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SF International Auto Show 2010
Book Review - The Kingdom by the Sea, A Journey Around Great Britain by Paul Theroux  Paul Theroux often refers to his oily shoes and knapsack, and his unshaven appearance which leads to some confusion in the minds of the folks he encounters, watchful as they are for a serial killer on the prowl. Published in 1982, The Kingdom by the Sea is Paul Theroux's third travel book (after The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express) and is as entertaining as every other travelogue he has written since. The author's humorously depressing portrait of Britain's coast and its system of railway lines reads like an affectionate obituary. His disdain for "railway buffs" is exhilarating in its sarcasm.In The Last Train to Whitby, Mr. Theroux writes - "The priory ruins in shadow were sliver-black like charcoal, with the same frail sculpted look of burned wood, but where the daylight struck them they were as red and porous as cake. The surface color of the island was the yellow-gray of human skin and farther off there was a castle wrapped around a solitary high rock." Bright and optimistic passages like this one are few and far between. The only other place that the author aspired me to go visit, for its beauty and not for the desolation that is the coast of Britain, was Tenby. "But Tenby was more than pretty. It was so picturesque, it looked like a watercolor of itself" he says. The author's darkest words are reserved for the town of Belfast. "It was a city of drunks, of lurkers, of later risers. It smelled of wet bricks and burning coal. It stank. It had a sort of nightmare charm. When the rain came down in Belfast, it splashed through the roof and splattered through the window glass and poured into your soul. It was the blackest city in Britain, and the most damaged." That sounds terrible, doesn't it? I don't know if it is deliberate or unavoidable but Mr. Theroux' travels always seem to take place when significant historical events are afoot. In this case, it was the Falklands War and, towards the end, a national railway strike. 1982 was also the year of the Serpell Report (wiki ref - https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Serpell_report) which, it was feared, would yield a death blow to British Railway. The Wiki page says the railways survived. All the better. A few more quick observations - the author's travels through Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are instructive in understanding Britain's particular collection of nationalities. The names of the places are no less strange and foreign sounding than say in Dark Star Safari, Theroux's travelogue of Africa. Britain is a much traveled and written about country but Paul Theroux manages to make this book fresh and interesting. His description of a "typical" coastal town ("There was always a fun fair and it was never fun, and the video machines were always busier than the pinball machines or the one-armed bandits. There was always an Indian restaurant and it was always called the Taj Mahal and the owners were always from Bangladesh.") is truly inspired. Highly recommended.
Book Review - The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan  I'm more of a carnivore than I am an omnivore and I approached Mr.Pollan's book with a some skepticism. I did not expect to like it as much as I did. The book has its flaws but should be required reading for anyone who eats. At least it should be required reading for anyone who eats in America because many of the challenges Mr.Pollan discuses are directly related to America's unique food culture.The Omnivore's Dilemma is divided into three parts, each one the story of a meal. Corn is the star and the villain of the first part - Industrial/Corn. Mr. Pollan is perhaps at his most sermonizing in the first section, liberally anthropomorphizing corn and building it up into a sentient cross generational plotter. I was irritated to the point of wanting to give up on the book. The central point, that there is too much corn produced in the United States and it shows up in too many places it shouldn't, is indisputable. The story of corn ends with a meal from that much vilified icon of American culture, McDonald's, with a particularly discomfiting description of chicken nuggets. For the record, I can't stand McDonald's - I've only eaten there under extreme circumstances. Organic has gone mainstream and has therefore also adopted industrial techniques without which a store like Whole Foods would be impossible. Mr.Pollan visits a free range chicken farm and reveals what "free range" actually equates to - two tiny doors at either end of a shed the size of football field, carpeted with twenty thousand chickens. As Mr.Pollan pulls away the curtain to reveal the Wizard of Organic Oz it is hard not to question paying the premiums regularly charged at your friendly neighborhood organic grocery store. There is a brighter side to the narrative - the organic non-industrial meal, grown the old fashioned way. The author profiles Joel Salatin, a "grass farmer" who runs Polyface Farms in the Shenandoah Valley. William Salatin started the farm in the 1960s and his son Joel carries on, building on and perfecting the older Salatin's techniques that make his farm a model of sustainable agriculture. It is obvious however, that the amount of effort put into farming by Joel Salatin is unlikely to win many converts. The industrial production of food is much too efficient at producing calories - albeit in the abstracted form of corn. In the final section of the book, Mr.Pollan acquires a gun and goes hunting. The author freely acknowledges this is the least practical way to put food on the table, but following him around on his hunter gatherer quest makes for excellent reading. Chapter Seventeen delves into the ethics of eating animals and its justification. I've eaten meat all my life and I don't expect to ever give that up, but it is undeniable that the cruelty of feed lots and all the other techniques involved in the industrial production of meat is simply indefensible. The Omnivore's Dilemma is educational and thought provoking. Highly recommended. Labels: book review, corn, eating, feed lots, food, industrial food, michael pollan
