BOOKS THREAD

Always found it interesting how “ATPM” told the story from the journalists’ perspective, then they turned around and told “The Final Days” from White House insiders’ perspective. Woodward stayed with that format for the rest of his books.

As a journalist, I obviously enjoyed “All the President’s Men” and it’s how-the-sausage-is-made perspective. Including their massive fail trying to confirm Halderman as one of the conspirators.

 

I just read that, I thought it was a solid book too.

 

Thanks for the tip on Graff's book. Before responding to you, I took a look at the book's Amazon reviews. Holy cow, the print job appears to have been a disaster. Apparently, the book is not yet available in soft-cover, and several reviewers said the binding in the hard-covers they purchased was terrible. People literally opened the book up and the pages started coming apart. IIRC, some customers asked for replacement copies, received them and they, too, were defective.

All that makes me feel sorry for Graff and any other folks who assisted him in the research/writing process. Having written a book myself, I received a two stars out of five review once because the Amazon customer who received it wrote the book arrived with the cover bent and it was supposed to be a gift for her husband. At least it only happened to me once ... that I am aware.

 

My understanding is it was the legendary Simon & Schuster editor Alice Mayhew that steered Woodstein toward the creative non-fiction approach for "ATPM."

 

Just finished "Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City" by Andrea Elliott which follows 8 years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child growing up in poverty in NYC. It's infuriating and heart breaking and, I think, an essential read to understand why 'bootstraps' is almost never enough. This one is going to stay with me for a very long time. Highly recommended.

 

"Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher" by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz from 2020 is a solid read. The book details Ness during his time as Cleveland's director of public safety and his hunt for a serial killer during the 1930s. It is a good companion piece to Jonathan Eig's great Capone book.

I also love "cityographies" and the authors do a great job of how all the urban elements of the time fit together in Cleveland: cops, politicians, unions, organized crime.

Collins has a had a long time fascination with Ness. He had published with this co-author a book about him and Capone and several novels and a play about Ness. I had never read any of his stuff (lots of comic books and tv tie-in novels) before, but this is a great start.

 

The original NYT stories on Dasani were incredibly good. I’ll pick this one up.

 

Harry S. Truman (1994) by Robert H. Ferrell.

I was vaguely familiar with Dr. Ferrell's name from his long tenure at Indiana University. However, I did not know he had done extensive work on Truman. It's my understanding this biography was released a year or two after David McCullough's book and it was difficult for me not to compare the two works while reading this one. IMHO, Ferrell's book was the more difficult read for two main reasons: one, the type-set was smaller and two, Ferrell's writing style is more technical or academic. McCullough's prose just flows.

One major distinction Ferrell makes compared to McCullough is that FDR told Truman about the atomic bomb during one of their two meetings after the 1944 election. McCullough claimed Truman was first informed on a general basis the evening Truman was sworn-in as president.

One thing I enjoyed about Ferrell's book was he got into detail about what a fiasco it was for Truman to get his own two-volume memoirs finished. McCullough pretty much only scratched the surface on that subject, but Ferrell had a good source in a guy by the name of Francis Heller. IIRC, Heller was a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas who was brought in late in the process (along with a graduate student from Missouri). Three or four people had worked with Truman prior.

 

Enjoying Don Winslow’s latest, City on Fire. He specializes in mobsters, cops, and the cartels. This encompasses the first two, mostly the mob.

It’s kind a two-bit Providence gangsters who end up going to war over a Helen of Troy. This is his rewrite of the Iliad. Typical Winslow — rat-a-tat sentences and a love of all the characters, even though they are mostly assholes.

 

I'll have to check this out, being from Rhode Island. I've actually only read one of his books - The Force - and found it to be over the top and pulpy, but in an entertaining way. He's probably Matunuck, RI's most famous resident right now, since syndicate cartoonist (and sweet passing big man) Will Henry splits time in Jamestown and Matunuck.

 

This has much in common with The Force. Just a different type of force. Main character just a good-at-heart mafia underling trying to make his way up rather than a good-at-heart-just-has-to-do-bad-things cop to move up in the world.

 

Thanks for the referrals (you, as well, @sgreenwell). This is the type of fiction I might be interested in. Reading your posts immediately reminded me of the film The Departed, which I saw for the first time this past Saturday.