Chasing the Moon

Stone, Robert and Andres, Alan. Chasing the Moon: The People, the Politics, and the Promise That Launched America into the Space Age. New York : Ballantine 2019. Print.

First Sentences:

The sun began rising over the northeast coast of Florida on what would be a humid subtropical mid-July morning....Nearly a million people were gathering under the harsh Florida sun to witness the departure of the first humans to attempt a landing on another world, the Earth;'s moon, 239,000 miles away. Should it be successful, the piloted lunar landing would culminate a decade of mounting anticipation.

Description:

I've had a long-time interest in the space program and have read many books about it. But my favorite for all-inclusiveness has always been The New Ocean (see below) by William E. Burrows. The only problem with it is it's huge (750 small print pages), very detailed with inclusions of reports, meeting notes, newspapers articles, interviews, etc. that, while fascinating to fans like me, might appear too daunting to the casual moonshot reader.

 

Enter my new favorite space age book: Robert Stone and Alan Andres' Chasing the Moon: The People, the Politics, and the Promise That Launched America into the Space Age. This is the companion book to the excellent six-part PBS television series of the same name. Here is a much more focused (350 pages) account of humans and space flight, from 1903 to the last man to walk on the moon, especially focusing on the United States' program to land a man on the moon and bring him home safely. 

 

Chasing the Moon introduces and provides information on:

• Wernher von Braun, who at age 18 started experimenting with rocket launching, free to do so since the WW I Treaty of Versailles did not specify rocketry in its military rearmament restrictions for Germany. After WW II, von Braun became one of the leaders of the US space program, rescued by the US government special program along with 100 other German rocket scientists and brought to the US. This action was made to close the rocket gap with Germany and Russia despite these scientists history of working during the War with POWs and slaves to build German V-2 rocket-launched weapons;

• Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction writer and member of the British Interplanetary Society, whose articles and stories about the future of space and the current US program rockets, inspired the world's interest in the US program and thus its Congressional financing;

• The US Army, Air Force, and Navy originally developed separate rocket programs and competed with the other branches to win space contracts with the US government. After the Russian Sputnik launch President Eisenhower combined these separate programs into one new civilian department, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA);

• John F. Kennedy, reeling from the poor publicity from the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the successful flight by Russia of first man in space Yuri Gagarin only one week apart, desperately seized on the US space program as a means to "dramatically alter the narrative about America's future and its standing in the international arena." Although Kennedy had shown little interest in outer space and knew virtually nothing about the US program, he learned that communication satellites beaming to television sets would be a way to regain superiority in space, something the Russians had not begun to explore;

• At Attorney General Robert Kennedy demanded, NASA would only accept the land donated by nearby Rice University for NASA headquarters on the condition that Rice changed its discrimination policy and admit Black Students, which they did;

• The ongoing controversy over NASA not selecting a Black candidate for training in the astronaut program after many years, despite the stellar experience from some of these men;

• While there was much speculation between astronauts, media, and the public on who would be the first man to walk on the moon, the placement of the lander hatch door which, when opened, blocked the right side seat and astronaut from exiting before the left side seat was vacated. Therefore, only the man sitting in the left chair, (Armstrong) was physically able to exit the landing pod first. Decision settled;

• William Safire, Nixon's speechwriter, wrote the president two separate speeches for the public: one after a successful moon mission and one should the astronauts be forced to remain on the moon or died due to some failure;

• Writer Arthur C. Clarke had a beloved dog named Sputnik which was the son of Laika, the first animal launched into space.

I had so many more items marked I found interesting through my reading Chasing the Moon, but want to keep this review at a readable length. I figured by now either you are fascinated enough to read more of this book on your own or you have decided it simply isn't for you. So you are now on your own.

 

But there are many, many more people, incidents, successes, failures, and dreams clearly presented by authors Stone and Anders. You would be missing the beautiful B & W and color photographs, the in-depth interviews, the newspaper clippings, and the words of astronauts during training, flight, and moon landings. It's all here.  

 

I hope you will pick up this fine, important history and learn more about one of humankind's greatest achievement: putting humans on the moon and returning them safely. Highly recommended.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:]

Burrows, William E. The New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age.

