LJK

Just wild

Revisado: 11-15-24

I’ve never heard a story quite like this. At first, I thought it was going to be something else. Then it went places I totally did not see coming. There were times I wanted to laugh, cry, shake my head or pick up the phone and call someone. Life is interesting and complicated, I guess? Strongly recommend listening.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Eerie….

Revisado: 10-02-24

What a strange, harrowing tale of an unspeakable true crime and one woman’s pursuit of justice for the innocent—a tremendous, impressive listen!

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Full of Surprises!

Revisado: 06-23-24

I’ve been to the White House both as a visitor and a member of the press. And I've read countless books about American politics. Yet in this volume I repeatedly found fascinating anecdotes that I'd never before heard. On the light side, there was when Truman’s bathtub almost collapsed through a rotted floor and the president narrowly avoided greeting the Daughters of the Revolution in his birthday suit. More ominously, I was struck by an echo of history when the author shared how CIA Director Richard Bissell peddled a false story to U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson after the botched Bay of Pigs operation, which reminded me all too much of Secretary of State Colin Powell's 2003 presentation at the U.N. And then this book’s insider account of how Nixon conspired to install an always-on taping system is also thorough and riveting—and so too is the behind-the-scenes tale of how this crucial piece of Watergate evidence finally was revealed to a flabbergasted public. But perhaps the most unexpected turn of all was that the book's writer, Corey Mead, was able to tell the story of the Bin Laden raid – which I have read elsewhere dozens of times – and make it feel completely fresh and absolutely exhilarating. I recommend!

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Enriching History, Elegant Prose

Revisado: 08-06-23

Drawing on a wealth of research, “Slaves for Peanuts” takes us on a journey to trace how the bounty of a novel crop that many Americans today associate with baseball games, the circus or a PB&J once intertwined with war, colonialism, religion, politics and the evils of forced labor to shape countless lives in and around Senegal. The tale the journalist and historian Jori Lewis unravels is both captivating and harrowing. For me, it also was eye-opening—despite having visited Dakar some years ago, I had been ignorant of this confluence of events before Lewis’ book. I also found impressive her work contextualizing the ways in which the pernicious expansion of human bondage and the fitful transformation of peanuts into a major commodity evolved across geography, cultures and time. Indeed, much how Mark Kurlansky’s “A Basque History of the World” is a global study as much an Iberian one, Lewis’ powerful new volume grants readers a fuller understanding of West Africa, but also the Americas, Europe and beyond. Perhaps what I enjoyed most, however, was the frequency in which the author forced me to interrupt my learning to pause and admire her beautifully novelistic descriptions of past and present.

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Enter the Complex, Weird World of Crypto

Revisado: 07-08-23

In a densely packed, unconventional and sometimes snarky narrative, Brady Dale, a plugged-in business journalist with a penchant for philosophical asides and pop culture similes, reveals an intimate account of how cryptocurrency’s conspicuously unkempt Icarus, Sam Bankman-Fried, plummeted back to earth.

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No Such Thing as an Original Sin?

Revisado: 01-18-22

A story generations in the making, “Murder in Matera” explores the author’s obsession with a lurid event from long ago that may have permanently corrupted her family tree. In this compelling follow-up to “Five-Finger Discount,” Helene Stapinski heads to Southern Italy to investigate the crime of passion that brought her forebears to America and marked her great-great grandmother a murderer. Soon, new discoveries lead Stapinski to imagine in vivid detail how the drama unfolded, and the book reveals itself to be a marriage of historical mystery with clever travelogue, plus an engaging extended mediation on the nature of wrongdoing and redemption.

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Funny and enlightening!

Revisado: 12-09-21

Original perspective on a topic receiving scant attention. What’s a short person to do in a world that prizes tallness like so many superficial traits? Altman answers with wit and insight, while also digging into the underlying reasons – right or wrong – society rewards tall stature. Her interviews prying into the cottage industry of medically altering height are fascinating, sometimes hilarious, too. As consolation for listeners who will never dunk a basketball, the author also identifies some pretty clever hidden benefits of being on the shorter side. Great listen!

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esto le resultó útil a 8 personas

A Heartwarming & Foulmouthed Memory of Jersey City

Revisado: 11-11-21

With tales of crime, corruption and Aunt Millie's famous meatballs, the author recounts in her own echt Jerseyite voice the rough-and-tumble milieu of Hudson County that she grew up in—one she spent years trying to escape before acknowledging a certain affection for its snaggletoothed charm. Listeners on the other hand will soon admire this memorable memoir and the fascinating history it holds.

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