5 comments about The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg.

1. I'm giving up on this book about 3/4 of the way through it. That's a rarity for me, but this one is a bit of a slog and I've grown weary. I finally realized what my problem is with it: From the title (no doubt a take-off on "Catcher in the Rye") I assumed that Moe Berg was a catcher WHILE he was a spy. In fact, he was a catcher and THEN a spy (other than one over-blown incident where he furtively filmed in pre-war Japan). And to be honest, he wasn't even much of a spy--he never went behind the lines, wasn't incognito, etc. The true story of the book is what an eccentric character Moe Berg was. The thing is, as charismatic as he was, I'm sure I would have been as spellbound as everyone else he met. Ultimately, though, he comes off as a tragic, pitiable man, living on past glories and the generosity of others.



2. I felt like I was reading the sports pages for the first 140 pages. Too many stats, facts and figures. The storyline didn't flow, the plot was sluggish and languished for the most part. The story of Moe Berg's life should have packed some punch! I expected more pizazz. His life warranted it, but the book didn't deliver.



3. This interesting biography covers a most unusual person. Moe Berg (1902-1972) was a talented linguist, ballplayer, and U.S. espionage agent for the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) before and during World War II and briefly for the CIA after the war. Author Nicholas Dawidoff describes Berg's mysterious life, including New Jersey boyhood, studies at Princeton and Columbia, and years as a second-string catcher for the Dodgers, White Sox, Indians, Senators and Red Sox. Even as a player Berg was better know for his linguistic skills and stealth than for his baseball exploits. Then readers learn of Berg's years as a spy, which probably began when Berg toured Japan with other big leaguers in 1934. The author describes Berg's secret wartime activities, including his 1944-45 mission to ascertain the status of Nazi nuclear research. We also read of his later years, when except for brief CIA assignments, Berg chose to freeload off relatives and friends rather than employ his superb linguistic and legal talents (he had a law degree). A Overall, Berg was an enigmatic man, and this biography, written two decades after his passing, fails to uncover much about him - perhaps Berg would have wanted it that way. Still, this is an interesting and nicely researched biography.



4. Moe Berg was completely unpleasant. I found myself wondering why I should care about his life. He was a mediocre ballplayer, a mediocre scholar and a mediocre spy. His talent was that he was pleasant to be around. Why write a book about him?
   
   Why read about him? I wondered that. My reaction was, "So what?"



5. Moe Berg is truly one of the most interesting, and enigmatic, characters in sports history. What always fascinated me was how, after WWII and no longer in baseball, Berg never worked. He would stay at friends and relatives' homes throughout the country, reading multiple newspapers, and maintaining strict control of those papers. My guess, and this would make for an interesting investigative study, is that he stayed on the OSS/CIA payroll and was working for them, in some capacity: Dissecting the news, dealing with Communist espionage - or who knows, maybe he was working with foreign elemnets. Berg was something. He has to be considered a major hero. Surely the fact that he was an ex-ballplayer makes him stand out from the other heroes under "Wild Bill" Donovan, as does the fact that a Jew was sent to Nazi-controlled Finland to get German scientists. This is a terrific story. (...)

5 comments about American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond.

1. I bought this for a friend that likes this kind of stuff. He says it is great, to the point and well written.



2. I have the greatest respect for Hunt.
   He was an insider on the JFK assassination and Watergate.
   In addition he was a very skillful writer and keen analyst of the personalities around him.
   
   This book takes on greater significance when Hunt's deathbed audio-taped confession of his involvement in the early planning for the Kennedy assassination is added to it.
   In this book he describes his ideas about the assassination as a "what if" or "it might have happened this way" story.
   Shortly after this he gave a confession to his son, that the "what if" story is the real story and he sat in on it.
   I think he was totally honest.



3. This book is well written and contains a good narrative account of Watergate break in. Aside from that Mr. Hunt seemed torn at the time he wrote this book (near the end of his life), He critizices the leaking of the events a Abu Graihb (not the actual events), yet at the same time he is critical of the decision to go to war in Iraq and seems uncomfortable with certain aspects of GWB's expansion of FISA.
   Maybe these contradictions are due to his long career in CIA and other post that required deceitful and duplicitus words and actions. Whatever the reason this is still a book worth reading.



4. "American Spy," confirms we are living in one of the most exciting eras of history.
   
   Per example, Hunt includes an intriguing insight in his final summation.
   
   "I have rewritten this chapter twice as events keep catching up to me," he begins. {Page 328, para. 2, line 19.} He continues on to note that suggestions he made in the previous versions actually were fulfilled before the publication of the book, causing him to rewrite those passages.
   
   Hunt's delving and the reviews available here on Amazon, make one immediately aware that this field of study is ripe for examination.
   
   One fascinating abscence from Hunt's chronicle is the chapter of various societal affiliations of the leading players, beginning with the past CIA directors, few, if any, of whom qualified for the position 'intelligence chief.' The question begged, that none in authority thought to ask, "Why?" A related list to be made as cross-reference with the names of these scions of snooping? Suggested entries would have to include the Council on Foreign Relations and, naturally, good ol' Skull & Crossbones. Any illumination as to where these configurations might lead?
   
