in this just published autobiography.  In spite of his struggles with drug use, the story is clearly and thoughtfully told.  I'm amazed by his memory.  His genius also shines through as it becomes clear that he became a real student of music and music theory at an early age, and he was calculating and methodical about so much of his career, not just the music itself, but also how he put the band together, how he dealt with record company executives, and how he managed the band,  He created a new kind of music and brought people together during a very divisive period, creating iconic and unique songs that have stood the test of time, and he was a major influence on many performers since, but he wasn't always the best human being. It's great that he is still around to tell his story and perhaps still be recognized during his lifetime.  Most people around him in the 1970s probably never imagined that would have been possible.

Interview in two parts (audio)

An Edible History of Humanity.  Tom Standage.  Bloomsbury USA, 2010.  288 pages.

In 2005, Tom Standage published A History of the World in 6 Glasses, telling history through the histories of 6 of the most common drinks in the world, including coffee, tea, beer, and Coke. It became one of my favorite  reads. In 2010, he published An Edible History of Humanity, a more general look at world history.

"More than simply sustenance, food historically has been a kind of technology, changing the course of human progress by helping to build empires, promote industrialization, and decide the outcomes of wars. Tom Standage draws on archaeology, anthropology, and economics to reveal how food has helped shape and transform societies around the world, from the emergence of farming in China by 7500 b.c. to the use of sugar cane and corn to make ethanol today. An Edible History of Humanity is a fully satisfying account of human history." (publisher's blurb)

The result is a really engrossing new perspective on history, but it's not quite as engrossing, in my opinion, as Six Glasses. It reads a little drier --- no pun intended -- and at times is a little dense in science. As the title implies, it's  not as much about specific foods as about the impact of certain foods, like grains, sugar, and spices, and the use of food by governments to drive economies, force change, and even to wage war. 

Author interview

Black Death at the Golden Gate:  The Race to Save America From the Bubonic Plague.  David K. Randall.  W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.  304 pages.  (American Experience documentary here https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/plague-golden-gate/ )

A deadly epidemic, originating in Asia, threatens  the US.  Politicians, the press, and scientists are divided and at odds with each other on how to deal with the threat.  Various jurisdictions discuss and implement quarantines and start requiring health documents for travel.  At-risk people are isolated. Large portions of the population lose faith in the government and the healthcare system. Many refuse vaccinations. 

No, not 2020 and the pandemic. All of this took place in California in the first decade of the 20th century. In 1900, the first cases of bubonic plague, black death, occurred in San Francisco's  Chinatown. Eventually, there are over 100 confirmed deaths, and probably many, many more hidden from authorities. While one bacteriologist, one of the first in America,  recognizes the grave threat and fights it, politicians, the press, the US Surgeon General ( his boss), Chinese business and tong leaders, and President  McKinley all actively conspire to deny the plague's existence and to destroy the career  of the one man who knows what's  going on.

This book, published in 2019, very much reads like an Erik Larsen or David Grann work- in other words, first-rate. ... And if you're  that rare bird that has any remaining trust in politicians, journalists, or humanity in general, be prepared to lose some of it.

Shelved: Roundup of Book Posts November 1 - 15, 2023

 

"The Bizarre Origins of Florida Man"

Florida Hustle.  Paul Wilborn.  St Petersburg Press, 2022.  310 pages.

Swamp Story.  Dave Barry.  Simon & Schuster, 2023.  320 pages.

Tourist Season.  Carl Hiaasen. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1986.  272 pages. (One of many "Florida Man" books by Hiaasen)

The "Florida Man"/"Florida Woman" trope is ubiquitous.  When you see it in a headline or hear it in a tease, you know you're in for some weird and wacky story that you will most likely repeat to friends.  There are jokes, tv shows, podcasts, newsletters, books, memes galore, and tons of merchandise. Many of the true stories are documented and archived by our friend, author and journalist Craig Pittman in his "Welcome to Florida" podcast, weekly newsletter, and books and articles.  (Website https://craigpittman.com/ )

However, I don't think I realized that "Florida Man" also covers a whole unique genre of fiction, and I've sampled several in the last couple of years, including the three featured here.  I've noticed some similar characteristics.

