The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity (audiobook) by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy

Very Interesting History of the Modern Presidency

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2012
Read by Bob Walter
Duration: 22 hours, 1 minute
Unabridged

Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, both editors at Time, have delivered a very listenable, fascinating look at each American president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama. No matter their political persuasion, their life experiences or their qualities as a human being, all 12 of these men share one thing: they were once President. This is an exclusive club and it seems that just about every president has looked to a former president for a shoulder to lean on, advice or even as a personal envoy sent to convey a sense of urgency to the message.

The Presidents Club is told in a rough chronological order starting with Truman. When Truman was President there was only one other member of the Presidents Club: Herbert Hoover. Yes, the same Hoover that Truman and FDR disparaged for 12 years. However, to his credit, Truman sent out feelers and discovered that Hoover was still willing and able to help. Together, they set up the ground rules for this "club." Hoover was tapped by Truman to get food to Europe at the end of World War II (Hoover did this at the end of World War I as well) and to help re-organize the Executive Branch.

Gibbs and Duffy discuss how each President interacted with his predecessor and his successor and even other presidents (for example, Nixon interacted with every President from Truman to Clinton). Gerald Ford had a similar lengthy history. They also discuss how the "Club" grew and shrank over the years. During Bill Clinton's presidency, there were as many as six members (Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush41 and Clinton). At one point in the Nixon years, there was only Nixon.

The current "Presidents Club" membership:
George H.W. Bush (41), Barack Obama,
George W. Bush (43), Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

If you are a political junkie or a fan of modern American history, this anecdote-filled book is a must-read. It gives a different feel for the men, their personalities and their legacies. For example, I was surprised at how often Johnson reached out to Eisenhower for advice and reassurance concerning the Vietnam War.  I was even more surprised at how often Johnson was out hustled politically by Richard Nixon. I know Johnson was a world class politician, but Nixon maneuvered him and manipulated him throughout 1968. Johnson fared no better in his post-Presidential years.

Nixon comes off as talented but very deeply flawed. The authors quote longtime advisor to multiple presidents, Brent Scowcroft, calling Nixon a "shit" and former President George H. W. Bush (Bush41) referred to him as "a first-rate intellect but also a third-rate person." However, you do have to admire how Nixon calculates how to get to the forefront of American politics again and again and again. Reagan comes off surprisingly cold. Carter, as an enigma. Gerald Ford comes off as principled and maybe even heroic for his decision to pardon Nixon and destroy any chance he had to be elected. The Clinton-Bush41 friendship was a joy to learn about and the source of some of the best stories.

Leadership lessons abound in this book. Every president had his own style in office and some even managed to exert a large influence long after they left office. Some Presidents chart the general path and expect their subordinates to follow it. Others are intimately involved in so many decisions that they are spread too thin. Some are charmers. Some intimidate. Some scheme and plan every move. No matter the president, Gibbs and Duffy take the reader behind the scenes and give a sense of the times and the way their administrations worked.

I found this audiobook to be thoroughly enjoyable. Bob Walter's narration was excellent. He varied his rate, read with a lot of emphasis and made a 22 hour long audiobook fly by. I particularly enjoyed his very slight inflections he put in his quotes. For example, his LBJ quotes had a small amount of Texas twang and his Reagan quotes had his characteristic tone to them (If you were alive during the Reagan Administration, think about his famed "Well...").

I rate this audiobook an enthusiastic 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Presidents Club.

Reviewed on February 1, 2013

Note: This audiobook was provided to me free of charge by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I honestly thought this was an exceptional audiobook.

Under the Wire: Bestselling WWII Memoir of an American Spitfire Pilot and Legendary POW Escape-Artist by William Ash and Brendan Foley

Re-published by CreateSpace in November 2012.

Despite the fact that this will be the third posting of the year for me, Under the Wire was actually the first book that I read in 2013 and it may very well be the best book that I will read all year.

95 year old World War II veteran William Ash and his co-author Brendan Foley have created an immensely readable, very enjoyable story. Young Bill Ash was an American who joined the Brits in fighting the Nazis by flying a Spitfire (a fighter plane) before America even joined the war.

Ash begins his story by telling about the difficulties of growing up in the Great Depression in Texas. Somehow, he managed to get a college degree, even though there were no jobs to be found for this new college grad. So, he hit the road, riding trains, traveling the country and living in hobo camps. One day he heard that the Canadians were looking for fighter pilots to send to England and they would even take Americans who renounced their citizenship.

The last operating Spitfire to survive The Battle of Britain.
Photo by Adrian Pingstone in 2008.

Ash's reasons for joining are a rather vague mishmash of looking for adventure, wanting a steady paycheck, wanting to fly and wanting to fight the Nazis, but that's okay. The story has been good so far and it only gets better as Ash talks about the joys of a full belly and learning to fly. Soon enough, he's off to England and set up in a Spitfire, England's hotshot iconic fighter plane of the war.