   Just those two would have answered many of the questions Hunt posed throughout his familial confession. But, then, that perhaps reveals Mr. Hunt's true position : American Spy. And few spies tell all, American or otherwise.
   
   Good reading. So close to his own demise, Hunt could have entitled the work, "Racing Through Paradise." Had not, of course, his good friend and compatriot, {how telling that phrase becomes in context}, W.F. already absconded with the plume for one of his own tumblings.
   
   To those who cry 'surfeit' one need only close with Hunt's observation leading into his 'rewrite' remark. Just two paragraphs prior, Hunt waxes on the flood of information being created by the exponentially increasing technologies, casting all intelligence agencies adrift on this Sea of Portent.
   
   One revels in the closing scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as Hunt opines, "...finally content {the CIA} to stamp them TOP SECRET and file them in massive storerooms, with only about 5 (sic.) percent of the information ever undergoing analysis."
   
   Oh, the tangled webs !
   
   TL Farley,
   author,
   When Now Becomes Too Late,
   Distant Reaches
   
   When Now Becomes Too Late { Hard copy }
   
   When Now Becomes Too Late {Kindle copy }
   
   { Prophecy : The Rapture In Brief }
   
   
   
   Distant Reaches
   
   { True Life Adventure In Ireland, Boston and On The North Atlantic }



5. This book reads just like a mystery novel. It's easy to read and full of suspense, so I couldn't wait to turn the page to find out what happens. The pages on Watergate were especially suspenseful. This book was good from beginning to end. It's interesting to get the inside information on CIA training and activities from someone who was really there. Also, it was good to read about Watergate from someone who was really there and knows what happened. He also fills this book with stories about his personal life, his parents, wife and children. At the end, he offers his views on how to fix the agency today. This is a very good and easy to read book! I enjoyed every page of it.

5 comments about Man Is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag.

1. The most important thing that I gained by reading Janusz Bardach's book is that the will to survive is as important as food when it come to survival. More times that he imagined, he survived because he felt that he would, like he had a special angel or just more "good luck" than other people. It doesn't matter if it's true, it only matters that you believe it.
   
   Luck is also helped by brashness and the will to succeed. His story about becoming a medical assistant, though he had absolutely no formal training, reminds me of Solsenitsyn's tale of how he survived the Gulag by lying about having training as a nuclear engineer. It's the ability to adapt that keeps you alive. Goebbels said that if you told a big enough lie enough times, people would begin to believe it. The only way to survive in the Gulag was to lie to yourself and everyone else.
   
   Since so many of the NKVD were corrupt and brutal, the only way to survive in there world was to also appear to be corrupt. Stalin sent so many of the NKVD and those who worked for them to prison, that they were well cared for by their ex-comrades, because they knew they had a good chance of joining them. Who could survive better in a criminal state within a state then a criminal?
   
   This is a story of hope without all the 'hearts and flowers'. It just the true story of what went on, warts and all (lots of warts).



2. This is one of the most unbelievable stories I've ever read. It's written with superb simplicity, making it a rapid and engrossing page turner. What a great gift Bardach has given us in writing this book about his horrific and heroic experiences. This is the best account of any world war 2 camp survivor, period. He clearly illustrates that the Soviet Union was about as horrible a place to be as Europe at the time. The book is as well written as the story is interesting. Fantastic. Thank you, Janusz!



3. I read this after reading The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin. This book may be bleak and shocking, but remember, the author survived! It is an amazing, gripping, shocking story about humanity. I loved it.



4. I can't really say anything that hasn't been mentioned already, and I think that it would be inappropriate to give away any of the plot.
   
   This is simply the most fascinating story of survival of any that I have ever seen. It is incredible as well as inspiring. It teaches you to value your life, and the relationships that you have with the people you care about most. There were so many instances when he could have resigned to his fate and accepted death, but instead he kept going. Millions of people died in prison camps during the war, and unfortunately all of their stories cannot be told. But to understand what they had to go through in their fight for survival, nothing beats this book. Besides telling his story, it examines the history and psychology behind what happened to him. And overall I believe that it is a valuable read for anyone interested in Russian Gulags or prison camps in general during WW2.



5. Janusz Bardach, who became a plastic surgeon in Iowa City, Iowa in 1972, recounts his experiences in the Gulag in this bleak tale of survival reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. A secular Jewish man and supporter of Stalin and communism living in Poland In 1939, he and his family fear their future as Germany's military forces are set up along the border. He is eventually drafted into the Red Army, but when he inadvertently gets his new tank stuck in a river, he's arrested and given a sentence of 10 years of hard labor. He, like the other prisoners, spends most of his time working to meet ridiculously high work quotas, while in a constant state of starvation. He travels from camp to camp during his six years in captivity working in various work situations including a mine, the forest felling trees, and as a medical assistant working with tuberculosis patients (which he eventually contracts). Once he recovers, he's sent to work in a psych ward, where the main focus is exposing the "fakers," those trying to get out of work. His job is to inject them with a seizure-inducing drug, which he does reluctantly. With a little help from his one surviving family member, Polish army officer brother, he is eventually released and finds out the fate of his grandparents, parents, sister and girlfriend. They were all executed.