Simply the best, most readable yet most detailed account of the United State space program. Includes documentation from newly-released Russian files, meeting notes, documents, government involvement, astronauts, behind0the-scenes personnel ... in short, everything possible about the movement of humans into space. Tremendous. Highest recommendation. (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

The Greatest Sentence Ever

Isaacson, Walter. The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. New York : Simon & Schuster 2025. Print.

First Sentences:

"We hold these truths to be sacred ..."

Sacred? No. That doesn't sound right.

But that's how Thomas Jefferson wrote it in his first draft. 

Description:

Now who can resist looking into a book with this title? Certainly not I. 

 

Here's a short, but important and captivating book for lovers (like me) of history, documents, and human rights: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson. This title refers to the second sentence of the United States' Declaration of Independence. I'll refresh your memory here of its glorious second sentence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Powerful words to frame the concepts behind the creation of a new country. Simple words, easily understood and eventually, sometimes grudgingly, agreed upon by its writers: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston of the Declaration Drafting Committee, as well as the 60 other colony representatives assembled in 1776. After agreement, the representatives then had to sell it to their own people and the other thirteen colonies for their accpetance before it could be sent on to England and the King.

Author Isaacson, inspired by the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration signing, created this 67-page book to analyze the wording, concepts, and behind-the scenes-battles surrounding this sentence. 

In brief two- to four-page chapters, he examines key words and concepts. The word "We, the People" gets its own three pages:

That phrase, We, the People, is as profound as it is simple. Our governance is based not on the divine right of kings or the power imposed by emperors and conquerors. It is based on a compact, a social contract, that we the people have entered into.

The Declaration writers employed this Social Contract idea from the writings of Thomas Hobbes, David, Hume, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, political and social philosophers popular with Jefferson, Franklin, and the other Declaration creators. 

Of course, "All men are created equal" was a problematic issue. Almost all the signers of the Declaration (41 out of 56) owned slaves, including Jefferson who had enslaved "more than 600 men, women and children." While John Adams was against slavery, he did write "The subject is too dangerous to be touched in public." His wife, Abigail, had a stronger opinion:

How can those who advocate the right of man hold their fellow creatures in chains? It is a contradiction that much wound the conscience of every honest man. 

But to secure the signatures of the Southern colonies' representatives, the issue of slavery was glossed over, hopefully to be addressed by calmer people at a more rational time after the Union had been formed and settled.

Besides Isaacson's commentary, the book also contains appendices with the entire Declaration of Independence, Jefferson's original Declaration draft, Virginia's Declaration of Rights of 1776, Rousseau's Social Contract of 1762, and even John Locke's Second Treatise of Government from 1690, all used as the source of political and social ideas. 

He also provides his thoughts on the Declaration power and its affect today, and how we as a individuals and country can move forward based on these fundamental principles. The key is finding the "Common Ground" to contentious issues that divide us, to work together to understand and develop systems and institutions that provide for the greater good for the greatest number of people.

It's a short, but inspiring analysis of an important sentence, one that defines the foundation of our nation. It is well worth an hour or two of your time to pursue its clear, concise history and interpretation of these powerful words from our own Declaration of Independence. 

[Franklin and Jefferson]'s goal on contentious issues was not to triumph but to find the right balance, an art that has been lost today. Compromisers may not make great heroes, Franklin liked to say, but they do make great democracies. 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:]

 Conaway, Janes. America's Library.

History and important documents contained in of one of the greatest libraries of the current age, The United State Library of Congress. (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]

Open Tennis

Evans, Richard. Open Tennis: The First Twenty Years, the Players, the Politics, the Pressures, the Passions, and the Great Matches. New York: Bloomsbury 1988. Print.

First Sentences:

 

His [Pancho Gonzales'] favourite exercise now is to stand on the back porch of his Las Vegas home and drive golf balls out into the Nevada desert. Then he strides out amongst the scrub and cacti and picks them up.

Description:

Having just watched Richard Evans be inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 2024, I was intrigued to look into his most famous of his twenty-three books, Open Tennis: The First Twenty Years, the Players, the Politics, the Pressures, the Passions, and the Great Matches. Evans, a longtime writer of tennis articles who covered over 200 grand slam events, dozens of Davis Cup Challenges, and countless tournaments, is a brilliant observer and interviewer of tennis players, agents, administrators, investors, sponsors, and anyone else who existed in the developing world of open tennis during the 1960-1980s and decades later.

