Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America
Douglas Brinkley
History, biography
The Roosevelt who usually gets all the good conservation press--not without merit--is FDR's fifth cousin Theodore. If Franklin gets any credit, it's usually for the Civilian Conservation Corps. Rightful Heritage is Douglas Brinkley's exhaustive attempt to rebalance the historical scales.
It works very well, at the level of partisan investigative journalism. That is, Rightful Heritage is a long catalogue of who, what, where, when, why. The who is usually FDR, and the what is usually working the politics of conservation. You can open the book to pretty much any page and find out that on [date], FDR was working towards establishing the [Soandso National Wildlife Refuge/Park/Forest]. The focus is on his first two presidential terms, but--as Brinkley makes clear--this was a lifelong passion, curtailed but not stopped even by the Second World War.
That, by the way, is one of Rightful Heritage's better accomplishments: it gives Roosevelt some credit for both personal consistency and intellectual heft. FDR was a notoriously protean man, and various observers have derided him for it. He was "a second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament" (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.). Or he was "a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be president" (Walter Lippman). Theodore Roosevelt's acid-tongued daughter Alice called him "Miss Nancy". However, Brinkley's research makes an overwhelming case that conservation was for FDR a lifelong, serious, and consistent passion, one to which he gave his full attention and of which he had an excellent intellectual and policy grasp.
The overwhelmingness of the case gets to be too much sometimes. That's the limitation of investigative-journalistic writing. Many of the pre-presidential chapters read like diary entries: each paragraph is complete of itself, but completely lacking in connective tissue to what's around it. (I believe I once counted seven consecutive paragraphs with totally unconnected topic sentences.) There isn't much analysis or depth in Rightful Heritage (the ever-present tension between "wise use" conservation and "forever wild" conservation is described, but never really explored), and Brinkley makes his partisanship pretty glaring. And let's face it: six hundred pages of who, what, etc. can't help but be repetitive.
So Rightful Heritage is not entirely for the faint of heart. If your interest in FDR or conservation would be met by a Wikipedia article, best go there. If you're opposed to conservation or to Roosevelt himself or to Rooseveltian political ideas, this book will just make you angry. On the other hand, it doesn't require any special background knowledge, it's nicely readable prose, and it does exactly what it sets out to do: give Franklin Roosevelt the respect he should have as an effective conservationist activist politician.
This book crosses not one but two Ken Burns documentaries: The National Parks: America's Best Idea and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. I recommend both of them highly, particularly the latter. (Seriously, if you're the kind of person who likes this blog, you need to watch Ken Burns documentaries.)
On the written side, The Man He Became by James Tobin is a very fine and focused chronicle of Roosevelt's polio, his paralysis, and how his response to it changed him. There's a respectable argument that Roosevelt was something of a lightweight--specifically, that he was something of a Cousin Teddy Roosevelt wannabe--and that his response to his illness was one of the things that forced him to become his own man.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Book Review: The Book of Spice
The Book of Spice: From Anise to Zedoary
John O'Connell
Food
The Book of Spice is similar in spirit to Lingo. That is: it's a quick tour d'epicerie jaunt around the culinary back streets. It provides a good capsule overview--history, uses, legends, science, care, feeding, etc.--for a large number of entries. It's not deep, but it's entertaining. It shouldn't be read on an empty stomach. It makes me curious about vast swathes of ethic cuisine of which I know little to nothing. (Also, it would be of some practical use as a reference book.)
One caveat: John O'Connell is writing from and for a British-Isles perspective. He spends an extraordinary number of words on curry, while short-changing the New World. Aside from a good section on the chili pepper, there's virtually nothing about Mexican or other Latino cuisines. There's even less about (for example) barbeque, or Cajun, or Creole. On the other hand, some of those curry ideas sound pretty enticing.
Spice: The History of a Temptation is a deeper look at the use, sociology, and economics of the spices and the trade.
John O'Connell
Food
The Book of Spice is similar in spirit to Lingo. That is: it's a quick tour d'epicerie jaunt around the culinary back streets. It provides a good capsule overview--history, uses, legends, science, care, feeding, etc.--for a large number of entries. It's not deep, but it's entertaining. It shouldn't be read on an empty stomach. It makes me curious about vast swathes of ethic cuisine of which I know little to nothing. (Also, it would be of some practical use as a reference book.)
