The Volunteer

Fairweather, Jack. The Volunteer: One Man', An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz. New York: HarperCollins 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz. 

Description:

Can there be a more chilling, compelling first sentence than this opening to Jack Fairweather's true history recounted in The Volunteer: One Man', An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz?

This first sentence  is the ultimate baited hook to keep any reader reading. Who was this man, Witold Pilecki? What possessed him to voluntarily enter Auschwitz during World War II? What did he hope to accomplish? What happened to him? Did his plans succeed? All are important questions that pull readers deeper and deeper into this true account from history.

A few answers here. Witold Pilecki was a Polish farmer, a member of the Polish reserves who fought the Nazis after the invasion of their homeland in 1939. After the Polish army and people had been subdued and the country occupied, Pilecki joined a small underground resistance force. He and his team watched as the Nazis began to enforce Hitler's  emergency decree for the "indefinite detention or protective custody" of "real or imagined" enemies, including Catholics, Jews, and ethnic Germans.

The resistance noticed that neighbors were taken to a mysterious "labor camp" and rarely returned. That camp was Auschwitz, built in 1940 to hold these Polish "dissidents." Little information about this new camp was known at that time, and certainly no details were allowed to trickle to the outside world. So Pilecki's resistance group agreed it was vital to publicize what was going on inside Auschwitz to the Allied nations, hoping those troops would be shocked enough to bomb it as the heart of the Nazi cleansing movement, freeing the Polish people imprisoned there. Pilecki volunteered to enter Auschwitz to secure the information needed.

Once inside Auschwitz (it proved easy for Pilecki, a Polish man, to be captured), his plan was to recruit a resistance force inside the concentration camp, gather information, disrupt activities, and write accounts that could be smuggled to his fellow resistance fighters outside to be carried to embassies in the Allied countries.

And, of course, to somehow survive, and, if possible, escape to rejoin his Polish fighters.

The harrowing details Fairweather reveals of life in Auschwitz were taken from the recently recovered reports from Pilecki. Starvation, random selection of prisoners to be casually shot, gassings, mass burials, and other brutalities have probably never been more shockingly presented. I won't enumerate them here, but trust me much of the book is incredibly shocking as seen through Pilecki's eyes. It was incredibly depressing to read again and again of man's callous inhumanity to man.

Let none of you imagine that he will ever leave this place alive....The rations have been calculated so that you will only survive six weeks. Anyone who lives longer must be stealing, and anyone stealing will be sent to the penal company, where you won't live very long. -- [opening greeting from the camp commandant, SS-Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Seidler]

Pilecki's reports were painstakingly written and then somehow smuggled out of the camp and on to England to be read by Churchill, Roosevelt and others. These reports detailed the hourly atrocities, the evolution of Auschwitz from a labor camp to a highly-systematic mass killing site, and the potential value of an Allied bombing raid. But Pilecki's accounts were ignored and shelved for various political reasons, leaving Pilecki inside hell to wait for the Allied bombers that were not coming.

This is an important, historic book full of bravery as well as atrocities from the reality that was Auschwitz. Witold Pilecki is about the most courageous, fearless, patient man imaginable. His untiring devotion to the Polish cause and to destroy Auschwitz, his cleverness and leadership that inspire hope and pride among fellow prisoners is incredibly heartening. Despite all the Nazi horror depicted, the ignorance, the brutality, this is Pilecki's story and that of the people of Poland trying to survive and keep their country alive.

After all this sadness and loss of faith in man's nature, I felt the need to read Maya Angelou's poem of hope, "A Brave and Startling Truth." I needed to restore my faith that humans are not completely cruel and heartless, that there is good in us that will survive even the most atrocious of people and events. The poem is attached below in hopes that it will counterbalance the shock of the events of this powerful book and reinforce the reality that good people like Witold Pilecki will triumph over evil.

A Brave and Startling Truth - by Maya Angelou

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.   

