Books Set in Australia

In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson (2000)

Although a bit dated, (it was published in 2000), In a Sunburned Country is a humorous travelogue about Australia.   In addition to hearing about Bryson's travels throughout the country, he also provides a general history of the country,

Read: June 5, 2026

5 Stars

Books Set in Asia: Iran

An American Martyr in Persia, by Reza Aslan (2024)

This book is a biography of Howard Bakersville, a young American Christian missionary from South Dakota who was sent to Persia in 1907.  Ostensibly, he was there to teach English and preach the gospel.  He became enraptured in the culture and soon found he was in the midst of a democratic revolution.  I had never heard of this democratic revolution in Persia that occurred over 100 years ago.

Read:  April 21, 2025

5 Stars

Books Set in North America; Indiana, United States

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy Egan (2023)

Read: September 29, 2024

5 Stars

Books Set in Europe: United Kingdom

The Palace Papers, by Tina Brown (2022)

 

Wow!  Just Wow!  In this book about the British Royal family, no one comes off smelling like a rose.  The book focuses mainly on the last 40 or so years of the Firm, touching on the marriage and life of Charles and Diana before concentrating on the more recent royal relationships and marriages.

 

Unless you are THE Monarch, the lives of all others royals is to support, but not outshine, the Monarch.  That was Diana’s downfall – her overwhelming popularity.  Brown dissects the tawdry and sorted affair of Charles and Camilla before, during and after Charles’ first marriage.  Camilla is seen as shrewd and calculating as she repaired her reputation to elevate her status to now Queen consort.  Her friends were in on the game as well.  (The book was published shortly before the death of Queen Elizabeth.)

 

None of the senior royals escape Brown’s lens.  Nor do Prince Harry and Meghan escape unscathed.  The royals are seen as rude, ruthless, calculating, cold, and, in some cases, just stupid.  Many in the family are quite clueless about how the other 99.9% of the population lives.  Many family members come across as extremely spoiled and pampered.  We knew that didn’t we?  Just not to the extent that they think their privilege extends.

 

Brown notes that the media, which Harry has so often complained about, does, indeed, get leaks from various members of the family.  Thus, the family and the press have a rather cruel symbiotic relationship.  It is the double-edged sword that Firm uses to its advantage at times and despairs at others.

 

The rich are truly different.

Read: February 17, 2023

4 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Congo

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, by Adam Hoschild (1998), with a 2005 update

Belgium was a relatively new monarchy when Leopold II became King.  He had an inferior complex as his country was so young and small.  He made the decision to conquer and colonize as much of Africa as possible.  In the mid-1800s, Africa had become one of the last land masses ripe for European colonization, and Leopold was ready.  He had his agents plunder a huge swath of territory surrounding the Congo River.  When rubber became an important product for the nascent automobile tire industry, Leopold had African slaves tap rubber plants.  His agents were brutal and would often kill or chop off the hands of slaves who didn't work quickly enough.

This was a fascinating story of a piece of history that I was unfamiliar with.

Read: June 20, 2022

5 Stars

Books Set in Europe; Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, by Rosemary Sullivan (2022)

 

In August 1944, a German SS officer received a telephone tip of Jews hiding in a building located at Prinsengracht 263.  The exact details of the raid on the address have been lost to history, but the raid resulted in the capture of the Frank family and 4 other individuals who had been in hiding in the Annex for the past 2 years.  Anne, her sister Margot, and her mother did not survive the concentration camp where they had been deported.  Anne’s father, Otto, did survive.  Anne’s diary also survived.  With the publication of her diary, Anne became a symbol of the millions who died at the hands of the Nazis.

 

This book attempts to answer the question of who betrayed the secret hiding place?  In 2016, a team of forensic scientists, a former FBI agent, historians, and others, was put together to comb through hundreds of documents, interviews, and other evidence to find the answer … or at least an answer.  This book is the story of the evidence compiled by the Cold Case Team.

