Astronomers’ Library by Karen Masters

Indulge in this collection of the best astronomy books from the past 800 years. The Astronomers’ Library is a rich history of astronomy (and astrology) publishing across Europe.

This is a carefully selected arrangement of publications from all over the continent – Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. And of course, as the original world leader in astrology, the middle east is featured, with multiple books from Persia.

Humankind has looked to the heavens since the dawn of time, wondering what is out there, as well as how everything works and (originally) who was responsible for it. Every tribe, race and civilization has wondered about our place in the universe and what lies beyond and what lies within it, below our feet.

Lately, attention has turned to the origins of the universe. From the turn of the millennium, knowledge and ideas were recorded, first on tablets or rock, then in the form of simple manuscripts, and eventually in a much more elaborate fashion as illustrative and engraving skills evolved.

The advent of printed books saw the production of highly illustrated tomes that showed off the skills of the printers as well as the newfound knowledge of the scholars and artists that wrote them.

Many of these works pushed the boundaries of illustrated publishing (and continue to do so to this day). They commanded expert illustrators and skilled engravers and hence didn’t come cheaply. They were treasured in the libraries of the wealthy and their intrinsic worth has meant that there is an incredible wealth of beautifully preserved historic examples from the 14th century onwards.

The significant difference we acknowledge today between astronomy and astrology has a relatively recent past, and the stars have long been associated with creatures, gods, characters and all sorts of divine beings. The study of such has a long, fascinating history that is shown in beautiful detail in the pages of these many beautiful books, and the transition from seeing the stars as characters to understanding them as spinning, celestial beings and part of our huge universe is akin to witnessing the history of the world.

Review

The blurb will tell you almost all you need to know about the book. Professor and author Karen Masters takes us through the best historical books about astronomy/astrology (as for a long time these were synonymous) from around the world. She selects best examples of books and arranges them loosely in chapters such as Star Atlases, Mapping Other Worlds, Astronomy and Culture, and Modern Astronomy – which contains a great resource list for further reading.

Rather than sticking closely to European viewpoint, entries are from all over the world with many more Islamic, Asian, and Mesoamerican examples than I’m used to seeing in similar books. The names by which they’re known might differ but the stars are the same as is the fascination of those who gazed at them and tried to understand them. I did notice a tendency for Renaissance European illustrators to include lots and lots of stargazing cheeky cherubs.

The illustrations are gorgeous and the tidbits and nuggets of information that Masters shares about her selections are fascinating. Given the layout and wealth of images, plus the fact that the digital and hardback prices aren’t that much different, it might be worth it to get a hardback copy in order to better enjoy it. The price right now will probably limit the book to hardcore enthusiasts. B

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A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes by Anthony Bale

A captivating journey of the expansive world of medieval travel, from London to Constantinople to the court of China and beyond.

Europeans of the Middle Ages were the first to use travel guides to orient their wanderings, as they moved through a world punctuated with miraculous wonders and beguiling encounters. In this vivid and alluring history, medievalist Anthony Bale invites readers on an odyssey across the medieval world, recounting the advice that circulated among those venturing to the road for pilgrimage, trade, diplomacy, and war.

Journeying alongside scholars, spies, and saints, from Western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes and the ends of the earth, Bale provides indispensable information on the exchange rate between Bohemian ducats and Venetian groats, medieval cures for seasickness, and how to avoid extortionist tour guides and singing sirens. He takes us from the streets of Rome, more ruin than tourist spot, and tours of the Khan’s court in Beijing to Mamluk-controlled Jerusalem, where we ride asses across the holy terrain, and bustling bazaars of Tabriz.

We also learn of rumored fantastical places, like ones where lambs grow on trees and giant canes grow fruit made of gems. And we are offered a glimpse of what non-European travelers thought of the West on their own travels.

Using previously untranslated contemporaneous documents from a colorful range of travelers, and from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, North Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a witty and unforgettable exploration of how Europeans understood—and often misunderstood—the larger world.

Review

This looked interesting and for the most part it was. After an opening chapter on what travel means (just keep going through this), Bale dives into various historical accounts of (mainly) Europeans venturing far from home for various reasons though the last chapter covers a few journeys made to Europe, Africa, and the Arabian peninsula by people traveling westward from China and Mongolia. 

The most time is spent on religious pilgrimages to Rome, Jerusalem, Egypt, and other parts of the Middle East by European Christians. Maybe this was covered so extensively due to the availability of texts? It’s interesting but does go on a bit. Honestly, the conditions sounded as horrendous as the pilgrims probably found them to be. Traveling simply for wanderlust or pleasure didn’t appear to be that popular though perhaps the Europeans who left home for this reason decided not to go home and thus left no records? Trade was another major incentive to leave home and several merchants and traders left accounts of what they went through trying to buy and sell or set up trade hubs and links in foreign lands.   

The book jumps back and forth from various sources to cover different aspects of a typical journey that might have been made rather than sticking with one person’s narrative for a whole trip. Some travelers were enthusiastic while others were grimly determined and also expecting things to be ghastly. For pilgrims, the suffering along the way seemed to enhance the payoff of the trip (shortening time in Purgatory by years or totally for those who made it to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem but check the 1450 guide in Rome to see exactly what indulgences are available and how much time you’ll save or how to get one soul out of Purgatory!). Some traders loved the chance to see new places while others caught cities or rulers having a bad day. One Chinese traveler was awestruck by Hormuz while a Mongolian Christian enjoyed sitting in a beautiful garden in Naples overlooking a sea battle.  

Bale doesn’t shy away from the fact that – just like today – people had their prejudices and preconceptions. Some of these are racist. Some people are great to travel with while others are grumps. What got written about depended on what a person thought was important rather than what we might love to read about today. 

Several fun tidbits of information are included such as an exchange rate so you know how far your plapparts will take you (also change money in Bruges where there’s a bank), don’t forget a staff (support and beating off bandits) and a bag, where to find a licensed guide in Venice who won’t cheat you while booking your travel on to the Holy Land, some travel costs in Egypt and the Holy Land (just accept that you’re going to be stiffed for money all along the way), that the locals who aren’t making money off of you will probably be annoyed by you (jeering and stone throwing are probable), some handy phrases translated into Greek, Albanian, Turkish, and Arabic, medical advice for those traveling overseas (some of which is … not bad), India has both manticores and unicorns, and when traveling from Tana to Khanbaliq (Beijing) don’t be chintzy when hiring a dragoman – splash out and hire a good one,. 

The little snapshots of things I hadn’t expected – life in a caravanserai (like a modern travel pit stop); that people from all over the world had traveled much farther into distant lands than I expected; that an Italian saw and saved two Tartars in bondage in Italy, one of whom he’d met before on his travels – were what made the book for me. It ends with sources, references, and further reading.  When it’s all said and done, it appears that travelers and traveling experiences haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. B      

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Otherworldly Antarctica: Ice, Rock, and Wind at the Polar Extreme by Edmund Stump

With stunning original photographs, an Antarctic scientist and explorer takes us to one of the most sublime, remote, and pristine regions on the planet.

The interior of Antarctica is an utterly pristine wilderness, a desolate landscape of ice, wind, and rock; a landscape so unfamiliar as to seem of another world. This place has been known to only a handful of early explorers and the few scientists fortunate enough to have worked there. Edmund Stump is one of the lucky few. Having climbed, photographed, and studied more of the continent-spanning Transantarctic Mountains than any other person on Earth, this geologist, writer, and photographer is uniquely suited to share these alien sights.

With stories of Stump’s forty years of journeys and science, Otherworldly Antarctica contains 130 original color photographs, complemented by watercolors and sketches by artist Marlene Hill Donnelly. Over three chapters—on the ice, the rock, and the wind—we meet snowy paths first followed during Antarctica’s Heroic Age, climb the central spire of the Organ Pipe Peaks, peer into the crater of the volcanic Mount Erebus, and traverse Liv Glacier on snowmobile, while avoiding fatal falls into the blue interiors of hidden crevasses. Along the way, we see the beauty of granite, marble, and ice-cored moraines, meltwater ponds, lenticular clouds, icebergs, and glaciers. Many of Stump’s breathtaking images are aerial shots taken from the planes and helicopters that brought him to the interior. More were shot from vantages gained by climbing the mountains he studied. Some were taken from the summits of peaks. Many are of places no one had set foot before—or has since. All seem both permanent and precarious, connecting this otherworld to our fragile own.

Review

Fifty years ago, geologist Edmund Stump began a love affair with the beautiful but also brutal world of Antarctica. Luckily for us, he’s also a great photographer and he snapped gorgeous pictures of the continent while doing scientific research there. Major bonus points that he accomplished this in an age before drones.

Think of purest white—the brilliance of all colors—and fathomless blue. Sprinkle in a few dark rocks and the total lack of green and you have Antarctica’s minimal pallet.

If someone offered me a chance to visit Antarctica, I’d be hard pressed to turn it down regardless of my risk of panic attacks while flying. Seriously, it wouldn’t be pretty. But if I could see IRL what I see in these images? I might take a deep breath, live better with chemistry, and go for it.

