Redux #6 - "Where Men Win Glory" by Jon Krakauer

Football and war are far from my favorite topics, but I am a fan of Jon Krakauer, so there was never any question of my reading his latest book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (2009). Whether Krakauer is talking about climbing Mt. Everest or fundamentalist Mormons, he never fails to draw me in with his in-depth and sympathetic research and storytelling. And Where Men Win Glory was no different, sucking me into the life of Pat Tillman and deeply affecting me.

I find the news incredibly frustrating to watch, so for better or worse, I tend to avoid it like the plague. Thus, although Pat Tillman's story sounded vaguely familiar, I knew basically no details about his life, his death, or how it was reported at the time. I have since learned that Pat Tillman was an idealistic and unique individual whose hard work and self confidence earned him a spot on the Arizona Cardinals' NFL team after college. But the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 affected him deeply, and his idealism and love of challenges had him giving up a promising and lucrative football contract and leaving behind his loving wife to join, along with his younger brother, the Army Rangers for a three year contract. After his training and a relatively noneventful tour of duty in Iraq, Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Adding insult to injury, the true story of his death was kept from his friends and family as the Bush administration turned him into a martyr and symbol of the war on terror.

I love the way Krakauer writes: he finds a subject that deeply interests him and delves into every facet and detail in order to give a comprehensive picture of the people involved, their motivations, and the environment surrounding them. And I don't know how he does it, but I couldn't put this book down--even the detailed descriptions of Pat's football games had me gripping the edges of the book and reading on without pause. With such a detailed and careful look at Tillman's life as well as the many revealing quotes from Pat Tillman's journals, I felt like I knew him, and I knew that I would have liked him. It's hard for me to even imagine what his brothers, parents, wife, and friends went through when they lost him, and I was left with my constant refrain when it comes to war: What a waste. Why do we do this? What a waste.

Krakauer dicusses in some detail some other friendly fire cases as well as the story of Jessica Lynch, all of which were hi-jacked by the Bush administration and re-told in a more palatable way in order to encourage the country to support the war. I really felt like I got a good, visceral idea of what happens during a war when everything gets fucked up beyond recognition and there are no do-overs. Some of the reviews on Amazon complained that Krakauer was too partisan and used this book to dump on the Bush administration. Certainly, Krakauer is no fan of the Bush administration and is obviously disgusted (as am I) by how they started the war in Iraq, ran the war in Afghanistan, and used Pat Tillman's death for their own purposes, but his primary focus remains on the life and thoughts of Pat Tillman. Krakauer does spend a couple of one-sided pages on the 2000 Bush-Gore election and the Supreme Court decision that gave Bush the presidency, but when seen as one of the many, seemingly unrelated circumstances that eventually led up to Tillman's death, I can see why Krakauer included it. Krakauer also understands the inevitability of friendly fire and that governments have consistently tried to cover up these instances throughout history; in that, he doesn't single out the Bush administration.

Krakauer's style, subjects, and attention to detail are especially appealing to me, so I am not certain that everyone will like this book as much as me, but I found it eye-opening, insightful, educational, and moving. I also believe that you have to read the entire book to really understand (as much as is possible) what made Tillman click and how he lived his life and lost it. A short synopsis won't give you the full picture.

Redux #5 - "The Language of Emotional Intelligence" by Jeanne Segal

I don't want to spend much time discussing The Language of Emotional Intelligence: The Five Essential Tools for Building Powerful and Effective Relationships (2008) by Jeanne Segal because I wasn't impressed with it, and I really don't want to spend any more time on it. I picked up this book as part of my continuing efforts to become a firefighter. The entry test for firefighters involve some questions on "emotional well-being" and "interpersonal skills." Although I am pretty confident in my ability to do the math and English sections on the test, I figured it wouldn't hurt to focus a bit on "emotional well-being" and "interpersonal skills"--an important part of the test, and two things that law school definitely does not encourage. So, after looking at a list of recommended books from the little firefighter study packet, I found this one.

Now, I like learning how people think and interact; I usually find psychology studies fascinating, but this book was a pretty painful read. It was so general it was impossible to learn anything, and it was incredibly repetitive. I've learned more about humans from reading books about chimpanzees. There weren't many reviews on Amazon for this one, but they were all pretty positive. Now that I've read the book, however, I suspect the author/publisher has been busy on Amazon themselves. I'm a little wary of these "self-help" type books, but I wouldn't mind them if they were a little more interesting and helpful. I might try one or two more from that list just to be thorough, but if they're like this one, I'm giving up.

Redux #4 - "Half the Sky" by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

I picked up Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009) by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as a direct result of reading a Cannonball review on Pajiba. I hadn't heard of the book or the authors, but it sounded so interesting that I immediately put it on hold at the library. It's often hard to read books that focus on the worst living conditions in the world--they can easily become mindnumbing and depressing, but I was impressed by how Kristoff and WuDunn balanced intelligent communication of the worst effects of poverty and gender imbalance on women, while still inspiring me with stories of women who manage to survive, and sometimes even thrive, despite horrors and limitations I could hardly comprehend.

