A TRUE STORY OF AN AMERICAN NAZI SPY : WILLIAM CURTIS COLEPAUGH
by Robert A. Miller

William Curtis Colepaugh was born in Connecticut and grew up near the sea. His family was German and they deeply influenced him. Colepaugh decided to go to Germany for his education (he thought he would do better there than in the United States, as he wasn't much of a student). He thought highly of the German Army and Hitler and ended up being trained as a spy by the SS.
Sound interesting? Well,  it could have been if the book was written better. It seemed like the author used a fly-by-night publisher. The editing is horrendous, there's too many repetitions, and it's badly in need of a proofreader. Every chapter had misspelled words, incorrect tenses, and wrong punctuation. It was a mess. I got through it, but it was jarring with all of the errors.
Don't bother trying to read this book. There's plenty of other more interesting spy stories out there.
Not recommended.




 

BETTYVILLE : A MEMOIR
by George Hodgman

George Hodgman returns to Paris, Missouri (where he grew up) from Manhattan to take care of his aging mother. He knows that she really should not be living in her house anymore, that she should be in assisted living, but he puts that off knowing that she would never agree. She's resistant and neither one of them can be emotional around each other.
At the beginning of the book, I thought it was funny and had its good moments, especially learning about the history of the town in the south years ago. Then it began to get tedious. His mother is always the same and the writing about her becomes monotonous. He spends an inordinate amount of time talking about himself. He is gay and is not sure if his mother knows.  I think the title of the book should be called Georgeville instead. There's also plenty of mistakes with sentences that do not make any sense, misplaced punctuation, etc.
Don't bother with this one.
Not recommended. 

THE ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE IS ME : A MEMOIR OF AMNESIA
by David Stuart MacLean

Here's an interesting premise. This guy (the author) "wakes up" on a train platform in India having no idea where he is, how he got there, or who the heck he is.
A police officer takes him to a mental hospital where he has these hallucinations. His symptoms are caused by the anti-malarial drug Lariam that he has taken. He goes back to the States to figure out what his life was like before.
Sound intriguing? I thought so,too until I got further with the book. The more I read, the more he disgusted me. David Stuart MacLean is self-destructive. He is taking medication to counteract the effects of Lariam on him, but is drinking an exorbitant amount of alcohol which is not too smart with narcotics. At the same time, MacLean is smoking way too many cigarettes and he is an asthmatic. He writes about these two vices ad nauseam.
MacLean's writing is, at times, very good, but most times irritating. He uses way too many similes to "enhance" his prose. They're definitely not needed. You get the picture the first time you read the sentence. It's just endless filler.
I probably should have stopped reading the book early on but I stuck with it because I wanted to see what happened to him. By the end, I could care less.
Not recommended.
 

 

PHILOMENA : A MOTHER, HER SON, AND A FIFTY-YEAR SEARCH
by Martin Sixsmith

When you read the FOREWORD of this book (written by Dame Judi Dench), you think you're going to be swept up by this extraordinary story. Nothing is further from the truth. The fact that the film was taken from the book is crazy. I don't believe that Dame Judi Dench even read it. If she had, she would have been stunned.
The title is a sham. Philomena barely appears; just a little bit in Part One and even less in Part Four.  Most of what is in between is about Michael Hess and the excruciating details of his homosexuality and politics ad nauseum. It's enough to make anyone uncomfortable.
The book is poorly written and reads like a trashy novel. There is very sloppy editing, missing words, and misplaced punctuation. Many times I felt as if I should stop reading the thing because it became repetitious and boring. The characters are just not interesting to even care about. There are many dialogues and conversations and it turns out that author Martin Sixsmith made them up. Is this book even true?
What I do know is that it was a total waste of time.
Not recommended.

THE DEATH OF SANTINI : THE STORY OF A FATHER AND HIS SON
by Pat Conroy

Having read Pat Conroy's previous book "My Reading Life," which I loved, I couldn't wait to read "The Death of Santini." The way he puts his verbiage together, is marvelous. Alas, that didn't happen to me with this book. It started out well enough and kept me interested, although it was very hard reading about the brutality that Pat's father doled out, unceasingly, to his family. I only reached page 132 when I decided that I could no longer stand reading the thing. By that time, he is writing about his mother's mother (known as Stanny) and it just goes on and on and on and I no longer cared. He also drops a million names all over the place which drives me nuts.
I guess if you're a die-hard fan of Conroy's, you would enjoy this book, but I'm not.
Not recommended. 

NINETY PERCENT OF EVERYTHING : INSIDE SHIPPING, THE INVISIBLE INDUSTRY THAT PUTS CLOTHES ON YOUR BACK, GAS IN YOUR CAR, AND FOOD ON YOUR PLATE
by Rose George

Everything we buy, must be shipped. Freight shipping is what brings the products. Boxes, or containers, are stacked up extremely high (way over the height of Niagara Falls) on humongous ships. Rose George takes a journey on one of these, the 20-story freighter Maersk Kendal. 
This could have been a really interesting book in, perhaps, better hands. It certainly is not captivating nor compelling as some reviewers have stated. I only read sixty pages due to boredom.  The writing is dull and empty. George spends way too much time talking about ships and not much at all about the goods. There is no need to read beyond the cover because what's inside doesn't match. 
Ninety percent of nothing is a much better title.
Not recommended.

THE SIXTEENTH RAIL : THE EVIDENCE, THE SCIENTIST, AND THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING
by Adam J. Schrager

Arthur Koehler was a xylotomist with the US Forest Service in Madison, Wisconsin. He was considered the most eminent expert on wood identification. After the Lindbergh's baby was kidnapped, Koehler was tasked to investigate the wood in the ladder by the New Jersey State Police in 1932.
I did not finish this book as I found it to be excruciatingly boring. Unless you're into all the nuances of wood with all of its distinctive markings, you might be interested. The most egregious thing that I thought was disturbing was the amount of times the word "kidnapping" was misspelled. That's pretty pathetic considering that is what the book is about.
It's hard to believe that the author has received numerous journalism awards because I found the writing to be plodding.
Not recommended.