A Few Monsters, Martians, and Weird Things in Flyover Country

Hollars, B. J.  Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians, and the Weird in Flyover
         Country.  Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska Press, 2019.  ISBN: 978-1-4962-1560-4

Do you enjoy hunting for "The Truth [that] is out there?"  Or maybe you watched Haunted Indiana on PBS like I did in the 1980s.  Or maybe you read Chariots of the Gods and others of that ilk growing up.  If so, you would likely be interested in Midwestern Strange where beasts roam, saucers fly, and the "weird" wanders about.

B. J. Hollars, an English professor at a Midwestern university, took a year to explore his childhood desire to understand Bigfoot and other creatures of myths and wonders.  As a result of his odyssey around the Midwest, he compiled this  book of nine cases divided in "Monsters," Martians," and "The Weird."  Monsters include The Beast of Bray Road (Elkhorn, WI), Oscar the Turtle (Churubusco, IN), and The Mothman (Point Plesant, WV).  Martians include Joe Simonton's Space Pancakes (Eagle River, WI), The Minot Air Force Base Sightings (Minot, ND), and The Val Johnson Incident (Marshall County, MN).  The Weird includes The Hodag (Rhinelander, WI), Project ELF (Clam Lake, WI), and The Kensington Runestone (Kensington, MN).

B.J. Hollars makes no claims on solving any of these mysteries, instead he seeks to document each case to the best of his ability with the sources (interviews, documents, radar images, etc.) he has.  And he is willing to live with the fact that these mysteries are unsolved, are you?  Read Midwestern Strange and decide for your self.

A German and Soviet Visit to Poland - 1939

Forczyk, Robert.  Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939.  Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing,
         2019.  ISBN: 9781472834959

 How much of a buff are you on World War II?  Can you quote the minutia of tank, ship and plane statistics?  Do you know which country had the 4th largest army in Europe in 1939?  Can you describe the opening battles of World War II?  Evening if you can do all that, you still can learn a lot from Robert Forczyk's Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939.

Robert Forczyk provides a revisionist history of the standard story of the Polish invasion by diving into Polish history and telling the story from the Polish viewpoint as much as possible.  He spends the first four chapters on laying the groundwork of the formation of the 2nd Polish Republic, its enemies, its preparation for survival, its arms race with its neighbors, and the bad hand it was dealt by the Western Allies.  Then comes the war.  And this is not the brief tale of German victories over hapless Poles.  Rather this is a tale of inept leadership, bad planning, lack of support, and that was just on the German side!  The Poles fought hard, but also suffered from inept leadership, lack of resources, lack of support from the West, and the dagger stuck in their back by the Soviet Union.

So if you are looking for a scholarly, readable study of the 1939 Polish Campaign replete with notes, maps, and bibliography that has a strong viewpoint, Case White could be that book!

Scandals! Juicy Scandals!

MacNabb, Matt.  Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals.  Yorkshire, Great Britain: Pen
          and Sword History, 2019.  ISBN: 978-1-52674-074-8

Do you enjoy movies?  Do you read People or Entertainment Weekly or similar stories on the web?  Do you enjoy learning the stories of the "real" people who appear larger than life on the silver screen?  And the most important question - do you want to know secrets Hollywood would rather not acknowledge?  If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, then this book may be for you!

Matt MacNabb in thirteen short chapters and an introduction provides a flashlight on the dark history of thirteen actors and actresses.  In each chapter, the reader gets a brief synopsis of the actor/actress's early life and then NacNabb dives into the various scandals that marks their career, and then finishes with another brief synopsis of the rest of their life and if they have a star.  The book opens with Evelyn Nesbit and closes with Clara Bow.  The chapters in between cover Jean Harlow, Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Thelma Todd, Mae West, Lana Turner, William Desmond Taylor, Barbara LaMarr, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and Mabel Normand.

Hollywood's Dark History is a scandal snack book.  The book has a brief bibliography of sources and a few photos, but does not really dig into the scandals.  So if you are looking for a quick read to bring you up to speed on some of the more famous scandals of early Hollywood history, this title would be a decent starting place.

Comic Book Propaganda!

Goodnow, Trischa, and James J. Kimble, ed.  The 10 Cent War: Comic Books, Propaganda, and 
          World War II.  Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2016.  ISBN: 978-1-4968-1030-4

During the lead up to World War II, comic books were a growing phenomenon.  In the United States, many comic book artists considered their mission not just to entertain, but also to influence the public and later to support the war effort.  In The 10 Cent War, Goodnow and Kimble bring together a number of essays that dive into the variety of intersections between comic books and propaganda during WWII.

