Rogue Heroes

     Ben MacIntyre has a talent for taking well-worn stories and injecting new life into them; he did this previously with Operation Mincemeat, Double Cross, and A Spy Among Friends. His latest book, Rogue Heroes, tackles the story of the SAS during World War Two, retold often but never with such verve or insight.

     Rogue Heroes brings fresh perspective from unpublished material and the authors own insight into human nature than enables him to build character portraits, deconstruct the wooden legends and replace it with an equally legendary but flesh-and-blood version. This separates Rogue Heroes from many contemporary histories of the war as the story is ultimately carried along by the vivid characterizations with which the SAS players, great and small, are brought to life. yet everything was documented-  (In one endearing scene, David Stirling and Paddy Mayne clash and reunite by revealing how they really wanted to be an artist and a writer, respectively). The action is described with thrilling, Alister McClean-style derring-do, although it is equally unflinching in describing the reality of war.

    Rogue Heroes has important lessons for Special Warfare today, in looking at its origins. 

I received a free copy of this from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

"Red Teaming" by Bryce Hoffman- Not Just for Business

 

 Don't ignore this book just because it has a business-y sounding title and description.

In a nutshell, "Red Teaming" is a strategic art of forming a team to think like your opponents, and preparing yourself for how to act accordingly in the real world. It involves research, role-play, and strategy- entertaining in practice and productive in terms of business. Red Teams must be free of bias, hierarchy (which stifles creativity), and constantly question what they know and how they know it so as to create a truly complete picture of the enemy free of human error.

But the book is about much more than that as the author delves into competitive strategy and critical thinking skills. He shows how the lessons apply to any field of competition, whether military, corporate, sport, or personal life and uses abundant real-world examples, along with detailed breakdown of logic to prove his points. And although the focus is on "teams" the methods are just as applicable for individuals. (I felt I learned more useful information regarding winning arguements from this than. The recently-rereleased "Thank You For Arguing").

  I do not have a highly competitive job and am already familiar with all the "know your enemy..." Maxims, but still feel better prepared for having read this book.


I received a free copy of this book from "Blogging for Books" in exchange for my honest review.

Thank You for Arguing- An Arguably Good Book

Thank you for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs aims to dissect the way in which people argue from classical to modern times.
      Like a field guide, it identifies hundreds of methods that are used every day in all circumstances. The drawback is that, except for a chapter on Cicero, it doesn't show how to assemble them. What works well together, what doesn't, what are real-life examples of it working (not just being used)? The book's information would be more potent if assembled a la The One Minute Manager, or Leadership Secrets of Attilla the hun, which present a concept, reinforce it with examples, and them summarize it,
     Thank You For Arguing provides great identification that encourages further reading but falls short on showing the reader how to use the knowledge it gives.

The Street of Eternal Happiness

In The Street of Eternal Happiness, following the tradition of books like Dominique Lapierre' City of Joy,  Rob Schmitz describes the tapestry of life in Shanghai by embedding with its inhabitants. The book follows a cast of people who live on a street known as the Street of Eternal Joy, the rough equivalent of Fifth Avenue or Bourbon Street except fraught with China's uncertain economic state and political legacies of former days. Schmitz avoids psychoanalysis and socio-political commentary, and instead leaves the reader to paint his own picture of life from the lives of the people themselves. The vivid descriptions bring the scene to life as if it is his own life Schmitz is writing about. Workers, entrepreneurs, schemers, family men- they take on their surroundings with an attitude that is hopeful and enterprising, leaving the reader with encouraging hopes for both the people of China and people everywhere.

Road Food- America Through its Restaurants

Road Food is an engaging look at America through the eyes of its restaurants.

In the latest edition of the book, Jane and Michael Stern give a character portrait of restaurants, diners, cafes, eateries across America, and the food they serve, based on their uniquely local flair. On the surface it is a basic guide; the address, phone number, prices, and website are provided for over a thousand restaraunts (diners, pubs etc ). But going deeper, in describing that flair the authors take us on a trip through American culture and culinary traditions.

   The descriptions are engaging and border on literary quality prose. Good descriptions are important considering there are no photographs, but the imagery truly brings the food to life on paper. Like this description of the banana cream pie at the Coffee Cup Cafe in Iowa:
"It quivers precariously as the waiter sets it down on the table, the custard jiggling like not-quite-set Jell-O below foamy white meringue. The crust doesn't break when touched with a fork, it flakes. The whole experience...is what we imagine it would be like to eat pastries on the moon....for the work 'light' barely does justice to the refinement of this piece of pie."

