Author Archives: gordonhastings

03.10.11
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Nine Short Stories/One Great Writer. How To Breathe Underwater

What is so wonderful about Julie Orringer’s  How To Breathe Underwater is that there is a piece of each of us in all of the nine short stories.

Orringer’s passages  through childhood and puberty are incredibly vivid and will register in your mind and jolt your own recall of life experiences exactly like those jumping from pages.

The message in How To Breathe Underwater comes from the hand of a gifted writer offering a combination of imagination and reality told through true to life characters whom we have all met at some point in our childhood and adolescence.  You may even find yourself!

You will find Orringer’s How to Breathe Underwater  so compelling that you will likely turn through all nine stories non-stop.

03.08.11
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The Bolter/Chief Seductress Idina Sackville

The Bolter by Frances Osborne seemed an unlikely recommendation from my bookseller, but I am a trusting customer!

I  needed to remind myself chapter by chapter that I was not reading a novel. The Bolter, the true story of  British socialite Idina Sackville, who trashed  all the trappings of incredible wealth , her husband and two young children to lead her followers to nothing less than a scandalous and wild life as ” The Happy Valley Set”  in Kenya.

Osborne’s recounting the saga of Idina Sackville is representative of a group of women in the 1920s and 1930s who “bolted” from their marriages and ordered lives to live free from the yoke of society’s rules. The book leaves no doubt that Idina was the most famous and sensational of all ” The Bolters!”

A free spirit, enlightening, shocking, with an underlying sadness, emptiness and loneliness that came with abandoning all tradition. Friends come and go as passions rise and fall.

Enjoy The Bolter.  There is a lesson.

03.07.11
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Vox Populi

Bill O’Shaughnessy’s books run the risk of unfairly falling into the category of vanity publications. The Westchester County radio broadcaster, who is equally prominent as a political insider dating back to the Rockefeller era, is out with his latest tome titled VOX POPULI the O’Shaughnessy Files, Fordham University Press, 2011. His three previous anthologies are AirWAVES, It all Comes Back to Me Now and More Riffs, Rants and Raves.

Most who read Bill’s books go immediately to the index look for their name and quickly turn to those pages. There are very few names from the New York media, political and social elite that are missing!

Turning through this fourth O’Shaughnessy volume (not easy at 700 pages) it is best to go directly to the content, and discover that time spent with VOX POPULI will be very worthwhile indeed.  While O’ Shaughnessy is himself an excellent interviewer and he has made a great effort to make this publication exactly what the title implies, VOX POPULI ( The Voice of the People) with access through The O’Shaughnessy Files.( Thanks to Cindy Hall Gallagher, O’Shaughnessy’s right hand and the keeper of every detail for over thirty years)

Where else might you read THE UNDOING OF DON IMUS, (Page 5) written by Jonathan Bush, brother of President George W. Bush.  A DAUGHTERS LAST BREATH by Jimmy Breslin (page 554) will uplift you. BRUCE SNYDER  AT THE TWENTY-ONE CLUB about a special time and place.

Referencing Don Imus reminds me of the interview he did with Katherine Graham when she was introducing her own book Personal History.  O’Shaughnessy’s 2004 interview in VOX POPULI with Marian Javits, wife of Senator Jacob Javits, (Page 230) earns a place in the same category of excellence as the Graham interview.  The conversation is just one example of Bill’s ability to place his guests at ease and despite a few cream puff questions, his relaxed style encourages openness. If you had heard the audio of this interview on WVIP-WVOX you recognize that O’Shaughnessy’s approach is not dissimilar to that of Larry King.  

Bill O’Shaughnessy is a great friend of Governor Mario Cuomo. VOX POPULI shares some of Cuomo’s marvelous speeches made at occasions where Bill personally invited him. An example of an O’Shaughnessy- Cuomo pulpit was the one-hundredth-anniversary of the Dutch Treat Club on October 5, 2004 in New York City.  Regardless of your political persuasion, the remarks made there (Page 415) typify Governor Cuomo at his passionate best.  Also, “REASON TO BELIEVE.” LIFE LESSONS-MARIO CUOMO AT THE 92nd  STREET Y, January 25, 2010. It is still being rebroadcast on Public Television.

VOX POPULI is abundant with O’Shaughnessy writings and musings about the famous. However, Bill is often at his very best when focusing upon the less known.  MAMA ROSE MIGLIUCCI “The First Lady of Little Italy” (Page 524) is an excellent example of O’Shaughnessy empathy. His eulogy to “Mama Rose” of the famous Mario’s restaurant in the Bronx is extraordinary in its warmth and understanding of both his personal and the community’s feelings for this remarkable and legendary woman. Another piece falling in this same category is COMPOSER-SONGWRITER-SALOON SINGER: MURRAY GRAND AT EIGHTY-FIVE (Page 213).  Who but O’Shaughnessy would prepare this essay and interview?  I am not sure.