2 comments about Heinrich Himmler: The SS, Gestapo, His Life and Career.

1. A fascinating insight into the mind of the madman Himmler. A must read for any student of World War II. Part of the incredible Himmler / Goebbels / Goering series by Roger Manvell & Heinrich Fraenkel. Great book.



2. I read this book as part of a class I took on Nazism. This is truly an engrossing account of the life and times of Himmler. This is the tale of how one young boy can turn into one of the Nazi leaders, and head of the SS. This was one of the best books I read in my course, and best books I've read period. It is informative and entertaining, pick it up.

5 comments about On My Own at 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessie.

1. I knew of the Delany sisters from a 60 minutes segment after the first book. In 1998, while starting through the divorce process that seemed so daunting after a quarter century of marriage, I found Sadie's book. I read and reread this book and was always helped with the grief and feelings of being overwhelmed by having to create a life on my own. I figured if Sadie could do it at 107, I could do it at 50. The thought of her having to learn to fix her own hair by herself at that age was such a specific challenge that helped me put my own challenges in perspective. As I read her progress through the grieving process, I made my own progress as well. As I look back on those times 10 yrs. later, I can see this book was one of the most valuable tools I used to not only survive, but to thrive and grow in so many ways.On My Own at 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessie



2. Sadie and Bessie Delany lived together for over 100 years before Bessie died at the age of 104 in the home that the two sisters shared. They were well-educated African-American women in an era when few blacks or women attended college. Sadie was a teacher and Bessie worked as a dentist. The sisters were devoted to each other and Bessie's death was a severe blow to her older sister.
   
   The original story about the sisters is told in "Having Our Say". This book by Sadie chronicles her experiences in learning to live without her sister in the difficult first year after Bessie's death. Sadie's faith, common sense, love, and wisdom come shining through in this little book.



3. Grief is pictured beautifully here as "Sadie" describes her first year after the death of her beloved sister with reference to the beautiful flowers Bessie always raised. The fall and winter of dormancy and renewal in her grief gradually gives way to the vibrancy of spring blooms and summer sun.
   
   When Sadie sees the first spring flowers peeking through the snow, she realizes for the first time that she will grow through her grief. This is a stirring portryal of the experience we all face.



4. I read the first two books about these two remarkable sisters ("Having Our Say," and "The Delaney Sisters' Book of Everyday Wisdom") and they also deserve five stars each, absolutely. In fact, the best book, in terms of literary merit, is the first one, and I loved looking at the photos in the book of the whole family, going back a few generations.
   
   But this book here really helped me in the first year of my husband's death. I read it at least once a week, usually more. I found strength in the fact that if Sadie could make it on her own after being practically attached at the hip for over 100 years to Bessie, and loving each other so much and so well, then I would somehow find the strength to go on too.
   
   Sometimes I was so cried out, but I was still so sad and wanted to cry more, but the tears wouldn't come. The way the "as-told-to" author Hearth expressed Sadie's feelings always helped bring back those cathartic tears.
   
   I read many books of comfort for the grieving widow, but for some reason, this little book near saved my life.



5. "On My Own at 107: Reflections on Life without Bessie" is by Sarah L. Delany with Amy Hill Hearth. Their text is accompanied by illustrations by Brian M. Kotzky. This book contains the reflections of 107-year old Sarah "Sadie" Delany after the death of her sister and lifetime companion Bessie at the age of 104.

   A foreword by coauthor Hearth discusses the lives of these two extraordinary African-American women and the success of their book "Having Our Say," published in 1993 and adapted as a Broadway play. Bessie was a pioneering dentist, and Sadie a teacher; remaining unmarried, the two enjoyed a lifetime partnership that lasted over a century.

   The main body of the text is divided into four parts, each with an introductory section by a 3rd person narrator. But the bulk of the text consists of Sadie's first-person reflections. Interspersed throughout the text are Kotzky's beautiful full color illustrations of the many flowers that longtime gardener Bessie loved: crocuses, tulips, rhododendrons, coral bells, etc.

   This is a wonderful book about family, faith, growing old with grace, and surviving the death of one's life partner. Sadie's voice is wonderfully moving and sometimes funny. Ultimately the book celebrates the cycles of life.

   This book is a touching tribute to Bessie Delany and a celebration of the enduring partnership she shared with her sister. Early in the book Sadie declares, "Why, I have been so blessed in my life!" Likewise are we readers blessed with this beautiful book. Recommended especially for those with an interest in women's studies, African-American studies, flower gardening, and issues related to the elderly.

5 comments about Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power.

