Quick Book Reviews Blog

  Short Summary Douglas Brunt veered off the path well-known to him and chose to dabble in non-fiction when he recently published The Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel . In it, he points his attention to the often overlooked inventor of engine by the same name, giving us a window into his complicated life, leading us all the way to its known conclusion, which leaves all too much room for speculation.

  Neil Armstrong might hold eternal fame for being the first to set foot on the moon, but we would do well to remember the Apollo 11 mission consisted of three astronauts, including Edwin (“Buzz”) Aldrin and Michael Collins .  The latter wrote an autobiography titled Carrying the Fire , and in it he recounts the entire adventure in all of its glory, starting back with his own days as a fresh pilot in the U.S. Air Force.

Keele Burgin has dedicated her life to helping young girls and women all around the world, a venerable path in life towards which she was pushed to because of the immense struggle she went through in her youth, being raised by a fear-driven Catholic cult. In her memoir titled Wholly Unraveled , Burgin recounts those early years of her life, and the journey she traveled towards finding herself and her purpose in a turbulent world.

Ariel Lawhon takes us on a tour into one of the more psychologically curious cases in history in her novel titled I Was Anastasia , delving into the life of Anna Anderson. Not long after the Romanovs were famously executed , a young woman was pulled from a canal in Berlin and began claiming to be Anastasia, who was supposed to be dead and buried. Thus began the woman's journey towards becoming potentially one of the most famous imposters in human history.

Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie have established themselves as a powerhouse in historical literature, demonstrating a real knack for the ability to deliver accurate facts in entertaining fashion. In their latest joint adventure, titled My Dear Hamilton , they explore the storied biography of a woman often overshadowed by history, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, wife to founding father Alexander Hamilton.

Bernard M. Patten is today known as one of the foremost medical experts on the planet, being the leading specialist on Myasthenia Gravis as well as part of the team of physicians who discovered the current treatment for Parkinson's disease. However, just like every other person on Earth, his life began just like every other one: in total ignorance. After many years of teaching, experimenting and learning, he has decided it was time to write his autobiography telling the whole story from his earliest chaotic days, and he titled it The Wonderful World of Bernies .

Though wars are quite often depicted in both movies and literature, some of them even lauded for their realism, there is simply nothing that can come close to first-hand accounts of the people who have actually survived through them. Those of us fortunate enough never to witness war can never really be certain that what we're presented with is an accurate depiction of reality... unless it comes from people like Clinton Romesha, a United States Army solider who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in the 2009 Battle of Keating .

In 1992 a young man by the name of Christopher McCandless made all the headlines for the most tragic reasons: he gave away all that he had, got rid of all the Earthly possessions he could think of, headed off into the American wild, and was found dead four months after the start of his adventure in April. Needless to say, he became the source of a national obsession, with countless people pouring their resources in reconstructing not only his great adventure in the wilderness, but also the mindset that pushed him to such incredible extremes.

There are few professions out there that inspire the same atmosphere of intensity, danger and adventure as spying. Though it is true that in many cases being a spy amounted to getting some documents from point A to point B until one gets caught, there are some out there who went about their line of work with real panache, leaving behind a trail of stories fitting for a novel. Moura Budberg is one such person, often referred to as Russia's most seductive spy, at least during her time. Deborah McDonald (who specializes in biographies) and Jeremy Dronfield have decided to examine that woman's life and weave a narration worthy of her exploits, which resulted in them publishing A Very Dangerous Woman .

Our upbringing is without a doubt the most crucial part of our existence, shaping our essential being in all the necessary places, creating a structure that is hopefully solid and can last in the world. Though our development is certainly directed by nature and genetics, it cannot be denied that nurture plays an equally-big, if not more important part in it. It's not for nothing that many psychologists and whatnot seek the root of some of their patient's problems in their earliest memories: first impressions can indeed end up shaping us for the rest of our lives.

