Failure Is Not an Option

Title: Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
Author: Gene Kranz
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Gene Kranz was one of the original flight controllers hired at the newly-formed NASA in the early 1960's.  Using meticulous notes and old recordings, he tells the story of NASA sending the first man into space, the first successful orbit and docking of spacecraft, the tragedy of Apollo 1, the success of Apollo 11, and the near failure of Apollo 13.
Thoughts: This book is really superb.  Kranz does a great job of balancing story-telling with historical and technical details, with the result being a gripping tale of adventure in the "final frontier" of space.  Several things impressed me about the book: first, Kranz's writing style is perfect.  He sounds like a flight director who's not going to take any crap from anybody.  For me, this really helped me get into the setting.  Second, it was amazing how many risks these guys had to take to get to the moon by the end of the decade.  Obviously, the tried to minimize the risks as much as possible, but at the end of the day everything they were trying was brand new, and the margin for error was zero.  I can't believe they actually made it, especially given that they literally survived each mission by the skin of their teeth.  Third, I kept thinking throughout the book about how there really isn't an equivalent national goal today like the Space Race was in the 1960's.  I would love to really see the nation come together around something like we did 50 years ago.  Anyway, this was a great book that I would certainly recommend.
Disclaimer:  A few swear words.

The Disneyland Story

Title: The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream
Author: Sam Gennawey
Genre: History
Pages: 336
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A blow-by-blow history of Disneyland, from its original conception up until 2012.
Thoughts: Few individuals are as well-known worldwide as Walt Disney, and few places are as patently American as Disneyland.  So, it is surprising that a comprehensive "biography" of Disneyland hadn't really been written before 2013, when Gennawey published The Disneyland Story.  I'm a pretty big Disney fan, and I found all of the details of the creation of the world's first theme park absolutely fascinating.  I especially liked how the book described how The Disney Company's experience with movie-making affected the creation of Disneyland.  It wasn't just a place to go have fun with your family.  It is essentially a true 3-D movie, where you are the main character experience adventure after adventure.  Each scene was carefully created at Disneyland, helping kids and adults alike suspend their disbelief for a day.  That's the key thing that sets Disneyland apart - each detail is taken care of so that the fantasy is maintained continuously.  Anyway, the book was super detailed, with tons of source material and careful attention to detail.  My only complaint with the book is that at times it reads like a timeline rather than a story.  "First this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, etc."  Still, overall, if you love Disneyland and are interested in true innovators, you would enjoy this book.
Disclaimer: None.

The Chosen

Title: The Chosen
Author: Chaim Potok
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 304
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood.
Thoughts: Such a great book.  It's very similar to My Name is Asher Lev, also by Potok, which I read (and loved) several years ago.  What I really liked about The Chosen was its exploration of our relationship with faith and God.  I don't want to give away much about the plot, but for me Danny's relationship with his father was a perfect metaphor for how our relationship with God can feel at times.  By the end of the book, I felt like I had truly learned something valuable, and actually feel like my faith is maybe a bit stronger because of it.  There's a lot more to the book (father/son relationships, dealing with differences between friends, etc.), but that was what has stuck with me.  The writing is great and it's a great story, so I'd highly recommend it.
Disclaimer: None.

The Most Human Human

Title: The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive
Author: Brian Christian
Genre: Non-fiction (Popular science/philosophy)
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In 2009, Brian Christian participated in the "Turing Test," the annual competition in which computers and real people engage in 5-minute instant message sessions with a panel of judges.  The twist is that the judges don't know if they are speaking with a computer or a human, and at the end of the conversation they must vote on whether they think they were talking to a real person or not.  The computer that receives the most votes wins the "most human computer" award at the end of the competition, while the person that gets the most votes receives the "most human human" award.  Christian decides that he's going to go all-out to be the "most human human" in the competition, and prepares for several months beforehand to figure out what really makes him (and us) human.  Holding degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry, Christian is ideally suited to tackle the surprisingly beguiling question of how to be human.
Thoughts: I loved this book.  I found it surprisingly profound, and I'm still thinking about some of the ideas in the book a month after finishing it.  I expected it to be a kind of Malcolm Gladwell-esque book that was interesting and well-written.  It wasn't actually all that well-written, but it more than made up for it in super interesting material.  What really surprised me was how much it made me really re-think how I can make myself more human.  By looking at what things computers can easily copy when they are imitating us, we can easily see things we do that are quite pre-programmed, mundane, and robotic.  But there are some things that computers simply cannot (yet) copy, and that's where true human interaction really takes place.  That's where I want my relationships to go, and reading this book helped me understand better how to get there.  Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: None.