True story of track star Louis Zamperini as he is shot down during World War II, drifted for weeks in a life raft, only to be "rescues" by enemy  Japanese who place him in a brutal prisoner-of-war camp. Shocking and inspiring in Zamperini's stoic resolve to survive whatever the world throws at him. Brilliantly written.

Underland

MacFarlane, Robert. Underland: A Deep Time Journey. New York: Norton 2019. Print

First Sentences:

We know so little of the worlds beneath our feet.

Look up on a cloudless night and you might see the light from a star thousands of trillions of miles away, or pick out the craters left by asteroid strikes on the moon's face. Look down and your sight stops at topsoil. tarmac, toe .... 

The underland keeps its secrets well.

Description:

"The underland" is defined as the "world beneath our feet" in Robert MacFarlane's highly engrossing new book, Underland: A Deep Time Journey. MacFarlane sets out to explore and experience various underland manifestations from caves to underground cities and melting glaciers, sharing his feelings about each physical environment, as well as the literature, history, and people who explore these hidden worlds.

MacFarlane explains that underland areas, throughout history, have have been used for three purposes for humans:

• To shelter what is precious (memories, messages, fragile lives
• To yield what is valuable (minerals, visions, information, wealth)
• To dispose of what is harmful (waste, poison, secrets)

MacFarlane notes the "long cultural history of abhorrence around underground spaces, associated with 'the awful darkness inside the world,'" (Cormac McCarthy). Mankind has described the underworld through stories full of fear, disgust, dirt, mortality, and the "disturbing power of claustrophobia." Not wonder we know so little of this portion of our own earth.

MacFarlane sets out to experience each sub-surface land first hand, including:

• The Mendips limestone burial sites in England
• The intricate Invisible Cities and Les Catecombes under Paris
• The Starless Rivers that run underground in Italy
• The caves with Red Dancer paintings in the isolated caves of Norway
• The Hiding Places in Finland
• The Moulin (melting holes) in the glaciers of Greenland 
• The Onkalo in Finland built to store radioactive waste safely underground for eons

What makes this extensive book so compelling is the combination of science, folklore, and curiosity MacFarlane brings to each experience. He thoroughly researches the limestone caverns carved over countless ages (incomprehensible numbers of years are called "dark time") by dripping water. We can hardly imagine such a span of time. MacFarlane imparts this information as he inches belly down through tiny cave passageways. 

He also shows us the 8,600 year old honey fungus with a root system that spreads for miles underground. This underground network helps trees share nutrients (via the "wood wide web" - yes, that is the official term) and breaks down rocky mountains into sand over deep time. 

We read the historical literary references which portray trips to the underland to rescue people or to convey the dead with coins on their eyes to pay for the river crossing to the underworld. Poe wrote of the Maelstrom in Norway and Jules Verne of the Icelandic volcano, both of which lead to worlds hidden below the Earth's surface.. 

We hear the roaring water from the sunless rivers MacFarlane explores and view the animals that live in these waters without light. He even finds an inflatable dingy used by extreme cavers to float themselves upward towards a tiny opening in the ceiling as the only way of escape when the rivers cause the cavern to flood. Imagine! 

He also describes the dangers of the thawing arctic underworld as ancient burials are now exposed: animals that died of anthrax, skeletons of people with smallpox viruses, radioactive waste deposits abandoned after the Cold War. All were thought to be permanently buried for thousands of lifetimes. Now, these dangers have recently been revealed and released by melting permafrost and glaciers..  

We share his joy in examining the 65,000 year old wall painting in sacred places deep in French caves. We also talk with scientists searching  deep in the quiet salt caves of Yorkshire, England for infinitesimal signs of dark matter that makes up the universe. And it is equally powerful in the opposite way to learn of the deep foiba sinkholes and limestone caverns in Yugoslavia used by Communists and Fascists to dispose of "enemy" civilians and military victims, alive, wounded, or dead. 

