Simon Wiesenthal : The Life And Legends
by Tom Segev

After being in several concentration camps during WWII and surviving them, Simon Wiesenthal became known as the "Nazi hunter" and tracked down numerous criminals. His most famous catch was Eichmann who was found in Argentina.
Wiesenthal, though, was very controversial. He had a habit of embellishing his stories and/or making them up. Apparently, for almost every report that he wrote on major catches, there were several different versions.
Alas, I didn't get very far to read all of them. The book is quite large (over 400 pages) and extremely detailed. Tom Segev is a historian and an Israeli journalist and it shows. There's way too many facts (some irrelevant) and the writing is disjointed. After reading 30 pages, I was exhausted. Perhaps someone else can tackle Wiesenthal's life and be a much better author.

Wisenheimer : A Childhood Subject to Debate
by Mark Oppenheimer

The most interesting part of this book is the outside cover. The title is written as: wis-en-heim-er and then goes on to give the meaning of the word telling you that it is a noun and can be of German origin. Clever and that's where it stops.
Mark Oppenheimer was a child who talked like an adult and because of this didn't really have any friends and had no social skills. Most people found him irritating. When he found debating, he was finally fulfilled.
I lasted until page 48. It's very hard to read about somebody who is totally self-absorbed and an elitist. Oppenheimer is supposed to be good with words, but his writing is boring. He teaches English at Yale. I wouldn't want to be in that class.

Quiet Hero : Secrets From My Father's Past
by Rita Cosby

Six years after her mother died, Rita Cosby found all kinds of stuff about her father, hidden in storage, that she never knew before about him. Too many scars about what happened to him in Poland during WWII. When her father is 84, she finally interviews him.
Cosby is supposed to be this award-winning journalist who knows how to ask tough questions. The problem is her way of presenting them to her father is irritating and with an air of naivete. I couldn't stand it. Plus, her writing is less than stimulating. Most of it seems juvenile.
I would have liked to have read about her father's exploits during the war, but let somebody else write about it.

Riding With Reindeer : A Bicycle Odyssey Through Finland, Lapland, And Arctic Norway
by Robert M. Goldstein

Imagine riding a bicycle 2,000 miles starting from Helsinki and ending up at the Barents Sea. You have to deal with horrendous storms, bears, wolves and most of the time set up a tent for your sleeping arrangements.
Robert Goldstein, in 2007, did such a feat on a folding bike with a wagon towed behind him.
Two years earlier, the author had taken another adventure on the Trans-Siberian Express, which apparently was a disaster. (He wrote about it.) Not having read this book, I wonder if it, too, became as annoying as the current one.
Riding With Reindeer had its moments, but they were few and far between. The author is very funny and writes about some hilarious things that happen to him. After a while, though, it becomes old.
I didn't finish the book. After plowing through three quarters of it, I just lost interest. The writing wasn't so great and became plodding. It's a shame because every town that he passed through was noted for either some historical figure or event and Goldstein had obviously done research to write about it.
If you're gung-ho about riding bicycles across foreign lands and dealing with the elements, this might be the book for you. For the rest of us, don't bother.

Welcome To Utopia : Notes From A Small Town
by Karen Valby

I really liked the introduction. You get an idea of what a small town is like that has no mayor, no stoplights, seven churches, no fast food, no movie theaters, etc.
Utopia is in Texas and the original name was Montana. The guy who renamed it was the first postmaster. Quirky information that I find fascinating, but it came to a screeching halt in the first chapter. The author starts mentioning some of the characters she meets and their deadening conversation. Ho, hum.
Too bad. It looked like the book was going to be fun and entertaining. No such luck.

Poorly Made In China : An Insider's Account Of The Tactics Behind China's Production Game
by Paul Midler

Let's reword the title: Poorly Written Book On China.
There have been several books describing factory-made products in China and none of them have been good. This latest volume is just as bad.
The author, who is fluent in Mandarin and has a Wharton MBA (uh oh), is a buffer between Chinese companies and foreign importers. Everybody wants to work with him, so that they can be one step ahead in the new economy. Sound exciting? Not really.
It's certainly not enlightening nor entertaining as is written in the dust jacket. There's no continuity and everything is choppy.
I guess if one is a business major, in college, this might be required reading, but for the rest of us, stay very far away.

When Things Get Dark : A Mongolian Winter's Tale
by Matthew Davis

I should have know better as soon as I saw Peter Hessler's one-line review on the outside of the book: "Matthew Davis's portrait of Mongolia is riveting, insightful, and deeply honest." I can't say that I agree with any of this.
Davis goes to Mongolia, as a Peace Corp volunteer, to teach English. He lives his life pretty much the way the people do. The students are not all that interested in learning much of anything and he is not allowed to fail any of them.
The Mongolians are fed up with their lives, so drinking and being drunk are the norm.
The most interesting parts of the book is when Davis writes about the history of the country and the culture.
One thing that I found really irritating was the absence of a pronunciation guide for all of the Mongolian words scattered throughout the text. At the end, there is a glossary, but that's all. I bring this up because of Chinggis Khan. How is this pronounced? Most of us know this revered man in Mongolia (everything is named for him) with his name spelled as Ghengis Khan. Being a language nut, this bothers me. How difficult would it have been, before the story began, to give a brief description of the linguistic nuances?
The book is badly in need of a good editor and was probably never proofread. There are many pages with entire words missing.
I am sure that most of us really have no need or desire to read about Mongolia. This morbid tale took care of that.