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By Sean Clark, on December 23rd, 2010 [This creative exploration of neuropsych is a C4 Great Read.]
Author: Paul Broks
2003, Grove Atlantic
Filed Under: Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
10 |
I’m not particularly well-versed in neurospsychology, but I find it endlessly fascinating. The human is brain is impossibly complex, as it must be to allow us our existences as impossibly complex creatures. Neurospych appeals to me because it walks a somewhat precarious line between science and philosophy. (I personally consider all psychology to be a primarily philosphical pursuit–despite the empirical evidence the field has compiled–and the flip side to the physical study of the brain approached through neurology.) In this book, Broks, an accomplished neurospsychologist, writes of his field with the air of a skeptic. He’s sold on the science, but not on all the assumptions that are drawn by his contemporaries. He questions just what is buried in the mind. As a casual reader, he appealed to my sense of curiosity, and informed my layman knowledge. He also turns out to be strong with words, so reading the book was a pleasure.
This book is unique from other nonfictions I have read. Please note, I don’t read all that much nonfiction, so I can’t make the best comparison. I’ve seen Broks compared to Oliver Sacks more than once, so if you’ve read him, that might give some idea. This is not the type of causal, watered-down lecture science book that I expected. Unlike books like How We Decide or Bonk, Into The Silent Land features a strong narrative and a strong narrator. The book is subtitled Travels in Neuropsychology and the verb choice is apt. There is a strong sense of exploration or journey that arises while reading this book. …
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By Bilal Ibne Rasheed, on December 13th, 2010 
Author: George W. Bush
2010, Crown Publishers
Filed Under: Memoirs, Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
5 |
| Entertainment..... |
4 |
| Depth..... |
5 |
Two things immediately came to my mind after reading George W. Bush’s Decision Points: a joke and an ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West (His-yu Chi – Xiyou ji). First the joke: once a professional consultant/adviser came across a shepherd with a large herd of sheep. He said to the shepherd, ‘I can tell exactly how many sheep you have.’ The shepherd apparently amazed at the claim asked him to go ahead but the consultant/adviser said that he will charge one of the sheep as a fee for telling him the exact number of his sheep. The shepherd gave it a thought and agreed to the deal. The consultant/adviser then took out his laptop and portable internet connection, got connected to the satellite monitoring system, browsed for the area where they were present, zoomed-in on the herd of sheep, counted them, and after consuming an hour or so told the shepherd that he had 139 sheep. The shepherd confirmed the number and the consultant/adviser took one of the sheep as a fee for the service. The shepherd then said to the consultant/adviser, ‘if I tell you your profession can I have my sheep back?’ Curious, the consultant/adviser agreed. The shepherd said, ‘You must a consultant or an adviser somewhere.’ The consultant/adviser was totally startled and asked the shepherd, ‘Yes I am a consultant/adviser, but how do you know?’ ‘Two reasons.’ The shepherd replied. ‘First, you created a job for yourself when there was in fact no need of it and told me something which I already knew. And the second is that you don’t know a shit about your job, now give my dog back.’ …
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By Marc Velasquez, on November 11th, 2010  Author: Sebastian Junger
2010, Twelve
Filed under: Literary, Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
In War, Sebastian Junger attempts to chronicle the emotional experience of battle and the mental toll combat takes on soldiers. To do so, Junger embedded himself with a platoon of American soldiers during their tour of Afghanistan’s front line. Thankfully, Junger doesn’t pretend to be an objective journalist reporting impartially. Instead, he uses his embedded experience to deliver a first-person portrayal of the psychological turmoil of war.
In 2007 and 2008, Junger made several prolonged visits with “Battle Company” in and around the Korengal Forward Operating Base in Eastern Afghanistan. Charged with holding the Korengal Valley from the insurgents, Battle Company constantly found themselves under enemy fire. Because a reporter on the front line and a soldier on the front line are the same to the enemy, Junger also found himself looking for cover after hearing the crack of passing bullets. And in Junger’s reaction to the threat of enemy fire, we get our first insight into a soldier’s mentality. …
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By Sean Clark, on November 10th, 2010 [This review is part of the Green Books campaign.Today 200 bloggers take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly manner by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. By turning a spotlight on books printed using eco- friendly paper, we hope to raise the awareness of book buyers and encourage everyone to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books.
The campaign is organized for the second time by Eco-Libris, a green company working to make reading more sustainable. We invite you to join the discussion on "green" books and support books printed in an eco-friendly manner! A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.]
