Book Reviews
I have always enjoyed reading, although I don’t have as much time for it as I used to. My interests are pretty eclectic,
although I tend to lean more towards reference, academic, and scientific works than towards other genres. On this page,
I review some of the books I’ve read, for your enjoyment (?) and information.
All of the reviews are for books I have truly purchased and read myself. Of course, my reviews are quite subjective, so you may or may not agree with me about a given book. Most of the books are books that I had purchased because I thought I’d like them, so most of the reviews are naturally positive; that doesn’t mean that I praise everything I read so much as it demonstrates that I tend to buy only books that I expect to enjoy in the first place.
Each of the books has a link that you can follow to actually buy the book from
Amazon.com, the Internet’s leading online book merchant
(although they also sell CDs and videos, now). Over time I’ve become somewhat addicted to online book shopping, and
Amazon.com has consistently provided me with excellent service. Anyway, the book links point to
Amazon in case you want to buy the book. I provide links even for books I don’t like, since others might not share
my tastes and might want to read the books anyway.
The cover illustrations don’t necessarily match exactly the covers of current editions, but they’ll give you an idea of what the book looks like (with the dust jacket, if applicable). Similarly, the links point to the most recent editions, in cases where the edition I’ve read is no longer in print.
A Darn Big Dam
Hoover Dam: An American Adventure is a fascinating book about the construction of one of the world’s modern engineering marvels: Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. This dam, one of the largest in the world (and the largest at the time of its construction, in the early Thirties, and its spillways are higher than Niagara Falls) is indisputably the best known, and still serves as the archetype of a dam in movies and literature. Most drawings you’ve seen of dams are probably based on this concrete-arch dam, which spans the 300-metre-deep Black Canyon in the desert downstream of the Grand Canyon. Hoover was the first of many dams on the Colorado, and it was arguably the best-engineered, and the most sturdily built. Anyway, Joseph E. Stevens excellent book on the dam is a mixture of technical information, historical data, anecdote, research paper, inspiration, and storytelling. Engineers like myself find the book fascinating in part for its detailed explanations of the dam’s structure and the methods used to build it; others with less of an engineering bent will like its many stories of the individuals who participated in the project, from lowly laborers to the President. The book is written in an evocative style that avoids the dryness into which books of this type are so prone to settle, and the constant movement between pure data, human interest, and social comment keeps the book from ever getting boring. In addition, Stevens includes many rare photographs in the book (at least in the hardcover edition that I have—I’m not sure about the paperback editions), and provides a huge collection of detailed footnotes at the end of the book; he definitely did his homework preparing this book. If you are fascinated by dams (as I am), or if you find stories of great engineering achievements and social undertakings to be interesting, you’ll probably enjoy this book. I have the hardcover edition, which is now out of print. The links I give above point to an inexpensive paperback edition, which is still available. Hardcover, 325 pages / University of Oklahoma Press, 1988 |
Nobody Does It Better
SR-71 Revealed: The Inside Story is about the SR-71, a formerly top-secret aircraft that gets my vote as the wickedest-looking aircraft of all time. Sleek, painted entirely black, slender, with bat-like wings, huge engines, and an overall aerodynamic design that makes it look almost alive, the SR-71 holds unbroken records for speed and altitude, despite the fact that it was designed over thirty years ago. This aircraft is so fast that it could fly you from one side of the U.S. to another in less than an hour (how’s that for first class?) at an altitude so high that you could easily see the curve of the Earth and the stars over your head. For decades, the SR-71 provided unmatched aerial reconnaissance for the U.S. government, and for many years it was so secret that the government wouldn’t even acknowledge its existence. Now much about the airplane has been declassified, and former “Habu” pilot and USAF squadron and wing commander Richard H. Graham describes it all in detail, ranging from technical specifications to stories of missions and pilots to analysis of why and how the program was (unjustifiably) killed. If you like aircraft at all—especially high-performance aircraft—you’ll love this book. Just about everything about the SR-71 is amazing; in this book you learn that the engines of the SR-71 cruise with the afterburner operating and glow almost transparently with heat as a result, and what pilots do when they have to go to the bathroom during a long flight (I won’t reveal that here!). You can also read amusing stories of the hopeless attempts of the Soviet Union and other countries to intercept or shoot down the aircraft (the SR-71 was immune to attack because of its great speed and cruising altitude, and it was never successfully intercepted or shot down by anyone—and it’s not as if they didn’t try, as Mr. Graham points out!). There are lots of pictures in the center of the book, too. Once you’ve read this book, Top Gun looks pretty tame by comparison, and you understand that, when it comes to the SR-71, “nobody does it better.” I’ve read some other excellent books on the SR-71, notably those by Brian Shul, a former pilot, but I only review one at a time here, in order to not skew my reviews too much towards a single subject. Paperback, 224 pages / Motorbooks International, 1996 |
A Cathedral on Your Coffee Table
