THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

Life allows for very few “do-overs”.  We simply cannot go back and relive and consequently erase the mistakes we have made earlier.  As such, many times we develop a “book of regrets” or at least as many regrets as might fill a good-size book, but what if you could?  What if you could go back?  What if you had taken that job instead of the one you have now?  What if you had joined that rock band as a teenager and continued playing with the band?  What would have happened if you followed a different professional path?  What if you had married Bob instead of Bill?  All of these “what-if” plague some of us as we age and can torment us later in life if we choose to let them. 

Between life and death there is a library. That’s the thesis of the book.  Nora Seed, who lives a monotonous, ordinary life feels unwanted and unaccomplished. One night, her despair reaches a peak and she commits suicide, but Nora is given the opportunity to go back and relive some of her regrets.  To correct things.  To say I’m sorry. To accomplish a “do over”.    She feels she has let everyone down, including herself but when she finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has an opportunity to make things right. The Midnight Library, as mentioned, exists between life and death and is filled with books in which lie endless parallel lives Nora might’ve lived; she is given the chance to undo her regrets by trying out these lives, starting right where her alternate self would’ve been on the night, she ended her life. While in the Midnight Library, Nora lives hundreds of lives and becomes hundreds of different versions of herself–some she’d never even fathomed–but she is faced with a difficult decision. She must decide what she is willing to sacrifice in order to live permanently in one of these ‘ideal’ lives, where they seem perfect for a time but, as she realizes, there are really new sets of challenges awaiting. Nora’s exploration of herself is captivating as she attempts to discern what is really important in life. The Library enables Nora to live as if she had done things differently.  Each book contains a different life, a possibility in which she makes different choices that play out in an infinite number of ways, affecting everyone she knew as well as many people she never met.  The Library makes it possible to undo every decision she has regretted in her life up to that point, but the Library eventually places her in a position of extreme danger.  Before time runs out, and it really does eventually, she must answer the ultimate question:  What is the best way to live?

This novel is very well-written and thought-provoking. Nora’s emotions are deeply portrayed, and I was captivated by the depth of Matt Haig’s storytelling. While the concept is simple, it drew me in as a reader and encompassed so many different emotional experiences that come with life. I spent much of The Midnight Library reflecting on my own life and the decisions I’ve made, as well as looking to the future and imagining the infinite possibilities–this is a sign of a talented author. There were also attempts to make Nora’s life-jumping seem scientifically possible, with reference to quantum physics, the focus was on Nora’s life and personal growth. Overall, I very much enjoyed The Midnight Library. The character development, setting, and plot are engaging, while also discussing important themes such as mental health.

I would recommend The Midnight Library to teens and adults alike. It’s a short, worthwhile read that will get you thinking and have you on the edge of your seat. And it may just awaken you to how much unlocked potential you have!

EINSTEIN—WALTER ISAACSON

I don’t know if you have ever read a book by Mr. Walter Isaacson. He is very meticulous and tireless with the research done prior to writing.  For the book “Einstein”, he provides one hundred and eighty-eight (188) pages of sources and notes as well as a complete index relative to subject matter.  In my opinion, he is one of the best authors our country has ever produced, if you are after the absolute facts.  He does not produce fiction—just facts.

Just about every adult has heard of Albert Einstein and his Theory of Relativity AND his mathematical formula E=mC².  This formula links total energy to mass and the speed of light squared.   We all basically know that.  You mention Einstein and automatically you think of E=mC².  What I did not know: this man was a very complex individual with a tremendous independent personally.  A bit of a lady’s man to boot.

The book can be at times can be very tedious but that’s because Isaacson takes GREAT pains to provide factual and accurate information, sometimes at the expense of detailing minutia.  So, with that being the case, I will not try to re-write the book.  What I would like to do is provide several comments from noted individuals.

“An illuminating delight ……This is a warm insightful, affectionate portrait with a human and immensely charming Einstein at its core.  A wonderfully rounded portrait of the ever-surprising Einstein personality”.  Janet Maslin, The New York Times.

“Once again Walter Isaacson has produced a most valuable biography of a great man about whom much has already been written. It helps that he has had access to important new material.  He met the challenge of dealing with his subject as a human being and describing profound ideas in physics.  His biography is a pleasure to read and makes the great physicist come alive”.   

Murry Gell-Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and author of The Quark and the Jaguar.

(NOTE:  I can’t say it any better than Dr. Gell-Mann.)  Isaacson paints a very personal picture of Dr. Einstein as well as describing the paths leading to much, if not most, of the very important work he accomplished in his lifetime.  This provides a complete picture of the man.  Einstein was remarkably focused, at times to the detriment of his family. 

“Isaacson has given us a life, not just a mind, perhaps the greatest in the twentieth century, but also a personality, as imperfect and fallible as all the rest of us.  This unique combination of sheer brilliance and human uncertainty makes this one of the greatest biographies of our time”

Joseph J. Ellis.  Author of Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.