We were suspended on a transparent surface surrounded by bits and pieces of sparkling crystal, tinged blue beneath the waterline. A dome of matte gray illuminated the shadowless landscape. Ringing the cove were steep walls of ice fed by glaciers from the slopes above. Their faces bore the scars of tension and release where they had calved the icebergs that spread throughout the cove. The ice of the walls was young, only faintly blushing blue.

The book is divided into three sections: Ice, Rocks, and Wind. Stump adds geographic information for each image as well as describes his time there. There is a lot of scientific geology-speak to explain what readers are looking at which is helpful but Stump is also awed by his surroundings.

In the lifeless world of Antarctica, the wind is an animate force active in human-time— miles per hour, a heartbeat. It may be fierce, it may be calm, it may be steady, it may be restless or fickle or faint. Sometimes it isn’t even there at all. It is the bearer of cloud and the deliverer of snow. It can be a fearsome force, roiling through the mountains.

I found myself spending more time studying photos, inhaling this truly “otherworldly” place. Some photos made the landscape appear to be an intimate 50 or so feet across only to have the author reveal a scale of miles instead. Other images are up close and have a span of mere twelve inches. This is another book which is probably best as a coffee table hardback edition. B

If I had one hour more to savor Antarctica, it would be on a névé—a snowfield, circled at a distance by low mountains, snow gracefully rising to narrow ridgelines. A light breeze would nip my nose to remind me of where I was. The midnight sun would be low in the southern sky, casting long shadows and a faint alpine glow. And I would be standing in the midst of a field of the most exquisite sastrugi—wind-carved snow—as far as the eye could see.

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From Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Tomlinson comes an inside account of the Westminster Dog Show that follows one dog on his quest to become a champion—and explores the bond between dogs and their people.

Tommy Tomlinson was watching a dog show on television a few years ago when he had a sudden thought: Are those dogs happy? How about pet dogs—are they happy? Those questions sparked a quest to venture inside the dog-show world, in search of a deeper understanding of the relationship between dogs and humans that has endured for thousands of years. Dogland shares his surprising, entertaining, and moving adventures.

Tomlinson spends three years on the road and goes behind the scenes at more than one hundred competitions across the country, from Midwestern fairgrounds to Madison Square Garden. Along the way he is licked, sniffed, and rubbed up against by dogs of nearly every size, shape, and breed. Like a real-life version of the classic mockumentary Best in Show, Dogland follows one champion show dog—a Samoyed named Striker—as well as his handler, Laura King, and his devoted entourage of breeders and owners as he competes in the 2022 Westminster Dog Show.

Striker’s whole career has been leading up to this moment. As Tomlinson writes, picking a top show dog is like drafting an NFL quarterback when they’re still in elementary school. Now Striker has made it to the Super Bowl. Tomlinson takes readers on the long road to glory, bringing the dog-show circuit to life as he witnesses teams scrambling from town to town in search of championship points and large, colorful ribbons. (Striker and his crew travel in a custom-built RV named after Betty White.)

Tomlinson’s limitless curiosity about people and dogs reaches far beyond the show tents and into the ordinary lives of dogs. We hear from experts who have discovered new insights into how dogs and humans formed their bond—and how that bond has changed over the centuries. We discover the fascinating origins of different dog breeds, learn about the elaborate breed standards that determine an ideal show dog, and consider the health issues that can arise in purebred dogs. We also meet dog lovers who applaud every dog, regardless of breed, simply for being themselves, such as WeRateDogs, the social media phenomenon with millions of followers, all for posts celebrating the day-to-day goofiness in most dog owners’ lives.

Engaging, charming, and insightful, Dogland is an irresistibly appealing read that invites us on a rollicking backstage tour through the rituals, tricks, and wonders of the dog-show world—and reveals what matters most for the happiness of dogs and dog lovers everywhere.

CW – deaths of loved pets is discussed. The word that properly refers to a female dog is widely used as it is in the fancy.

Review

I grew up with cats. My parents couldn’t agree on what type of dog to get so they compromised on a Siamese cat. It wasn’t until I was an adult and had the space and means that I got my first dog. Eventually I found my breed and more eventually I got to live with a retired show dog. As I pitched it to the publishers to be allowed access to this book, I didn’t finish this dog to his championship. He was a sweetheart who still stopped traffic when we took our daily walks. He got half of my sofa and I got the other half. But I did often wonder, as he lazed away the afternoons, was he happy out of the spotlight? Did he miss those days?

Author Tomlinson goes into the book with a similar question. As he watched a dog show on TV, he too wondered, are those dogs happy? And so he began a years-long journey into the world of showing dogs, one I know a little bit about from having been around dog people and show dog people. I used to go to a “cluster” of shows near where I live and can attest that what he describes about them hasn’t changed from what I saw years ago.

The dog and handler Tomlinson ultimately decided to focus on are Striker a Samoyed and Laura King his professional handler. We learn about how Striker was chosen from his litter as a promising puppy and how he’s lived with King and her partner for over two years on the road to greatness. Stryker is a MBIS (multiple best in show) winner and over the course of the book, his last show – Westminster 2022 – is detailed. I do wonder why an Afghan hound is on the cover instead of the Samoyed who was followed for so much of the book but whatever.

There’s a lot more in the book than just dog shows and show dogs including some short breaks for interesting dog facts, what might be the history of human and first dogs, many things that dogs are capable of doing and tales of Tomlinson’s dog Fred and Scott Van Pelt’s dog Otis. Tomlinson doesn’t shy away from talking about how show dogs are all basically inbred and many suffer from health problems that are visible such as breathing problems for brachycephalic (flat faced) dogs and difficulty whelping for dogs with narrow hips (both of which the now popular Frenchies have) or maybe not visible such as deafness in Dalmatians, heart issues in Dobermans, and a tendency for bloat in bigger, leaner dogs. We have bred these dogs and thus we are the ones who have landed them with these things.

Now about the answer regarding dog happiness? Well, dogs could probably teach a master class in making us think they are happy and like us because they discovered eons ago that life with us is a bit easier than life without us and they know which side their bread is buttered on or rather which bowl their kibble is poured into. Tomlinson says that in all the shows he attended, he never saw any dog abuse. The most he remembers? Maybe a few dogs looking bored. He did see dogs and owners/handlers paying close attention to each other, smiling (and Sammys always look like they’re smiling), and while he was talking to a handler, her dog (Scottish deerhound called Claire named after guess who) watching them, content to be there.

Dogs give us so much. Mostly, they just want to be there with us. One time I took my retired show dog to a specialty show near me. At first he perked up as if to say, “Oh, I’m going to do this again? Okay.” When we just stood by various rings and watched he settled down and seemed to enjoy doing just that, with me. Then we came home, he jumped on the sofa and we watched a bit of mindless TV. Was he happy at the show again? Maybe. Was he happy to be back home? Yes, he was.

This book is informative, chatty, thought provoking, and will give you plenty of inside scoop on “the fancy” as the dog showing world is known. And yes, they know about the spoof movie “Best in Show.” For a lovely tribute to one family’s dog, type “One Big Thing: Otis the King | SC with SVP” into the search function on youtube. Have some tissues handy. B

~Jayne

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What’s the difference between mazes and labyrinths? Proverbs and adages? Clementines and tangerines? Join author Eli Burnstein on a hairsplitter’s odyssey into the world of the ultra-subtle with Dictionary of Fine Distinctions. Illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck, this humorous dictionary takes a neurotic, brain-tickling plunge into the infinite (and infinitesimal) nuances that make up our world.

The perfect gift for book lovers, word nerds, trivia geeks, and everyday readers, this illustrated gem is more than just a book—it is an indispensable resource akin to a thesaurus but filled with charm and wit. Each entry, from “latte vs. flat white” to “Great Britain vs. The United Kingdom,” is accompanied by mnemonic aids, quirky asides, and detailed illustrations, making it a standout dictionary for any bibliophile or language enthusiast’s library.

Review

This looked entertaining and since I’ve enjoyed a number of books dealing with words and what we do with them, I asked to review it. The blurb correctly leads one to believe that the distinctions between the terms covered will be, in most cases, small and I found this to be the case. I amused myself by glancing at the word pairings and seeing if I could mentally distinguish between them before reading what Burnstein had to say about them. I did okay on my own but did learn some things that, frankly, I’m not sure I’ll retain. Burnstein also said that for many of these pairs, the distinctions are being lost so this book is probably aimed at those who are curious or those who want to be pedants.

The book is filled with line drawings to illustrate differences but these are rather hit or miss as to usefulness. And despite being over 200 pages, it’s a quick read. The words chosen to examine varied from common to vanishingly specific. There is little to no organization that I noticed so readers can fill a free moment or two without fear of losing their place. Here are some (abbreviated) examples of what you can find discussed.

Ethics vs morality – … why an immoral act sounds graver than an unethical one: One may get you fired, but the other could land you in hell.

Snitch = tattletale and a rat = traitor

Amp vs. Volt vs. Watt – In short, when you hear amps, think current, when you hear volts, think pressure, and when you hear watts, think utility bill.

AWD vs 4WD – One is safe and sophisticated. The other, rugged and badass.

Parable vs fable – A parable is a brief tale with a moral lesson. A fable is a brief tale with a moral lesson – plus animals.