 

The author notes that the Netherlands was responsible deporting more Jews to concentration camps than other European countries.  Near the beginning of German Occupation, a Jewish Council, made up of Jews, was formed, ostensibly to help the Jews of the Netherlands and fend off anti-Jewish actions.  Soon, however, the Council was ordered to help organize the selection of Jewish deportees to concentration camps.  The Cold Case team extensively examined the pasts of the members of the Council for clues to see if one could have betrayed the Franks.

 

Members of the Council would have had access to lists of addresses where Jews of the Netherlands might be.  Thus, Council members could have retained such lists as insurance to be used to save their lives, leading to the conclusion that another Jew betrayed the Franks.  The Cold Case Team seems to ignore the fact that whether or not a Council member was the betrayer of the Franks, the Council members certainly betrayed hundreds of other fellow Jews.

 

The book examined a number of possible betrayers and the Cold Case Team eliminated them one-by-one, until singling one out.  The suspect was a member of the Jewish Council, thus would have access to addresses of hiding places.  The Cold Case Team believed that Otto Frank knew his betrayer, but for reasons known only to himself, kept his identity to himself.

 

The Team concluded that a man named Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary, was the most likely betrayer.  He is believed to have had a list of at least 500 names, which he may have been holding as insurance to be used to save his life and that of his family.

 

I have mixed feelings about this book.  Clearly, a lot of time and money was spent searching for the betrayer of the Frank family.  There are many, many characters in this book, which makes it a bit confusing, especially since many names and titles are non-English.  But does find out out who actually betrayed one family, when so many families were betrayed really matter?  The take-away is that when faced with a life-or-death situation, one might easily betray another to save one’s self.

 

Read:  February 21, 2022

 

3 Stars

 

Books Set in North America: United States

Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America, by Adam Cohen (2020)

If anyone thought the United States Supreme Court was a neutral branch of government, this well-researched and through book will quickly dispel anyone of that notion.  The author argues that the Warren Court of the 1950s and ‘60s was an anomaly.  From the moment Chief Justice Earl Warren retired in 1969, the Court has been eroding the rights of individual Americans in favor of corporations.

The author cites case after case after case in which the High Court of the land ruled against individual Americans in favor of wealthy businesses and institutions.  The author analyzes how the Court eviscerated laws designed to protect the poor, how laws designed to end racial discrimination have been upended, how challenges to campaign spending have been upheld, and how the criminal system has been eroded.  Cohen argues, with the backing of Court decisions, that Supreme Court has become more and more political.  Occasionally, the Court decisions have been so egregious, that Congress has stepped in to make corrections, as in the Lilly Ledbetter Act, for instance.  More often than not, however, the Court decision stands (Citizens United, which held that corporations are “persons” and that campaign contributions are a form of Free Speech under the First Amendment.)

The book ends with the conclusion that the Supreme Court’s decisions are more than just legal statements – they are the blueprints for building American life.  Recent decisions are widening the gap between the “haves” and “have nots.”  The gap will continue to widen until, and unless, those who have recognize this and take action to be more compassionate towards their fellow citizens.

The book was well written, and the non-lawyer will easily understand the synopsis of the decisions sited.  The book will, however, make the reader angry.  It doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the state of the Country.

Read: January 12, 2022

4 Stars

Books Set in North America; United States, Washington, D.C.

The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy (2012)

 

The modern President’s Club began when Dwight David Eisenhower became President of the United States.  At the time, there were two living former Presidents: Herbert Hoover and Harry S Truman.  Although the two former Presidents had very different politics from Eisenhower, both were the only two people in the world who understood the pressures of being the leader of the free world.  They were there to provide support and advice to Eisenhower.

 

Since that time, former Presidents have made themselves available to the current President for support and advice.  Note, however, that this book was published in 2012, so only applied to presidents up to Barack Obama.  The former Presidents all knew that the most important aspect of American democracy was to protect the Office regardless of which individual held it.

 

Interestingly, there was some controversy regarding the vote count in the 1960 election.  John F Kennedy had won the election, but Richard Nixon believed (and there is evidence to support this contention), that votes in Illinois were skewed in favor of Kennedy.  Nixon was advised by the former Presidents not to contest the election to protect the legitimacy of the Presidency.

