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Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen Review

Born to Run succeeds at three levels. First, it is a page turner. The build up to a fifty-mile foot race over some of the world's least hospitable terrain drives the narrative forward. Along the way McDougall introduces a cast of characters worthy of Dickens, including an almost superhuman ultramarathoner, Jenn and the Bonehead--a couple who down bottles of booze to warm up for a race, Barefoot Ted, Mexican drug dealers, a ghostly ex-boxer, a heartbroken father, and of course the Tarahumara, arguably the greatest runners in the world.
Born to Run is such a rip-roaring yarn, that it is easy to miss the book's deeper achievements. At a second level, McDougall introduces and explores a powerful thesis--that human beings are literally born to run. Recreational running did not begin with the 1966 publication of "Jogging" by the co-founder of Nike. Instead, McDougall argues, running is at the heart of what it means to be human. In the course of elaborating his thesis, McDougall answers some big questions: Why did our ancestors outlive the stronger, smarter Neanderthals? Why do expensive running shoes increase the odds of injury? The author's modesty keeps him from trumpeting the novelty and importance of this thesis, but it merits attention.
Finally, Born to Run presents a philosophy of exercise. The ethos that pervades recreational and competitive running--"no pain, no gain," is fundamentally flawed, McDougall argues. The essence of running should not be grim determination, but sheer joy. Many of the conventions of modern running--the thick-soled shoes, mechanical treadmills, take no prisoners competition, and heads-down powering through pain dull our appreciation of what running can be--a sociable activity, more game than chore, that can lead to adventure. McDougall's narrative moves the book forward, his thesis provides a solid intellectual support, but this philosophy of joy animates Born to Run. I hope this book finds the wide audience it deserves.

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34% Off Discounts: Special Prices for Lost in Shangri-La LP: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II Review

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Lost in Shangri-La LP: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II Review

This book is a true story, but Mitchell Zuckoff does such an amazing job of telling it that reads much like a novel in that it grabs you right from the beginning, and for me, was darn near impossible to put down. Imagine going on a fly-over sight seeing tour of one of the most beautiful mountain jungle areas in the world to see an almost hidden, untouched valley and then crashing into a mountain and being one of the few survivors trying to find a way out. But getting out or back to the base isn't easy in a place with no roads or paths, just dense rain forest vegetation, a huge tree canopy and tangled vines both above and below you. Imagine being injured with open wounds and having to exist in a place that's perpetually wet and steaming with all sorts of bacteria and fungi and little to keep it out. You don't even want to think about all the bugs and critters that call this place home. Add to that the stories you've heard about spear throwing, cannibalistic natives and you wonder how these people didn't give up right then and there.
Having read the description of the book and knowing that it was a rescue and reading pretty much what the outcome was, I was a little concerned that the book might not hold my attention. But, not to worry, as soon as I started reading I was mesmerized by the amount of detail and how gripping the story was. Mitchell Zuckoff notes that no liberties were taken with any of the facts, characters, dialog or chronology which must have made it a double challenge for him to put the diaries, notes, news stories and newsreels and interviews all together in a way made me feel like I was there, personally involved with these people.
Besides being such a good read, it added to my knowledge of the history of WWII. With so many battles going on all over the world, New Guinea isn't a place that you read that much about in history books on the war. This book tied a lot of what was going on in that area together for me. There are lots of characters in this book besides just the survivors and Zuckoff gives us the background stories on several of the rescuers and people at the base camp as well as some of the politics of the time. He does it in such a way that it doesn't interrupt the main action, but rather adds to the insight and makes it that much more interesting.
This would be a good book for any World War II buff, history lovers, action adventure enthusiasts, and really, anyone who just loves a good read. And because one of the main characters in this story is a woman who enlisted in the WAC, I think it would be equally interesting for both men and women. Two thumbs up for this great book that left me blurry eyed this morning after "just one more page" kept me up the better part of the night to finish it.

