Category: NonFiction

Gideon’s Trumpet

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Lewis, Anthony. Gideon’s Trumpet. New York: Random House, 1964.

If you have ever wondered how the statement “you have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will appointed to you” first came about you should read Gideon’s Trumpet by Anthony Lewis. Gideon’s Trumpet follows the case of Clarence Earl Gideon, a petty thief who had been in and out of jail all his life. After landing in a Florida jail for breaking and entering Gideon managed to file a handwritten petition certiorari with the Supreme Court claiming his right to legal counsel was violated during his trial. the Supreme Court agreed. This launched Gideon v. Wainright, a landmark case that started the evolution of the Miranda Warning. While Lewis’s book is brief it is highly readable and informative. It is easy to see Clarence Gideon, and even the legal system, as real humans making history.

Favorite quote: “Every spring the justices struggle to overcome procrastination, to compromise their differences, to finish up opinions on all the argued cases so that they can end the term in June, as scheduled, and go off to lie in the sun or make speeches at lawyers’ meetings, as the spirit moves them” (p 38). Too funny. Sounds like where I work.

Author Fact: Anthony Lewis resides in MA (according to his wiki page).
Book Trivia: According to IMDB Gideon’s Trumpet was made into a made-for-television movie in 1980.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Legal Eagles in Nonfiction” (p 135).

To What End

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Just, Ward. To What End: Report From Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1968.

Disclaimer: I threw this on my December list because somewhere I got the idea that Ward Just was born in December. Not so. He was born in September (so I have been told), so this was a mistake in the timeline.

Ward Just’s To What End is his first book and is a first hand account of the Vietnam War. As a journalist he begs the question everyone wanted to ask (and is still asking), “what business does the United States have fighting this war?” The entire time you are reading To What End you never lose sight of the fact that Just is a writer and not a solider. He views the war always from the point of view of plot, “there was a book as good as Farewell to Arms in the stories, if you had the wit to see it and the imagination to generalize from it” (p 165). And generalize Ward does. He doesn’t bother to cover all aspects of the Vietnam War, just the parts he is directly involved it. He doesn’t include an index because he doesn’t want to complicate the telling with too much detail. He has been advised to keep it short for the same reason. The end result is a quick straightforward commentary.

Striking lines: “It is the first war where an academic could walk about undisturbed (and relatively safe) and probe and take soundings” (p 79), and “The Vietnamese laugh both from amusement and embarrassment and you can never tell which” (p 102).

Author Fact: Ward Just born in September. I need to commit that to memory.

Book Trivia: To What End is Ward Just’s first book.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called ” Ward Just: Too Good To Miss” (p 135).

Cruising Attitude

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Poole, Heather. Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet. New York: Harper, 2012.

When I first picked up Cruising Attitude I did so remembering (with fondness) the male flight attendant who admonished smokers with this, “You are welcome to smoke on this flight. Please do so in the fresh air. There’s a spot for you on the right wing.”
Was this something I just couldn’t put down? I thought the writing was uncomplicated and easy and definitely entertaining, but I wasn’t obsessed with getting to the next chapter. Was this something that had me spellbound through each and every sentence? Not really. I found it cute, but even snarky at times so it had bite to it. I didn’t laugh out loud, but I did giggle on occasion. Did I believe every story? I guess so. There really wasn’t a reason to doubt her…or really care if I was duped by a good yarn spinner. I did have a few ah-ha moments as if Poole cleared up a few great mysteries for me. Mysteries I never knew confounded me. Those ah-ha moments were mostly related to airline stewardess behavior – like when they insist on greeting (or saying goodbye) to every passenger using a different phrase. It’s like they spent the last hour of the flight reading the slang thesaurus in the bathroom “(buh-bye, so long, see ya, g’bye, so long).
My only real “complaint” (and this is a tiny one) is the lack of flow and organization of stories. It’s as if Poole is thinking outloud, trying to cram in as much as possible, and as a result her writing jumps around from thought to thought. The best example of this is when Poole dishes on famous and/or wealthy people’s behavior in flight. It’s two pages of “see if you can guess which celebrity did this obnoxious thing.”
All in all I liked Cruising Attitude and if Poole’s motive for writing it was to enlighten passengers who fly the friendly skies, it worked. I will never look at flight attendants the same way again.

