Book Review: A Long Night in Paris (2020). Dov Alfov.

A very promising first novel by an Israeli journalist, this well-written spy thriller and murder mystery starts with the mysterious disappearance of a young Israeli high-tech businessman at Orly Airport in Paris.

From there, the fast-paced adventure pits two resourceful "acting" leaders at different levels in a top-secret Israeli spy agency (one young and female, the other older and male) against their own organization's internal political conspiracies, the plodding French police inspector who is trying to manage the case, and a complex Chinese assassination plot.

To make it more challenging, another Israeli agent goes missing, as our two heroes rush to understand the underlying cause of the sudden outbreak of high-profile murders in the French capital.

An enjoyable and satisfying tale, with excellent characterization, plenty of high-tech intelligence wizardry, and an amusingly jaundiced view of the inner workings of police and intelligence organizations. This would make a great movie. Recommended.

Book Review: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (2016). Cathy O'Neil.

Ms. O'Neil, a PhD data scientist, peers behind the curtain of how our automated society uses algorithms based on opaque assumptions and dubious logic to reach conclusions about us in every sphere of our lives, that tend to perpetuate stereotypes, increase unfair discrimination, and undermine the democratic ideal that as individuals, we should all be treated equally under the law.

She explores how this dynamic of biased and opaque algorithms works to our detriment in education, personal finances, job-seeking and employment, voting and health care among other important spheres of our lives. Recommended.

Book Review: The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google (2017). Scott Galloway.

This book provides a dire warning on how each of the "Big Four" tech companies (five, if you include Microsoft, i.e. Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple) is undermining freedom, democracy, economic fairness and other positive values by the different ways in which they mine and exploit our data and manipulate us, using tools of control that dwarf anything ever seen before.

On The John Oliver Show (on HBO) last Sunday (June 5, 2022), Oliver's main segment described two bipartisan bills being considered in Congress right now to address issues of anti-competitiveness and monopolistic practices by these same companies. The Four is excellent background reading for understanding why and how these practices are destructive to individuals, small businesses, the democratic political system and the economy, and why these proposed anti-monopolistic bills are a necessary first step in reigning these companies in.  

Galloway does a particularly good job highlighting how all the destructive aspects of these companies' activities are carried out under the guise of friendly, liberal corporate images, and aided by the seductive attractions of all the everyday conveniences, incredible tools and bright shiny objects they provide, and upon which we all depend. Recommended.

Book Review: Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (2012). Arthur Herman.

Freedom’s Forge is a very worthwhile and important history of how American businesses jumped into the fray early in World War II, after more than a decade of the Great Depression, to make America "the arsenal of democracy". The author particularly focuses on the crucial role played by Bill Knudsen (head of of General Motors) and Henry Kaiser (the construction magnate who branched out into many other business areas to serve the war effort).

This story is well-researched and intriguing, as well as inspirational. It's almost unbelievable to learn how fast businesses (both large and small) were able to re-tool and start turning out astonishing quantities of weapons and material once the U.S. went to war.

There is also a fascinating discussion of how many individuals and families were able to start small businesses as parts suppliers for the major manufacturers (with the help of a government office coordinating collection and publication of requirements) and thus escape their Depression-era poverty while aiding the war effort.

It makes one wonder why we moderns, with all our technological wizardry and productivity, don’t seem able to pull off similar overnight industrial miracles with respect to transforming our fossil-fuel based economy and way of life to ward off the worst effects of climate change. Recommended.

Book Review: The Good Lord Bird (2013). James McBride.

This is an amusing and award-winning satire and fictional narrative of the last years of "Osawatomie" John Brown (the famous abolitionist), as told through the eyes and experiences of a young slave boy who is mistaken by Brown for a girl.

