The Rabid Reader

Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2011, 656 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-28T21:03:55-08:00

Isaacson (also author of Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and others) has done it again. Very well done. One of the best business biographies.

One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com (Richard L. Brandt, Penguin Group, 2011, 214 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-22T10:04:43-08:00

Years ago when I worked at Amazon.com in Seattle, I asked a colleague what Jeff Bezos was like. He replied, "Crazy. But crazy like a fox." As I have watched Bezos's career both from the inside and outside over the years, I have realized what an apt description that was. Richard L. Brandt's brief biography of Bezos, One Click, confirms this view.

Brandt charts Bezos's rise from computer nerd to world-changing entrepreneur. Bezos's success can be credited to his forward-looking insights and his "crazy like a fox" business sense. Brandt explains, among other things, why Bezos decided to allow negative product reviews, correctly guessing that earned trust would outweigh possible lost sales; why Amazon zealously guards some patents while freely sharing others; and why Bezos called becoming profitable the "dumbest" thing they could do in 1997.

Brandt ascribes Bezos's and Amazon's success to four deceptively simple principles. One, obsess over customers. Second, invent, and reinvent, tenaciously, until your get it right. Third, focus on the long term. Fourth, remember "it's always day one"--there are always new challenges ahead, new ideas to explore, and new directions to turn.

Brandt's One Click is a good example of the business books I like to read: part biography, part wisdom, distilling the essentials quickly, without too much business school jargon. Worthwhile read.

Richard III (William Shakespeare, Signet Classics Edition, 1998, 336 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-21T11:31:49-08:00

Wickedly delicious.

Cecil Andrus: Idaho's Greatest Governor (Chris Carlson, Caxton Press, 2011, 269 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-15T10:58:45-08:00

In 1990, during the second half of my senior year of high school in Boise, Idaho, I served as a page/ intern in the Idaho State Senate. That experience gave me the opportunity to very closely follow the key personalities there, as well as Idaho's governor at the time, Cecil D. Andrus. Andrus was just finishing up his third term as Governor, having returned to the state house after two previous terms as Governor and service as Jimmy Carter's Secretary of the Interior. As a page/ intern, my opportunities to interact with Governor Andrus were limited of course, though I did have one memorable exchange with him, which I've related elsewhere.

Even though my life has taken me away from Idaho, I remain interested in the state's politics and political personalities. That's why I was excited to hear that Chris Carlson, longtime confident of Andrus, would be publishing a reminiscence of the Governor. Carlson's Andrus is filled with a number of wonderful anecdotes and does credit to Idaho's four-term Governor. Very good reading for anyone with interest in Idaho political history (admittedly, a small group, perhaps).

Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich (Robert Gerwarth, Yale University Press, 2011, 393)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-13T23:09:28-08:00

Reinhard Heydrich was one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany, an appalling figure even by the standards of the Nazi leadership he so dutifully served. At the height of his power, Heydrich was Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, the Gestapo, and Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia). Heydrich was also, at Hermann Goering's behest, the architect of the "Final Solution," the machinery intended to annihilate the Jews of Europe. When Hannah Arendt wrote of the "banality of evil" to describe the Nazi's coldly and deadly efficient administration of the Final Solution she no doubt had not only Adolf Eichmann in mind but Heydrich as well. From behind his desk and shielded by the ruthlessly efficient bureaucracy he built Heydrich shouldered a major share of responsibility for some of the Nazi's worst atrocities.

Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech partisans parachuted into Czechoslovakia with the assistance of the British. For his assassination the Nazi's exacted a horrific revenge. Historians have since debated the wisdom of the operation to remove him. That debate continues.

Heydrich has received remarkably modest attention by historians. Robert Gerwarth's biography changes that. Gerwarth weaves together little-known stories of Heydrich's private life and explores fully his progression from privileged middle-class youth to rapacious mass murderer. Gerwarth sheds new light on the complexity of Heydrich's adult character, his motivations, his incremental steps that led to unimaginable atrocities, and the consequences of his murderous efforts towards recreating the entire face of Europe.

Superb biography.

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President (Candice Millard, Doubleday, 2011, 352 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-09T21:16:01-08:00

Ask anyone to name a United States president that was assassinated while in office and most will likely answer Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy. Hardly anyone remembers James Garfield, who was shot in the back by a deranged assailant at a train station in Washington, D.C. just four months into his first term in office. Sadly, Garfield did not die instantly but lived on for several weeks before succumbing to infection stemming from his wound. Like Kennedy, Garfield was cut down in the prime of his life and we are left only to speculate what might have been had he lived. It is probable that Garfield's presidency would have been worth remembering given his track record. He was a remarkable man. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman.

Millard's Destiny of the Republic is a wonderful account of Garfield's murder and the efforts to save him.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Selected Poems (Dover Thrift Editions, 1992, 94 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-07T08:47:53-08:00

I am not an authority on poetry by any means, but I've always enjoyed Tennyson; The Lady of Shalott, Ode on the Duke of Wellington, Crossing the Bar, and The Charge of the Light Brigade are some of my favorites.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession (Allison Hoover Bartlett, Riverhead Books, 2010, 300 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-04T21:19:35-08:00

A gift from my kids. The title suggests a subtle commentary on my priorities, I suppose. Interesting read.

Allison Bartlett delves into the world of rare books and those who collect—and steal—them. On one end of the spectrum is Salt Lake City book dealer Ken Sanders, whose friends refer to him as a book detective, or Bibliodick. On the other end is John Gilkey, who has stolen over $100,000 worth of rare volumes, mostly in California. A lifelong book lover, Gilkey's passion for rare texts always exceeded his income, and he began using stolen credit card numbers to purchase, among others, first editions of Beatrix Potter and Mark Twain from reputable dealers. Sanders, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association's security chair, began compiling complaints from ripped-off dealers and became obsessed with bringing Gilkey to justice. Bartlett's journalistic position is enviable: both men provided her almost unfettered access to their respective worlds. Gilkey recounted his past triumphs in great detail, while Bartlett's interactions with the unrepentant, selfish but oddly charming Gilkey are revealing (her original article about himself appeared in The Best Crime Reporting 2007).

Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason (Nancy Pearl, Sasquatch Books, 2003, 287 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-02T09:32:07-08:00

An essential reference for anyone trying to broaden their reading horizons. Nancy Pearl has worked as a librarian in Detroit, Tulsa, and Seattle. Pearl reviews books weekly for National Public Radio's Seattle affiliate KUOW.