Half the Sky focuses on women and three particular abuses that they face in disturbing numbers, including: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence, including honor killings and mass rape; and maternal mortality. Using personal stories of women they have encountered and interviewed on their travels, they describe a system of slavery of women in sex trafficking that involves significantly larger numbers than those involved at the height of the African slave trade in the 1800's. Young girls are sold, kidnapped, or tricked into a brothel, and once there, they are beaten and drugged into submission. Often addicted and infected with AIDS, they live hopeless lives. Even if they manage to run away, most often they do not speak the local language, they have nowhere to go, and the police might send them back or sell them themselves. The hopelessness was sickening, yet there were women who not only survived these situations but managed to set up programs to help others.

Another focus of Half the Sky was the the effects of untreated fistulas on African women. Often caused either by incredibly violent rapes that tear holes into the bladder and bowels or long, difficult labors, women are left dripping urine and feces without control. Their husbands and family will abandon them or sometimes build a hut for them far away in order to avoid the smell, and they become pariahs. Adequate maternal care could help avoid this problem and a small surgery can often heal the fistulas, but many women do not have the access or money for it.

There are many other personal stories and crises women are facing around the world discussed in the book. Kristof and WuDunn make no secret of their goal to encourage and mobilize their readers to help the women, whose stories they are telling, and the many others in need. Yet they manage to do it without being sanctimonious or partisan and by taking an objective look at real, grassroots programs, headed by locals, that have worked well throughout the developing world. For instance, they report that something as simple as providing school uniforms keeps young girls in school longer, preventing them from getting pregnant so young. Also, something as simple as adding iodine to salt can prevent mental retardation in children and significantly raise IQ points.

I would recommend this book to anyone. The personal stories are well-told and wrenching, and it is full of well-reasoned information about problems and solutions for improving women's--and thus everyone else's--standard of living in the developing world.

Redux #3 - "Working Fire" by Zac Unger

Now that I'm on my firefighting kick, there will no doubt be a portion of my reading devoted to all things fire. Just tonight I was dutifully searching the internet trying to find the reality television show about the Orange County Fire Academy, and I was a little too excited when I finally found it. Definitely intense and intimidating, but I was disappointed that there weren't any women in the class. It's easier to compare myself to other women, and I wanted to see how challenging it was for them. Oh well, when I get a chance I'll search out other seasons. By now the reason I picked up Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman (2004) by Zac Unger is probably obvious. I've decided I want to be a firefighter, but my legal background has not adequately prepared me for what I might be getting myself into. I'm also afraid that I'm too skinny to ever really be a firefighter, so I'm trying to learn anything and everything that I can through any possible medium.

Working Fire appealed to me because the author, Zac Unger, is a Brown grad and the son of two Berkeley-hippieish intellectuals. He did not have a background in fire, knew no one who was a firefighter, and kind of decided on a bit of a whim to become one. But he succeeded and continues to enjoy his job today. I was somewhat relieved that someone I could relate to in many ways found success at the firehouse. Unger tells the story of how, at his mother's suggestion, he chose to apply to the Oakland Fire Department instead of going to graduate school in Biology and becoming a Park Ranger. He realized that he was suffering through Biology and animal science, something he was not interested in, just so he could have a physical, outdoor job, but that it wasn't what he really wanted to do. After an application process that lasted almost two years, Unger is accepted into the Fire Academy, which includes four months of intense physical training, EMT training, and fire training. After this training there is a year spent as a "probie" (probationary officer) at different fire stations in the city before becoming a "real" firefighter.

Unger does a lot of good things with this book. With a number of entertaining anecdotes he develops a good picture of what it's like to be a firefighter including the stress, difficulties cameraderie, and monotony. I especially enjoyed the self-deprecating stories about the often embarassing mistakes he made as a rookie. I also appreciated Unger's point of view, especially when it came to the Academy. Unger had never even called anyone "sir" before he was thrown into the militaristic, bootcamp-style academy. The instructors were yelling in his face on the first day and Unger was thinking, wait a minute, shouldn't we sit around in circles and talk about our goals and fears?

I was incredibly interested whenever the book went into what firefighters do and how they do it. I was also interested in Unger's take as someone who was something of an "outsider." However, I felt the weaker areas were near the end where Unger tries to sum-up and explain his experiences. I got the feeling that he was more enamored with the image of his job than the actual job and I sometimes sensed a lack of honesty. But on the whole, it was a quick, entertaining, and informative read.

Redux #2 - "The House at Sugar Beach" by Helene Cooper

I first heard of, and got interested in, The House at Sugar Beach (2008) by Helene Cooper from a review on Pajiba. I can't even remember what the review said, besides being positive, but it obviously caught my attention because I picked it up from the library to see what it was all about. And I'm very glad I read it. I'm always interested in honest, insightful memoirs, and Cooper did not disappoint.