By the Shores of Silver Lake

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Wilder, Laura Ingalls. By the Shores of Silver Lake. New York: HarperTrophy, 1971.

If you know the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder you know these two things. Little House on the Prairie is not the first book in the series (Little House in the Big Woods is) and By the Shores of Silver Lake is the fifth book in the nine-book series. You also know “the Laura series” are both autobiographical and historical fiction.

By the Shores of Silver Lake is a continuation of On the Banks of Plum Creek. From Plum Creek the Ingalls family has moved to Silver Lake so that Charles Ingalls, the patriarch of the family, can help with the building of the transcontinental railroad. The Ingalls family is to become the first settlers in the town of De Smet, South Dakota. Told in third person by middle daughter, Laura, the shores of Silver Lake is an exciting place to be. She is happy to be out of the big woods and away from Plum Creek. Despite Laura’s mother’s admonishments to be lady-like and demure, Laura is irrepressible. She loves to run wild across the grasslands and go exploring. One of my favorite scenes is the wild pony ride she takes with Cousin Lena. Her spirit is as big as the unsettled territory her family has arrived to claim. She appears brave and adventurous although, interestingly enough, she would die if anyone knew she is afraid of meeting new people.

Maybe I’m too jaded by how kids are today, but I had to roll my eyes at how happy the Ingalls family always seemed to be. When Mary “happily” offers to do her sister’s chores I had to stifle a gag. What sister these days would be so gracious, so gleeful to take on extra chores not her own?

Author fact: one of the things I learned about Ms. Wilder is that she and I share a birth month. She was born and died in February.

Book Trivia: By the Shores of Silver Lake won a Newbery Honor award in 1940.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains (The Dakotas)” (p 107).

Victorian Lady Travellers

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Middleton, Dorothy. Victorian Lady Travellers. New York: E.P. Dutton  & Co., Inc., 1965.

It is apparent almost immediately the genuine admiration in Middleton’s voice as she describes the lives and accomplishments of each “Victorian Lady Traveller.” Each chapter is dedicated to a different prominent adventurer between 1830 and 1936, seven in all: Isabella Bird Bishop, Marianne North, Fanny Bullock Workman, May French Sheldon, Annie Taylor, Kate Marsden and the ever-famous Mary Kingsley. Middleton dedicates approximately 22 pages to each woman (including considerable chunks of quotations from each explorer’s book or journal, if she has authored one). Granted, it’s a short book so I wish Middleton had written more and quoted less.

But, speaking of quotes – Quotes from the sections on my two favorite travelers, first Isabella Bird Bishop: “In her seventieth year she ordered a tricycle because she needed more exercise” (p 53). Second, Mary Kinsley: “Avoiding the hippos, the ran into crocodiles, and the scene took on a striking resemblance to the pictures of intrepid explorers in the story-books of her childhood” (p 160).

My one other “criticism” is that I wish the photographs could have been as carefully organized as the text. For example, chapter one is all about Isabella Bird Bishop. The reader is drawn into her adventures, immersed into her life and no one else’s, so it is a little unsettling to come across a picture of Marianne North in the same chapter.

Interesting side note: out of the seven travelers covered in Victorian Lady Travellers four of them were born in October. Very cool.

Author Fact: Dorothy Middleton died on February 3rd, 1999.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Lady Travelers” (p 142). Duh.

Death at an Early Age

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Kozol, Jonathan. Death at an Early Age: the Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967.