 

The role of former Presidents has been the background so as not to diminish the leadership of the current President.  Although egos and personalities can influence decisions, the authors provide anecdotes showing how presidents can warm up to, and become friends, with their successors.

 

This was an interesting and eye-opening account of the interaction of former Presidents with the current President, at least up until the 2016 election.  It makes one wonder how the immediate past President’s action may impact the Office in the future.

 

Read: Summer 2021

 

3 Stars

Books Set in North America, Canada, Newfoundland, Gander

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, by Jim Defede (2020)

 

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, after terrorists crashed 4 planes on United States territory.  United States airspace was immediately closed, so the planes bound for the US were ordered to either return to their country of origin, or if they had passed the half-way point, to land at the nearest airport.  Thirty-eight planes were diverted to the remote town of Gander International Airport in Newfoundland.  The airport had once been a military base, so had exceptionally long landing fields.

 

Gander, however, was a very small, remote town in Newfoundland ~ far from any major city.  The townspeople were so welcoming.  When they learned of the tragedy unfolding in the United States, the townspeople opened their arms and welcomed thousands of the stranded passengers.  They immediately opened up churches and schools to make room for the passengers to sleep, they brought their own bedding and towels for the passengers.  Many people welcomed passengers into their homes.

 

No one knew initially how long it would be before planes could once again fly into the United States.  Over the next four days, many of the passengers became friends with the Gander townspeople.  Most of the passengers were grateful for the assistance.  When planes were initially given clearance, passengers believed they would be flying directly back to the United States, but some planes were ordered back to their country of origin.  Most passengers understood this, and accepted this inconvenience.  A couple of families, however, chose to find their own way back home.  (I found I had little sympathy for their behaviour.)

 

One passenger was Werner Baldessarini, the then-chairman of Hugo Boss.  He had been on his way to New York for Fashion Week.  He had the opportunity to have a private jet come and collect him, but he appreciated the kindness and humanity of the residents of Gander, so stayed with his fellow passengers.  As a show of thanks, many of the stranded passengers collected money to provide scholarships and computer equipment for the Gander schools.

 

This book provided the inspiration for the musical Came From Away, which I saw a few years ago and loved.  This book shows that there is good in the world even in the face of evil.

 

Read:  June 20, 2021

 

5 Stars

 

 

Books Set in North America, United States, Washington, D.C.

The Residence: Inside the Private World of The White House, by Kate Andersen Brower (2015)

 

The White House – one of the most iconic symbols of the United States.  It is the temporary home to the American presidents.  It’s 55,000 square feet, 132 rooms, 147 windows, 35 bathrooms, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases and 3 elevators and kept in tidy order and running smoothly by a full staff of butlers, maids, electricians, florists, chefs, doormen, plumbers, engineers and others.  This staff, or Residents, tend to every need of the President and First Family.  If they don’t perform to the liking of the First Family, they can be fired at the drop of a hat.

 

The staff doesn’t live at the White House, and the often must have two jobs to cover expenses, but they are at the beck and call of the President and First Lady.  The staff is extremely discrete.  This book is not a tell-all and does not expound on the intimate details of the Presidents and their families.  It does, however, provide an intimate account of the staff and how they go about their jobs from the Kennedy family through the Obamas.  Many of the staff work at the White House for years, through the administrations of numerous presidents.

 

The book begins with an account of all the details that must take place on Inauguration Day, as one First Family moves out and the next President moves in.  Due to security issues, on outside movers are permitted on the White House grounds.  The staff must quickly whisk out the out-going family’s belongings; and move in the incoming family’s possessions – all during the Inauguration ceremony!

 

The staff must then quickly learn the new family’s quirks, likes and dislikes.  The book hints that some families, especially First Ladies, were more of a challenge that others.  

 

I found this to be a fascinating read.