1.  written by former newspaper writers, especially of Tampa, St. Petersburg, or Miami newspapers

2.  All of the characters are losers in some way: damaged, lonely, addicted, abused, busted relationships.

3.  Rich people are all especially miserable.

4.  There always weird, gross, criminal, violent, incompetent pairs of brothers to hire as henchmen.

5.  Women are all incredibly sexy and end up with the loser hero who always forgives their treachery (and their always treacherous to one degree r another).

6.  Every good story involves Seminoles, the Everglades, or at the very least, alligators.  

7. All Florida biological families are broken. "Chosen" families are forever. 

Look, they're not great literature or necessarily historical,, but they're fun reads usually.

Author Talk

Through the Groves:  A Memoir.  Anne Hull. Henry Holt & Co., 2023.  224 pages.

I guess it's mandatory:  if you've ever written for a Tampa, St. Petersburg, or Miami newspaper, you are required to publish at least one book of some sort.

Journalist Anne Hull published her memoir of growing up in 1960s Central Florida.  My wife grew up near Orlando, and I have a couple of friends and multiple cousins who grew up in Central Florida and on the Gulf Coast around the same time, but none of them had connections to the state citrus industry that Hull and her family had.  Meanwhile, I grew up in rural South Georgia.  So, even though Hull's experiences are different, there are definitely familiarities.

Through the Groves has gotten a lot of buzz and acclaim, and it has appeared on many lists of best books of the year.  I realize there is a huge audience for this story, and some readers will absolutely love it.  However, it's just not for me.  Don't get me wrong, Hull is an excellent writer and storyteller.  I simply found the story lacking.  There are some family difficulties and there is inner turmoil within the young Hull, nothing groundbreaking or incredibly shocking or publishing worthy.  There are a lot more interesting lives out there.  Just my opinion, but I'm sure some of you will enjoy it, and that's fine too.

"Finding Traces of a Failed Aryan Colony in Paraguay" New York Times

Forgotten Fatherland:  The True Story of Nietzsche's Sister and Her Lost Aryan Colony.  Ben Macintyre.  Crown, 2011.  320 pages.

I didn't think this was possible:  a Ben Macintyre book that disappointed me.   Macintyre is a British journalist and author who has written many books and created many documentaries, mostly about World War II.  He's highly regarded, and I enjoyed a couple of his previous books.  In 2011, he published a book about his quest for Nueva Germania, a German colony within Paraguay founded by the sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and her husband in the 1880s.  Nueva Germania was to be a New Germany, free of non-Aryan handicaps.  It failed miserably, but Elisabeth Nietzsche's greatest work was still ahead of her.  First, she singlehandedly edited, shaped, made up, and published her brother's works as he declined into dementia and death.  Without her work, the world at large probably would never have heard Friedrich Nietzsche.  Only a very few academics ever read his philosophy during his lifetime, and it was universally dismissed until Elisabeth got her hands on it.  Second, she linked him and his work forever with the burgeoning Nazi movement and with Hitler.  There is absolutely no evidence that Hitler ever personally read or embraced Nietzsche's ideas, and, in fact, Macintyre makes the case that Nietzsche himself would have fervently opposed fascism, antisemitism, and Nazism just as much as Elisabeth embraced them all.  Hitler, however, realized the potential propaganda value in using the dead philosopher and his living sister's celebrity status among some Germans, and he used them very effectively, so much so that we now associate Nietzsche with Nazism.  Macintyre argues that our connection of the two is faulty.

Unfortunately for me, the book devotes too much time to Nietzsche's philosophy and too little time to the actual colony itself.  I wanted to know more about the colony and about the remnants of the colony that still exists.  Yes, there is a small community of German-Paraguayans descended from the original colonists who struggle to maintain their German purity today.  Alas, there are very few pages about the colony itself.  

Panel discussion on SAS including Damien Lewis

Brothers in Arms:  Churchill's Special Forces During WWII's Darkest Hour.  Damien Lewis.  Citadel, 2023.  400 pages.

Regardless of his faults, Winston Churchill was ahead of his time when it came to recognizing the importance of propaganda and espionage as major parts of the war effort.  He was very involved in those areas throughout World War II.  When he called for volunteers to join the Special Forces and undertake espionage and sabotage missions behind enemy lines, scores of men answered his call, and the SAS was formed.  

If you are a military history buff, this book is definitely for you.  Damien Lewis exhaustively searched through declassified archives, letters, diaries, military reports, and rare photos and films.  Much of the material he researched had never been seen by the public before.  Along with all of that documentation, he conducted numerous interviews with surviving veterans and family members.  The result is an exciting narrative of incredible acts committed by an  incredible assortment of unbelievable real-life characters.