One caveat: John O'Connell is writing from and for a British-Isles perspective. He spends an extraordinary number of words on curry, while short-changing the New World. Aside from a good section on the chili pepper, there's virtually nothing about Mexican or other Latino cuisines. There's even less about (for example) barbeque, or Cajun, or Creole. On the other hand, some of those curry ideas sound pretty enticing.
Spice: The History of a Temptation is a deeper look at the use, sociology, and economics of the spices and the trade.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Book Review: Death of an Airman
Death of an Airman
Christopher St. John Sprigg
Mystery
This is another British Library Crime Classic reprint. I approve thoroughly of the project--resurrecting Golden Age mystery fiction--but my prior foray into the product was not a complete success.
I liked Death of an Airman much better. It's not a work of staggering genius, and it owes a little debt to a certain Dorothy Sayers classic, but it's a decent fair-play mystery with an unusual setting. The writing is clear, the characters are adequately delineated, and the pacing is good. There are, perhaps, too many minor characters, as well as too many detectives, but overall I'd recommend the book to anyone who enjoys the traditional mystery novel.
Christopher St. John Sprigg
Mystery
This is another British Library Crime Classic reprint. I approve thoroughly of the project--resurrecting Golden Age mystery fiction--but my prior foray into the product was not a complete success.
I liked Death of an Airman much better. It's not a work of staggering genius, and it owes a little debt to a certain Dorothy Sayers classic, but it's a decent fair-play mystery with an unusual setting. The writing is clear, the characters are adequately delineated, and the pacing is good. There are, perhaps, too many minor characters, as well as too many detectives, but overall I'd recommend the book to anyone who enjoys the traditional mystery novel.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Book Review: Everything Explained That Is Explainable
Everything Explained That Is Explainable: On the Creation of the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Celebrated Eleventh Edition, 1910-1911
Books, business
This is, to my slight regret, a book that's more about the business of publishing the Encyclopaedia Britannica than about creating the content of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. As business biographies go, it's quite good; the story is a rich one, almost soap-operatic. There are several larger-than-life characters whom Boyles intelligently keeps (mostly) at the center of his stories. Nonetheless, I think he just missed writing a great book, as opposed to a pretty good one.
Mind you, I can understand how it happened. There's a novelistic quality to the story arc. As Boyles tells it, the central conflict was between the English establishment and the American Horace Everett Hooper, who used American-style advertising to (arguably) save The Times of London and to (undoubtedly) boost encyclopedia sales. Among other things, it's an interesting retrospective on an era when the gap between cultures was much wider, when Progress was all the rage, and when privileged expertise could assume a near-sanctified level of authority.
Great stuff, sure, but where's the titular Encyclopaedia? A little too often the answer is "lurking in the wings somewhere." If it's true, as is often said, that the 1911 Britannica was an achievement of singular brilliance, elegance, and scholarship, what made it so? Boyles touches on the answers--for one thing, it was conceived and executed as a single whole rather than as a collection of articles--but I think he spends too little time there, and too much time in business trivia.
Everything Explained That Is Explainable is a still a good read. It's lucid, pleasingly snide in places, judicious, and well-structured. If it sometimes wanders away from what I think is the main point, that's a venial rather than a mortal sin; but it's still a tiny bit of a shame.
The best-known works of this sort are Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman and The Meaning of Everything, both of which deal with the similarly magisterial Oxford English Dictionary. My faithful readers will also note some crossover appeal with You Could Look It Up, which offers some insight into the insanely difficult and time-consuming process of creating good, timely reference books--and which makes Horace Hooper's achievement seem all the more remarkable by comparison.
Books, business
This is, to my slight regret, a book that's more about the business of publishing the Encyclopaedia Britannica than about creating the content of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. As business biographies go, it's quite good; the story is a rich one, almost soap-operatic. There are several larger-than-life characters whom Boyles intelligently keeps (mostly) at the center of his stories. Nonetheless, I think he just missed writing a great book, as opposed to a pretty good one.
