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Death is a real conversation stopper. That’s why I think it’s so important that as many as possible read Senator McCain’s book NOW, as the author himself fights for his life. A book so comprehensive as this one raises serious questions that I’d hope we can pose to the author while we have the chance. In view of the recent G-7 meeting at which our President proposes inviting Russia to join, McCain chronicles decades of meaningful contact with Russian leaders and literally (in a couple of meanings of that word) screams for attention. One such chapter is appropriately titled “Nyet”. The book might be best viewed as a collection of short stories - narrations of important periods of the life of this hero cum Senator - his campaign for President, his visits to, and efforts to support our endless wars in the Middle East, and Afghanistan. It would be hard to pick a best-of-show chapter in his description of his life’s work, but it would be hard to ignore the impact of his lengthy efforts to remove torture from our menu of options for our enemies; like many of the other chapters, he’s chosen a thought-evoking title for this chapter - About Us. In a 10-page preface, McCain describes attending the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, himself a newly elected Senator listening to his Naval Academy classmate, a 4-star Admiral as he addresses the assembled group. When he confessed to having difficulty controlling his emotions as a member of the reviewing group as the Pearl Harbor survivors marched past, Senator Inouye a fellow veteran whispered “Accumulated memories.” That’s as close to an accurate summary of his book as I’ve seen. In a closing paragraph for that preface, the Senator discusses the rightful, and essential, role the United States takes, as the leader in the world. He says: “I have served that cause all my adult life. I haven’t always served it well. I haven’t even always appreciated that I was serving it. But among the few compensations of old age is the acuity of hindsight. I was part of something bigger than myself that drew me along in its wake even when I was diverted by personal interests. I was, knowingly or not, along for the ride as America made the future better than the past.” Let’s all read that book.

Most reviewers don’t bother with reviewing the end flap on the dust cover, but this one seems significant. Following a coated, but tie-less photo of the attorney-author John Grisham is a brief summary of his work, in pertinent part, 31 novels and one work of non-fiction. I won’t identify the non-fiction work (it identifies itself at its end) because it’s important the reader discover that for him/herself. Were it not for some events occurring in 2014 in The Rooster Bar, I would swear that this is Grisham’s second work of non-fiction, a description of today’s millennials’ efforts to follow the rules and join adult society.. This book follows a group of law school students as they try to complete their final semester at a for-profit law school in Washington, D.C. The situation is precisely (and accurately) described, both as to the physical location, the concern of the students for the enormous debt they’ve accumulated, and the frustration of trying to prepare to pass the bar exam and find a good paying job when the whole world (mostly) knows that their school has a well-deserved reputation of being nothing but a money-making diploma mill. The ‘mostly’ in that last sentence is caused by the ignorance, either intentional or simply bureaucratic, of the federal government which seems to shovel money toward ‘universities’ like this “Foggy Bottom Law School” in spite of the abysmally poor success rate of their students at passing the bar, and finding meaningful employment. There are obvious examples of this sort of government/school largesse in recent news reports. Grisham’s tie-less photo on the dust jacket sets the tone for an in-the-trenches view into subjects as diffuse as traffic court in downtown D.C., heartless government immigration raids, grotesque federal loans to students, wealthy movers and shakers. This seems an all-but-spelled-out effort on Grisham’s part to expose the seamier side of today’s legal system. And, as an attorney who graduated from a for-profit law school, I’d expect future dust covers to list this as his second, largely-non-fiction, book.

As I opened Dan Brown’s “Origin”, I asked my wife if she wanted to read it first. She said that she’d wait, that his books were “formulaic”. I agreed that they had a beginning, a middle, and an end, but I enjoyed the mental gymnastics and surprises he sprinkled in his imaginative plots. A review of this book, it seems to me, should preserve this surprise aspect, but still offer enough detail to hook the potential reader. A difficult task, which I propose to attempt by quoting the first sentence in the book. FACT: All art, architecture, locations, science, and religious organizations in the novel are real. The assertiveness of this statement, at least in its positioning, forcing my attention, basking in its uniqueness, reminded me of something I’d not seen in years: an antimacassar. In my aunt’s later years, I remember going into her home, and being immediately struck with two things - a stuffy, old-age odor, and the antimacassars she had draped over every upholstered chair in the living room. They didn’t fit the decor, and their purpose - keeping hair pomades and slick-back oil from one’s head soiling the upholstery - had long since become a non-existent problem. I guessed they were there from my aunt’s force of habit. I can’t explain Dan Brown’s antimacassar away that easily. Halfway through the book, I realized how this semi-declarative sentence had earned its prominent place. First, there are references to scientific endeavors, and religious organizations that can be most charitably described as, out of the main stream. Brown’s antimacassar adds a chilling dimension to some of these. More importantly in my mind, the action in this novel takes place in several different locations, and deals with works of art that my wife was familiar with, but I was not. Being able to use the Internet to look at images of these objects as Robert Langdon enters into, climbs up on, falls down, marvels at, seemed to me to be adding a new dimension, an augmentation of the story itself. I realize that’s not much of a description of what the reader will encounter, but I hope the unique possibility of reading while researching important architectural achievements being brought into play will attract the inquisitive reader to consume this latest Brown novel. I hope I haven’t given too much away.

