Finished (E-Reader) - "David and Goliath" - Malcolm Gladwell

I think Malcolm Gladwell missed the mark on this book.

I really liked the stories he told (e.g. privacy-fictionalized accounts of getting into a 1st tier college, explorations of dyslexia, loss of parents, etc.).  All had aspects of the miraculous to them, but all also carried a needed message that all was not bleak, that there were lessons to be learned that could propel to "normalcy" or beyond.
The recognition that most thinks aren't a linear relationship - none is bad, some is good more is better, too much is bad) which he illustrates in class size (there is an optimum, too many or too few are harder to handle), harsh criminal penalties (too harsh begins to have drawbacks which outweigh the benefits, particularly if cost is considered), wealth (too much creates problems with parenting) and so on.

Where the book loses me is the seeming need to assign "positive" attributes to these success stories.  It is great that compensating for dyslexia provided some excellent skill sets that made a few folks very successful.  But does it make sense to even formulate the question "would you want your children to be dyslexic?"?

I find this odd - isn't the "life lesson" that there are few dead ends enough?  Isn't the belief Stephen Hawking has that he wouldn't have had the drive to be as successful without his disabilty enough?  Do you really want to ask him whether he wants other to experience Lou Gehrig's disease?  (Stephen Hawking in not in the book but certainly could have been)

I found the artificial drive for this type of structure detracted from the tone of the book - it actually interfered with the lessons that could have and should have been drawn.

The re-telling and analysis of the biblical David and Goliath story was very interesting - the "slinger" vs. "foot soldier" military analysis that would predict a "David" win over a "Goliath" due to superior weaponry and tactics is not one I'd heard before.  That does change the tone of the story, but not the way Gladwell wants to spin the rest of the stories - most of the stories aren't really "better weaponry" stories they are more "glass half full" or "when life gives you lemons you make lemonade" stories.

I'd still recommend the book - each chapter is an interesting read - I'd just avoid some of Gladwell's analysis.

Finished (E-Reader) - "Johnny Carson" - Henry Bushkin

I really liked Johnny Carson, the man and the book.  I had read about Carson before, so was not particularly surprised that he had a difficult side (4 marriages might give you the same inkling).
I liked Henry Bushkin's book - it showed both sides of the man (Carson) from someone who worked, developed and buddied around with Carson for 20 years or so.

I was surprised how quickly and completely Carson could turn - complete trust to complete non-personhood.  I guess it is one of the unseen advantages to wealth and celebrity - lots of folks standing in line for social or business reasons - nobody would ever really be in an irreplacable position.

Carson does come off as an honest man - he is very clear that he has his agenda and you can work with it or find someplace else.  He had flashes of temper but didn't seem to really hold a grudge, and was reasonably willing to pay off those he wanted to disappear quite generously.

Bushkin rides the rollercoaseter, very high and very low, sees Carson being a very generous person, and sees him being quite a prick - basically seeing him as a real person.  Even though Bushkin ends up as an "outsider", you get the feeling that he would like it to have turned out otherwise, though not in any sycophantic manner.  Carson made Bushkin rich and successful, and Bushkin remains grateful, even though he was treated rather shabbily at times, particularly toward the end of their relationship.

It's nice to see "behind the scenes" at the Oscars or Vegas, though oddly not much on the actual Tonight Show, and to vacation with Carson.

I think both Bushkin and Carson come out of this book likable, and there is an honest recounting of their faults to see them as 3-D, not paper cut-outs.

Finished (Comics) - "Superior Spider-Man" - Marvel Now - 1-20

I haven't been thrilled with Marvel's handling of their flagship character, Spider-Man.
 

Over the past few years, they've retroactively changed Peter Parker's first serious romance, the ill-fated Gwendolyn Stacy, into a bit of a harlot, by having her sleep with Norman Osborn (a.k.a. the Green Goblin) and secretly having twins through that union.  For those that aren't familiar with Gwen, her death in the early '70's at the hands of the Green Goblin is a seminal moment in comics - a complete shocker that still resonates to this day.

As if that horrible event wasn't enough, they also created a whole mystic "spider-totem" oddity, where Peter Parker wasn't the normal wallflower upon whom fate bestowed power, but the most recent of a series of mystical spider people (or somesuch).  He also started creating webbing out of his wrists, not the mechanical ones from the original stories (could have been out of his butt, so you rolls the dice, you takes your chances).

The coup-de-grace was the decision of the Marvel headless honchos to decide to remove the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson through a deal with the devil (Mephisto).  Basically, through sheer stupidity, Parker revealed his identity publicly as part of the Civil War storyline, which, predictably, had the effect of one of his villians (Kingpin in this case) taking out a hit on the family.  They tried to shoot Peter, who sensed the danger and pulled Mary Jane to the floor, and the bullet hit Aunt May, his 11,000 year old aunt. A distressed Peter and Mary Jane traded their marriage for the life of Peter's aunt (I did mention that she is a really old bat, didn't I?).  What this convoluted and uncharacteristic decision did was to remove the married Spider-Man, which many at Marvel felt was a mistake and never should have happened, without a divorce or widowing of Peter (though, really, both are preferable to making deals with Satan, I'd think).