 

Read:  December 1, 2020

 

4 Stars

Books Set in Asia: China, Shanghai

The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties that Helped Create Modern China, by Jonathan Kaufman (2020)

 

This book is about the Sassoon family and the Kadoorie family, both from Baghdad, Iraq, who built tremendous business empires in Shanghai, China.  They arrived in Shanghai at a time when was becoming an international city.  Europeans were beginning their colonization of the city.

 

The Sassoons were a wealthy business family in Iraq, but due to political influences in the early 1880s moved their enterprise, first to India, and then to China.  They increased they wealth in the Opium Wars.  This book gave a clear explanation of the origins of the Opium War, and how the Western world help to feed and exploit the opium trade in China.

 

The Kadoorie family arrived in Shanghai a few decades after the Sassoons.  They built their empire from the ground up.  They opened up lavish hotels and began one of the largest electric companies in the country.

 

During World War II, the Kadoories build shelter and fed numerous Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany.  China was one of the very few countries open to Jews during this period.  The city also came under Japanese occupation during the War.  The families survived through this occupation and then sided with Chiang Kai-Shek as the Nationalist and Communist faced each other.  Ultimately, Communism won and the two families lost virtually everything.

 

It was an interesting slice of history.  I wish this book had been published a few years earlier and I could have read it prior to my visit to Shanghai.

 

Read:  September 17, 2020

 

3.5 Stars

Books Set in Africa and Europe; Egypt and France

Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris, by Michael Allin (1998)

This is the delightful story of how, in 1826, a baby giraffe was captured in the Sudan and transported to Paris as a gift from Muhammad Ali, Ottoman viceroy to Egypt, to Charles X, King of France.  In the process, the reader is treated to a brief glimpse of the world as exploration in Egypt was opening up, compliments of Napoleon.

Napoleon exposed Egypt to Europe.  For centuries, the artifacts of ancient Egypt had been buried to the world.  After Napoleon’s army landed in Egypt, Europeans began looting its tombs for profit.  Europe was intrigued.  Muhammad Ali, a brutal ruler to his own people, wanted to forge a link to Europe, so arranged to have a baby giraffe captured and transported to France as a gift to the post-Revolution King of France.

Allin explained how it was possible to trap the young giraffe, probably no more that 2 months old at its capture, and have it sent down the Nile River, across the Mediterranean, and finally the long walk from Marseille to Paris.  The young giraffe had not yet been weaned, it could be separated from its mother, while it was still tame.  Because it hadn’t been weaned, several cows travelled with it to provide it with 25 gallons of milk per day.  Details of the trip from its initial capture until it reached Cairo are sketchy, however, detailed records existed on the trip from Cairo to Paris.  Two and a half years after its capture, it entered Paris, where it lived for the next 19 years.

Modern Europeans had never seen such an exotic animal before, so during its trek through France, hordes of people flocked to see the creature.  The reader learns that the ancient Romans had imported exotic animals for gladiator fights, but that had long been forgotten.

This is a fun book that describes not only a bit about the lives of giraffes, but also a slice of political life in France at the beginning of the 1800s.

Read:  May 23, 2020

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, by John M. Barry (2004)

After Hurricane Katrina, I read Rising Tide, by John M. Barry.  It is about the great Mississippi River flood of 1927.  I was struck by how in the intervening 70 years between the 1927 flood and the 2005 hurricane, how very little had changed.  Now that we are in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, I picked up John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.  Again, I was stuck how little has changed in the past 100 years.  Although there have been significant medical advances, politically, things are much the same.  The government was slow to act and withheld critical information.

The book begins with an overview of the state of medical science at the end of the 1800s.  American medical schools basically accepted anyone and lagged far behind the quality of medical education offered in Europe.  When Johns Hopkins died, he bequeathed a $7M trust to fund a university and hospital.  The Board created to make Johns Hopkins bequest a reality, they build a university that would rival the best schools in Europe, and required rigorous admission standards and classroom work.  The medical course would include classes in chemistry, anatomy through autopsies, and laboratory courses.  These requirements were unheard of in existing American medical schools.

