For Whom Doth The Rebels Yell?

Gwynne, S. C.  Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson.  New
       York: Scribner, 2014.  ISBN: 978-1-4516-7328-9

Are you interested in Thomas J Jackson's life and military endeavors?  Then you picked the right book to inform your curiosity, inflame your historical passion and detail a mosaic of "Stonewall" Jackson in a short 600+ pages.  S. C. Gwynne provides a biography that covers the whole life of Jackson but not in chronological order.   

Rebel Yell opens with Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson stealing a march on Union forces as he entrains his army and moves to join Lee outside Richmond in 1862. The author then skips back to the opening of the war and narrates events through the First Battle of Manassas/Bull Run.  Another backward time jump covers Jackson's early life, his Army career including his Mexican War exploits and his tenure as VMI professor.  The narrative then meanders enticingly through Jackson's Valley campaign, his lack-luster leadership before Richmond, his brilliance at Second Manassas and his solid performance at Antietam and Fredericksburg.  The last part (Part Five) covers the Winter of 1863 and Jackson's final performance at Chancellorsville.

S. C Gwynne provides a very solid biography of Jackson without hero-worship that allows the reader access to the military leader and the man behind the reputation.  He combines eye witness accounts, newspaper stories, diaries, official reports and other sources to document the tale of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.  Rebel Yell is well worth reading for both pleasure and insight.

A look at the man, not the music.

Suchet, John.  Beethoven: The Man Revealed.  New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013.
        ISBN: 978-0-8021-2206-3

Ludwig van Beethoven is a renowned classical musical composer.  That is common knowledge, but not so commonly known is his talent as a gifted musician, mainly the piano, and as man who had to overcome numerous obstacles before he achieved success. 

John Suchet opens with Beethoven's background, exploring his grandfather's and father's careers as musicians in Bonn, Germany before spending four chapters on his early life, training and musical beginnings as a composer and player.  With Chapter 5, Beethoven arrives in Vienna where he worked on taking the city by storm as a player and then a composer.  Beethoven grew in fame for his compositions while growing in notoriety for his peculiarities which were partially due to his working habits and partially due to his growing deafness.  His family interactions did not help him in regard to his health or his notoriety.  In the end, his death came as a climax of a tale of endurance and achievement.

Suchet, a presenter on Britain's Classics FM station, provides the general public a readable life of Ludwig van Beethoven.  As the sub-heading hints, Suchet concentrates on Beethoven the man rather than Beethoven the composer. Suchet writes a life of Beethoven that weaves in his compositions with the woof of his everyday life.  The reader learns the circumstances under which a composition was created and performed, allowing a glimpse at Beethoven's creative process.  However, Suchet is not above speculating in certain areas such as a meeting with Mozart that may have included a private performance when there is no firm evidence.  Suchet does provide a list of sources for further exploration and his ideal discography of Beethoven's music which he cheerfully admits is biased by his taste in performance.  In the end, Beethoven: The Man Revealed is worth reading by the general public who want to understand the man behind the music.

A "New" Hope?

Zoglin, Richard.  Hope: Entertainer of the Century.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
        ISBN: 978-1-4391-4027-7

Bob Hope died in July 2003 at the age of 100.  In Bob Hope: Entertainer of the Century, Richard Zoglin provides the first complete descriptive biography of Leslie Towns Hope (better known as Bob Hope).  In the introduction and 14 chapters, he lays out the evidence that Bob Hope should be considered a seminal figure in American entertainment in the Twentieth century.

Bob Hope began his career in vaudeville in the 1920's and he prospered even as vaudeville was dying.  In the 1930's, he became a star on Broadway, migrated to radio with NBC and then in 1938 became a movie star.  During World War II, he started a career as entertainer for US troops abroad which continued for close to fifty years.  Then, in 1950's Hope started a yearly series of NBC TV specials.  In all these fields Bob Hope excelled, Zoglin postulates due to his hard work, focus on comedy, willingness to change and innovate.  He also focused on the bottom line and was always thinking ahead.

Richard Zoglin focuses on Bob Hope as entertainer, comedian, and businessman, providing a narrative full of plays, movies, and television specials while providing little of the material in the sketches, and movies that made Bob Hope famous.  In large part Zoglin wrote Hope to bring Bob Hope back into the limelight he deserves.  Unfortunately, the narrative makes the case for Hope as a pioneer in multiple fields while almost ignoring Hope the man, the father, and the husband.  Hope in historical context is also missing from the book.  Despite these drawbacks, Zoglin has written a very readable life of Bob Hope that is recommended to anyone wanting to know more of his story.

Wherein We Learn About Fred and Other Tales.

Pratchett, Terry.  A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction.  New York: Doubleday, 2014.
        ISBN: 978-0-385-538305

Be forewarned, this is not a collection of Discworld stories, although, that series is frequently mentioned between these covers.   Rather this tome is a collection of nonfiction essays, speeches,  and assorted odds and ends that Terry Pratchett wrote between 1963 and 2011.