Book Report: What Did You Read in 2011?

Rick E. Hansen — 2012-01-02T09:22:23-08:00

In 2011, I read 75 books totaling 30,523 pages. How did you do?

Go Forward With Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley (Sheri L. Dew, Deseret Book, 1996, 653 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-12-26T19:18:25-08:00

Gordon B. Hinckley, served as the 15th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1995 to 2008. To members of that Church, myself included, Hinckley is regarded as a modern day Apostle of Jesus Christ, a prophet of God, and a successor to Joseph Smith, who organized the Church in 1830. This biography does what any good biography should do: Inspire you to do a little better, try a little harder, and believe a little more.

Pershing: Commander of the Great War (John Perry, Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2011, 240 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-12-19T14:04:31-08:00

Fine biography; strikes the right balance between forrest and trees. This from the introduction:

"No other American military leader is as important and yet as little known as John J. Pershing. He led an army of more than a million men in France, defeating the seemingly invincible German war machine after only six months of offensive action. . . By the time he sailed home, Pershing had become the only U.S. army officer in history to be commissioned General of the Armies during his lifetime. The one other soldier so honored, a century and a half after his death, was George Washington.

"Pershing returned to the United States a hero. There was a ticker tape parade in New York, an address to a joint session of Congress, rumors of a presidential bid, gossip about the society women the handsome widower was dating, and a Pulitzer Prize for his history of the "war to end all war [World War I]". And yet today General Pershing has faded away to the second or third tier of America's historical consciousness. While some of us have heard his name, many more have not. His accomplishments rightly place him in the company of great generals such as MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton, all of whom he commanded and inspired, and all of whom he outranked."

The Hiding Place (Corrie ten Boom, John Sherrill, and Elizabeth Sherrill, Chosen, 35th Anniv. Edition, 272 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-12-14T12:14:39-08:00

I am not quite sure how I managed to get through all these years without reading The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom's remarkable account of surviving the occupation of her beloved homeland and eventually her own incarceration by the Nazis during World War II.

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who became a heroine of the Dutch Resistance by risking her life to help Jews and underground workers escape from the Nazis. Eventually, ten Boom and her family were betrayed and she, her sister, and father were rounded up by the Gestapo and put in prison. As the war reached its final stages, Corrie was transferred to Ravensbruck, the notorious concentration camp for women in Northern Germany. Even in its final throes of defeat the murderous work of Nazi Germany continued. She was miraculously released from the camp shortly before the end of the War. In 1959 Corrie was part of a group that visited Ravensbruck, which was then in East Germany, to honor her sister and 96,000 other women who died there. There Corrie learned that her own release had been part of a clerical error; one week after her release, all women her age were taken to the gas chambers.

What strikes me as most remarkable about Corrie's story is her unshakeable faith in Christ that imbued her with courage and peace that no doubt aided in her survival. There are a number of miracles recorded in her account. She became a minister of love, peace, and endurance to all those around her during and after the War. Corrie's is a terrific account of how good can eventually triumph over evil.

Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned (John A. Farrell, Doubleday, 2011, 576 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-12-07T14:38:19-08:00

Terrific biography of a complex and flawed man.

Many corporate lawyers I know dream of leaving behind the corporate world and becoming master trial lawyers. In today's era of specialized law practice that's probably a pipe dream. In 1894, after nearly 14 years as a railroad lawyer Clarence Darrow pulled off the switch. Darrow would in time become famous for participating in some of the most important (or more aptly, notorious) trials in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His road to fame began when he defended union leader Eugene Debs in the landmark Pullman Strike case and from there he went from one headline to the next including defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks (1924)—until he was nearly crushed by an indictment for bribing a jury. He redeemed himself in Dayton, Tennessee, defending schoolteacher John Scopes in the “Monkey Trial,” cementing his place in history.

Eva Braun: Life with Hitler (Heike B. Gortemaker, Knopf, 2011, 336 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-12-01T16:30:25-08:00

I was prompted to read this after seeing Dorothy Gallagher's November 16, 2011 review in The New York Times, portions of which I've pasted below.

"Hitler could not have wished for a better girlfriend. In this first full-scale biography of Eva Braun, the German historian Heike B. Görtemaker examines the known sources for Braun’s life and emerges with a highly readable and consistent portrait of an ordinary woman who loved sports, fashion and jazz; and who was, without a doubt, utterly devoted to the man history has seen as 'evil incarnate.'

"In Eva Braun: Life With Hitler, Görtemaker asks whether it is useful for a nuanced picture of Hitler to show him in his off-hours, a man like other men, putting on his trousers one leg at a time. She thinks that it is, and that the 'demonization' of Hitler has been an impediment to a fuller understanding of him and of the Nazi phenomenon. Through Braun, she believes, a new perspective on Hitler will open. And she writes that Braun’s "‘normality’ at the center of this atmosphere of ‘evil’ is like an anachronism that brings this evil into relief and shows it in a new light.”

"One day in 1929, in Munich, 40-year-old Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, paid a visit to the shop of his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. It was here that he first met Hoffmann’s new employee, pretty, blond, blue-eyed, 17-year-old Eva Braun. Hitler was quite taken; Eva was naturally impressed with the leader of this up-and-coming national movement.

"Eva was a lower-middle-class girl, one of three sisters, of purely Aryan descent (Hitler had her family investigated for Jewish taint). Probably Eva wished for marriage, but this was not to be, at least not for 16 years. Hitler had another bride: 'I am married to the German people and their fate! . . . No, I cannot marry, I must not,' he often said in one form or another. A secret girlfriend was another matter.

"In those years of the Nazis’ rise to power, Hitler didn’t have much time for Eva; he had a lot on his mind. There were the Reichstag elections to win, the chancellorship to obtain, the masses to whip up, the Jews to persecute. While Hitler was away from Munich, Eva lived with her parents, worked at Hoffmann’s photo studio and waited for her admirer’s occasional visits. She was not always patient. There is evidence, Görtemaker says, that she tried to kill herself in 1932, and tried again three years later when she feared that Hitler’s interest was flagging. Braun’s first attempt reminded Hitler that his half-niece, Geli Raubal, who had lived with him and to whom he had been devoted in some way, actually did kill herself in 1931. He was moved to remark about Braun, 'Now I must look after her” because something like this 'mustn’t happen again.' Braun’s second attempt in 1935 spurred Hitler to provide her with her own apartment in Munich, and give her permission to spend more time in his presence.