 

Evans started off as a newly-hired sports reporter in 1960 for London's The Evening Standard. As the youngest newcomer, he was assigned to cover Althea Gibson, the first black woman to win Wimbledon. 

Watching her play and even attending the champions' dinner as her escort hooked Evans on the sport. He began his long journalistic career covering tennis, eventually becoming the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Press Officer and later European Director, and therefore privy to an insider's look into the game which he narrates to us lucky readers in Open Tennis.

I was their age, so I had this huge advantage of being able to travel with a group of players.…There were no coaches, no managers, no agents, no wives or girlfriends, except for the odd occasion, traveling the world,” Evans said. “You can imagine the Aussies knew how to travel the world. They knew how to enjoy themselves on court, very competitive, and off court less competitive.

Prior to the Open Era, tennis tournaments, especially the Grand Slams, were reserved for players who were "unpaid" amateurs only. To survive, amateur players took appearance money under the table from sponsors and tournament directors. 

Some superstar players like Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Pancho Gonzales, Lew Hoad, and Bobbie Riggs joined Jack Kramer's new pro tour to make any sort of money. Other pro tours, especially the WCT created by Lamar Hunt, soon emerged, and drew paying fans, luring Arthur Ashe, Charles Pasarell, and Stan Smith away from the amateur events. 

But the majority of players opted to remain amateurs to protect their eligibility to enter the more prestigious Grand Slam tournaments and other tour events, even if those tournaments did not include all the world's best players. 

 

But in 1968, Wimbledon announced it would include all the top players, pro and amateur, in its draw. Evans was there to cover the angst this opening of tennis caused among the tournament directors, international tennis administrative associations, and purist fans who felt their heroes should only play for the love of the game (despite their public "secret" that these heroes were accepting appearance money). 

But when ATP pro and amateur players alike began boycotting tournaments that did not allow professionals to play, tournament directors and governing bodies reluctantly gave in and the Open Era, where amateurs and professionals alike could compete on the same court, was born.

 

Evans describes highlights of this era in wonderful, gripping detail. The rise of the professional women's tour with Gladys Heldman and Billie-Jean King, the great matches of Gonzales-Pasarell, Laver-Rosewall, Borg-McEnroe, Ashe-Connors, and Evert-Navratilova. There are chapters on the behind-the-scenes negotiations between tennis governing bodies and players (with Evans as reporter), the unusual World Team Tennis tour, and Davis Cup matches. There is even a chapter on "Sex and the Single Player" detailing the demands on players and their behavior on the tour at a time where few had coaches, much less the entourages of today with girlfriends, managers, trainers, publicity agents, and friends to support them.

 

I will not attempt to explain the various organizations (ATP, WCT, WTT, ILTF, USLTA) covered in Open Tennis, or major movers and shakers of this era (Kramer, Dell, Heyman, Drysdale, Tinling, Heldman, Hunt). But Evans, in his genius manner of making readers feel present at important meetings, introduces these key players and governing bodies, relating the influence each has on tennis, both positive and negative. 

He explains the current ATP point system where each player receives a per-determined number of points for his/her record at a tournament, with point tallies used to determine rankings, future seedings, and entry into the end of the year championship tournament. For the first time, I understand the bones of the tennis organization, the major people, and the events leading to the creation of the today's Open Era game.

While everyone in not the tennis enthusiast that I am, this book is an important history of a worldwide game as it moved into the modern era, told by one man who was there to see it happen and be in close contact with the figures who encouraged or blocked this progress. 

Open Tennis will help readers understand what previous as well as current players have to deal with every day to even play in tournaments, compete at the highest level, and possibly win or gain enough points to improve their ranking, future seeding, and therefore potential prize money.

 

It is a strong book, written with attention to detail, impartiality, and a genuine love of the game and its players. Read it, skim it, or just dip into portions that interest you. But if you enjoy watching/playing/understanding tennis, this is the definitely book for you.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

McPhee, John. Levels of the Game.   

Simply the best description of two men, Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, as they play a grueling match in the 1968 US Open. Breathtaking shot-by-shot examination of the thoughts, emotions, and strokes, along with the resulting triumphs and failures of each play throughout the match. In one word: Riveting.

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 465 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

The World's Fastest Man

Kranish, Michael. The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero New York: Simon and Schuster 2019. Print.