Ash's description of this plane and the way it handled makes you love it and appreciate the skill of Ash and all of his comrades. Eventually, as indicated by the lengthy title of this book, Ash is shot down over France. The story of how he hides for weeks from the Germans and eventually ends up in a POW camp is told in an entertaining and suspenseful manner.

In fact, the book is quite remarkable - it somehow manages to keep a sense of tension alive throughout the book even though the reader knows how it all ends after reading the three page foreword. Bill Ash survives the war despite being shot out of the sky and being kept in multiple POW camps. He makes an incredible number of escape attempts, trying for a "home run" (a successful run all of the way back to Allied territory). But, Bill's sense of humor shines through and you just keep rooting for this crazy character who starts plotting his next escape as he sits through the solitary confinement he received as punishment for attempting his last escape.

The story can be heartbreaking, often gritty and matter-of-fact about abuses he and his fellow prisoners endured. I was struck by the descriptions of how they dug tunnels under the fence. If you have seen the movie The Great Escape, you know the basics of how it was done but Ash and Foley's re-telling is so vivid and visceral that it caused me to have a claustrophobic panic attack (I suffer from claustrophobia). I had to put the book down and then I picked it up and finished that section so I wouldn't have to go through two panic attacks. It is that good.

But, none of this detail would matter if you just didn't love Bill Ash, his sense of humor and his ever-hopeful personality.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Under the Wire.

Reviewed on January 21, 2013.

Note: I received a copy of this book from one of the authors, Brendan Foley, in exchange for an honest review. Honestly, this is a fantastic read.

Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (audiobook) by Henry Wiencek

Published by HighBridge Company in 2012
Read by Brian Holsopple
Duration: 11 hours, 5 minutes.
Unabridged

I am a history teacher. My favorite area of study is the American Civil War but the American Revolution comes in at a close second. I cannot even count the number of books that I have read about the Revolutionary Era and I thought that I had a pretty solid handle on Jefferson - until I read Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves.

I had always pictured Jefferson as a Unitarian (who was willing to go "more" religious for political reasons) who wrote eloquently about freedom and tyranny but somehow compartmentalized this in his own life when it came to slavery. Or, was unable to free his slaves due to crushing debts incurred because he was a philosopher and not a businessman.

The debts are always mentioned, usually in conjunction with the renovations to Monticello, reinforcing the impression that the philosopher was happily spending his way to oblivion for the sake of beauty and architecture, thus adding an air of tragedy to Jefferson. Poor Mr. Jefferson, he wanted to free his slaves but his profligate spending on esoterics caused him to have to compromise his ideals and keep his slaves. Poor Jefferson, he always wanted to free his slaves, but he could never get the law changed to make him do it. Poor Jefferson, circumstances made him look like a hypocrite.

Poor Mr. Jefferson, indeed.

Weincek looks at Jefferson's plantation records, the archaeological record, Jefferson's own writings and what other slave-owning planters did to fight slavery or make it more humane. The picture of Jefferson the slave-owner has forever been changed in my mind thanks to this book.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
giving his "I Have a Dream"
Speech in 1963.

Note: I will always revere Jefferson for his ability to point the way, even if he had no intent of going that way, especially in his older years. After all, Jefferson's soaring prose in the Declaration of Independence is America's mission statement and was the catalyst of so much good work. For example, take this line from MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech:

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 

Clearly, Jefferson inspired this and so much more.

But, back to this book. Wiencek goes into sometimes laborious detail into what Jefferson was up to at Monticello. He looks into his plans to grow his plantation into much more than a glorified farm. Instead, it was becoming a self-sufficient economic unit that actually created and sold manufactured goods to the outside world. My impression was that Jefferson moved from being an idealistic anti-slavery agitator to a feudal lord who outright owned his slaves rather than having to depend on serfs.

Jefferson encouraged his slaves to breed (their population grew at 4% per year, meaning their numbers would double every 18 years). The slaves were worth more than gold - after all, gold does not reproduce itself and does not literally work for you. Slaves would make more slaves, work for you and serve as collateral so that he could borrow money to expand his operations.

The last third of the book or so is devoted to the Sally Hemings controversy. Did Thomas Jefferson have children with her or not? Wiencek thoroughly covers this topic, but I think he oversteps what can be completely known by declaring Jefferson the father of Sally Hemings' children. The DNA evidence shows that a Jefferson did it and Wiencek eliminates the alibis that would exonerate Jefferson. But, I think that the best assertion that can be made is that Thomas Jefferson probably is the father of her children. However, the topic has to be included in the book because it is about Jefferson and his slaves and the Hemings children were clearly treated differently than the other slaves.