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36% Off Discounts: Best Buy for In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (Random House Large Print) Review

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In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin (Random House Large Print) Review

It has been observed that for evil to win all that needs happen is for good men to do nothing. That was what the United States government did, at least officially, for much of the lead-up to World War II. Too often chances to speak out and try to stop the madness that was engulfing Germany were ignored. Too frequently the atrocities were overlooked. Too many times our response to the crisis over there was nothing, nothing, nothing...
But there were exceptions. George Messersmith, who worked at the Berlin embassy, was one of those who tried, often in vain, to bring about some change in the US policies, though he was often ignored as having too vivid of an imagination. So, too, were various Jewish groups in the USA, though they were often ignored for being Jewish. And, eventually, so did William Dodd, the United States ambassador to Germany, though he was ignored because, frankly, too many people didn't want to believe any of what was happening in Berlin.
Before reading this book I had a slightly better than average knowledge of the history of World War II and what led up to it. But even for me there were things to learn. I'd never heard of Dodd or Messersmith. Never heard of Rudolph Diels, or Ernst Hanfstaengl. I knew, at least a bit, about the Night of Long Knives and some what lead up to it, including Ernst Rohm's penchant for pretty young men, but I didn't really grasp much of what was going on that led up to it.
Now, thanks to Erik Larson's latest work, I know these people and I have a much, much improved understanding of what was going on in Germany from 1933 to 1938. Larson gives you a great "on the ground" view of what was really happening, what people thought was happening, what everyone said was happening and why the differences between these things matter. You really get a feel for how Berlin functioned, or didn't function, during this time period.
Larson's previous work, Thunderstruck, where he tried too hard to link the stories of Dr Crippen and Marconi, didn't really work for me, which was a disappointment, since The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America remains one of my favorite books. I'm happy to say this book is at least as good and engaging as "Devil in the White City". This is an excellent, well-written, suspenseful book. Even though I did know the fates of some of the people involved, Larson's writing was still engaging enough to keep me interested, and to occasionally make me wonder if my memory of their lives was wrong (it wasn't).
Anyone with even a casual interest in the events leading up to the war will find this an invaluable read. It's easily the best book I've read this year, and likely to stay that way. A truly wonderful read!

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33% Off Discounts: Best Price Cleopatra: A Life Review

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Cleopatra: A Life Review

Her ancestry is,"an ungainly shrub of a family tree," full of incest. Cleopatra's great-grandmother was both wife and niece of Ptolemy VIII. Cleopatra's own husband was also her brother and a mere boy at the start of their marriage, ten years old to her eighteen years. Of the fifteen family marriages, ten were full brother-sister unions. Two other Ptolemies married nieces or cousins.
Schiff has done an admirable job of taking the reputable historians accounts, chopped away at the absurd and pandering or those filled with a particular hatred and whittled Cleopatra's life down to a fascinating and believable historical account.
What of that story wherein Cleopatra arrives in the palace of Caesar wrapped in a hemp rug to curry favor for her reign over that of her husband/brother? Did she really seduce Caesar and thereby bear his son? Or was it Caesar who seduced her?
Stacy Schiff herself admits, "there is not universal agreement on most of even the basic details of Cleopatra's life. So much of this history is simply not known." Childhood was simply not a subject worthy of papyrus and further, papyrus did not survive the ravages of time. So even Schiff is often left with, "may have's," "may well have's," and must have's" in an attempt to piece together the life of an alluring woman that began in 69 BC.
Schiff's conclusions are fair and well researched making this a historical account of great significance, however, there is so little absolute verifiable information about Cleopatra that Schiff and all other historians are left to make an educated guess at best about actual details of her life.
If you are looking for a light read about this fascinating woman the cover art might fool you into believing this is the book for you. It is not, if however, you are looking for an historical account full of minutiae and conjecture this will delight you.

