BOOKS THREAD

I visited Charleston last year and have some colleagues there. Yeah, I could definitely see this playing out, zero doubt. Of course, as a fraternity member in college in CA, (near Tahoe), yeah saw it playing out there as well with royally f**ked up values.

 

Richard Norton Smith's bio of Gerald Ford---An Ordinary Man. Solid look at America's 38th president and a fascinating time in American history. From the author of previous bios on Thomas Dewey and Nelson Rockefeller.

 

I've been wondering about this book. Watched a series of interviews with Smith on CSPAN a year or two ago (may have been repeats). A separate filming took place in his Grand Rapids apartment as he was working on this Ford project. Thanks for the reminder. Going to get this one.

 

The Last Honest Man is a James Risen biography of Idaho senator Frank Church. Seems like Church was indeed a principled man but probably overly ambitious.
Good detail on the Church Commission so if you're interested in CIA history/abuses, there is a lot of insight ... including the murders of Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli. Information on Patrice Lumumba and the agency's involvement in Chile was of particular interest to me.
Interestingly, James Angleton (maybe the weirdest spook I've ever read about) is buried in Boise about 100 feet from Church.

 

Skyjack by Geoffrey Gray about the D.B. Cooper case. Long been interested in the subject. Short, quick read. Recommend.

 

Richard Norton Smith's book as arrived. Have jumped around, as prone to do.
This Warren Commission stuff is fascinating.

 

Smith absolutely destroys Fielding Yost. Sorry, John U. Bacon.

 

James Jesus Angleton was very talented, very strange, and his career has spawned any number of spy thrillers both good and bad, both books and films. He lived in a hall of mirrors, double agents and lies so long that they permanently warped him. We'll never know the truths of some of his theories and the twisted or blind alleys he explored in his role as chief of counter intelligence, although many of his assertions were proved correct (or close) after the fall of the USSR and East Germany. I can't imagine attempting a bio of that man, although a number of writers have done so. An interesting life for certain.

Ironic that he is so close to Church in death, as the Church Committee was instrumental in forcing his resignation from the CIA, of which he was a founding member.

 

Tom Mangold's book "Cold Warrior" is the definitive work on that spook.

 

Heartily recommend "Invitation to a Banquet" by Fuchsia Dunlop.

It's a history of Chinese food, but the way she writes it, it almost functions as a broad history of cooking too. Top-notch writing combined with deep expertise. She had written several other books about aspects of Chinese cuisine and while I haven't read those, this feels like someone's masterpiece.

 

Good to see you drop by, Clint. You are missed.