Author's Lecture

The Poisoner's Handbook:  Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.  Debra Blum.  Penguin Press, 2010.  336 pages. (American Experience PBS documentary https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/poisoners/ )

The Roaring 20s saw a lot of "booms."  The economy boomed, women's rights boomed with the passage of the 19th amendment granting suffrage and with flappers doing things respectable women of past generations never dreamed of, new literary and art movements boomed, jazz dominated the music scene, and there were literal booms of violence as anarchists and racists used bombs, guns, riots, and lynchings to reach their goals.  There was also an epidemic of deaths by poison that swept through New York City during the 1920s. Chloroform, arsenic, strychnine, and other chemicals, natural and man-made, were easy to get, and historically difficult to detect. Before the 1920s, it was extremely difficult to prove murder by poisoning in a court of law; science just wasn't up to the task.  However, that began to change in the 1920s.  NYC's Chief Medical Examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler undertook groundbreaking work in a laboratory at the city's Bellevue Hospital. Their work was instrumental in the development of forensics and toxicology.

Author Debra Blum examines their work in this book which is a mixture of true crime, 1920s history, and science history.  The final product is a very interesting read. 

Shelved: Roundup of Book Posts October 16 - 31, 2023

 

Author talk at the Museum of Jewish Heritage

The American Way:  A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe.   Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler.  Simon & Schuster, 2023.  384 pages.

I love connections in history, and The American Way is a great example of connections done in a great and thoroughly entertaining way.  What connections?  In The American Way, co-author Bonnie Siegler manages to connect her Jewish grandparents' story of escaping Nazi Germany to New York to fellow Jewish refugee and Hollywood movie writer/director Billy Wilder to the creators of Superman to Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio to New York mob boss Frank Costello to a softcore porn magazine publisher.  Each one of the stories told is amazing and interesting, especially the story of Superman's creation and how the creators were cheated out of their just rewards by the publisher, the aforementioned smut peddler.  

Well, OK, true, the hub of the story is the story of Siegler's grandparents, Jules and Edith Schulback, a young Jewish furrier and his wife who managed to escape Nazi Germany just before the start of WWII.  Their experiences in Germany and those of their family members who were unable to escape are well documented and told.  The stories of the other individuals are the spokes radiating from the Schulback hub.  Altogether, the parts make for a very satisfying wheel of reading.

"Who was the best English monarch?" David Mitchell ranks

Unruly:  The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens.  David Mitchell.  Crown, 2023. 448 pages.  

A couple of weeks ago, David Mitchell appeared on my favorite talk show, "The Graham Norton Show," to promote his newly published history of English monarchs.  I had never heard of the book, but I immediately grabbed my phone and downloaded the audiobook version before he even sat down on the couch. Mitchell is one of my favorite British comic actors, and I'm a huge fan of his appearances on the British celebrity panel comedy/quiz shows.  He's incredibly witty, very snarky, and totally out of touch with popular culture, constantly ribbed by co-panelists for being ultra-"posh."  And he has a history degree.  I relate to him on many levels.

Unruly is all that I expected it to be.  Mitchell takes the reader from the beginning - the fictional King Arthur - up to the reign of Elizabeth I (meaning that a volume 2 is in the works, I hope).  He is a true iconoclast throughout, fully exposing the foibles and ridiculousness of the monarchs, their supporters and challengers, and the historians who have chronicled them over them over the centuries, with his characteristically biting Bitter humor in every paragraph.  However, don't be misled.  As the publisher's blurb says,  Unruly is "A funny book that takes history seriously." It's also a seriously funny history book.  

Lecture on the Election of 1932

Histocrats 7 Questions with Author

1932:  FDR, Hoover, and the Dawn of a New America.  Scott Martelle.  Citadel Press, 2023. 407 pages.

Authors use phrases like "Dawn of a New America" and "turning point" in subtitles all the time, but some authors fail to prove their case.  In 1932, Scott Martelle succeeds in laying out evidence that shows the significance of the presidential election between President Herbert Hoover and New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt, and he's written an excellent book about the candidates and the election.