I especially was struck by the timelessness of the deep time references. When considering the vast number of years, centuries, and millennium, why should mankind care what happens today since everything, including the human species, will be gone? MacFarlane offers a positive answer:

To think in deep time can be a means not of escaping our troubled present, but rather of re-imagining it; countermanding its quick greeds and furies with older, slower stories of making and unmaking. 

A deep time awareness might help us see ourselves as part of a web of gift, inheritance and legacy stretching over millions of years past and millions to come, bringing us to consider what we are leaving behind for the epoch and beings that will follow us.

Underland offers so many fascinating experiences with both the worlds under our feet and the people, past and present, who discover, study, and incorporate these environments into their lives. I cannot even begin to cover a fraction of the interesting facts and stories MacFarlane shares. I simply can say you really need to read this fascinating narrative and immerse yourself into the worlds below the surface of our Earth.

Darkness might be a medium of vision, and descent may be a movement towards revelation rather than deprivation. Our common verb "to understand" itself bears an old sense of passing beneath something in order fully to comprehend it. "To discover" is "to reveal by excavation, "to descend and bring to the light", "to fetch up from the depth." These are ancient associations.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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MacFarland, Robert. Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit.   

MacFarland examines the world's highest places from his own personal experiences and literary accounts from figures like Mallory, Lord Byron and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 

Every Man a Hero

Lambert, Ray. Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War. New York: HarperCollins 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Colleville-sur-Mer is a picturesque village in northern France, blessed with a lovely beach on the English Channel....

I've seen it that way myself. But for me, a far different scene is never far from my mind. 

Description:

Ninety-eight-year-old Ray Lambert may be one of the last surviving American soldiers who landed at Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944. While normally not outgoing about his wartime experiences, he finally decided that the history of that day should be told from a first-hand account. Thus he wrote, along with co-author Jim DeFelice, the brilliant Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War.

For many years, I kept the story of that day to myself. Largely, this was because I chose to move on...I also felt my story was not worth telling. I landed at Omaha, but thousands did...I did what I was called to do...I was always an ordinary man...

In this compelling autobiography, U.S. Army Staff Sargent Ray Lambert takes us from his early days growing up on a farm in rural Alabama through his enlistment and training as a medic to his front-line landings at North Africa, Sicily, and finally Normandy, France. 

One hundred sixty thousand men, five thousand ships, and thirteen thousand airplanes took part in an assault that ultimately decided the war. It was one of the bloodiest days in one of the bloodiest conflicts mankind has ever fought.

His job at these sites was to be among the first to land on the beach, establish some sort of shelter (like a large rock) to act as a triage location, then plunge back into the water to drag injured soldiers to shore and the shelter. Back and forth he slogged, bullets whizzing around him or actually hitting him as he continued to aide incapacitated men.

Lambert gives some back story about army life, commanding officers, strategies, and the mindsets of an "ordinary" soldier. Lambert describes, in the terse sentences below, his feelings when facing the experienced, war-tested Germans for the first time, an enemy who "knew how to kill" and "weren't reluctant to do it."

One of the biggest factors, in my opinion, was our inexperience. Not only did we not really know war yet, we didn't know how to kill....It's knowledge you need to get into your bones, into your heart. It's a harsh thing, but without it, you and your friends are dead, your battle is lost, and what you came to fight for is forfeit.

Lambert was definitely a hero and leader in these historic events, winning a Silver Star and multiple Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. At Normandy on D-Day, he admitted to saving over a dozen men, and almost died from wounds and having a landing craft ramp drop onto his head. Yet throughout the book he defers praise for his actions and repeatedly refers to "every man was a hero."

A lot of things can be forgiven in war; letting the guy next to you down isn't one of them.

We learn from Lambert about Bangalore torpedoes, ("long, slim pipes that contained explosives and were slipped in or under barbed wire, then exploded to clear a path"). We learn that GIs carried Browning Automatic Rifles, the first ever light-weight machine guns. 

