Review of Act of Oblivion – Robert Harris

‘From what is it they flee?’
He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, ‘They killed the King.’

1660, General Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe, father- and son-in-law, cross the Atlantic. They are on the run and wanted for the murder of Charles I. Under the provisions of the Act of Oblivion, they have been found guilty in absentia of high treason.

In London, Richard Nayler, secretary of the regicide committee of the Privy Council, is tasked with tracking down the fugitives. He’ll stop at nothing until the two men are brought to justice. A reward of £100 hangs over their heads – for their capture, dead or alive.

Act of Oblivion

Robert Harris

Hutchinson Heinemann

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

The Indemnity and Oblivion Act of 1660, following the restoration of the English Monarchy, resulted in the pursuit and prosecution of those guilty of the regicide of Charles I. Naturally, the accused viewed the probable punishment, hanging, drawing and quartering and your head on a spike for all to see, with a bit of alarm and decided hiding abroad was a good idea. Two of these gentlemen were Edward Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe. And their hiding place was New England.

Act of Oblivion is a novelised telling of history in the same vein as Schindler’s Ark. All the characters
are attested in history, with the exception of one: Richard Naylor, the man in charge of the hunt.Harris created him on the rational, if there was a manhunt, there ought to have been someone in charge. Naylor certainly comes across as a driven character, out to revenge the death of his pregnant wife due to the behaviour of Whalley and Goffe. These two have contrasting natures. Goffe appears to be a religious fanatic, known as Praying William to contemporaries. Whalley was apparently not as fervent in his beliefs.

Harris’s novel covers the period from 1660, when the two men flee to Massachusetts colony, to 1679, the last known mention of Willian Goffe. Harris covers the sliding support that various policies and religious factions enjoy: revenge for the King, millenarianism in some of the Puritan congregations, Cromwellian transportation of “undesirables.” Harris also demonstrates the effect of patchy and slow communication between the colonies and the metropolis. Interestingly, Harris doesn’t mention John Dixwell, another regicide who also hid in New Haven Colony alongside Goffe and Whalley.

I enjoyed this novel/novelised history. While I knew that several of the regicides were disinterred,
tried and convicted and their corpses dismembered, I had forgotten about the initial fervour for
revenge. Indeed, those that escaped the revenge are often completely ignored in the discussion of
history. I recommend this book for those with an interest in both English history and American
Colonial history. Well worth the read. Thank you to Penguin Random House for the review copy.

Review of The Sparrow – Tessa Duder

In September 1840, two ships arrive on the shores of the Waitematā Harbour to establish Auckland, the new capital of New Zealand.

Among the settlers on board the Platina is young Harry, travelling alone and determined to return to family in England.

But the more immediate challenge is finding food and shelter — and hiding the truth about Harry’s real identity and what was left behind in Van Diemen’s Land

Review of The Sparrow – Tessa Duder

Penguin

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Jan Butterworth

Its 1842, the Treaty of Waitangi has been signed, and
Auckland has been chosen as the new capital. Two ships arrive in the Waitemata Harbour, one with the material for the governor‘s residence, the other with settlers to help build it and establish Auckland as a city.

13 year old Harry is one of those settlers. Hiding from a traumatic past with a new identity, Harry is determined to return to family in England and plans to work odd jobs to save money to return home. The first obstacle Harry must overcome though, is survival – finding food and shelter – all while guarding the secret of her hidden past. If her secret is ever discovered, the consequences could be dire………

Unfortunately I read the dedication before the story and figured out the secret before I even started reading. So do not read the dedication!!! The secret is revealed to the reader near the beginning though, which just makes the story more interesting as we can see how high the stakes are. I’m in awe of Harry’s guts and ingenuity; it was so brave to make the journey, especially in that time period.

I can’t give too many details about the story as it would spoil it for you but it’s a fantastic read that gives an insight into the settler’s experiences of life in colonial New Zealand (and a brief glimpse into Australia’s past). A vivid picture of our colonial past is painted, and viewed through a modern day lens; the dismissive racism of the white settlers and the strict hierarchy of the class system that was brought over from England make me wince. The huge waste of government money on appearances makes me wonder how much things have really changed 280+ years later.

\Buy it. Read it. But make sure you have hours of free time before reading The Sparrow as it is a captivating book and impossible to put down.