William Welch, the first dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, recruited faculty, many who were European-trained physicians.  Soon students began flocking to the school.  Shortly thereafter, the Rockefeller Foundation for Medical Research was created for the purpose of focusing on medical research.  By the time the 1918 influenza pandemic began, other medical research schools throughout the country had been created and were in operation.  Thus, by the time of the pandemic, the medical community was at least prepared to understand the chaos of the disease.

In 1918, World War I was raging in Europe.  The countries then at war suppressed news of the illness.  Spain, which was not then involved in the war, did, however, report cases of the influenza, thus the influenza became known as the Spanish Flu.  Although the exact origin of the influenza is not definitively known, the most likely theory is that it originated in the United States.  In early 1918, in Haskell County, Kansas, the local physician began seeing a few young men with the disease.  Had the country not been at war, the disease might have simply died out.  Camp Funston, a part of the army base of Ft. Riley, was near Haskell County, and young men from Haskell were sent to the Camp, where tight quarters provided the perfect breeding ground for viral spread.  As these young recruits were sent around to other bases in the United States and Europe, the virus quickly mutated and spread.

The book describes how the leading scientists at the now excellent medical facilities in the United States began the search for the causative agent of the disease.  The leading contender was a bacterial agent.  Richard Pfeiffer had isolated a new bacterium, which was named Bacillus influenzae.  This bacterium was found in many, but not all, victims of the disease.  Vaccines were created against this bacterium but did not provide protection against the disease.  Time was lost before the causative agent was determined to be a virus.

Meanwhile, President Woodrow Wilson did little to assist in the fight against the disease.  Rupert Blue, the Surgeon General of the United States, also took little action.  In fact, according to Barry, he actually blocked relevant medical research and rejected requests for financial support.  Interestingly, after the War, while Wilson was negotiating peace treaties with Europe, he came down with influenza.  After he recovered, it was noted that his mind was never the same.  Barry goes into great detail about how doctors and medical scientist noted that the disease seemed to cause neurological effects on the brain of many patients who recovered from the illness.

Barry concludes the book with a chilling warning that a new pandemic is inevitable in the future.  He warned that, as of the publication of the book (2004), that the United States was unprepared for such a pandemic.  The future is here now.

Read:  April 9, 2020

4.5 Stars

Rising Tide, by John M. Barry.  Read September 6, 2006

Books Set in North America: United States

Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933 ~ 1934, by Bryan Burrough (2004)

In the late 1980s, the files on the activities of the early years of the FBI were released.  The author, while watching a documentary on the Barker Gang, became intrigued by the first spate of criminals deemed Public Enemies.  This book is the result of his interest.  He poured over FBI files and wrote this comprehensive look at the FBI’s pursuit of four groupings of criminal gangs that were active in the early 1930s ~ Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and the Barker Gang.

Although the FBI had been in existence since 1908 (as the Bureau of Investigation), in the early years, the agents were forbidden to carry weapons.  The philosophy was that they were an investigative branch ~ the arrests were to be accomplished by the local jurisdictions.

This changed in the 1930s.  The Great Depression brought with it a new kind of criminal ~ bank robbers.  It was the deadly Kansas City massacre of a number of law men that changed the face of the FBI.  In June 1933, a criminal gang led by Vernon Miller set out to free fellow criminal, Frank Nash, who was in Federal custody and was being transported in Missouri.  Miller’s gang ambushed and opened fire on law officers, killing four.  Nash was killed in the ensuing gunfire.  This massacre got the attention of the J. Edgar Hoover. It has been speculated that Pretty Boy Floyd was involved in the massacre, but this has not definitively been proven.

The FBI had few trained agents, and none with any really experience with weapons and very limited jurisdiction.  At the time, robbing banks was not under the jurisdiction of the Feds.  The FBI had to work with local law enforcement officers, some of which were also ill-equip to handle major crimes, or were not willing to work with the federal officers.