Our narrator ends up being freed by Brown, and swept along (now masquerading as a girl) as Brown leads his abolitionist campaign, and his tiny "army" of religious fanatics, from skirmishes in Kansas to their inevitable denouement at the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

Along the way, John Brown and his ragtag group encounter Jeb Stuart, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, as well as other minor heroes and villains of Brown's real-life famous private crusade against slavery that helped spark the Civil War. Recommended.

TV Review: Friday Night Lights, Seasons 1-5. Hulu.

This NBC TV series from 2006-2011 is based on a non-fiction book of the same name from the 1990s, and a 2004 film of the same name. For reasons unknown, this gem of a series slipped by me at the time it was originally broadcast, and then for the past decade on streaming TV.
 

Big oversight! This was one of the better series I've watched in the past several years, and there was a lot of it to binge (five seasons). At the center of the show is a recently-hired high school football coach at a public school with an elite football program in rural Texas (played by Kyle Chandler), and his wife (Connie Britton) and daughter (Aimee Teegarden). But it also features a very strong and diverse ensemble cast of supporting characters, including students, football team members, and local boosters, parents and personalities.

What is fantastic about it is how real it is -- there's hardly a social issue or problem affecting American families, adults and kids (especially teenagers) that doesn't appear, all wrapped around a sports team drama. And those issues are just as contemporary and topical today as they were ten years go.

I also learned from reading an online story about the making of this series that the filming style was quite unusual, in that scripts were used only sparingly. The actors, steeped in their roles and their characters' identities, would usually be told the scene situation, and then would improvise their performances as they filmed. It led to a very moving and believable drama series, extremely well acted -- and thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended.

Book Reviews: Blackout (2010) and All Clear (2010). Connie Willis.

I recently re-read these two thick science fiction and historical novels, which were originally intended to be one volume, but grew to be two because Connie Willis couldn't fit the whole grand story into one book. They are built on the same time-travel plot premise introduced in The Doomsday Book, which I reviewed recently.

It's six years after the events of The Doomsday Book (it’s now 2060), and the time travel missions of the student historians at Oxford have proliferated, but trying to manage the complexity of it all is becoming an ever more chaotic process. Planned drops into past eras are being reshuffled by Mr. Dunworthy (the head of time travel historical studies) at the last minute, no one can get the right period outfits from the Costume department because the historians' schedules keep changing, and it seems to be increasingly hard to find drop sites (exact times and places in the past) that will work with the time travel machinery.

Into this organizational maelstrom come three young historian innocents, Merope, Polly and Michael, each headed for different periods and situations in World War II Great Britain, including the children's evacuations from London, the evacuation from Dunkirk, and the Blitz (the German bombing of London). But once they arrive, they slowly discover their return drops won't open, and they eventually have to face the possibility that perhaps there's no way back to their own era.

Is time travel broken? Could they be altering the outcome of the war by their own actions (which isn't supposed to be possible, according to their time travel theory)? What is going on back in future Oxford? And how can they make contact with each other, to figure out what’s wrong and how to return to their future?

Using Connie Willis's trademark plot devices of missed connections, endless frustrated plans, messages not received or answered, and time travelers under unexpected duress having to constantly improvise new solutions, these two books are a truly wonderful tour through the heroism and bravery of the British people in World War II. Marvelous, moving and really fun to read! Highly recommended.

Book Review: Indestructible: One Man’s Rescue Mission that Changed the Course of WW II (2017). John R. Bruning.

This is the story of "Pappy" Gunn, a legendary air force officer in World War II, who was forced by his military obligations to leave his family behind in Japanese-conquered Manila, then waged a virtual one-man war in the Pacific to rebuild, redesign and improve American aircraft as ground and sea attack weapons delivery systems, fight the war himself as a decorated combat and transport pilot, and at the same time try desperately to rescue his family from brutal Japanese internment in the Philippines.

The stirring story of a brave and unstoppable pirate, pilot, engineer, warrior and military leader to many in the South Pacific theater, and a moving family story of survival against impossible odds. Recommended.