I think the subtitle says it all; a nonfiction account of a first-time fourth grade teacher in a less than stellar school system in Roxbury, Massachusetts. “They had desks and a teacher, but they really did not have a class” (p 29). While Kozol is talking about a physical space (he had to share a large auditorium with three, sometimes four other activities (including drama and band practices), I really think he was also referring to the lack of togetherness as a group. There wasn’t a sense of community. There wasn’t a unified eagerness to learn. Nothing bound them to the reason they were there. This is to say nothing of the lack of support Kozol received as an educator from his peers and administration. He was constantly criticized for the amount of time, resources and energy he gave to “the Negro student.” Death at an Early Age is a continuous report of the different instances of abuse and neglect the students endured, culminating with Kozol’s unjustified dismissal after the inclusion of a Langston Hughes poem, “The Landlord.”

The line I could relate to the most: “One of the most grim things about teaching in such a school and such a system is that you do not like to be an incessant barb and irritation to everyone else, so you come under a rather strong compulsion to keep quiet” (p 31).

Another great line, “It is the sense that you cannot do a great many things right but that you can do almost anything wrong” (p 49).

Author Fact: Kozol has a really cool website here.

Book Trivia: Death at an Early Age was awarded a National Book Award in 1968.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Teachers and Teaching Tales” (p 230).

I find it really bizarre that I’ve read such a title so soon after the death of my 41 year old cousin.

Johnny Tremain

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Forbes, Esther. Johnny Tremain: a Story of Boston in Revolt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971.

This is another one of those “reread a few times” books. I can remember having a crush on Johnny when I was 13 or 14. I’m not exactly sure why. I don’t think the idea of 18th century garb was what got me. But, there was definitely something about goody boy Johnny with his artisan ego that appealed to me.

Johnny Tremain may not be the most creative of titles for Esther Forbes’s John Newbery Medal award-winning book, but it’s most appropriate as it tells the story of two years in the life of fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain. Johnny is one of several silversmith apprentices living with the Lapham family in Boston, Massachusetts. The year is 1773 and silversmiths are in high demand. Johnny is the most gifted artisan for someone so young and he knows it. The other apprentices are jealous until one day there is an accident and Johnny’s right hand is badly maimed by molten silver. Ultimately, he loses his place with the Laphams and must find other means of employment. It isn’t long before Johnny finds a second calling. He is good with horses and becomes a dispatch rider for the Committee of Public Safety. This job brings him into the company of important men like Samuel Adams and John Hancock. It is at this point where famous events in history like the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington are woven into Johnny’s story. Fact and fiction are seamless.

Favorite lines: “Human relations never seem to stand completely still” (p 173) and “Green with spring, dreaming of the future yet wet with blood” (p 255).

Author Fact: Forbes was a Massachusetts woman.

Book Trivia: Johnny Tremain won the Newbery Medal in 1944.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Historical Fiction for Kids of All Ages” (p 114).

Dress Your Family in Corduroy

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Sedaris, David. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2004. EPUB file.

Disclaimer: This was my second electronic book and I have to admit it didn’t go as well as the first one. For starters, I couldn’t find the copyright page. No publishing information anywhere. The e-book starts on page four with a blank page. Out of curiosity I scrolled back. Page three is a title page. Page two is blank. Page one is the cover. Scolling forward page five is another title page. Page six is blank. The book (finally) begins for real on page seven. Why it starts electronically with page four is beyond me. I bounced to the back of the book thinking publishing info might be after the actual book. No such thing. Included in the chapter called “Baby Einstein” (on page 343 – the last page) is a “grateful achknowledgment.” It’s the last paragraph of the book so it looks like it should be part of that particular story. The other “complaint” is that other chapters don’t seem to be “recognized.” Imbedded in “Baby Einstein” is a story that doesn’t have anything to do with Sedaris’s kid. Something about drowning a mouse. I definitely wasn’t confident I was getting the real deal by reading the electronic version. Exactly what I had been worried about.