Author: Holger Jorgensen and Jean Lester
2008, Ester Republic Press
Filed Under: Nonfiction, Biography, Short-Run
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
5 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
Holger Jorgensen is apparently a known name in Alaska. He is half-white, half-Native (Eskimo), and over his career accumulated–by his own estimate–about 35,000 hours in a variety of planes. Which is a lot. Alaska as Jorgy describes it was a bit of a frontier, with long stretches of tundra and wilderness connecting villages and small mines. This book is full of anecdotes told by the venerable pilot, and they combine to create an interesting depiction of Alaska’s development during the 20th century.
Jorgy’s tales are interesting, especially if you’re into planes. I’m not really, but I found a lot to like, especially when he details the difference between different plane models, and how he handled them differently in the cockpit. Some of the stories touch on historical and cultural relevance. I found the stories of his boyhood as a half-native living with a native mother to be some of the best parts in the book. Well, except for this story about a flight full of reindeer, which is the craziest thing I’ve read in a while (the quote’s a bit long, but trust me, it’s worth it): …
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By Nico Vreeland, on November 10th, 2010 [This review is part of the Green Books campaign.Today 200 bloggers take a stand to support books printed in an eco-friendly manner by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper. By turning a spotlight on books printed using eco-friendly paper, we hope to raise the awareness of book buyers and encourage everyone to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books.
The campaign is organized for the second time by Eco-Libris, a green company working to make reading more sustainable. We invite you to join the discussion on "green" books and support books printed in an eco-friendly manner! A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.]
 Author: Gary L. Stuart
2010, The University of Arizona Press
Filed under: Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
7 |
| Entertainment..... |
6 |
| Depth..... |
4 |
On August 10, 1991, two members of Wat Promkunaram, a Thai Buddhist temple in west Phoenix, arrived there to find six monks and three civilians executed. The case grabbed headlines because of the innocent victims and the brutality of the murders (each person was shot several times in the back of the head, and it appeared that the killers had shot several in the face with birdshot in order to force them to open their safe). Local law enforcement organized a massive task force, which for a month came up with nothing.
Then, based on a tip from a delusional, possibly schizophrenic man, detectives from the local Sheriff’s Office arrested four young men from Tucson—more than a hundred miles southeast of Phoenix. “The Tucson Four” all had solid alibis, police even found video of one of them working at a dog track in Tucson at the time of the murders. Still, they interrogated the innocent men until all (except one) cracked, and confessed to murders they didn’t commit.
Stuart’s book focuses on those interrogations more than the murders itself. While it’s solidly written, it’s not quite curious enough to entirely satisfy. …
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By Sean Clark, on October 12th, 2010 Author: Jonah Lehrer
 2009, Houghton Mifflin
Filed Under: Nonfiction.
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
5 |
| Entertainment..... |
5 |
| Depth..... |
8 |
How We Decide distills cognitive science and explains the physiology of decision-making in easily relatable layman’s terms. Personally, I found it very interesting, and it has given me plenty of conversational fodder for a while to come. If you want to read about how humans make decisions, how we’re hardwired to do certain things under certain circumstances, and how and perhaps why our brains evolved as they did, then Jonah Lehrer’s book is certainly worth your time.
Lehrer breaks down his analysis and description with accessible metaphors: Tom Brady chucking a TD, a pilot wrestling the controls of a failing airplane, a stockbroker managing investments. The anecdotes he uses tend to be interesting, and when he stops time in his examples and describes the various split-second options presented in each moment and each subject’s brain’s decision process, I found his science pretty fascinating. It never gets scholarly or tough to follow though; this is the type of neuroscience you’d get from the Discovery Channel, not the DSM-IV.
…
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By Bilal Ibne Rasheed, on September 15th, 2010 Author: Reinaldo Arenas; translation by Dolores M. Koch.
1993, Viking Penguin
Filed Under: Literary, Biography, Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
9 |
| Depth..... |
8 |
| Readability... |
9 |
When a friend of mine gave me an English translation of the autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas, Before Nights Falls, he insisted that the book was an effortless and riveting read–which was precisely the case. I finished reading the book as early as I could despite a couple of deadlines in my office and my one-year-old son going berserk.