Four Favorites from Korea
 Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring Directed by Ki-duk Kim. A meditation on life, almost completely devoid of dialogue, this is one of my all time favorites.  3-Iron Also directed by Ki-duk Kim. 3-Iron features the heartbreakingly beautiful song, Gafsa, by Natacha Atlas Two murder mysteries that are not really murder mysteries..  Memories of Murder, directed by Joon-ho Bong  Mother, also directed by Joon-ho Bong
Book Review - Born to Run by Christopher McDougall  Born to Run is a best seller and came highly recommended. I was excited about the book's premise, expecting to learn the secrets of those who don't crash at 26.2. The book's byline refers to the "Greatest Race the World has Never Seen" - however, by the time we reach this "greatest race", the author has already spoken about a few that seem as great.Christopher McDougall is a contributor to Men's Health and some of the material here has been pulled together from articles he has written over the years. The book begins with his search for a cure to the pain he started experiencing in his foot while running. After the best sports doctors had examined and given him the same advice ("give up running"), Mr McDougall discovered the lost tribe of the Tarahumara. It is clear the Tarahumara are a secretive tribe of free living, peace loving, superathletes who want nothing to do with the world and Mr. McDougall idolizes them. The author has a lot of stories to share and running long distances seems to attract funny, interesting and inspiring characters. The author does a great job of narrating these stories. There were times while reading the book when I wanted to set the book aside, pick up my running shoes (ahem, not ready to run barefoot yet) and go run. The book presents a passionate argument of the idea that all of us were made to run. Heck,the author seems to believe the ability to run long distances is a distinguishing characteristic of the human species, almost as critical to our success on the planet as the opposable thumb. Even though I enjoyed many of the stories in the book, it is what the author leaves out that is most disappointing. The book reads and feels like a collection of chronologically arranged magazine articles and not as a consistent whole. There is no clear theme - is it the Tarahumara? Is it ultra marathon running? Is it the runners? Or is it the story of McDougall's journey from being advised to give up running to finishing the 'greatest race'? We get glimpses of each of those books in this relatively short volume (280 pages). Read it but keep your expectations in check. Labels: book review, christopher mcdougall, mexico, non fiction, races, reviews, running, tarahumara, tribe
Book Review - Watership Down by Richard Adams  Prophets with visions! Folk heroes! Indifferent politicians! Thugs! Villainous dictators! The confusingly titled Watership Down has it all. Unfortunately all of its incredible characters are rabbits. Huh? Hold on a minute. Rabbits? Seriously? I'm not a hater, but I found it hard to relate to the travails of tiny fur balls. Richard Adams' fantastical tale is a classic with generally positive reviews on Amazon as well as Visual Bookshelf (~2600 with 87% positive) but it is not for me. I generally do not read fantasy unless it is strongly metaphorical or allegorical and I don't think Watership Down is effectively either. It is just a rabbit story. The author invents some rabbit words and narrates several folk stories celebrating the wit and bravery of El-aharairah, a legendary rabbit folk hero. The rabbits seem smart enough to strategize in battle, but not witty enough to understand how wood floats in water. It is debatable whether you can comprehend one and not the other but I found the straddled anthropomorphising unconvincing. Overall, a disappointment. Not recommended.
Go Watch - Peepli [LIVE]
 An indictment of bureaucracy, local and state politics, the "24 hour" news cycle and India's failed attempts at bringing prosperity to its farmers and villages. Skillfully directed by debutante Anusha Rizvi, with excellent performances by Omkar Das, Shalini Vatsa and Raghuvir Yadav and with a great sound track, Peepli [LIVE] is the indie to watch this weekend (or next).Labels: review recommendation movies indie aamir khan peepli live bollywood
Notable Finds - Onibaba (1964) directed by Kaneto Shindō  Onibaba is a 1964 Japanese black and white film set during the "period of the Warring States", in the fourteenth century. The movie was directed by Kaneto Shindō and released by Criterion on DVD in 2004. The Criterion DVD includes an interview with the then 91 year old director - and I recommend watching the interview in its entirety after you've seen the movie.Onibaba is a spare film with minimal dialogue but some incredibly bold visuals. The acting, like other Japanese movies of the era, is highly dramatic but fits in with the narrative. If you are a fan of 60s Japanese cinema, this is a must watch.