“Isaacson has triumphed…producing a thorough exploration of his subject’s life, a skillful piece of scientific literature and a thumping good read…It’s one of the greatest stories of modern science and to his credit—Isaacson has done a first-rate job in telling it.  This is, quite simply, a riveting read”.

Robin McKie, The Guardian (UK)

I think you get the picture.  This is a profound book certainly worth reading.  You must be patient, take your time, check some of Isaacson’s references and sources and read the book. 

As always, I welcome your comments.

THE CODE BREAKER

“The Code Breaker” is a marvelous book written by Walter Isaacson.  The book is about gene editing and how gene editing just may be the future of the human race.  When Jennifer Doudna was in the sixth grade, she came home from school one day to find her father had left her a book entitled “The Double Helix”.  She thought it was a detective mystery her father knew she loved.  In one sense, it actually was.  When she finally did get to the book one Saturday, she rapidly marched through the pages and became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the building blocks of life.  In other words, she was hooked. Unfortunately, when she talked with her high school counselor, she was told, ‘girls don’t do science’.  Fortunately enough, she did not follow his counseling, thus deciding she would apply her skills towards working to that end.

The difficult work she accomplished was directed towards the development of CRISPR which led to the development of vaccines for COVID-19.  CRISPR stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” Those repeats are found in bacteria’s DNA. They are actually copies of small pieces of viruses. Bacteria use them like collections of mug shots to identify bad viruses. Cas9 is an enzyme that can cut apart DNA. Bacteria fight off viruses by sending the Cas9 enzyme to chop up viruses that have a mug shot in the collection. Scientists recently figured out how bacteria do this. Now, in the lab, researchers use a similar approach to turn the microbe’s virus-fighting system into the hottest new lab tool.

This CRISPR/Cas9 tool was first described in 2012 and 2013. Science labs around the world soon started using it to alter an organism’s genome — the entire set of its DNA instructions.  As a result, and after eight years (8) of very difficult and intense work, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier took home the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

HOW CRISPR WORKS:

Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism’s DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome. Several approaches to genome editing have been developed. A very recent one is known as CRISPR-Cas9, 

Scientists start with RNA. That’s a molecule that can read the genetic information in DNA. The RNA finds the location in the nucleus of a cell where editing activity should take place. (The nucleus is a compartment in a cell where most of the genetic material is stored.) This guide RNA directs Cas9 to the precise location on the DNA where a cut is required. Cas9 then locks onto the double-stranded DNA and unzips it.

This allows the guide RNA to pair up with a specific region of the DNA it has targeted. Cas9 snips the DNA at this location which creates a break in both strands of the DNA molecule. The cell, sensing a problem, repairs the break.

Fixing the break might disable a gene (the easiest thing to do). Alternatively, this repair might fix a mistake or even insert a new gene (a much more difficult process).  

Cells usually repair a break in their DNA by “gluing” the loose ends back together. That’s a sloppy process. It often results in a mistake that disables some gene. That may not sound useful — but sometimes it is.

Scientists cut DNA with CRISPR/Cas9 to make gene changes, or mutations. By comparing cells with and without the mutation, scientists can sometimes figure out what a protein’s normal role is. Or a new mutation may help them understand genetic diseases. CRISPR/Cas9 also can be useful in human cells by disabling certain genes — ones, for instance, that play a role in inherited diseases.

“The original Cas9 is like a Swiss army knife with only one application: It’s a knife,” says Gene Yeo who is an RNA biologist at the University of California, San Diego. But Yeo and others have attached other proteins and chemicals to the dulled blades. That has transformed that knife into a multifunctional tool.

CRISPR/Cas9 and related tools can now be used in new ways, such as changing a single nucleotide base — a single letter in the genetic code — or adding a fluorescent protein to tag a spot in the DNA that scientists want to track. Scientists also can use this genetic cut-and-paste technology to turn genes on or off.

This explosion of new ways to use CRISPR hasn’t ended. Feng Zhang, who is a molecular biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, was one of the first scientists to wield the Cas9 scissors. “The field is advancing so rapidly,” he says. “Just looking at how far we have come…I think what we’ll see coming in the next few years will just be amazing.”.  The reason Dr. Feng Zhang was mentioned in the book is due to the intense competition between Dr. Doudna, Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Zhang to accomplish the gene-splitting that allowed for the vaccine which led to a treatment for COVID-19. 

