Open any respectable book of quotations and there’s a 99.9 percent change you will see several from Henry David Thoreau. So, one might ask, is the world in need of a book consisting solely of selected quotes from Thoreau’s writing? Kenny Luck thought so, believing “we all could use a dose of Thoreau [...]
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Tim August 9th, 2010 | Tags: Book Reviews, Henry David Thoreau, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | One comment |
 Print This Post |  Email This PostWhen it comes to Scouting, I’m a washout. Not only didn’t I make it past Cub Scouts, tying my shoes is about as advanced as my knot repertoire gets. Fortunately, David Scott and Brendan Murphy’s The Scouting Party: Pioneering and Preservation, Progressivism and Preparedness in the Making of the Boy Scouts of America [...] Tim July 28th, 2010 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | 3 comments |
Print This Post | Email This Post“I’m alive.” As much incantation as statement of fact, that simple phrase had plenty of meaning for American journalist Jere Van Dyk when he was taken captive by the Taliban in February 2008 and held for 45 days. In Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban, it represents affirmation, a touch of [...] Tim July 23rd, 2010 | Tags: Afghanistan, Book Reviews, memoir, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Leave a comment |
Print This Post | Email This PostThere is an art to researching and writing biographies — at least good biographies. Although a work’s length and the amount of independent or original research may suggest how deeply a biographer delves into his subject, it certainly isn’t determinative of quality. At the same time, it is a field where the shorter [...] Tim July 19th, 2010 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, Leo Tolstoy, nonfiction, Review Copy, Russian literature, world literature | Category: Book Reviews | 2 comments |
Print This Post | Email This PostTitling a book may well be an art form in and of itself. Undoubtedly, the goal is to not simply to attract a reader but to convey something about the book itself. I have no idea how much study or analysis went into naming Dean King’s Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, [...] Tim July 12th, 2010 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | 2 comments |
Print This Post | Email This PostEach war generates its own collection of memoirs, novels and histories. Often, the best come after the conclusion of the war, thanks to the perspective of time. With combat in Afghanistan continuing, we probably have yet to see that war’s canon. Among contemporary accounts, though, Sebastian Junger’s War certainly is laudable, As a [...] Tim June 2nd, 2010 | Tags: Afghanistan, Book Reviews, nonfiction | Category: Book Reviews | Leave a comment |
Print This Post | Email This PostGiven recent history, it would seem the term “ethnic cleansing” is of late 20th Century origin. Armenian Golgotha, Grigoris Balakian’s firsthand account of the Armenian genocide during World War I, disabuses any such notion. Balakian, an Armenian priest, notes several times that the Ottoman Empire embarked on an intentional campaign to “cleanse” itself [...] Tim April 20th, 2010 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, memoir, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | 2 comments - (Comments are closed) |
Print This Post | Email This PostUsually lurking somewhere in today’s ongoing immigration debate is an idealized notion of times when the vast majority of those coming to our shores were Europeans. One of those periods was the early part of the 20th Century when eastern, central and southern Europeans came en masse. More than 1 ¼ million immigrants [...] Tim April 12th, 2010 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, immigration, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | 2 comments - (Comments are closed) |
Print This Post | Email This Post“Legend” is a word tossed around too easily and misused too often. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a legend is “an unverified story handed down from earlier times, especially one popularly believed to be historical.” In titling his latest book, James D. McLaird demonstrates he knows what the word means. Wild Bill Hickok [...] Tim April 5th, 2010 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy, South Dakota history | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) |
Print This Post | Email This PostWhen people hear the word LSD or the phrase “turn on, tune in, drop out,” a couple images likely come to mind. One is Timothy Leary, the most publicized advocate of LSD. Another is a group of spaced-out hippies in psychedelic clothing (often optional) at a “be-in.” What probably doesn’t come to [...] Tim March 24th, 2010 | Tags: 1960s, Book Reviews, drugs, history, LSD, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed |
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  The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.
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