First Sentences:

 

On the clear, brisk Saturday afternoon of December 5, 1896, an unusual pair of men strode to New York City's Madison Square Garden, where thousands would soon assemble for one of the era's greatest sporting events.

Description:

On a bike path near my house is a plaque detailing the life and sports achievements of Marshall "Major" Taylor, a Black bicycle racer in the 1890s - early 1900s era. I had never heard of him and, after reading some of the details of his achievements, just had to explore the story behind this man. This quest led me to Michael Kranish's The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero,

Just to set the scene for you. Imagine for a moment the world of the 1880s: no radio, no television, no automobiles, no airplanes, not even everyday bicycles. The Penny-Farthing bike had just been introduced, the one with a gigantic front wheel and a tiny wheel in the back. There were extremely popular as the fastest form of transportation available. Women were allowed to ride them in public as well.

This was also the age of the US Supreme Court's Plessy vs. Fergeson decision, the "separate but equal" discrimination case that would usher in the Jim Crow attitude and laws of prejudice and ill-treatment of minorities nationwide.

Marshall Taylor at that time was a poor Black child growing up in Indianopolis. His father had secured a job as a carriage driver for a wealthy White family, and Marshall accompanied him because the family had a similarly-age boy in need of a playmate. 

Taylor became part of that family, receiving the environment, food, education, and gifts exactly as his rich friend received. One gift was a new bicycle which Taylor soon mastered, perfecting trick-riding as well.

It was Mark Twain who, after describing his many crashes as he learned to ride a high-wheeler, wrote: "Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live."

Taylor secured a position at a local bicycle shop. Hundreds of these design/sales/repair shophad sprung up across the country, including the Wright brothers who started designing bicycles abd later flying machines in their own shop. While performing tricks at the shop to attract customers, decked out in a military-style jacket, Taylor received the nickname "Marshall."

There, Taylor was noticed by a world champion professional rider, Louis de Franklin "Birdie" Munger, once the fastest bicyclist in the world. Munger, near the end of his competition days, took Taylor under his wing and introduced him to Munger's own experimental bicycle with equal-sized, inflatable tires. 

Munger trained Taylor and entered him in his first race at age 18, much to the surprise of Taylor who did not know he would be competing that day. Incredibly, Taylor won and his career as a competitive bicylist began.

These are just the first few pages of this incredible story of Taylor, a poverty-stricken Black youth who, at the turn of the century and duting the birth and mania for bicycles, competed and won sprint (1/2 - 1 miles) races all over the country and world to attract the attention and paying spectators to his competitions. 

Of course, he experienced jealous riders, bigotry, and the pitfalls of travel and riches. Taylor devoted himself to new physical fitness and weight training exercises, and embraced a highly restricted diet, training techniques unknown in that era. On top of everything else, he promised his church deacons he would never race on Sundays. He even had to overcome his frequent failure to properly count his laps, often pulling up thinking he had won the race when he still had a lap or two to go, and had to sprint to catch up to the field and win.

Taylor's competitors made him a marked man, cutting him off, trying to knock over his bike, hoping to make him crash at full speed. Taylor soon realized that every time he went on the track his life was endangered.

But what a story author Kranish presents us, full of hope, frustration, inspiration, danger, and challenges of bicycle racing in those days, along with a well-researched description of society, the evolution of bicycles, and the eventual entrance of the automobile. 

Journey back in time to follow one forgotten man's rise to international fame on a two-wheeled contraption. It is well worth your time.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Krabb, Tim. The Rider  

Fascinating modern memoir of an Irish bicycle racer who carefully details his thoughts, strategies, competitor evaluation, and dreams throughout several arduous races. (Soon to be reviewed.)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 470 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

The Library

Kells, Stuart. The Library: A Catalog of Wonders. Berkeley, CA : Counterpoint 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

If a library can be something as simple as an organized collection of texts, then libraries massively pre-date books in the history of culture. Every country has a tradition of legends, parables, riddles, myths and chants that existed long before they were written down. Warehoused as memories, these texts passed from generation to generation through dance, gestures, and word of mouth.


Description:

Many of you know me as someone who loves books about books, whether book reviews, authors, libraries, collectors, dictionaries, reading, even book theft. Yes, I'm all in on anything about pages and their words. 