Now, ethical concerns arise when genome editing, using technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9, is used to alter human genomes. Most of the changes introduced with genome editing are limited to somatic cells, which are cells other than egg and sperm cells. These changes affect only certain tissues and are not passed from one generation to the next. However, changes made to genes in egg or sperm cells (germline cells) or in the genes of an embryo could be passed to future generations. Germline cell and embryo genome editing bring up a number of ethical challenges, including whether it would be permissible to use this technology to enhance normal human traits (such as height or intelligence). Based on concerns about ethics and safety, germline cell and embryo genome editing are currently illegal in many countries.

This very impressive book takes you through the process of discovery Dr. Doudna encounters during a decade’s long career as a research scientist and those she meets along the way.  One thing that really impressed me is all of the researchers in this field have doctorates and work as post-docs.  These are very intelligent people doing marvelous work.  You will definitely enjoy this book.

THE WAY I HEARD IT

If you want to be a decent writer, you need to be an avid reader.  I have no idea as to who said that but it’s nothing more than common logic.  I’ve been an avid reader for years.  The question remains—am I a decent writer?  You have to decide that.

With that being said, I just completed reading the latest book by Mike Rowe. Mr. Rowe is the executive producer and host of the hit TV program “Dirty Jobs”. I’ve seen several episodes and can see why people love to tune in.  In his new book, he presents thirty-five (35) stories representing mysteries, short ones at that, about people you know.  The stories are patterned after Paul Harvey’s great radio series “The Rest of the Story”.  Movie stars, madmen, heroes, individuals gone completely nuts, they are all there in the book.  The book contains memoirs filled with surprising revelations, sharp observations, and behind-the-scenes and moments drawn from his remarkable life and career.

BIOGRAPHY:

Mr. Rowe’s performing career began in 1984, when he faked his way into the Baltimore Opera to get his union card and meet girls, both of which he accomplished during a performance of Rigoletto. His transition to television occurred in 1990 when — to settle a bet — he auditioned for the QVC Shopping Channel and was promptly hired after talking about a pencil for nearly eight (8) minutes. There, he worked the graveyard shift for three (3) years, until he was ultimately fired for making fun of products and belittling viewers.

Thanks to QVC, Mike became practiced at the art of talking for long periods without saying anything of substance, a skill that would serve him well as a TV host. Throughout the ’90s, Mike had hundreds of jobs and relished his role as a chronic freelancer with lots of time to loaf around. Then, through a horrible miscalculation, he pitched a three-hour special to the Discovery Channel that ended up resulting in the show “Dirty Jobs.” Viewers liked it and Discovery responded by ordering thirty-nine 39 episodes — a shocking commitment that Mike was contractually obligated to honor. For the first time in his career, Mike went to work with a vengeance.

Over the next decade, Mike would become known as “the dirtiest man on TV.” He traveled to all fifty (50) states and completed three hundred (300) different jobs, transforming cable television into a landscape of swamps, sewers, ice roads, coal mines, oil derricks, crab boats, hillbillies, and lumberjack camps. For this, he has received both the credit and the blame.

Eventually, Mike was overcome with a strange desire to give something back. On Labor Day 2008, he launched mikeroweWORKS which is a PR campaign designed to reinvigorate the skilled trades. He’s since written extensively about the country’s relationship with work, the widening skills gap, offshore manufacturing, infrastructure decline, currency devaluation and several other topics for which he has no actual credentials. He once gave a TED Talk on the Changing Face of the Modern-Day Proletariat.  In May 2011, he testified before the United States Senate Commerce Committee about the importance of changing perceptions and stereotypes around blue-collar work and was asked back to testify to the House Committee on Natural Resources in 2014. In late 2013, Mike and Caterpillar worked together to launch Profoundly Disconnected, a new initiative focused on technical recruitment as well as the book Profoundly Disconnected®, A True Confession From Mike Rowe.   All the proceeds from the sale of the book go to the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, to be used for Work Ethic Scholarships and advocacy campaigns surrounding American manufacturing.

REVIEWS:  I thought the book was a great look into the lives of interesting people and the life of Mr. Rowe.  If you read my posts, you know when doing a book review, I like to include comments of others who had read the book also.  Here we go.

As you can see, people love the book.  One other thing—the font size is large enough so you do not have to squint if you are over thirty years old.  Spacing is adequate and the stories are concise and short enough to read two or three, rest your eyes and carry on with the next one or two.  In conclusion, I can definitely recommend this book to you.  Poignant, funny, sad in some ways, uplifting; all of those adjectives do apply.

OUTLANDER

The book “Outlander” is the first in an eight-book series written by Ms. Diana Gabaldon.  My wife and I luckily stumbled upon the NETFLIX series some time ago, trying desperately to keep occupied during the COVID-19 “lockdown”.  We also grew extremely weary with horrible news on just about every aspect of modern-day life in America including the pandemic.  We were hoping NETFLIX might provide some form of relief, if not comic relief.  We were not disappointed in the least.

My grandfather always told me to put my money on the jockey and not the race horse.  With this being the case, let’s look at the author of Outlander series, Diana Gabaldon.