And we watch through Lambert's eyes the actual events leading up to, during, and after the landing at Omaha Beach.. We feel his surprise when he and his thirty seasick fellow soldiers in the landing craft realize that the early parties sent to clear land and ocean mines as well as barbed wire had all been killed before they could do their job. They now understood they would be landing in heavily defended, explosive-ridden beaches. But they also found out that the dreaded major German artillery weapons were away from the beach that day being serviced and, once located by American troops, quickly destroyed.

It is a riveting account of a dreadful day fought by ordinary men trying to turn the course of the War. Your heart is definitely in your throat as the seconds tick away until the landing craft's ramp drop and everyone piles out into the freezing water under a hail of gunfire. You are almost there with Lambert as he describes the scenes through every sense. You can feel the pounding of explosions

...more physical than something thumping against your chest. It pounds your bones, rumbling through your organs, counter-beating your heart. Your skull vibrates. You feel the noise as if it's inside you.

It is a harrowing, thrilling, and gut-wrenching account. A must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the turning point of the War and the men who planned and carried out the fighting.

Every man on that beach was a hero. Each one braved incredible gunfire, artillery, mortar shells, obstructions, mines. Each man had his own story. This books tells mine.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Hochschild, Adam. To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918.   

Incredibly detailed, fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring history of World War I, the events and personalities that led the world into war, the battles and armies themselves, and the aftermath. Unforgettable. (previously reviewed here)

Lost Gutenberg

Davis, Margaret Leslie. Lost Gutenberg: The Astonishing Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey. New York: TarcherPerigee 2019. Print

First Sentences:

A wooden box containing one of the most valuable books in the world arrives in Los Angeles on October 14, 1950, with little more fanfare -- or security -- than a Sears catalog.

Code-named "the commode," it was flown from London via regular parcel post, and while it is being delivered locally by Tice and Lynce, a high-end customs broker and shipping company, its agents have no idea what they are carrying and take no special precautions. 

Description:

I suppose if you have no interest in the historic creation of the first book published with movable type, the Gutenberg Bible, there is no need to read any further in this review. For me, however, Margaret Leslie Davis' Lost Gutenberg: The Astonishing Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey, was a tremendously interesting history of a one specific Gutenberg Bible, its fabulously rich owners, and the quirks found inside this masterpieces of design, paper, binding, lettering, and illustration.

Printed around 1465, the Gutenberg Bible represented the first printing of a major book using metal movable type. Movable type had been used in China in the eleventh century, "but proved unwieldy, given the written language's thousands of distinct ideograms." Gutenberg developed the process of pouring liquid tin and lead into a mold to reproduce exact duplicates of each letter that could be arranged and re-arranged for printing, and even melted down later to create new letters. He created new tools necessary to actually print a book: frames to hold the type in place; presses that insure even pressure to push the paper down on the type on each page; and smear-proof, long-lasting ink. 

Gutenberg's inventions created a system that could print any number of books relatively quickly and cheaply, especially when compared to the alternative - hand-lettering each page. Before Gutenberg, a Bible might take two years to produce. With the constant demand for Bibles from monasteries, convents, and churches, Gutenberg made the business choice for his first movable type project to be the printing of the multi-volume,1,200-page Bible, "using 270 different characters -- punctuation as well as upper- and lowercase letters and letter combinations." 

Lost Gutenberg follows the life on one particular Bible, nicknamed "Number 45," and its owners throughout history. Lost Gutenberg also traces the huge fortunes of its world's ultra-rich owners who purchased, exhibited, or merely relegated Number 45 to massive shelves of a personal library, forgotten as just another expensive possession. Then there are the sadder stories of lost fortunes and the breaking up of world-class rare book collections for the owners of Number 45. 

Here are just a few of the facts I learned:

• Gutenberg Bibles still have bookplates from various owners pasted inside their front covers. (Seems to me like stamping "Property of.." on the Mona Lisa);
• Paper for printing was first moistened so it would absorb the ink better;
• There are 6-10 tiny holes in each page. Paper was "folded and pierced around the edges with a needle, providing guides so that the print would be impressed at exactly the same place on the front -- and back-- of each page";
• Even though the print lined up exactly on each side of the page, nineteen pages have one or two more lines than the standard 42 lines of text; 
• Some versions of the Bible had strips of velum extending beyond the pages to be used as thumb markers to index and allow faster access to specific sections.