I had fun reading it but it is more entertainment rather than a reference to be returned to. B-

~Jayne

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70 years on the throne. 13 American presidents. One extraordinary queen.

From the moment she first enchanted the world as a youthful princess, Queen Elizabeth II found a unique place in American hearts—and she also played an unprecedented role in forging transatlantic ties. Over her seventy-year reign, she developed extraordinary and varied personal bonds with thirteen U.S. presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, both Bush Sr. and Jr., Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden—that other diplomats and leaders could only dream of.

A fascinating, in-depth look at international relations and interpersonal intrigue, Royal Audience peels back the curtain on the “special relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. as embodied by the Queen herself—charting Elizabeth II’s distinctive brand of one-to-one diplomacy through the eyes of those who experienced it firsthand. From horse-riding with Ronald Reagan, to sharing her recipe for scones with Dwight D. Eisenhower, to striking up a kinship with the Bushes and the Obamas, the Queen’s interactions with her U.S. counterparts often acted as a restorative tonic for relations between two nations, even when political tensions ran high. Not all royal encounters with U.S. presidents went smoothly, though. Between Jackie Kennedy’s complaints about Elizabeth and the Queen Mother’s shock at being kissed on the lips by Jimmy Carter, there was never a dull moment.

Throughout the years, Queen Elizabeth II’s sense of duty and service remained steadfast, and her iconic legacy is unlikely to be repeated.

Review

Looking at the cover and reading the blurb, I went into this book hoping for a bit of “behind the scenes” and maybe little tidbits of historical information from the many meetings between Queen Elizabeth II and the fourteen US presidents she met over the course of her life. I did learn some things but as was often mentioned in the book “what happens at private lunches/teas/dinners/meetings with the Queen, stayed with the Queen.”

I’ll be frank and say that the extensive background on the international events of the day was probably needed – especially in the case of the things that influenced US/UK relations 70 years ago (how up are you on the Suez Canal Crisis of 1955?) – but these were inserted as history lessons and they read as one. After the major UK/US kerfluffles during each presidential term(s) were outlined, there usually followed a tit-for-tat exchange of excruciatingly correct notes and letters that could be studied as an etiquette guide. Only after that stuff did the meetings between the Queen and the presidents get discussed.

Once things got personal and the trips/state visits were delved into, I enjoyed the little glimpses of these relationships. Beginning with President Truman while she was still Princess Elizabeth, including President Hoover long after his term, and continuing through President Biden, the Queen was seemingly wielded as diplomatic “oil on troubled waters.” When the Special Relationship (use that as a drinking game and get drunk quickly) between the US and UK needed work, out would come an invitation from one side or the other and she would be put to work.

Despite the protocol filled meetings, from the information and recollections of those there, her tact, charm, sharp sense of humor, and decades of experience did seem to work a charm. From being on the receiving end of a hug from a woman in Maryland, visiting a US grocery story along with Prince Philip, exchanging views on standing for hours in heels with Michelle Obama, or enjoying private visits to the US where she could “let her hair down” a bit more than was possible in the UK, the Queen rolled with the punches, smiled through summer humidity in DC, and forged relationships with the presidents that they fondly recall.

After I began skimming some of the more recent political events and crises – since I lived through them and already knew them – and then also skipping the note exchanges, I cherry picked out the bits that I came for. Perhaps it’s better that the curtain not be entirely pulled back and some of the mystique remain but there are quick flashes here that give a peek into what made her special and such an unrivaled asset for British relations with the US. B-/C+

~Jayne

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A gripping and revelatory first-hand account of NASA’s historic OSIRIS-REx mission to return an asteroid sample and unlock the mystery of formation on life on earth braided with the remarkable life story of the mission’s leader, Dr. Dante Lauretta.

On September 11, 1999, humanity made a monumental discovery in the vastness of space. Scientists uncovered an asteroid of immense scientific importance—a colossal celestial entity. As massive as an aircraft carrier and towering as high as the iconic Empire State Building, this cosmic titan was later named Bennu. Remarkable for much more than its size, Bennu belonged to a rare breed of asteroids capable of revealing the essence of life itself. But just as Bennu became a beacon of promise, researchers identified a grave danger. Hurtling through space, it threatens to collide with our planet on September 24, 2182.

Leading the expedition was Dr. Dante Lauretta, the Principal Investigator of NASA’s audacious OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission. Tasked with unraveling Bennu’s mysteries, his team embarked on a daring quest to retrieve a precious sample from the asteroid’s surface — one that held the potential to not only unlock the secrets of life’s origins but also to avert an unprecedented catastrophe.

A tale of destiny and danger, The Asteroid Hunter chronicles the high-stakes mission firsthand, narrated by Dr. Lauretta. It offers readers an intimate glimpse into the riveting exploits of the mission and Dr. Lauretta’s wild, winding personal journey to Bennu and back. Peeling back the curtain on the wonders of the cosmos, this enthralling account promises a rare glimpse into the tightly woven fabric of scientific exploration, where technical precision converges with humanity’s profound curiosity and indominable spirit.

Review

The title of the book refers not only to the OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return mission but also to Dr. Dante Lauretta who shepherded the amazing feat into being. Though this is not the first successful trip to a space body which collected and then brought back samples to Earth (the Japanese Space Agency did it [twice] first), it’s fascinating to read about and the fact that there are so many dedicated – and brilliant – people who spend years of their lives to make these things happen is, to me, heartening.

We didn’t just survive; we thrived, adapting and innovating to not just meet but exceed our goals. This fortitude, this innate human grit, has been a constant ally throughout my career, affirming that the quest for enlightenment is worth every tribulation.

Another cardinal lesson has been the profound impact of collaboration. I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the world’s most brilliant minds, realizing that our most awe-inspiring accomplishments are born from unity and shared fervor. The abysses of space appear less impenetrable when we pool our resources and talents toward a mutual aim.

Dante Lauretta did not have the easiest of childhoods being raised along with his two younger brothers by a single mother after she kicked their alcoholic father out. Determination got him into college but a chance ad he saw in a newspaper after a long shift of flipping hashbrowns and cooking eggs for hung-over students shaped his destiny. It would start him on the road to getting his PhD, making professional connections and being the right person, at the right time, in the right place to begin working on a proposal for NASA – to land a spacecraft on an asteroid and scoop up a sample of pristine ancient solar system to be brought back to Earth.

Oh, if only it were that easy. Their proposal is honed, rejected, honed and crafted, and rejected, then honed, polished, crafted and burnished to a shine and … accepted. Sort of … as the reality has to meet the expectations of the concept before NASA will fully release the (gulp) rest of the billion dollar cost. A world wide group of dedicated STEM people get to work, dive into the problems, solve the problems, test more stuff, solve those problems, and finally after years of work, have a spacecraft ready to be rocketed into space. As some of the team awaited this launch in Cape Canaveral they felt the explosion of the SpaceX Falcon 9. But the Atlas rocket got OSIRIS-REx on its way.

Nails are bitten, heart attacks averted, and sighs of relief are heaved as Bennu (as the asteroid is now called in honor of an ancient Egyptian god) serves up some surprises and many of the team (along with some assistance from Brian May) go into overdrive to find that perfect spot for it to touch-grab a sample-and-go. Then comes Covid. Even though I knew the outcome, I was holding my breath reading about the final moments of suspense the team endured as the spacecraft (yes!) made the final calculations and decision to land.

After delivering it’s sample capsule back to Earth, the spacecraft has now pivoted to a new mission OSIRIS-APEX to study another asteroid. I’ve watched a few youtube videos and know that the mission far exceeded their promise to NASA to bring back 2 ounces of asteroid (if you have a kitchen scale, go measure how little that actually is). Along with that Holy Grail, tons of new information has been gathered that will probably be the basis of many future PhDs. I salute the thousands of people worldwide who labored for years to make this happen and who unlocked some of the secrets of life’s origins in the solar system. B

~Jayne

“More than two hundred undergraduate and graduate students have contributed to this grand endeavor. Their youthful exuberance fueled our mission, reaffirming the importance of training the next cadre of cosmic explorers. More than a mission, OSIRIS-APEX served as a platform for continuous learning and scientific continuity.

So, as we face the vast, uncharted expanses of space, I’m reminded that our mission—our journey—is not just scientific. It’s a deeply emotional and human endeavor. We are not just seeking to understand the universe; we are paving the way for future explorers to ask bigger questions, seek bolder answers, and touch the cosmic beyond.”

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An intimate account—the first from a trail veterinarian—of the canines who brave the challenges of the Iditarod.

Few sporting events attract as much attention, or create as much spectacle, as the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Each March, despite subzero temperatures and white-out winds, hundreds of dogs and dozens of mushers journey to Anchorage, Alaska, to participate in “The Last Great Race on Earth,” a grueling, thousand-mile race across the Alaskan wilderness.

While many veterinarians apply, only a small number are approved to examine the elite canine athletes who, using solely their muscle and an innate drive to race, carry handlers between frozen outposts each year, risking injury, illness, and fatigue along the way. In Four Thousand Paws, award-winning veterinarian Lee Morgan—a member of the Iditarod’s expert veterinary corps—tells the story of these heroic dogs, following the teams as they traverse deep spruce forests, climb steep mountain slopes, and navigate over ice-bound rivers toward Nome, on the coast of the Bering Sea, where the famed Burled Arch awaits.