DIANA GABALDON:

She was born on January 11 in 1952 in Arizona, where she grew up with her sister and parents.

She was the founding editor of Science Software Quarterly in 1984 while employed at the Center for Environmental Studies at Arizona State University. During her time there, Diana wrote a number of software reviews and technical articles as well as popular-science articles and comic books for Walt Disney. Diana was also a professor with an expertise in scientific compilation at the same university for over a decade – a job she later left to write full-time.

Mrs. Gabaldon is married with three children, one being a son who is also a fantasy writer and is well known for writing Aeons’ Gate series.  The apple does not fall far from the tree.

She began writing Outlander in 1988 – without telling her husband – after seeing a rerun episode of Doctor Who which was titled The War Games.

One of the Doctor’s companions, a Scot from 1745, provided the initial inspiration for her main male character James Fraser and for the novel’s mid-18trh century Scotland setting.

But Diana Gabaldon has also revealed that her husband also served for inspiration for her leading man Jamie.

The author was introduced to literary agent Perry Knowlton after she posted an excerpt from the unfinished Outlander online. From there she went on to sign a deal for a trilogy – later to become a nine book long series.

The first book was published in 1991, and went on to sell more than twenty-eight (28) million copies and has been translated into thirty-nine (39) languages.

But did you know that the book was published under the name Cross Stitch in the UK? American publishers changed the name to Outlander in the US to make the novel sound more exciting.

When her second novel was finished, Diana Gabaldon quit her job at Arizona State University to become a full-time writer.  With the success she has had, who would blame her?

THE BOOK:

The heroine of the book is Mrs. Claire Randall and throughout the book she is forced to lead a double life.  She has a husband in one century and a husband living two hundred (200) years in the past.  The book is classified as science fiction for this reason.  There are other books written about time travel but this one, in my opinion, is one of the very best because the history of Scotland during that time period, the location of certain structures, the Highland landscape, certain kings and rulers, and the medical profession are very real and accurately portrayed.  I would frequently go online to look up events and places named in the book to see if they were fact or fiction. There was an ample sprinkling of both which made the book even more enjoyable.

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband for a second honeymoon.  Claire and Frank Randall were married only two (2) years before the outbreak of WWII.  Frank was an intelligence officer for England during the war and Claire was a nurse primarily stationed in what we would call a MASH unit in France.  After the war, they decided to take a second honeymoon.  While visiting the Scottish Highlands, she innocently touches a boulder in one ancient stone circle that populate the British Isles.  Suddenly, she is a Sassenach-an “outlander”- in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans.  This occurs in 1743.   She is hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand at all.  Her destiny is soon inextricably intertwined with the Clan MacKenzie.  The clan is located at Castle Leoch.  She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life.  This is where she meets James or Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior.  That’s about all it takes for the passion of their relationship to tear her between the fidelity of her husband in the 19^th century and the dashing warrior living in 1743. Frank Randall is a college professor and Jamie Fraser is a warrior. Two very differing personality types. Frank is reserved and greatly conservative and Jamie is “damn the torpedoes-full steam ahead”.

CONCLUSION:

This is a fascinating book BUT, it’s a long read. Six hundred and twenty-seven (627) pages, because of the detail Mrs. Gabaldon puts into each chapter and paragraph.  She uses details like Leonardo described and sketched the human body.  Very precise.  She takes her time.  I can certainly recommend “Outlander” and I can promise I will read all books in the series, if nothing else, to see how closely they compare with the NETFLIX presentation.  GREAT READ.

FORTY AUTUMNS-: A FAMILY’S STORY OF SURVIVAL AND COURAGE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BERLIN WALL

A true story and one of the very best books I’ve read this year.  During the COVID-19 “lock-downs”, my wife and I have tried to obey all of the rules; i.e. 1.) Stay in: grocery store, pharmacy, doctors’ appointments, etc., 2.) Wear masks at all times when you do go out, 3.) If ordering out, do curb-side ordering only.  You get the picture.  This is week number twelve (12) and cabin fever is really showing.  The state of Tennessee has relaxed the rules somewhat and we are in Phase 2 of the “getting back to normal” but it’s a new normal.  Social distancing is a must as well as wearing masks and sometimes gloves.  Of course, some people do not obey any rules and that’s their deal.  During this very strange period of time, I have read eight (8) books as well as doing a great deal of in-house work, primarily painting.   The last book read– Forty Autumns.

HISTORY:

First, let me mention that I have never read a book detailing the lives of those in East Berlin and East Germany after World War II.  As you know, after the war, the Allied Powers controlled West Germany and Russia controlled East Germany.  This of course includes Berlin.  After the Potsdam conference, Germany was divided into four occupied zones: Great Britain in the northwest, France in the southwest, the United States in the south and the Soviet Union in the east.  Berlin, the capital city situated in Soviet territory, was also divided into four occupied zones.  Sir Winston Churchill coined the phrase “The Iron Curtin” and this became the code words for east versus west.   The division of Germany into capitalist West and Communist East did not lead to the Cold War so much as it exacerbated existing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War was already well under way when Germany was divided up into East and West.