1. Abraham Lincoln was born dirt poor on a farm near Hodgenville, Ky in 1809. He died with a bullet in his head on April 15, 1865 in a boarding house in Washington DC where he had been taken following Booth's fatal shot. Lincoln had been attending Ford's Theatre for a performance onf
   "Our American Cousin." As Richard Carwardine shows in his Lincoln Prize winning biography Mr. Lincoln is our our peerless American hero whose marytdom and mythic life have made him an iconic figure of democratic freedom throughout the world.
   Carwardine's book is not a traditional biography in which author follows the outward events of a figure's life. Instead, the author looks with Sherlock Holmes microscopic inquiry at the moral development of the great man. He shows that Lincoln felt slavery was wrong; issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 and defended the Constitution and Union throughout our most destructive war. Lincoln was kind, compassionate and moral. He gave up his plan for gradual compensated emancipation for slaves and plans to send African-American colonists abroad to live free of the taint of blatant racism and slavery. Carwardine opines that Lincoln grew stronger in his advocacy for full citizenship for African Americans as he made of the Civil War a moral crusade for freedom. Lincoln, says Carwardine, received support from Protestant evangelicals, the new Republican party and friendly editors in the press. (Lincoln was also reviled by Democrats and unfriendly newspaper editors). He was a strong president who would suspend habeas corpus and go to the limit of presidential power to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and preserve the United States.
   This is the best book on Lincoln by an Englishman since the early twentieth century biography by Lord Charnwood. The book deals with Lincoln's moral development and evinces his sharp political skills. Lincoln, like the great politician he was, knew how to read the mind of the public in his effort to win rights for African-Americans and keep the quarreling north together and patriotic in winning the Civil War.
   I found the book to be similar to the fine two volume work on Lincoln recently published by William Miller. Similar in that they focus on the mind of Lincoln and the major themes running throughout his career. Those two major themes were Union and the abolition of chattel slavery. Carwardine writes in a scholarly but comprehensible style. His book is worthy of your time and effort in perusing its wise pages. One longs for a man or woman of Lincoln's stature in today's world!



2. If one were to approach Richard Carwardine's "Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power" and expect an exhaustive review of Lincoln's life then it would be easy to be critical of Carwardine's treatment of the life of Abraham Lincoln. Carwardine's focus is quite narrow and the biographical details of his personal life are, at best, sparse. Instead, Carwardine elucidates Lincoln's political life and his apparent spiritual growth over the course of his political life. The reader in search of a full picture of Lincoln would actually be better served to read Carwardine's book in conjunction with David Herbert Donald's fine biography Lincoln.
   
   Lincoln presided over the most tumultuous time in the history of the United States and Lincoln's presidency witnessed (and contributed) to the greatest Constitutional crisis in the history of the United States. In order to confront the tumult, Lincoln assembled a gifted cabinet made up of rivals. Carwardine expertly depicts the rivalries as well as the achievements of this extraordinary cabinet. If one is looking for a fuller treatment of Lincoln's cabinet, one should read Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
   
   Carwardine also take great pains to portray Lincoln's great respect for the rule of law and precedent. For Lincoln, it was not as simple as emancipating the slaves. While the ideals of liberty and equality were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the sanctity of property rights were enshrined in the Constitution, most notably the Due Process clause in the Fifth Amendment. Whether rightly or wrongly, slaves were considered "property" and to emancipate the slaves would be to deprive the salveholder of property "without due process." Carwardine shows Lincoln struggling with legal justifications (e.g. military necessity) for emancipation and means of emancipation (e.g. compensated emancipation). The only way to rightfully square the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution would be to enshrine the ideal of liberty and equality in the Constitution and, thus, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery was passed.
   
   Carwardine also spends some time on Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Many find it ironic that the "Great Emancipator" was also responsible for the suspension of habeas corpus and the detention of thousands of people without trial. For a fuller treatment of Lincoln suspension of habeas corpus (as well as the exegencies of war) check out William Rehnquist's All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime.
   
   I would also be remiss not to direct you to the Amazon review of Etienne ROLLAND-PIEGUE.
   
   Dick Hill's narration begins quite flat and in using vocal inflections to denote the words of Lincoln, Hill had a tendency to make Lincoln sound like "crazy uncle Jethro." However, Hill's narration picks up steam in Chapter 2 and by the end you can see why he has been named a "Golden Voice" by Audiofile Magazine.



3. Presumption presented as bold fact. I do not like others telling us the hidden thoughts and motives of others (as this book does). We barely understand ourselves. The bible says of our own hearts "who can know it?". Yet this writer presumes to know more about Lincolns heart than even Lincoln did. Sorry but "No".



4. This book will give you insight on the political tactics Lincoln used and will also educate you on some of his beginnings.
   
   For a true biography I'd look elsewhere.



5. This is a brilliant book! It is extremely well researched, well written and tremendously interesting.
   
   Author Richard Carwardine provides unparalleled insights into the life of Abraham Lincoln, his pursuit of political power, and his use of that power once installed in the White House.
   
   Lincoln made many mistakes as a politician, President of the United States, and Commander and Chief of the Union armies. But he learned from those mistakes and emerged as a powerful leader, who dominated every aspect of Union strategy - political, economic and military.
   
   More importantly, during the Civil War he alone stood rock solid in the belief that there could be no compromise with the Confederacy that would undermine the union of the United States. Later he extended his unwillingness to compromise to the issue of slavery. Thus, while others around wavered, Lincoln stood firm in the belief that the Union had to remain united and that slavery had to end.
   
   This book was a joy to listen and I was enthralled by the rich and flowing narrative and the valuable insights I gained into the life of my favorite President. Lincoln was a master at manipulating those around him and, more importantly, at crafting a powerful message aimed at eliciting the support of other politicians and the American people.

4 comments about Memories of the Great and the Good.