Author Davis describes how, in 1980, new technology of lasers was used to study the composition of ink in Number 45. These lasers sent a data-gathering beam 1/10 the size of a period to help researchers understand how the 500-year-old ink still looked fresh. Researchers also found variations of ink between pages, demonstrating that printing was done on separate presses for different pages. Gutenberg had created the first assembly line. 

And today? At a 2015 auction, eight leaves (sixteen pages) from a Gutenberg sold for $970,000. Therefore "...each leaf of the Gutenberg Bible could be valued now at an extraordinary $121,250...it is conceivable that a two-volume Gutenberg Bible consisting of 643 leaves (1,286 single pages) might be priced at almost $80 million."

I could go on with more details about this particular Gutenberg Bible, but instead urge interested readers to grab onto The Lost Gutenberg to better immerse themselves in the history about this fascinating volume, "the world's most important book," its current fate and current fates other existing Gutenberg Bibles. 

The first mass-produced printed books, after all, are unlike any other thing in the world. Little else that we have produced is so rich with story, with lifelines that flow through one object -- and bind us together in the pages of human existence. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Mays, Andrea. The Millionaire and the Bard.   

This documents life of Henry Folger and his obsession with and quest to possess all existing copies of Shakespeare's original First Folios. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

Meet Me at the Museum

Youngson, Anne. Meet Me at the Museum. New York: Flatiron 2018. Print

First Sentences:

Dear young girls,

Home again from the deserts and oases of the Sheikdoms I find your enthusiastic letters on my desk. They have aroused in me the wish to tell you and many others who take an interest in our ancestors about these strange discoveries in Danis bogs.  

Description:

Sometimes you come across a book that really reaches you, one that you can't wait to read the next page, the next paragraph, the next sentence. You begrudge any task that stands between you and reading the book, regret when sleep overtakes you during nighttime reading, and can't wait to recommend it to anyone who loves good writing, character, and a sense that there is something really good in the world.

Such a book, for me, is Anne Youngson's Meet Me at the Museum. The plot, probably the least important part, starts with a gentle Thank You note from Tina Hopgood, a sixtiesh farmer's wife to the author of a study on the Tollund Man. (The Tollund Man is an actual figure who lived around 300 BC and whose body, skin, clothes, and rope burn around his neck were found perfectly preserved in the peat bogs of Silkeborg, Denmark. Tina's letter is answered by the new curator of the Tollund Museum, Anders Larsen, and a correspondence between the two begins.

As might be expected, over the coming weeks the letters wander away from the Tollund Man into areas of their vastly different lifestyles of his cloistered academic study and her outdoor farm life. They share thoughts about the lives they chose (or were chosen for them)  as well as concerns about their families, dreams, sadness, and joys.

Throughout this epistolary novel of letters, there is an overwhelming sense of two ordinary yet sensitive people reaching out to another thoughtful person they can finally open up to. A genuine respect for each other and communication emerges in their beautifully, honestly-written notes that gently, inexorably pull you in deeper and deeper. I simply could not resist reading what the next subject/thought/words would be from one paragraph to the next.

That's all you need to know to encourage you to go out and read this touching book. There's lots more that goes on and personal revelations that are vital to understanding these two lovely people, but I won't spoil anything. I loved it, give it the highest recommendation, and hope you will read and be caught up it these lives and words as I was.

 [For further reading, check out the Tollund Museum website]

Happy reading. 
    

Fred

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Hanff, Helene. 84 Charing Cross Road.   

A correspondence blossoms between a woman in New York City seeking specific books to purchase and a rare book dealer in London. They discuss books, editions, quality of writing, authors, and many other book-related topics as their relationship grows. Lovely, warm writing.