"Did Braun share the political positions and basic worldview of her lover'? Görtemaker asks. The question is rhetorical. Why wouldn’t she? If only by osmosis, why wouldn’t this young, quite ordinary girl accept the opinions of her lover, of her boss and of her father, who was also a Nazi Party member?

"It is true that all personal letters and documents between Braun and Hitler were destroyed on Hitler’s orders in the last days of the war, and that specific information is to be found only in the memoirs and testimony of those who served him — and who, when the war was lost, served themselves. But Görtemaker shows that by early 1936 Braun’s position with Hitler was 'unassailable.' At the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat in the cloud-swirled Bavarian Alps, she had her own little apartment, next to Hitler’s bedroom, and was accepted by his intimates as mistress of the house. At meals, she sat at Hitler’s left. She felt secure enough to rebuke Hitler for being late to dinner, and to indicate when she thought he had talked enough.

"[Braun] enjoyed swimming and skiing. She loved fashion and changed her clothes several times a day. She took photographs and home movies of Hitler and his guests (which can be seen on YouTube) and generally behaved as though she were at home. And then, on Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. Görtemaker is in no doubt that Braun knew of his plans. He seems to have talked freely about them at the Berghof. During the course of the conflict, at least until close to the end, she seems to have been unconcerned, taking her annual trip to Italy while Hitler was conducting the war on the Eastern Front. Even as the war turned against Germany, Hitler, according to Goebbels, was praising his companion’s 'calm, intelligent and objective way of being.' Not until 1944, when the Red Army had reached Warsaw, did Braun make her will.

"Eva Braun loved Hitler; of that there can be no doubt. In the spring of 1945, when the war was clearly lost, she rushed to Berlin to be with him in his bunker, to marry him, to commit suicide with him at the moment when the Red Army reached the Reichstag. But knowing that there was genuine love in Hitler’s life, even a sort of domestic existence, do we see Hitler’s 'evil' in a new light, as Görtemaker suggests we will? Or do we know, as we have always known, that evil walks among us; that no monster (or his friends and lovers) thinks himself monstrous, no madman thinks himself mad; and that, as the filmmaker Jean Renoir once said: 'The really terrible thing is that everyone has his reasons.'"

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson, Knopf, 2008, 480 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-11-27T20:38:03-08:00

From what I hear, I am probably one of the last people on earth to read Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Terrific storyline, but I was overwhelmed by the violence.

Life's Lessons Learned - Personal Reflections (Dallin H. Oaks, Deseret Book, 2011, 243 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-11-20T14:43:54-08:00

All of us have learned valuable lessons during the course of our lives. Sharing those lessons is what makes for wonderful teachers, parents, mentors and friends. Here, in Life's Lessons Learned, Dallin Oaks --a lawyer, professor, college president, state supreme court justice, and now member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints--offers up some of the best lessons he has learned and the circumstances in which he learned them. Each chapter is a short narrative followed by a simple, straightforward statement of the lesson learned. Some of my favorites:

Powerful ideas should change our thinking and our actions.
We must be careful to prevent pride in our educational accomplishments, our professional accomplishments, or other personal strengths from weakening the humility we need to continue learning and progressing.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
We should ask ourselves often, "What would you like to be remembered for?"
Each of us should pursue truth by reason (science) and truth by faith (religion).

Well worth reading.

The Confession (John Grisham, Doubleday, 2010, 432 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-11-15T17:02:42-08:00

Loved it. Fiction, but sadly could just as well be non-fiction. As the work of the Innocence Project has demonstrated over the years there are likely more people behind bars innocent of the crimes they were convicted of having committed than we might like to admit. How many have been put to death?

The gist of Grisham's novel is this: In 2007, almost on the eve of the execution of Donté Drumm, an African-American college football star, for the 1998 murder of a white cheerleader whose body was never found, Travis Boyette, a creepy multiple sex offender, confesses that he's guilty of the crime to Kansas minister Keith Schroeder. With Drumm's legal options dwindling fast and with the threat of civil unrest in his Texas hometown if the execution proceeds, Schroeder battles to convince Boyette to go public with the truth--and to persuade the condemned man's attorney that Boyette's story needs to be taken seriously.

You might think about the death penalty differently after your finish.

Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (John Julius Norwich, Random House, 2011, 528 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-11-12T16:34:19-08:00

John Julius Norwich's Absolute Monarchs profiles most of the 265 or so popes who have led the Catholic Church since, according to the New Testament, Christ conferred the keys to his earthly kingdom on Peter his most senior apostle. (The number depends on whether you include or exclude a few individuals.) Catholic tradition and teaching hold that each pope is a successor to Peter.

Profiling so many men in 528 pages is certainly no easy task but, as Norwich observes, some who ascended to the throne of St. Peter were not quite as noteworthy as others and fittingly receive less attention. Considerable space is devoted to the more interesting popes including those of most recent memory.

As readers of Absolute Monarchs will discover, there are many admirable men who have served as pope. These were true servants in the spirit of Christ. Readers will also discover that there have been more than a few for whom the papacy was merely a means to political, temporal and financial power, the cause of Christ being entirely secondary if not altogether unimportant. Perhaps that is an unfortunate possibility when the seat of St. Peter can be had for only a requisite number of votes. This vast spectrum of personalities does beg the question: have the keys to Christ's kingdom here on earth remained with the Catholic Church during those times when its foremost representative was anything but like Christ? That is a question Norwich does not attempt to answer.

Though most of Norwich's work is lush and fruitful reading, there are some dry deserts along the way that must be muddled through. Still though, Absolute Monarchs is a good and worthwhile read.

Spencer W. Kimball (Edward L Kimball and Andrew E Kimball, Bookcraft Inc., 1979, 438 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-11-09T16:34:28-08:00

A pleasure to read and very, very inspiring. Spencer W. Kimball served as the 12th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1973 to 1985. To members of that Church, myself included, Kimball is regarded as a modern day Apostle of Jesus Christ, a prophet of God, and a successor to Joseph Smith, who organized the Church in 1830. Kimball's life was buffeted by considerable health challenges, but through it all he kept a sense of duty, purpose, and humor. He gave all that he had for the cause of Christ.