So when I picked up Stuart Kells The Library: A Catalog of Wonders, well, sparks flew and time stood still as I dove hopelessly into its detailed history of the printed word, the famous collections, and the men and women who assembled and guarded over them until the collections were broken up, destroyed, or simply forgotten.

Author Kells, as "a young academic working glumly at a social research instutite," found at a lunchtime book sale an ancient copy of Pieces of Ancient Poetry from Unpublished Manuscripts and Scarce Books, published during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I of England. The book's publisher, John Fry, preserved rare books and documents from centuries past, igniting in Kells an interest in learning more about Fry publications. 

Kells soon became a bookman himself, visiting hundreds of libraries, whether public, academic, or medieval. His explorations included modest private collections like one priceless set of books "stored in a woodshed," and one belonging to a hoarder "who cut an indoor pathway to his bathtub, where his most prized possessions were kept." Kells learned:

Every library has an atmosphere, even a spirit. Every visit to a library is an encounter with the ethereal phenomena of coherence, beauty, and taste.

In The Library, Kells shares his found treasures as well as his musings about book collections. He covers the first libraries, oral histories and song lines, all of which collected and shared the earliest cultural knowledge; the mighty Alexandria library; and Benedictine monasteries whose monks devoted their lives to gathering, copying and illustrating religious works (producing large, heavy tomes like The Devil's Bible which weighed in at 74.8 kilograms). 

Kells reveals esoteric facts like the transition from clay tablets to papyrus, to parchment, to paper, and the changes required of libraries to store these various formats. Shelves had to become shorter in length and stronger to prevent sagging, and also become more uniform in height.

There are chapters on the lost libraries which suffered their complete demises via fires, floods, looting, and general neglect. It is heart-breaking to read about the early libraries which carefully collected and preserved fragile scrolls, manuscripts, and books, only to see them destroyed and the information lost forever.

Along the way we learn from the inexhautable Kells that:

• Papyrus is a terrible material for preserving texts. Without a large and unwavering commitment to conservation and copying, a library of papyrus scrolls will readily and unceremoniously disintegrate; 

• Cuneiform was written and read left to right; Arabic right to left; Chinese top to bottom; and Ancient Greek, for a time, back and forth ("boustrophedon" or "ox-turning"), like plowing a field;

• America's major libraries were doubling en size every trwenty years from the 1870s to the 1940s, and every fifteen years after that.

• Gutenberg, although almost finished the first printing of his magnificant Bible, was sued by his financial backer for proceeding too slowly. Gutenberg lost the case, had his shop and presses confiscated, and was ruined;

• The British Museum's domed reading room has secret doors. To maintain the impression  of an unbroken series of books around the walls, the dome's pillars and access doors are painted with false book-backs;

• Schusseried Abby solved the problem of untidy and uneven volumes (and the problem of damage from light) by storing its books in cabinets whose doors are painted with idealized volumes.

• Passionate about making and sailing paper boats, the poet Shelley could not resist turning [book] fly leaves -- along with letters, newspapers, and banknotes -- into little ships.

• [In 1968 at Northwestern University] a domino effect toppled twenty-seven ranges, spilling 264,000 volumes, splintering solid oad chairs, flattening steel footstools, shearing books in hald, destroying or damaging more than 8,000 volumes;

• A professor...from Ohio State University, stole pages from a fourteenth-century manuscript in the Vatican Library. The manuscript had once belonge to Petrarch.

I passed many an hour pouring over interesting chapters on "Vandals," "Book Machines," "Fantasy Libraries," "The Folger Shakespeare Library," "The Best and Worst Librarians in History," "Libraries for the Future," and "Death" (about people who died in their libraries). 

So you see there is plenty to nerd out about in Kells' wonderful book. If you are into books, collections, and the people who create (and destroy) them, then The Library is the ultimate book for you.

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:]

 Conaway, James. America's Library: The Story of the Library of Congress 1800-2000.

History of one of the greatest libraries of the current age, The United State Library of Congress. (Previously reviewed here.)

 Happy reading.

Fred

Click here to browse over 470 more book recommendations by subject or title (and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

Will in the World

Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. New York: Norton. 2004. Print.

First Sentences:

As a young man from a small provincial town -- a man without independent wealth, without powerful family connections, and without a university education -- moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. His works appeal to the learned and the unlettered, to urban sophisticates and provincial first-time theatergoers. He makes his audiences laugh and cry; he turns politics into poetry; he recklessly mingles vulgar clowning and philosophical subtlety....How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?


