Book Review: How the Post Office Created America by Winifred Gallagher

How the Post Office Created America: A History by Winifred Gallagher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It began before the Revolution and was required to be proved for by the Constitution itself, the Post Office. How the Post Office Created America: A History by Winifred Gallagher covers the three-century plus long history of delivering the mail in America.

Throughout Gallagher’s text she brought forth evidence to support her argument yet save for helping foster the airline industry the Post Office appeared to have more of a symbiotic relationship with the country. Gallagher’s historical narrative begins early in the 1700s and ends approximately in the early 2010s, through this three-century period the ups and downs of the post in America were chronicles and how it interacted with the establishment of other forms of communication. The fascinating information that was brought forth were the crisis of the 1840s that changed the Post Office for the next century and the “golden age” from 1890-1920. Gallagher’s highlighting of various Postmasters General that headed the department that either innovated services or helped it in its time of need. The book also highlights the main efforts that some have attempted to privatize the post instead of being a public service and in the Afterward Gallagher explains the three scenarios of the now USPS could head in the future.

How the Post Office Created America is a look at the long history of the post in the United States and how it shaped and was shaped by the nation. Winifred Gallagher brought a lot of information to the text to support her argument, while I personally came away with a different conclusion based on the same it was an intriguing read.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Punderworld Volume One by Linda Sejic

Punderworld, Volume 1 by Linda Šejić
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How the earth got its seasons has been mythologized across the planet, one of the most famous comes from the Greeks and has been immortalized in various forms by Western culture. Punderworld (Volume One) by author-artist Linda Sejic is an awkward and relatable retelling of the myth.

When Sejic began sketching Greek gods during a creative break from her series Blood Stain she did not intend to create another graphic novel series, however as illustrated in her bonus material her characters Vlad and Eliot “begged” to be the templates for Hades and Persephone then suddenly she began doing scenes that led to an entire graphic novel. Sejic portrays Hades and Persephone as secret admirers for centuries who suddenly find themselves thrown together after Zeus tries to “help” in typical Zeus fashion by abducting Persephone and Hades attempts to stop it. Besides the two primary characters, the Zeus and Demeter appear as major secondary characters with the latter being a well-meaning overly protective mother true to the myth. But besides a well plotted story, a graphic novel must have the artwork to back it up and frankly Linda Sejic brings the story to life through her art. Not only does the reader have to follow the dialogue and the actions of the characters they must take notice of the overall scene for the subtle clues of what is going on behind the characters’ back and what is going to happen. It’s hard not to drone on, but frankly Sejic’s work speaks for itself and should be experienced book in hand.

Punderworld (Volume One) begins the retelling of a well-known myth just more awkward than the reader is used to. Linda Sejic not only writes a fantastic story, her art catches the eye.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Hoopa Project by David Paulides

The Hoopa Project: Bigfoot Encounters in California by David Paulides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A trained law enforcement professional turns his skills to investigating Bigfoot incidents and sightings based on witness interviews. The Hoopa Project: Bigfoot Encounters in California by David Paulides provides the results of a years long investigation in a specific area.

Paulides’ years as a police investigator shows early with his matter-of-fact recounting of how he got interested in the search for Bigfoot and what convinced him that it might be worth his time. This straightforward approach continued throughout the book especially in what led him to selecting the Hoopa Valley in northwestern California to be the focus of his search and how he gained the trust of the residents of the Hoopa Indian Reservation to get interviews and asked for signed affidavits. Paulides’ use of affidavits and the hiring of law enforcement forensic artist Harvey Pratt, a member the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe, to draw sketches based on interviews with witnesses gives this book extra weight for those believers and skeptics that read the book. Unfortunately, it appears the later editions, one of which I read, reproduces the images only in black and white thus making maps hard to decipher for the information that were included to provide. While Paulides straightforward writing can seem dry it provides evidence of his law enforcement background which makes it attempts at engaging the reader with more personable language jarring. As part of each witness interview Paulides gives the reader a description of the location based on his personal research in the area, however his attempts to connect a location to other witnesses comes off awkward due to referencing accounts that appear later in the book while not identifying where said account could be found in the text. Yet while these writing decisions are annoying, they do not take away from overall effort.

The Hoopa Project is the first to two books David Paulides wrote in the late 2000s before going on to his more well-known Missing 411 series. Overall, it’s an intriguing read for those interested in the search for Bigfoot.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Breach of Peace by Daniel B. Greene

Breach of Peace by Daniel B. Greene
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You begin the day in the heart of an empire lead by the Almighty who came personally to change life and at the end of the day, you realize you live in a dystopia. Breach of Peace is the debut work of Daniel B. Greene, the first of a trilogy of novellas that introduce his world.

