The Lone Elm

Centenarians

I just finished reading If I Live to be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians, by Neenah Ellis. This was an excellent read, and good for most of my plane ride back from Phoenix. Note that this book is not quite what the title promises -- it is more about what Ms. Ellis learned about herself by engaging in the the project of interviewing centenarians.

Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain

The Sapling and I listened to a reading of Brokeback Mountain while driving up to Maine yesterday (read by Campbell Scott).  Neither of us have seen the movie, but I think it is fair to say that we both thought the story was terrific.  The writing is incredibly strong, and Proulx does a wonderful job of bringing you into the world of the two cowboys.  Proulx discusses the story in an AP interview at Newsday.  The story is part of Proulx's short story collection titled Close Range: Wyoming Stories.

Giuliani Books on Leadership

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, lists his favorite five top biographies of leaders at Opinion Journal. It is sad to say that I haven't read any of these.  I am particularly intrigued, however, by the contemporaneous bio of Lincoln written by his former law partner William Herndon, and by the bio of Churchill he suggests. And this may be enough to get me back into reading mode again.  Ann Althouse thinks the list is pretty plebian, and that Giuliani picked the "leaders" before he picked the books, keeping his political interests in mind.  Maybe so, it is still interesting, even for that reason!

Batman Returns to Fight Al-Qaeda

The Belmont Club reports that Batman is returning to take up the fight against Al-Qaeda.  Terrific news! See also IGN article, The Green Knight, Geek Soap Box (great Batman picture), and a lot more background at Brainster's Blog.

And Batman's cause would be in the best tradition of American comics.  I just finished listening to an abridged version of Michael Chabon's The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (paperback here). This is a wonderful tale of comics, escape artistry, magic, New York City in the 1930's to 1950's, and much more.  One daring aspect of the comic in the late thirties was the hero's fight against the evil villain of Hitler -- this was controversial and highly political, as at that time many still thought that Hitler could be appeased.  One of the heroes of Chabon's book, Joe Kavalier, knows that this isn't true -- he escaped from Hitler's Prague.  He gets his brother out of Prague, but then the ship transporting his brother to the U.S. is sunk by enemy fire. The rest of Joe's family dies in the Holocaust.  This is an absolutely fabulous story, with lots of twists and turns, and well worth the time.  See Salon review of the book and another review here. This is a review of the audio edition, which I can attest was excellent.  And here you can get a sense of the real Kavalier and Clays -- catch the cover with Hitler towards the bottom of the page. Here is an interview with Chabon.

Ship-Breaking and Pirates

I just finished reading William Langewiesche's book The Outlaw Sea.  Langewiesche writes regularly for The Atlantic Monthly.  The author provides some fascinating insight into the world of ships and shipping.  The first chapter discusses pirates on the ocean and the take over of a ship.  (For up-to-date reports on ocean piracy with lots and lots of maps, see EagleSpeak.)   Another chapter provides a detailed, heart-wrenching story of the sinking of a ferry boat traveling between Estonia and Norway.  The last chapter describes the controversial "ship-breaking" on the shores of Alang, India.  I had never really considered where ships went when they reached the end of their useful lives until I read this book.  This article in The Frontline, an Indian publication, describes the process and has some pictures.  More pictures are at BBC.   Ship-breaking is very controversial due to the hazards to the environment, and because the workers are low paid and perform tasks with little or no protection.  According to the BBC, Greenpeace has argued that British ships should be dismantled locally and not sent to India. Another article and photos at Ohmy News.   Perhaps most fascinating, however, is Peter Knego's documentation of the end of various passenger ocean liners on the Alang beach. 

Tracy Kidder's New Book

I listened to a excellent interview on WBUR's On-Point show (not with Tom Ashbrook!) discussing is new book, My Detachment, which is about Kidder's Vietnam experience.   (I love the double entendre of the title.)  Ashbrook's replacement was a very calm woman, who asked good questions and handled the callers well.