Book Review - Sunrise with Seamonsters by Paul Theroux  From literary criticism to a perspective on John McEnroe, Sunrise with Seamonsters has an eclectic collection of Paul Theroux' writings spanning twenty years. Mr. Theroux writes about Richard Nixon's memoirs and of a meeting with the man. There is a fawning piece on V. S. Pritchett and an admiring essay on V. S. Naipaul. I have yet to read In Sir Vidya's Shadow, but considering the sour relationship the two men have had, I expect to like it. The essays in this collection are chronologically arranged but there is no single theme. Mr. Theroux expounds on travel, politics, writers he likes, The Orient Express and the function of patronage in an artist's development. As a fan, I found some of the essays revealing about Mr. Theroux philosophy towards travel and writing. The Cerebral Snapshot is a persuasive argument against carrying a camera while traveling. The author's experiences as a teacher in Malawi, Uganda and finally in Singapore provide vivid context to his subsequent writings. An enjoyable work. Recommended. Labels: 2010, criticism, essays, july 2010, literary criticism, paul theroux, reviews, travel fiction
Diary of a Lost Girl at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
 I just saw Diary of a Lost Girl at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The screening was accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The movie is considered a classic of the silent era. I enjoyed it immensely. The theme seems a little hackneyed, but then this is the original that was eventually made trite by over use. At times, the movie reminded me of the Indian classic, Pakeezah.
Metropolis at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
  I caught the full version of Metropolis at the Castro Theater yesterday. The screening had a live score by the Alloy Orchestra and was preceded by a conversation with Paula-Félix Didier and Fernando Peña, the film archivists affiliated with the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires who made the remarkable discovery. We stood in line for two hours to get the rush tickets without any real indication as to whether we'd get admission. Was it worth it? Absolutely! It turned out to be one of my best cinematic experiences ever.    
Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan by Will Ferguson  Will Ferguson wants to be funny and I'm unfortunately not a big fan of "wants to be funny". Mr. Ferguson hitchiked his way from Cape Sata, the southernmost tip of Japan all the way up to Rishiri Island, off the coast of Hokkaido. I find Japan and the Japanese interesting so I was looking forward to reading about Mr. Ferguson's adventures as he follows a mostly coastal path chasing sakura blossoms and meeting some remarkable characters along the way. The appeal of vicarious travel is that with a sufficiently skilful writer you can meet people you would never talk to, even if you actually travelled in the author's footsteps. Will Ferguson spent five years teaching in Japan and his knowledge of the country, the language, the people and their history is not trivial. He manages to convey many interesting anecdoetes and historical incidents but a travel book must be more than that. I found Hokkaido Highway Blues to be inconsistent in quality. The book fails most starkly when the author tries to be funny. Perhaps I'm difficult to please but I just couldn't see the humor in most of Mr. Ferguson's frequent attempts. His style is so trite, you can see a punchline coming from a mile away. No pun intended. I was so dreadfully bored at times within the book, I was ready to give up - something I rarely do. Though the book in its entirety just passes muster, I think it is safely avoidable. Not recommended.
Some of my Favorite Japanese Classics
Roshomon by Akira Kurosawa  Ran by Akira Kurosawa  Harakiri by Masaki Kobayashi  Throne of Blood by Akira Kurosawa 
Book Review - The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux  I'm not as much a fan of Paul Theroux' fiction as I am of his travel writings but I wanted to read The Elephanta Suite for its cover photograph. What's so special about the cover you ask? It shows a vista that has now been crudely obscured by an ugly, if necessary flyover. The photograph shows Mohammed Ali Road, a center of Muslim life in Mumbai, scene of glorious mayhem, food and people, cars and scooters, everyone jostling for space. It is the neighborhood my dad grew up in and which I regularly visited all through my childhood. To the right is the Minara Masjid, where I have prayed with my dad, in the bottom right corner is Suleman Usman Mithaiwala, where I have shopped for sweets, and further down the street is Noble Opticians, my optometerists for twenty years. Unfortunately, Mohammed Ali Road has nothing to do with the book itself. The Elephanta Suite is a collection of three novellas, each set in a different section of India with only the slightest passing reference to each other. The three locations as separated by space as by culture. The first story takes place in an exotic mountainside spa, the second alternates between the posh hotels and seedy slums of Mumbai while the third unravels in Sai Baba's ashram and a call center in Bangalore. I'm not sure if I'm saying this as an interested party but I found Mr. Theroux' depiction of Indians less than fair. Admittedly, I don't have the perspective of an American in the Indian situations described by Mr. Theroux. However, the caricature of almost every Indian his American characters come across as money grubbing, self centered or sexually desperate seems quite harsh. The American characters are relatively more sympathetic, but no less pitiful - which begs the question, is this book just an exaggerated expression of Mr. Theroux' dour view of the world? I find it hard to conclude otherwise. I found the first novella weak but the denouement of the latter two is quite satisfying. Recommended. Labels: 2010, bangalore, fiction, ganesha, india, may 2010, mumbai, paul theroux, travel fiction