When the era of communism dawned to a close in the Soviet Union, with the country becoming Russia in 1991, a very turbulent and violent period began during which the country faced a “Wild West”-type scenario, or at least as much as modern civilization permits such a thing to happen. The perestroika led to countless revolts and a change of regime, but most importantly, it left a huge chunk of power hanging in the air for anyone to claim as their own.

Dictators inhabit the pages of our history books quite comfortably and have done so for quite some time. Tyrannies are nothing new, and they have existed for so long that many have developed a certain fascination with them, seeking to understand their mechanics to the very core. Perhaps because of sheer bad luck (or the Illuminati) the 21st century gave rise to a fair number of dictators who left their bloody marks on the world. But more than that, they also left their children, turning them into a chosen few who have been dealt a rather strange hand by life.

Though the Third Reich may have only lasted a dozen years it remains to this day one of the most scrupulously studied regimes and time periods. The National Socialist movement paved the way for a tyranny the likes of which we seldom see, of unrivalled cruelty, discrimination, brainwashing and organization... a tyranny that set an ethnic cleansing into motion.

Grief is something that touches us all in different ways, and there is no way of predicting how one will react to the loss of a loved one. When it came to Helen Macdonald, probably few could predict what she decided to do in the wake of her father's sudden passing in the streets of London; she decided to raise one of the deadliest and most vicious predators, the goshawk. Even though she was already an experienced falconer, she knew that this journey wouldn't prove to be a usual one and test her in many ways... and she wrote a memoir of it titled H is for Hawk .

When it comes to powerful old-time gangsters, it's mostly Italian and Sicilian names that come to mind (and perhaps a few Jewish ones), such as Al Capone, “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Vito Genovese and Joseph Bonanno, just to name a few. As you would expect though, they are far from being the only people to have taken organized crime to the next level. Amongst the many other deadly crime bosses that came and went during the 20th century is one that won't soon be forgotten, especially by the American law enforcement agencies: James J. “Whitey” Bulger.

Contemporary black culture certainly has many prominent figures who majorly contributed to its development in the latter half of the 20th century, but few of them arguably had the influence of Iceberg Slim , a real icon of his time. In his biography Street Poison , Justin Gifford takes it upon himself to examine in as much depth as possible this unique man's story. The book touches on Iceberg Slim's (real name Robert Beck) life from the very beginning, with his birth in 1918 to parents who migrated to Chicago from Tennessee.

We grow up in this world and try to focus our efforts on some specific domain, hopefully mastering it as time comes along. There are some anomalies out there, outliers who seem to have been born with exceptional talents, with the potential to become masters at whatever they touch... and Oliver Sacks is one of those. As a man who managed to give equal focus to his physical and cerebral passions, Sacks became known for both his daring lifestyle and contributions to modern medicine. Recently diagnosed with terminal-stage cancer, Sacks has decided to give yet another source of insight into his life through his autobiography On the Move: A Life .

For the casual observer from the outside, surfing seems like a cool and somewhat simple sport, one that doesn't evolve into anything more than a hobby. However, for people like William Finnegan, surfing represents a whole lot more than that: it is a way of life, one that can take a person around the entire world and can also be seen as a an international community with a high sense of camaraderie.

The Cold War was certainly a time in human history where unconventional warfare became the norm, where battles between the world's two greatest superpowers were no longer fought openly on battlefields but rather behind the secrecy of closed doors. Intelligence, knowledge and information became the most important and crucial of commodities (without forgetting money, of course), and the warriors of that conflict, for the most part, spent their time in offices.

The lives of musicians are known mostly for their turbulence, and as tradition goes, the greater their fame the grander the story. Pete Townshend is one of a kind when it comes to having adventures both on and off-stage, and I believe it is to our great benefit that he published his autobiography,  Who I Am: A Memoir  at the tender age of sixty-seven, rather than the intended twenty-one. Those who know his name probably recognize Townshend as the guitarist from the legendary rock group The Who , but the truth is that he was much more than that... some would argue that he is one of those people whose character and life eclipse the achievements of others.