BOOK REPORTS--

Riding Toward Everywhere by William T. Vollmann

The book is a sensitive peek at modern Hobos as they engage in this ageless pursuit. It is a generally good read but it gets a little tedious when he drifts into abstraction, seemingly just to amuse his writing peers. Otherwise you will be treated to a real-life view of the dangers and rewards of riding the rails.


All Hands Down by Kenneth Sewell

Our nuclear submarine USS Scorpion was sunk in May 1968 under mysterious circumstances with the loss of all 99 crewmembers. It has long been believed the boat was sunk by the Russians in retaliation for our “sinking” their submarine K-129 that same year. This also occurred during the time notorious spy John Walker was feeding our military secrets to the USSR. To this day the US government has issued no official explanation of the sinking. This book closes that gap in public understanding.


Out of Line by Tina Grimberg

Also known as Growing Up Soviet, this tiny volume is a rich portrayal of the pain and the passion of life behind the Iron Curtain in the 60s and 70s. Finally, the author and her family are painfully allowed to emigrate from Kiev, in the Communist satellite of Ukraine, to the West; initially to Indianapolis then Toronto where Grimberg, now a Jewish Rabbi, has served a congregation since 2002.


Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut

I always kind of liked this author; viewing him as a somewhat irreverent humorist. But, the second chapter of this worthless waste of library shelf space cured me of ever wanting to read his stuff again, ever. The chapter dealt with the allied destruction of the German city of Dresden in World War II. Here’s his comment that curdled my blood, “It is with some regret that I here besmirch the nobility of our airmen, but boys, you killed an appalling lot of women and children.” I can just picture this now-deceased clown kissing Hitler’s a**, er butt.