Review of Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia – David Graeber

The Enlightenment did not begin in Europe. Its true origins lie thousands of miles away on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when it was home to several thousand pirates. This was the Golden Age of Piracy, a period of violent buccaneering and rollicking legends – but it was also, argues anthropologist David Graeber, a brief window of radical democracy, as the pirate settlers attempted to apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society on land.

For Graeber, Madagascar’s lost pirate utopia represents some of the first stirrings of Enlightenment political thought. In this jewel of a book, he offers a way to ‘decolonize the Enlightenment’, demonstrating how this mixed community experimented with an alternative vision of human freedom, far from that being formulated in the salons and coffee houses of Europe. Its actors were Malagasy women, merchants and traders, philosopher kings and escaped slaves, exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into practice by Western revolutionary regimes a century later.

Pirate Enlightenment playfully dismantles the central myths of the Enlightenment. In their place comes a story about the magic, sea battles, purloined princesses, manhunts, make-believe kingdoms, fraudulent ambassadors, spies, jewel thieves, poisoners and devil worship that lie at the origins of modern freedom

Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia

David Graeber

Allen Lane

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

Everybody loves pirates, except those having their swashes unbuckled by buccaneers. And for awhile in the 18 the century Madagascar was home to many pirates. They were so successful that some toured Europe purporting to represent a Pirate kingdom, looking for allies and political connections (and places to fence their booty). One reputed “kingdom” was Libertalia, a utopia of direct democracy and socialist economics. Or so the stories go.

Dave Graeber has written a short book (or very long essay) on the only early European settler group on Madagascar: the pirates. He compares the successful pirates (there were unsuccessful pirate colonies) with the unsuccessful European colonies, as well as other outsider groups in Malagasy society.
He looks at the pirates from both a European and Malagasy perspective, how local women escaped from male control, and the rise of a particular tribal culture on Madagascar’s east coast.  And somewhere in all this is discussion of Libertalia and its real life analogue.

For a book of less than 200 pages, and only about 150 pages of essay (there’s a large preface and footnotes and references and such like), there’s a lot here. For example, the wealth available to successful pirates in the Indian Ocean vastly exceeded that of the Caribbean, and it was easier to avoid colonial navies.

I like this book and this author. I mean, how can you lose with Bullshit Jobs: A Theory? I recommend  this to anyone interested in the Enlightenment, pirates, and social development. Thanks to Jerome Buckleigh for supplying the English translation of Pirate Enlightenment.

Review of Colditz; Prisoners of the Castle – Ben Macintyre

In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, an unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors. Or so the story of Colditz has gone, unchallenged for 70 years. But that tale contains only part of the truth.

The astonishing inside story, revealed for the first time by bestselling historian Ben Macintyre, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. Through an astonishing range of material, Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters, wider than previously seen and hitherto hidden from history, taking in prisoners and captors who were living cheek-by-jowl in a thrilling game of cat and mouse.

From the elitist members of the Colditz Bullingdon Club to America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent, the soldier-prisoners of Colditz were courageous and resilient as well as vulnerable and fearful — and astonishingly imaginative in their desperate escape attempts. Deeply researched and full of incredible human stories, this is the definitive book on Colditz.

Colditz; Prisoners of the Castle

Ben Macintyre

Viking

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

Many of us remember the TV series Colditz. We may even have played, or even owned, Escape from Colditz. Both of these owe their genesis to one of the many British POWs held at Colditz castle, Pat Reid. But dimly boiling away in the TV series is the implication that Colditz housed more than just upper-class British officers, or even just officers, full stop.

Macintyre sets out to provide a correction to the impression that Colditz was some form of British Public School, an Eton (Germany) if you like. Certainly, the British officers turned their experience there into something similar, replete with other rank orderlies who were basically their fags. They were also forbidden from escaping by the officers.

And until August 1942, Oflag-IVC, as Colditz was officially described, was a multinational POW camp of the most deutschfeindlich or German unfriendly POWs. This usually meant they were the ones trying to escape. Against these were the natural features that made Colditz Castle a semi-logical choice, and the guards, particularly Lt. Reinhold Eggers.

Macintyre has provided a balanced account of Colditz, the POW camp. While there is marginal mention of life prior to the arrival of the first British POWs in 1940, there were already French, Belgian and Polish POWs in Colditz. As escape activity increased, Eggers set up a museum. There was petty racism, heroes, villains, spies and spy stuff, traitors, a list of distinguished people, and an heroic rescue at the end.

