NY Times
A year ago it would have been hard to imagine a book about the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department making it onto people’s must-read summer reading lists. But the financial calamities of last autumn put the global economy on the brink of disaster and led to continuing fiscal woes. Understanding what happened has become vitally important not just for bankers and economists, but for everyone affected by the fallout, which means ... well, just about everyone.
For all of us then, David Wessel’s new book “In Fed We Trust” is essential, lucid — and, it turns out, riveting — reading.
In these pages Mr. Wessel, the economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, chronicles how the Fed chairman Ben S. Bernanke, with Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the Treasury secretary, and a small group of associates, frantically worked to shore up the United States economy, capturing how this handful of people — “overwhelmed, exhausted, beseeched, besieged, constantly second-guessed” — tried to catch and stabilize one toppling fiscal domino after the next.
In this volume Mr. Wessel uses his narrative gifts and a plethora of sources to give readers a vivid, highly immediate sense of what transpired in last-minute, high-pressure, seat-of-their-pants meetings in Washington and New York while placing these events in a broader historical context. He examines the Fed’s increasingly important (and increasingly debated) role as an economic first responder, looks at how personality and personal philosophy can inform policy making and offers a concise explication of the causes of what he calls “The Great Panic.”
To continue reading please click here.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
'Censoring an Iranian Love Story' By Shahriar Mandanipour
Reviewed By Trenton Daniel
Miami Herald
In his first novel to be translated into English, Shahriar Mandanipour sets out to write the story of young lovers struggling to consummate their prenuptial passion under the eyes of the Iranian morals police. They hang out nervously in Internet cafes, dark movie houses and on the jammed and smoggy streets of modern-day Tehran.
The clandestine courtship comes at a time when university students protest, and vigilantes watch out for transgressing neighbors. A war with U.S. troops and suicide bombers rages in next-door Iraq.
Telling amorous tales in post-Islamic-revolution Iran is tricky, if not downright dangerous, but a fictional writer named Shahriar Mandanipour, is up to the task. ''I am an Iranian writer tired of writing dark and bitter stories, stories populated by ghosts and dead narrators with predictable endings of death and destruction,'' writes the alter ego of the real-life Mandanipour, a Harvard visiting scholar and former writing fellow at Brown.
To continue please click here.
Miami Herald
In his first novel to be translated into English, Shahriar Mandanipour sets out to write the story of young lovers struggling to consummate their prenuptial passion under the eyes of the Iranian morals police. They hang out nervously in Internet cafes, dark movie houses and on the jammed and smoggy streets of modern-day Tehran.
The clandestine courtship comes at a time when university students protest, and vigilantes watch out for transgressing neighbors. A war with U.S. troops and suicide bombers rages in next-door Iraq.
Telling amorous tales in post-Islamic-revolution Iran is tricky, if not downright dangerous, but a fictional writer named Shahriar Mandanipour, is up to the task. ''I am an Iranian writer tired of writing dark and bitter stories, stories populated by ghosts and dead narrators with predictable endings of death and destruction,'' writes the alter ego of the real-life Mandanipour, a Harvard visiting scholar and former writing fellow at Brown.
To continue please click here.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
'How to Hold a Woman' by Billy Lombardo
Reviewed By Lynna Williams
Chicago Tribune
'How to Hold a Woman' by Billy Lombardo
Death of a daughter, sister ripples throughout her family for years to come.
Missing and then murdered children are so much a part of the American landscape that a novelist who deals with the subject must find new ways into the material. Chicago writer Billy Lombardo has done that in "How to Hold a Woman" by fragmenting the novel into stories, separate moments in the lives of the family a dead 12-year-old girl leaves behind.
The result is a moving kaleidoscope of sorrow, as the impact of the tragedy continues to wreak profound change on a middle-class family of six, bewilderingly changed to five on an August evening in Chicago that begins with a joyful homecoming. Dad Alan Taylor is coming home from two months on a research trip in Madagascar and his family -- wife Audrey, daughter Isabelle and son Sammy -- pick him up at the airport. Son Dex is spending the night at a friend's house, and the family decamps to a restaurant where Isabelle flirts with her father, acting out bits of Daisy Buchanan's dialogue from "The Great Gatsby." She has changed in those two months, Alan sees, become someone a little more grown up, less a little girl.