If you love David Sedaris you know that every book he writes is scaldingly funny. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is no different. I can only imagine David following his family around with a notepad, just waiting to capture some faux pas or ridiculous moment worth writing and sniggering about. His essays are extremely witty and sarcastic and fabulous and so real they’re sometimes poignant and sad. Something strange happens when you read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. It’s as if you sit down to dinner with his entire family, warts and all, and don’t get up until all secrets are starkly exposed and you feel as if you would know each and every family member blindfolded. His collection of essays capture all the love and calamity with honesty and clarity. I would be mortified if Sedaris were my brother, uncle, father, son or something, but his real family members must be used to it by now. They have to be. This isn’t his first book. Sedaris also revisits his own painful childhood in a playful, bemused and embarrassed way. It’s as if he is holding up the mirror of adolescence and asking, “haven’t YOU been there, too?” Not that I have played strip poker with a bunch of girls I lusted after, but you get the point.

Passages I found to be eerily Me: “He’d gone to work specifically to escape our mother, and between the weather and her mood, it could be hours or even days before he returned home” (p 23) and “I might reinvent myself to strangers, but to this day, as far as my family is concerned, I’m still the one most likely to set your house on fire” (p 196).

Passages that made me laugh outloud: “The only thing worse than a twenty-five-year-old with a Vietnam flashback was a fourteen-year-old with a Vietnam flash-forward (p 113) and “We can’t profess love without talking through hand puppets…” (p 189).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in an oddball chapter called “A Holiday Shopping List” (p 116). I guess this is a catch-all chapter for books that didn’t fit anywhere else. But then again that really doesn’t make sense because Nancy would want to buy this for “Pete” who supposedly wants to laugh more. I’m thinking this could have been included in the humor chapter of Book Lust or, if it had to be in More Book Lust, why not include it in the chapter called “Tickle Your Funny Bone” (p 217)?

Sept ’11 was…

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Here I am, writing about September almost two weeks into October. That’s what I get when I run away to Maine for ten days. I feel weird about these end of month recaps because not only do they feel stranded, without proper structure, they don’t really reflect accomplishment on my part. Traditionally, I start the month with the statement This Is What I Want To Read and at the month I list everything I was and wasn’t able to get to in that 28-31 day time. Without a reading plan I feel utterly afloat and yet, free.
Anyway, enough babble. Here’s the list for September:

  • World According to Garp by John Irving. Not my favorite Irving (that would have to be Hotel New Hampshire), but this was funny and well worth the second read.
  • In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason. I couldn’t quite believe a teenager would be so completely and resolutely obsessed with the Vietnam War but she lost her father in that war, so who am I to judge?
  • Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk. This was hysterical. I found myself rereading parts just because it was so true. By the end of it I felt like I knew Patricia and her whole family. Well, maybe that was the point.
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Another reread from my younger days. Enjoyable, but not a favorite.

So. There it is. The List. Four books. This doesn’t list the books I started (and didn’t finish). Nor does it mention any Early Review books from LibraryThing. Supposedly, I have been selected to receive two books. Haven’t seen either one. Yet.

Three Came Home

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Keith, Agnes Newton. Three Came Home. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1947.

This may sound a little strange but I was able to finish this in the time it took to a baseball game to start and finish (no extra innings), a movie to be watched (127 minutes) and a man to get a vasectomy. In other words, no time at all was taken to start and finish Three Came Home. Besides being extrememly uncomplicated I liked it and I think that made it all the easier to buzz through.

Agnes Newton Keith is what you would call “plucky.” She is a straight shooter even in the presense of pain and suffering. As prisoners of war from January 19th, 1942 to September 11th, 1945 Keith, her husband Harry, and their infant son George are held captive by the Japanese on the island North Borneo. Because of Keith’s reputation as a writer (previously publishing a book called Land Below the Wind) Keith is commissioned by Japanese Commander Major Suga to write “The Life and Times of an Internee” as proof his prisoners did not suffer in captivity. He wanted to convey actual happiness. Keith writes an account for Major Suga but at the same time she needs to tell her truth. Three Came Home is her written-in-secret journal of nearly three years as a prisoner. It documents not only her survival but her determination to be a good mother to George and a good wife to Henry.