Mind you, I can understand how it happened. There's a novelistic quality to the story arc. As Boyles tells it, the central conflict was between the English establishment and the American Horace Everett Hooper, who used American-style advertising to (arguably) save The Times of London and to (undoubtedly) boost encyclopedia sales. Among other things, it's an interesting retrospective on an era when the gap between cultures was much wider, when Progress was all the rage, and when privileged expertise could assume a near-sanctified level of authority.
Great stuff, sure, but where's the titular Encyclopaedia? A little too often the answer is "lurking in the wings somewhere." If it's true, as is often said, that the 1911 Britannica was an achievement of singular brilliance, elegance, and scholarship, what made it so? Boyles touches on the answers--for one thing, it was conceived and executed as a single whole rather than as a collection of articles--but I think he spends too little time there, and too much time in business trivia.
Everything Explained That Is Explainable is a still a good read. It's lucid, pleasingly snide in places, judicious, and well-structured. If it sometimes wanders away from what I think is the main point, that's a venial rather than a mortal sin; but it's still a tiny bit of a shame.
The best-known works of this sort are Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman and The Meaning of Everything, both of which deal with the similarly magisterial Oxford English Dictionary. My faithful readers will also note some crossover appeal with You Could Look It Up, which offers some insight into the insanely difficult and time-consuming process of creating good, timely reference books--and which makes Horace Hooper's achievement seem all the more remarkable by comparison.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Book Review: The Sunday Philosophy Club
The Sunday Philosophy Club
Alexander McCall Smith
Mystery
A mystery novel for people who like to pat themselves on the back for not reading mystery novels.
Alexander McCall Smith
Mystery
A mystery novel for people who like to pat themselves on the back for not reading mystery novels.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Book Review: Jungle of Stone
Jungle of Stone: The True story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya
William Carlsen
Biography, Exploration
Jungle of Stone has mysterious lost cities, jungles, revolutions, intrepid explorers, and a touch of international rivalry. What more could you ask for?
Oh, and it's also pretty well written. It doesn't quite have the driving novel-like pace of, say, The Lost City of Z, but its more informative overall. The illustrations, from one of the titular Two Men (Frederick Catherwood), are flat-out gorgeous. My only gripe is that the information on the Maya themselves is confined to one chapter; I'd have traded a bit of the travel narrative for some more data.
The aforementioned The Lost City of Z by David Grann is a great, quick read. Alexander von Humboldt makes a couple of appearances here, as well. On a slightly different note, Michael D. Coe's Breaking the Maya Code is a must-read for anyone interested in ancient writings and their deciphering.
William Carlsen
Biography, Exploration
Jungle of Stone has mysterious lost cities, jungles, revolutions, intrepid explorers, and a touch of international rivalry. What more could you ask for?
Oh, and it's also pretty well written. It doesn't quite have the driving novel-like pace of, say, The Lost City of Z, but its more informative overall. The illustrations, from one of the titular Two Men (Frederick Catherwood), are flat-out gorgeous. My only gripe is that the information on the Maya themselves is confined to one chapter; I'd have traded a bit of the travel narrative for some more data.
The aforementioned The Lost City of Z by David Grann is a great, quick read. Alexander von Humboldt makes a couple of appearances here, as well. On a slightly different note, Michael D. Coe's Breaking the Maya Code is a must-read for anyone interested in ancient writings and their deciphering.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Book Review: The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss
Fantasy
I tend to avoid genre fantasy nowadays--even though the genre is fundamental to my identity as a reader. To steal a quip attributed to Samuel Johnson, that which is good isn't original, and that which is original isn't good. There's plenty around that's neither.
Swords-and-horses fantasy, in particular, excites my liveliest suspicion. I did not (and do not) care for A Game of Thrones, to take one obvious example. I made an exception for The Name of the Wind, because several people whose judgment I respect recommended it. Even so, it took me a while to work myself up to the task.
And on balance, it was decent. I wouldn't recommend The Name of the Wind to anyone who isn't a lover of genre fantasy. (Or a 13-year-old, which is a heavy overlap anyway.) For anyone who is, it's readable. If it were a food, it wouldn't be filet mignon, but it wouldn't be deep-fried Twinkies either. It'd be, say, a hamburger. Not a Big Mac. Not an Artisanal Grass-Fed Beef Caramelized-Onion-and-Kale Burger. A hamburger.