Saturday

Title: Saturday
Author: Ian McEwan
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 304
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Saturday tells the story of a single day in the life of Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon who lives in London.  It is a Saturday in February of 2003, and Henry wakes up to see a place with its wing on fire streaking towards Heathrow.  Henry's first thought is terrorism, and although it turns out he was mistaken (it was just an accident), terrorism and threats from unknown persons continue to haunt him throughout his day.
Thoughts: First off, you have to admire McEwan's prose.  Aside from any messages or deep thoughts that one might get from Saturday, I thoroughly enjoyed the great descriptions of everyday events, of situations I find myself in all the time.  And, to be sure, Saturday is filled with a lot of description and detail.  The plot doesn't unfold very quickly at all, so you've got to enjoy the prose if you're going to enjoy the book.  As for the plot itself, it was fine but nothing spectacular.  I felt like things got tied up a bit too neatly in the end (don't want to give any spoilers) for my taste.  However, the book did an excellent job of being a vehicle for thinking about terrorism, clashes of cultures, and more generally, how we handle situations and people that we are unfamiliar (and probably uncomfortable) with.  The book allows you to think about this on many different scales: terrorists (macro), muggers (mezzo), and within your own family (micro).  That is what made the book worth reading for me.
Disclaimer: There is plenty of swearing in the book, and some love-making between the main character and his wife.

Lone Survivor

Title: Lone Survivor: The eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL Team 10
Author: Marcus Luttrell
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 464
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Tells the story of how Luttrell became a Navy SEAL and was eventually deployed in Afghanistan.  While out on patrol, his team was attacked by the Taliban.  Miraculously, Luttrell survived the ordeal.
Thoughts: This is such an amazing story that you can't not enjoy reading it.  Luttrell spends considerable space writing about his SEAL training, and I actually enjoyed that as much as the story.  It really gives you an insight into who the SEALs are and how they are trained to think and act.  The story itself is amazing, sad, and patriotic all at once.  My only complaint with the book is that Luttrell goes off on random diatribes about a few issues (such as the liberal media) here and there, and that kind of detracted from the story.  Not that he doesn't have a right to express that, but it comes off just sounding like a rant and it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.  All in all, though, I enjoyed the book and am glad that I read it.
Disclaimer:  Like most military books, the language gets salty at times, and there is plenty of wartime violence and gore as well.  However, I'd say that this is actually cleaner than many war books that I've read.

Foundation

Title: Foundation
Author: Isaac Asimov
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): **1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Set far in the future, Foundation tells the story of a galaxy-wide Empire that has enjoyed peace for thousands of years.  But a brilliant psychologist named Hari Seldon has worked out a set of mathematical equations that predict the future, and what he finds is that the Empire is on the verge of collapse.  He sets up a foundation of scientists designed not to prevent the collapse of the Empire (its too far gone for that), but rather to shorter the dark ages that he knows will follow by retaining the accumulated knowledge of mankind.
Thoughts: This is one of the first, great sci-fi books out there; the predecessor to Star Wars, Star Trek, the Ender series, 2001, and basically every other sci-fi bit of media you've ever seen.  Written way back in 1951, it is quite imaginative and, in some ways, maybe a bit prescient.  But, I'm just not much of a sci-fi fan, I don't think.  I never really got into it; much of the story seemed too contrived so that everything tied up just a bit too neatly.  And the writing itself isn't great either, although I'm willing to let Asimov slip on that given that he was just 21 when he wrote the book.  Anyway, if you like sci-fi, you should read it.  Otherwise, it might not be worth your time.
Disclaimer: Maybe a swear word or two??  Pretty clean.