1. 
   I read this book when it was first published almost a decade ago and recently re-read it after watching a television program about Alistair Cooke (November 20, 1908-March 30, 2004) that renewed my interest in his life and especially in those who attracted his interest as a journalist. My first encounter with Cooke occurred when my family and I watched "Omnibus," an educational television series, broadcast on Sunday afternoons from 1952 until 1961. Cooke served as host. He also attracted a great deal of favorable attention as the author of the "American Letter" program that was broadcast 58 years (from 1946 until 2004), re-named "Letter From America" after four years and eventually broadcast throughout the world by the BBC World Service.
   
   What we have in Memories of the Great & the Good are Cooke's personal profiles of 23 prominent persons who, for various reasons, attracted his attention. Although Cooke proudly identified himself as a journalist, I think he would not object if I prefer to characterize him as a cultural anthropologist because he had an almost insatiable curiosity about all areas of human endeavor. Consider the diversity of those whom he discusses in this book. They include George Bernard Shaw, Frank Lloyd Wright, both Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ross, Gary Cooper, Duke Ellington, Erma Bombeck, and Robert ("Bobby") Jones. He frequently expressed his appreciation for having "the privilege of roaming at will around every region" of the United States and in each dimension of its culture. He welcomed the "chance of acquiring what Theodore Roosevelt called `the sense of the continent'... It is the opportunity to meet all sorts and classes of humanity in their native habitat...soldiers and sailors of every rank, small businessmen of great imagination and comicality, a minor gangster forging U.S. graded beef, a burlesque stripper, a Texas sheep slicer, a modest, illiterate boy from the Carolinas with a genius for leadership in deadly situations in the Second World War."
   
   Fortunately, he shared his impressions and opinions with those who watched his various television programs, listened to his radio broadcasts, and/or read his newspaper and magazine articles as well as more than a dozen bestselling books. Whatever the given medium, Cooke was ever alert to significant details when encountering just about anyone and a master of figurative language when sharing those details with his reader, viewer or listener. Here are four brief excerpts that suggest the thrust and flavor of Cooke's unique style.
   
   In his suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York, Frank Lloyd Wright "lay stretched out on a sofa, his fine hands folded on his lap, a shawl precisely draped around his shoulders. He looked like Merlin posing as Whistler's Mother. Indeed, there was always s curiously feminine grace about him, but it was nothing frail or skittish. He looked more like a matriarch of a pioneering family, one of those massive western gentlewomen who shipped the piano from Boston around the Horn, settled in the Sacramento Valley, defied the Argonauts as they set fire to the cattle barns, and, having finally reclaimed their Spanish land grants, came into their own again as the proud upholders of old manners against the derision and ribaldry of the new rich." (Page 32 from "Frank Lloyd Wright" that first appeared in the Manchester Guardian and was then reprinted in Cooke's book America Observed, published in 1989)
   
   "Gary Cooper filled an empty niche in the world pantheon of essential gods. If no cowboy was ever like him, so much the worse for the cattle kingdom...He represented every man's best secret image of himself: the honorable man slicing clean through the broiling world of morals and machines. He isolated and enlarged to six feet three an untainted strain of goodness in a very male specimen of the male of the species." (Page 130 from "The Legend of Gary Cooper" that also first appeared in the Manchester Guardian and was then reprinted in Cooke's book America Observed, published in 1989)
   
   "You leave [Ronald Reagan's presence] having gained an impression of an engaging kind of energy. He is precise and thoughtful on finance and the mechanics of welfare, quietly dogmatic about the social ferment. He talks no jargon, which is a rare relief. He chants few slogans, he does not preach or intone. He sounds like a decent, deadly serious, baffled middle-class professional man. This, as an executive geared for social rebellion and reform, may be his weakness. But it is his strength among the voters that, in a country with a huge middle class, he so faithfully reflects their bewilderment at the collapse of the old, middle-class standards, protections, and perhaps, shibboleths." (Pages 173-174 from "Reagan: The Common Man Writ Large" that first appeared in the Manchester Guardian in 1967)
   
   Following the death of Robert ("Bobby") Tyre Jones Jr. after 22 years of increasingly more painful suffering from syringomyelia, a chronic progressive generative disease of the spiral cord, Cooke observes: "What we are left with in the end is a forever young, good-looking southerner with a private ironical view of life who, to the great good fortune of people who saw him, happened to play the great game with more magic and more grace than anyone before or since."(Page 277 from "The Gentleman from George" that first appeared in 1996 and was revised for this volume)
   
   These and hundreds of other passages (I view them as precious "nuggets of insight") can be found throughout Cooke's profiles of "the great & and the good" with whom he had direct and usually frequent contact. How fortunate we are to share the pleasure of their company...and his. He lived more than 95 years and finally retired only a few weeks before his death. Nonetheless, he suggests in "To the Reader" that, had he "but life enough and time, he could probably "fill another book with a Dickensian-size cast of memorable unknowns of the greatest variety." Those of us who so greatly admire his work regret that no such book was written. However, we find consolation in the fact that there are so many other volumes - as well as CDs and DVDs -- to which we can return for delight as well as enlightenment.