Review

I’ve circled back to read about and watch (online) the Iditarod dog sled race for years and reviewed “Broken Trails” a number of years ago. “Four Thousand Paws” interested me because it promised to show the side of the volunteer veterinarians who endure frigid temps, crap coffee, white knuckle small plane rides, among other things, to take care of the medical needs of the dogs and ensure their health and safety.

Morgan begins with his credentials as a vet from Washington, DC who got interested in helping with the race and who submitted an application to be a part of the team caring for the race dogs. Despite not yet having the job, he bought and loaded up all the (extensive) cold weather clothing required and flew to Anchorage. Luckily for him, he was among the chosen. From there he talks about what is expected of the vets and other volunteers – mainly cheerfully but carefully do your job, pitch in where needed, and never say “It’s not my job.”

There are strict guidelines to be followed for checking the dogs and signing off that this has been done. Vets are there to be sure the dogs are healthy and fit for the next part of the race. If a dog needs to be dropped, most often the musher will already be aware and willing to do so for the safety of the dog. Dropped dogs are not just abandoned but kept together until they can be flown back to Anchorage and then kept there until the musher retrieves them. Dogs that need immediate attention – such as when a man on a snowmobile attacked two teams one year – will be airlifted especially rather than wait for a group trip.

There’s more to the race for Morgan than just his official duties and he talks about the various checkpoints where he’s worked and some of the more colorful aspects of life there. He shows great respect for the people and history of Alaska. The book is also loaded with photos. He’s been volunteering for years and has combined his experiences based on checkpoints rather than tell just the story of any particular year. One thing I like is that he doesn’t skimp on times where he made mistakes – like letting a dropped dog get too close to the food supplies, even if he didn’t fess up to the musher whose supplies got eaten – or fell prey to the elements – such as when he sank up to his neck in a snow drift right in sight of the teams leaving a checkpoint and a (gleeful) journalist there to capture the day.

The Iditarod officials have gotten better and stricter since the beginning of the race in ensuring that the dogs are well taken care of and their needs are seen to. Mushers have often bred their dogs and raised them from puppies and thus have a close bond with them. Morgan can often tell veteran dogs as they know the drill when it comes to being examined by the vets at the checkpoints. Other times, he’s been the victim of dog pranks by playful rookies. Morgan obviously enjoys taking part in the race and it was fun to read about his experiences. B

~Jayne

Veterinary Center – Iditarod

• Dog Care: Dog health and care are central to the success of The Iditarod, providing a platform for international research on dog health, nutrition and safety. Each year, research studies through our partnerships with universities and veterinarians have led to breakthrough discoveries that improve the lives of all dogs. The Race has adopted the “Best Standards of Trail Dog Care Practices” for sled dog kennels, with a focus on the health and happiness of the dogs, while supporting the goals of the competitive mushers. The official Iditarod Veterinarian team assesses kennel standards year-round and provides ongoing educational opportunities for mushers.

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In the vein of acclaimed popular-science bestsellers such as Atlas Obscura, Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry, The Way Things Work, What If?, and Undeniable, the co-founders of the global science organization Nerd Nite bring readers a collection of wacky, yet fascinating STEM topics.

For 20 years, Nerd Nite has delivered to live audiences around the world, the most interesting, fun, and informative presentations about science, history, the arts, pop culture, you name it. There hasn’t been a rabbit hole that their army of presenters hasn’t been afraid to explore. Finally, after countless requests to bring Nerd Nite to more fans across the globe, co-founders and college pals Matt Wasowski and Chris Balakrishnan are bringing readers the quirky and accessible science content that they crave in book form, focused on STEM and paired with detailed illustrations that make the content pop. The resulting range of topics is quirky and vast, from kinky, spring-loaded spiders to the Webb telescope’s influence on movie special effects.

Hilariously named after Dale Carnegie’s iconic book, How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi features narratives, bursts, and infographics on all things STEM from scientists around the world. Chapters are sure to make you laugh-out-loud, with titles such as “The Science of the Hangover,” “What Birds Can Teach Us About the Impending Zombie Apocalypse,” and “Lessons from the Oregon Trail.”

With fascinating details, facts, and illustrations, combined with Chris and Matt’s incredible connections to organizations such as the Discovery Network and the Smithsonian Institution, How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi is sure to reach joyful STEM enthusiasts of all ages around the world.

Review

I’d never heard of Nerd Nites before (and sadly there are none near me) but this sounded like a great offbeat and interesting book. It’s composed of short essays on STEM subjects that have been presented at said Nerd Nites around the world where experts tell a little bit about interesting subjects to an audience drinking alcoholic beverages. I think the idea is to be both fun and informative. 

In a group of subjects as large as contained here, there will obviously be some of interest and some that just won’t float your boat no matter how well done. With that in mind, I will admit to skipping about 5-7 of the essays but that still left a lot that I read. Some I found to be great – informative, long enough to cover the subject, and well explained. Others were okay but perhaps ended too quickly before really getting going. A few made me think “Huh, what was the point of that?” I wish that a few of the presenters would have stayed on the subject and left their politics out of it and when I say this, keep in mind that I don’t want anyone’s politics regardless of their side. As Sgt Joe Friday never said, “Just the facts, ma’am.” 

Interesting subjects and information I learned: someone actually studied dating apps for their PhD, octopi are as fascinating as I thought they were (their suckers taste things!), “Finding Nemo” got about everything regarding clownfish wrong, I wish the essay on misophonia had been more detailed and less “cutesy” but it did make me go look it up to learn more, phonemes and phonemic constraints for different languages are fascinating, NASA’s “waste” management is fascinating and a potential source of rocket fuel, reading about maggot wound debridement is simultaneously fascinating and revolting, microbiomes might be a source of neuropsychiatric disorders, GMO’s are nothing to fear, bacteria are just waiting to be our friends but we must treat them well, Sam Kean does a great job describing what drove the interest of the guy who helped formulate standard ways to design scientific experiments as well as explain why some people like their milk added first then tea or vice versa, if your dog gets into your underwear/knickers drawer and swallows them it’s better for the dog if you wear thongs, and flames – I never thought what they actually are either.

I speed read this but it’s the style of book that you can do that or dip a leisurely toe in when you’ve got a minute or five. Delve into what interests you or skip what doesn’t. And check to see if there’s a Nerd Nite near you. B/B-

~Jayne 

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A wild – and satisfying!- ride through two billion years of sexual evolution. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.

From the first microbial exchanges of DNA to Tinder and sexbots, how did sex begin, and how did it evolve to be so varied and complex in humans? What influence do our genetic ancestors have on our current love lives? And what might sex look like in the future?

With acuity, humor, and respect for human diversity, The Shortest History of Sex reveals where the many facets of our sexuality -chemical, anatomical, behavioral, social – come from. Chasing down our evolutionary family tree, from the first aquatic creatures to primate societies, David Baker sheds light on our baffling array of passions, impulses, and fetishes, and guides us toward a clear understanding of one of the deepest, most abiding forces of human nature.

The Shortest History of Sex also charts how sex changed for humans across the foraging, agrarian, and modern eras, showing how, even as our biology and sexual instincts have remained the same, the current nature of our sex lives has no historical or evolutionary precedent.

The result is a revealing, utterly unique insight into history and human behavior and the profound forces of nature and nurture compelling our most intimate relationships.

Review

Despite the T-Rexes on the cover, the focus of the book is mainly how sex has driven the long evolutionary history that has resulted in us – homo sapiens. And long history it actually is, as the story begins over 3 billion years ago when primitive life began. We’re talking small, short wormlike creatures who lived underwater, probably burrowing in sand, with little but reflexive actions moving them towards food and away from danger. Gradually cells began to specialize with some doing the digestive and cleanup work while a lucky few handled procreation: Hermaphroditic procreation as earthworms still do.

Slowly things improved as our ancient amphibian ancestors hauled themselves out of water, developed eggs, and then placental births. About that time the Cretaceous Extinction occurred and with non-avian dinosaurs out of the picture, our (very) tiny mammalian ancestors got to work taking advantage of their Big Chance. At this point, the book begins to narrow down and mainly discusses the development of primates, then the divisions into Old World Monkeys, New World Monkeys, Apes —> homo sapiens. It’s not all pretty. If you have a choice of what to be, pick gibbons over chimpanzees or orangutans any day. Bonobos are known for being very sexual (to put it mildly) but females are in charge instead of males. ~315,000 years ago Homo Sapiens showed up and culture began to take over before evolution was ready for it.

The section about our Neolithic/forager past is interesting and the author uses modern forager cultures as the backbone of discussion as to how our ancestors probably lived and thought. Once we moved more to agrarian societies, sexual behavior became very codified and ladened with rules and laws – mainly about women. The last parts of the book deal with history from about 250 years ago and on into the future as well as some ruminations on the possible origin of the most popular modern sexual fetishes.

