Book Review: A Gentleman in Moscow (2016). Amor Towles.

This is the beautifully written story of an elegant Russian gentleman and nobleman of the old order, Count Alexander Rostov, who becomes a "former person" when he is sentenced by the young Soviet regime in the 1920s to live out his life confined to the Metropol Hotel in Moscow.

It’s a remarkable tale of how he copes for years under a kind of luxurious house arrest, and finds meaning and love in the human relationships he builds in his tiny slice of Russian society. At the end, there’s a surprise foray into espionage, intrigue and danger, which adds delightful spice to the story. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Killers of the Blood Red Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2017). David Grann.

This troubling but important book is a history of the murders, plots, investigations and ultimate convictions surrounding the violent deaths of many Osage Indians in Oklahoma during the 1920s, by which a few local white men conspired to kill off tribal members in order to gain control of the victims' shares of the tribe's fabulous oil holdings and wealth.

It's a story of despicable greed, betrayal, racism, conspiracy and the rise of the FBI, for which this was one of the first big sensational cases J. Edgar Hoover used to promote his new FBI organization.

A disturbing last chapter reveals that the author, through additional research beyond the main arrests and convictions which make up the book's narrative, discovered abundant historical evidence of the involvement of a much larger number of white participants than those convicted, in murder, theft and cover-up of many more crimes against the Osage Indians, over an even longer duration than that covered by the book. Recommended.

Book Review: Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from Bubonic Plague (2019). David K. Randall.

This is an interesting social history about the appearance of Bubonic plague in California at the end of the 19th century, which was the last major appearance of the plague on the North American continent.

The narrative covers the careers of the two successive key figures in the nascent U.S. Public Health Service who tried to track down and fight the spread of the plague, particularly in the oppressed and socially isolated Chinese immigrant community in San Francisco.

In the process, Randall describes the complex set of factors, including poverty, terrible tenement housing conditions in Chinatown, an out-of-control rat population, international trade pressures and local racism which had to be understood and overcome in order to put an end to the last major plague outbreak in America.

This book is an excellent piece of social history, weaving together a rich mixture of people and populations, racist movements, the science and development of modern epidemiology and public health, crime, “great man” biography and San Francisco local politics at an early stage of the city’s rise. Highly recommended.

TV Review: Self-Made (2020). Netflix.

This was a 4-part miniseries about Madam C. J. Walker, the first black female millionaire, a poor woman in the early twentieth century who built a huge and enduring hair product empire and personal fortune, focused on the cosmetic needs and desires of black women. 

Needless to say, it didn't all go smoothly, and she had to overcome constant prejudice and obstacles as both a woman and an African-American, but she had an indomitable will to succeed, which comes through well in this series. Starring Octavia Spencer as Madam C. J. Walker. Recommended.

Book Review: The Inequality Machine: How College Divides Us (2019). Paul Tough.

This book, which was originally published under the title The Years That Matter Most, is a surprisingly interesting and informative exploration of the college admissions process, and how success getting in and completing a degree shapes life outcomes. 

Topics covered include: the special role of elite universities, and the way the competition and criteria to get in to them ends up favoring the children of the wealthy; the social and academic difficulties of poor and minorities when they do get in to the elite schools; the ways that SAT and ACT also favor the wealthy, but are poor predictors of collegiate academic success compared to high school grades; the value of "top 10%" admissions policies in bringing in students who are the most highly qualified and most likely to succeed, regardless of social class; and academic approaches and non-academic factors that affect success and degree completion.

The author nicely blends social science research in these areas with personal interviews and stories of individual students, whose experiences illustrate different aspects of the topics covered in the book. Recommended.

TV Review: The Undoing (2020). HBO Max.

The Undoing, a major HBO mini-series released late in 2020, stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant as a rich and successful power couple on the upper West side of New York, whose pre-teen son attends an elite private school.

Early in the series, another parent from the son’s school is murdered, and the series shows the impact of the unfolding murder investigation on the couple’s "perfect marriage", as it comes apart under the pressure of unfolding events and revelations.

This series came in for a lot of critical commentary by reviewers -- one writer said it was "lifestyle porn", because of the obvious wealth and privilege of the main characters -- but I thought it was perfectly appropriate to the story. Excellent and riveting entertainment, with tremendous, suspenseful acting and script. Recommended.

Book Review: The Looming Tower (2007). Lawrence J. Wright.

I read this very good book and Pulitzer Prize winner after seeing the same-named HBO mini-series (starring Jeff Daniels) based on it. It is an absorbing account of some of the key events in the late 1990s and early 2000s which led up to the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

The story is told through the experiences and perspectives of a few important characters, particularly in the F.B.I., C.I.A. and Al Qaeda. It gives a disturbing view into how bureaucratic infighting between the F.B.I and C.I.A., and a lack of comprehension (by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence groups) of the nature of the Islamic Jihadist movement, organizations and leadership led to the intelligence failures before the Nairobi Embassy bombings in 1998, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, and the 9/11 attacks.

It may seem that these events are all well-worn or tired stories by now, but I found the book (as well as the TV series) provided a fresh perspective, and some valuable new insights into the human and institutional fallibilities that allowed Al Qaeda's terrorism to carry out its most successful attacks on our country and its people. Recommended.

Book Review: The FBI Way (2020). Frank Figliuzzi.

The author, who is now a cable TV analyst, was a career FBI agent who eventually rose to high-level leadership within the organization. His book is a combination of insights into the "FBI Way", that is, describing the norms of the organization and the processes they use to foster excellence, responsibility and integrity in their staff, with illustrative examples of how these norms and processes have succeeded and failed, taken from his own career and experience.

Figliuzzi is not a fan of Donald Trump, so he does cover topics in the latter part of the book relating to how the FBI was challenged by Trump's attitude toward the Bureau, and by his attempts to destroy its independence, and turn it and the Justice Department into tools of his own authoritarian and gangsterish aspirations. Recommended.