The Devil in the White City

Title: The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
Author: Erik Larson
Genre: History
Pages: 447
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Larson weaves together the story of the building of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 with the tale of a mass murderer far worse than Jack the Ripper.  Both stories are so outrageous that you might think he made them up, but they're both true, and they happened at the same time in the same place.
Thoughts: It took me about a hundred pages to really get into this book, but by the end I was hanging on every word.  Having moved to Chicago a year ago, this was the perfect time for me to read The Devil in the White City; I've been here long enough to know my way around, but I'm still trying to figure out its aura.  Knowing a bit of the history helped with that.  And the World's Fair is a huge part of what put Chicago on the map (and its imprint is still quite visible on the South Side).  I was mind-boggled at how many firsts there were at the fair (a small sampling: first shredded wheat, first usage of AC current, first Ferris wheel) and at the vastness of the project of just putting it together.  It left me wondering why we don't have World Fairs any longer; it's a shame they've gone away.  At any rate, throw in the true tale of a truly clever and sick mass murderer to boot, and you've got a great book.
Disclaimer: The descriptions of the murders were somewhat gruesome.

Sum

Title: Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives
Author: David Eagleman
Genre: Modern Fiction / Philosophy
Pages: 128
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, writes 40 different vignettes of what the afterlife might be like.  In one version, you re-live your life but with events grouped together so that you sleep for 30 years straight, spend 200 days in the shower, five months on the toilet, and so forth.  In another, you find out that God created humanity but then lost control and is farming out the work of managing people's lives to individuals who have passed away.  Each chapter is only 2-3 pages long.
Thoughts: I really loved this book.  It is amazing how much the afterlife can teach you about THIS life, and Eagleman does a really amazing job of delivering a new insight or deep thought in an incredibly creative way by forcing you to consider what each type of afterlife would be like.  What if in the afterlife you were stuck in a room until no one remembered you any longer?  How would that change how you behave?  I found myself underling the last couple of paragraphs in nearly every single chapter, finding new thoughts that made me think about how I'm living.  Eagleman's book was so good not because he writes about what the afterlife will actually be like, but because each different afterlife made me thing about what my current life is all about.
Disclaimer: None.

Confessions of a Public Speaker

Title: Confessions of a Public Speaker
Author: Scott Berkun
Genre: Advice
Pages: 240
Rating (out of 5 stars): *** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Scott Berkun is a professional public speaker.  This book gives his advice on how to prepare and give a great talk, as well as advice on how to handle difficult situations and what to do when things go wrong.  It's also full of funny stories about public speaking.
Thoughts: I find myself doing a lot of public speaking in my career, so it seems worthwhile to try to get better at it.  Berkun's book had a lot of good advice, and it was fun to read as well.  I really liked that it didn't come off as preachy at all, but more, "I've made a whole bunch of mistakes; hopefully you can learn from some of them."  Berkun is pretty funny as well, which is always a plus.  At the end of the day, I didn't come away with any earth-shattering new advice, but all of it was solid and helpful.
Disclaimer: Maybe a few swear words in this one, but not much.

Quiet

Title: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking
Author: Susan Cain
Genre: Behavioral Psychology
Pages: 368
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Susan Cain's goal in this book is to dispel misconceptions about what introverts are, to remove any negative stigma there might be out there about introverts, and to try to convince the world that we should not cater only to extroverted types.  Laced with lots of anecdotes and scientific research, she tries to champion introverts in the same way that feminists began to be advocated for back in the 60s.
Thoughts: I loved the topic and the content of this book, and I really think that everyone should read it.  Whether you're and introvert or not (and you may be one without even knowing it!), this book is full of useful information that might change the way you structure your life, or at least make you more understanding of how others choose to structure theirs.  It has totally helped me understand better what motivates and energizes me. (I'm a total introvert, for the record.  Like, 100%)  My only complaint with the book is the tone.  It's written almost as a manifesto.  Cain is very upfront that she wants to spark a social movement for introverts similar to how the feminist movement was partially sparked by Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique.  To me, the book came off a little bit too much as a "Rah! Rah! Introverts are amazing!  Extroverts just don't get it!" kind of a message, despite it being chock full of really great insights.  In my view, she would have been more effective is she had just kept it more informational and let the reader decide what to do with the information.  But, you should read the book, and just ignore the tone.
Disclaimer: None.

