Entertaining, sometimes-insightful political philippics, although they lack timeliness and depth.
An assemblage of spirited opinions from a political blog.
Mento offers a collection of posts that he previously published from 2005 to 2012 on Thieves in the Temple, a “political action weblog.” They cover a broad range of topics, including the Iraq War, the failings of the media, the 2008 housing crisis, and environmental protection. Each entry is just a single paragraph in length and focuses only on one issue, resulting in a litany of quick-witted reactions rather than lengthy disquisitions. The author unabashedly identifies himself as a purveyor of liberal values—both on practical and moral grounds—but he directs his criticisms at both sides of the aisle, as he’s more committed to a thoughtful liberalism than to any particular party. For example, there’s no shortage of scathing judgments of Barack Obama’s policies, both as a senator and as president. And although Mento generally avoids grand philosophical issues, he permeates the book with discussion of what the essences of liberalism and conservatism really are. Some of the most intellectually engaging discussions revolve around the definition of an authentically conservative creed; for example, he argues that a true conservative would embrace economic protectionism rather than internationally free markets: “And wouldn’t a real conservative think of a ‘global economy’ as a near-synonym for ‘foreign entanglements?’ ” Mento writes with acerbic flair and has a talent for distilling complex issues into quickly digestible parts. Also, he combines the comic with the serious seamlessly—just about every post is studded with sarcastic irony. However, there are limitations that are inherent to the book’s format: one-paragraph discussions are rarely deep and have a tendency to devolve into platitudes. Further, because Mento’s discussions usually targeted news of the moment, much of the book feels dated. The signature virtue of a blog is its responsiveness to current events, so it seems odd to immortalize such ephemeral reflections in print.
Entertaining, sometimes-insightful political philippics, although they lack timeliness and depth.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Blunt Instruments
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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 Yorkerstaff 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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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