Notre Dame de Paris is a beautiful book visually and esthetically, and additionally makes for excellent reading. In this book about the world-famous Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, France author Alain Erland-Brandenburg (translated by John Goodman) describes the history of the construction of the edifice, and examines the art of the cathedral in detail. He explains that Notre-Dame was an architectural and engineering wonder in its time, and that the project of its construction was one of the most prestigious projects of its day, attracting expert artisans and craftsmen from far and wide. In a sense, it was like the Hoover Dam of its time, as construction projects go. Mr. Erland-Brandenburg goes into detail concerning how the construction was financed, how materials were chosen, how Maurice de Sully—the “father” of the cathedral—pushed the project onward throughout his lifetime, and how he managed to find financing for the project. (Contrary to what you might think, the government did not pay for construction of the cathedral, and it was built by paid professional engineers, architects, and craftsmen, and not by mere unskilled but pious volunteers.) The author goes on to explain the many architectural marvels of the cathedral, the various phases in its construction (including the restoration by Viollet-le-Duc), and its particular idiosyncrasy. Along with this discussion of its construction and history (which I found to be the more interesting part of the text, being an engineer myself), the author also examines the artistic side of the cathedral in great detail, with careful analysis and descriptions of the vast body of sculpture and stained glass that adorns Notre-Dame. Finally, the text is only half the story, since superb, expertly printed color photographs and illustrations fill the entire volume—there are more illustrations than pages! The photography of Caroline Rose alone is worth the price (these are the best photographs of the cathedral that I have ever seen), even if you aren’t that interested in the text. As my title for this review implies, this large-format, superbly-printed book is great on a coffee table or in a well-stocked library of art or history. The detail of the text will please those who want to learn more about Notre-Dame, and the photographs will appeal both to those who have seen the cathedral in person and those who have not yet had that pleasure. This is not an inexpensive book, but it is worth the price if you are an admirer of Notre-Dame. Hardcover, 256 pages with 262 illustrations / Harry N. Abrams, 1998 |
Slimy Horrors from the Depths
Remember that giant squid in Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Well, such an animal really exists (more or less), and in The Search for the Giant Squid, author Richard Ellis tells you all about it (virtually all that’s known about it, in fact). The real giant squid is a refrigerator-sized, boneless, 300-kg blob o’flesh, with eyes the size of dinner plates, and with sucker-equipped arms that can bring its overall length to 20 metres! Anyway, I’ve been fascinated by stories about this slippery deep-sea nightmare ever since I discovered that such a creature was more than just a myth, and this book satisfied my longstanding curiosity about it. The author provides plenty of rare photographs and drawings, extensive references, lists of specimens recovered, and the like, and discusses fact and myth, legends, popular misconceptions, squid biology, the relationship between sperm whales and giant squid (the former enjoy eating the latter for dinner, but the latter put up quite a fight), and the giant squid in movies and literature. The book is scientific and scholarly, but it is written with humor and wit, and in fact I would not hesitate to recommend it as a book for young people, as it deals with precisely the sort of spooky subject that might fascinate a young person (or one of his elders) with a good imagination. Hardcover, 332 pages with illustrations / The Lyons Press, 1998 |
Famous Last Words Aloft
The Black Box, edited by Malcom MacPherson, is a dramatic collection of actual transcripts from the Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVRs) of commercial jet aircraft that have been involved in serious accidents. (The CVR records all cockpit conversations continuously during a flight, and is recovered for investigation when an aircraft crashes as part of the so-called “black box”, whence the name of the book.) Some of the accidents involved no fatalities, others killed everyone on board, and still others were in-between; but regardless of the outcomes, all of the transcripts make for fascinating—and unsettling—reading. My favorite transcript snippets from a goosebump-producing standpoint include the Chinese captain who, after his aircraft crashed (he survived), asked, in Chinese, “What means ‘pull up’?” (the “pull up” audible warning in the cockpit is an automatic system that tells the pilot he will crash if he does not pull the plane upwards); and the romantic copilot whose last words were “I love you, Amy” (he survived the crash, making for a happy ending for him and Amy). Some flight crews were incredibly stupid or careless, others were heroic, cool, and competent even in the face of almost certain death. It makes for great reading, in any case—but I recommend that anyone with a fear of flying skip this book! Paperback, 224 pages, revised / William Morrow & Company, 1998 |
Getting Lost in Paris (Not!)
Paris Plan and Index, published by Michelin, is probably the best little street map and index for the city of Paris, France that you can get. Although Michelin also makes single-sheet maps that you can unfold (the same map as this one, in fact, apart from the way it is printed), this book-style map is easier to consult on the run, and the index of streets and other information (important addresses, a Métro map, a RER map, and supplements for several suburbs) make it much more useful than just a plain map, in my experience. This is only one of many excellent travel publications published by Michelin, but it is probably the one that I reference most frequently. Paperback, 10th edition / Michelin Travel Publications, 1993 |
Movie Reviews
Paris Fast Food
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Last modified on February 8, 2005
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