Given that the book begins with history billions of years old, I expected and got some “probably” and “maybes” tacked onto the start of sentences but then there would be sentences written as sudden flat out statements of fact. I’m not sure if the author intended for readers to think this way or not. There is a lengthy list of further reading at the end of the book (alphabetically by author last name) but in the text, Baker has no footnotes nor lists any of these sources per chapter to give the reader information on where he’s getting his facts from. We have a chart with “First confirmed anal sex 55 million years ago” and other such conclusions but I was confused as to how he got this date. Give me something scientific that this is being based on. Then there were a lot of statements that I picked apart right then such as discussing a 1930s single pregnant woman’s *only* three choices of what to do – illegal abortion, raising the child alone, or a quickie marriage. No mention of adoption though. Things like this make me begin to wonder how many other statements are incorrect.

The writing style is breezy and informative. I give the author kudos for tackling such a broad subject. But there’s just enough of a speculative feel to a lot of what he says that, along with the lack of ability to check where he’s getting his facts that held back my overall enjoyment. C+

~Jayne

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An intimate look at the Moon and its relationship to life on Earth–from the primordial soup to the Artemis launches–from an acclaimed Scientific American and Atlantic contributor

Far from being a lifeless ornament in the sky, the Moon holds the key to some of science’s central questions, and in this fascinating account of our remarkable satellite, award-winning science journalist Rebecca Boyle shows us why it is the secret to our success.

The Moon stabilizes the Earth’s tilt toward the Sun, creating reliable seasons. The durability of this tilt over millennia stabilizes our climate. The Moon pulls on the ocean, driving the tides. It was these tides that mixed nutrients in the sea, enabling the evolution of complex life and, ultimately, bringing life onto land.

But the Moon also played a pivotal role in our conceptual development. While the Sun helped humans to mark daily time, hunters and gatherers used the phases of the Moon to count months and years, allowing them to situate themselves in time and plan for the future. Its role in the development of religion—Mesopotamian priests recorded the Moon’s position to make predictions about the Moon god–created the earliest known empirical, scientific observation.

Boyle deftly reframes the history of scientific discovery through a lunar lens, from Mesopotamia to the present day. Touching on ancient astronomers including Claudius Ptolemy; ancient philosophers from Anaxagoras to Plutarch; the scientific revolution of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler; and the lunar fiction of writers like Jules Verne–which inspired Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist who succeeded in landing humans on the Moon–Boyle charts our path with the Moon from the origins of human civilization to the Apollo landings and up to the present.

Even as astronauts around the world prepare to return to the Moon, opening up new frontiers of discovery, profit, and politics, Our Moon brings the Moon down to Earth.

Review

I’ve read a lot of books about space exploration and specifically NASA’s Apollo missions but what interested me about reading this book was that it would cover more about the Moon than just that. Earth has a long history with the Moon and I wanted to read about that. The book is divided into sections, some of which worked better for me than others. Be aware that for the most part, it has a very European/Middle Eastern focus with only brief references to Chinese astronomers and a slight detour to discuss First Puebloans in North America.

It may be pedantic of me but there are some flubs that I hope have been corrected before publication. Boyle discusses how the Moon retains a geologic record of asteroid and meteor impacts while, due to wind, water and subduction, the Earth does not have any.

“Combined with wind, water is a destroyer of worlds. Entire mountain ranges rise and fall through the work of water. It also erases craters. Though the timing and duration of the beating are still up for debate, we know Earth was bombarded by asteroids long ago, and yet there are no battle scars to show for it.”

Um yes, there are. Vredefort Crater, Chicxulub Crater, Sudbury Crater, Popigai Crater, Manicouagan Crater, Acraman Crater, Morokweng Crater, Kara Crater, Beaverhead Crater, Meteor Crater, and the Chesapeake Bay Crater are just the top eleven ones. Also there are some things such as not listing BCE/CE/or adding no notation at all to certain dates as well as some other pesky things like listing a temperature with both Fahrenheit and Kelvin degrees in one place but then only one in the other. Why? Okay I admit that these are inconsequential but if you’re writing a book with facts, get them correct and consistent so I don’t begin to doubt anything else in the book.

The first section is mostly science based and focused on astronomy. There’s lots of science here including various past and present ideas about how our Moon was formed, how planets were (probably) formed, and many scientific terms used for all this. Apollo missions feature in it a lot. For some reason I had difficulty plowing my way through this part and had to force myself to focus a lot.

Part two is what I view as more anthropologically focused and I loved it. Could the moon have influenced the development of life on Earth? Then once the tidal pool of amino acids yielded life, the wildly swinging tides of areas with lots of fossil evidence of the lobed fishes might have been where life crawled out of the oceans and onto land. The author makes some compelling arguments and backs them up with information about the scientific experiments being done now as well as fossils that have been discovered.

Boyle visits locations (mainly in Scotland) and discusses discoveries (such as the Nebra Sky Disc) which point out how Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans built spaces and things to possibly track the Moon to tell future time and correct drifts between solstices and Moon based time keeping. The narrative then shifts to ancient Mesopotamia and their Moon God and how a king’s devotion to this deity might have led to the downfall of the Babylonian empire. Ancient Greeks watched the Moon’s movements but they, along with Ptolemy, and the view of an infallible Bible screwed up European beliefs for over a millennium. It took until the late sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries to begin to accept Moon and planetary movements as they really are.

The book finishes up with a bit of discussion on if/should/will we journey back to the Moon and the implications of this. Businesses are the ones driving this and businesses are usually for profit. Is it right to turn the Moon into a business venture and who will profit? As I said, I enjoyed some parts of the book more than others but it gave me plenty of cool information and things to think about. B-

~Jayne

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An illuminating and thought-provoking examination of the uniquely American institution of marriage, from the Colonial era through the #MeToo age

Americans hold marriage in such high esteem that we push people toward it, reward them for taking part in it, and fetishize its benefits to the point that we routinely ignore or excuse bad behavior and societal ills in the name of protecting and promoting it.

In eras of slavery and segregation, Blacks sometimes gained white legal status through marriage.

Laws have been designed to encourage people to marry so that certain societal benefits could be achieved: the population would increase, women would have financial security, children would be cared for, and immigrants would have familial connections.

As late as the Great Depression, poor young women were encouraged to marry aged Civil War veterans for lifetime pensions.

The widely overlooked problem with this tradition is that individuals and society have relied on marriage to address or dismiss a range of injustices and inequities, from gender- and race-based discrimination, sexual violence, and predation to unequal financial treatment.

One of the most persuasive arguments against women’s right to vote was that marrying and influencing their husband’s choices was just as meaningful, if not better.

Through revealing storytelling, Zug builds a compelling case that when marriage is touted as “the solution” to such problems, it absolves the government, and society, of the responsibility for directly addressing them.

CW – there is part of a vile racist period editorial about the enslaved African-American woman with whom Vice-President Richard Johnson had two daughters. 

Review

I knew from the blurb that this wasn’t going to be a lighthearted, fun look at the history of the institution of marriage in the United States. And it wasn’t. But by the end of chapter one, I knew it was going to be a fairly bleak examination of something that most people take for granted that they will, at one point in their lives, be a part of – marriage. As far as how it affects women, minorities, and immigrants, well let’s just say that despite some laws meant to help, and many laws meant to hinder, the outcome usually isn’t good. 

But it’s about love! Not really, to be honest. Historically most people married for reasons other than love. It was actually thought to be the smart thing to do. Women were mainly looking for financial security both for themselves and whatever children they might have. Men were looking for legal sex (sex was only legal in marriage – all else was fornication), domestic helpmeets, and mothers of the sons they needed for inheritance. Squandering this opportunity on love was thought to be a poor bargain. It’s only fairly recently that love began to play much of a role in it. 

Many laws have been passed to influence marriage rates and to try and protect the rights of women though these actually didn’t do much to equalize very unequal partnerships. Age of Consent Laws and Women’s Property Laws in the US date back to the early nineteenth century as legislators sought to protect women from male gold-diggers. Oregon tried to encourage marriage among its first American settlers as married men were more likely to stay in place but this led to teen and child marriages. Land set aside for Native tribes sometimes passed into the hands of white men who married Native women for just this reason. 

For many immigrants, marriage was the only way to bypass the laws put in place to limit certain groups such as Asians and single women. Female survivors of World Wars I and II were quite blunt when asked if they married US military men to escape shattered Europe. Marrying in the expectation of getting a Green Card but not actually being in love with the US citizen is not illegal – if both spouses intend on remaining in the relationship and building a life together. Historically, marriage could also change your race. Mixed race children could eventually be legally white. If a person of color was accepted in white society as white, then legally they became white.   

I must warn people about chapter four. Chapter four is one huge trigger warning as it basically describes the many ways that marriage can be used as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card by abusers, criminal suspects, and rapists among others. If this isn’t bad enough, the (recent) statements made by judges in some of these cases are enough to make me want to go postal on them. Apparently, based on studies of Civil War pensions, bigamy was widespread in an age in which divorce was difficult. 

Unmarried people are still often regarded as “failures” by society. Historically they were often looked on with disdain (in the case of men) or pity (women). Many married people are willing to stay in unhappy marriages due to the social cache of being married. Married couples (usually heterosexual) are still favored for AI treatment payment coverage and adoptions. Custody battles are often resolved in favor of a parent who is in a marriage vs a parent who is single or in a non-marital relationship. And back to marrying for the financial benefit? Two polls from 2022 indicate that people are looking for “a financially stable partner” and “wouldn’t marry someone with bad credit.” 