The Cold War was a long period of tension between the democracies of the Western World and the communist countries of Eastern Europe. The west was led by the United States and Eastern Europe was led by the Soviet Union. These two countries became known as superpowers and definitely caused world-wide tension between all nations.  During this period of time we saw the nuclear arms race, domestic turmoil, significant degradation of human rights for those behind the “iron Curtin”, the Cuban blockade, and the beginning of the “space race”.  It was a tumultuous time and the “doomsday clock” got very close to twelve midnight more than a couple of times. 

THE AUTHOR:

American-born Nina Willner was five (5) years old when she learned her maternal grandmother, Oma, lived “behind a curtain,” in East Germany. As mentioned previously, the Iron Curtain was an ideologically charged metaphor but also a harsh reality that divided many German families in the aftermath of World War II.

Willner’s rebellious mother, Hanna, successfully escaped East Germany at the young age of twenty (20), after three previous attempts. But she paid a steep, if predictable, emotional price: virtually complete separation, for decades, from her parents and eight siblings, including her youngest sister, Heidi, born after Hanna’s flight.

Like many East Germans, Hanna’s family struggled to come to terms with the regime’s totalitarian demands and to find some measure of satisfaction in their private lives. Meanwhile, only a couple of visits, a rare phone call and anodyne letters pierced the silence between Hanna and those she left behind. With even mail subject to the snooping — and often interdiction — of the ubiquitous secret police of the Stasi, it was perilous to express genuine emotions, let alone political complaints.

Ms. Willner is a former US Army intelligence officer who served in Berlin during the Cold War. The book is very careful to detail why she joined the armed service after graduating from college.  She simply wanted to show her gratitude for living in a free country and felt the Army was the best way to give back.  Following a career in intelligence, Nina worked in Moscow, Minsk and Prague promoting human rights, children’s causes and the rule of law for the US Government, non-profit organizations and a variety of charities. She currently lives in Washington, DC and Istanbul, Turkey. Forty Autumns is her first book and is a great testament to her parents, grandparents and great grandparents.  You can certainly tell her family is the uppermost thought in her life and desire to know them better takes over forty years.   A picture of Ms. Willner is show below.

THE STORY:

Forty Autumns makes visceral the pain and longing of one family forced to live apart in a world divided by two. At twenty, Hanna, Nina’s mother, escaped from East to West Germany. But the price of freedom—leaving behind her parents, eight siblings, and family home—was heartbreaking. She was definitely on her own initially and lived from day-to-day right after she came to west Berlin.  The first order of business was to find a job.  She had earlier been trained as a stenographer and being bi-lingual, found work as a translator.   After some years, Hanna moved to America, where she settled down with her husband and had children of her own.

Growing up near Washington, D.C., Hanna’s daughter, Nina Willner became the first female Army Intelligence Officer to lead sensitive intelligence operations in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. Though only a few miles separated American Nina and her German relatives—grandmother Oma, Aunt Heidi, and cousin, Cordula, a member of the East German Olympic training team—a bitter political war kept them apart.  Russian intelligence was overbearing to the citizens of east Germany and visitation was strictly monitored to the point of almost being impossible.  Only avowed Communists were allowed to travel. 

In Forty Autumns, Nina recounts her family’s story—five ordinary lives buffeted by circumstances beyond their control. She takes us deep into the tumultuous and terrifying world of East Germany under Communist rule, revealing both the cruel reality her relatives endured and her own experiences as an intelligence officer, running secret operations behind the Berlin Wall that put her life at risk.

A personal look at a tenuous era that divided a city and a nation, and continues to haunt us, Forty Autumns is an intimate and beautifully written story of courage, resilience, and love—of five women whose spirits could not be broken, and who fought to preserve what matters most: family.

One great part of the book is all of the black and white photographs of Ms. Willner’s family behind the Iron Curtin.  A great indication that this is a “real” story—not fiction.  It really happened and there are today survivors of that cold war period of time.   I can definitely recommend to you this great book.  Buy it—read it, then be happy we live in a country that is basically free.

THE WORLD—A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

THE WORLD—A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

I have just completed reading the book mentioned above.  Mr.  Richard Haass does a marvelous job in giving the reader a very quick but extremely concise history lesson, both past and present.  He is NOT judgmental or condemning but informative and simply provides history in a factual manner.