We see the family happy together for part of that night. Then, as quickly as the unthinkable becomes real, Isabelle drops out of the picture. When we come upon the family again, two years later, she's been sliced out of the family dialogue. No one refers to her by name or tells her story directly. We hear about no vigils, no years in therapy, no efforts to keep her memory alive. Alan and Audrey are a couple with an increasingly troubled marriage who, when asked, answer correctly that they have two children. We see the impact of the loss of Isabelle in everything they do, though, from Audrey's raging silences to the parents' separation to Alan's change of careers to Audrey's standing at a window at a dance studio, her nose pressed against the glass as young girls practice inside. The couple are loving parents to their sons, but the boys are left to think through Isabelle's disappearance and death themselves. Sammy is too young to really remember her last night, but Dex, who wasn't there, lives with regret that he wasn't present, sure that he would remember each moment with Isabelle in ways Sammy cannot.
To continue please click here.
Chicago Tribune
'How to Hold a Woman' by Billy Lombardo
Death of a daughter, sister ripples throughout her family for years to come.
Missing and then murdered children are so much a part of the American landscape that a novelist who deals with the subject must find new ways into the material. Chicago writer Billy Lombardo has done that in "How to Hold a Woman" by fragmenting the novel into stories, separate moments in the lives of the family a dead 12-year-old girl leaves behind.
The result is a moving kaleidoscope of sorrow, as the impact of the tragedy continues to wreak profound change on a middle-class family of six, bewilderingly changed to five on an August evening in Chicago that begins with a joyful homecoming. Dad Alan Taylor is coming home from two months on a research trip in Madagascar and his family -- wife Audrey, daughter Isabelle and son Sammy -- pick him up at the airport. Son Dex is spending the night at a friend's house, and the family decamps to a restaurant where Isabelle flirts with her father, acting out bits of Daisy Buchanan's dialogue from "The Great Gatsby." She has changed in those two months, Alan sees, become someone a little more grown up, less a little girl.
We see the family happy together for part of that night. Then, as quickly as the unthinkable becomes real, Isabelle drops out of the picture. When we come upon the family again, two years later, she's been sliced out of the family dialogue. No one refers to her by name or tells her story directly. We hear about no vigils, no years in therapy, no efforts to keep her memory alive. Alan and Audrey are a couple with an increasingly troubled marriage who, when asked, answer correctly that they have two children. We see the impact of the loss of Isabelle in everything they do, though, from Audrey's raging silences to the parents' separation to Alan's change of careers to Audrey's standing at a window at a dance studio, her nose pressed against the glass as young girls practice inside. The couple are loving parents to their sons, but the boys are left to think through Isabelle's disappearance and death themselves. Sammy is too young to really remember her last night, but Dex, who wasn't there, lives with regret that he wasn't present, sure that he would remember each moment with Isabelle in ways Sammy cannot.
To continue please click here.
'In the Graveyard of Empires' By Seth G. Jones
Reviewed By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
NY Times
The Choices That Closed a Window Into Afghanistan
Among the many lasting consequences of the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the collateral damage it inflicted on Afghanistan and the war there against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Money, troops and expertise were diverted to Iraq, and as the RAND Corporation political scientist Seth G. Jones observes in his useful new book, the initial success of the military operation in Afghanistan was squandered.
The slender window for securing a stable democracy in Afghanistan began to close, and by 2006, Mr. Jones writes, a “perfect storm of political upheaval” had gathered, with several crises ominously converging: “Pakistan emerged as a sanctuary for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, allowing them to conduct a greater number of operations from bases across the border; Afghan governance became unhinged as corruption worked its way through the government like a cancer, leaving massive discontent throughout the country; and the international presence, hamstrung by the U.S. focus on Iraq, was too small to deal with the escalating violence.”
The first major operation using additional troops sent to Afghanistan by President Obama recently began in the southern part of that country, even as Taliban advances in border regions have aided Al Qaeda’s efforts to destabilize neighboring Pakistan.
To continue click here.
NY Times
The Choices That Closed a Window Into Afghanistan
Among the many lasting consequences of the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the collateral damage it inflicted on Afghanistan and the war there against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Money, troops and expertise were diverted to Iraq, and as the RAND Corporation political scientist Seth G. Jones observes in his useful new book, the initial success of the military operation in Afghanistan was squandered.