Hoover and Roosevelt represented two different approaches to politics. Hoover was the traditionalist, believing voters would choose his record of administrative competence and conservative leadership over a naive, unproven upstart just spouting off platitudes. He saw campaigning as beneath him.  Like nominees before him, he did not appear at the nominating convention and never really displayed a desire for the presidency. He played hard to get, "Well, if you really, really want me to be your president, I guess I will."  For a large chunk of American history, it was considered unseemly to campaign for yourself; the candidates relied on surrogates to sling the political mud.  On the other hand, FDR was one of the most politically astute politicians in history, in my mind second only to Lincoln among US presidents, and every waking moment for over a decade was spent preparing for his presidential campaigns.  Rags to Riches orphan exemplar Hoover was seen as aloof, cold, uncaring and out of touch with average Americans, while privileged millionaire FDR convinced the poorest farmers that he understood their plight, and he won black voters over despite blocking all civil rights and anti-lynching legislation and even though blacks were often excluded from New Deal benefits.  FDR's new political style changed presidential politics forever.

Martelle also does a great job of putting the election into the context of 1932. Many forces came together, creating a "perfect storm" that led to the transition:  the Great Depression, the farming crisis, the Bonus Army, the Scottsboro Boys case, labor riots, the rise of socialism and communism, the KKK.  I learned things from reading the book about each one, and Martelle weaves all of the threads together to tell a compelling story.

 

Monty Python - Ypres 1914

Great-Uncle Harry:  A Tale of War and Empire.  Michael Palin.  Random House Canada, 2023.  336 pages.

You might know Michael Palin as a member of the great Monty Python comedy troupe or maybe from one or more of his excellent television travel series, but Great-Uncle Harry is a bit of a departure for Palin because it's a very personal family history, a quest in a way, decades in the making.  During the height of the Monty Python days, Palin's family inherited a collection of diaries, photos, and letters, a treasure trove of family documents.  Many of the items had to do with his Great-Uncle Harry, the brother of his grandfather.  Harry had never really been spoken of in the family before.  In fact, Palin had not known he had a Great-Uncle Harry, but he discovered that Harry had been one of thousands of young British men killed in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme.  Palin was intrigued, but life intervened.  Only in recent years did he decide to really dig deep and try to discover who Harry was.  This book is the result.  The finished product is an engrossing story, told of course with Palin's wit, not just of one victim of the Great War, but of the British Empire, as the subtitle foreshadows.  The reader is drawn in for glimpses of British education, class system, and society as a whole through Harry's eyes, and Harry comes across as an ordinary, average bloke kind of flailing around and trying to find his place and fit in a rapidly changing world. Palin makes a real connection, not complete but at least a connection, to a family member he never knew and makes him accessible to the rest of us as well.

Author's podcast appearance

The League of Lady Poisoners:  Illustrated True Stories of Dangerous Women.  Lisa Perrin.  Chronicle Books, 2023.  208 pages.

You say you're looking for a fun read and a beautifully illustrated book about infamous women in history who used poisons to murder?  Well, look no further. The League of Lady Poisoners is the book for you.  Lisa Perrin has illustrated many books in her career, but this is the first book that she's both written and illustrated.  She's obviously a little different; she dedicates the book to her parents, saying they hoped that she would create a beautiful children's book as her first book, and yet....

She tells the stories of 25 women from all over the world and across centuries who were accused of poisoning people, and they are organized by motive.  Some used their knowledge of plants to attain wealth and position, even becoming official, or unofficial, functionaries, providing their services to the powerful or to those hungry for power.  Some used poisons to collect insurance money or inheritances.  Others may have seen poison as their only chance to escape a life of abuse and mistreatment.  Some were just pure evil.  In the stories of the women, the reader learns a lot about their times and societies and where women actually stood in those societies.  

The book starts with a really interesting history of poisons, detailing their origins, uses, and effects.  Perrin also delves into the reasons that poisoning was seen as women's work.  As you might expect from Perrin's background, it's also a beautiful hardcover book with gold foil details on the outside and great illustrations throughout.  

Shelved: Roundup of Book Posts October 1 - 15, 2023

 

Mary Musgrove, inspiration for Creek Mary

Creek Mary's Blood.  Dee Brown. Henry Holt & Company, 1980. 401 pages.

