BOOK REPORTS--

The Third Coast by Ted McClelland

This piece of US geography naturally is the Great Lakes where four of those five bodies of water are bisected by an international boundary joining us and our northern neighbor Canada. McClelland’s book is a good read. I enjoyed riding along and vicariously sampling his penetrating look at life on the perimeter of those massive bodies of fresh water. I particularly got a good hoot out of his thumping Cleveland for landing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame only because it stuffed the ballot box in the USA Today survey that landed it there.


The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester

A great story of an eccentric but highly regarded scientist who seeks to prove China was an incredibly advanced civilization—far beyond history’s revelations. He found an ingenious, drainage area-sized, irrigation system that was constructed during Biblical times—and is still functioning. He proves the Chinese had printed books about 600 years before Gutenberg was credited with inventing the process in the free world. He was a socialist and a nudist and he also proves China had acupuncture, fermented alcohol, ball bearings, decimal place math, topo maps, hygrometers, ecology and a thyroid treatment, for examples, before the birth of Christ. Great book!


Cop in the Hood by Peter Moskos

Moskos is a Harvard trained sociologist who earns certification as a uniformed police officer then spends more than a year patrolling one of Baltimore, MDs roughest neighborhoods. While the book largely trundles along in textbook fashion, it does provide an informative peek at a policeman’s life on the streets with a strong dose of this author’s view that the war on drugs is a colossal failure.


Sacred Sea by Peter Thompson

The author and his brother do a vagabond style journey around the world with the intent of examining serious environmental issues facing Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake in Siberia. (It could easily hold the combined volume of our Great Lakes.) The threats to Baikal are real and post-communist Russia remains a tourist destination fit only for the highly adventurous. Another good read.