Marcia Zug has produced a book that is well written and detailed with about 70 some pages of footnotes but which is still accessible for an armchair reader. “You’ll Do” is an informative but (I’ll be honest) ultimately depressing look at why people marry for reasons other than love. B-

~Jayne

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The incredible journey of a German immigrant, who came from the corporate world of business lunches and suit-and-tie dress code, to experiencing 9/11 shortly after arrival in his new home country. Then destiny flung him to the far southwestern corner of the United States, where he became a Deputy Sheriff at the age of 41.

In this autobiography, Peine takes the reader on a virtual ride-along, chronicling his life on the beat, later as detective, and finally as official spokesperson for the department. This book offers the author’s unique experience of American police culture through the eyes of a European immigrant. It subjects the reader to an unfiltered look at life in and around Tucson, AZ from 2006 to 2015.

It’s not all gun slinging, however, but rather a recollection and reflection on his time as a peace officer with the department that once had Wyatt Earp among its members.

CW/TW – The author discusses his experiences in and around NYC on 9/11. He discusses various cases/call-outs he was involved with as a LEO (deputy, detective, public relations officer) which (among other things) include violence, immigration, and sex crimes. Tom’s wife was diagnosed with and treated for cancer.

Review

This sounded interesting. Tom Peine was born and raised in Germany. met his US citizen second wife there, ended up immigrating to the US and after leaving a corporate job, finally realized his long held dream of becoming a law enforcement officer. He had tried as a young adult in Germany but high blood pressure had ended that attempt. But with his wife’s blessing, and at age (almost) 41, he signed up to go through the challenging application process of the Pima County Sheriff department before being accepted into the program.

I enjoyed his account of the even more grueling 20 week long training course (oooh, the sand pit) followed by twelve weeks of apprenticeship with experienced deputies before going out on his own. His sense of pride and accomplishment were palpable. After years as a deputy, he shifted over to becoming a detective (finance crimes followed by sex crimes) and later a public relations officer for the department.

During his training days, he recounts how he and another trainee discussed how one officer had stated his (personal) view of law enforcement in that people were either sheep (average citizen), sheep-dogs (law enforcement) , or wolves (criminals) and how they disagreed with that view that set LEOs apart from the people they swore to protect. If a police force drifts to only being a force, then this is not the best thing for the populace at large. People must trust the officers who uphold those laws that society has chosen to live under. Officers must enforce those laws equally and fairly for the protection of all the people.

The recollections that Peine mentions vary from humorous, tense, frustrating, to heartbreaking. He advocates for mental health for LEOs and talked about a school visit he made – in full uniform – in Germany with English language students who were astonished when they discovered where he was born (he said that his accent was guessed to be more Canadian than German). He also talked about how coming from a country that (today) more strictly follows rules but that had a past when this was taken too far had affected his view of how to judge when to take a more lenient path with suspects he encountered.

Getting a viewpoint from someone who didn’t grow up in one’s country is, I think, a good thing. Seeing how Tom was embraced and supported by his new colleagues was heartwarming. This definitely falls under “job I could never do.” I think the residents of Pima County, AZ were lucky to have Tom looking after them while he did. B+

~Jayne

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Pat Spain is not a very good dancer. Nor is he a person used to wearing bikini briefs, or wrestling in front of hundreds of nomads and an international TV audience. He is certainly not a person you would expect to find wearing said bikini briefs while dancing in front of said audience, but here we are: On the Hunt in the Gobi Desert. Pat and a National Geographic film crew are searching for the truth behind stories of the Mongolian Death Worm, and to crack this legend Pat will have to wrestle a giant while risking indecent exposure, brave the worlds’ most disgusting long-drop bathroom, eat and drink toxic ‘delicacies’, wrangle a very jumpy electric eel and testy spitting cobra, avoid the temptation to smuggle archeological artifacts and deal with bed-bug and camel-tick infestations while they traverse the least densely populated country in the world, Mongolia.

Dear Mr. Spain, 

After you kindly commented on my review of your book “A Bulletproof Ground Sloth,” and checked into this book’s digital availability, I meant to jump right in it when I got my hands on it. I truly did. But my reviewing schedule can turn into a wicked bitch sometimes (and it’s all my fault as I do this to myself) and this is the first break I’ve allowed myself in months. So … Death Worm it is!

Anyone who has read any of your books will recognize the intro about how you got into “herping,” developed your own animal discovery travel show, and then began working for National Geographic on this series on cryptids. Then the real fun starts as you and your crew head off to wherever in the world you need to go in order to investigate whatever cryptid you’re after. Here it’s Mongolia and, like you when you first began planning this episode, I know so very little about Mongolia. Thank you for taking me through parts of it, introducing me to the Naadam Festival and the wrestling. Yep, I’ve now looked up images of traditionally attired Mongolian wrestlers and those tiny pants are tight. The Mongolian people sound as if they’re amazing hosts, proud of their country and their traditions. 

You did warn about the chapter that focuses on … well, the less savory aspects of the trip. Camel spit, ticks, and the long-drop pit latrine from hell. But I guess if everyone has to face the pit of despair you all came out stronger for it? I would have paid to see the song fueled, vodka drinking dinner. I’ll skip chasing after camel spiders though. As for the long expired condiments and room temp bacon – what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. 

That was an in depth dive into what animals might have inspired the attributes of a Mongolian Death Worm (and that is so a great metal band name). The explanations that might account for what has been said of them make sense especially that Mongolians generally won’t go looking for or poke at anything that might kill them. No, “Hold my cheese flavored vodka and watch this.” So it’s easy to understand that strange stories can build and develop about unknown creatures that it’s thought best to stay away from. I enjoyed this one a lot and am now sad as I realize I only have one book in the series left unread! B+    

~Jayne

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In a book that ranks with the greatest adventure stories, Gregory Wallance’s Into Siberia is a thrilling work of history about one man’s harrowing journey and the light it shone on some of history’s most heinous human rights abuses.

In the late nineteenth century, close diplomatic relations existed between the United States and Russia. All that changed when George Kennan went to Siberia in 1885 to investigate the exile system and his eyes were opened to the brutality Russia was wielding to suppress dissent.

Over ten months Kennan traveled eight thousand miles, mostly in horse-drawn carriages, sleighs or on horseback. He endured suffocating sandstorms in the summer and blizzards in the winter. His interviews with convicts and political exiles revealed how Russia ran on the fuel of inflicted pain and fear. Prisoners in the mines were chained day and night to their wheelbarrows as punishment. Babies in exile parties froze to death in their mothers’ arms. Kennan came to call the exiles’ experience in Siberia a “perfect hell of misery.”

After returning to the United States, Kennan set out to generate public outrage over the plight of the exiles, writing the renowned Siberia and the Exile System. He then went on a nine-year lecture tour to describe the suffering of the Siberian exiles, intensifying the newly emerging diplomatic conflicts between the two countries which last to this day.

Review

To be honest, I was drawn to reading this book because of the subtitle – “George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.” Adventure, excitement, travel, I thought. Then I read further and realized that there was a great deal more to the book than that. 

George Kennan was born in Ohio in the 1840s. For much of his younger years, he was haunted by the worry that he wasn’t brave and he began to go to extreme lengths to prove that he wasn’t a coward. Not old enough to enlist when the Civil War began, he eventually became a telegrapher then joined an epic quest to build a telegraph service across the Bering Sea and through Russia (since Atlantic cables kept snapping) as a link between Europe and North America. This became his first journey through Siberia and Russia and proved to him, once and for all, that he was not a coward. He developed a love for the country and traveling through the harsh beauty of Siberia. Arriving home after the crushing news that the Pacific telegraph service was no longer needed (engineers had figured out how to lay cable across the Atlantic), he wrote about his adventures and then lectured about his years in Siberia. 

Needing more adventure, he got it when he went back to Russia alone and traveled through the Caucasus Mountains. From all the descriptions, such a thing was not for the faint of heart. George thrived on it. He loved being back in Russia (he spoke Russian fluently although he was told that some of the language he had learned among the rough and ready men while investigating cable routes wasn’t suitable for polite company) and thought highly of it including what (very) little he had seen of the penal system but curiously he had little sympathy for the overworked Dagestan women nor paid much mind to the injustices going on in America.

Not having attended college, Kennan felt he needed to improve himself and used the post war craze for intellectual magazine articles as a means of doing so while he earned money through journalism. An idea was hatched for him to go back to Russia and investigate the Siberian penal system. Taking along an artist, he set out in 1885. Using his contacts and the goodwill that he’d built up through the publication of his first book about his earlier Siberian trip, he gathered letters of introduction and some supplies before he and George Frost set out.

What a journey! Holy &^#$. The bitter cold, the roads, the travel inns, the bed bugs. And then the two men traveled into (to borrow a phrase) “the heart of darkness.” Remember that Kennan had begun this trip as a friend of Russia and generally agreed with the need for a penal system given the political upheavals that were  convulsing the country. What he saw exposed him to depths of human suffering of which he had no inkling. No one to whom he applied for permission to visit jails, camps, and mines said no. Nothing was prettied up though Kennan realized that word and intent of his journey had been telegraphed ahead of him. He said that the people in charge there appeared to feel that attempting to deny the horror of it was useless. One of the things that Kennan had (in theory) liked about the Russian system – that wives and children could travel into exile with their male relations rather than having the family broken up – became a reality that crushed him. 