Krakatoa

Winchester, Simon. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883. New York: HarperCollins 2003. Print

First Sentences:

It was early on a warm summer's evening in the 1970s, as I stood in a palm plantation high on a green hillside in western Java, that I saw for the first time, silhouetted against the faint blue hills of faraway Sumatra, the small gathering of islands that is all that remains of what was once a mountain called Krakatoa. 

Description:

Maybe you've heard of the massive volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, possibly even seen the highly-scorned 1967 movie Krakatoa: East of Java (actually, the volcano is west of Java, a bad start for any movie). But if you want to learn about this colossal event which was the first cataclysmic natural disaster and aftermath to be recorded for history and scientifically analyzed, you should turn to Simon Winchester's Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883.

Here, Winchester covers every element of this world-changing phenomenon, its causes, eyewitness accounts, and environmental aftermath both locally and internationally. He presents clear information about plate tectonics (a unknown theory in the 1800s) and its effect on the Indonesian islands. We read intimate portraits of the Javanese people, colonial rulers, and shipping merchants of the time, along with scientists equipped for the first time with tools to study the event; and the effects of Krakatoa's explosion.

Krakatoa was a sleepy, cone-shaped island visited by local fishermen, merchants, and even tourists enjoying its lush green slopes. (By the way, the origin of the name"Krakatoa" is hazy, but my favorite explanation offered by Winchester was from a local islander asked by an Indian ship captain about the name of the cone-shaped island. The response? "Kaga tau," meaning "I don't know." The author carefully details the early discovery, exploration, and colonial rule by Europeans of the Indonesian islands including Krakatoa, and the importance of the local islands for their highly valuable spices. But locals and Europeans alike never feared the island's potential for volcanic disaster. 

They were blissfully ignorant of the tectonic complication then beginning to unravel many miles beneath their feet....[exhibiting] magnificent insouciance that was to be their motif for the next two centuries -- right up to the moment of the cataclysm.

Then came the disaster when the beaches of Krakatoa split open, shaking the earth, throwing red hot stones and ash skyward, setting the jungle trees on fire over the entire island. Boats hundreds of miles away reported dodging floating trees and pumice rocks, gas and ash. But the worst to come were the monstrous tsunami waves 130 feet high and traveling over 60 miles per hour that swept entire cities away.

Winchester puts readers right in the middle of this inferno of explosions ("like the battery of guns"). Using diaries, telegrams, ship captain reports, local observations, and newspaper articles, the event becomes almost as alive and terrifying as it was for international observers. For the locals experiencing it first-hand, they believed it was clearly the end of their world. One ship captain wrote in his log, "I am convinced that the Day of Judgment has come."

People around the globe followed these eruptions via the new international cable relaying Morse code messages to newspapers. For the first time in history, the people of all countries could learn about a disastrous natural event almost as it happened. In all, "165 villages were devastated, 36,417 people died, and uncountable thousands were injured."

Winchester provides plenty of unusual accounts from the time, including the circus actress who, the night before the eruption, brought her fidgety baby elephant into her hotel room, then left him alone while she went to dinner. Of course, the elephant totally destroyed her room. One man claimed to have escaped rising waters by clinging to the back of an alligator and holding on with his thumbs in the creature's eyes. Another man climbed a 130 foot hill, only to see the rising wave come within 10 feet of his shelter.

It's a fascinating, awe-inspiring natural disaster that Winchester portrays in minute but highly-readable, riveting detail. I couldn't put it down or stop telling friends and family the unusual details about this world and the colossal event that was the eruption and total devastation, as well as the recovery today of the island of Krakatoa. Highly recommended.

To the outside world the eruption of 1883 may have spelled death and devastation. To the world of biology and botany, however, the subsequent energetic happenings...demonstrate the utterly confident way that the world, however badly it has been wounded, picks itself up, continues to unfold its magic and its marvels, and sets itself back on its endless trial of evolutionary progress yet again. The crucible of life turns out to be the most difficult of vessels to break.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Walker, Gabrielle. Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life As We Know It.   