The Road

Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 287
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In a post-apocalyptic world, a man and his son are barely staying alive.  Due to some worldwide destruction (that is never specified), nothing grows and ash is constantly falling from gray skies.  Meanwhile, the man and his son travel along the road, hoping to find a better place, hoping that they can find enough food to last for a few more days, and hoping that they meet no one else along the way.
Thoughts: This is a book that will stick with me for a long time.  I couldn't figure out why anyone would write such a book for most of it; it's just so dark and depressing nearly all of the time.  Is it a commentary on how humans are essentially animals?  On how easily our society could come apart?  On the human spirit's amazing drive to survive?  Yes, it's about all of those.  But, when you come right down to it, this is a book about a father who knows he can't protect his son from the hard, dark things of this world, no matter how much he wants to.  And that certainly resonated with me.  Aside from the themes of the book, I also loved the writing style.  It felt almost like Hemingway to me, and I really like to read Hemingway.  All in all, I would definitely recommend it.  And, I must say, that despite how dark the book it, I do think that its main message is one of hope.
Disclaimer: There is some bloodshed in this book, and probably a swear word or two.  Mostly, though, it's just a mature-themed book.

The Brothers

Title: The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
Author: Stephen Kinzer
Genre: History
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): *** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles were the Secretary of State and the head of the CIA, respectively, under Eisenhower.  Working jointly as the overt and covert foreign policy directors for the U.S., this book describes their shaping of American foreign policy during the darkest times of the Cold War.
Thoughts: I've joined a men's book club, and this was the first book of the year.  It was extremely fascinating, and I'm surprised that I had never heard much about the Dulles brothers, despite the fact that a major airport is named after them.  The book is really well-written with amazing details (from de-classified documents) about the secret workings of the Cold War in the U.S. that I knew nothing about.  My only complaint is that it's clear the the author really hates the Dulles brothers, and his bias taints nearly all of the book.  It's clear that Foster and Allen were no saints and did plenty of bad things (with Eisenhower's sanction), but I would have preferred for Kinzer to just tell the story, and let the reader come to that conclusion on their own.  Other than that, though, this was fascinating and really taught me a lot about a period of U.S. history that I knew almost nothing about.
Disclaimer: I ran out of time to quite finish this book before our book group met, so I didn't get all the way through, but read enough to feel confident saying that it's quite clean.

The Indian in the Cupboard

Title: The Indian in the Cupboard
Author: Lynn Reid Banks
Genre: Children's Fiction
Pages: 240
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Omri receives an old medicine cabinet for his birthday, and discovers that plastic figurines come to life in it when it is locked with his mother's special key.  The Indian in the Cupboard tells the story of Omri's efforts to help "his" little Indian, and his realization that responsibility often accompanies new privileges.
Thoughts: Henry and I listened to this book during the drive to Virginia over New Years, and we both enjoyed it a lot.  I read it first in 3rd grade, I think, and had forgotten nearly all of the details.  It's a great story: funny, touching, and captivating, with a good (but not overt) message at the end.  It's a great book for an 8-11 year old.
Disclaimer: None.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bill Bryson
Genre: Non-fiction (science/history)
Pages: 544
Rating (out of 5 stars): **** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Bill Bryson sets out to write a science book that is actually readable.  In it, he briefly covers everything from  the Big Bang to evolution to the discovery to gravity (and much, much more).  The focus of the book is not on the what so much as the how.  How did they figure out the distance to the sun?  How do we know what we do about dinosaurs?  And so forth.
Thoughts: I ate this book up.  It's been a long time since I had read much about pure science, and this book filled that gap for more.  Bryson's writing style is extremely readable, with just the right level of detail that it's quite easy to follow along.  He is also very adept and moving from topic to topic in a very natural way.  Interestingly enough, my biggest takeaway from this book is how little we really know about our universe.  For example, only a tiny fraction of all animals that die end up creating fossils, and then we only find a tiny fraction of the fossils that are on the earth.  There are huge pieces that we are just missing.  Given how little we know, the other surprising thing for me was just how difficult it typically is for new discoveries to become widely accepted.  Bryson details multiple times how the established scientific community discredited new evidence for years and years because it didn't match with their conception of the world, only to be proven wrong later.  Anyway, I would highly recommend this book.  It only missed out the extra half star because I felt like it dragged on a bit towards the end.  It needed to be 50 pages shorter, and it would have been perfect.
Disclaimer: None.