This retelling of the Colditz story is very satisfying, replete with potted history of the Castle, an appendix listing a very useful code (never broken), some brief bios and generally loose ends tied up. I recognised quite a few of the famous names that passed through Colditz, with Douglas Bader being probably the standout for recognition. I recommend this to anyone interested in history or biography (sort of.)

Many thanks to Penguin Random House for the review copy.

Review of Into the Unknown: The secret WWI diary of Kiwi Alick Trafford no 25/469 – Ian Trafford

A personal account of WWI from the diaries of a Gisborne farm boy, shaped into a gripping narrative by the diarist’s grandson 100 years later.  Follow Alick as he moves from his last night on the farm in early 1916, through enshipment and training, then off to the battle fields of France and Belgium, occupied Germany and back home.

His treasured diaries covered the tedium, the mud, the fear and sorrow, the discomfort, the periods of leave and the letters from those back home. See the war unfold through Alick’s eyes and learn about his and his companions’ attitudes to the army, to female company, to the enemy soldiers, to the hospitality provided by people under pressure, to the war itself.

And after the drama and tragedy of war, comes the return home and the efforts required to make a living while remaining steadfastly silent about the traumas of those terrible years – an unseen fight that continued and affected the generations that followed.

Into the Unknown: The secret WWI diary of Kiwi Alick Trafford no 25/469

Ian Trafford

Penguin

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

Alick Trafford volunteered to join the New Zealand Army, completing his basic training in Wellington in early 1916, before being shipped to France. He went through several rotations at the Front, starting as a private and finishing as a sergeant major, and being a bachelor, decided to participate in the occupation of the Rhineland when the Armistice was declared.

Alick kept a diary. Unlike most, he took it with him to the trenches, as this was against regulation. According to Ian’s recollection of events, his grandfather Alick believed the contents to be “dynamite.” While the author is credited as Ian Trafford, in reality he is more the editor of Alick’s diaries. I use the plural as a single diary was usually a small affair, suitable for daily notes, not essays on the quality of Picardy mud.

While Alick may have considered the diaries dynamite, time has softened the discourse he brings. We know about the mud, the shell shock, wounds, gas, and so forth. What is perhaps more shocking for the modern reader is the lethality of disease. Mumps and measles were both subject to quarantine, and in the latter part of the diary, he talks of the Spanish Flu, which was much worse than the recent pandemic.

Alick also had the misfortune of being wounded and spending much time in Britain recovering. He was able to visit a large number of relatives though.

I was initially put off by a claim in the foreword – the diary was illicit – but this is explained by Ian being loose with the truth. Keeping a diary in the trenches was illicit, but many men did. The Army was concerned about security (too much info on the page) and safety (distracted by writing it). That the men kept diaries is attested by the vast numbers in museum archives (and I’ve accessed quite a few doing research).

If you want to read a first-hand account of a Kiwi Digger, then you could do worse than read Into the Unknown. It gives a comprehensive guide to life of a New Zealand soldier, what he experienced both in action and inaction, on duty and leave, and attitudes to others. Alick Trafford is very much the average Kiwi. Not dynamite, but a damn good read.

Review of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity – David Graeber and David Wengrow

4For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike – either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction to indigenous critiques of European society, and why they are wrong. In doing so, they overturn our view of human history, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and civilization itself.

Drawing on path-breaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we begin to see what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 per cent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful possibilities than we tend to assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision and faith in the power of direct action.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

David Graeber and David Wengrow

Allen Lane

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

The Dawn of Everything starts with a critique of two old essays, one by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the other by Thomas Hobbes. Both concerned the Imagined original state of man and how we arrived at the current state of affairs.

The two Davids examine the possible origins of the concept of social equality and its sudden appearance in salon discussions during the Enlightenment (why this should be important, please remember the aspirations voiced of the American and French Revolutions make much of social equality). It appears the Columbian exchange of ideas was more than one way.

I approached this book with some trepidation, mostly due to the hyperbole of the review snippets emblazoned on the cover. A cover which is mustard orange and red – scary. “The radical revision of everything,” proclaims Rebecca Solnit. And the source of that trepidation was those essays by Hobbes and Rousseau mentioned above, which postulate humanities prehistoric social structures. Because what this book covers is a re-examination of the accumulated data relating to post-Ice Age settlements, and what the data implies humans were doing with regard to social hierarchies and food supplies.