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40% Off Discounts: Buy Cheap The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA Review

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The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA Review

Perhaps the best way to review this book is to state up front what it is not: it is not a scathing critique of CIA or the U.S. Intelligence Community. Those who buy it expecting to be inflamed by a stream of criticisms of CIA officers and trade craft will be disappointed.
So what is the book? It is a careful compilation of the events, actions, decisions and personalities that ultimately culminated in the tragedy at Camp Chapman (Khost). Warrick has built a somewhat breathless, but engaging narrative that describes in some detail how a string of seemingly unrelated events build with inevitability of a Greek Tragedy to a horrendous conclusion. Warrick followed what can be called the Bob Woodward style of reporting. That is he reports what is happening without passing judgment on any of the decisions, personalities or actions involved. Indeed one of the more attractive elements of his narrative is that he treats the late Jennifer Matthews with dignity and respect along with a good deal of sympathy. He does the same with CIA `targeters' like Elizabeth Hanson. He also treats Matthews' murderer Humam al Balawi with equal respect and dignity. This will undoubtedly inflame the legion of real and self-declared counter-terrorism `experts' who plague the Inner Beltway of D.C. as well as the many armchair foes of Islamic extremism. Yet the first step in developing any rational counter terrorist strategy is understanding who terrorists are. Warrick should be commended for his balanced and fair approach to what is still a highly emotional subject.
Although Warrick scrupulously avoids second guessing and judgments of any sort, his account does provide a good deal of evidence that CIA has not dealt with its counter-terrorism mission particularly well. For example his informants appear to conflate the Taliban movements with al Qaeda, treating both Taliban and al Qaeda targets as terrorists (a basic misunderstanding of Pashtun Culture). Also there is no evidence that Warrick presents that CIA analysts made any effort to understand the structure or motovation of either grouping.
Now all that being, said being fair and balanced is not the same as being factually accurate. Warrick, like Woodward, was entirely dependent on his informants, many of whom undoubtedly provided him with self serving accounts that may or may not square with the facts. So this book is good start a sorting out the events that ultimately ended in explosion at Khost, but it will take years for the full truth to be uncovered.

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60% Off Discounts: Buy Cheap Devil at My Heels : A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II Review

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Devil at My Heels : A Heroic Olympian's Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II Review

All of these television personalities who fancy themselves "survivors" for having undergone challenges of one kind or another on the various survival programs now popular might have a different perspective on survival if they read this book. Lou Zamperini is the "ultimate survivor."

To Zamperini, surviving meant starving and thirsting while confined to a life raft for 47 days. That ordeal included fighting off sharks while enemy planes shot at him. Surviving meant living with the tryanny, torture, and torment of his captors, including the threat of decapitation. It meant living through two cold winters as a prisoner of war, his body weight dropping to as low as 66 pound.

Zamperini was forced to survive in the rigid domain of despair, beyond the reach of help, or rest, or pity. Survival meantmeant living from day to day with the heart tearing itself between hope and fear, merely subsisting under a cloud of doom with no end in sight.

Yet, Zamperini was able to call upon the inner strength that had been nurtured in his days as an Olympic runner, and to endure.

Some of Zamperini's greatest challenges came after the war was over, the biggest one being overcoming the anger and hate he felt for this Japanese captors.
With God's help, "Lucky Louie" succeeded in every one of his challenges. It's a fascinating story, a story of real survival.

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60% Off Discounts: Purchase Cheap Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime Review

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Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime Review

