Category Archives: Non-Fiction

11.07.16
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BORN TO RUN/ BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Born To Run is a compelling, required read for every Bruce Springsteen fan. This autobiography is so real the ink on the pages become the juices of life and the soul and sound of his music. Add an in-depth  understanding of this unique human, talent, writer, troubadour  and survivor.

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Born To Run is a marvelous book for all  because it is the genuine and believable story behind Springsteen’s stardom. There is not an ounce of vanity among the pages.  It is  a story of how music is made, songs are written and why honesty and credibility count.

Born To Run is extraordinary in its humanity. It is a loving memoir of a relationship between father and son, of human survival, friendships and of the struggle to find true love amidst the perils of stardom.

Born To Run is a masterpiece, seven years in the writing. Whether or not you have ever attended a concert of the E Street Band, or purchased one of  Springsteen’s mega hits, this autobiography is important.

It all begins with the song!

” My records are always the sound of someone trying to understand where to place his mind and heart. I imagine a life, I try it on, then see how it fits. I walk in someone else’s shoes, down the sunny and dark roads.”

” Something as seemingly inconsequential as music does certain things very well. There’s a coming together and a lifting, a fortifying, that occurs when people gather and move in  time with one another. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Anthem’s from an artist who came from a dead-end, took a road less traveled and found incomprehensible success. Trust me. You will quickly understand.  Born To Run is beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

09.15.16
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HACKING BEFORE THE COMPUTER AGE/ CODE WARRIORS/ STEPHEN BUDIANSKY

Stephen Budiansky’s scholarly book CODE WARRIORS, NSA’S CODEBREAKERS AND THE SECRET INTELLIGENCE WAR AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION is a detailed history of the NSA and the historical herculean and expensive effort to crack the codes and cyphers of the enemies of America dating back to pre WWII.  From the successful breaking of the German Enigma code to intercepting and deciphering war-time radio signals, Code Warriors details the massive U.S. intelligence  gathering mechanism that blossomed into a billions of dollars bureaucracy complete with the intrigue of politics, fighting factions and competing egos.

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Budiansky’s impeccable research sets the stage for today’s headlines as the world of hacking and high speed computers has replaced machines that mechanically spun alphabetical and numbered wheels to crack codes of friends and enemies alike.  The author’s pages are not always kind to the  NSA or the CIA.

It almost seems simplistic  that America once constructed huge antenna arrays worldwide to capture information  sometimes with questionable legality. Early satellites intercepted radio signals and a tunnel under the Berlin Wall tapped into Soviet communications.  America spent additional billions safeguarding its own classified military and diplomatic messaging but the Soviets kept pace and the information race equalled the arms race. It all came under the umbrella of signals intelligence.

While Alan Turing and a staff of hundreds took months to crack the German codes at Bletchley Park, today lone wolf hackers invade secret government and private  files with the impunity of key strokes.

Budiansky details the NSA’s obsession with capturing every possible syllable of signal intelligence and then attempting to decipher and make sense of all of the information. The book begs the question as to whether NSA codebreakers have also become hackers as the narrative  transcends  current events.

Code Warrior’s is  valiant in its effort to make highly technical material  understandable for the layman and place the subject in the context of its vital importance in the major world events of the past seventy-five years.

Stephen Budiansky also wrote Blackett’s War and Perilous Fight.

 

 

 

 

 

09.09.16
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MARIO CUOMO/ NEW FROM WILLIAM O’SHAUGHNESSY/ A TIMELY LOOK BACK

Mario Cuomo called him “Brother Bill.”  Therefore, who better than William O’Shaughnessy to publish MARIO CUOMO, Remembrances of  a Remarkable Man.  The book captures their personal relationship  and the unique openness between them. The author shares countless previously unpublished interviews with Mario Cuomo both before and after his  governorship. The author peels back the pages of many of Cuomo’s most remarkable speeches,  delivered by the person who is deemed the best political orator of his day. O’Shaughnessy bares personal witness to Mario Cuomo’s interactions with the famous and less famous.

