Review and Preview

Apologies for my tardiness in emailing/posting. Many thanks again Tony for an excellent night.

Next venue is not decided but we should aim for mid April with the possibility of pushing it to May only if necessary.

The book is The Corner by David Simon and Ed Burns
Wikipedia Entry
Amazon.com
Telegraph Review - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/5369733/The-Corner-by-David-Simon-and-Ed-Burns-review.html

This should be available in bookshops around town (I know a couple of members have already purchased their copies). The book is a true account of one year in the life of a corner where drugs are sold in inner city Baltimore.

David Simon wrote The Wire which is widely believed to be one of the best TV series ever written. It is multi layered and deeply satisfying. each of the 5 series is a novel in itself (and just like a novel you need to check back a few pages (or episodes) to remind yourself of who some of the characters are. SImon also developed The Corner into a fictionalised mini-series for HBO.

Simon was a reporter on the City desk of the Baltimore Sun and Ed Burns is a former Homicide detective. Simon spent a year following the Homicide squad around and wrote a book about it which was developed into a CBS TV series with Barry Levinson (Diner, Sleepers, Wag the Dog etc.) - Homicide Life on the Street. Myself and Caitriona were huge fans of this and have my copy of the original book from about 1995 (pre-Internet - we had a US cousin post a copy). This series starred the likes of David Belzer, Ned Beatty, William Baldwin, Yaphet Koto (big black guy from the first Alien movie), Andre Braugher and many other faces you would know and was far from conventional - some episodes they didn't even have a murder to solve, they just sat around drinking coffee and arguing. I have the first (and best) series on dvd if anyone is interested.

Now a quick review of last month's books -

My two gin and tonics and half a bottle of wine consumed before my arrival, added to my consumption on arrival, leaves me with a rather hazier than usual recollection of our discussion but I will do my best... (feel free to correct me!)

Lost City of Z was enjoyed by all. We wondered at the madness of bringing your son with you on such an expedition but maybe nobody else could have coped with such hardship. We also wondered at the madness of the author going on a similar trip with no training whatsoever and only a sat nav and a telephone to rescue him.

New tribes are waiting to be discovered in the Amazon (or rather they are there but have decided not to be join the madness of the modern world just yet. I confirmed this view with my Brazilian student Ana that this is widely accepted in Brazil.

Did the author discover the lost city "Z"? There is mounting evidence that there were very complicated societies in the Amazon in the 15th century until over 90 per cent of them were wiped out by western diseases (same in the north and central america). and as I mentioned before the following book has a similar thesis (but does not mention Z and uses different sources - all anthropology of the americas is starting to believe that a much more sophisticated culture was wiped out by the arrival of europeans than previously believed)
"Ancient Americans" by Charles C. Mann-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Americans-Rewriting-History-World/dp/1862076170 target="new"
or just borrow my copy.

Our Second Choice "Fateful Choices" by Ian Kershaw proved a little harder for us to get through. It is rather densely written but is intensely researched and a good reference tool for answering questions we all have about WW2 - what was Hitler thinking when he invaded russia? Why on Earth did Mussolini invade Greece? What were the Japanese thinking by bombing Pearl Harbour? Why didn't Stalin accept the numerous intelligence reports that Hitler was about to invade? and Did Hitler really need to kill the Jews? etc.

Certainly some of these decisions could have been avoided or modified. I wondered if some of the chapters could have been merged - e.g. Roosevelt decides to Lend a Hand and Roosevelt Decides to Wage Undeclared War. Others felt the extra depth added was useful as it showed the baby steps R. had to take.

One definitely worth owning and dipping into if not absorbing every detail.

thats all folks