Book Review - The Quants by Scott Patterson  The one consistently recurring theme in The Quants is gambling. Ed Thorp, who according to Scott Patterson is the godfather of a quantitative based approach to investing is also the author of the Blackjack card counting classic, Beat the Dealer and the subsequent primer on a quantitative approach to investing - Beat the Market. Scott Patterson is a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal and in The Quants he tells the story of several different men (and a couple of women) who used their incredible quantitative skills to build some of the most powerful hedge funds of our times. The book begins (and ends) with what looks and sounds like a set piece, the Wall Street Poker Night Tournament, starring the kings of the quantitative universe - Peter Muller of PDT, Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management and Boaz Weinstein of Saba. Each of these men has made hundreds of millions of dollars on Wall Street using their mathematics backgrounds and each has a fascination bordering on obsession with poker. The way the book is set up, you get the impression this story will be told through this selected cast of characters, much like how in The Big Short Michael Lewis focuses his attentions on a small group of hedge funds managers to tell the story of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. Unfortunately, Mr. Patterson is not quite as skillful a story teller as Mr. Lewis. I quickly lost track of the main characters, as Mr. Patterson moves the spotlight to a long list of supporting cast members. There is Ed Thorp as I already mentioned, Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, Aaron Brown, Paul Wilmott, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bill Gross and others who are given attention is such a way as to interfere with the flow of the narrative. Another flaw of Mr. Patterson's style is that he does not seem to maintain a consistent style - there are some chapters where all the main protagonists are covered, there are some focused on a specific person and then there are some that are descriptive of a situation without focusing on any one character. This muddled style leads to an unsatisfying reading experience. Since I'm on a roll here, let me add one more criticism - The Quants manages to give only glimpses of the mechanics of how money is made by the Citadels of the world. It does not get technical, unfortunately. In spite of my overall disappointment with the book, I recommend reading it. It is a good introduction to the stars of the quantitative hedge fund world and at about 300 pages not irksome in length. Labels: 2010, april 2010, AQR, boaz weinstein, citadel, cliff asness, ed thorp, finance, ken griffin, non fiction, PDT, peter muller, quantitative finance, quants, saba, wall street
Quick Review - Ali and Nino, A Love Story by Kurban Said  Ali and Nino is a grand love story in the tradition of the grandest of love stories. There is childhood romance, warring families, murder and war - all rolled up neatly in a short 270 page book. I was led to this little classic through the enthusiastic recommendation of Paul Theroux who provides a glowing afterword in the current edition. It is the story of a romance between a Muslim, Ali Khan Shirvanshir and the lovely Christian, Princess Nino Kipiani. It is also the story of Ali Khan's confusion over his identity - is he Asian or European? Ali and Nino's romance kindles in the city of Baku as the city awaits its fate at the hands of the big European and Asiatic powers fighting all around it. Kurban Said, the book's pseudonymous writer is supposedly a composite of two distinct personalities - Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels and Lev Nussimbaum (whose profile on Wikipedia makes for interesting reading - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Nussimbaum). I enjoyed the book. Recommended. Labels: 2010, april 2010, azerbaijan, book review, fiction, kurban said, love story, paul theroux, reviews
Book Review - The Big Short, Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis  I just finished reading The Big Short, Michael Lewis' thrilling account of three hedge funds that managed to see the crisis in the financial markets years before others had a clue as to what was going on. At a mere 250 pages, I was skeptical. I like my books to be fat and detailed, an obviously unscientific measure that failed miserably in the case of Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail. Sorkin's essentially journalistic account of the events of 2007 and 2008 compares poorly with Mr. Lewis' work. At the very least, The Big Short gives a fleshed out account of the events that exacerbated the financial crisis through the actions of four major players - big Wall Street banks from Goldman Sachs to Merrill Lynch, the three major rating agencies, hedge fund managers who predicted the crisis, and investors around the world who got suckered into buying some really shitty financial products that they did not quite understand. We've heard two of these stories in the last couple of weeks - the Magnetar trade as covered by This American Life and ProPublica and the SEC case against Goldman Sachs involving ABACUS and John Paulson's hedge fund.The heroes of Mr. Lewis' account are a quirky group of hedge fund managers with rather unconventional backgrounds. It is testament to Mr. Lewis' abilities as a writer that you end up rooting for a bunch of guys who saw the delusion of the wider market and made hundreds of millions of dollars by betting against just about everyone. Dr. Michael Burry is a neurologist by training, has one functioning eye and suffers from Asperger's syndrome - he's the guy who saw the housing bubble coming back in 2003 and ended up making hundreds of millions through his fund, Scion Capital. Jamie Mai and Charlie Ledley were a couple of 30 year olds with no obvious training or talent in money management. They started a hedge fund from a garage in Berkeley and ended up making some legendary profits by successfully betting that the upper, double-A rated