Despite being a “war memoir” Three Came Home is not without humor. Case in point, Keith is trying to diaper her child and “misses” describing the outcome as “an aborginal phallic decoration” (p 16). Ouch!
Above all else Keith remained true to the idea that all people are good and only circumstance makes us bad. “I believe that while we have more than we need on this continent, and others die for want of it, there can be no lasting peace” (p 317).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living Through War” (p 156).

Stuffed

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Volk, Patricia. Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family.Hampton Falls: Beeler Large Print, 2001.

I thoroughly enjoyed Stuffed. I found it to be funny and clever and culturally informative. Don’t let the title deceive you. The story does not center around a restaurant. In fact, Volk barely makes mention of the family establishment(s). Instead, Volk offers insight into memories of her family through foodstuff. A cookie. Meat. Soup. Chocolate. Each morsel of food is an opportunity to tell a small tale about a great-grandfather, her aunts, a sister. Probably the most profound chapter is the death of her father. The loss is profound, the love endless. I think the morale of the story, if any, is love your family. Warts and all.

Best lines: “I don’t know if I could live without my sister…I love her as much as I love me” (p 33). C’est vrai. Another line: “You could eat off her floors if you don’t mind the taste of Pine-Sol” (p 68). And one more, “She learned to live with the compromise of pain” (p 119). I could go on, but I won’t.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Food For Thought” (p 92).

PS~ a side note on the large print. No, I’m not going blind. I read this copy because it was the only one within reach. Oddly enough I enjoyed it being so big.

Compleat Angler

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Walton, Izaak. The Compleat Angler or, the Contemplative Man’s Recreation. Mount Vernon: Peter Pauper Press, 1947.

Considering this was first published in 1653 the language is fun to stumble over; full of ‘methinks,’ ‘thee,’ ’tis,’ that sort of thing. At first blush I would have said this is a nonfiction story of three gentlemen walking through the countryside bragging about their respective “hobbies.” One man is a falconer, all about the birds. Another man is a hunter, primed for the kill. The third man is, of course, the fisherman, the angler. It is this man we learn the most from (hence the title of the book). There is a great deal more to the story – an 17th century “how-to” on cooking, inn-keeping, religion, poetry and the like, but I got incredibly bored and gave up halfway through.
As a postscript, I did enjoy the illustrations by Boyd Hanna in my undated edition.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Gone Fishin'” (p 100). Of course.

July ’11 was…

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Where the fukc do I start (besides the fact that I’m posting this very late)? July 2011 was hell with a twisted sense of humor. Chronological speaking the first week of July was first a new car, then a wedding, then a quick trip to Monhegan and Kennebunkport (not impressed). A first week of fireworks and fun. The second week of July was an eight hour drive to Chautauqua, New York to see (from dead center second row, thank you very much) Miss Natalie Merchant at her best. A stunning performance I won’t soon forget. The third week was another trip to Maine, burying my grandfather, having my house robbed, and struggling to make sense of administrative setbacks. Week four was Kisa having to replace a tire on the truck, replace a cracked skimmer on the pool, our hot water heater flooding the basement in the middle of the night and lots and lots of home security upgrades. The ongoing issue is Jones freaking out. I don’t know what happened during the robbery but I do know he’s not the same. Insane to get out, he claws and cries and scrambles frantically at every door and window. He acts like a tortured prisoner. In the midst of all this chaos I have tried my best to keep reading. It was only semi-successful. Many fitful starts, few finishes:

  • Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts ~ in honor of it being a book within reach while I was on Monhegan. I think this should be a movie.
  • House of Mirth by Edith Wharton ~ in honor of New York becoming a state in July. Greedy book. I didn’t completely finish it. I got the point three quarters of the way through it and got the point.
  • Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe ~ in honor of Burton Bennett’s birthday. This was made into a movie & no, I didn’t finish the book or see the movie. Another greedy book.
  • Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin ~ in honor of it being a book in the library. I was ten pages shy of finishing this one.
  • It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong ~ in honor of the Tour de France. I will never look at this book the same way again for it was what I was reading on the ride home from the burial…and yes, I finished it …when we pulled into the driveway.
  • Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field ~ in honor of going to Rachel’s “home” state, Maine.
  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen ~ I barely finished this (supposed to be read in August in honor of Franzen’s birth month). I’m waiting for the movie version.