The Dawn of Everything is approximately 680 pages, of which 80 are endnotes and 60 are bibliography. It started as a side project; snippets shared by two professors. It’s organised into 12 chapters, which are further subdivided into related and linked essays. The time span is literally from the last Ice Age to the twentieth century while the geographic spread is the whole world, but with an emphasis on the Americas. The reason for this is explained in the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The fear it was overhyped has been laid to rest; it is overhyped because it overturns almost all the assumptions propagated about prehistoric societies (and more than a few historic ones as well). Wengrow and Graeber have done a great job writing The Dawn of Everything. The introduction sets the scene, ideas flow smoothly into expositions, and old assumptions are demolished with style.

I recommend you buy and read this book. I wish to thank Penguin Random House for the review copy.

Review of Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War – Laurence Rees

This compelling book on Hitler and Stalin – the culmination of thirty years’ work – examines the two tyrants during the Second World War, when Germany and the Soviet Union fought the biggest and bloodiest war in history. Yet despite the fact they were bitter opponents, Laurence Rees shows that Hitler and Stalin were, to a large extent, different sides of the same coin. Both were prepared to create undreamt-of suffering, destroy individual liberty and twist facts in order to build the utopias they wanted, and while Hitler’s creation of the Holocaust remains a singular crime, Rees shows why we must not forget that Stalin committed a series of atrocities at the same time.

Using previously unpublished, startling eyewitness testimony from soldiers of the Red Army and Wehrmacht, civilians who suffered during the conflict and those who knew both men personally, bestselling historian Laurence Rees – probably the only person alive who has met Germans who worked for Hitler and Russians who worked for Stalin – challenges long-held popular misconceptions about two of the most important figures in history. This is a master work from one of our finest historians.

Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War

Laurence Rees

Viking

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Steve Litten

Once again, Laurence Rees has delivered a ripper of a World War Two history, but this time his focus is biographical. He compares and contrasts the leadership styles (and personalities) of perhaps the two most famous villains of twentieth century politics, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.

Hitler and Stalin had quite different leadership styles and personalities, and I saw echoes of these in some current politicians. I won’t give the game away by naming names. The main crucible that these two different styles expressed themselves was World War Two. Hitler was certainly more of a gambler, frequently adopting a strategy of going the bank. This served well at the beginning but as most know, this is usually a losing strategy long term. Stalin was much more methodical. And we all know how WW2 ended.

Rees is a good writer. Here his focus is on Hitler and Stalin, not the outrages they caused to be perpetrated. It’s not that the outrages don’t matter, but rather how they were communicated and how those that actually committed them were co-opted. And this ability to get buy in to commit outrages is also explored.

Hitler and Stalin is a good read. There are a plethora of end notes, the majority from primary sources: this is not a synthesis of other people’s work. I liked it, but then I’ve several other books by Rees. These two leaders were among the most important politicians of the twentieth century, so understanding how they achieved their toxic legacy matters.

Read it.

Review of Troy: Our Greatest Story Retold – Stephen Fry

The story of Troy speaks to all of us – the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whole years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies.

In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today.

Troy: Our Greatest Story Retold

Stephen Fry

Michael Joseph

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

Yes, it is that Troy, and the story starts like most Greek myths, with Zeus not keeping it in his pants. From there on, there’s a few more Olympian extramarital affairs, royal murders, marriages, prophecies, and a divine beauty contest. From this point on, the gods seem to fall over each other trying to get their preferred prophecy over the line. And once war starts, they can’t resist meddling in Greek and Trojan affairs. Even after Zeus puts his foot down and orders a stop to it.

For those familiar with Homer’s Iliad¸ which covers but four days and three nights during the tenth year of the war, there is a wealth of background detail Homer assumes his listeners know. Such as how Menelaus came to married to Helen, why Paris risked it all to abduct her (and Menelaus’ treasury), and why the Greeks united to get her back. All told in the pared down, modern idiom Fry has used in the preceding Mythos and Heroes.

Once more. Stephen Fry has crafted another great book out of the dusty stanzas of Greek epic poetry. He has drawn on various sources to create a coherent narrative. And then tells the reader not to look too closely at the timelines as it’s all been bodged together. The one grumble I have is Stephen hasn’t really shown his calculations. Part of the problem is that many works, such as the Epic Cycle (which details various events during the Trojan War). Apart from the usual Intros and acknowledgements, Fry has included two short essays on Myth and Reality. Read them.