The slender window for securing a stable democracy in Afghanistan began to close, and by 2006, Mr. Jones writes, a “perfect storm of political upheaval” had gathered, with several crises ominously converging: “Pakistan emerged as a sanctuary for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, allowing them to conduct a greater number of operations from bases across the border; Afghan governance became unhinged as corruption worked its way through the government like a cancer, leaving massive discontent throughout the country; and the international presence, hamstrung by the U.S. focus on Iraq, was too small to deal with the escalating violence.”
The first major operation using additional troops sent to Afghanistan by President Obama recently began in the southern part of that country, even as Taliban advances in border regions have aided Al Qaeda’s efforts to destabilize neighboring Pakistan.
To continue click here.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Will electronic devices make books obsolete?
BY JOHN WENZEL
The Denver Post (via the Miami Herald)
Like a lot of readers, Kimberly Field likes and laments her new Kindle.
On one hand, the in-demand electronic device solves a problem common to fans of novels and nonfiction: too many books, not enough bookshelves.
''I was about to resort to the Fahrenheit 451 method of book management'' joked the Denver author, referring to Ray Bradbury's cautionary tale about book-burning.
On the other hand, its convenience has removed the tactile sensation from a treasured hobby.
``I prefer turning the pages of a book because I like touching it and flipping back to reread passages. You don't get that with Kindle.''
While readers are torn over the merits of literary toys like Amazon's Kindle, the iPhone and Sony Reader, there's no doubt they have overwhelmingly embraced them.
This year, electronic books sales are up 150 percent and analysts predict the number could triple by December. That comes in a year when sales of traditional books are down four percent.
The publishing industry is scrambling to keep up with -- or take advantage of -- the interest in electronic reading. Ailing magazines and newspapers, hungry for a delivery system the public will like, are hopeful. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are hoping they don't become obsolete.
Continue here...
The Denver Post (via the Miami Herald)
Like a lot of readers, Kimberly Field likes and laments her new Kindle.
On one hand, the in-demand electronic device solves a problem common to fans of novels and nonfiction: too many books, not enough bookshelves.
''I was about to resort to the Fahrenheit 451 method of book management'' joked the Denver author, referring to Ray Bradbury's cautionary tale about book-burning.
On the other hand, its convenience has removed the tactile sensation from a treasured hobby.
``I prefer turning the pages of a book because I like touching it and flipping back to reread passages. You don't get that with Kindle.''
While readers are torn over the merits of literary toys like Amazon's Kindle, the iPhone and Sony Reader, there's no doubt they have overwhelmingly embraced them.
This year, electronic books sales are up 150 percent and analysts predict the number could triple by December. That comes in a year when sales of traditional books are down four percent.
The publishing industry is scrambling to keep up with -- or take advantage of -- the interest in electronic reading. Ailing magazines and newspapers, hungry for a delivery system the public will like, are hopeful. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are hoping they don't become obsolete.
Continue here...
Monday, July 6, 2009
'This Wicked World' by Richard Lange
Reviewed By Antoine Wilson
LA Times
In the hard-boiled universe of Richard Lange's debut novel, "This Wicked World," trying to do the right thing can lead only to trouble. Ex-Marine and former bodyguard Jimmy Boone knows this all too well. Fresh out of Corcoran and on parole, he's biding his time, tending bar for tourists on Hollywood Boulevard and managing a group of rental bungalows.
Yet when Robo, the bar's bouncer, asks for help on a "hero for hire" gig, Boone hears him out. The job sounds simple enough: Robo needs Boone to accompany him to a meet at a Denny's restaurant. All Boone has to do is wear a sports jacket and look like a cop. As Robo puts it, "my regular white boy is fishing in Cabo."
At Denny's, an elderly Guatemalan man enlists Robo to investigate the death of his grandson, Oscar Rosales, a young migrant worker found dead on an MTA bus and covered with infected dog bites. This puts Boone and Robo on a trail that leads eventually to a sketchy apartment near MacArthur Park, where Oscar had been living. There they find a group of Oscar's friends, a toothless pit bull and a story. Oscar was mauled by dogs while working for someone out in the desert. He made his way back to L.A. but didn't see a doctor because he was afraid the people from the desert were coming after him. Beyond that, the friends don't know anything.