Bull Street (David Lender, Brindle Publishing, 2011, 234 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-11-05T22:28:44-07:00

Bull Street is the story of Richard Blum, a naïve young Wall Streeter who gives a crooked billionaire the chance for redemption as they team up to bring down an insider trading ring within Blum's prestigious firm. The author, David Lender, has been referred to as the John Grisham of Wall Street, which is a fairly apt comparison, though not in the most complimentary sense, at least in my mind. Bull Street did indeed remind me of Grisham's work, especially The Firm, but only in the sense of poor imitation. Lender's writing is not nearly as good as Grisham's and his story, plot and character development not nearly as interesting. I found Bull Street too simple and predictable. Might be worth reading on vacation.

Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (Caroline Kennedy and Michael Beschloss, Hyperion, 2011, 400 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-11-01T21:21:40-07:00

Just four months after the assassination of her husband, Jacqueline Kennedy sat down for a series of recorded interviews with historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. For over 8 hours, Mrs. Kennedy answered Schlesinger's questions. She spoke about her husband, her family, and the historic events of her husband's unfortunately brief administration. The only stipulation was that the transcripts and recordings of these conversations were not to be released until after her death and only when her children deemed their release appropriate. Now, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Kennedy administration, the transcripts and audio recordings are made available here in Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy.

If you have even a passing interest in the Kennedy years, this book is a must read and a must have. Following the death of her husband, Mrs. Kennedy rarely spoke publicly about her time in the White House and the death of her husband and she died without ever having written an autobiography. These recorded conversations with Schlesinger are appropriately regarded then as a rare glimpse into her very private world and are nothing less than a historical treasure. What I found most compelling about the recorded conversations were the numerous anecdotes about her husband that illustrate his love for his family, his capacity to forgive, and his genuine interest in the poor and less fortunate.

The print version of Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy comes with cds of the audio recordings. Even better, the e-book version includes not only the audio recordings but rarely seen video footage of the Kennedy family.

Up Till Now: The Autobiography (William Shatner, St. Martin's Griffin, 2009, 368 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-28T19:19:41-07:00

Star Trek, TJ Hooker, Rescue 911, Boston Legal, Priceline.com--William Shatner has become one of the most recognizable actors in the world. It was the original Star Trek series, and later its films, that made Shatner an internationally known figure, but he neither began nor ended his career with Captain Kirk. Long before, he straddled the classic world of the theater and the new world of television. My favorite Shatner role in recent memory was that of Denny Crane on Boston Legal. Crane was the perfect vehicle for Shatner to show off his wonderful humor and delivery. What's remarkable about Shatner's career is the range of projects he's been involved with and his tremendous depth of talent. He's worked with many of the most notable personalities in the last 60 years. Up Till Now is a wonderful memoir, frequently laugh out loud funny. For a real treat check out the audio book version done by Shatner himself.

I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius (Robert Graves, Penguin Modern Classics ed., 2007, 416 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-23T17:21:37-07:00

I, Claudius, written by Robert Graves in 1934, is a novel written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. It includes "history" of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in AD 41. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked I, Claudius fourteenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present. I am hard-pressed to understand why. True, I, Claudius, was regarded at the time of publication as a pioneering masterpiece of historical fiction, but in my view it is a meandering, aimless narrative with little to capture one's attention.

Bossypants (Tina Fey, Reagan Arthur Books, 2011, 288 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-22T14:02:44-07:00

Occasionally naughty but always funny.

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (Rob Bell, HarperOne, 2011, 202 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-15T16:17:24-07:00

Rob Bell, the founding (and now former) pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, lit a not-so-small firestorm among Christian circles when Love Wins hit the sales stands. Bell's thesis: salvation (i.e., heaven or hell) may not necessarily be the binary, either/ or proposition that some Bible adherents have been preaching; God's love and interest in his children might be so expansive that He will save all His children in His own way in His own time. Conservative Christian blogger Justin Taylor suggested Love Wins was a heretical nod towards universalism ─ a dirty word in some Christian circles that suggests everyone eventually goes to heaven and there really is no hell. (Which reminds me of a little ditty I once heard--"I know there is a Heaven, my preacher tells me so. I know there is a Hell, where else will my neighbors go?") Prominent evangelical pastors on both the right and left have rushed to condemn or defend Bell.

Having just finished Bell's book and having followed the debate over it these past few weeks, several things come to mind. One, it is fascinating to me (and mildly discouraging) that there continues to be so much disagreement about what's in the Bible and what isn't. You'd think after all these hundreds of years we'd have a little more consensus. Two, I find it remarkable that fellow Christians continue to repackage and consume repackaged versions of the Gospel, mostly, I suspect, to fit our current socially and politically correct conceptions of God and salvation. Again, you'd think after all these hundreds of years we'd have Christ's Gospel pretty well figured out. Third, why is it so remarkable (i.e., heretical) to think that maybe, just maybe, God's gift of salvation is not so black and white, not so either/ or as we might suppose? I rather think that a God in Heaven who has all power, created all things, sent his Son to die on the cross, and anxiously awaits our return might be willing to give us that degree of glory and salvation that we through our beliefs and works have demonstrated we're ready to receive. Some I suppose may get a whole pie, some half, some only a slice, and some, well, none.

While I don't necessarily agree with Bell's theology, I do appreciate his willingness to force the conversation.

Hirohito And The Making Of Modern Japan (Herbert P. Bix, HarperCollins, 2000, 816 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-14T15:54:34-07:00

Second time around for me on this one. I first read Herbert Bix's Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan when it was first published in 2000. I was prompted to pick it up again after recently viewing a documentary profiling the late Emperor.

Bix won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for this work, and deservedly so. In Hirohito, Bix deploys a (then) fresh array of resources (many available only after the Emperor's death in 1989) to debunk many of the myths invented by Japanese and Americans alike to save the Emperor from indictment for his role in World War II. For years, Hirohito was described as weak figurehead who was helpless to the stop the military clique that launched Japan into war against China and the United States. Bix argues, and demonstrates rather persuasively, that Hirohito was a principal in the Japanese war machine; he acted fully as a military leader and head of state, encouraged the belligerency of his people and pursued the war to its disastrous conclusion. To the very end, Hirohito refused to acknowledge any responsibility for his role in the death of millions as well as the brutalities inflicted by his forces in China, Korea, and the Philippines. In fact, he worked with none other than General MacArthur to select his fall guys and fix testimony at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials--the Emperor trying to protect the throne at all cost, the U.S. acting to ensure control of the Japanese population and the military by retaining Hirohito as a figurehead.

Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith (F. Burton Howard, 1988, Bookcraft, 273 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-10T17:06:41-07:00

Of all the biographies of prophets, apostles, leaders and luminaries in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the "Mormons") this is by far my favorite. F. Burton Howard's account of Marion G. Romney's life is richly detailed, very personal, and shows a man who loved God and walked by faith. Howard emphasizes Romney's faith and his willingness to listen to and be guided by the Spirit in all things. "My greatest desire," Romney confided in his journal very early in his life, "is to retain my testimony [of Jesus Christ] and give service where the Lord would have me give it, in the way in which he would have me give it." In every way, Romney's life and ministry reflected that desire. Would that I could do the same.

The Innocent Man (John Grisham, Doubleday, 2006, 368 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-06T19:24:22-07:00

John Grisham is best known for his fiction--The Firm, The Client, The Pelican Brief, and A Time to Kill being among my favorites. The Innocent Man, Grisham's first published nonfiction, is in my view one of his finest books. Grisham relates the tragedy of Ron Williamson, a baseball hero from a small town in Oklahoma who winds up a dissolute, mentally unstable Major League washout railroaded onto death row for a hometown rape and murder he did not commit. Williams is ultimately exonerated, though almost too late. Even so, Williams was never the same.

Grisham could have titled this book The Innocent Men because as readers learn Ron Williamson was only one among a handful of men wrongly convicted by a zealous small town prosecutor and unscrupulous detectives who were not above forcing fabricated confessions from suspects. Being a lawyer, I can think of no more noble endeavor than to convict a man guilty of a heinous crime. A close second would be defending and exonerating a man wrongly accused and convicted of the same.

Tremendous book. Well worth reading.

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century (Michael Hiltzik, Free Press, 2010, 512 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-10-01T13:52:59-07:00

No doubt the definitive account of the building of Hoover Dam, one of the great engineering marvels in the U.S. But I found Hiltzik's account much too long and involved for my taste. Skip the first third of the book and focus on the chapters covering construction.

In the Company of Prophets (Heidi S. Swinton, Deseret Book, 1993, 124 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-25T16:10:22-07:00

D. Arthur Haycock served as personal secretary (or in a similar role) to seven presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the "Mormon Chruch"): Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball, and Ezra Taft Benson. In this wonderful memoir, written in collaboration with Heidi S. Swinton, Haycock provides glimpses into the lives of these men that most members of the Church rarely get to see. Haycock reveals these men's day-to-day work, their humor, their trials, their uniqueness, and their love for family and friends. Great read.

The Help (Kathryn Stockett, Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2009, 464 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-24T11:07:17-07:00

Terrific novel (and terrific film adaptation too); easily one of the best books I have read this year.

In my view a great novel is one that not only tells a compelling story but causes you to think about larger issues too. The Help causes me to reflect: will White Americans ever really fully atone for all they've done to wrong Black Americans?

In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (Dick Cheney, Threshold Editions, 2011, 576 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-17T22:31:27-07:00

Fascinating and essential reading for any political junkie.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (Michael Lewis, W. W. Norton & Company, 2003, 288 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-16T16:27:26-07:00

Consistently selected as one of the most important baseball books written in recent years, Moneyball shined a spotlight on a quiet revolution in the way ballplayers are evaluated.

"Moneyball" is itself now a baseball term of art, though it is arguably little more than one application of sabermetrics--another baseball term of art coined by Bill James to describe the analysis of baseball through objective, empirical evidence derived from baseball statistics that measure in-game activity. Adherents to sabermetrics are said to be playing "moneyball."

Like sabermetrics, the premise of moneyball (and the book) is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts, and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed. Statistics such as stolen bases, runs batted in, and batting average, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th century view of the game. Moneyballers argue that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success and that these qualities are sometimes cheaper to obtain on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact. Moneyball is the story of how the Oakland A's took advantage of more empirical gauges of player performance to field a team that could compete successfully against richer competitors in Major League Baseball.

Coming soon to a theater near you too (http://moneyball-movie.com/).

History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving (Deborah E. Lipstadt, Ecco Publishing, 2005, 368 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-11T12:18:09-07:00

Follow-on reading to Deborah Lipstadt's The Eichmann Trial (see below for review on August 2, 2011).

Here, in History on Trial, Lipsdtadt recounts her defense against and victory over David Irving who sued Lipstadt for libel in Britain following the publication of Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust. In that book, Lipstadt outed Irving as a Holocaust denier and, perhaps more importantly, a historian with a penchant for twisting historical sources to serve his own contrived view of history. Outing Irving was no small event, for prior to the publication of Denying the Holocaust, Irving was regarded as one of the preeminent historians of the Third Reich and Hitler, even if his writings tended to cast Hitler in a much more favorable light than had many of Irving's contemporaries.

The drama of History on Trial lies partly in the procedural posture of the legal action Irving filed against Lipstadt. Under UK libel law, unlike in the U.S., the defendant--in this case Lipstadt--bears the burden of demonstrating that the alleged libelous statements are indeed true. Thus, Lipstadt and her defense team had to show that Irving was in fact a Holocause denier. What follows is a stinging indictment of Irving's historical methods and subjective representations of the historical record. As Lipstadt relates, she and her adept lawyers felt they simply had to discredit a man who had said that "no documents whatsoever show that a Holocaust had ever happened."

Recounted here in delicious detail are the courtroom confrontations between an evasive and self-contradictory Irving (serving as his own lawyer) and Lipstadt's strategically brilliant barrister, Richard Rampton, and the scholars who testified in her defense. The record against Irving was overwhelming and powerfully discrediting. In 2000, Judge Charles Gray decided in Lipstadt's favor, finding it "incontrovertible" that Irving was a Holocaust denier. No one who cares about historical truth, freedom of speech or the Holocaust will avoid a sense of triumph from Gray's decision.

9/11 Destruction Allowed Us To Spiritually Rebuild (Thomas S. Monson, The Washington Post, September 8, 2011)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-08T17:00:17-07:00

Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, contributed the following to the Washington Post today.