2. Prior to buying this volume of Alistair Cooke's writings, I knew him only as the former host of Masterpiece Theater, with his career as a journalist being only something I had heard about. The essays collected here are from various periods of Mr. Cooke writing career (1957 through 1999) and include a diverse group of people, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Irma Bombeck, Gary Cooper, Barry Goldwater and Eleanor Roosevelt . Each essay is rather short, averaging about ten pages. I read a comment by a reviewer that Mr. Cooke was excellent at creating a "portrait" of his subjects. While this is probably true, "Memoirs of the Great and Good" aims more at anecdotes and episodes, that Mr. Cooke elaborates upon, rather than having the detail and depth of a short biography. Many were written upon the death of the subject, so they are valedictory in tone. The essay about FDR relates an occurrence that happened to Mr. Cooke when he encountered the President as he was arriving to give a speech at Harvard. The last piece is a book review of "The Last Lion" by William Manchester, a biography of Winston Churchill, that gives us an insightful look into the early years of Churchill.

   In sum, I found these essays to be thoughtfully written and compulsive to read. It was surprising to realize how quickly I went through the book.




3. "Memories of the Great and the Good" is a collection of essays that, as much as introducing the more casual and less public sides of nearly two dozen luminaries, reveals the evolution of America and of Alistair Cooke. The pieces stretch from 1951 through 1999 and the most useful advice, repeated both in discussing Churchill's love of war and hatred of the idea of women's suffrage, and in dismissing the alleged racism of golfer Bobby Jones, is to beware the "shame of seeing a man out of his time." One reporter recently dubbed Cooke the Dorian Gray of journalism, perhaps both for having been silver-haired and apparently the same age for as many decades as not, and because it is difficult to tell to what time the man himself belongs.

   Even though he is my grandfather, I can be no help on that score; in recent years I have seen the replacement of a knee and an angioplasty (both of which he has mentioned in his weekly BBC "Letter from America") leave him as sprightly as I have ever known him.

   Each essay reflects the time of its creation, whether that was 1967 or 1999. The 1974 piece on Duke Ellington mentions a visit to the bandleader's flat "on the swagger side of Harlem," and comments, "There is such a place," the Duke being at the top of "the hierarchy of Negro social status." Yet the 1999 piece on FDR is most memorable for an account of the unexpected, unseen, and contemporarily unpublishable view of the president being carried out of a car and limping, assisted, into a giant hall. By urging the reader to look at his subjects in their times, he sometimes implicitly admonishes himself for failing to do so. "Wodehouse at Eighty," for one, shows the father of Jeeves unquestionably out of his time, an anachronism as viewed--and, to be honest, caricatured--by Cooke, in his early fifties at the time. In other essays he steps almost too much into the times and shoes of his subjects, for example when mirroring the outlook of Erma Bombeck, whose career "was that of her generation--brace yourselves!--mother and housewife." While many of the pieces attempt and succeed at portraying the individuals 'in their time,' a large number of the pieces were written far after 'their times' as obituaries, which should not be surprising as Cooke shares with every nonogenarian the fact of having seen an extraordinary number of players both step onto the stage and then take their bows and make their exits some time later.

   Combined with this historical span, what is truly worthy about this book is that, like his earlier "Six Men," it displays the extraordinary degree of access which he, as a foreign correspondent par excellence, enjoyed with a dizzying array of figures. George Bernard Shaw is in a behind-the-scenes committee discussing the pronunciation of proper "BBC English." "The General"--Eisenhower-- sits on his back porch, commenting on his golf and waiting for Cooke's t.v. crew to reposition themselves. And Duke Ellington is in his boxers and a towel, devouring breakfast at two p.m. These are the kind of stories that I've heard come out over drinks in his study, or on Christmas afternoon in Vermont, as if they were the most pedestrian, ordinary experiences.

   On October 2, 1999, a fascinating sixteen-minute interview about the book was broadcast on Weekend All Things Considered, recorded in that self-same study in New York. NPR's finest have come to call, just as Cooke did on Wodehouse or Ike; as Cooke thus becomes a living museum of the twentieth century, I wonder if his plea is partly that he himself not be viewed out of his time. In the interview, he posits that America and Americans have, in asserting our 'rights,' lost track of the collective societal duties to which they correspond. With this I must respectfully disagree; we must recognize that these courtesies, if they existed, were only accorded to a small, privileged establishment. Thus, I far prefer a society where anyone can enforce his rights, to one that relies on a collective sense of duty from which many could never benefit. In any case, "Memories of the Great and the Good" offers a rare look, at Cooke (long an icon of Britain to Americans and in icon of America to Britain) and at many of the most important actors on the stage of the twentieth century. I truly hope you will enjoy it.




4. I purchased this book for my 13 year old son for Christmas, and took the liberty of reading it. I read Cooke's sections on George C. Marshall, Winston Churchill,Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Bobby Jones because I was familiar with all of them from other works. Cooke writes in a breezy style, butI believe he captures the noble, transcendent charateristics of each man.I enjoyed each sketch thorougly. His vignettes are all perceptive. I hope that this might spark my son's interest in reading more about these figures. Overall an excellent, quick read.

5 comments about Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses.