tranches of mortgage CDOs backed by subprime loans would fail. The third hedge fund manager, with a more conventional background was Steve Eisman of FrontPoint Partners. All of these talented but also lucky men were connected by another interesting character, Greg Lippmann of Deutsche Bank. If the idea of betting against the subprime mortgage industry was a virus then it originated with Dr. Michael Burry who infected Mr. Lippmann, who in turn spread it to a whole bunch of other money managers on and off Wall Street. So far I've given the benefit of the doubt to the TARP rescue package and its necessity towards 'saving the American ecnomoy'. After reading The Big Short, I'm not so sure. There are passages in the book that inspire incredulous disbelief. I'm not a fan of populist anger at a single behemoth called "Wall Street" but it is hard not to feel disgust at the greed and incompetence of some of the most gilded names in modern capitalism. The Big Short is required reading for anyone wishing to understand what happened on Wall Street in the last three years. Highly recommended. Additonal recommended reading and media Dr. Michael Burry's April 2010 Op-Ed in the New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04burry.html?scp=12&sq=burry&st=cse Michael Lews and Dr. Michael Burry on CBS News' 60 Minutes - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6298038n&tag=contentBody;housing Dr. Michael Burry's "A Primer on Scion Capital's Subprime Mortgage Short", published in November 2006 - http://www.scioncapital.com/PDFs/Scion%202006%204Q%20RMBS%20CDS%20Primer%20and%20FAQ.pdf Labels: 2010, april 2010, ben hockett, book review, charlie ledley, cornwall, finance, frontpoint, greg lippmann, history, jamie mai, michael burry, michael lewis, scion capital, steve eisman, wall street
Book Review - Riding the Iron Rooster, By Train Through China by Paul Theroux  Reading Mr. Theroux' travelogue of Chnia made me realize I should know more of Chinese history than I do (which is practically nothing). School history textbooks in India focus mostly on local, state and national history. In higher grades you deal with European history, India's colonial past and some American history - for example, we learned of the Boston Tea Party and the Declaration of Independence. Of communism, our textbooks focused mostly on the USSR. However, besides the common knowledge that China had a communist government and India fought a war with the Chinese in 1962, our history textbooks were woefully inadequate in their coverage of contemporary Chinese history.Mr. Theroux' twelve month journey through China takes place in 1986 and 1987, as the country is still dealing with the effects of Mao's Cultural Revolution. The author's journey, like many of his other great travel stories, begins in London as he heads to Mongolia by train. From Mongolia he takes a myriad of trains to explore the most far flung reaches of that immense country. From the freezing city of Harbin to the mostly inhospitable and deserted Tibetan Plateau. The book is funny, caustic and filled with the kind of absolute generalizations that Mr. Theroux excels at. He talks to fellow travellers, government orderlies, train conductors and hustlers in tourist towns. You get not just his perspective, but also of the people he meets and finds interesting. Unlike most of the author's other travels, he is forced to travel here with a Chinese "guide" who is there to ensure the author is not up to any kind of mischief. Mr. Theroux extracts his revenge by subjecting his handler to interminable train rides through the remotest parts of the Middle Kingdom. Because of the timing, the book also adds color to understanding the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. I learned a few things about the Cultural Revolution I was never aware of - my knowledge of that event is restricted to a few books and the Zhang Yimou movie, To Live. Some of the author's cultural observations are worth repeating - he ascribes a hidden meaning to they way the Chinese laugh, because they don't laugh with mirth but to convey something they'd rather not express verbally. The Chinese landscape is almost completely devoid of birds, trees and wild life - because the Chinese have cultivated and subjected all of the land to human use and eaten everything that can be masticated. And finally, the Chinese were enthusiastically adopting capitalism and the free market in the 1980s - it is not something that just happened. The last section on driving to Lhasa from Golmud is the funniest - it is filled to the gills with ridiculous comedy. I've often asked myself while reading a Theroux book, why does he do this? In this instance he is in a near fatal car crash and then spends the night in a prison like hotel with stairs covered in human excrement and run by a crazed looking Tibetan man. Maybe that's why. Highly recommended. Labels: 2010, april 2010, book review, china, cultural revolution, history, non fiction, paul theroux, reviews, tibet, travel, travelogue, xinjiang
Days of Being Wild, directed by Wong Kar Wai
 Five Stars
Quick Review: Sailing Through China by Paul Theroux
 More a long essay than a book, Sailing Through China is Paul Theroux' report of his time on a cruise on China's greatest waterway, the Yangtze. Mr. Theroux is characteristically dark in his prognostications and reliably vitriolic in his description of fellow American travelers. I read this book as a prelude to Riding the Iron Rooster, a description of Theroux' travels by train through China. Recommended.Labels: 2010, china, march 2010, non fiction, paul theroux, travel, travelogue, yangtze
The Israel Lobby by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
