Today Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America is available.
The 1.0 release was a very interesting read (my review here) and I’m looking forward to the update.
Check out Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 online in PDF format.
I have a cousin on his third tour of Afghanistan and an old friend from school serving in Iraq’s Green Zone. This book is an honest look at a military tragedy and hits home for all who have loved ones serving our country overseas.
Jon Krakauer has written a sobering, powerful book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. This is about the life of a gifted patriot. I finished this book on Veterans Day.
Krakauer’s focus is on the friendly fire killing and dishonor by the Cheney Bush Administration and Military towards Pat’s virtue, wife, mother and family. As Krakauer points out the military conducted SEVEN investigations into his killing.
The opening chapter quickly introduces Tillman’s death then moves to his early childhood and life playing high school football. From there Krakauer traces his steps at Arizona State University where Pat was the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year and and Academic All-American. He was drafted by the Phoenix Cardinals and turned down a $9 million dollar offer from the St. Louis Rams to stay in Phoenix.
Tillman proved time after time that he was able to overcome challenges placed before him and his measurement was not physical, but rather his heart and soul. That is how Tillman was raised. This even fell to brother Kevin Tillman. Kevin and Pat both left professional sports careers (Kevin was playing pro baseball in the minor leagues) to join the Rangers shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
The Commission: What we didn’t know about 9/11 will get your heart racing, stomach knotted, fists pounding and blood boiling. All in no specific order. You will feel moved-to-action regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum.
Read this book and allow yourself to come back up-to-speed with the events surrounding 9/11. Learn about dirty politics played by the Bush Administration regarding staff appointments to the 9/11 Commission.
Philip Shenon, the New York Times staff writer in Washington DC offers a behind the scenes look at twisted politics and power in Washington DC and NYC. The book’s focus is simple: the Commission formation and events surrounding their investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Remember the Jersey Girls? Or senior Bush Administration officials who actually fought against forming the 9/11 commission?
Throughout the book Shenon documents how Philip Zelikow, appointed 9/11 Commission Executive Director was viewed by the commission staff as a mole for the Bush White House. Zelikow served President-elect Bush as a member of his transition team prior to being appointed Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission. Soon after the Commission’s report was published Zelikow accepted an offer from Condoleezza Rice to work in the White House.
Remember George Bush initially nominated Henry Kissinger to head the commission? Yet when victims families first met with him (including the Jersey Girls) they learned Kissinger’s personal consulting company had the Bin Ladin family as a client. The families were outrage and Kissinger resigned the following day.
I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Joining The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success comes his latest work What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures which is a collection of his writings with the New Yorker. I have enjoyed all of his books and this new release is no exception.
And to prove life again is all about timing the NYTimes has it’s book review hitting tomorrow’s Sunday paper. The book’s title is from his writing about Cesar Millan, the noted animal trainer with the hit cable show The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.
Gladwell breaks the book into three parts: Minor Geniuses, Theories – or ways of organizing experience and Predictions we make about people. From these points Gladwell shares those articles that have stuck with him long after the New Yorker articles were published.
I was pretty amused in reading What the Dog Saw right after finishing SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
To say the data and stories by Gladwell and Dubner & Levitt may overlap, it was nevertheless a lesson in looking beyond the regular story to take the opportunity to learn hidden lessons.
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner have released SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance a long awaited follow up to their hit Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.
If you enjoyed Freakonomics (my review here) or even Sudir Venkatesh‘s Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, the runaway hit from chapter three, then you will enjoy SuperFreakonomics.
I recall learning the book would be released in late 2009 but as soon as I saw it on the shelf I picked up a copy and began reading that night. They have done another great job exploring new datasets. Most readers will enjoy reading the data underlying a murder in New York of a woman in-front of 38 witnesses. Nobody called the police for help. They explore what this says about society. The book is more of the same: exploring the hidden side of everything.
From comparing street prostitution to a department store Santa to why suicide bombers should buy life insurance, Levitt and Dubner succeed in sharing unique datasets and telling a compelling story. How did television empower women in India? On the surface it may sound strange until you consider how they tell the story.
They provide inspiration as well. Their segment ‘The garden hose to the sky’ about global warming sounds funny on the surface until they share the idea is from Microsoft’s former technology director. He is the principal owner in a scientific research firm that is developing tools to cool the earth. It gets more interesting when you learn Bill Gates is an investor in the company.