Mount St. Mary’s College is not among the country’s most prominent but on the day O’Shaughnessy delivered its 46th commencement address, he placed it and its graduates among the most special in the nation. (Page 364)

Two writings in VOX POPULI are among the most insightful. The first is Bill’s eulogy to Nancy O’Shaughnessy’s twenty-two year-old son Michael at St. Pius X Church in Scarsdale, New York on January 29, 2005. (Page 499). The remarks of Father John O’Brien (Page 504) for Michael Pasquale which followed Bill’s eulogy on that same sad occasion are worthy of every parent’s eyes. 

VOX POPULI indeed focuses a spotlight on Bill O’Shaughnessy’s writings but do yourself a favor and take advantage of the author’s generosity in sharing many of his radio interviews and the heretofore-unpublished works from his enormous community of friends. If you have the time, the new volume will stimulate your desire to page back through his previous three.

VOX POPULI the book shares the same ethos and namesake as O’Shaughnessy’s radio stations WVOX and WVIP. The coupling of the two is no surprise

03.02.11
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WORKING- STUDS TERKEL AND TOM BROKAW

Tom Brokaw  is doing a series this week on NBC Nightly News about jobs in America. His reporting incorporates the dramatically changing workplace, the need to re-educate workers and the rather old-fashioned concept of apprenticeship.

I urge anyone interested in this subject to read Studs Terkel’s book  WORKING ,written in 1974. ( I am sure Tom Brokaw has already done so, and I believe he interviewed Terkel  before his death in 2008.)  Terkel’s WORKING is typical of his attitude driven writing and reporting.  No one ever questioned that Studs Turkel had a point of view. 

However, through hundreds of interviews into the life of working men and women Terkel developed in WORKING a panoramic view from the factory floor, stock yards,  the highway crew, the ditch,  of just how people make a living. He writes exactly what workers think about their daily labors.

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the current crisis faced by many American working men and woman, please read this book!  It is a great platform for understanding the workplace of the 21st century and exactly how we  arrived at where we are today.  You may recall that Terkel won a Pulitzer for his 1985 book Hard Times an Oral History of the Great Depression.  Another timely read. 

This is one more instance whereby I can say, ” I am dam glad I read that book!”  I am tempted to read WORKING again!  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

03.01.11
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Atlantic/ Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester’s study of the history of the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic,  is an examination of  the ocean’s creation and the evolution of civilization along its shores  

The Phoenicians venturing beyond the Pillars of Hercules, The Norsemen, The Age of Exploration, the great naval battles on Atlantic waters, Codfish,  Pirates, the Slave Trade, the Atlantic Cable, buried nuclear waste. Winchester examines in-depth the environmental concerns and of course envisions the great ocean’s geological destiny.

Atlantic is another respected scholarly work by Winchester but don’t expect the appearance of the characters you would find in a Michener novel. 

Atlantic is full of little known facts including speculation that the first rudiments of a democratic form of government were probably devised by Norsemen in Iceland in the fifteenth century.  You will learn that Canadian fisherman, after the Grand Banks had been placed under their protection by the Canadian Government, did more to devastate the native Atlantic Cod than had been previously done in all of history!

If you enjoy are a student of the Age of Exploration and the period of discovery of the New World, Atlantic fits very nicely into this body of knowledge.

02.28.11
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AN OSCAR FOR JACK VALENTI, A MEMOIR

Since beginning this blog I have been waiting for the right time to  recognize Jack Valenti.  There is a sentimental background to this posting as I was one of those incidental folks who worked with him tangentially on  some media events.  I mention that only to allow me to say that Jack Valenti made every individual he touched feel special.  In Jack’s world no one was ” incidental.”  His respect for all individuals was a basic tenet of his success.

Oscar week is the perfect time to remember his memoir This Time, This Place, My Life in War, the White House  and Hollywood. His last most prominent professional position was as  the legendary CEO of The Motion Picture Association of America. Jack Valenti died in  2007, the very year that this memoir was published.

Jack Valenti grew up poor in Texas, put himself through school delivering groceries,  graduated from Harvard and joined the Army Air Corps in World War Two.  He flew 52 combat missions as the pilot of a B-25 attack bomber based in Italy.

Upon his return, Valenti formed a small advertising and public relations agency in Houston and as fate would have it  then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson heard about this bright young man and in the summer of 1963 secured his services  as an advance man for the  Kennedy-Johnson 1964 campaign.  Valenti was in the Dallas motorcade on that fateful  November day, and flew to Washington on Air Force One  to remain at now President Johnson’s side. He became Special Assistant to President Johnson and served as his most trusted confidant.

The stories that Valenti recalls in his memoir are historically revealing and  personally insightful, including LBJ’s reaction when Jack announced  he was quitting to take the job at the MPAA!

As MPAA CEO Valenti transitioned into the Hollywood circles with the deftness of the master politician that he was. He accomplished his goals in those treacherous ego filled waters because he was good, trusted and loved. You will travel with Jack , in his element, among the moguls, stars and starlets of Hollywood.  The stories are wonderful. He star is on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I can not recommend more highly this well written and fascinating look at  a great American story with all the elements of the child of emigrants working his way to navigate and thrive in the highest levels of the land. It is if course also a special and unique look inside the Johnson Presidency.