As far as Robo is concerned, it's enough. He's done. Boone, on the other hand, can't let it go. He buys the toothless pit bull from the roommates, and something clicks in him: "It's time to stop kidding himself. The mystery of Oscar's death has been haunting him for days, and the only way he's going to get any peace is by looking into it further. . . . This is what he's been waiting for when he wakes in the night, his body tense, his mind racing: a mission. A rocky path to some untamed form of redemption." Thus begins his descent into a brutal world of dog fighting, drugs and counterfeit money.
The stories in Lange's first book, the critically acclaimed "Dead Boys," gripped the reader from the first lines: a dozen first-person narrators, utterly convincing in detail and voice. These stories of down-on-their-luck men trying to rise above the past flirted with genre but were first published in literary magazines. "This Wicked World," however, is more straightforwardly genre-oriented, as if Lange has made the conscious choice to structure his long-form narrative around established conventions of mystery and neo-noir. Written in third person, moving in and out of various characters' points of view, the novel reveals more of its artifice than the stories did, and as such it feels more like a well-assembled work of entertainment than a gritty dispatch from the front lines.
Parallel chapters follow the machinations of two thugs, their crime boss and the boss' girlfriend as they enforce the repayment of debts, dispose of a body and set up a dog-fighting event. Lange's villains are a rogues' gallery of greed, aspiration, gluttony and stupidity, drawn with a keen eye for their small-time aspirations. One thug needs money for tattoo removal, to look respectable for an upcoming custody battle. Another dreams of producing a line of martial-arts-cum-exercise videos called "Killer Instincts: Way of the Ghetto Warrior."
Continue reading here...
LA Times
In the hard-boiled universe of Richard Lange's debut novel, "This Wicked World," trying to do the right thing can lead only to trouble. Ex-Marine and former bodyguard Jimmy Boone knows this all too well. Fresh out of Corcoran and on parole, he's biding his time, tending bar for tourists on Hollywood Boulevard and managing a group of rental bungalows.
Yet when Robo, the bar's bouncer, asks for help on a "hero for hire" gig, Boone hears him out. The job sounds simple enough: Robo needs Boone to accompany him to a meet at a Denny's restaurant. All Boone has to do is wear a sports jacket and look like a cop. As Robo puts it, "my regular white boy is fishing in Cabo."
At Denny's, an elderly Guatemalan man enlists Robo to investigate the death of his grandson, Oscar Rosales, a young migrant worker found dead on an MTA bus and covered with infected dog bites. This puts Boone and Robo on a trail that leads eventually to a sketchy apartment near MacArthur Park, where Oscar had been living. There they find a group of Oscar's friends, a toothless pit bull and a story. Oscar was mauled by dogs while working for someone out in the desert. He made his way back to L.A. but didn't see a doctor because he was afraid the people from the desert were coming after him. Beyond that, the friends don't know anything.
As far as Robo is concerned, it's enough. He's done. Boone, on the other hand, can't let it go. He buys the toothless pit bull from the roommates, and something clicks in him: "It's time to stop kidding himself. The mystery of Oscar's death has been haunting him for days, and the only way he's going to get any peace is by looking into it further. . . . This is what he's been waiting for when he wakes in the night, his body tense, his mind racing: a mission. A rocky path to some untamed form of redemption." Thus begins his descent into a brutal world of dog fighting, drugs and counterfeit money.
The stories in Lange's first book, the critically acclaimed "Dead Boys," gripped the reader from the first lines: a dozen first-person narrators, utterly convincing in detail and voice. These stories of down-on-their-luck men trying to rise above the past flirted with genre but were first published in literary magazines. "This Wicked World," however, is more straightforwardly genre-oriented, as if Lange has made the conscious choice to structure his long-form narrative around established conventions of mystery and neo-noir. Written in third person, moving in and out of various characters' points of view, the novel reveals more of its artifice than the stories did, and as such it feels more like a well-assembled work of entertainment than a gritty dispatch from the front lines.
Parallel chapters follow the machinations of two thugs, their crime boss and the boss' girlfriend as they enforce the repayment of debts, dispose of a body and set up a dog-fighting event. Lange's villains are a rogues' gallery of greed, aspiration, gluttony and stupidity, drawn with a keen eye for their small-time aspirations. One thug needs money for tattoo removal, to look respectable for an upcoming custody battle. Another dreams of producing a line of martial-arts-cum-exercise videos called "Killer Instincts: Way of the Ghetto Warrior."