Did you know the Earth was, for over 200 million years, completely covered by ice at a -40 degree Centigrade? Author Walker explores this phenomenon and the evidence produced by scientist Paul Hoffman. In all, it is lucid, exciting detail of a world-changing event that proves a fascinating read.  

Space Odyssey

Benson, Michael. Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece New York: Simon & Schuster. 2018. Print.

First Sentences:

Things were not going well at the Ceylon Astronomical Association.

Description:

I'm sure every commercial film has an interesting backstory and anecdotes relating to its creation, people, filming, and eventual premier. But when the film is arguably the most thought-provoking, original, technically-innovative masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, then the stories about every aspect and person who helped create it have to be the most riveting imaginable. 

Michael Benson in his brilliant Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, delivers a breathtaking history behind the making of this film. From the original vague idea hammered out by sci-fi superstar author Arthur C. Clarke and brilliant director Stanley Kubrick to the never-seen-before scenes of space, Space Odyssey covers each intriguing idea and ingenious method necessary (or discarded) to bring the concept to film, all without the aid of computers. 

In 1964, Kubrick sought out Arthur C. Clarke, the best sci-fi writer, to create a story and film that was something completely new, inspiring, and thought-provoking. Together they watched every sci-fi movie, read every space-related book and story, and collected voluminous amounts of photos, articles, interviews, technologies, and everything else that might inspire them.

[Kubrick's factors to consider for every film] - Was it interesting? Was it believable? And, was it beautiful or aesthetically superior?

Eventually Kubrick chose Clarke's story The Sentinal as the basis for 2001, a story which focused on an alien creation found on the moon that, once exposed to sunlight, sent a signal across the universe to alert another civilization... to do what? The 2001 plot, characters, and especially the ending were all loosely defined and constantly argued over during filming, to be re-conceived and even completely abandoned over the next years. But always, 2001 was defined by Kubrick's goals to create a work that was "accurate scientifically" and tied "to current research of all kinds." Psychedelia, technology, NASA, and many more areas were carefully studied, and every conceivable expert was interviewed for opinions and ideas.

The entire project was kept completely secret from the media, public, and even the studio who had recently green-lighted Kubrick for any new movie after his international success with Dr. Strangelove. Of course, there were plenty of snags with 2001 along with the triumphs and lessons learned, and author Benson carefully details them all: 

• 2001 was filmed using 70mm film, a huge medium meant to replicate the new, popular Cinerama technique without requiring multiple cameras.

• To find the right music for the score, Kubrick gave an assistant the equivalent of $5,000 to buy a wide selection of modern classical records (selling for about $2 each). The assistant returned with "his station wagon so jammed with vinyl it sagged visibly."

• HAL's final song, "Daisy Bell," was chosen in homage to the first song ever sung by a computer, recorded in 1962 in the Bell Labs;

• Stars on an inky space background were created using a solution of military turpentine and specks of paint flicked into the mix. Fumes were overpowering. A team of "blobbers" was hired to paint over minute white stars on each frame of film to hide unwanted stars;

• The original 12' tall by 2' thick monolith was created of clear plastic, but didn't film well so the extremely expensive piece was discarded. The new, equally costly black monolith had a surface so highly polished that it constantly showed dusty hand prints during the Dawn of Man and moon scenes;

• The rotating gravity centrifuge wheel of Discovery was 35' high and needed a new, specially-reinforced floor in the studio to support it and the cameras;

• Space helmets, to maintain realism, had no holes to release the stuntman's exhaled carbon dioxide . Filming with helmets was limited to 15 minutes or when the actor passed out, whichever came first;

• Kubrick, a former photojournalist for Look magazine, took Polaroid photos continually throughout the filming to get an idea of what a 3-D scene would look like on the final flat movie screen;

• Vivian Kubrick, the director's four-year-old daughter, played a key on-screen role as Heywood Floyd's daughter who was called on video phone from the lunar transport;

• Gary Lockwood, one of the lead actors, gambled so much with the crew that one man stopped showing up for work because he owed Lockwood so much money;