Helene Cooper is a happy child growing up on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia in West Africa in the 1970's. Her family is one of the privileged elite of Liberia, with both sides of her family having helped to found the country back in the 1800's when they came over from America to form a colony of freed slaves. She lives with her parents and sisters in a large and luxurious house outside of the city. But her life comes crashing down right before her fourteenth brithday after a coup d'etat in 1980. With her family in danger and government officials being killed, they flee to America. Helene Cooper's family is split apart and she loses everything she ever knew. Eventually Cooper adopts the United States as her home, but she's pushed to the back of her mind everything she never dealt with back in Liberia. Near the end of the book, Cooper finally goes back to the increasingly ravaged and war-torn Liberia: back to find a lost foster sister, back to see her old house that had been turned into an execution site, and back to face what happened.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting, moving, and informative. Mixed together is an honest and often funny coming-of-age story, some history and culture of Liberia, a family drama, and the horror and effects of war. But even with the subject matter, Cooper never resorts to sensationalism, and her view of the ethnic disparities and conflicts in Liberia seem honest and balanced. I've always been pretty interested in Africa, so I especially enjoyed this book, but I would still recommend it to anyone.

Cannonball Redux #1 - "Empire of Ivory" by Naomi Novik

Maybe it's fitting that my first book for Cannonball Redux is Empire of Ivory (2007) by Naomi Novik, since I started out this series, about a dragon named Temeraire, last year because of other Cannonball reviews. I don't generally read fantasy books or books that have dragons, but it sounded fun. And now the compulsive side of me has kicked in and I have decided that I will finish out this series.

Empire of Ivory is the fourth book in a series that (I think) is planned for nine books, although only five have been written so far. The series follows the adventures of Captain Will Lawrence of the Aerial Corps and his dragon, Temeraire, in Britain in the early 19th Century. Novik takes the historical context of the Napoleonic Wars but inserts dragons into her world. The dragons are smart, capable of talking, and have incredibly disparate personalities and skills, while being incredibly loyal to their friends and handlers.

While reading the third book, I was definitely getting a little bored and annoyed. Not much was going on and I was having some major problems with a couple of plot points. So, it was more out of duty than excitement, that I finally picked up Empire. Happily, I enjoyed this last one more than books 2 and 3. There still might have been a couple slow points, and a lot of the wonder and creativity of Novik's world has gotten a little stale since the first book, but there are still many engaging and sympathetic characters that kept me involved. Also, this latest book occurs in Africa, and seemed to have a little more action.

There is one aspect of Novik's writing that I find interesting but also somewhat frustrating: Novik picks up on a number of interesting questions and tensions in her world, but then she doesn't fully address them. For instance, women serve in the Aerial Corps because a type of dragon (Longwings) only accept women as trainers; so in the small world of the Aerial Corps, women have been thrust forward a couple hundred years when it comes to their rights and responsibilities. Novik has created a pretty interesting situation, but the little tension and conflict it elicits doesn't dig very deep. The women never have any issues with giving up their children, living a life of secret, or never being a part of society. Instead, Novik primarly focuses on how Lawrence is often surprised and uncomfortable with the role that women play in the Corps.

In addition, I think Novik brings up the question of why the dragons are fighting, or if it's even moral to pit them against one another. The dragons fight the Napoleonic Wars out of loyalty for their handlers, and many of them enjoy the challenge and excitement. But they don't have any interest in the politics of it, and even Lawrence realizes that Temeraire would be just as happy, if not more so, fighting for the French. But then she doesn't take the question to its conclusion. Temeraire is pretty independent and opinionated and would not stand long to be ordered on so many pointless errands and distructive wars--killing the French dragons that he easily befriends in other circumstances. At times, I feel sure the dragons will give up on England and fly off on their own. They are smart and incredibly powerful and are perfectly capable of dominating the human populations.

I also found the ending kind of surprising and somewhat unbelievable. *Spoiler* Lawrence is so horrified that the British sent an ill and infected dragon to the French that he goes rogue, steals the antidote from his own country, and delivers it to the French--all because he does not want other dragon populations to suffer. Then, out of some misguided loyalty for his country, he heads back to England with Temeraire knowing that he is facing a hanging for treason. I have a number of problems with Lawrence's decisionmaking here, but perhaps it's just because I value my life over loyalty to a political state. How can Lawrence have no problem with war--whose basic premise relies on sacrificing men and women for whatever political objective seems so important at the time--but be so offended by spreading disease to dragons that he gives up his life and his country to stop it. Sure, it's sneaky and backhanded to spread disease, but I'm sure decimating the French population of dragons will save thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of British lives, as well as British dragons. Although I appreciate the Geneva convention and any kind of kindness and humanity given to the other side during a war, it's always somewhat absurd to distinguish between different kinds of killing. So, it's okay to persuade dragons, who have no political interests, to tear eachother apart in mid-air, but the worst thing you could ever do is allow a disease to spread among them? And if what Britain did was so bad, there is no reason for Lawrence to give up his life. If he is so honorable and attached to England that he would voluntarily go back to be hanged, then he wouldn't have committed treason in the first place. But that's just my opinion.