"The calamity of September 11th, 2001 has cast a long shadow. Ten years later, many of us are still haunted by its terrible tragedy of lost lives and broken hearts. It is an episode of anguish that has become a defining moment in the history of the American nation and the world. This week, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, along with Tom Brokaw, will pay its own homage to the unforgettable events of September 11, 2001.

"There was, as many have noted, a remarkable surge of faith following the tragedy. People across the United States rediscovered the need for God and turned to Him for solace and understanding. Comfortable times were shattered. We felt the great unsteadiness of life and reached for the great steadiness of our Father in Heaven. And, as ever, we found it. Americans of all faiths came together in a remarkable way.

"Sadly, it seems that much of that renewal of faith has waned in the years that have followed. Healing has come with time, but so has indifference. We forget how vulnerable and sorrowful we felt. Our sorrow moved us to remember the deep purposes of our lives. The darkness of our despair brought us a moment of enlightenment. But we are forgetful. When the depth of grief has passed, its lessons often pass from our minds and hearts as well.

"Our Father’s commitment to us, His children, is unwavering. Indeed He softens the winters of our lives, but He also brightens our summers. Whether it is the best of times or the worst, He is with us. He has promised us that this will never change.

"But we are less faithful than He is. By nature we are vain, frail, and foolish. We sometimes neglect God. Sometimes we fail to keep the commandments that He gives us to make us happy. Sometimes we fail to commune with Him in prayer. Sometimes we forget to succor the poor and the downtrodden who are also His children. And our forgetfulness is very much to our detriment.

"If there is a spiritual lesson to be learned from our experience of that fateful day, it may be that we owe to God the same faithfulness that He gives to us. We should strive for steadiness, and for a commitment to God that does not ebb and flow with the years or the crises of our lives. It should not require tragedy for us to remember Him, and we should not be compelled to humility before giving Him our faith and trust. We too should be with Him in every season.

The way to be with God in every season is to strive to be near Him every week and each day. We truly “need Him every hour,” not just in hours of devastation. We must speak to Him, listen to Him, and serve Him. If we wish to serve Him, we should serve our fellow men. We will mourn the lives we lose, but we should also fix the lives that can be mended and heal the hearts that may yet be healed.

"It is constancy that God would have from us. Tragedies are not merely opportunities to give Him a fleeting thought, or for momentary insight to His plan for our happiness. Destruction allows us to rebuild our lives in the way He teaches us, and to become something different than we were. We can make Him the center of our thoughts and His Son, Jesus Christ, the pattern for our behavior. We may not only find faith in God in our sorrow. We may also become faithful to Him in times of calm."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/911-destruction-allowed-us-to-spiritually-rebuild/2011/09/08/gIQAbkjKCK_blog.html

Ezra Taft Benson: a Biography (Sheri L. Dew, Shadow Mountain Press, 1987)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-07T09:05:52-07:00

Excellent biography.

For the last nine years of his life, Ezra Taft Benson served as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (i.e., the Mormon Church). To members of that Church, myself included, Benson was and remains a modern day Apostle of Jesus Christ, a prophet of God, and a successor to Joseph Smith, who organized the Church in 1830.

Benson's service as President of the Church was but a capstone to a long life filled with service to God and fellow man. Aside from his Church service, Benson was a star in the political firmament for much of his life. He was one of only two members of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's cabinet to serve under Eisenhower for his full two terms. Benson served as Secretary of Agriculture at a time when that Department played a much more public role in American life. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Benson was frequently mentioned as a possible nominee for the U.S. Presidency. He was a true patriot, devoted to the cause of liberty and freedom.

My favorite episode in Benson's life--and well chronicled in this biography--was his service on behalf of the Church in Europe immediately following the end of World War II. At often times great personal peril and sacrifice, Benson spent months in war-torn Europe coordinating the delivery of much needed food, clothing, medicine, and other supplies to members of the Church scattered throughout Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and other countries. His journal entries from this period evidence a man truly devoted to the welfare of other people and concerned above all with human decency and dignity.

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller, Simon & Schuster; 50th Anniversary Ed., 544 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-02T07:56:59-07:00

Overrated twaddle.

Autism's Lone Wolf (Judith Warner, Time Magazine, August 29, 2011)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-09-01T09:48:53-07:00

Judith Warner writes a brief but very interesting profile of Simon Baron-Cohen (cousin of comic actor Sacha Baron-Cohen) and his most recent work on the origins of autism. Cohen is a professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is best known for his early theory that autism involves degrees of "mind-blindness" (or delays in the development of theory of mind) and his later theory that autism is an extreme form of the "male brain." In this article for Time, Warner highlights Cohen's recent work exploring possible links between autism and marriage patterns. Fascinating.

The article is available on Time's website at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089358,00.html

Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words (Josefa H. Byrne, Citadel, 1960, 242 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-08-26T16:42:56-07:00

If you love words, as I do, Josefa Byrne's eponymous dictionary of the most unusual, obscure and preposterous words is a must have.

Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary brings into view thousands of little-known curiosities that lie buried in specialized dictionaries and unabridged works too bulky for browsing. Mrs. Byrne exhumed many words from the boneyards of the obsolete and the nearly forgotten because in her judgment they deserved another chance to live. Here you'll find the words you probably don't (but perhaps should) use in everyday conversation, words like hieromachy--a fight between men and women of the cloth, minimifidianism--having almost no faith or belief, furfuraceous--covered with dandruff, kakistocracy--government by the worst citizens, omphaloskepsis--meditation while gazing at one's navel, and many, many more.

Very fun to browse.

Les Miserables (Victor Hugo, Modern Library, 2009 ed., 1,376 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-08-21T14:50:52-07:00

A treasure.

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion (Janet Reitman, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 464 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-08-16T19:48:18-07:00

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion is Janet Reitman's full-length follow up to her award-winning article on the same subject written for Rolling Stone in 2007. If what Reitman writes here is true, one can only conclude that Scientology is no religion at all; rather, it is a business whose product is pseudo-psychology wrapped in the cloak of religion if only to obtain for itself a measure of respectability and the "benefits" that such a designation confers (particularly the apparently much-coveted designation of tax-free status). Founded by would-be science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, "America's Most Secretive Religion" is perhaps best known for high-profile adherents like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, but its tenets, processes, and internal organization remain largely shrouded from public view and not immune from a certain degree of suspicion.