In A Slip of the Keyboard, Terry Pratchett has deliberately provided a look into his mind and habits via this entertaining and revealing book. In four sections (A Scribbling Intruder/A Twit and a Dreamer/Days of Rage/And Finally...) Pratchett and company have amassed an eclectic collection of short pieces.  Here you can read short pieces such as "Thought Progress", "Why Gandalf Never Married", or "How to Be a Professional Boxer".  Then, there is "Straight From the Heart, via the Groin",  written in 2004, wherein we learn about "Fred" the ubiquitous worker at a nuclear plant who causes mayhem unwittingly.  You can read some of his early newspaper stories ("The King and I, or How the Bottom Has Dropped Out of the Wise Man Business" for example) or about his collection of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ("Brewer's Boy").  But on of my favorite pieces is "Roots of Fantasy"  which deals with how a lowly garden gnome statue caused the shutdown of a nuclear power plant (also includes the engineers' idea that an abandoned nuclear power plant would make a nifty "cursed tomb").  In the last quarter of the book (Days of Rage), Terry Pratchett has placed articles on his reaction to having Alzheimer's, the National Health System, right to die, orangutans, and schooling.

Throughout the book, the reader gets to peak behind the authorial mask of the creator of Discworld, go book touring with him  and generally hang out with an interesting person.  Recommended for all readers (whether you are a fan already or not).

The Cheese Man Autobiography

Cleese, John.  So, Anyway...  New York: Crown Archetype, 2014.  ISBN: 978-0-385-34824-9

Are you a Monty Python fan?  No, then why are you reading this?  Oh, you want to find out more about the twisted mind that came up with Fawlty Towers, A Fish Called Wanda, and Fierce Creatures?  Well, this tome will help, but beware, it is a long and winding road.

In So, Anyway..., John Cleese breezily writes out a partial tale of his life, speaking directly to the reader in sixteen chapters.  He covers his early life and schooling in some depth and makes it interesting by letting the reader know what shaped him as a comedian and as a man.  Then comes his University life in Cambridge where he met future Monty Python collaborators, got his first taste of performing, got his degree (barely) and then tossed it aside to enter the world  as a writer and performer for the BBC.  The last eight chapters cover Cleese's work, performance, and travel adventures.  Those adventures included being in a musical without being able to sing, touring with the Cambridge Circus in  New Zealand and then America without losing his BBC position, and getting married (for the first time).   Then, Cleese informs the reader on the BBC shows for which he wrote and/or performed in, and the movie scripts he and Graham Chapman worked on writing for Peter Sellers and others. Finally, Cleese describes the coming together of talent which created The Monty Python Show in 1969.  Unfortunately, that is where So, Anyway... ends, right where many folk's interest congregate.  Cleese does provide a postscript chapter that discusses the success of The Monty Python Reunion Show in 2014 revealing how some of the Monty Python sketches were created.  But that is just a teaser for what could be revealed.  Hopefully, John Cleese is busy writing the rest of his story and provide a willing audience his insight on the creation of Fawlty Towers, A Fish Called Wanda and other movies and television shows. 

An Examination on When, Where, and Why We Learn!

Carey, Benedict.  How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where and Why It
       Happens.  New York: Random House, 2014.  ISBN: 978-0-8129-9388-2


Learning takes place everywhere and in many surprising ways.  Benedict Carey mines the research literature on learning to provide the results scientists, psychologists, and educators' labors.  In ten short chapters with titles like "Breaking Good Habits," "The Hidden Value of Ignorance," and "Learning Without Thinking," the reader accompanies the author on an exploratory voyage on the frontier of learning theory.

One key fact Carey discovered is that scientists and others are still just laying the groundwork on how learning actually happens, so be prepared to change your strategies in the future.  How memory works is still under construction so what is known is almost overshadowed by what is not known.  However, the author does provide ways for the reader to increase the odds of their efforts being rewarded.  Besides, looking at study habits, sleep habits, long-term vs short term memories, pretesting material before actual reading the material, and many other bizarre practices, the author improvises ways you can utilize what is know in improving how you learn. 

How We Learn is easily read, but take the time to think through the implications of Carey's findings and then try implementing  one or two of the strategies.  Good learning to you!

Missing Scriptures: A Brief Examination.

Hoffman, Joel M.  The Bible's Cutting Room Floor: The Holy Scriptures Missing From Your Bible.
        New York: Thomas Dunne, 2014.  ISBN: 978-1-250-04796-0

Anyone who has read through the whole Bible knows that books are mentioned that are not available today.  Anyone who has looked at various versions of the Bible has encountered books such as the Maccabees that appear in Catholic Bibles, but not Protestant Bibles.  If you have read about the extended process of creating the Bible, you would know that not all books that some believed to be scripture made it into the Biblical canon.

Readers may find the subtitle (The Holy Scriptures Missing From Your Bible) to be misleading as this book does not provide a listing of scriptures missing from the Bible.  Rather, Joel Hoffman provides, in the first chapter, background on the social/political and cultural milieu during the writing of Scripture.  He next provides a chapters on locating the Dead Sea Scrolls and the impact on Biblical understanding. This is followed by a chapter on the Septuagint and its influence on the Bible we have.  He does a similar examination on how Josephus' writings interact with Scripture.  Joel Hoffman then has three chapters that critique The Life of Adam and Eve, The Apocalypse of Abraham, and The Book of Enoch in relation to what these titles reveal that is not found in the rest of Scripture.  He finishes with a look at the big picture of missing Scripture.  He also includes an appendix of recommended sources for further investigation 

Overall, the book is worth reading more for the broad picture Joe Hoffman paints regarding the multiple sources that inter-played in the creation of the scriptural canon  than the look at individual books.