Let's start with the obvious commendation: I finished it. At 600+ pages, that's no small thing. Then, too, the writing--particularly some of the descriptive passages--is better than average. The characterization is also better than average, if not up to mainstream-literary standards. There isn't an excess of magic (which lazy authors use in place of actual thought), and such magic as exists is nicely described. It is, in short, comfortable.
It's also familiar. Some of The Name of the Wind is reminiscent of the Earthsea trilogy,* particularly A Wizard of Earthsea. More of it recalls Harry Potter, including analogues for Snape and Draco Malfoy. There's a brief but explicit bow to Tolkien. There's what almost has to be a one-sentence wink to Terry Pratchett. I see echoes of some more modern genre books as well, such as Scott Lynch's "Locke Lamora" series--particularly the third book, The Republic of Thieves; though in this case, it must be said, the resemblance is not in the plotting nor the pacing, which in The Name of the Wind are episodic and decidedly unhurried.
Now, part of the appeal of fantasy is that it's evocative. Far more so than its sibling genres, fantasy is about the echoes. Great fantasy reminds us of fairy tales, myths, and epics: of Beowulf facing the dragon, of King Arthur and Modred, of Robin Hood, of Greek or Norse gods, of the sheer wonder that we remember from our first trips to the well of Story, when we were young and the world was wider and the colors brighter.
Less-than-great genre fantasy reminds us of other genre fantasy. That's The Name of the Wind's limitation. It was a fun read. I'll probably pick up the next volume from the library. I won't put off reading anything else to get to it, though.
*Yes, trilogy. The misguided rumor that there were further books in the series is unworthy of discussion in thesepages electrons.
Patrick Rothfuss
Fantasy
I tend to avoid genre fantasy nowadays--even though the genre is fundamental to my identity as a reader. To steal a quip attributed to Samuel Johnson, that which is good isn't original, and that which is original isn't good. There's plenty around that's neither.
Swords-and-horses fantasy, in particular, excites my liveliest suspicion. I did not (and do not) care for A Game of Thrones, to take one obvious example. I made an exception for The Name of the Wind, because several people whose judgment I respect recommended it. Even so, it took me a while to work myself up to the task.
And on balance, it was decent. I wouldn't recommend The Name of the Wind to anyone who isn't a lover of genre fantasy. (Or a 13-year-old, which is a heavy overlap anyway.) For anyone who is, it's readable. If it were a food, it wouldn't be filet mignon, but it wouldn't be deep-fried Twinkies either. It'd be, say, a hamburger. Not a Big Mac. Not an Artisanal Grass-Fed Beef Caramelized-Onion-and-Kale Burger. A hamburger.
Let's start with the obvious commendation: I finished it. At 600+ pages, that's no small thing. Then, too, the writing--particularly some of the descriptive passages--is better than average. The characterization is also better than average, if not up to mainstream-literary standards. There isn't an excess of magic (which lazy authors use in place of actual thought), and such magic as exists is nicely described. It is, in short, comfortable.
It's also familiar. Some of The Name of the Wind is reminiscent of the Earthsea trilogy,* particularly A Wizard of Earthsea. More of it recalls Harry Potter, including analogues for Snape and Draco Malfoy. There's a brief but explicit bow to Tolkien. There's what almost has to be a one-sentence wink to Terry Pratchett. I see echoes of some more modern genre books as well, such as Scott Lynch's "Locke Lamora" series--particularly the third book, The Republic of Thieves; though in this case, it must be said, the resemblance is not in the plotting nor the pacing, which in The Name of the Wind are episodic and decidedly unhurried.
Now, part of the appeal of fantasy is that it's evocative. Far more so than its sibling genres, fantasy is about the echoes. Great fantasy reminds us of fairy tales, myths, and epics: of Beowulf facing the dragon, of King Arthur and Modred, of Robin Hood, of Greek or Norse gods, of the sheer wonder that we remember from our first trips to the well of Story, when we were young and the world was wider and the colors brighter.
Less-than-great genre fantasy reminds us of other genre fantasy. That's The Name of the Wind's limitation. It was a fun read. I'll probably pick up the next volume from the library. I won't put off reading anything else to get to it, though.
*Yes, trilogy. The misguided rumor that there were further books in the series is unworthy of discussion in these
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