 Or characterizing atmosphere, like Joco's Steak House in California, a place where "country folk whose ides of fun is to come to this tavern, quaff beers under taxidermized animal heads, and eat red meat...truly a kind of beef frowners' hell, where smells of roasting meat permeate the air."

 

  If you live in a major city you do have a higher chance of using this as an actual "guide." Nevermind if you can make it to a restaurant, the criteria, or if your favorite place didn't make the list: it is a pleasant read about culinary traditions around america. If Peter Jenkinks "A Walk Across America" described the country through interacting with its people, "Road Food" does so by interacting with its culinary culture. It not only made me want to cook, but encouraged me to seek out the ordinary local places in my own rural area.

 

     Jane and Michael Stern are experts in this field with well over a dozen books on roadside eateries, written over 40 years. You can read more at their website https://roadfood.com

Lost in Translation by Ella Frances Sanders

Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World by Ella Frances Sanders 


"Words allow us to grasp and hold on to an extraordinary amount," Sanders writes. "The ability that language gives us is incredibly complex."

For instance, while writing this I had a bad case of Iktsuarpok.

 That's an Inuit word when you keep getting up to look around for someone who's coming, then sitting down, and getting up to look around again. (There's always someone who doesn't know. . .)

Lost in Translation is a charming collection of unstranslatable words in many languages, from Finnish to Urdu, which describe emotions and actions we all feel and do, regardless of language. Describing them in English often takes many words while other languages condense them into one. Unlike those books which list the longest words or most convoluted, reading this one it felt comforting to know that it actually is a worldwide thing to understand someone's directions perfectly when they tell you but then forget when its time to make a turn. ("Akihi", Hawaiian)

A definition is given along with a more human description, which artfully expresses the essence of the word. The whimsical artwork makes it a light read. Its perfect to keep out on a table to casually browse, and then stun people with your linguistic knowledge.

Lost in Translation can be read in one sitting but its rich content will keep you returning for more.

 

Midnight in Siberia - A Portrait of a Nation Through its Railway

 Midnight in Siberia by David Greene

    The Trans Siberian Railway in the longest and one of the most famous in the world but there is remarkably little written about it in English. Many have written of Siberia, the place, but aside from brief sections in Paul Theroux's and Colin Thurbon's books, the railway has escaped the eye of literature. NPR host David Greene has to some extent remedied this with Midnight in Siberia, an account of his winter journey on the train in 2013. He uses the rail journey as a frame through which he explores the larger human experiences of modern Russia, making it an important social work Americans should read and bear in mind when reading the headlines. 

      Having made the journey myself, I can say his descriptions of life on the train were vivid and brought to life a few memories. "I would take a ride (on the TSSR) over a ride on amtrak any day of the week." he writes, "There's nothing boring about riding the Trans-Siberian. Its hard, yet poetic, perplexing yet entertaining." The train becomes a world unto itself and you form a daily routine on it; the hot water boiler which becomes your primary source of water; the dining car, where most of the socializing happens; getting guidance from your provodnik; the thrill of simply getting off at rural stations; sharing a closet sized space with four people.

       And here Greene's background as a journalist shines as he finds the real subject of the book, the Russian people. The train is a vehicle to explore this, which ties together the narrative. Each chapter is named for a different person he encounters, in which he describes their story. They range from environmental activists, to small business owners trying to make it in the new economy, to anthropologists exploring the ancient roots of Siberia.  All tell tales of woe and success (mostly woe). It is at once grim yet hopeful, and brings out a portrait of an endearing people. The result is an informative picture of modern Russia, good and bad, from which the reader can draw his own conclusions.

                                                             

      If there is any fault in Midnight in Siberia, it is that in places it treads the much-tread ground of psychoanalysis which boils down to "Russians are different from Americans", when the journey and interviews could have easily stood on their own merits without commentary.  Another is that the icy winter setting is exactly what we expect of anything set in Russia. Ian Frasier comments in his Travels in Siberia that "writers are required to visit Siberia in winter" and it seems to be true. (This is more of a personal interest of the reviewer than a fault with the book however as I made the trip in the summer - when it is generally warm, sunny, and green.)

           

     The book is physically well-presented and overall an easy read. In the end, Midnight in Siberia is a valuable new addition to the travel shelf, and will appeal to anyone with an interest in both Travel and the general human experience.