The book is eminently readable and Arenas pins down the reader right from the word go. “The End.” This is how the book starts. He was sure in 1987 that he would die very soon but managed to survive although he had no medical insurance. He had to finish his Pentagonia and his memoirs before the night of death fell upon him.
Arenas’s father had abandoned his mother after only three months of marriage, something fairly common in Cuba in that era. He grew up in abject poverty, eating dirt and learning to hate his father. One day when he was six, he saw some boys of the neighborhood jumping in the river. The next day he masturbated for the first time. Life in the country was close to nature and therefore close to sexuality. Hens, goats, sows, mares, dogs, and even trees were used to satisfy his huge and eccentric sexual appetite during his boyhood. But the first time he went to a whore he was unable to have an erection. According to his own careful estimate, Arenas had fucked 5000 men by 1968. …
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By Marc Velasquez, on July 20th, 2010 [This first-hand account of life inside Sing Sing is a C4 Great Read.]
 Author: Ted Conover
Vintage Books, 2001
Filed under: Literary, Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
7 |
| Entertainment..... |
9 |
| Depth..... |
10 |
When Ted Conover wanted to write a book about the lives of prison guards, he started the way most journalists would: he asked the New York Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) for access. They denied him permission.
Considering Conover’s methods as a writer, he probably wanted to be denied. He’s an immersion journalist—one who embeds himself in the lives he wants to chronicle. He becomes one of his subjects. So after the DOCS said no, Conover became a “Newjack,” or a rookie guard, at Sing Sing, one of the most notorious prisons in the country. Newjack is the result of Conover’s experience.
At it’s core, Newjack reads like a travel narrative, and Conover’s experience is a journey. Conover guides us through the prison block, and shows us its inhabitants. He explains his training, and he points out how it left him mostly unqualified for what he would encounter within the walls. He tells us about Sing Sing’s infamous history—its menacing wardens, death chamber, and well-used electric chair—and he shows us how life inside is still just as nasty as it was when Sing Sing was the death penalty capital of the country.
…
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By Eric Markowsky, on June 2nd, 2010  Author: Kurt Vonnegut
2005, Seven Stories Press
Filed Under Literary, Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
7 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
Calling these pieces essays would be misleading. They’re more like rants, and, like most rants, they sometimes sound repetitive and oversimplified. But these rants are backed by too much gravity and experience to be dismissed. In tone and style, they offer everything fans have come to expect from Vonnegut, spare, humorous prose, overflowing equally with compassion and venom. In content, A Man Without a Country offers an unfiltered look into the mind of a master craftsman with a hell of a lot to rant about.
When the book came out in 2005, Vonnegut already saw so much wrong with the direction the US had taken into the twenty-first century. After everything he had seen and done in the twentieth century, he damn well wasn’t going to keep quiet. From American exceptionalism in general, to the Bush administration in particular, Vonnegut decries the recent actions of a country which he feels has abandoned him and the principles he once went to war to protect. …
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By Marc Velasquez, on May 24th, 2010 Author: Mitt Romney
St. Martins Press, 2010
Filed under: Nonfiction, Memoirs
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
2 |
| Entertainment..... |
2 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
[Reviewer's note: As with my previous review of a political book, I want to be honest. I am not blind to the fact that my opinions of this book are skewed by my political beliefs.]
I wanted to like this book.
No Apology is Mitt Romney’s attempt to express who he is politically, and he makes that intention clear in the second paragraph of his introduction. Of his three political campaigns he writes:
each time, when the campaign was over, I felt that I hadn’t done an adequate job communicating all that I had intended to say…. This book gives me a chance to say more than I did during my campaign.
And the truth is, I believe him. It’s impossible to deny this guy’s qualifications. In 1994, he came points away from stealing a MA Senate seat from Ted Kennedy. As the CEO for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, he inherited a financially and politically disastrous situation and turned it into a success. And he more or less did the same as Governor of Massachusetts, turning Jane Swift’s mess into a successful, one-term tenure. Had he not decided to forgo a second term in order to make a serious run at the ’08 presidency, he’d probably still be governor. Politically, he had something special. He was Scott Brown back when Scott Brown was just some dude in the state chambers who once dangled balls for a Cosmo spread.
But that Mitt Romney isn’t the one who showed up to the ’08 primary. Instead, he came across as stiff GOP avatar who couldn’t distinguish himself from a pack of surefire also rans.
So I was rooting for No Apology, rooting for the likable and charismatic Mitt to resurrect himself. Instead, I got the ’08 stiff. …
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