Though the book follows the investigation of an extremely violent crime by three top inspectors of God’s own police, it gives a look into how average people view the area they live in and by the end how what they believed is completely wrong. Greene mixes a crime mystery in a fantasy world that quickly is ensnarled in political intrigue with significant religious overtones that is a lot to attempt in 134 pages with so-so results. The three main characters—Inspectors Khlid, her husband Sam, and their colleague Chapman—are a mix of good and cliché. The main narrative viewpoint of Khlid is well written in which we get a feel for the world an average person experiences—though from a law enforcement perception—and how it comes crashing down, Sam comes off as a quick-tempered cliché while Chapman comes off as a smart incompetent especially when one considers his divided loyalties. Given that the beginning s dark with the aftermath of a violent crime, the fact that the ending is darker not in violence but how a character’s worldview is completely shattered is effective.

Breach of Peace is a nice debut work as Daniel B. Greene gives readers a look into the fantasy world he is creating. Some elements work as well as some characters, he attempts to put a lot in a small page count to mixed results, but he does have good prose that makes for an engaging reading experience.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You find yourself living a charmed existence thanks to the wonderful World that provides for you, but what if you find all you believe to be real was a way to cope with being trapped in a magical pocket dimension? Piranesi by Susanna Clarke follows the journey of the titular character slowly learning over time that what he thought was reality was not what it seems.

Clarke immediately puts the reader into the fantastical element of this story with the titular character’s narration of journey in the House and its labyrinthine set of statue-dominated Halls in all directions. But Piranesi’s insistence of “the World” having had only fifteen people of which only two are living as the rest our skeletons gives the reader a sense of something not quite right especially when we meet “The Other”. The happy and seemingly content journal entries slowly change throughout the book especially our narrator goes back to his earliest journal entries as his world becomes increasingly crowded with new faces appearing in the many Halls. The book’s conclusion of man recovering from traumatically caused mental breakdown readjusting to our world while still being able to travel to his wonderous prison to keep himself grounded ends his story on a sad yet hopeful note for his future.

Piranesi is a magical, yet sad tale of a man just attempting to live only to realize everything he had believed was a way to cope with a traumatizing situation he finds himself in. Susanna Clarke is able to find a way to give us insight into the though process of a individual having suffered a mental breakdown and learning how it happened to him.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Oxymoronica by Dr. Mardy Grothe

Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History's Greatest Wordsmiths by Mardy Grothe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Oxymoronica is essentially a collection of oxymoronic and paradoxical quotes throughout history as assembled by Dr. Mardy Grothe. Dividing the book and the collection into 14 separate entries (literature, politics, wit & wisdom, etc.), Grothe gives introductions to each category and giving examples to the part of the collection he is emphasizing before finished the last half of the chapter with quotes from various sources. Though Grothe tries to bring context and interest to each topical entry, it sometimes comes off as pompous. Overall the collection is pretty interesting, but it’s not the greatest read.

View all my reviews

Book Review: FDR by Jean Edward Smith

FDR by Jean Edward Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

He is the man who served in office the longest and once the most Presidential elections in history, he is most identifiable by his initials. FDR by Jean Edward Smith shows the life of the 32nd President of the United States from his birth in high society New York to his death just months before total victory in World War II.

From the outset Smith makes the reader aware Franklin Delano Roosevelt is one of the most written about of Presidents thus giving an indication that he will not do anything new but give a new generation of readers a straightforward look into Roosevelt’s life. Three-quarters of the book is Smith’s text with the final quarter being notes and an index, but during the biography proper Smith’s footnotes are in-depth and as interesting as what is in the text proper. Smith devotes a little over a third of the biography to Roosevelt’s life before his run for the 1932 Democratic nomination thus transitioning to focusing on the final 13 years of Roosevelt’s life. During that first third, Smith not only covers Roosevelt’s life but also foreshadows how his early political career in New York would later affect his entrance to Washington politics as Assistant Secretary of State and his later New York career as Governor. While in Washington Smith shows how Roosevelt learned the ways of the city that would come in handing once he assumed the Presidency. Once on the national stage, Smith gives the political backstories to campaigns and later to battles for legislation as well as the overall atmosphere of the Great Depression of the time. Yet while Smith devotes most of the biography to Roosevelt in the White House there is no really in-depthness like some books that devote themselves entirely to an individual’s Presidency and this is telling once the U.S. enters World War II as Smith essentially says ‘FDR did not micromanage the military once he made decision to an objective and left the generals do their thing’ while barely covering his relationship with Churchill.

FDR gives a detailed—but not in-depth—look at the life of the longest-serving President in the history of the United States. Jean Edward Smith writes in an engaging style for a very readable book but with wonderful footnotes that adds to the text. For a general biography this is a must read, but those looking for political or military details this is not.

View all my reviews