And for LibraryThing and the Early Review Program:

  • Deadly Indifference: The Perfect (Political) Storm: Hurricane Katrina, the Bush White House and Beyond by Michael D. Brown and Ted Schwarz ~ I didn’t finish this. After awhile it got really repetitive with all the blame and finger pointing.
  • Pretty by Jillian Lauren ~ I loved this book. I loved how raw and messed up it was.

We ended July the exact same way we started it – with a road trip and awesome music. A blog about Rebecca Correia’s fantastic farm show will be posted on the other side.

It’s Not About the Bike

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Armstrong, Lance. It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.New York: Berkley Books, 2001.

I read this in one sitting, again as a passenger on a trip from Maine. I had the luck (?) of traffic on my side so instead of the usual 4.5 hours to get home it took us over six.

I will be 100% honest. I don’t know what to think about this book. When I first finished it I was expecting some sort of lesson to be learned, some sort of moral to the story. Instead I found the ending as well, an ending. The end. I’m not sure why it wasn’t more for me. I guess it’s because in comparison with Matthew Long’s recovery back to athletics Long’s process was more drawn out, more detailed. I felt that Long’s experience was more painful and not as easy to cope with emotionally. I think that was due, in part, to how little time Armstrong spent describing his road to recovery. In comparison to Long, Armstrong made it a much simpler process with much less emotion. To be fair, one man was hit by a bus and another was hit by cancer in three different areas of his body. Only two similarities really rise between the two men. Both men were ordained by doctors to die and both had an insane willpower to defy all odds and, ultimately, get back to the sports they loved so much.

Everyone knows Lance Armstrong’s story – man with cancer defies the odds and wins the Tour de France a shocking seven consecutive times. But, as the title of Armstrong’s story suggests it’s not about the bike. Instead it is about a different kind of competition. Fighting cancer. Ultimately, as near death moments will do, cancer changed him. It woke him up to the possibilities of a fuller, more meaningful life. He never would have become a philanthropist without the experience of personal pain. It’s Not about the Bike is that journey from hotshot cyclist to a powerhouse with a greater purpose.

Favorite lines: “If there is a defining characteristic of a man as opposed to a boy, maybe it’s patience” (p 65). “During our lives we’re faced with so many different elements as well, we experience so many setbacks, and fight such hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and to have a little hope” (p 69). Finally, “We watched the World Series and tried to act like we were interested in the outcome – as much as anybody really cares about baseball before brain surgery” (p 110 – 111).

Author fact(s): Two of my favorite details about Armstrong as the person (and not the writer) is he is also a marathoner (three times) and allegedly agnostic.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Teens” (p 23)

Deadly Indifference

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Brown, Michael D. and Ted Schwarz. Deadly Indifference: the Perfect (Political) Storm” Hurricane Katrina, the Bush White House, and Beyond. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2011.

I have to wonder if there is a tell-all grace period. Wait so many years, put so much distance between now and then, and then spill the beans with abandon. Deadly Indifference is that type of book. Michael Brown was Under Secretary of Homeland Security during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. As Director of FEMA he was the appointed scapegoat of the entire fiasco and for all intents and purposes Deadly Indifference is his chance to clear his name. This is his opportunity to set the record straight and blame other people. As former Under Secretary of Homeland Security he has nothing to lose and therefore can tell all with straightforward clarity. It is to be expected that Brown points the finger everywhere but himself. In the first chapter I was even wondering if he was going to blame the residents of New Orleans simply because they willingly chose to live in a “fishbowl” city well below sea level. When Brown does get around to placing some of the blame on himself he does so lightly and delicately. His heavy hand is reserved for people like New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisana governor Kathleen Blanco. While Brown’s book is thought provoking one would benefit from reading several different accounts of what went wrong before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. It would be interesting to compare this to someone with an unbiased point of view.