DWD's Reviews

The works of a brilliant essayist are a joy to read. Originally published in 1988. I admit, I was attracted to Thank God for the Atom Bomb because of the title. Our library had it featured on its web page with some excerpts and I was intrigued. I was not disappointed. The title essay is simply brilliant. It is also caustic, blunt and nuanced. I'll refer to it before the next time I teach about World War II. There are two more essays on World War II. I found the two essays on George Orwell to be most interesting. His commentary on the differences between tourism and travel reminded me of the Twain essays I've been reading lately. "Taking It All Off in the Balkans" is the account of his visit to a nudist resort in the former Yugoslavia - very funny and (I've got to say it) revealing. Paul Fussell Two essays were just not interesting to me, being mainly about poetry and I find myself unable to muster the interest to read poetry, let alone rea

Excellent, for what it is Published in 2004 by Arcadia Publishing. The "Images of Sports" series is intended to be a scrapbook history of a team, or in this case of an event. The Indy 500: 1956-1965 is a 127 page book mostly comprised of photographs taken by Ben Lawrence, a photographer for the now-defunct Indianapolis Times from 1956-1965. This book is not a comprehensive history of the Indy 500, but rather a photographic scrapbook, a yearbook, if you will. In a way, it was also a Golden Era for the Speedway with the new (also now defunct) scoring tower and the arrival of mainstays such as A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones and the Unsers. There are captions for all pictures and a few introductory paragraphs for each new section. Not only does the reader get pictures from the race but also from the first 500 Festival parades, shots of the fans, candid shots of the drivers, track workers and even celebrities (the Jayne Mansfield shot is something else!). The race is more tha

Not a complete history of the city, but an interesting one. Published in 2002 by Arcadia Publishing. Lost Indianapolis is part of the very large Images of America series of books that feature historical photos of landmarks of a city or group of people and tell part of the history as well. From time to time "then and now" photos are included as well so that the reader can see how things have changed. The author has written several local histories about Indiana and Indianapolis and maintains a webpage at http://www.lostindiana.net/Lost_Indiana/Lost_Indiana.html . Lost Indianapolis is a great book for those with an interest in Indianapolis for two reasons: 1) The photographs. They are interesting and very well-chosen to add to the text. I have seen books of this sort that seem to have random pictures tossed in with the text. 2) The text. McDonald has chosen several interesting topics to tell some of the story of the city. This is not a complete history by any means,