Continue reading here...
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
'Breaking the Slump' By Jimmy Roberts
Reviewed by Joe Logan
Philadelphia Inquirer
When you plow into a book subtitled How the Great Players Survived Their Darkest Moments in Golf and What You Can Learn From Them, you sort of expect to come away having, you know, learned something.
Ha! The joke's on me.
Not that Roberts' book isn't a pleasant, breezy read, ideal for the beach or - let's be honest here - a last-minute gift for that golfer in your life. Just understand that while this gift might get you off the hook, it won't get rid of his or her hook.
It's the first book for Roberts, a solid, likable golf correspondent for NBC Sports. (In the acknowledgments, Roberts writes that when he called his older sister to tell her he was writing a book, there was silence on the line until she said, "I think Mom and Dad would have been happy if you just read a book.")
Breaking the Slump is literary cotton candy. It's chock-full of fun stories and anecdotes about some of the biggest names in, and out, of golf, such as Greg Norman, Phil Mickelson, Paul Azinger, Johnny Miller, Ben Crenshaw, Arnold Palmer, the first President Bush, and Jack Nicklaus.
Jack Nicklaus? Who knew that Nicklaus, who remains the greatest player in the history of golf so long as Tiger Woods continues to chase his record of 18 major championship titles, ever had a slump?
I write about golf for a living, and I'm old enough to remember Nicklaus in his heyday, and I didn't recall a slump.
But, hey, there was one year. It was 1979, 17 years into his career, when Nicklaus was pushing 40. He'd already famously dethroned the beloved Arnold Palmer, and he had won the PGA Tour money title six times. But in '79, inexplicably, Nicklaus stunk the joint up. He didn't win once. He didn't even finish second. He only had one third-place finish all year, and he fell to 71st on the money list.
"I mean, you wouldn't believe how pathetic I was," Nicklaus told Roberts.
So, what did Nicklaus do? Nothing. He took four months off.
Come January 1980, when he was rested and ready, Nicklaus went back to his old coach, Jack Grout, like he was a fresh-eyed kid.
"I started from scratch," said Nicklaus. "OK, Jack Grout, my name is Jack Nicklaus and I want to learn how to play golf."
Continue here...
Philadelphia Inquirer
When you plow into a book subtitled How the Great Players Survived Their Darkest Moments in Golf and What You Can Learn From Them, you sort of expect to come away having, you know, learned something.
Ha! The joke's on me.
Not that Roberts' book isn't a pleasant, breezy read, ideal for the beach or - let's be honest here - a last-minute gift for that golfer in your life. Just understand that while this gift might get you off the hook, it won't get rid of his or her hook.
It's the first book for Roberts, a solid, likable golf correspondent for NBC Sports. (In the acknowledgments, Roberts writes that when he called his older sister to tell her he was writing a book, there was silence on the line until she said, "I think Mom and Dad would have been happy if you just read a book.")
Breaking the Slump is literary cotton candy. It's chock-full of fun stories and anecdotes about some of the biggest names in, and out, of golf, such as Greg Norman, Phil Mickelson, Paul Azinger, Johnny Miller, Ben Crenshaw, Arnold Palmer, the first President Bush, and Jack Nicklaus.
Jack Nicklaus? Who knew that Nicklaus, who remains the greatest player in the history of golf so long as Tiger Woods continues to chase his record of 18 major championship titles, ever had a slump?
I write about golf for a living, and I'm old enough to remember Nicklaus in his heyday, and I didn't recall a slump.
But, hey, there was one year. It was 1979, 17 years into his career, when Nicklaus was pushing 40. He'd already famously dethroned the beloved Arnold Palmer, and he had won the PGA Tour money title six times. But in '79, inexplicably, Nicklaus stunk the joint up. He didn't win once. He didn't even finish second. He only had one third-place finish all year, and he fell to 71st on the money list.
"I mean, you wouldn't believe how pathetic I was," Nicklaus told Roberts.
So, what did Nicklaus do? Nothing. He took four months off.
Come January 1980, when he was rested and ready, Nicklaus went back to his old coach, Jack Grout, like he was a fresh-eyed kid.
"I started from scratch," said Nicklaus. "OK, Jack Grout, my name is Jack Nicklaus and I want to learn how to play golf."
Continue here...
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