 I recently saw an Intelligence Squared Debate where the motion called for the US to step back from its special relationship with Israel. Roger Cohen of the New York Times and Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University argued for the motion and in fact won the debate. The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt makes a similar argument in a comprehensively researched and well written narrative. The genesis of the book was in an article commmissioned by the Atlantic Monthly in the fall of 2002. The authors worked on the project for about two years but their manuscript, incorporating most of the suggestions made by the magazine, was rejected in January 2005. The authors finally managed to publish the article in the London Review of Books in March 2006. The publication of the article led to a storm of protest and controversy, and severe criticism. The book represents the authors' attempt to respond to the criticism and to present a more detailed case with an extensive list of references and notes. The book is divided in two sections. Part 1 deals with the special relationship that exists between the United States and Israel. The authors examine the reasons advanced by defenders of the relationship - is Israel an important strategic asset or is it actually a liability to US interests in the Middle East? The authors think it is the latter. They also question the moral justification of continued US economic, military and diplomatic support of Israel. Part 1 also identifies the loose collection of lobbyists, journalists and special interest groups that are collectively called "The Israel Lobby". The authors are at pains to emphasize that these groups are not necessarily coordinated or centrally organized and they are well within their democratic rights to influence US policy in a direction they deem most beneficial to both the United States and Israel. Part 2 extensively discusses the affects of the lobby on US policy in the Middle East. It is in this section that the authors make their boldest claims. At least one of the conclusions, that the United States would not have invaded Iraq had the lobby not existed is difficult to accept. However, the authors make convincing arguments on the looby's potentially harmful long term affects on US interests in the Middle East. The chapters on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and its conduct of the 2006 war in Lebanon are essential reading. Debate about the relationship between the United States and Israel is unnaturally muted in the American media and this book makes a strong case for changing the status quo. The authors claim there is more debate within Israel than there is in the US media and their extensive bibliography is testament to that claim. I don't necessarily agree with all of the arguments made by Messrs Walt and Mearsheimer but this is an important book and I highly recommend it. Labels: 2010, iran, iraq, israel, lobby, march 2010, mearsheimer, netanyahu, non fiction, sharon, syria, US Foreing Policy, walt
Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo
 Dead Aid is a 150 page book with a 24 page bibliography - so it reads more like a long white paper than a book. Dambisa Moyo has an impressive resume, much alluded to in both the book jacket and the foreword by Niall Ferguson. The author has worked for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs and she has a PhD from Oxford University. Impressive no doubt. Even more impressive is the fact that she was born and raised in Zambia so her profile fits neatly into the "Solutions to Africa's problems by Africans" paradigm. The book itself makes its case almost clinically, backed up by statistics and research papers from an entire spectrum of economists. Dead Aid is divided in two sections, The World of Aid, which examines the 'aid-economy', the players and the harmful affects on African countries' dependence on western aid. The second section, A World Without Aid proposes several venues open to the developing countries in Africa to raise money and be independent - the most important being trade and raising capital from the markets. Ms. Moyo manages to connect a lot of different African ailments to aid, from corruption to dictatorship and she makes a convincing case. Her solutions make sense as well - at least to a strong believer in free trade like myself. The hopelessness of it all is that it is almost impossible to imagine the West will roll back its Aid of Africa model that has failed so consistently and for so long. The book's main weakness is that it makes for almost dreary reading. Ms. Moyo may be a brainy economist, she is not a writer. The book suffers from a dearth of wit and style. The author does try to indulge in a hypothetical by creating the composite African country of Dongo and examinig how the country may funciton if her suggestions were realized. But in the end her vision reads less like a fully realized painting and more like a stick figure drawing. I recommend reading the book, only because it serves as a starting point for examining the issue of tackling the many problems of the African continent. Labels: 2010, africa, aid, dambisa moyo, development, economics, economists, finance, microfinance, world bank, zambia
Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin
 I had mixed expectations from Too Big to Fail. Considering we are still very much in the thrall of one of the worst financial crises of the past century, it is unfair to expect a single book to provide a complete perspective. Andrew Ross Sorkin does not attempt to explain how or why we got into the events of 2008. The book's objective is very clear - to chronicle what was happening in the financial markets during 2008. At this task, the book succeeds. It has an impressive cast, from Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to the CEO of Lehman Brothers, Dick Fuld.About three quarters of the book is about the Lehman collapse. The author seems so focused on the investment bank that you get almost no visibility into what was happening at say Citibank or AIG, though AIG does get some attention. The book refuses to be technical with Sorkin sticking to a journalistic tone. That I think is this account's greatest shortcoming - if you hope to understand what specific problems were being faced by Lehman Brothers before its failure, the reasons it found itself under attack by short sellers, you won't find the explanation here. Ultimately, this book is a good record of what happened but I think my reading list needs a lot more books to understand the why. I'd give the book a half hearted recommendation Labels: 2010, andrew ross sorkin, book review, february, finance, financial crisis, lehman brothers, non fiction, review, wall street