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O’Shaughnessy has always possessed an impeccable sense of timing. After all he is a radio guy, a medium that lives in the present.  We are  currently in the moment of a political  campaign for the leadership of the free world where neither candidate is trusted by a majority of the American people. The word “orator” will find no place in the newspeak of today. To the contrary, O’Shaughnessy’s  Mario Cuomo reads as a tribute to trustworthiness, statesmanship, vision, empathy, oratory, gravitas and grace. Cuomo’s words leap from the tome’s pages with themes of a “higher calling.”  The book begs the question; What happened to our national discourse?

Mario Cuomo is filled with anecdotal insight into the governor, his friends, his day-to-day, his family and his lifestyle  evolving into a tableau describing why he was admired by millions and loved by those closest to him. Will we see the likes of Mario Cuomo again? O’Shaughnessy is hopeful.

William O’Shaughnessy is president and editorial director of Whitney Media. He has written four other books: Vox Populi, More Riffs, Rants, and Raves, It All Comes Back to Me Now and Airwaves.

 

 

 

04.27.16
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PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY/ ANATOMY OF AN EPIDEMIC

Robert Whitaker’s  2010 book Anatomy of an Epidemic is written with attitude. Even if only half of the hypothesis developed in Whitaker’s  examination of the effects psychiatric drugs  on adults and children is accurate, this book is an essential and illuminating read.

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Whitaker leaves no doubt that the prescribing of an antidepressant drugs for both adults and children is of epidemic proportions in America.  He makes the case that there is no scientific evidence that mental disorders are caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. The pharmaceutical industry continues to promote “magic bullets”  designed to alter the brain’s chemical balance, treating mental illness as a disease.

Research compiled by Whitaker documents that the long-term effects of the use of antidepressants cause permanent  brain damage rather than provide any definable  cure. He questions the entire efficacy of the use of drug therapy in the treatment of mental illness.  He advances a conspiracy theory between the drug manufacturers and the marketing of the “magic bullets” to patients desperate for answers for themselves and their children.

The most frightening conclusion proffered by  Anatomy of an Epidemic is that long-term recovery rates for persons with mental disorders are better for those who have not been subjected to any form drug therapy.

Just like the book, ” In a Different Key, The Story of  Autism ( See Gordonsgood Reads February posting), Anatomy of an Epidemic is an essential read for anyone concerned with examining a different narrative about the treatment of mental illness.

Robert Whitaker also authored Mad in America. He is a journalist and investigative reporter who has specialized in the area of mental health. His numerous articles and books have been the recipients of several awards including a Pulitzer finalist for investigative reporting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

03.26.16
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THE WITCHES- SALEM 1692. NON FICTION? YOUR CALL

Stacy Schiff’s The Witches, Salem 1692 is a work of non fiction by the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian.

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For the reader, the vivid descriptions of the Salem Witch Trials is difficult to separate from a historical novel. The task for Schiff was to work from difficult to discover and even harder to discern documentation of what actually occurred during that bitter-cold winter of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts.

Like several readers I spoke with, some of whom gave up early with these pages, I found it difficult to keep engaged with the flow of the story.  The book is certainly a statement of the times and the confluence of strident religious beliefs, hard living on the first American frontier and plenty of hard cider fueling wild imagination.

The Witches is a must read for students of  witchcraft and for understanding the period and a very strange social order. Allow yourself plenty of time for taking  many necessary page-backs before you mount a broom yourself and fly away in frustration.

Also by Stacy Schiff: Cleopatra.

 

 

02.18.16
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IN A DIFFERNT KEY/THE STORY OF AUTISM

It matters little whether you must know, need to know or simply want to know, IN A DIFFERENT KEY, The Story of Autism ( Crown Publishing 2016) is a remarkably well written and absorbing narrative of  autism. John Donvan and Caren Zucker miss little in brilliantly telling the autism story in a fashion that is uniquely understandable for the layman. It is rare that such a complicated, medical and scientific iteration can be accomplished in a compelling story that reads as a page turning work of non-fiction.

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This is a book of real people, ordinary families that face progress, reversals both good and tragic outcomes. There are heroes and heroines. The work also sheds light on the darker side of mental illness. Even in light of  epic personal tragedy, IN A DIFFERENT KEY  remains hopeful.