Students of Georgia history learn the story of Mary Musgrove, a Creek Indian woman who was an important part of Georgia's founding. She served as an interpreter and intermediary between the local Creeks and Georgia's first colonists. Lovers of history, and western history in particular, recognize the name Dee Brown as one of the leading historians and writers specializing in America's western history, the author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a landmark re-interpretation.  Published in 1970, Bury was at the forefront of the movement to end the romanticization of the Old West and Indian Wars to tell the real history of white-indigenous relations. 

In 1980, Brown published Creek Mary's Blood, a highly fictionalized story obviously inspired by Mary Musgrove.  It's also very reminiscent of the great 1964 novel Little Big Man because it's a sprawling, multi-generational novel that covers a long period of time in the lives of the main characters as their lives intersect with real historical figures, from James Oglethorpe (the founder of Georgia) to Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, I could easily see this novel as a movie like "Little Big Man" or a 1980s tv miniseries like "Centennial."

The story of Creek Mary and her progeny is told in the novel by Dane, her 91-year old grandson, speaking to a journalist in 1905.  He recounts Mary's life in Georgia, the Trail of Tears and the violent division within the Cherokee tribe that resulted, his move west to live among the Cheyenne, and his children's and grandchildren's involvement in the Civil War, the Battle of Little Bighorn, and the Wounded Knee Massacre.  It's an epic story of five generations of a family that covers two centuries and serves as a crash course in Native American history.  The novel may stretch credulity here and there, and a few elements make it a little awkward in terms of fiction quality, but it's entertaining.

Author podcast appearance

The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel:  Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I.  Douglas Brunt.  Atria Books, 2023. 384 pages.

Like the author, Douglas Brunt, I initially knew next to nothing about Rudolf Diesel, what a diesel engine actually is, or how the invention of the engine was really one of the greatest technological advances in human development.  I also had no idea that Diesel's body was fished out of the North Sea in 1913.  He was on a steamship headed from Belgium to the UK when he mysteriously disappeared.  Was it an accident, suicide, or murder?  

Diesel's engine was absolutely revolutionary. It was powerful and efficient. It cut down on noxious fumes and smoke created by burning coal and traditional petroleum products. It could power factories and vehicles. It allowed for immediate starts.  It could be fueled by nut or vegetable oils. It transformed military and commercial navies, provided more power and speed, saved space once taken up by tons of coal, eliminated the need for many refueling stops and for the dozens of crewmen who were normally required to shovel coal, and making submarines more feasible.  All of these factors made Rudolf Diesel the leading engineering superstar of the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Did his engine also make him the target of a murder plot?

The chief suspects were very powerful men.  John D. Rockefeller saw the diesel engine as an existential threat to his business and to his fortune.  Kaiser Wilhelm II was determined to make Germany a world superpower, taking over the UK's supremacy.  Although his ancestral home and home for much of his life was Germany, Diesel preferred to think of himself as a "citizen of the world" rather than a German.  He worked to make his technology accessible in every country.  He was on his way to the UK to offer support to that country's growing submarine development program.  Did Rockefeller of Wilhelm decide to eliminate the engineer ?

Douglas Brunt's book is an excellent biography of Diesel, and it tells the story of the engine's development, both the science and the business, without bogging down into too much technical detail.  He explains the significance of the engine and expertly puts it into the context of the age, the eve of WWI, with great insights into the lives and personalities of Rockefeller and Wilhelm, with sketches of Edison, Ford, Marconi and others along the way.  Finally, he puts forward his own theory as to what happened.  I highly recommend this book.

"But, Mr. Adams" 1776

Dr. Craig watches "Wheel of Fortune", "St. Elsewhere"

There I Go Again:  How I Came to be Mr. Feeny, John Adams, Dr. Craig, KITT, and Many Others.  William Daniels.  Potomac Books, 2017.  240 pages.

William Daniels has had a long and distinguished career as an actor.  I first became aware of him when I watched "St. Elsewhere" as a teen in the 1980s.  It is still regarded as one of TV's greatest series and probably the best medical-themed series.  The acting, writing, storylines, and technical innovations have influenced every single medical show that has aired since, from "ER" to "Scrubs."  The show was the first big acting break for many including Ed Begley Jr, Mark Harmon, Howie Mandel, and Denzel Washington.  William Daniels was at its center as Dr. Mark Craig.

But then, I discovered him in the greatest historically based musical ever produced in the history of man:  "1776."  Everyone knows I generally detest musicals, but this one grabbed me. Historically accurate, with great songs and lots of humor, I showed the entire movie to practically every American history class I taught. It was the basis of my teaching of the Declaration of independence. Daniels starred as John Adams.  Later, he would also play John Quincy Adams, joining a select group of actors who have played more than one President.

