“Leon Trotsky, one of the more competent practitioners of the art of war, is reputed to have commented that ‘you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.'” So begins James Lacey and Williamson Murray clear, concise, and entertaining Moment of Battle. With uncertain times, I felt like reading a history of great battles would fit the era we’re living in. Steve Bannon, the Svengali to the truculent, irascible Donald Trump, has predicted a war in the Middle East. Bannon has also said that a war in the South China Sea is “inevitable.”

Given that kind of mind-set in the White House, war seems like a high probability event. James Lacy and Williamson Murray take a chronological approach, starting with the famous battle between the Athenians and the Persians at Marathon in 400 B.C. I enjoyed the attention to detail and the authors’s wit and cleverness in the analysis of these battles. And, I learned a lot. Who knew that Benedict Arnold was a military genius who turned traitor because his superiors wouldn’t acknowledge his battlefield accomplishments (they took the credit). And when I read about Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, I had tears in my eyes. Very moving.

Military history could be a very dry subject, but Lacey and Murray bring it alive in Moment of Battle. Highly recommended! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
MARATHON Athens Saves Westerm Civilization (490 B.C.)
GAUGAMELA Alexander Creates a New World (311 B.C.)
ZAMA An Empire in the balance (202 B.C)
ADRIANOPLE The End of Roman Supremacy (AD 378)
YARMUK The Islamic Conquest Begins (636)
HASTINGS The Remaking of Europe (1066)
THE SPANISH ARMADA Miracle at sea (1588)
BREITENFELD The Creation of Modern War (1631)
ANNUS MIRABILUS This Rise of British Supremacy (1750)
SARATOGA The Victory of the Amateurs (1777)
TRAFALGAR Napoleons Plans Thwarted (1805)
VICKSURG Breaking the Confederacy (1863)
THE MARNE The End of Old Europe (1914)
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN The Nazis Stopped (1940)
MIDWAY Imperial Japan Stopped (1942)
KURSK The End of the Drang Nach Osten (1943)
NORMANDY The Death Knell for Nazi Germany (1944)
DIEN BIEN PHU Imperialism Defeated (1954)
OBJECTIVE PEACH The Drive for Baghdad (2003)
Acknowledgements
NOTES
INDEX

The New England Patriots are 3-point favorites, but I’m rooting for the Atlanta Falcons! Who do you want to win the Super Bowl?

David Sax loves vinyl records. He loves clocks with hands. He’s convinced that analog is superior to digital. Sadly, we live in a digital world. My Casio watch is digital. Diane’s iPhone is digital, our Canon camera is digital. David Sax makes the argument we should be leery of our digital culture. He’s convinced analog is more authentic and more real. I have to agree with David Sax on real books. I much prefer a printed book to an ebook (although I read both). What do you think? Do you prefer digital or analog? GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Part 1: The Revenge of Analog Things
Chapter 1: The Revenge of Vinyl
Chapter 2: The Revenge of Paper
Chapter 3: The Revenge of Film
Chapter 4: The Revenge of Board Games

Part 2: The Revenge of Analog Ideas
Chapter 5: The Revenge of Print
Chapter 6: The Revenge of Retail
Chapter 7: The Revenge of Work
Chapter 8: The Revenge of School
Chapter 9: The Revenge of Analog, in Digital
Epilogue: The Revenge of Summer

At 904 pages, Batman in The Brave & The Bold: The Bronze Age Omnibus Volume 1 is a handful. But I loved reading these classic comic book adventures when I was a kid so it was worth the $46 (that’s the AMAZON price, retail price is $126!). If you’re a fan of Batman comics, you probably have this coffee table-sized book on order. There are hours of entailment between these covers. This volume also includes an informative foreword by Robert Greenberger which gives a nice contextual history of these adventures. This wonderful collection starts with issue #74 and runs straight through to issue #109 (Batman and The Demon). Batman teams up with Wonder Woman, Flash, Deadman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and the Teen Titans. And some of the best Bronze Age talent are here: Neal Adams, Jim Aparo, Bob Haney, Dick Giordano and Dennis O’Neil, The quality is high and it’s well worth the money. GRADE: A