Understanding of autism has evolved in light years since the early 20th Century. The “refrigerator mom ” has been debunked. You will read about the remarkable Temple Grandin. The 1988 Academy Award winning movie Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman that did much to bring autism  into the realm  of greater empathy and general knowledge.  But even the movie had no happy Hollywood ending. There were no miracles and there still are none. When Rain Man ends Raymond still has autism.  Quoting IN A DIFFERENT KEY, It was an ending that spoke a real truth about autism, one that resonated for parents and people with autism: that autism is for always.

A review copy of IN A DIFFERENT KEY, The Story of Autism was provided to me by Blogging for Books.

John Donvan and Caren Zucker are journalists for ABC News.

Visit InADifferentKey.com

02.07.16
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IN A DIFFERENT KEY–The Story of Autism

If you are following me on this post read on, or catch up with Friday’s post here at gordonsgoodreads

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His name was Bernie Rimland, PhD. He had something to say about the terrible misconceptions concerning autism. In 1956 his wife gave birth to an autistic child and Rimland embarked on a mission to disprove the popular concept blaming Mom.  “Rimland’s goal was to produce a document that would examine the refrigerator-mother theory as scientifically as possible.”

” It was not even a close call . As soon as Rimland began testing out a few basic facts about the world’s known population of autistic children, the mother blaming concept completely collapsed. ”

Your heart will break as you read of autistic children institutionalized, some for life. You also read of ordinary mother and father heroes who refused the status-quo.

Blogging for Books  provided gordonsgoodreads with a review copy.

Visit InADifferentkey.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

02.05.16
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They Blamed Mom! The Shame of Early Autism Diagnosis

I am reading IN A DIFFERENT KEY -The Story of Autism by John Donvan and Caren Zucker, Crown Publishing, 2016.

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If you have a family member with Autism or know of cases within your community please get this book now and read along with me. Post your thoughts along the way.  You will need an outlet for some of the shocking things you will learn on your journey through this well written and researched narrative.

An example:

” The verdict: autism was caused by mothers not loving their children enough. ”

I relish reading ensuing pages that bring enlightenment and sunlight to the darkness of the early years of diagnosis.

Look for future posts and of course a summary.  But don’t wait. If you are vested in this subject or simply wish to be among the informed, get this book today!

I received this book from Blogging for Books for review

 

 

 

 

 

 

01.20.16
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DESTINY and POWER/ GEORGE H.W. BUSH/ MASTERFULLY MEACHAM

With high advance praise from historians David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael  Beschloss one need not say much more in recommending this masterful work by  Jon Meacham.

imgres-2 Destiny and Power,The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush captures the man brilliantly and fairly and secures him a permanent place in American Presidential history.  George Herbert Walker Bush may indeed be  A last of his kind, and Meacham relates clearly and concisely  the depth of that appellation.  More than a biography, Meacham details a period in American and world history through the portal of the Bush Oval Office. The research is impeccable and the access provided Meacham by a very private president and his family is remarkable.

A must read, now even more meaningful with another Bush running for President.

I also recommend  Meacham’s Franklin and Winston an Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship. Search gordonsgoodreads for details.

10.16.15
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WILL BIDEN RUN? / WHAT IT TAKES/RICHARD BEN CRAMER

It is late in the game to suggest you pick up a fine print 1050 page book on American presidential politics. If you do you will read what is likely the best ever written on the subject and you will get a good look into  Joe Biden’s thought process. Richard Ben Cramer’s book What it Takes was published in 1992  and is considered by many the most insightful look at presidential politics ever written.  Cramer recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 Presidential race. His insight into the psyche of Joe Biden is remarkable and his research into Biden’s ascent into the political world is beyond comparison.

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” He was a Biden, he  could do anything….He learned to game it out…..to see himself in the situation to come….to think what he would say…how he would sound…. ( Chapter 19, What It Takes).

If  Richard Ben Cramer were alive today he would be the best  equipped to answer the question, will Biden Run? You see,  Cramer was a journalist not a pundit.  It took 1050 pages to do justice to the subject. He was willing to do the work, not express an opinion. Richard Ben Cramer died in January 2013.  Search gordonsgoodreads for my initial overview of the book.