Monthly Archives: August 2023

08.24.23
by

BATTLE OF INK AND ICE/DARRELL HARTMAN

You’ll explore as much about the New York City competitive newspaper environment at the turn of the 20th Century as you will about the discovery of the North Pole by either Robert Peary Frederick Cook! Darrell Hartman’s book is a fascinating enlightenment of the parallel stories, each with its own surprising turns. BATTLE OF INK AND ICE reads like a historical novel making all of the facts easily digestible.

Who got to the North Pole, Cook or Peary? Better yet, the book raises the prospect that neither of the men may have accomplished the feat.

The personalities of Cook and Peary are fascinating but the in sight into Adolph Ochs of the New York Times, James Gordon Bennett of the Herald, William Randolph Hearst of the Journal reveals the competitive environment of the period amongst the New York media barrons.

Who first reached the North Pole, which newspaper got the story right? You will be the judge.

08.05.23
by

AMERICAN PROMETHEUS/J.ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

Without hesitation, this superb work by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin is among the very best biographies I have read in recent years. I place the writing and research on a level with Robert Caro and Jon Meacham.

The wonder of this book is the understanding of Oppenheimer and his time and place in American History. The story of the Atomic Bomb is well known to many. However, the complexity and passages of Oppenheimer himself amid the social and political atmosphere in which he lived and worked is a revelation. The beauty of Bird’s and Sherwin’s writing is that you need not be a physicist to wrap yourself around the life and story of this complex scientist, intellectual and iconic American figure. The dimension of the book is enormous, foremost in its content, but also in size!

I am confident that reading THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY of J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER is a plus before seeing OPPENHEIMER the movie.