As the trip continued, both Kennan and Frost began to feel the effects. They were constantly afraid of being arrested in spite of the documents and letters they carried which added to the mental and physical exhaustion of the trip itself. Unknown to Kennan, Frost had suffered from a nervous breakdown before the trip and he slowly slipped back into another while Kennan’s physical health began to deteriorate. When they emerged back into European Russia and then London, friends barely recognized them. Kennan’s wife feared for his health. 

The first hand information they carried out and to the world set off tsunamis of dismayed emotion among the American public and while the diplomatic corps had to try to smooth relations between the two countries. After writing an extensive series of articles, Kennan tirelessly lectured to packed auditoriums for years – which further damaged his health. But there were critics as well who pointed out that by speaking for those imprisoned for crimes against the state, he was sanctioning their violent actions and oh what about the similar crimes that the US was perpetrating against its own minorities and Native Americans that no one who was lauding Kennan seemed to care about. Kennan was also banished from entering Russia and later arrested when he did. 

Up until the 1890s, the US and Russia had had a friendly diplomatic relationship. Kennan’s book and lectures in part dropped a bomb on this so that, even before the October Revolution (which Kennan foresaw turning into something even worse than the Czarist system), it had been cooling. Experiencing it and reporting on it brought George Kennan and George Frost to the brink, physically and emotionally. Sadly the Gulag that followed might have been worse than the Imperial penal system. Gregory Wallance covers all this expertly and distills Kennan’s efforts into a very readable book. B

~Jayne

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Much has been written about the legendary flight of Apollo 11 and mankind’s first tentative steps into deep space. It’s often said that the world stopped, watching in awe as the crew of Apollo 11 completed their mission. It is true that in that moment, almost everyone had virtually gone to the moon as people around the world gazed in wonderment at the grainy black-and-white images of Neil Armstrong taking that first step onto the surface of another world. But that was a fleeting moment and just as quickly, the moment was gone– wars raged on, protestors filled the streets, and average Americans went back to their daily lives.

Everyone’s Gone to the Moon is a week-by-week journey through July 1969, one of the most pivotal months in human history – in space and here on Earth. This unique book follows the crew of Apollo 11 and NASA as they prepare for the historic first lunar landing alongside the major global events buried beneath headlines covering the historic space mission. Interwoven with the story of Apollo 11 are the events on our home planet that made an equally important impact on who we were then and who we are today: the Life of Prince Charles was threatened by a terrorist attack in Wales; the storm dubbed the Ohio Fireworks Derecho ripped through the Midwest, killing dozens; the assassination of Kenyan Economic Minister Tom Myoba (of which Barack Obama Sr. was a key witness) undercut a nation just learning to stand on its own; Senator Ted Kennedy was involved in a mysterious accident in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts; ARPANET, the first real “Internet” was unveiled; Monty Python was born; John Lennon and Paul McCartney released “Give Peace a Chance” during escalated Vietnam War tensions; Midnight Cowboy stunned the Academy Awards; and much more.

Meanwhile, NASA was still scrambling. Everyone’s Gone to the Moon features little known behind-the-scenes stories of the moon landing like how NASA had to grapple with media, the technical issues that still plagued the lunar module, and how the prior crew of Apollo 10 suffered incredible itching from their spacesuits that needed correcting before Apollo 11 could even be launched.

This deep dive into the Apollo 11 mission’s most crucial weeks and the little-known and rarely remembered events occurring simultaneously back on Earth gives a vivid new perspective to the month that launched humanity into the future.

Review

I read another book, “Space Oddities,” by this author a little over a year ago and couldn’t resist trying this one once I saw it. The blurb lists a lot of the interesting tidbits that are in it but believe me, there are a lot more.

The world might have watched when Neil Armstrong made “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” but not everyone was happy about it or interested. The world was rocked by protests, riots, and concerns that the money could have been spent more wisely for tackling poverty and racism. The approval rating Americans held for the space program was less than 50% and decreased as the decade went on. Once the Soviets had been bested for bragging rights, public interest plummeted, NASA’s budget was slashed, and the last three proposed missions were scrapped.

But yeah, what else was going on here on planet Earth in July? While news of the moon landing raised morale among the American POWs in North Vietnam, those soldiers in South Vietnam muttered that they had more important things to worry about. The Stonewall riots ended on July 1st, Reverend Abernathy led protesters to Cape Kennedy on July 15th to protest poverty and the amount of money being spent on the space program, the Newport Jazz Festival dissolved into a riot, and planning was continuing for Woodstock.

July 1st was almost the end of a project for six Congressional families to survive (for six days) on an official welfare food budget in order to get a glimpse of what people who had to survive on it all the time endured. “Space Oddity” was released days before the Apollo 11 launch. JoAnn Morgan and Jerry Elliott-High Eagle made history by being the first woman and first Native American in the firing room for an American rocket launch.

Riots were rocking Northern Ireland and El Salvador and Honduras engaged in a 100 hour war. On July 19th, John Fairfax became the first known person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean and Gloria Diaz became the first Philippina to win the Miss Universe pageant. The first test of “Sesame Street did not go well but Britain embraced Star Trek. NASA was also managing Mariner VI and Mariner VII which provided close up photographs of Mars. And one particular Qantas flight got a close up view of the Apollo 11 space capsule reentering Earth’s atmosphere.

I learned a lot by reading this in depth look at the big and the small picture of events of that month. Some things were deeply personal to only a few while others took in broad issues that affected entire nations. Cuhaj gives lots of background information to explain the history behind events that are mentioned in a way that also brings them to life. B

~Jayne

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An updated edition of the classic tip-a-day grammar guide from New York Times bestselling author and creator of the Grammar Girl podcast, Mignon Fogarty.
One hundred million podcast downloads say it all: Mignon Fogarty’s kicky, practical, and easy-to-remember advice about style and usage has won her fans across the globe. Her first book, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, hit the New York Times bestseller list, and her weekly grammar podcast has been hailed by USA Today as “authoritative but warm.”

Here in tip-a-day form, Grammar Girl offers 365 lessons on language that are sure to inspire. Chock-full of bite-sized writing tips, fun quizzes, and efficient memory tricks, The Grammar Daily gives you the tools you need to improve your grammar and become an even better communicator, one day at a time.

This revised edition of the book previously published as The Grammar Devotional has been updated to reflect shifting concerns in style and usage since initial publication, including new lessons and revised content throughout in addition to a new title.

Review

NOTE – This book is mainly about American grammar usage.

ALSO NOTE – I read a digital arc. Usually I prefer a digital arc but in this instance, I had some issues. Several of the tips are in the form of quizzes, word scrambles, and word searches. Answers are given at the end of the book which makes flipping back and forth to check my answers a pain. For those considering buying a digital copy, keep this in mind.

I love reading about grammar and style usage though I often, I know, fail to follow the rules or guidelines. I need HUGE laminated notes tacked all over my walls to make things easier but this book does have an index (yay!). Will I use that? Hmmm … we’ll see? I have opinions on some of the issues (who vs that, snuck) covered in the tips while others made me shrug and mutter “meh.” I learned some new terms (Snowclones, tmesi, anadiplosis), that English verbs have moods, and shortcuts to help remember things that I might recall. The information about the language rock stars was cool.

The tips are fast and easy to understand with lots of examples showing what is being explained. Squiggly and Aardvark are often our sentence subjects or objects (and there are illustrations, too). Lots of humor is sprinkled in as well. As with “The Dictionary People,” I’d advise (advise = verb, advice = noun) people to read a little bit a day. I was enjoying it so much that I sped through it and will admit that by the end, my brain was a little bit fried. B+

~Jayne

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A history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define the English language, word by word

The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others.

Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.

The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.

Review

So far this is a fascinating book. Written by a former OED editor it covers many of the hundreds of people who took the time – or not in the case of those who never sent in their slips – to read books and enrich the Oxford English Dictionary. The volunteers were from all over the world, from all ranks of life, women and men, rich and poor, famous and obscure. Right now I’m halfway through and just finishing up Chapter M – which covers two of the murderers and revisits one mentioned in another chapter. This is a perfect book for word lovers as well as people who enjoy those bizarre tidbits about their fellow humans. Dip into a few chapters at a time as I am and stock up on dinner party trivia. The English language is such a wild mish-mash, why wouldn’t people who helped create this wonderful dictionary be any different?

~Jayne

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After 30 years, discover the inspirations behind Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and its legacy as a certified pop-culture experience.

What is it about Jack Skellington that is so compelling? Why does the love between Sally and Jack resonate with so many? The feature-length, stop-motion movie about the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town who becomes obsessed with celebrating Christmas is a fascinating musical and love story that has transcended the original film and captivated the world. From the improbable tale to the lovable characters, Tim Burton’s creation has turned into a lifestyle, branching into fashion, video games, card and board games, live-action concerts, themed celebrations at Disneyland, and even cameos in other movies.