The opening essay considers how women were portrayed in the military and elsewhere in the war effort.  The next essay looks at comics portraying the Flying Tigers and Chinese allies. The Boy Commandos and various super-hero sidekicks such as Bucky are examined in separate essays.  Superman is considered as an allegory for isolationist/interventionist United States with Lois Lane as Europe.  Captain America and Wonder Woman each merit their own essay.  Then there is True Comic - using non-fiction as counter propaganda!  Finally there are a quartet of essays  looking at ordinary kids doing their bit for the war.

Propaganda during World War II and comic books is an interesting combination.  The 10 Cent War provides a diverse and decent set of essays that explore numerous facets of this topic.

Advice for Cooking the Milk Street Way

Kimball, Christopher.  Milk Street: The New Rules: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook.  
         New York: Voracious/Little Brown & Company, 2019.  ISBN:978-0-316-42305-2

Do you like to eat?  Do you like to cook for your self and others?  Are you willing to try something different to spice up your cooking game?  Then you might want to snag a copy of Milk Street: The New Rules and see if any of these rules will work for you.

In Milk Street: The New Rules, Christopher Kimball and the Milk Street crew provide 75 rules to help you cook better, provide more flavor, and think about what you are cooking and why.  This is not your ordinary cookbook with meat, potatoes, and desert sections.  Instead there are 75 "Rules" spread across vegetables, beans & grain, noodles & breads, eggs, seafood, chicken, pork, and beef.  Scattered among those sections are sidebars on spices, sauces, and the Milk Street cooking philosophy.

The recipes that illustrate the various rules tend to be varied in complexity and spiciness with cooking times and ingredients followed a description of the dish, pertinent notes, and instructions.  Often substitutions for certain ingredients are provided as well.

If you listen to Milk Street Radio or watch the Milk Street cooking show, you will have an idea of what is in Milk Street: The New Rules.  But even if you are not a fan, you can pick up tips and new recipes that will enhance your own cooking.  Read and enjoy! 

A World Full of Math

Woo, Eddie.  Ir's A Numberful World: How Math is Hiding Everywhere...from the Crown of a Tree
          to the Sound of a Sine Wave.  New York: The Experiment, 2019.
         ISBN: 978-1-61519-612-8

Were you born a mathematician?  Do you like math?  Or did you like math and then got frustrated with it?  Does Algebra or Calculus strike dread in your soul? Or maybe you get lost in the variables of life and just need to know what is going on.  Eddie Woo strives to answer at least some of these questions in It's A Numberful Life.

Eddie Woo confesses in the Prologue that he had little joy in math, but then he began training as a mathematics teacher when he turned 19.  He had learned a secret - "Math is all around us."  In 26 short chapters, he takes the readers on a whirlwind tour of the world beginning with babies as mathematicians, then going up into the sky to question why rainbows are circles, diving into sound and music with wave cycles, comparing veins in your body with lightening, delving into cryptography, killer butterflies, and card tricks to astonish your friends, explaining why there are so many conspiracy theories, why electronic devices lie about how long they will last, and several other topics!  He provides plenty of visual examples to make the processing and absorption of information easier and much more fun.  And that is the key to this book.  Eddie Woo had fun writing this book and he wants the reader to have fun reading it!

So if you are looking for a quick reading, non-fiction book that may blow your mind and help you understand math, pick up It's A Numberful World and enjoy!

Reading More Than Just Narnia

Kort, Wesley A.  Reading C. S. Lewis: A Commentary.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016. 
          ISBN: 978-0-19-022134-8

When C. S. Lewis is mentioned, what pops into your mind?  Is it The Chronicles of Narnia?  Out of the Silent Planet?  Or maybe The Screwtape Letters.  Wesley A. Kort covers all of these and more in his commentary on C. S. Lewis.

Wesley A. Kort divides his reading of C. S. Lewis's works into three parts.  Part One examines Surprised by Joy, The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity.  He spends a chapter on each book and ends Part One with a chapter of what he considers reasonable assumptions.  In Part Two, he covers Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, The Abolition of Man, and That Hideous Strength, ending with a chapter of cultural critiques.  Part Three delves into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Four Loves, The Magician's Nephew,  and The Last Battle, and finishes with a chapter on some principles applied.

Wesley A. Kort makes clear in his introduction that he is writing a commentary not on his advocacy of Christianity or religion in general, but rather an examination of several constants found in his writings.  He is clear in what he admires about Lewis's writings.  He is also direct about what he finds troubling in Lewis's attitudes and viewpoints.  Overall, it is refreshing to have a reasonably clear eyed view of C. S. Lewis which is not colored by religious bias.