RICHARD HAASS:

Dr. Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the preeminent independent, nonpartisan organization in the United States dedicated to the study of American foreign policy. An experienced diplomat and policymaker, Dr. Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State from 2001 until 2003, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell on a broad range of foreign policy concerns. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, Dr. Haass served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and was the U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process. He was also special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council from 1989 to 1993. A recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, and the Tipperary International Peace Award, he is the author or editor of fifteen books, including the best-selling A World in Disarray. A Rhodes scholar, he holds a BA from Oberlin College and both master and doctor of philosophy degrees from Oxford University. He has received honorary degrees from Central College, Colgate University, Franklin & Marshall College, Georgetown University, Hamilton College, Miami Dade College, and Oberlin College.

THE BOOK:

The World—A Brief Introduction is designed to provide readers of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks they need to make sense of this complicated and interconnected world. Mr. Haass indicates in the very first part of the book the very real fact that our schools seem to be failing at fully preparing students in history, both past and present.   This book will empower the reader in managing the flood of daily news. Readers will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments. While it is impossible to predict what the next crisis will be or where it will originate, those who read The World will have what they need to understand its basics and the principal choices for how to respond.

In short, this book will make readers more globally literate and put them in a position to make sense of this era. Global literacy–knowing how the world works–is a must, as what goes on outside a country matters enormously to what happens inside. Although the United States is bordered by two oceans, those oceans are not moats. And the so-called Vegas rule–what happens there stays there–does not apply in today’s world to anyone anywhere. U.S. foreign policy is uniquely American, but the world Americans seek to shape is not. Globalization can be both good and bad, but it is not something that individuals or countries can opt out of. Even if we want to ignore the world, it will not ignore us. The choice we face is how to respond.

I would like now to give you several facts from Dr. Haass’s book that will indicate the level of detail presented and some flavor for the discourse:

• A recent survey of over eleven hundred (1100) American colleges and universities found that only seventeen percent (17%) require students to take courses in U.S. government or history, while only three percent (3%) require them to take course work in economics.
• One survey of the top American colleges and universities showed that less than one-third required history majors to take a single course in U.S. government.
• Approximately one-third of Americans who graduate from high school do not attend any college and only forty percent (40%) do achieve a degree.
• During WWI, as many as two hundred thousand (200,000) British forces were killed or wounded in a single campaign.  This was the battle for the Gallipoli peninsula.
• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact were structured to provide communication between countries and to preclude additional strife and war in Western and East Europe.
• No religion claims a majority of the world’s people. Nearly one-third of the world’s population is Christian (close to two point three billion).  One point eight billion people are Muslims.  Just over one billion are Hindus, nearly five hundred thousand are Buddhists and approximately fifteen million are Jewish.  More than one billion claim no religion at all.
• The Middle-East and North Africa have fifty-three percent (53%) of the world’s oil reserves.  The Middle-East and North Africa have forty-five percent (45%) of the world’s natural gas reserves.
• Africa has four hundred and five million people living on less than two U.S. dollars per day. South Asia, two hundred and twelve million, East Asia forth-seven million, the Americas, twenty-six million, Middle East and North Africa, fifteen million, Central Asia, five million and Europe, four million.  Less than two dollars per day.
• The Americas leads the world in homicides with sixteen point two (16.2) per 100,000 people.  These are 2017 statistics.
• A significant number of terrorist attacks occurred in 2017 with Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and the Philippines being the most troubled.
• In looking at the stockpile of nuclear warheads: Russia has 4,330, the U.S. has 3,800, France has 300, the UK has 215.  There are five others with nuclear capabilities.
• Over one percent (1%) of the world’s population has been displaced due to war, economic conditions, crime, and environmental conditions.
• The U.S. dollar is the most widely held reserve currency.
• In looking at the human development index considering 1.) Education, 2.) Income and 3.) Life expectancy, the United States is number thirteen on the list with Norway ranking at ninety-five point three (95.3%).
• Over five hundred thousand (500,000) Syrians have lost their lives and a majority of the population have been made homeless as a result of the conflict in Syria.  The Syrian government has played a major role in that horrible number.

I could go on from there with many more examples from Dr. Haass’s book but you get the picture—now buy and read the book.  Dr. Haass has fifty-six pages of notes and sources he has consulted during research for this book.   He has the numbers.

JACK REACHER

Last year a good friend of mine introduced me to the writer Lee Child.   Mr. Child created the character Jack Reacher who is, in my opinion, one of the most unique and interesting individuals in literature.  He is not quite a shining hero and has numerous flaws but he gets the job done.

JACK REACHER—THE CHARACTER

Reacher left home at eighteen (18), graduated from West Point. Performed thirteen (13) years of Army service, demoted from Major to Captain in 1990, mustered out with the rank of Major in 1997. Born on an Army base in Germany. His father chose his name; it read “Jack-none-Reacher” on the birth certificate faxed to the Berlin Embassy. They called his brother Joe, but nobody ever called Jack by his first name. How it came about, no one knows but Jack was always called Reacher.