How many girl friends did Jerry Seinfeld have on Seinfeld? According to Moira Weigel, Jerry Seinfeld had 66 girl friends in the 9-year run of Seinfeld. The characters on Friends had nearly that number. Dating was the focus of a lot of TV programs. But, once the Internet took hold, dating changed. Around 2000 Tom Wolfe published Hooking Up to document the changes in dating patterns. Today, we have apps like Tinder to facilitate social connections. But, as Moira Weigel points out in her history of dating, today’s hooking up and hanging out seems particularly joyless. Dating is part of the market economy for the “best looking” and “sexiest” companion. I’m glad I’m not part of this scene. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: Dates
Tricks
Likes
Outs
School
Steadies
Freedom
Niches
Protocol
Plans
Help
Afterword: Love.

Sarah Bakewell’s breezy history of existentialism starts with Jean Paul Sartre’s growing interest in the idea in the 1930s. Sartre’s lover, Simone de Beauvoir (author of the powerful The Second Sex), energizes Bakewell’s story with her affairs and her bravery during the German Occupation of Paris during WWII. Albert Camus shows up to disrupt mainstream existentialist thinking. Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology gives the existentialists fuel for their ideas. But it’s the brilliant Martin Heidegger, author of the classic Being & Time, who lights up many of the pages in At the Existentialist Cafe. Heidegger embraces the Nazi movement in the 1930s and then finds himself an outcast in the 1940s. Hannah Arendt, Heidegger’s student and then lover, tried to defend Heidegger’s motives in dabbling in anti-Semitism and becoming a Nazi sympathizer but few bought her arguments. Other key figures in the existentialist movement, Kark Jaspers and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, feud with Sartre and Heidegger. After the 1960s, existentialism slowly faded. The major figures started to die and their movement died with them. Sarah Bakewell’s book showed up on many Year’s Best Books lists in 2016. It deserves all the acclaim it has received. If you’re interested in 20th Century philosophy, At the Existentialist Cafe captures the spirit of those times. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1 Sir, What a Horror, Existentialism! 1
2 To the Things Themselves 35
3 The Magician from Messkirch 50
4 The They, The Call 74
5 To Crunch Flowering Almonds 98
6 I Don’t Want to Eat My Manuscripts 122
7 Occupation, Liberation 137
8 Devastation 175
9 Life Studies 208
10 The Dancing Philosopher 228
11 Croises comme ca 242
12 The Eyes of the Least Favoured 271
13 Having Once Tasted Phenomenology 299
14 The Imponderable Bloom 317
Cast of Characters 329
Acknowledgements 337
Notes 339
Select Bibliography 403
List of Illustrations 423
Index 425

We finally got around to see Lion. The movie is based on a true story from the book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley with Larry Buttrose. It tells the story of a young boy, Saroo, who gets separated from his brother aboard a train in India. After various adventures, Saroo finds an Australian couple want to adopt him. Saroo and his adoptive parents (Nicole Kidman and David Wentham) move to Australia. Twenty years later, Saroo moves to Melbourne to study hotel management. He starts a relationship with Lucy. As they share Indian food with friends, Saroo starts to recall his childhood. He confides that he is adopted, and his friends suggest that Saroo use Google Earth to search for his hometown. I found Lion to be an uplifting film. Lion received six Oscar nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Patel), Best Supporting Actress (Kidman) and Best Adapted Screenplay. GRADE: A-

“This book is the moment-by-moment account of the twenty-eight days I spent as the lowest-ranking participant in American education: a substitute teacher. I taught all ages, from kindergartners to twelfth-graders, and all required subjects–reading, writing, math, social students and science–plus a few electives here and there, like metal tech. I taught honors studetns and students in special ed classes–about a thousand children in all.” (p. 1) Why noted writer Nicholas Baker starts (and ends) his substitute career is never fully explained. Baker gets calls at 5:00 A.M. from local schools and he decides if he’s going to teach that day. If I knew someone who was contemplating a teaching career, I’d recommend they read Substitute. Baker doesn’t pull any punches: he accurately describes each day in the classroom–good or bad–and the reader can judge the experience.