And yes, he also was the only redeeming feature of a couple of garbage shows: "Boy Meets World" and "Knight Rider." But an actor's gotta act.

A couple of weeks ago, I was thrilled to meet the 96-year old William Daniels, and he graciously signed a copy of his autobiography and a "1776" poster for me.

His autobiography is a terrific read, full of his wit and memories from a decades long career that started when his mother forced him onto the stage as a small boy in Great Depression era Brooklyn.  He and his younger sisters had a family act culminating in their own radio show.   He started acting on Broadway at 15 in one of the longest-running Broadway plays ever even though he had never been in or even seen a play before being cast (as understudy originally).  He writes about encounters with famous people like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Billie Holiday, Veronica Lake, and Marilyn Monroe, and in great detail about the roles for which he's most famous. It's fun and fast, especially for a fan.

Author podcast appearance

Histocrats 7 Questions with Author

The Ghost Tattoo.  Tony Bernard.  Citadel, 2023.  336 pages.

Tony Bernard and his siblings grew up as typical Australian beach bums.  Tony was an adult before he met somebody for whom surfing, sailing, and the ocean weren't all that important. They knew things about their father growing up, too. They knew that he was a successful and popular doctor and that he was a Holocaust survivor; he carried the tattooed number on his arm.  They also knew that their mother divorced their father and had no contact with them for a decade.  What they didn't know was that their father's Holocaust experiences were at the center of the failed marriage, and they didn't know just how deeply and profoundly his experiences had damaged him.  He was that good at shielding his children, but the shields failed when it came to himself and his marriage.

Then, cracks in the shield started developing in 1970 when he, and Tony, flew to West Germany so that he could testify in the trial of a Holocaust murder case. Later, in the 1970s, Tony accompanied him to his Polish hometown, and he learned more of the story.  Still, it took another few decades to pull the story out in its entirety.  Henry, Tony's father, had not only seen most of his family killed while he himself survived concentration camps, but he had lived through another whole tragedy before being deported to the camps - the source of the majority of the anguish and torment that plagued the rest of his life.  He had been a member of the Jewish Order Service in his hometown. Just as the name suggests, the JOS was created to serve the German occupiers by enforcing order among the Jewish population.  Henry soon found himself facing seemingly impossible dilemmas and being forced to do terrible things in order to keep himself and his loved ones alive.  As Tony Bernard writes in an upcoming 7 Questions with Histocrats (to be published October 13th), this story forces the reader to ask himself what he would have done.  

This book is a unique twist on the usual Holocaust story and worth a read.  

Author talk

The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story.  Kermit Roosevelt III.  University of Chicago Press, 2022, 256 pages.

If you are interested in reading a thoughtful and thought-provoking take on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the true character of the United States, The Nation That Never Was may be a book for you.  It is challenging, but not in a difficult-to read, legal-ese, constitutional-theorists-having-a-scotch-in-a-wood-paneled-library-esoteric-debate kind of way. It challenges what  Americans have been taught and think they know about the founding of America and its two most important founding documents, and it challenges our ideas about American ideals, but it's written in  very accessible language.

Kermit Roosevelt III is an American author, lawyer, constitutional scholar, and a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a great-great-grandson of United States President Theodore Roosevelt and a distant cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

From the beginning, Roosevelt describes the American dilemma:  Do we acknowledge and address the shortcomings of America's history and move forward together from there? Or do we continue perpetuating the "standard" story of the founding, created as part of the effort to build a nation but not truthful and accurate, and simply erase the negative elements?  In the book, he thoroughly examines the "standard" simplistic and sentimentalized story we've all learned (and taught) and breaks it down, pointing out exaggerations, truths, and untruths.  Then he lays out a new way of looking at America's story.  That new story is that we should define our national identity around the promises, challenges, and aspirations (some still unachieved) of  Reconstruction instead of the founding period.   Like Reconstruction historian Eric Foner, he lays out the case for 1865, rather than 1776 or 1619, as modern America's starting point. However, he also distinguishes and separates his argument from those, like Foner, who have called Reconstruction "the Second Founding."

I don't agree with everything Roosevelt wrote, but it was definitely worth reading and thinking about.