Description:

I picked up Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare knowing nothing about the author or his book. I was just another reader interested in the mysterious background of William Shakespeare and how he possibly could have lived and created his exquisite body of historic, romantic, and thrilling works of literature after coming from a relatively small town with little education or travel. At least, those were the assumptions and subsequent questions offered by many historians

Author Greenblatt, however, is different. He delves deeply into historical documents and social norms of the sixteenth century to postulate about the forces behind Shakespeare's life and the elements that affected his growth and decisions.

For example, Greenblatt reveals primary documents about Shakespeare's father, John, showing him to be an important municipal office-holder in Stratford, a man who tries to enforce order between the Catholic residents who suddenly had to face the incoming Protestants in a world now enforced by the new Protestent Queen Elizabeth. Later John was documented to be a failed glovemaker whom William worked for, although obviously John's life failed to excite his son to pursue the same career choice.

Also, I didn't know Stratford was a fairly important city that drew traveling performers. William probably was exposed to the theater and likely even helped with general chores for any short-handed company. There are records that he offered his services to the traveling King's Company which found themselves short an actor after their leading player was killed in a drunken fight. Performance reviews from that period testified that William distinguished himself on the stage and possibly escaped Stratford with that company when it moved on toward London.

Other revelations included:

• Shakespeare likely attended King's New School in Stratford, reserved for children of means, receiving instruction from 7am - 6pm six days a week twelve months a year, mostly focusing on Latin "which clearly aroused and fed Will's inexhaustible craving for language";
  

• At school "virtually all schoolmasters agreed that one of the best ways to instill good Latin in their students was to have them read and perform ancient plays";

• Anne Hathaway, his bride, was eight years older than the 18-year-old Will when they were hurriedly married, without the accepted delay of publicizing banns. Church records showed their daughter Susanna was baptized six months later. The couple soon had two other children, one of whom, Hamnet, died young. Anne was not mentioned in Shakespeare's will except that she would receive their "second-best bed," the majority of Shakespeare's wealth and property going to his daughter Susanna;

• Shakespeare in his early twenties left Stratford, wife Anne, and his three children for unexplained reasons. Greenblatt shows evidence that William might have been in trouble with the law for poaching deer on a wealthy estate near Stratford and had been forced to flee;

• Later, during one of the frequent bubonic plague epidemics, all London theaters were closed. To earn income, Shakespeare accepted a commission to write many of his 154 sonnets. It is still unclear who financed him or to whom the poems referred to, whether his patron, a young man, or an unknown dark lady;

• When the ground lease for the theater where they performed was not renewed by the owner (who controlled the land but not the structures), Shakespeare, his company, and their crew snuck onto the theater grounds one night in December, 1598, dismantled the entire theater, carted it across the frozen Thames river, and re-constructed it in the new location. This became The Globe. The new theater, financed by Shakespeare himself, was an octagonal building with a huge stage, and could seat over 3,000 people;

In London, William probably attended many theatrical performances of contemporary playwrights, including those of his chief rival Christopher Marlowe. He observed works that playwrights presented which did and did not please audiences. Shakespeare moved away from the current broad morality plays, giving his own characters an intensified complexity and humanness rather than one-dimensional aspects. 

Shakespeare had to engage with the deepest desires and fears of his audience, and his unusual success in his own time in his own time suggests that he succeeded brilliantly. Virtually all his rival playwrights found themselves on the straight road to starvation; Shakespeare, by contrast, made enough money to buy one of the best houses in the hometown to which he returned in his early fifties, a self-made man.

I loved reading the original source records that Greenblatt dug up, which support or disprove theories about Shakespeare.  Each item is carefully examined, put into historical context, and then applied to Shakespeare's life to provide logical conclusions about the playwright and his influences.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in sixteenth century life, playwriting, and, of course, The Bard himself. 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare.   

The absolute best and highly-readable deep dive into every Shakespeare play, with historical, literary, and cultural explanations to key words, phrases, and plots. So great I read it from cover to cover, and re-read it before watching any Shakespeare play to catch all the references and subtleties. Wonderful. HIghest recommendation. (Previously reviewed here)

  

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 450 more book recommendations by subject or title.

(And you can also read an introduction to The First Sentence Reader.)