"Game Change" was not even on sale and it was already roiling the political waters with its shocking revelations. There is a rich tradition of books about presidential campaigns that break news not revealed during the campaign and "Game Change" has PLENTY of revelations. The one getting a great deal of play was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's inappropriate racially tinged comments about candidate Obama, which managed to be kept under wraps, while then-Senator Biden's made their way out. 2008 was the year of "Candidates Gone Wild," saying ridiculous and inappropriate things like Obama's comment on people clinging to their guns, religion, and bitterness. But there's so much here that never got out. Like Elizabeth Edwards, who has carefully cultured a public persona as the victimized suffering wife, belittling her husband John as a "hick" and in private launching into obscenity laced tirades at him and about him. Heilemann and Halperin examine both sides of the race and there are plenty of great gossipy stories on both sides, as well as other shocking revelations, such as how rushed the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as Vice-President was. We already knew that virtually no one in the Republican leadership was consulted over the choice and only know do we learn how rushed the decision was and how little thought or consideration was truly given to the choice. Moreover, the choice was primarily tactical in nature, designed to knock the Obama campaign off balance and off guard. Only after Palin was selected did the McCain campaign realize that they had made a huge tactical error they could not undo. The ensuing problems within the McCain-Palin campaign are chronicled here, but considering how much press there was at the time there's little here that breaks new ground. It is however a very great, gripping recounting of the chain of events.
Obama comes off every bit as stage-crafted and stage-managed as Ronald Reagan ever was. Heilemann and Halperin aptly capture the duality of his persona; on the stump Obama is well spoken, on message, cool, calm, and collected. Off the stump he is profane, prone to quick flashes of anger, and at times tentative and uncertain. Hillary Clinton comes off pretty much as was covered in the press at the time, but what IS news is her unsurprisingly blunt comment to Obama that she "cannot control her husband". Bill Clinton gets almost as much print here for his wildly inappropriate comments on the stump and in private about Candidate Obama and it's clear to see that what undid Hillary wasn't her efforts, but those of her husband. We get the clearest glimpse into Obama's hard sell when he talks Hillary Clinton into ending her campaign and into becoming Secretary of State as well.
"Game Change" answers many of the questions you had about the campaign, but which were never answered, like Rudy Giuliani's foolish all-or-nothing gamble on the Florida Primary and why he truly got out of the race, the Democratic conclave that prodded then-Senator Obama into the race in the first place, and so much more. Reading "Game Change" is like reliving the campaign all over again, but THIS time with the insider knowledge of details that were omitted by the campaigns and the press. If anything this will not only enlighten you but enrage you, as the media and the press clearly are NOT doing their jobs at all. All of this SHOULD have made it's way into the news during the campaign and yet it didn't. Truth is stranger than fiction, and with truth written this well, who needs fiction?

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60% Off Discounts: Lowest Price The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Review

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The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Review

Rachel, the daughter of a Danish woman and African American G.I., grew up in Germany. With her light brown skin and blue eyes, Rachel did not see herself as anything but her parents' child. When tragedy strikes her family after moving to America, Rachel moves in with her paternal grandmother. In Portland, Rachel feels alienated from her family and schoolmates, unable to fit into categories of white or black, and she struggles with memories of her mother. Although told mostly from Rachel's point of view, the novel also follows Rachel's father, her mother's boss, and a young boy who witnessed the family tragedy as Rachel attempts to discover who she is beyond others' labels.
Durrow has created a unique story that combines a young woman's search for identity with a family's history of shame and secrets. The novel begins with Rachel narrating her move to Portland and is told in stark, simple prose. In Portland, Rachel becomes acutely aware of her lack of belonging. She is "light-skinned-ed;" she "talk[s]" white" and can't help but judge her grandmother for her lack of formal English. She fails to fall into pre-established categories.
Meanwhile, pieces of Rachel's parents' history are filled in. Both parents are filled with shame for their inability to protect their children, although their shame comes from different sources. Rachel's mother exemplifies a woman unable to to accept or actively reject that many Americans do not see her children as her own and see them only as a skin color.
The detachment of the first part of the novel distanced me as a reader and felt slow, but as Rachel grew, I grew closer to her and her story. The tragedy piles on thick at times, but the second half of the novel touchingly covers the nuances of Rachel's development: her feelings for her aunt's fiance Drew, her conflicts with her judgmental but well-meaning grandmother, and her relationship with a liberal white college boy. The novel skillfully explores the complexities of racial identity and relationships today.

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68% Off Discounts: Best Price The Postmistress Review