The day that most struck me was Day 17 when Nicholson Baker was subbing for an English teacher and had to deal with an unruly class of 10th Graders. The assignment was to watch a video on the Holocaust. It featured Oprah and Elie Wiesel. Depute the photos of horror–piles of bodies, the mounds of empty can of Zyklon B gas–most of the students play with their iPads completely ignoring Baker and his lesson. Baker loses his temper and starts shouting at the rude students, but they just tune him out. Another demonstration of invincible ignorance.

Although I taught for 40 years, there were some surprises for me in Substitute. I had no idea how elementary schools have embraced iPads. It seemed like every kid had one. A number of students tell Baker they can’t do an assignment because they have ADHD. A number of Baker’s students are on a variety of drugs. I credit Nicholson Baker with showing what United States schools look like today. I also credit Baker for toughing out some very difficult situations with students. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface p. 1
Learning Targets p. 5
Day 1 Small but Hostile p. 15
Day 2 Mystery Picture p. 25
Day 3 I Suck at Everything p. 39
Day 4 Your Brain Looks Infected p. 55
Day 5 Toast p. 73
Day 6 Out Conies the Eyeball p. 91
Day 7 What the Hell Was That? p. 117
Day 8 He’s Just a Hairy Person p. 145
Day 9 I Can Write, but I Don’t Write p. 169
Day 10 Don’t Kill Penguins Cause Other Friends Get Sad p. 205
Day 11 She Stole My Grape p. 239
Day 12 I Don’t Judge p. 257
Day 13 There’s Nothing Exciting or Fun Happening Today p. 305
Day 14 When You Close Your Eyes and Think of Peace, What Do You See? p. 355
Day 15 But We Didn’t Do Anything p. 397
Day 16 Silent Ball p. 439
Day 17 Non-Negotiables p. 465
Day 18 The Man Who Needs It Doesn’t Know It p. 491
Day 19 Simple Machines p. 519
Day 20 Stink Blob to the Rescue p. 523
Day 21 Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy p. 561
Day 22 He Particularly Doesn’t Like This Particular Spot p. 595
Day 23 HOW DO You Spell Juicy? p. 625
Day 24 Hamburger Writing p. 635
Day 25 High on Summertime p. 645
Day 26 I Kind of Break My Own Spirit Sometimes p. 655
Day 27 That’s Just the Way School Is p. 687
Day 28 Plutonic Love p. 713

Writer/Director Kenneth Lonergan missed the boat in Manchester-By-The-Sea by focusing on the relationship between an uncle and his nephew when the Real Story is between husband (Casey Affleck) and wife (Michelle Williams). How do I know this? Every time Michelle Williams is on the screen (about 5 minutes in a 2-hour 17 minute movie) the movie bursts with energy and drama. By focusing on the relationship between Casey Affleck’s nephew (Lucas Hedges), a difficult teenager who has just lost his father to a heart-attack, the movie has less impact and more dull patches. Essentially, Casey Affleck’s character, Lee Chandler, makes a Big Mistake. A really, really Big Mistake. And Manchester-By-The-Sea is basically the story of Affleck living with the consequences. If Lonergen had focused on Affleck and Michelle Williams, this could have been a great movie. GRADE: B

I love Annette Being so factor that into your analysis of my review of Twentieth Century Women. Annette Bening plays a 55-year-old single mother raising a son in 1979. Her son Jamie, played by Lucas Jade Zumann, is a typical 15-year-old trying to come to grips with school and love and sex. Bening’s character owns an old mansion which she decides is too big for her and her son so she rents out two of the rooms. One goes to Greta Gerwig who plays a talented photographer with a lot of “baggage.” She dyes her hair red after seeing David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

The other tenant is a jack-of-all-trades guy played by Billy Crudup. He helps Bening restore the stately mansion and does some “renovation” work on Greta Gerwig as well. As if this wasn’t enough, Director/Wrier Mike Mills adds another character, Julie (played by Elle Fanning), who values Jamie’s friendship (by sleeping in his bed–but no sex) and alters the group’s chemistry from time to time.

If you’re looking for a very quirky movie that pretty much meanders for 2 hours and 17 minutes, then Twentieth Century Women is the movie for you. GRADE: B+