The Navajo Code Talkers

Paul, Doris A. The Navajo Code Talkers. Pittsburgh: Dorrance 19739. Print.

First Sentences:

Every syllable of my message came through. Sometimes we had to crawl, had to run, had to lie partly submerged in a swamp or in a lagoon, or in the dead heat, pinned under fire. But there was no problem. We transmitted our messages under any and all conditions.

Description:

I've always been fascinated by (but not good at solving) codes. I enviously noted that over the years dedicated amateurs and professional code-breakers have broken all sorts of impossible secret messages. All codes, that is, except one: the Navajo code utilized by America during World War II.

Doris A. Paul's The Navajo Code Talkers is the definitive history of this unbreakable code and the men who created and successfully employed it to disguise military messages during World War II. Extensive interviews with the Navajo Code Talkers gives this narrative a deeply personal account of each man's commitment to the program. reflecting the intense, maybe desperate need for this new code to work and help win the War.

Author Paul notes this all began inn June, 1940, when the Navajo nation, in an edict from their Tribal Council at Window Rock, expressed their commitment to "aid and defend our Government and its institutions against all subversive and armed conflict." Soon after that time, the official US call to arms went out. 

Navajo men appeared at their agencies, carrying old muskets and hunting rifles, asking where they could fight the enemy. Many were turned away, heartbroken and humiliated that they could not fight because they could not speak English.

But those who did speak English were recruited to counteract the Japanese proclivity to break any English code. During close fighting, messages containing vital information about positions of troops, coordination of attack times, and battle news had to be delivered quickly, with no time for transcription of complex codes. A simple, unbreakable, easily transported code was needed.

Previously, Choctaws had been employed briefly during World War I to simply relay messages via telephone to stymie German interception. Later, members of the Comanches, Creek, Choctaw, Menominee, Chippewa, and Hopi nations were used as communicators, but in the limited capacity of speaking only their own language. What was needed was an untranslatable Native American language, updated with newly-created terms for military items like "tank," "machine gun," "barrage," etc.

The Navajo language was suggested as the perfect platform:

The Navajo tongue is an extremely difficult language to master, and should a non-Navajo (particularly German or Japanese) learn to speak it, counterfeiting its sounds would be almost impossible.

Twenty-nine Navajo men were recruited from reservation schools and trained by the Marines for a pilot program. For some, this was their first time off the reservation. Firsthand accounts from interviews with the original Navajo Code Talkers revealed the challenges, expectations, and actual dangers to their jobs:

We wrung our minds dry trying to figure out words that would be usable, that would not be too long, and that could be easily memorized. After all, in the heat of battle, the code talker would have no time to take out a chart and look up vocabulary for an urgent message.

A sample alphabet and terms are reproduced in the book, containing examples like:

"Gini" (literally "Chicken Hawk") is the Navajo word created for "Dive Bomber" 

"Be-al-doh-cid-da-hi" (sitting gun) = "Mortar" 

"Joy-sho" (buzzard) = "Bomber"  

"Lo-tso" (whale) = "Battleship"

"Toh-yil-kal" (Much Water) = "River" 

"Tsisi-be-wol-doni" (bird shooter) = "Anti-Aircraft" 

The Code Talkers worked eight hours a day with walkie-talkies under field conditions. They had to remember this new vocabulary, speak into the 80-pound radio sets, and quickly, accurately translate incoming messages. After training, code talkers were utilized to request medical supplies, coordinate troop movements, and relay operational orders.

I found the recollections of surviving code talkers incredibly interesting for painting a picture of life in war in which they contributed such a vital part. There was real pride in each individual's narration, conveying a deep sense of accomplishment as well as humor in their voices. These men were important elements at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Okinawa, the Solomon Islands, and many more war zone battlefields. For me, the Navajo code-breakers' recollections of the roles they played and the situations they faced brought an up-close image of each man and the war alive. 

I recommend this for readers interested in the lives and contributions to our country by Native Americans, the development of a unique code, and World War II as told by those men who were there. 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

McKay, Sinclair. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. 

For the first time, the an in-depth look people behind the super-secret operation that broke the Enigma code and shortened the war by two years, saving millions of lived. (previously reviewed here.) 

Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma.   

The man and his team who cracked the German Enigma code in World War II to change the course of the War.

Happy reading.

 

Fred 

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(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).