Book Review - Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving
 I just returned from a trip to Andalusia and one of the books I should have read before I went is Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving (the other is South from Granada by Gerald Brenan). I was too overwhelmed by work and planning to get hold of these but I managed to finish the Tales on my way back from Spain. A little history of the book is in order here - Washington Irving was an American writer and diplomat. He wrote a biography of Prophet Mohammed and is also responsible for the short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow which was adapted into a movie by Tim Burton. Mr. Irving stayed in the Alhambra in Granada for a few months in the 1820s. Copies of Tales of the Alhambra are on sale everywhere in Granada and the author is much celebrated in that town. I saw a statue, a special exhibitions on Irving's life and explored his living quarters in the Alhambra palace, carefully preserved by the palace management. The reason for Irving's celebrity is this book - widely credited with having put Granada and its beautiful palace on the map. So is the book, and by extension, the writer worthy of such adulation? I think not. Tales of the Alhambra is a loose collection of legends about the palace and essays by Irving on his experience of living in it. I found two main themes in the legends narrated by Irving, hidden Moorish treasure and forbidden love between the Muslim Moors and the Christian Spaniards. Some of the author's reflections are revealing and his description of the beautiful Palacios Nazaries is precise but the overall perspective is excessively romantic. A worthy read if you are planning to travel to Granada and the Alhambra, not otherwise. Labels: 2010, alhambra, andalusia, fantasy, february, fiction, granada, review, spain, washington irving
Book Review - To the Ends of the Earth by Paul Theroux
 To the Ends of the Earth is a selection of Paul Theroux' writings from six of his previous books. I have been reading Mr. Theroux' books in reverse chronological order so all the material in this collection was new to me. I've often wondered about Mr. Theroux' formula. What drives him to travel through frightfully uncomfortable and bleak environments? The writer reflects on this in his introduction to the book. Alluding to his first work, The Great Railway Bazar, he says "It is often the case that only when someone asks you specific questions do you begin to think clearly about your intentions. In my mind this travel book had something to do with trains, but i had no idea where i wanted to go - only that it should be a long trip". The author's next trip, described in The Old Patagonian Express was inspired by nothing more than the desire to go on a journey. There was no destination, he wanted to take trains all the way to Patagonia and then turn back. I find these reflections invaluable. The collection here is a trip around the world, the typical characters and places and the sometimes acidic style I've come to know and enjoy is evident from the beginning. I found the chapter on the author's meeting with Borges particularly surreal. I wondered if that was an accident? But no, it couldn't be. Great writing is deliberate. In the chapter we meet a large white cat, a blind Borges showing off his library and the author reading to the story writer. There is this memorable paragraph - "The restaurant was around the corner-- I could not see it, but Borges knew the way. So the blind man led me walking down this Buenos Aires street with Borges was like being led through Alexandria by Cavafy , or through Lahore by Kipling. The city beloved to him, and he had a hand in inventing it" The author's experience with Borges reminded me of his account of meeting Paul Bowles in Tangiers, narrated in Pillars of Hercules. The author's stated ambition when this book was published was to "complete a shelf of travel books, which, between bookends, will encompass the world". In a minor way, that goal is accomplished within the covers of To the Ends of the Earth. Highly recommended. Labels: 2009, anthology, book review, paul theroux, travel
Book Review - Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown by Paul Theroux
 My first Theroux travelogue was Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, a journey in which the venerable travel writer retraced a trip he took thirty five years ago. In Dark Star Safari Mr. Theroux does something similar - he goes on a trip from Cairo to Cape Town, covering the landmass of that great and wondrous continent, a place that seems to cling hungrily to its moniker of the dark continent. Theroux eschews air travel, as anyone whose read any of his travel books will know well. Mr. Theroux Africa is on a different planet, on a Dark Star as the author keeps reminding us. He compares the Africa of 2001 with the Africa he lived in forty years ago when he taught at a small school in Malawi and then at the Makerere University in Uganda, and most everywhere he sees an Africa "on the wane". He encounters pretentious aid workers driving around in expensive Land Rovers, self righteous missionaries, indifferent bureaucracy and superstitious politicians. He also meets some old friends and makes a few new ones. I found the story of an almost deaf Naguib Mahfouz holding court a Cairo hotel delightful. There is much to recommend and very little to distract. f you are familiar with Paul Theroux' other work you already know his writing is not exactly full of hope but it is excellent. Highly recommended. Labels: 2009, africa, paul theroux, travel, travelogue