• Moonwatcher, the man-ape who leads the cluster of apes to fight, was played by a famous mime, Don Richtner, who choreographed all the Dawn of Man scenes;

• Arthur C. Clarke wrote and continually edited a voice-over narration that would help explain some of the abstract scenes and plots, but at the very last minute of editing the film, Kubrick scrapped the idea, leaving just silence;

The book is jam-packed with similar stories, scenes, equipment, conversations, dreams, and frustrations presented chronologically by author Benson. Space Odyssey chronicles the talented engineers, cinematographers, animators, and actors who, without the use of computers, over the period of four years, created the film. Benson even recounts the disastrous New York premier for critics (many of whom walked out of the screening) as well as the subsequent triumph for public movie-goers (who lined up for hours to watch and re-watch the film). 

In short, I loved this and devoured it every chance I got to read it. It is the kind of book you make time for, guard your quiet and privacy while reading, and talk the ears off of anyone around you as you re-tell an anecdote or quote, and in general sing its praises.

Of course, it is most highly recommended. And since this is the fiftieth anniversary of the film's release, I get to see the movie next week in its original 70mm glory. Can't wait.

Two possibilities exist: either we're alone in the universe, or we're not. Both are equally terrifying. - Arthur C Clarke

It is extremely difficult to represent any alien on the screen without either scaring, or amusing, an audience. But unless you show something, people will feel cheated. - Stanley Kubrick

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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

Weir, Andy. The Martian  

One astronaut is accidentlly left behind as dead on Mars when his crew blasts off. Now he must use his wits to survive until someone realizes he is alive and can send a rescue mission months in the future. Excellent. (previously reviewed here)

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles  

Series of chronological-set short stories about the populating, dominance, and eventual fall of Earth explorers on the planet Mars. (previously reviewed here)

His Bloody Project

Burnet, Graeme Macrae. His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae. New York: Skyhorse. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

I am writing this at the behest of my advocate, Mr Andrew Sinclair, who since my incarceration here in Inverness has treated me with a degree of civility I in no way deserve.

My life has been short and of little consequence, and I have no wish to absolve myself of responsibility for the deeds which I have lately committed. It is thus for no other reason than to repay my advocate's kindness towards me that I commit these words to paper. 

Description:

Author Graeme Macrae Burnet, while researching his own family history in Scotland, discovered references to a triple murder in 1869 in the small town of Culduie. What's interesting was that accounts reveal the crime was committed by Rodrick Macrae, a 17-year-old boy who shares the name "Macrae" with Burnet. 

Using obscure documents about the case, Burnet compiles a convincing re-telling of the unusual crime in his stunning new historical novel, His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae. Carefully woven into the narrative of the book are actual police reports, neighbor character references about Macrae, trial notes, findings from "criminal anthropologists," and even a lengthy memoir and confession written by Rodrick himself while in jail, explaining the events leading up to his crime. 

From the first pages, there is little doubt that Rodrick Macrae killed the victims. In fact, witness interviews showed he was seen with the murder weapons, never resisted arrest, freely admitted to his crime, and then sat patiently in his cell awaiting trial and probable execution. 

What drives the book forward is the interesting documents that serve to unravel the causes that made an intelligent young man coldly commit a brutal murder and then not even try to escape the consequences. Little by little, as events and personalities unfold, readers must draw their own conclusions about the conditions surrounding these murders, the motivations of local people, the guilt of Rodrick, and even the validity of the documentation. 

Exquisitely told in a variety of voices, His Bloody Project (the title of the dime novel version of these events), immediately plunges readers into the world of 19th century Scotland, of relationships, murder, power, and the poverty of people trying to eke out a living as tenant farmers. This book was a finalist for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2016 for very good reasons. A wonderful story cleverly presented. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog
________________________________________

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

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood

The first in the "nonfiction novel" genre invented by Capote reconstructs the brutal Kansas murder of a family by two men, then tries to uncover the actual events and motivations behind the crime.. (previously reviewed here)