If you are one who is  fascinated by the persona of LBJ there is one other great book that must be mentioned here, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream.

These are not  ” text-book reads” they are fascinating page turners with characters and personalities as good as in the best novel!

02.25.11
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A Surprise President’s Week Finale. GRANT!

It would have been easy to wrap up my President’s  week blog with a most deserving biography, Truman by David McCullough. Few could question that salute. However,  Jean Edward Smith author of GRANT  will get the honor of closing out President’s Week.  Smith’s work is a remarkable eye opener and a re-evaluation of  General in Chief Grant and President Grant. 

 Lovers of history understand that time often serves former presidents better than the present.  Then again, history is not a science but rather observations of mortals.  Smith’s full-scale biography of Grant sheds tremendous perspective regarding  his accomplishments on the battlefield and as the first two term president since Andrew Jackson. The detailed study of Grant’s childhood and early life provide the framework for this great piece of historical writing.

I must admit that before tackling Grant I had somewhat of a dim view of his presidency based  in great part upon popular conceptions.  What Jean Edward Smith accomplished so well in this biography was to reconcile many of these popular views with the facts. As just one example, few would remember that following the disastrous Andrew Johnson term after Lincoln’s assassination, Grant did more to help Reconstruction than anyone and the same was true for his efforts to enforce constitutional freedoms to the newly freed slaves as American  Citizens.  In retrospect, Grant’s accomplishments as president are outlined as remarkable as his on the battlefield!

If you love American History,  you will do yourself a great favor  by heading for the library or Amazon. Not only is GRANT  the story of his presidency but it is a battle by battle description of Grant’s  skilful leadership during the Civil War. Jean Edward Smith is a scholar and you will come away from his book  with a scholarly view of Grant at this important time and place in American History.

02.24.11
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American Lion/ Andrew Jackson/ President’s Week Continues

Jon Meacham is back on my blog today with another great book on the American Presidency, American Lion a biography of  Andrew Jackson, the eighth President of the United States ( 1829-1837).   Reviewers  generally agree that American Lion is a definitive work on the Jackson presidency. I will readily admit that I knew little detail about Jackson before picking up this Pulitzer winner and I remain thrilled that it was recommended to me. 

” Old Hickory” was one of the more incredible characters  to ever inhabit the White House.  He was a zealot in his beliefs and in particular hated the Bank of United States which be believed was the basis of past, present and future corruption in America and a threat to the Federal Government itself.  He was a staunch  states rights advocate, believed in the sovereignty of the individual but at the same time believed that the Federal Government was essential!

There was no contradiction in the zealotry of his Indian removal policy. In 1830, just a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation called the “Indian Removal Act” through both houses of Congress. It gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west leading to the black-mark on his presidency and the nation itself,  “The Trail of Tears.”

Despite all of the controversy that surrounds the Jackson presidency he in reality created the foundation of the modern-day Democratic Party.  He is considered by historians to be the first ‘populist” president.

American Lion is a marvelous journey for the reader and once again Meacham exhibits excellence!  No matter how much material Meacham covers, his work is always manageable.

02.23.11
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David McCullough/John Adams/ A Gift to all Americans

David McCullough’s  biography  John Adams can be credited with introducing 20th and 21st century Americans to the enormous impact John Admas, from patriot to president, had on early American History including The Revolution, The Presidency and the U.S. Constitution.

This magnificent work, incredibly well researched  is also a beautifully written story.  As one would expect from McCullough, all of the facts are in place, but the story of Adams the person and his relationship with his wife Abigail  is truly moving.  You will come to understand just how difficult it was to be President of the United States in 18th Century America.   You will read quotes from the trove of Adam’s letters both personal and public that are so enlightening about how critical decisions were made.  You will learn that the fact that America was born was itself a miracle!

Within the pages of John Adams, McCullough  portrays beautifully the love story between John  and Abigail.   He also captures the ruptured relationship between Adams and Thomas Jefferson and the reader is thrilled to learn of the two coming together as friends  in the later years of their lives.

You need not be a student of history to enjoy every page of John Adams.  It is a story about an incredibly gifted man’s love for his country, his wife and family.

David McCullough is a national treasure and his generosity in creativity is a gift to all Americans.

02.22.11
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Doris Kearns Goodwin Gets Another President’s Week Nod

Yesterday we noted Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time, during our President’s Week picks.  Today she gets another nod with Team of Rivals  the wonderfully chronicled story of Lincoln’s bringing into his cabinet his four leading opponents for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1860.  William Seward was named Secretary of State, Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, Edward Bates, Attorney General and Salmon Chase, Treasury Secretary.  

What is considered a brilliant move by some historians was not without its acrimony and behind the scenes dealings not altogether helpful to the new president.  Goodwin is brilliant in telling this story as it unfolds during the lead-up to the Civil  War.  It is a wonderful look at this period of American History from inside the president’s cabinet and offers tremendous insight into Lincoln’s thought process during the war.

Like to much of Goodwin’s writing and research Team of Rivals is relevant in its lessons for today.

It is no surprise that Team of Rivals brought Goodwin another Pulitzer.