Book Review - The Pillars of Hercules, A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean by Paul Theroux  The Pillars of Hercules is a "Grand Tour of the Mediterranean", an encounter with the most storied sea on the planet. Paul Theroux is well up to the task of bringing his unique brand of spartan travel to a journey that has been written about since Homer's Odyssey. Reading the travelogues of Paul Theroux is not just an encounter with exotic geography and customs, it is also an intensely literary experience. Mr. Theroux is a scholar, a linguist and in his uniquely curmudgeonly manner a keen observer of men. He is funny and mindful of his sour temper as he pokes fun at his own style. He makes generalizations as he sneers at the "snap judgments and obnoxious opinions" expressed by Evelyn Waugh in Labels (1930), an account of that writer's cruise around the Mediterranean. I found his description of an encounter with another traveler hilarious - "In life, it is inevitable that you meet someone just like yourself. What a shock that your double is not very nice, and seems selfish and judgmental and frivolous and illogical." The book begins on a fiesty note - at the Rock of Gibraltar, one of the "Pillars of Hercules" where the author clearly prefers the company of apes to 'tourists'. Tourists he thinks are the worst kinds of humans but he promises early on not to talk about them. Mr. Theroux of course is not a tourist, he is a traveler. The interesting fact is that I agree with his characterization, at least of himself. I found the overall tone less vitriolic than the one employed in Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. There are three cities the author showers considerable praise on - Dubrovnik, Jerusalem and Venice. He is kinder to the Italians but ruthless in his criticism of the Greeks. He relates his frustrating experience with Israel's security and then talks about his meeting with American expat Paul Bowles that borders on the surreal. I've encountered Istanbul twice in Mr. Theroux' works - once in Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and once in Pillars of Hercules - and I can't wait to go visit that grand city. There are encounters with other writers and other, more colorful characters, each contributing to a delightfully readable account. Mr. Theroux says - "But then a travel book is a very strange thing, there are few good excuses for writing one--all of them personal..The fairest way of judging travel books is by their truth and their wit" If he were to judge his work by his own standards, I would say Mr. Theroux would be very proud. Highly recommended. Labels: 2009, mediterranean, paul theroux, reviews, travel, travelouge
Book Review - Traffic, Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt  I have been accused of being an aggressive and unsafe driver, much to my chagrin. I know I am aggressive, but unsafe? That I take exception to. It is true however that your own perception of how you drive is much out of whack with your passenger's perspective. Traffic - Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt seeks to explore this most mundane of everyday activities. Driving and Traffic are technically separate but closely related subjects and Mr. Vanderbilt provides a fascinating discussion of both. Traffic begins with Mr. Vanderbilt's admission of being a 'late-merger', someone who waits till the last moment before exiting a closed lane and merging into a parallel one. There are some drivers who choose to merge early, as soon as they see a sign indicating their lane is closed ahead (or is exit only etc.), others wait right up to the last second and then indiginantly try to merge into the freer flowing traffic of the next lane. The first few chapters of the book focus on driving, taking into account factors like cognition, culture, human psychology (and psyche), self perception of who you are and who you want to be, reflex times and the meaning of gestures and signals. Chapter Five is provocatively titled 'Why Women Cause More Congestion Than Men (and Other Secrets of Traffic)' - but don't get offended yet, the author goes on to explain why that is so. Women continue to handle a lot of 'non-work' trips, taking kids to school and soccer practice for example. Women also tend to be engaged in what Vanderbilt calls "serve-passenger" trips, where they are taking passengers to places they don't have to be themselves and they tend to make several stops thus 'chaining' multiple trips. Women also tend to leave later for work than men and therefore drive right into already congested freeways. Hence, 'women cause more congestion than men'. About half way through the book Vanderbilt shifts gears (I couldn't resist that pun) and focuses on traffic engineering and management. Chaper Six talks about the confounding observation that as more roads are built, traffic only seems to get worse. The author explores the idea and travels around the US talking to traffic engineers and looks into the externalities of America's obsession with driving. Chapter Seven was my favorite, presenting the most interesting ideas in the book. The author talks approvingly of the work of Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman who supposedly hated traffic signs. The author argues, by citing examples and urging the reader to analyze his own experiences, that roads deemed to be unsafe tend have a lesser proportion of fatal crashes precisely because drivers are a lot more careful when using them. A smooth flowing freeway tends to induce boredom and distraction, and distraction at 70mph can be fatal. Chapter Eight is a quick romp through two of the worlds' most congested cities Delhi and Beijing. Both culture and corruption seem to affect accident rates and fatalities on the roads of these dense and, for a western driver, terrifying cities. Traffic could easily have been a work of pop psychology, filled with platitudinal wisdom. The appeal of the book is that it resists that temptation. This is a well researched book with a 110 pages of notes to satisfy the obsessive reader. The writing itself is engaging and enjoyable. Highly recommended. |
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