By Steve Rhodes
July 28 – 29
Publication: Tribune
Cover: “DeSPERaTE HOUsEWife: Ellen Baker’s debut novel takes aim at 1950s gender roles in America’s heartland.” So right up the Tribune’s alley.
Other Reviews I Almost Read and May Elsewhere: The Last Tycoons: The Secret History and Americanism; The Fourth Great Western Religion.
*
Publication: Sun-Times
Cover: “Sam I Am?” A review of (Al Gore daughter) Kristin Gore’s second novel, Sammy’s House. I so have no interest in this.
Other News & Reviews of Note: A republished Washington Post review of The Italian Letter, the latest in an awfully long series of books detailing the utterly mendacious, corrupt and criminal behavior of the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq War as well as its post-war failures. This entry, by a former Post deputy foreign editor partnered with an investigative reporter, details the case of the infamously forged Niger documents that found their way into a State of the Union address as evidence for going to war and led to Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger, which led to the Valerie Plame affair.
“[The papers] seemed to have more in common with those Nigerian ‘request for urgent business relationship’ e-mails than with an authentic document from Niger,” reviewer Tara McKelvey explains.
Yes, folks, we were persuaded to go to war in part based on Nigerian spam.
Also: While Sun-Times reporter Mary Wisniewski persuasively pans Bust: How I Gambled And Lost A Fortune, Brought Down a Bank – And Lived To Pay For It, a memoir about gambling addict and former Long Grove businessman Adam Resnick, I have to admit I’m still intrigued – as I think Wisniewski was. A lot of local elements to observe: Losing $8.6 million at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond; the Pilsen community bank that collapsed in a Resnick check-kiting scheme; getting stuffed in a car trunk at gunpoint by a Chicagoland bookie. “This is interesting stuff,” Wisniewski writes, “providing a glimpse into Chicago’s modern gambling underworld.” Her caveat is that, ever the con man, Resninck seems to be playing his readers the way he’s played everybody else in his life. So reader beware.
*
Publication: Books & Culture
Noted: Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship
By: John Polkinghorne
Yale University Press/2007/Hardcover
“Truth-seeking in science and theology are not that different, says Polkinghorne, who discerns similarities between the perplexities in quantum physics and the problem of evil; the drive for a unified theory and Trinitarian theology; the way quantum theories and Christological controversies emerged historically.”
*
Publication: New York Times
Cover: Artwork of duct tape covering a “W” meant to stand for War on Terror, I’m presuming, but maybe slyly also representing the president. The review: “Our War on Terror,” in which Samantha Power weaves together a handful of books to produce an essay that rings true but isn’t exactly new. Among the works Power considers is the U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Manual, just published by the University of Chicago press.
Other News & Reviews of Note: Slate writer Timothy Noah reviews Bob Shrum’s No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner. Highlights:
* “Shrum relates the campaign’s collective sigh of relief when the networks declined to show footage of Kerry at an Iowa party jokingly miming a toke while Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary sang ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.'”
Okay, my problem with this is that this is a very stale joke, and what the hell is Peter Yarrow doing there? My God, you Boomers are stuck in time. Billie Joe Armstrong is in a trio, you know.
* “Gleefully tattling on the current presidential candidate John Edwards, on whose 1998 Senate campaign Shrum consulted, he says Edwards ‘didn’t know much about the issues’ and couldn’t be persuaded ‘to read the briefing books.’ When Shrum asked Edwards his position on gay rights, he replied, ‘I’m not comfortable around those people.’ (Edwards’s wife and pollster, who were there, have said Shrum took this remark out of context.)”
While somewhat juicy, though, it sounds like this book is also awfully self-serving. As with the Adam Resnick, probably an enjoyable read with the proper filters turned on.
Also Noted: From a review of Driven Out: The Forgotten War Chinese Americans:: “In the 19th century, Chinese people were demonized across the American West – but they fought back . . . Resistance to the 1892 ‘Dog Tag Law’ was ‘perhaps the largest organized act of civil disobedience in the United States.”
*
CHARTS:
1. Navy seal.
2. Tony Dungy
3. Diana
Al Gore is 6th; God is 7th; Einstein is 8th; Reagan is 12th; the former lead guitarist of Korn who found God and quit drugs is 15th.
Posted on August 2, 2007