“It’s time for me to read Names for the Sea,” I told the friend who had sent me a copy. Some books are like that, resting placidly in the to-be-read pile for months before suddenly announcing, somehow, that it is time to read them. And indeed it was; despite a personal schedule that veers from …
Category: Biography
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/09/28/names-for-the-sea-by-sarah-moss/
Sep 17 2014
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson
No one can say that Ben Carson grew up in privileged circumstances, but from a young age he seems to have had an uncanny knack for making the right choices. I’m not sure the Ben Carson story can be a model for all young people, but it does reinforce my belief that parents rather than …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/09/17/gifted-hands-the-ben-carson-story-by-ben-carson/
Jun 19 2013
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
The biography of Steve Jobs is a study in how a complete asshole can nevertheless be a powerful force for good in the world. It is also a study in successful executive management and business leadership. Jobs was not an engineer; he did not personally design or build any of the hardware or software at …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2013/06/19/steve-jobs-by-walter-isaacson/
Jul 12 2012
Einstein by Walter Isaacson
I read this book several years ago; on rereading it I was much more interested in Einstein’s science than his life story. Yet the story is still inspiring; it is a testimony to what an unconventional mind and a lot of curiosity can accomplish. Einstein remained a determinist throughout his life, and on reading a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/07/12/einstein-by-walter-isaacson/
Feb 20 2012
Napoleon by Frank McLynn
This is the best and most balanced biography of Napoleon I have read so far. It contains much excellent scholarship and critical commentary; however, it also contains a lot of amateur Freudian analysis that is pure rubbish. While I am neither a warmonger nor an imperialist, I find it hard to read a biography of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/02/20/napoleon-by-frank-mclynn/
Feb 11 2007
The Orientalist by Tom Reiss
Ali and Nino, the closest thing that modern Azerbaijan has to a national novel, was first published in German in 1937, sold in various translations, hit US bestseller lists in the early 1970s and bears the name Kurban Said as its author. But the question of the author’s identity had never been resolved. All anyone …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2007/02/11/the-orientalist-by-tom-reiss/
Sep 26 2006
Premature Evaluation: Khrushchev by William Taubman
Wish an 876-page biography could be longer? Not often, but definitely with this one. I don’t know the literature well enough to say for sure, but it sure feels like a definitive take on an important figure of 20th century history. William Taubman combines the virtues of journalist and scholar in his biography of Nikita …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2006/09/26/premature-evaluation-khrushchev-by-william-taubman/
Jun 24 2005
Joseph Vissarionovich and the People Who Loved Him
Because some of them undoubtedly did, even people who knew him quite well. In his heyday, millions professed their love, sang his praises. Even those he had condemned in show trials, or in no trials, wrote to him of their devotion, wrote of their faithfulness, wrote of their belief. Perhaps they meant it, perhaps it …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2005/06/24/joseph-vissarionovich-and-the-people-who-loved-him/
Al Singh
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Professor X
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The Shire