It's sort of science fiction in reverse. Most people alive today weren't born when we drove on something other than interstate highways, and didn't isolate ourselves with ear buds and hand held games. We'd read stupid little doggerel verses on the side of the road, and then took them as a theme message for a discussion in the car, until we came to the next new thing to discuss. In this Christmas season, with Oscar nominations looming and Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, generating a national buzz, this book from 1965 is a real nostalgia agitator. An Unintentional Historical Novel There was a time, not all that long ago, when making a trip in the family car, was an adventure in and of itself. Before there were hand-held video games or back-seat DVD Players, there were signs - little signs, close to the road, easy to read, not too many words. Thinking back to, and experiencing, a car trip in those days is very much like telling Scotty “Beam me up” in today’s science fiction. This book won’t stretch your imagination like space travel logs may do, but I guarantee if you show this book of verses to anyone born before President Eisenhower proposed the Interstate Highway System, that person will have a story or two to tell you. “The Verse by the Side of the Road, by Frank Rowsome presents the complete texts of the hundreds of “verses” created and presented by an author whose name appeared at the end of each poem; the poet’s initials are BS, and were proudly displayed with no giggles in those days to acknowledge the possible profanity associate with those initials. More than just the detrius of a questionably-effective 36-year-long advertising campaign, these signs dealt with the problems of life, and, in some cases offered solutions. They kept our minds off the much longer drive times, helped us laugh through the speed traps, even offered safety tips. As I read this book, and flipped back and forth through the chronologically-ordered poems, I took my own little trip back in years; I went back to US 60 in Kentucky, heading west out of Ashland, toward Lexington, marveling at the way the road hugged the contours of each hill, with my dad, a civil engineer, explaining the cut-and-fill road construction process, and my mom, not a teacher, but an avid crossword puzzle solver, criticizing the clumsy use of some word or other in a poem. It may bore you to listen to your elderly friend/relative as he tells you what he’s remembering from these signs, as my description here is probably doing now. But remembering, and telling someone about it makes me feel good, and I think it will do the same for your dotard (Thank you Kim Jong Un). What better gift could you give? Farewell, O verse Along the road How sad to Know you’re Out of mode Burma-Shave

Underground Airlines is a 21st Century extension of 1984. It's told by an actively ambivalent citizen doing his best to make a living without worrying about it, in a world run by mega-businesses, overseen by mega-government. It's nothing Orwell couldn't have written if he'd predicted location-tracking implants, and if he'd seen aggressive corporations as a substitute for the communist threat.

I'm guessing that Jeanette Mary Francis de Assisi Aloysius Narcissus Garfield Bell would have basked in the title of this book. My mother, who knew of Jeanette as Jean Bell, the Traipsin' Woman, would not have done so. I was born and raised in Ashland, Kentucky, and my mother did everything she could to make sure that we never got close enough to the word hillbilly to have it appear in the same sentence with any of us. The Traipsin' Woman made a living in Ashland, celebrating hillbilly music. Ashland is one of those steel mill towns that JD describes in Elegy; it's on US23, the hillbilly freeway which runs between the Big Sandy in Kentucky, and Middletown, Ohio, the two principal locations in Elegy. JD paints a picture that resonates with me and my recollections of the dismay and frustration so many of our friends and neighbors display. We didn't expect much, but we did think that ARMCO would always be there, and the Semet-Solvay Plant would turn the sky in Ashland a glowing red least once a day as it dumped a gondola-full car of coke. We were wrong; political reporters who interviewed JD about Ohio voters before the 2016 election learned the truth before the rest of us - that sometimes anything looks better than what you've got. JD broke free, thanks to the Marine Corps; I did, too, but my passport came from the Navy. This book made me realize how much remains to be done; I hope it will do the same for you.