1. This is one of my favorite biographies about Saint Joan of Arc because it relies so heavily upon the actual quotes of Saint Joan and her contemporaries. Instead of writing a traditional narrative, Régine Pernoud cleverly uses Joan's own words or those of the people around her to give us her history. Tracing Joan's life from beginning to end, Pernoud relies on Joan's quotes as much as she can. She does add just enough narrative to keep the biography coherent but by using Joan's own words, we are able to get a sense of what her personality was like. As the title proclaims, this biography is really written by Saint Joan and her witnesses.



2. This book rocks. The author, Regine Pernoud intertwines the dialog of Joan's condemnation trial with parts of the rehabilitation trial, and offers background and discussion of the events as they happen, from the people who lived during that time, beginning from Joan's childhood until even after the rehabilitation trial. At the end of each chapter, Pernoud gives a commentary that takes certain questions about unclear aspects of Joan's life and discusses them by giving textual evidence and reasoning through them. The result is a very comprehensive, non-fiction biography of Joan that states only the facts, and any speculation is based on facts as well.
   
   I think the way Pernoud arranged the book works very well, as I couldn't put the book down. I was amazed by this because I pretty much dislike most non-fiction books. This one is so comprehensive yet incredibly interesting as well. Even though it is non-fiction, you can tell the author was very passionate about what she was writing. As a result, the reader becomes excited as well. Anybody wants to learn about the true facts of Joan's life and the time she lived in should read this book. It'll definitely make you admire her even more.



3. Regine Pernoud is an expert on Joan of Arc, and makes you feel almost like YOU know her too. I laughed. I cried. The telling of the story from Joan's own words and the testimony of those who knew her puts this book on the top of my list.

   I liked it better than Pernoud's book, "Joan of Arc: Her Story," but it's not quite as comprehensive. Both are excellent books, but I rate this title a little higher.

   If you really want to feel like you walked with Joan, read Mark Twain's fictional diary, "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc," told from the point of view of her childhood friend-later-scribe. One of the greatest reads of my life! A Book that really changed my perspective on a lot of things.




4. Joan of Arc was a book about a series of wars between France and England over the feud for the Crown of France. Saved by a women warrior the crown was awarded to it's proper owner, but then the military and nobility backstabbed her and accused her of being a witch. I thought the book was really interesting because of all the action and discrimination against women.



5. Joan of Arc was a book about a series of wars between France and England over the feud for the Crown of France. Saved by a women warrior the crown was awarded to it's proper owner, but then the military and nobility backstabbed her and accused her of being a witch. I thought the book was really interesting because of all the action and discrimination against women.

5 comments about First Light.

1. Set in the early days of the war, this is the story of a young man's efforts to join the fight and parttake in what we now know as The Battle of Britain. Geoffrey 'Boy" Wellum managed to join very young as many did just like him, go through training and then be sent to the front where he aquitted himself well. Having myself joined up at the same age but a few generations later, it is not difficult to imagine the challenges laying ahead, nor being one of the youngest, and always the youngest... But unlike our times, in a battle of life and death, where the protection lay in the early anticipation of the other's moves, ability to outfly and the size of the petrol tank of your opponent, proximity to your own base, even sheer luck in fact, was the wand that decideded the cause of events. I recommend this book but even more so recommend you to go to one of the events given in the U.K. each year to meet with the airman in person. That is the best ending to the book. Any book for that matter - given the tumultuous circumstances of when it took place and the subsequent years. I could only wish he would write yet another - of those years fought in Hawker Typhoons - as a test pilot and I am sure...more!



2. Simply put. I could not put this book down. i felt i was in the cockpit at times with geoffrey.I finished the book wanting more.



3. I have read many flying books including many dealing with WWII. First Light is outstanding and one of the best.
   
   The author brings life to an incredible odyssey from a young college student to RAF ace. In a matter of a few months he went from an aviation cadet to reporting to a front line fighter squadron. Wellum brings life to arriving at the Spitfire equipped squadron without ever having seen one up close much less having any flying experience in them.
   
   His arrival occurred at the same time as the desperate struggle to evacuate trapped British and French forces from the beaches at Dunkirk. Within a couple of days of his arrival 25% of his new squadron members lay dead at the bottom of the Channel or on the beach.
   
   What some may find redundant is really the exhausting, terrifying daily routine of continuing aerial combat over England and then the Continent. Wellum's descriptions of aerial combat are fascinating. Some battles are against vastly superior forces of ME 109's while in others weather becomes a deadly enemy.
   
   The author's humble writing style makes all the more impact. For those who fly or are history buffs this is a must read.



4. I served in the RCAF durin ww2. I later flew fighters in th USAF, served as captain on USAirways for 28 years.I have written 5 books on aviation.Jeoffrey Wellum's book is a master piece.His breath -taking descriptions of aeral battles puts you right in the cockpit of his BEAUTIFUL Spitfire.
   " The narrow legs of it 'undercarrage give it a delicate apperance.It has the air of a thoroughbread---It's ellipitical wings and sleder body give it an air above all other fighters,the sound of it'sRR Merline engine produces a sound ,like nothing else in the air.I firmly believe that the Spitfire was the most beautiful fighter of ww2, and I as jeoffery said ,I would also give my arm to fly it.
   I don't know which was his most dangerous flying conditions were,weather flack, or bullets. He did a yomans job in all these instances.
   I have read dozens of books by RAF fighter pilots, This book is at the top of my list.Great job " BOY"



5. Excellent first person account of the Battle of Britain but not the best I've read. If you're looking for something with a little more of the overall picture, try Fly For Your Life by Robert Stanford Tuck. Tuck's book is definitely the best memoir on the Battle of Britain I've come across and one of the best WW II books I've ever read.