I was particularly interested in learning about Edward Coles and how he freed his slaves. His correspondence with Jefferson is illuminating and is a study in Jefferson's ability to be publicly  for something (ending slavery) but doing nothing to achieve it and even working actively against it.

Brian Holsopple's narration was very good in that I really did not notice it - it was clearly delivered and his reading of the text was free of insinuation, even when Jefferson's hypocrisy was at its most obvious. He played it straight and let the text speak for itself, which should be the goal of every reader of histories.

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. I thought hard about this and I just cannot sanction the outright naming of Jefferson as the father of the Hemings children. This is a tremendous book in all other aspects, though and I highly recommend it.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Master of the Mountain.

Reviewed on January 20, 2012.

Tough Guys and Drama Queens: How Not To Get Blindsided by Your Child's Teen Years by Mark Gregston

Published in 2012 by Thomas Nelson

Mark Gregston brings his expertise and experience gained from working with troubled teens for nearly 40 years to a book full of practical advice about how parents can prepare themselves and their teens for the dreaded teen years.

Gregston discusses parenting techniques that don't work (basically, don't be a helicopter parent and don't let your kids fend for themselves too early) and emphasizes the most important thing that keeps teens and their parents connected is a strong relationship. The relationship is key, especially in a larger culture that may not share your values.

Keeping that relationship strong requires lots of quality time and requires parents to not create a stifling environment that makes teens feel like a prisoner in their homes (We all know they are not prisoners, but the book's title does make a point about drama queens).  Gregston includes lists of rules he recommends, lots of examples of when to be firm and when to back off and what to do when your teen makes a mistake.

This book is highly readable and provides a lot practical advice, even if I didn't agree with it 100%.

I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Tough Guys and Drama Queens.

Reviewed on January 18, 2013.

I received this book for free as part of Thomas Nelson's Booksneeze program in exchange for an honest review.

Lightning Rider [Kindle] by Rick Mofina

Published in 2011 by Carrick Publishing

This short story does a great job of creating a vivid cast of characters. The setting is in an armored car that collects from Las Vegas casinos. The crew is headed up by Elmer Gask, a mouthy sexist racist who is one week from retirement. He is very proud to have never been successfully robbed and is looking forward to getting a reward of $22,000 for 22 loss-free years of carrying millions of dollars every day.

His crew today consists of Latino Gil Perez and Native American Jessica Scout. They are frequent targets of Gask's abusive tongue-lashings, although Scout seems to be a special target because not only is she a minority, she is also an extremely beautiful young woman.

But, as Gask finds out, today will not be a normal day in the armored car...

I rate this kindle book 4 stars out of 5 due to the clunky ending. But the rest of the story is quite good.

This story can be found on Amazon.com here: Lightning Rider

Reviewed on December 31, 2012.

Backlash: A Novelette [Kindle Edition] by Nancy Fulda

Published in 2013.

This kindle short story clocks in at about 31 estimated pages. It is a truly interesting bit of sci-fi. My only complaint is that it felt like the story was just getting started and then it ended. I hope that someday this book is expanded into a full-fledged book.

Eugene Gutierez is a former anti-terrorist agent having dinner with his college-aged daughter and her latest boyfriend. He cannot imagine what she sees in him. Soon the evening collapses when his fortune cookie comes with this message: "Eugene Gutierez. Activation code: pupae." He assumes this new boyfriend has made a cruel attempt at a practical joke and he does not appreciate it. Gutierez suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - he gets powerful panic attacks and flashbacks, described as "that gasping feeling as the world sp[ins] out of control."

Gutierez's world will truly spin out of control in the next few hours as time traveling secret agents desperately try to utilize the skills of his former life and he discovers that his daughter is involved in things that could not have imagined...

I rate this short story 5 stars out of 5.

This novelette can be found on Amazon.com here: Backlash: A Novelette

Reviewed on December 31, 2012.

The 1940s: A Brief History [Kindle Edition] by Vook

Published in 2011 by Vook.

Vook is a publisher of e-books enhanced with video clips (Video + Book = Vook). This history is short (Amazon estimates it would be about 32 pages on paper) so it is unlikely to satisfy a history purist. It is very lightweight due to its short length but very readable.

The result is about the same as if you read the chapter on World War II and the 1940s in a standard high school world history book. The broadest of outlines are there but if this is all you knew about World War II and the beginnings of the Cold War you would be one un-educated person indeed. At best, this is an introduction to the topic. Considering how long of a shadow World War II and the Cold War have cast, this is too short and too shallow to be of much value.

The Chapter titles are:

-"The Greatest Generation"
-The Cold War
-Boom Times
-Making Military Technology Civil
-Hurray for Hollywood
-Breaking the Race Barrier
-40s Pop Culture
-Everyday People

I rate this kindle book 2 stars out of 5.

This e-book can be found online at Amazon.com here: The 1940s: A Brief History (Enhanced Version)

Reviewed on December 31, 2012.