The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi (2008)

An eye-opener of an account of the travails of two journalists in Italy trying to solve the mysteries of horrific serial killings near magnificent Florence .  As the writers get “hot” in their inquiries, the local  powers of justice increase pressure to push them off the trail.  And it is not an idle nudge; in Italy a person can be held indefinitely in prison before he is charged. (Amanda Knox, an American, who has  been in prison for 2 years, still has not been tried).  As the authors chase down the Monster of Florence, bad things happen to them. Perhaps the Italian magistrates deem them guilty of journalism.   [6/09]

 

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (2007)

Martin writes a lucid account of  his years in comedy from his start at a small theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm near his home in Anaheim, Calif., through the years and years of stand-up at comedy clubs to, finally, major fame as a comedian. But he stayed at the comedic pinnacle only a short time.  At the top of his comedy game, he quit.  This is impressive writing (and editing, of course).  He gives us lean literary steak: no fat and no unnecessary adverbs, adjectives, or sentences. [5/09]

 

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (2008)

This is a ripped-from-the-history-books tale of a ghoulish murder starring Mr.Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard. He may have been the first detective who really detected: looked for clues, interviewed suspects, sifted evidence.  His first Big Investigation was the 1860 murder of a young boy on the grounds of his father’s grand house. The author gives us background, clues aplenty, and traces the search for the murderer.  Whicher spots the perpetrator after his siftings, but gets no credit until a confession proves him on the mark.  It’s a who-done-it, and Whicher fingers the  who—or does he? [4/09]

 

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks (revised 2008)

A lot of funny things go on in the brain when music is played, sung, heard, or thought of.  Some people see colors; others recover long forgotten memories.  And what about those brain worms—bits of music that play over and over in one’s head, sometimes to distraction.  Some people have symphonic brain worms—yeah the whole damned orchestra blasting away under the skull. Most of the book is the “man who mistook his wife for a trombone” variety—disturbing musical maladies traced to misfiring in one or another part of the brain.  I find that stuff scary.  But the section on music and dementia offered some hopeful insights on the amnesic elderly.  Apparently, they may forget their own names, but not their favorite tune. [3/09]

 

Roumeli by Patrick Leigh Fermor (1966)

Leigh Fermor could write a train schedule with such relish and dash that it might become a best seller.  His sentences are stunning: lines of words, each chosen, each sparkling so that whole scenes appear before the reader’s eyes.  This time he travels in Northern Greece and runs into the most in-ter-est-ing people: nomads wearing skins, thieves working their craft through Europe, priests living in silence  on the tippety top of a cliff reached only by leg power. He is thrilled by all and respects them all.  No crass asides by Paddy (as he was known in his British Secret Service days).  The author’s story merits a book of its own. Apparently a biography will appear after his death. [10/08]

Fermor fans, check out http://tinyurl.com/b4xqx3

 

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (2003)

An old Norwegian man goes to live in a cabin he shared in his childhood with his father for a summer, and memories bubble up.  It was a wonderful summer—he and his father forged a seemingly inviolable bond.  But the end of the summer was the end of his father for the boy—Dad disappeared never to be seen again. Petterson weaves a tale around the void in the son’s life that might never be repaired—well maybe not until his very old age. It was a pleasure weaving through the prose in this book.  Once it ended, I wanted to read it all over again.[1/07]

 

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell (1991)

Swedish police sleuth, Kurt Wallander, searches for the killers of an elderly farm couple.  It’s a heinous crime solved in the last 4 pages, so there’s a LOT of procedure in this procedural.  The book was ok, but I really love the TV shows, available only on Swedish TV and the Scandinavia House in New York.  [6/07]

 

The Class (dir. Laurent Cantet 2008) ***

Entre les Murs came out briefly with a new American title at the end of 2008 in order to qualify for the Academy Awards.   I saw it then and again in January 2009 when it began a New York run.  All I can say is that this film—about the difficulties teaching and learning in a French classroom of mostly African immigrants—is one you can thoroughly enjoy once.  Twice will drive you up the wall.  It’s not the young amateur actors, not at all; they are as engaging and spot on in their delivery at second viewing as they are at first (even if their characters are boringly repetitive).  What was difficult to stomach was the endless talk, talk, talk, of the French teachers at their interminable staff meetings.  Yes, the director was driving home a point about the bureaucratic ways of assimilation into La France, but it was brutal to sit through.

 

The Snowball by Alice Schroeder (2008)

The full title adds “Warren Buffet and the Business of Life.” There were 838 pages, and I read every one of them.  The richest man in the world thinks of himself as “hard-wired” to make money.  It’s as if he had a double gene for stock analysis, and maybe he does.  His whole life—from young childhood—has been devoted to thinking about and making dough.  He has an uncanny ability with numbers.  I guess that’s where the genetics comes in. Couple that with a psychological need to be successful, maybe some urgent desire to please/beat out his father who was a successful, if small time, stockbroker.  Add to that his supreme confidence when it comes to stocks plus an extreme desire to please—as in his partners when he first started out investing big time, and now his shareholders.  And there’s the icing on the cake: his deep and abiding faith in compounding.  Buffet’s private life is layered in uncanny ways.  He idolizes his [late] wife Susy but she lives apart from him.  They always get together for family functions, however, and he is at her side (almost) when she dies of cancer.  At the same time, back in Omaha, Buffet lives with Astrid in an arrangement rigged up by Susy. Susy and Astrid remain fast friends throughout. Buffet makes much about being a humble Omaha boy, living in the same house for 50-odd years, not making zillionaires of his kids thru inherited wealth. Don’t be fooled; the Buffet family lives as royalty: private jets, multiple homes, vacations in exotic places, and—at least with the paterfamilias—public adulation. [11-12/08]

 

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 (dir. Kevin Rafferty) ****

If you want to make a documentary and you only have grainy footage and some talking heads,  check in with Kevin Rafferty.  He merged that combo into a socko film.  Amazing.  (It helps if you understand the football of yesteryear and maybe have graced the halls of Harvard or Yale in the 60’s; er, make that Harvard; Elis will blush with shame)