5 comments about Gerald R. Ford.

1. Well known historian Douglas Brinkley has written this brief biography, as a part of the American Presidents series of works. In the series editor's Introduction, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. notes that (Page xv): "The president is the central player in the American political order." Gerald Ford was an accidental president, taking over after Richard Nixon's downfall resulting from Watergate and his subsequent resignation.
   
   Gerald Ford's name at birth was Leslie Lynch King, Jr. His father had a violent temper and the marriage did not last long. His mother later married Gerald Rudolf Ford; after a time, her son was renamed Gerald Rudolph (an Americanized version of the stepfather's middle name) Ford. As a youngster, he excelled at athletics and even had the possibility of a pro football career. However, he chose law school and, shortly after that, electoral politics. He saw action in World War II.
   
   When he was elected to the House of Representatives 1948, he began to formulate the ambition to become Speaker of the House. His chosen career was in the legislature. The book does a nice job profiling his rise in the House, with carefully crafted advancement through the ranks; it also depicts the start of a long-time friendship between Ford and Richard Nixon.
   
   When Ford finally became Minority Leader in the House, he used his conciliatory approach well. As Brinkley says (Page 31), ". . .he played the good coach, giving his squad wide latitude to speak their minds. In exchange, he wanted no bickering. Ford's open forum proved smart strategy." Some tho9ught him rather slow of thought, but his amiability and ability to work with others represented a great strength.
   
   When Nixon was elected President, he tended not to work so well with Congress--including his own Republican mates. Ford did not distinguish himself with his unabating support for Nixon after Watergate became a public matter; after former Attorney General John Mitchell reported that the White House was not involved, Ford clung to that long after so many others had seen through the falsehoods.
   
   Then, the unlikely story of his rise to Vice-President and his subsequent ascension to the presidency after Nixon's downfall. The book does a nice job in a brief space noting the major decisions/actions of the Ford Administration, some working out well and some not so well. Here, we read about Whip Inflation Now, swine flu, the withdrawal from Viet Nam, the Mayaguez incident, the Helsinki Accords, and so on. The internecine Republic nomination politics of 1976 essentially doomed him to lose to Jimmy Carter. Then, the amazing life after the presidency and people's changing reflections on his accomplishments. . . .
   
   Another well turned work in the American Presidents series. These short volumes cannot go into the depth that I would sometimes like, but the tradeoff is accessible books for people who might not have the patience to wade through a 600 page tome.



2. Ford was our longest living president at 93, outliving Reagan by 46 days. He became president without a single vote. Nixon put him in office as someone who would grant him a pardon. Ford became known for his clumsiness, tripping and bumping his head at every opportunity. He put his foot in his mouth in a debate with Jimmy Carter when he declared that Poland was not dominated by the Soviet Union.



3. Writing a short biography on a president who served such a brief time is a difficult proposition. It is to Brinkley's credit that he did not try to do more with his subject than what the subject deserves (such as Kevin Phillips failed work on William McKinley). Fortunately, Ford is not as an obscure, or I should say unimportant, a presidential figure as some others (e.g., Chester Arthur).
   
   The most dramatic issue for Ford was his pardon of Nixon. The author concludes that Ford acted correctly. Perhaps this is true, that is debatable. I lived through the same time (I almost voted for Ford in '76) and I am not sure that the country would not have been better served if a trial did occur. It may have prevented the recent efforts to devise an imperial presidency and the resulting calamity in foreign/domestic policies. Ford thought that a 1913 Supreme Court decision made clear that Nixon accepted the pardon and his guilt. That was not an accurate conclusion. His position would have made more sense if Ford required Nixon to have explicitly agreed with that conclusion. Ford didn't and Nixon spent much of his remaining years still deflecting blame.
   
   Left out of the bio was the significant revelation after Ford's death that he criticized Bush's Iraq War, but he directed that his thoughts not be published until after his death. In strengthening Ford's stature by highlighting his character, the author seems to have conveniently lost the chance to consider if his silence was consistent with the character issue. In fact, Ford was a party man to the death. His silence, therefore, is consistent with that stance, but was that of high character?
   
   Regardless, I too accept Ford as a very decent person and his presidency was at least (but no more) of average significance. His Helsinki agreement is rightly cited in this book as a landmark act. He was, though, a poor national candidate and that prevented an extension of his presidency.



4. This is a good book. It makes you realize that Ford was really a hard working, intelligent, well qualified person at the time that he was selected to be Vice President. It also brings to life, the 70's. As the country gets ready to celebrate another birthday, we can also celebrate the persons who have been willing to get involved in service to their country.



5. My dad enjoyed Gerald Ford as President because of his honesty, integrity, and rare human quality.