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The Postmistress Review

In 1940, the lives of three women could not be more different as war rages in Europe. Iris James, postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts, believes in order and details. She takes great pride in her work. All communications in the town come through her. The whole system works because of the neat efficient system and the trust. She keeps all the secrets of the residents, but one day, she breaks with everything she has ever believed, slipping a letter into her pocket. Emma Trask, wife of the town's doctor Will Fitch, listens to all the radio broadcasts from London with her husband. When a tragedy provokes a change in her husband and a determination to go over to Europe, Emma guards herself against the tides of war raging across a distant ocean. In London, Frankie Bard, works with Edward R. Murrow. Frankie listens to Murrow's story advice, yet her spirit chafes against the all the strictures and protocol imposed on her. Feisty, fearless and somewhat brash, she wants to get out the truth and stir her listeners to action. In 1941, Frankie rides the trains out of Germany, reporting on the war, listening to the voices of the so-called refugees. As she sees the war unfolding from a different perspective, her whole idea about the story itself changes.
In THE POSTMISTRESS, Sarah Blake looks at World War II through the eyes of three distinct women all connected through means of private and public media. In many ways, THE POSTMISTRESS itself follows Frankie's conception of a news story as story and herein lies the beauty of the novel. Sarah Blake's novel does not follow the traditional concepts of a novel. THE POSTMISTRESS tells the story of World War II through the edges, in the lives of the three women and the events of their lives, often events that even seem unrelated to the larger scene playing out in the world. Indeed, the emotional impact of the story builds as Frankie stops trying to tell the truth of the war and listens to the voices of those around her. The "truth" of the war often emerges in the edges, in those stories told and unspoken by the press and even the characters to some extent. Although Sarah Blake draws on the history and historical figures of the times, THE POSTMISTRESS is not a historical novel filled with date and details from the history books. The reader will not find all the horrific details of the Holocaust or the London Blitz and yet, in telling the story through the edges of war scene, THE POSTMISTRESS allows the reader's imagination to enter the story. With the copious amount of World War II history and fiction published, readers undoubtedly are more than familiar with the main story of the War, and yet, THE POSTMISTRESS brings a freshness to the story. For this reader, THE POSTMISTRESS, is one of the first to tell the story of the trains from a viewpoint that truly engages imagination and emotion in both the details of individuals, sometimes even the characters for whom only a name and place is known, who might have experienced the events. Like Frankie's approach to the story, less is sometimes more. Equally, the conflicts and struggles of Emma Fitch and Iris James bring a whole other emotional dimension and texture to the story.
THE POSTMISTRESS is a wonderful blend of popular women's fiction and literary fiction. The novel gains more emotional power and intellectual interest as it progresses. The first part reads more like light women's fiction as the author introduces the three women whose lives will touch one another's. Frankie's development, however, guides the heart of the story, developing the lens through which the richness of the other characters emerges. The beginning of the story actually gains more relevance and emotional depth in hindsight, as Frankie's less traditional concept of a news story begins to cast the novel itself within a different framework. THE POSTMISTRESS is a story of women's lives, of life, death and love during WWII, and by end, a story about the art of storytelling itself.

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33% Off Discounts: Best Buy for The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance Review

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The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance Review

Imagine you are the descendant of one of those families of 19th-century Jewish financiers who spread around the major capitals of Europe to forge a continental empire. Along the way, the family comes to feature an art collector who served as a patron for the Impressionists and inspired Proust's Swann. A later generation includes one of the first women to attend university in the early twentieth century; she graduates as a lawyer, becomes a writer and corresponds with Rilke. Imagine that the family's wealth disappears in the blink of an eye when Germany annexes Austria. That is in a nutshell the story of the Ephrussi clan, which Edmund De Waal chronicles in "The Hare with Amber Eyes." That is only a peek at the material that the author had at his disposal, which should have made the work relatively simple to write. But the author set himself a challenge. He refused to produce a straightforward history: "It could write itself, I think, this kind of story. A few stitched-together wistful anecdotes, more about the Orient-Express, of course, a bit of wandering around Prague or somewhere equally photogenic, some clippings from Google on ballrooms in the Belle Epoque. It would come out as nostalgic. And thin."
Instead of a predictable tale from Mitteleuropa about lost grandeur, the author takes a (slightly Proustian) shortcut that leads to unexpected and sometimes deeply moving places. One of the illustrious ancestors collected tiny but incredibly intricate Japanese carvings called netsuke used in early modern Japan as toggles for purse strings. The book traces the story of these sculptures as they are passed down from one generation of Ephrussi to the next. Along the way, the author interrogates subtle ways in which the netsuke's meaning shifts when they move from Third Republic Paris to Harry Lime's Vienna and beyond. Through this device, De Waal manages to both narrate the story of the rise and fall of the Ephrussi and also sketch the myriad objects they owned and collected during their century and a half of eminence. The book manages to write an elegant history not just of people but also of the places they inhabited and the things they loved and touched. Nothing thin about that.

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