Need For reads

--> Fiction Racing’s dark underbelly A STONE’S THROW An Ellie Stone Mystery By James W. Ziskin 299 pp. Seventh Street Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Mystery writer James W. Ziskin is back with the sixth entry (previous entries are also reviewed on this site) in his popular mystery series set in an unusual time and place – upstate New York in the early 1960s – and featuring an unusual lady sleuth. Unusual for her time, that is. At a time when career opportunities for most young women were limited by society to housewife, teacher, or secretary, Eleonora “Ellie” Stone works as an investigative reporter for the New Holland Republic , her hometown newspaper. But then, Ellie Stone isn't like most young women. In her mid-twenties, she’s a tough-talking, hard-drinking dame with brains, guts, and wit, all of which she uses to get her story – and solve bizarre and brutal murders while she's at it. She takes no crap from men. Artie Short, the owner and senior editor of the New Ho...

--> Nonfiction First to fight THE FLYING TIGERS: The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War against Japan By Sam Kleiner 239 pp. Viking Reviewed by Diane Diekman Three years before the United States entered World War II, American pilots were already flying in a covert operation to defend China against Japan. Retired U.S. Army pilot Claire Chennault organized and led the group officially designated the American Volunteer Group (AVG)—better known as the Flying Tigers. The Flying Tigers is an excellent portrayal of this short-lived unit. It also provides a biography of Chennault, concluding with his death in 1958. Author Sam Kleiner has done a masterful job of research and storytelling. Now an attorney in New York City, he grew up in a family that nurtured his love of history; his grandfather regaled him with stories of navigating a B-25 in the Pacific during World War II. The book opens with a scene in which the news of the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl H...

--> Nonfiction What we humans do to ourselves UNBOUND: How Eight Technologies Made Us Human, Transformed Society, and Brought the World to the Brink By Richard Currier 376 pp. Arcade Publishing   Reviewed by David E. Hoekenga, M.D. While used occasionally before the last two hundred years, the term technology has been widely applied to human effort since then. In Currier’s book it is used to describe events that in some cases occurred millions of years ago and to eight different eras of human development critical to human progress. In his first section the author describes the primate baseline and how unique monogamy is in humans occurring in only three percent of mammals. He finds that monogamy while not perfect promotes “social stability.” Then drawing on very early man out of Africa such as “Lucy,” Currier describes how standing fully upright, forging fire-hardening sticks, and especially a bigger brain benefitted the early hominids in their ascent . Making clever use o...

Nonfiction Bouncing between boom and bust BOOM TOWN: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis By Sam Anderson 448 pp. Crown Reviewed by Sarah Corbett Morgan I kept looking at this book and thinking, Nah, I don’t want to read about Oklahoma City and what do I know or care about professional basketball? But something kept making me look at it again. The cover perhaps? Whatever,  I was gobsmacked; Boom Town is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s been described by other reviewers as brilliant and kaleidoscopic. Yes and yes.  The book is indeed about Oklahoma City, the city that desperately wants to be world class but fails with regularity. Their airport, for example, is named for their native son, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator, Will Rogers. Will Rogers World Airport, this grandiose title even though no internation...