I really stopped being interested in that character though that process.

I picked up the first 20 issues of "Superior Spider-Man".  This is the series which is an offshoot of Amazing Spider-Man #700, where a dying Dr. Octopus manages to take over Peter's body, leaving his own to die, thus making Spider-Man (powers and body) run by the brain of Dr. Octopus. A really unpleasant circumstance, but better than "Slut-Gwen", "Peter Parker - Mystic Spider", "no longer human Web Spinner" and "Hi Devil, how's it hangin'".

Ignoring the problems when Parker eventually regains his body and identity for the moment, the stories are pretty entertaining - a take with a much more arrogant Spider-Man taking his scientific mind to the task of eliminating the criminals - using spider-robots to patrol, ignoring the individual victims (sometimes) to achieve the larger picture, using lethal methods, if that seems to be the logical direction.

The problem when Peter returns, is that his alter-ego has now crossed the line to killing and maiming in non-accidental ways.  Can he actually convince the world that it was somebody else?

Oh, I know, why not make a deal with the devil?

(E-Reader) "Frozen in Time" - Mitchell Zukoff

I ran across "Frozen in Time" somewhat accidentally, and am very glad I read it.
The book is a true account of lost planes in Greenland during WWII and the associated rescue missions, both successful and not.

The heroism of the rescuers, and the groundbreaking attempts to land on glaciers in small planes, are really worth reading.  Attempting to hike kilometers to the coast to meet with ships in the short window before the coastline freezes up and the ships either gone, or marooned themselves, the ever-present danger of crevasses, stealing folks forever into the dark, the creaking of the relative safety of the fuselage as the ice upon which it sits begins to be drawn into a crevasse, the toes of the frostbite/gangrene victim dropping off ....

The "other side" is the ability of the downed airmen to survive for months in the shell of the aircraft, or some of the rescue crews to survive in the snow caves built on the fly.

The heartbreak of the "near miss" recoveries highlights the difficulties and the truly amazing successes that were had at the time.

The whole idea of "plane down" go look, now your plane is down, rescue on the way, that plane is down...with renewed heroism and the "no man left behind" mentality that is difficult to conceive of in present times.

The present-day connection is the wish to recover the planes, or more specifically the bodies of the Coast Guard rescue crew that remains locked in ice.  The big "trick" is to calculate how much the wreckage has moved, along with glacier movements, in the 60+ years since they were trapped.  Modern technologies are used to identify anomalies under the ice and cores drilled to identify success.  Even now, 60 years or more later, there is still danger lurking, still a very short weather window when one can even attempt on-site access and recovery.  Puts even more into the spotlight what was accomplished and what was attempted in the more primitive technology of WWII.

(E-Reader) "How to Talk to a Widower" - Jonathan Tropper

Having read John Green's "Looking for Alaska", which was recommended by my daughter, and finding I really liked it, I tried "How to Talk to a Widower", because, having read on the e-reader, I thought was the same author.
"Looking for Alaska" is the story of a small group of high school students at a private institution.  "Alaska" is one of the students.  The story is first person through one of the characters. ~ Spoiler ~ the key issue in the book is that the character Alaska gets drunk and runs off in her car and gets into a fatal accident.  The remaining characters are left with guilt (as they assisted in the drinking, and created a diversion so Alaska could leave the school), and are left wondering if Alaska died in an accident or a suicide.

"How to Talk to a Widower" is similar, in that it explores a tragedy from an "inside" perspective.  The main character is recovering from his wife's death (a plane crash that occurred about a year before the book starts).  His wife had a previous marriage, so there is a teenage boy who is now in the care of the previously absent birth father.

The main character writes articles for a  magazine called "How to Talk to a Widower" where he takes readers along on his recovery/depression, and provides personal advice on what is going through his mind and how he reacts to the actions of those interacting with him in his new circumstances (e.g. the married men take the opportunity to bring him to strip clubs, as a humanitarian gesture that they reluctantly have to attend; the women in the circle provide food).

The book is based at the post-death, 1 year mark, where the main character is being encouraged to date again.  Tropper does a good job of exploring the lingering depression and the guilt about moving on with life and the associated feelings of abandoning the now-ex-wife.

All in all, a very good read and very good characters - you are really interested in how things turn out.  I believe Tropper does a good job of getting 'inside" the situation, without devolving the story into psychoanalysis or an exercise in understanding depression.

Because I liked "How to Talk to a Widower", I subsequently read "This is Where I Leave You" and "One Last Thing Before I Go", both of which I liked as well.  Both have the same semi-autobiographical tone, and depth of understanding of the characters that they are good reads, easy to pick up and hard to put down.  The same "advantage/criticism" exists - Tropper doesn't wrap up complex problems in a nice simple solution - there is resolution to the immediate story, but the larger scale issues are left unresolved, as they are in real life.  The widower doesn't get married at the end, the surgery patient doesn't get the miracle cure (or die), the divorcee ends up in the weird "hate but maybe re-start" situation that is reality - a story where a replacement was found that made everything lovely, or a secret that makes everything good in perspective is not found.