I would not consider myself well-versed in Scientology's beliefs or tenets. I have not read any of its own publications or the writings of its founder. So, in fairness, I take what Reitman writes here with a grain of salt, not because I disbelieve her but because I think in matters of deeply felt belief systems--yes, religion-- one needs to drink at the fountainhead (i.e. go to the source) rather than drink downstream where the cattle have crossed.

Judge for yourself.

A Disciple's Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell (Bruce C. Hafen, Deseret Book. 2010, 656 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-08-14T21:23:10-07:00

Inspiring man. Inspiring biography.

Neal A. Maxwell served as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, the governing council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from 1981 until his death from cancer in 2004. Compassionate, witty, politically astute, and spiritually authentic, Maxwell was always passionately engaged in life's battles. This instinct for action impelled him into the infantry in World War II where, on Okinawa, shaking and crying in a foxhole full of mud and foul water, he pledged his life to the Lord and was miraculously spared. As a member of the Quorum of Twelve, Elder Maxwell engaged a broader struggle, that between the sacred and the secular, the tension between faith and reason, and finally his greatest cause his spiritual ministry. His eloquent defense of Christianity and his brilliant reconciliation of faith and intellect are a rich legacy. But beyond that, he has shown that with the Savior's help, ordinary people can be better, less competitive, more loving, and receive the soul-transforming gift of charity.

This is an inspiring, sometimes humorous, and moving biography. Bruce C. Hafen has painted an intimate portrait of a unique man, capturing the warm, personal stories that reveal the heart and mind of a true disciple of Christ.

The Lincoln Lawyer (Michael Connelly, Grand Central Publishing, 2011, 544 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-08-07T20:06:27-07:00

Just getting around to this one. Great summertime vacation read.

Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard (Matt Taylor, Jim Beller, Moonrise Media, 2011, 294 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-08-07T14:11:51-07:00

The filming of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 megablockbuster JAWS is regarded as a landmark event in both the history of motion pictures and the quaint New England island of Martha’s Vineyard. The geographic isolation of the Island, located eight miles off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts, necessitated the hiring of hundreds of locals to work as actors and laborers and to assist with the production’s groundbreaking special effects.

Among this virtual army of hometown participants were numerous professional and amateur photographers, each with full access to the production’s inner workings. Now, for the first time, their behind-the-scenes photographs and stories have been compiled into a treasure trove of JAWS rarities, a one-of-a-kind collection. Included are interviews with JAWSProduction Designer Joe Alves, Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, Location Casting Director Shari Rhodes, and more. This hefty book has hundreds od behind-the-scenes photos that any fan of the movie will love.

The book can be purchased here: http://www.mvremembersjaws.com/

The Eichmann Trial (Deborah E. Lipstadt, Schocken, 2011, 272 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-08-02T20:58:32-07:00

Great book. This from Franklin Foer's review in The New York Times:

"To write about the trial of Adolf Eichmann is to put its most notorious court reporter, Hannah Arendt, in the dock. In the nearly 50 years since its publication, her account of those proceedings, Eichmann in Jerusalem, has come to overshadow its subject. The book, it is true, commands attention. It is a breathtaking admixture of genres (history, philosophy, journalism) and contains strong, often unconventional, moral judgments (especially her contempt for the Jewish leaders who cooperated with their murderers). It aims to render grand historical conclusions but remains unintentionally and inescapably personal.

"The Eichmann Trial, by Deborah E. Lipstadt, can’t entirely avoid Arendt, but it does manage to keep her largely offstage until the very end. Lipstadt has done a great service by untethering the trial from Arendt’s polarizing presence, recovering the event as a gripping legal drama, as well as a hinge moment in Israel’s history and in the world’s delayed awakening to the magnitude of the Holocaust.

"Aside from Eichmann’s trial, in 1961, the Holocaust has been the subject of at least two other memorable legal battles. The first, of course, was the Nuremberg tribunals — proceedings that occurred amid the ruins of war and concentrated on the crimes of the Nazis, giving little voice to the still dazed survivors of the genocide. The second featured none other than Lipstadt herself. In 2000, she found herself the defendant in a British libel suit unsuccessfully brought by the writer David Irving, who protested her characterization of him as a Holocaust denier. This experience has made her a sensitive guide to the awkward complexities of squeezing the crimes of the Holocaust into the constricting confines of the courthouse.

"The book begins with the daughter of an Argentine man dating the son of a German refugee. The Argentine man was himself German-born and half Jewish. Many fathers expect the worst from the boys their daughters bring home — but the man’s suspicions about this one’s family grew thanks to the boy’s obvious anti-Semitism and his evasive answers to basic biographical questions. The man began to assume the worst and outlined his fears in a letter to a German prosecutor who happened to be Jewish. The prosecutor enlisted the man and his daughter in a stealth operation, and in the course of her snooping, the possibility arose that she was stalking Adolf Eichmann. When her father reported this astonishing finding to the prosecutor, he forwarded the tip to the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.

"The Mossad wasn’t initially enthusiastic. But once it grasped the importance of its target, it unleashed a risky kidnapping scheme, what Lipstadt describes as the prototype of the brash, clever operations that are the foundation of the Mossad’s mythic reputation. The Israelis drugged Eichmann and dressed him as an El Al crewman to get him past the Argentine authorities.

"Much of Western opinion, Lipstadt reminds us, was not pleased. Argentina demanded Eichmann’s repatriation, and the American establishment agreed. The Washington Post editorial page condemned Israel’s “jungle law”; The Christian Science Monitor equated Israel’s claims to those of the Nazis. William F. Buckley Jr. said the kidnapping was symptomatic of the Jewish “refusal to forgive.” Even the American Jewish Committee asked the Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, to cede the prosecution to Germany or an international tribunal. But these challenges only made Ben-Gurion a more vociferous champion of the trial.

"A principal villain of Arendt’s book is Gideon Hausner, who had recently been installed as attorney general and who assigned himself the first chair in the prosecution. He was a strange choice for the job. There was little in his background as a commercial lawyer that suggested he had the courtroom skills to battle a cunning defendant, which Eichmann turned out to be. Indeed, Arendt accused Hausner of being more of a demagogic politician than a rule-abiding barrister. She disparaged his emotionalism and his aggressive effort to pin every crime of Nazi Germany on Eichmann. In one of her less-than-attractive letters from the trial, Arendt accused Hausner of having a “ghetto mentality” and of being a “typical Galician Jew, . . . one of those people who don’t know any language.”