His father was career military so as kids, Jack and his brother moved so much that spending a full school year in any one place felt weird. “Our friends just kept disappearing. Some unit would be shipped out somewhere and a bunch of kids would be gone. Sometimes we saw them again in a different place. Plenty of them we never saw again. Nobody ever said hello or goodbye. You were just either there or not there.”

If we look at his service awards, we see the following:

Top row: Silver Star, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit
Second row: Soldier’s Medal, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart
Bottom row: “Junk awards” (Or so he calls them.)

“Medals?” we ask?  And he answered:

“Dozens of the damn things,” he said. “You know how it is. Theater medals, of course, plus a Silver Star, two Bronzes, Purple Heart from Beirut, campaign things from Panama and Grenada and Desert Shield and Desert Storm.”

“A Silver Star?” we asked. “What for?”
“Beirut,” he said. “Pulled some guys out of the bunker.”

“And you got wounded doing that?”  “That’s how you got the scar and the Purple Heart?”
“I was already wounded,” he said. “Got wounded before I went in. I think that was what impressed them.”

What he doesn’t have: A driver’s license, Federal benefits (doesn’t want them), tax returns (doesn’t do them; he hasn’t filed taxes since he left the Army).  Major, US Army retired, travels from place to place taking nothing with him but the clothes on his back and a toothbrush.  He is definitely a wondering star which is why he is so unique.  He wears his clothes until needing new ones, trashes the ones he has, and starts out again. 

The stories that I love are basically about the knight-errant, the mysterious stranger. And the reason why people think that’s an essentially American paradigm is the Westerns. The Westerns were absolutely rock solid with that stuff. You know, the mysterious rider comes in off the range, sorts out the problem, and rides off into the sunset. It is just such a total paradigm, but not invented in America. That was imported from the medieval tales of Europe. The knight-errant: literally a knight, somehow banished and forced to wander the land doing good deeds. It’s part of storytelling in every culture. Japan has it with the ronin myth; every culture has this Robin Hood idea. So really, that character was forced out of Europe as Europe became more densely populated and more civilized. That character no longer had stories in Europe; it had to migrate to where the frontier was still open and dangerous, which was America, essentially. So, the character, I think, is actually universal and historic, most recently, normally represented in America. I think the Westerns saw it firmly adopted by America, so yeah, right now, we think of this as a completely American character, but really, it’s more historic than that. But I’m very happy to have that reference made.

LEE CHILD

James Dover Grant CBE (born 29 October 1954), is primarily known by his pen name Lee Child. He is a British author who writes fiction “thriller” novels, and is best known for his Jack Reacher novel series. … His first novel, Killing Floor (1997), won both the Anthony Award, and the Barry Award for Best First Novel.

As mentioned, Mr. Child was born in 1954 in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV’s “golden age.” During his tenure his company made Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. But he was fired in 1995 at the age of 40 as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars’ worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series.

Lee Child has written twenty-two (22) Reacher books and has numerous short stories to his credit.   I have read eight (8) Reacher novels and what I find very interesting is there are no two plots remotely similar—same Reacher style but differing in outcome and story line.    Always interesting twists in each and generally a surprise ending awaits the reader.  Also, very interesting and somewhat challenging;

there is a great diversity of characters in each Reacher book.   Mr. Child takes great care in developing each character, thus giving the reader enough background information to keep our undivided attention.  Another thing, most of the characters are really evil, mean and contemptuous scum.  The worst of the worst.  Keeps things really interesting as to how Reacher overcomes all adversaries to achieve an eventual successful outcome.  The good guy always wins in the Lee Child books.

Now, one “bone to pick”, Tom Cruise played Jack Reacher in two movies and Mr. Cruise was not quite the fit needed relative to the character in Lee Child’s books.  Reacher is six foot five inches tall.  Cruise is five foot seven.  Reacher is two hundred and fifty pounds, Cruise probably, one hundred and seventy-five at the most.  Don’t get me wrong, Cruise is a very good actor but that was a real flaw in casting.

I think you will certainly enjoy Reacher the character and all of the Child books.  Mr. Child is a “word-smith” in the truest since of the word and can certainly weave a great mystery novel. 

THE BONE TREE

The Bone Tree was written by Mr. Greg Iles, who is, in my opinion, a fabulous writer.  Let’s look at a very quick biography of Mr. Iles right now.

GREG ILES:

Greg Iles was born in Germany in 1960.  His father ran the US Embassy Medical Clinic during the height of the Cold War. Mr. Iles spent all of his younger years in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983.  Demonstrating his artistic abilities in another manner, he spent several years playing music in the band “Frankly Scarlet.” The year after he was married, he gigged on the road for fifty (50) weeks out of fifty-two (52), and realized that this lifestyle was simply not sustainable with a family. He quit the band and began working eighteen hours a day on his first novel, Spandau Phoenix. Spandau Phoenix is a thriller about the Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess.  When Greg sold this manuscript, he left the music business altogether to complete the book. Spandau Phoenix was published in 1993 and became the first of eight (8) New York Times bestsellers.

