by Christopher McDougall ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2015
A mostly engaging mix of World War II history, Greek mythology, endurance training and spiritual self-help that doesn’t...
A book beyond category attempts to engage readers on a number of levels.
A less ambitious author could have focused this successfully as a World War II thriller, a nonfiction account of how a multinational band of guerrillas kidnapped a German general on the Nazi-occupied island of Crete (see Rick Stroud’s Kidnap in Crete, 2015). Yet Men’s Health contributing editor McDougall (Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, 2009) interweaves this narrative with inquiries into the uniqueness of Crete, the nature of heroism, the possibility that some Greek myths might have historical legitimacy (“Just because men and women of our era don’t live up to the myths doesn’t mean no one ever has, or will again”), a first-person, adventure-travel account of his attempt to solve the mystery by discovering the path of the kidnappers, and an indictment of the fitness industry, whose health clubs and diets that stress carb-loading might do more harm than good. There are compelling insights and provocative assertions throughout, but the narrative organization suggests a risky juggling act that sometimes seems arbitrary, and those preparing for a marathon might read it differently than World War II buffs will. Paraphrasing Plutarch, McDougall writes, “Heroes care. True heroism, as the ancients understood, isn’t about strength or boldness or even courage. It’s about compassion….[The hero] has to care so much about what’s human, it brings out what’s godly.” Using examples and anecdotes spanning decades, the author shows how ordinary people can display extraordinary heroism, a quality not limited by age or gender. He suggests that in “natural training,” a sense of play trumps the rigors of working out and that competition is just showing off.
A mostly engaging mix of World War II history, Greek mythology, endurance training and spiritual self-help that doesn’t always cohere.Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-307-59496-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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