"Lipstadt doesn’t entirely dispute Arendt’s portrait of Hausner. She concedes his imprecision and hyperbolic tendencies. But Hausner also emerges as something close to the book’s hero. His strategy placed the survivors at the center of the trial, the first time that the world had heard from them at such length. According to Lipstadt, this was the moment the survivors acquired their moral stature. And their testimony was the reason the Eichmann trial so shook the world.

"In fact, Lipstadt argues that survivor testimony had the effect of shattering the Zionist self-image. Israelis had imagined that European Jewry had been too meek to defend itself during the war, the characterological opposite of the macho sabras. It was only during the Eichmann trial that Israelis came to appreciate the impossibility of resisting the Nazis, that Israelis weren’t morally superior to their diaspora cousins. “Some Israelis began to grasp that, rather than constituting a different breed of Jews, they were simply generationally and geographically lucky,” she writes. The nation suddenly understood the centrality of the Holocaust to its national story.

"After recounting the trial so vividly, Lipstadt recounts the aftermath — a discussion that inevitably centers on Arendt. Her conclusions about “Eichmann in Jerusalem” are rendered calmly and with devastating fairness. This is the right tone, since she accuses Arendt of writing with distorting anger and inexcusable carelessness. Lipstadt doesn’t dismiss Arendt’s big conceptual insight about the banality of evil, which she argues has merged (in somewhat more refined terms) with the historiographical conventional wisdom. But she accuses Arendt of ignoring anti-Semitism — and of discounting all the evidence about Eichmann’s centrality in plotting the genocide so that she could portray him as a pathetic bureaucrat.

"It is always bracing to recall the world in which the Eichmann trial was held — where the slaughter was largely unacknowledged (and even unknown). That’s why Ben-Gurion and Hausner were spectacularly right to exploit the Eichmann prosecution for pedagogical purposes. They forced the Nazi genocide onto the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Nearly 20 years after the fact, the Holocaust finally began to find a place in the public consciousness that reflected the size of the atrocity. (Indeed, the trial was largely responsible for making “Holocaust” the universal term for the genocide.) Critics of the trial insinuated that the Israelis were somehow transgressing the bounds of fairness and justice by pressing these larger points. But Ben-Gurion and Hausner served precisely these goals by giving a voice to Eichmann’s victims."

Heinrich Himmler: The Sinister Life of the Head of the SS and Gestapo (Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, Skyhorse Publishing, 2007, 320 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-07-24T19:15:07-07:00

Apart from his Master, Hitler, perhaps no man so personified the inherent evil of the Third Reich as Heinrich Himmler. At the height of his power he controlled the entire police apparatus in Nazi Germany and its conquered territories, the Gestapo, SS, Waffen-SS, the universe of concentration and extermination camps, and a vast slave labor force comprised of Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and just about every other unfortunate people who came under the Nazi's heel. A spectacularly below average personality, Himmler rose through the ranks of Nazi party circles by being officious, detail oriented, and an effective counterweight to Ernst Roehm, head of Hitler's SA. When the Nazi's swept into power and Hitler became first Chancellor and then dictator, Himmler's career and power grew stopping only with his death by suicide after falling briefly into allied hands in 1945. He cheated a just tribunal and, no doubt, a just hangman.

Roger Manvell's Heinrich Himmler, coauthored with Heinrich Fraenkel, is a splendid biograpahy of Himmler. Detailed, but not overly so, Manvell's profile is excellent. Manvell first published this biography in the 1960s. During World War II, Manvell worked in Britain's Ministry of Information.

Mr. Popper's Penguins (Richard Atwater, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 50 Anniversary Ed., 1988, 139 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-07-20T18:42:36-07:00

I first read Mr. Popper's Penguins as a wee little lad in grade school. Rereading it now made me feel like that same wee little lad all over again. Still worth reading no matter what your age.

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, 2011, 576 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-07-14T19:14:01-07:00

The mere fact that this book was written by David McCullough makes it worthwhile reading. Though I much prefer other of his works--especially Truman, 1776, and John Adams--The Greater Journey is still quintessential McCullough: meticulous research, rich detail, compelling character study, wonderful anecdotes, smooth narrative, and fascinating subject. What's so magical about McCullough is that he can take a subject that others have written on before and make it so much more interesting and approachable.

The Greater Journey, as the title suggests, is a history of Americans in Paris during the 19th century. Between 1830 and 1900, hundreds of Americans--many of them future household names like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, Samuel Morse, and Harriet Beecher Stowe--migrated to Paris. McCullough shows first how Paris affected each of them in turn and how they then helped shape American art, medicine, writing, science, and politics in profound ways when they came back to the United States. I particularly enjoyed McCullough's treatment of the many great American portrait artists who went to Paris seeking to better their craft. My favorite part by far was his account of the time served in Paris by Elihu B. Washburne as United States Ambassador to France for President Ulysses S. Grant. Washburne worked tirelessly for the welfare and benefit of many Parisians and expatriate Germans during the Franco-Prussian War and the civil unrest that followed the war. I felt real pride in what Washburne did.

Tremendous book. Well done.

My Father at 100: A Memoir (Ron Reagan, Viking Adult, 2011, 240 pages)

Rick E. Hansen — 2011-07-10T16:30:56-07:00

February 2011 was the one hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth. My Father at 100 is his son's (and namesake's) intimate and nicely done memoir of life with and around the former actor, Governor and President, and coming to terms with his roots. Ronald Reagan was the president of my youth and naturally I admired him. That admiration has only grown with time (perhaps more out of a sense of nostalgia than anything else, but even so).

Aside from the content, this book is special to me in another way. As for most bibliophiles, books are for me markers in time. I can look at a book on my bookshelf (which contains roughly 1,500 books) and recall not only its content but also when I read it and why. My Father at 100 was given to me by my daughter, whom I love and cherish, on, appropriately enough, Father's Day. With the book came a wonderful card and the following hand inscribed note from my little princess, which will forever tie this book and her together.

"Dear Daddy,

"Thank you for teaching me everything I know. You mean the world to me and I love you so much. Growing up, you have taught me so much from academics to softball and I know that there is still more to come. I know this past year has been a hard year for me in school, but you never stopped believing in me. Thank you so much for everything you do. I am so proud of you and I love you so very much. Happy Father's Day, daddy. I love you."