Over the course of the next few years, he broke the formula adhered to by most commercial novelists in writing a variety of genres. Perhaps surprisingly, each found a place on the bestseller list, and today, readers look forward to discovering what new subject Greg has explored in his latest novel.

The novels of Mr. Iles have been translated into more than a dozen (12) languages and published in more than twenty (20) countries worldwide.  At the present time, 11 May 2020, he has sixteen (16) published books to his credit.   Greg currently lives in Natchez, Mississippi, with his wife and their two children.

THE BONE TREE:  Clinic during the height of the Cold War.  Iles spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of The Bone Tree is an incredible followup to Natchez Burning.  One of the best middle installments of a trilogy I have ever come across. At the very heart of Natchez Burning and The Bone Tree books is family – not just one family – several. The deceit and lies they tell and the lengths they will go to love and protect their own is outstanding. They absolutely pull no punches in protecting each other.

The Cage family (one that has been prominent in several books written by Mr. Iles), is revered by most in Natchez – even when their choices are not understood; while the Knox family incites fear in women and men alike. Good does not just battle evil in the Bone Tree. It is not a place that most can find. And is not a place you want to visit. For most do not escape.

Hard choices are made daily and evil wins out… most of the time. But champions like Dr. Tom Cage, Penn Cage and Caitlin Masters take up the cause to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, like Viola Turner and Henry Sexton. Dr. Tom Cage, having suffered more than most will stop at nothing to protect what he holds dear. Caitlin Masters works tirelessly to try and discover the mysteries of the Bone Tree. She finds it and discovers the true evil that lurk there.  

The themes in this book are riveting and heartbreaking: the roots of racism/modern-day racism in the south; and a conspiracy theory regarding the death of JFK (and the deaths of RFK and MLK).  It is these themes interwoven with the beloved characters of Tom and Penn Cage that make this book impossible to put down.  Now, one caution, The Bone Tree is a whopping eight hundred and four (804) pages long.  The reason for that length—meticulous descriptions of each character AND the situations the characters experience as they travel their way trying to find the truth.  If you choose to read this book, you will find the very root of evil.  The Knox family is truly one of the most disgusting families found in literature.  They are, to a person, evil personified.   Their evil is counterbalanced with several people tirelessly working to discover the truth.  And with that, you have a truly fascinating book.  I have no idea as to why Natchez Burning and The Bone Tree have not been made into a motion picture. 

Hope you enjoy the read.

A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW

This COVID-19 lock down has given me time to read, write, paint, rearrange furniture, seed and fertilize my front and back yard, etc etc.  You get the picture.  Also, my wife and I are streaming video from On Demand and Net Flicks:  Homeland, Outlander, Eco in the Canyon, Seal Team, Manifest etc.  You get the picture.  I just completed one of the VERY best books I have ever read— “A Gentleman in Moscow.”  This great book was written by Amor Towles.   Let me give you a little data on the book itself.

Author	Amor Towles
Publisher	Viking
Publication date	September 6, 2016
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)

THE MAIN CHARACTERS:

• The Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov. The Count is the protagonist and titular character of A Gentleman in Moscow. …
• Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka) The Count’s best friend, whom he met at school and who keeps him company at the hotel. …
• Anna Urbanova. …
• Nina Kulikova. …
• Sofia. …
• The Bishop. …
• Andrey Duras. …
• Emile Zhukovsky.

I am NOT going to spoil it for you by giving any details relative to the characters in this book but suffice it to say, Mr. Towles goes to great length to develop each character to the fullest and how those characters interact with Count Rostov.  There is a very surprising ending.  In other words, I did NOT see that coming.

STORYLINE

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.  Prior to reading the book, I thought how on Earth could a guy stuck in a hotel for life but that entertaining.  Boy was I wrong about this one.  Mr. Towles displays an ability to develop the characters and situations that are fascinating.   The detail is absolutely grand and the people he meets during his stay are truly interesting and have their own story to tell.

Towles has certainly woven a sophisticated and powerful literary achievement. But what makes this novel so winning is not the generous prose, or the impeccable pace, or the characterization or even the gorgeously realized setting—as eruditely rendered as they are. It’s the author’s voice. The arched eyebrow, the conspiratorial wink, the sly, confiding tone. The piercing irony and the craftiness with which he always seems to know the right nerve to touch, at exactly the right moment, to wound or to outrage most.  The quality of the writing is truly Shakespearian in nature.

In conclusion: You REALLY need to read this book !!!!!!!!