This is a book that should inhabit your collection. It’s certainly staying in mine. Hopefully there is a retelling of the Odyssey (and other tales following the fall of Troy). My thanks to Penguin Random House for the review copy.

Review of The Deep – Alma Katsu

Someone, or something, is haunting the Titanic.

This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic . . .

Brilliantly combining fact and fiction, the historical and the horrific, The Deep reveals a chilling truth in an unputdownable narrative full of unnerving moments and with a growing, inexorable sense of foreboding.

The Deep

Alma Katsu

Bantam

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Jan Butterworth

It’s 1916 and Annie Hebbley has to leave the insane asylum where she has been living in order to make room for returning soldiers suffering shellshock.  She has a letter from a friend -Violet Jessop, who she worked with on the Titanic – inviting her o join her in serving as a stewardess for the Red Cross, sailing on the HMHS Brittanic evacuating the military troops.  Tending the wounded, she discovers a man she looked after on the Titanic, a man who perished…..

The character Violet Jessop is an actual person and she was holding a baby when she was rescued from the Titanic.  Violet survived the sinking of three ships which is bizarre – surely any sane person would think ”well I survived two, better not push my luck again”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Jessop

The story was told in two times – 1916 and 1912 – and each chapter is clearly labelled so you know instantly which time period you’re in.  the story plot gripped me at the start – based on real people, an intriguing mystery, the unexplained reason a tragedy happened – but there was too much back story and too many characters to make the story flow quickly.  I lost interest halfway in and it was a real struggle to finish.   The ending tied up the story nicely and maybe is exactly what happened.

Try it as it’s an interesting idea.  Maybe you have a longer attention span than me.

Review of Captain Cook’s Epic Voyage: The strange quest for a missing continent – Geoffrey Blainey

The story of the astonishing voyage of Captain James Cook and the Endeavour, to mark the 250th anniversary of that voyage, and Cook’s claim to sovereignty.

In 1768 Captain James Cook and his crew set sail on a small British naval vessel, the boldly named Endeavour, bound for the Pacific Ocean. He was ordered to establish an observatory at Tahiti in order to record the 1769 transit of Venus, and – with the skills of naturalist Joseph Banks and his team – to collect natural history in this far part of the world. But Cook’s brief also included a secret mission from the British Admiralty: to discover Terra Australis Incognita, an unknown southern land that might prove to be larger and richer than Australia.

Cook was not alone in this quest, and the Endeavour shared the Coral Sea and coastal New Zealand with an armed French merchant ship commanded by Jean de Surville. Eventually in 1770 Cook’s ship crossed the Tasman Sea and reached the southern coast of New South Wales. Sailing north, he charted Australia’s eastern coastline and claimed it for Great Britain. It was the most significant of Cook’s voyages, transforming the world map and the way Europeans viewed the South Pacific Ocean and its lands and peoples.

Captain Cook’s Epic Voyage: The strange quest for a missing continent

Geoffrey Blainey

Viking

Supplied by Penguin Random House New Zealand

Reviewed by Stephen Litten

This is a revised edition of Sea of Dangers, (2009) which dealt with Cook and several French navigators and their peregrinations in the South Pacific. Cook’s initial task was to observe the transit of Venus, before opening his sealed orders. Which commanded him to search for and chart the theoretical as yet unfound continent considered to be in the South Pacific. Obviously, that had to be kept secret from Britain’s rivals. Circulating through the South Pacific at the same time was Jean de Surville, charged with leading a trading expedition to develop contacts with this continent.

James Cook is generally regarded as a hero for his navigation of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. He also came close to sinking HMS Endeavour several times. Blainey investigates these incidents, the worst of which probably necessitated the repairs conducted in Batavia; a stopover that killed more of the crew than anything else. Blainey also contrasts the strategies assigned to Cook and de Surville and the affects this had on the health of their crew.

While I found this book to be interesting, I also found sevearal sections to be quite sketchy. The introduction of de Surville seemed to be over-edited and not focussed. Blainey, as an Australian, focusses on the Australian leg of the voyage whereas a New Zealand author would have spent the bulk on New Zealand. What the book lacked were enough comparative maps: Blainey makes much of Cook and de Surville almost meeting or discovering alternative locations yet provides no charts depicting where they were in a suitable scale. I would also have liked any chart showing the putative Terra Australis Incognita.

This isn’t a bad book but it’s not a great book. If you are unfamiliar with the subject, it’s certainly a particularly good start and worth the read. I thank Viking/Penguin Random House for the review copy.