This book shows the growing pains of the early years of the FBI.  Homer Cummings, the United States Attorney General, had to convince Congress to expand the power and authority of the FBI.  Soon after the Kansas City massacre, the FBI was training its agents to use weapons.  Some of their interrogation procedures, however, left much to be desired.

The book delves into the activities of Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barker Gang.

Dillinger came from a middle-class background.  He was good looking and was known to jump over bank railings when he robbed banks.  He was exceedingly polite.  He captured the public’s attention and was seen as a Robin-Hood figure in robbing banks. It was not his aim to hurt anyone during his crime sprees.  When he was ultimately betrayed and killed outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, he had achieved near national folk hero status.

During this same period of history, Bonnie and Clyde were ruthlessly crossing the country, leaving a bloody path in their wake.  During their lifetime, they were largely unknown, except for the locales of their robbing and killing.  The FBI sought the couple, but bungled their investigative efforts.  In the end, it was a posse of local law officers who ambushed the two criminals.

The author also followed the exploits of the Barker Gang.  Although Hoover publicized that the “brains” behind the Barker Gang was the criminal’s mother, Kate “Ma” Barker, the FBI files showed that she was actually more concerned with jigsaw puzzles and had little before-the-fact knowledge of the gang’s criminal activity.

The FBI had a tip that Dillinger and his gang were holed up in an inn called Little Bohemia in northern Wisconsin.  The FBI agents, still without expertize in weaponry, badly misjudged the situation. In the dark of night, in a raid lead by Melvin Purvis, came upon the inn.  The FBI, mistaking local patrons leaving the inn for the Dillinger gang, began a shootout, killing the innocent patrons.  One federal agent was also killed, but Dillinger slipped through their fingers.

Baby Face Nelson was one of the most brutal criminals during this era.  He seemed to delight in terrorizing and killing victims during his robberies.  Agents trailed him all across the country before he was finally killed in another shoot-out in Illinois.

By the end of the 1934, the FBI had gained its footing and overcome the fumbles of its earlier year and was well on its way to the power and prestige is has today.

A fascinating and very readable book.

Read: August 2, 2019

5 Stars

Books Set in the Middle East: Israel, Syria and Lebanon

Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, by Matti Friedman (2019)

This book focuses on the beginning of the Israeli intelligence force that began before the creation of the State of Israel.  The book focuses on four spies who were born and grew up in the Arab countries and were familiar with Muslim customs, culture and language.  They were of families who had lived in the Middle East long before the European Jews began to migrate to what would become the Land of Israel.

Gamliel Cohen was the most educated of the four spies.  He was a Syrian Jew from Damascus.  Isaac Shoshan was also Syrian, from Aleppo.  Havakuk Cohen was a Yemeni Jew and Yakuba Cohen was a wild “street child” from Jerusalem.  They were recruited by Palmach to be a part of the Arab Section ~ Jews who could “pass” for Arabs while gathering intelligence.  They were deep undercover in Syria and Lebanon for a country that had yet to exist.

The author emphasizes that the State of Israel could not have been built without the Middle-Eastern Jews.  It is hubris to believe that Israel was solely the creation of European Jews. After Israel became a State, Jews from around the Arab world were suddenly expelled from their homes and found their way to Israel.  Today over 50% of Israeli Jews have roots in the Arab world.  This is what makes Israel so unique and so difficult for Western countries to fully appreciate and understand Israel.

The author carefully researched this book, poring over archival materials and oral histories.  Isaac Shoshan was an old man in his 90s when the author wrote this book.  He met with the author several times and provide his recollection of his days in Palmach’s Arab Section.

This book was very enlightening on the beginnings of the State of Israel.  The author, Matti Friedman, also wrote the Aleppo Codex, which I read in February 2013.

Read: April 29, 2019

4 Stars

Books Set in a Global Environment: United States and USSR

Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War, by Giles Whittell (2010)

This book of non-fiction delves into the events leading up to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Berlin Wall.  In the 1950s, Willie Fisher, also known as Rudolf Abel, was in the United States as an undercover agent for the USSR.  Through a comedy of errors, he was captured by the FBI, tried and sent to Federal Prison.

Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot hired by the CIA to fly reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union to look for Soviet missile sites.  He piloted a U-2, which could fly at unimaginable heights.  It was believed that the plane was shot down, survival of the pilot was not possible.  All that changed on May 1, 1960, when the U-2 Powers was flying was, indeed, shot down over the USSR and Powers survived the crash.  He was immediately captured, tried as a spy and imprisoned.

Around the same time, wanderlust Frederic Pryor, was studying communist economics at the Free University in West Berlin.  Until the Berlin Wall was constructed, he freely crossed between East and West Berlin.  A fact not unnoticed by the East German police.  He was arrested on suspicion of spying and imprisoned.  He had no connections with the US Government, but his parents were wealthy and were acquainted with some powerful men in Washington.

Bridge of Spies sets the foundation of the nuclear missile discussions, or lack thereof, between the two superpowers.  Shortly before Powers was shot down, US President Eisenhower and Soviet leader Khrushechv were poised to meet in Paris to discuss a nuclear test ban treaty.  The U-2 incident derailed the meeting with a growing distrust evident between the US and the Soviet Union.  The author details the tensions and misunderstandings of both leaders.

Two years later, however, tempers had cooled somewhat, and each country recognized the benefits of holding a prisoner exchange.  The details of the exchange were carefully planned.  Abel had an inkling that an exchange might be possible, but Powers and Pryor were completely unprepared.

This is a very readable history of the events leading up to, and surrounding the U-2 incident and its impact on relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Read: December 19, 2018

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: Texas, USA

Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson (1999)

Isaac’s Storm has been on my “to be read” list for a long time.  I finally picked it up to read just as Hurricane Michael stormed through the Florida panhandle.  In September 1900, when a massive hurricane demolished Galveston, Texas, the art of predicting storms was in its infancy.  Somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000 people were killed in the storm. Weather forecasting has advanced in the past 118 years, and as I write this review, the death toll in Hurricane Michael is still in the single digits.

Erik Larson outlines the history of weather and hurricane forecasting.  He suggests that Christopher Columbus was the first European to have observed hurricanes on his many voyages across the Atlantic.

Isaac Cline wanted to make his mark in the scientific field.  He joined the Signal Corps Weather Service, a precursor to the national Weather Bureau.  He observed weather patterns.  When he was assigned to Galveston, he was still a young man, with a wife and young children.

Very little was known about the dynamics of hurricanes.  Isaac had seen only one hurricane and the common idea was that no major storm would ever hit the coastline of Texas.

By 1900, Galveston was an up-and-coming city with a rivalry with Houston.  It was a very cosmopolitan city with an opera house, public gardens and a lot of wealth.  Nothing could damage its reputation.  A storm was unthinkable.

Isaac loved his job and took meticulous notes on weather patterns that he telegraphed to Washington.  Unbeknownst to him, however, was the bureaucratic snarl and egos that directed the course of the weather service.  Washington was convinced that the “natives” in Cuba did not understand proper weather forecasting, thus imposed a ban on all Cuban communications with respect to a growing storm in late August 1900.  The Cubans believed the storm was headed across the Gulf of Mexico towards Texas.  The weather services’ employees in Cuba pooh-poohed this idea and assured Washington that the pending storm was insignificant.

As a result, no warnings were issued to Isaac in his Galveston post. Additionally, Washington had explicitly forbade use of the word “hurricane” so as not to falsely alarm the citizens of coastal areas.

When the hurricane struck on September 8, 1900 the city was almost completely destroyed. The after effects of the hurricane’s remnants were felt as far as Chicago, New England and the Maritime Provinces.

This book follows the days before the storm, describes the horrors of living through the storm and the days immediately following.  So many people were killed that the streets were literally covered in corpses.  There were so many bodies that many were simply burned for quick disposal.  The heat following the storm accelerated the decomposition of bodies, adding to the horrendous remains of the city.

The city tried to rebuild, but in 1901, oil was discovered just outside of Houston, making that city outshine Galveston.

As with many of Erik Larson’s books, I found this to be a fascinating insight into a this period of American history.

Read: October 12, 2018

4 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Washington, D.C.

Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies, by J.B. West (1973)

The author, J.B. West, entered the White House on March 1, 1941 as an assistant Usher to the White House.  He left the White House exactly 28 years later as the Chief Usher.  During those 28 years, he served six Presidents, or more precisely, the needs and demands of the First Ladies.

During those 28 years, the duties of the White House evolved from being somewhat quaint (Eleanor Roosevelt could run all over town without Secret Service on her tail), to one under a fishbowl with the advent of the television age.

The Chief Usher is responsible for running the White House, from its personnel, its budget, and all guests and visitors of the First Family.  Each First Lady had her own whims and tastes.  The White House staff must adjust.

Since the Chief Usher deals mostly with the First Lady, the book did not go into the politics of each of the six Presidents.  Instead, the book provides an insight into the inner working of the White House under the control of the First Lady.  Each presidential family had its own stamp that it incorporated into the White House.  Each family is given a budget within which to use to refurbish the home.

The White House, while sturdy on the outside, was crumbling on the inside. During a tea that Bess Truman was hosting, the chandelier nearly came crashing down on her guests.  It was soon discovered that a butler walking across the floor on the room above caused the swaying chandelier.  Engineers examined the building and discovered that it was very unstable.  During the Truman administration, the White House was gutted and all the internal rooms were rebuilt.  In addition, the iconic balcony on the White House was a Truman addition.

The author details the tastes of each First Lady.  Eleanor Roosevelt was a whirlwind, always on the go.  Bess Truman was a frugal Midwesterner.  Mamie Eisenhower, was a military wife through and through.  She came across as the least likable of all the First Ladies in the book.  She seemed to laughingly scold everyone.  Jackie Kennedy was a devoted mother with a keen sense of style.  She brought the White House to the public.  Lady Bird Johnson bowed to the wishes of her husband and children.  The author left during the Nixon Administration, and his portrait of Pat Nixon is short.

I found the book to be interesting.  It is a quick and easy read.

Read:  April 7, 2018

4 Stars

Books set in Europe: Poland

Irena’s Children by Tilar J. Mazzeo  (2016)

Irene Sendler (1910 ~ 2008) is sometimes referred to as the female Schindler.  Through her organization of a secret network in the Warsaw ghetto, she helped save more than 2500 Jewish children from the Nazis during World War II.

Irena’s Children tells of her courage during this period of history.  When asked about her efforts years after the war, Irena downplayed her role and insisted that she was assisted by many others and fretted that she couldn’t save more children.

Irena followed her beloved father’s example.  Although her doctor father died when she was only 6 or 7 years old, she remembered his tending to patients during the typhoid epidemic.  He gave her a strong moral compass to come to the aid and assistance of others.

Irena married shortly after university, but fell in love with the married Adam Celnikier, who was Jewish.  With her husband off to war, Irena and Adam made a life together, working to protect the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto.

As conditions worsened in Poland, Irena, who was a social worker, was able to obtain a pass to enter the Warsaw ghetto.  When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the Polish resistance quickly grew.  Irena met Dr. Helena Radlinska, who was a leading force behind the resistance of Warsaw.  Irena was in a position to falsify official paperwork and create new identities.  This helped provide children with an escape.  Many of the children were given to Catholic families and taught Christian prayers so that they could fool the German soldiers if questioned.  Irena kept careful records of the children’s old and new identities so that the children could be reunited with their surviving parents after the war.  After the war, however, many of the children were orphaned.

Irena was captured by the Gestapo and imprisoned.  She was tortured, but never gave up any information.  She feared being executed, but a bribe by her fellow resistance fighters on the outside saved her.

After the war, Poland was under Soviet control and many of the resistance fighters were persecuted, thus much of the history of the resistance was suppressed.  I found this book a bit confusing.  It was written almost like it was a translation from another language.  It is an important piece of history, however, and is one that should be read by all.