Featuring an original foreword by Tim Burton himself, Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: Beyond Halloween Town celebrates the film and the culture that has grown around it with exclusive and original interviews from:

Author and creator, Tim Burton
Animators, sculptors, and other artists of the film
Jack Skellington himself, Danny Elfman
The iconic voice of Sally, Catherine O’Hara
Musicians on the Nightmare Revisited album

Delve into the magic of Halloween and Christmas in a story told through unlikely heroes that started 30 years ago. This beautifully designed coffee-table book is sure to captivate die-hard and casual fans alike.

Review

When I first watched this movie, I liked it but I didn’t love it. For me, there are some things missing (Why does Sally love Jack? It’s not that he ignores her as he’s aware of her talent as a seamstress but beyond that he doesn’t pay much attention to her until she saves Sandy Claws.) Then I watched the episode from Netflix’s “The Movies that Made Us” that features this film and thought, I really need to watch this again. Shortly after that, I saw this book, then bit the bullet and bought a copy of the film. I still think the Sally-Jack relationship needs fleshing out (and I say that knowing full well that Sally is a rag-doll and Jack a skeleton) but the creativity of it and the mad skills that made it wowed me.

The book delves into the inspiration and sources that influenced the look of the movie, the voice talents behind the characters, the massive amount of work that went into set construction and building the models, and problem solving. Lots of problem solving. The World of “Nightmare” has expanded but not via the usual “Nightmare 2” or “Return to Nightmare” films that other franchises have done. Instead there have been books and manga that have delved into aspects of the world. Disney theme parks have added (or changed existing rides to) TNBC attractions. The crew has also stayed in touch as well as worked on other films.

Emily Zemler obviously loves the film and was given lots of access to tell how the film progressed from Burton’s ideas (that Disney initially dismissed) through all the problem solving (those involved used that term a lot) to the finished film that … didn’t set the box office on fire. But it stuck around, and thanks to VHS and then DVD copies it kept going, and has now become a firm favorite that has inspired all kinds of merch (including a crock pot), homemade costumes, and devotion (weddings, cosplay, and full sleeve tattoos). During my recent rewatch, I decided that Lock, Shock, and Barrel are my favorite characters. Who is/are yours? B

~Jayne

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Fans of true crime shows like CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Law and Order know that when it comes to “getting the bad guy” behind bars, your best chance of success boils down to the strength of your evidence—and the forensic science used to obtain it. Beyond the silver screen, forensic science has been used for decades to help solve even the most tough-to-crack cases. In 2018, the accused Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo, was finally apprehended after a decades-long investigation thanks to a very recent technique called forensic genealogy, which has since led to the closure of hundreds of cold cases, bringing long-awaited justice to victims and families alike. But when it comes to solving these incredibly difficult cases, forensic genealogy is just the tip of the iceberg—and many readers have no idea just how far down that iceberg goes.

For Laurah Norton, forensic science was always more of a passion than anything else. But after learning about a mishandled 1990s cold case involving missing twins, she was spurred to action, eventually creating a massively popular podcast and building a platform that helped bring widespread attention and resources to the case. LAY THEM TO REST builds on Laurah’s fascination with these investigations, introducing readers to the history and evolution of forensic science, from the death masks used in Ancient Rome to the 3-D facial reconstruction technology used today. Incorporating the stories of real-life John & Jane Does from around the world, Laurah also examines how changing identification methods have helped solve the most iconic cold cases. Along the way readers will also get to see Laurah solve a case in real time with forensic anthropologist Dr. Amy Michael, as they try to determine the identity of “Ina” Jane Doe, a woman whose head was found in a brush in an Illinois park in 1993.

More than just a chronicle of the history of forensics, LAY THEM TO REST is also a celebration of the growing field of experts, forensic artists, and anthropologists (many of whom Laurah talks to in the book), who work tirelessly to bring closure to these unsolved cases. And of course, this book asks why some cases go unsolved, highlighting the “missing missing,” the sex workers, undocumented, the cases that so desperately need our attention, but so rarely get it.

Engrossing, informative, heartbreaking, and hopeful, LAY THEM TO REST is a deep dive into the world of forensic science, showing readers how far we’ve come in cracking cases and catching killers, and illuminating just how far we have yet to go.

CW – The main case covered in this book is disturbing in terms of the remains of the decedent. 

Review

Death and DNA fascinate me. Last year I read and reviewed “The Forever Witness” which discussed, in terms of a horrific crime, new and amazing things being done with DNA to catch criminals. This book is similar but talks about other means as well that are being used to identify John and Jane Does and give them their identities back. It’s a book that rewards a bit of patience and perseverance.    

I’ll be honest and say that I found the start of the book to be very scattershot and a little disorganized – which didn’t surprise me anymore after the information (far too much, IMO) about how author Laurah Norton packs for a trip. At times there was way too much of her in this. Some things were overexplained while others weren’t explained enough. Norton is a writer (and teaches college classes) but at first this reads like an early draft. I hope that this has another round of editing and polishing before it gets published. The writing style is also more like a spoken podcast (of which she has two). There’s also a feel of a too earnest amateur tagging along with her friend the forensic anthropologist as they go to the recovery scene of a crime that Norton is interested in.  

Estimates of the number of unidentified decedents in the US range from 40,000-60,000. I think Norton does a good job in getting across to the lay public just how hard it can be to identify a decedent or to get journalists interested in continuing to cover cold cases after a news cycle flips to something new. Those involved with these investigations know that publicity is important as it can help keep cases from going “cold” and maybe lead to a clue that cracks the case. Kudos to her for emphasizing that just because a police/sheriff department is small, it doesn’t necessarily mean those LEOs are yahoos or uninterested in keeping up with the latest technology or that they don’t care about solving cases.       

Those who do continue to follow people with no name have all kinds of websites and reddit threads they read, contribute to, and obsess over. There are some amazing sites out there (which Laurah Norton discusses a bit about and which I will link to). Most of them are labors of … well I won’t say love as that sounds macabre given the subject but let’s say these people care about the Does who end up lost to their loved ones, families, and friends. There are also sites focusing on trans and other LGBTQIA+ Does. Through her podcast, Norton has met and worked with artists, dentists, and scientists in various fields who all work to reunite the UID (unidentified dead) with their names. The chapters on what forensic dental odontologists can and have done is fascinating. The skill and flair that forensic artists employ to give a (hopefully) identifiable face to a victim have solved decades old cold cases. The new DNA technology such as DNA Phenotyping is mindblowing. I was glad to see the care and respect that forensic anthropologists are trained to render to the remains they work with. 

Most of these skills and professions (no phenotyping was done for this case that I remember) were put to use to try and identify a woman known for almost thirty years only as Ina Jane Doe. (WARNING – GRAPHIC) Her head was found in a southern Illinois recreation park by two twelve year old girls. The interval between her death and discovery was thought to be fairly short. Sadly the area was no stranger to violent deaths and the police department along with the Illinois State Police got straight to work but as time dragged on, the case went cold. Then Norton and her friend, Dr. Amy Michael, contacted them to offer to reevaluate the skeletal remains. Thankfully genetic genealogy had just become a thing, a lab managed to obtain DNA in excellent shape, this was uploaded to GEDmatch, the genealogy wizards at Redgrave Research Forensic Services did their magic and Ina Jane Doe had her name back.   

As this case moved into high gear either the writing smoothed out or I was so interested that I didn’t notice the earlier ticks that were annoying. I do wish that some of the other cases in the book had a follow-up of where things stand with them including a mummy discovered at a private school and a mummified head gifted to another school which Laurah and Amy were trying to link genetically to descendants or ethnic communities. I’m glad I stuck with the book as I ended up getting to see the inside details of some amazing tech and the hard work of caring people. B-            

~Jayne   

The Doe Network

NamUs

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The secret history of one of the largest—and least-known—rescue operations of World War II

Between 1940 and 1943, a group of Polish diplomats in Switzerland engaged in a wholly remarkable—and until now, completely unknown—humanitarian operation. In concert with Jewish activists, they masterminded a systematic program of forging passports and identity documents for Latin American countries, which were then smuggled into German-occupied Europe to save the lives of thousands of Jews facing extermination in the Holocaust.

With the international community failing to act, the operation was one of the largest actions to aid Jews of the entire war. The Forgers tells this extraordinary story for the first time. We follow the desperate bids of Jews to obtain these lifesaving documents as the Nazi death machine draws ever closer. And we witness the quiet heroism of a group of ordinary men who decided to do something rather than nothing and saved thousands of lives.

CW/TW – a large part of the book is spent describing the horrific treatment of Jews, as well as Poles, by the Nazis and Russians during World War II – specifically in occupied Eastern Europe. This includes the occupied countries, ghettos, and internment/concentration/detention camps. This is not sensationalized but is nonetheless graphic in nature.

Review

First let me quibble a bit about the blurb. The actions of those involved in the forged passports is first described as one of the “least known” rescue operations before then being described as “completely unknown.” I’d go with “least known” as over the course of the book, it’s shown that a lot of people, across the globe, *including the Germans* knew what was going on. And while the forgery operation was the basis of the story, the majority of the book is spent delving into the context (which is covered in the CW/TW above) of what drove the Polish legation staff in Bern to do what they did. Word reached the officials in Bern about what was going on and they humanly acted to try and save as many Jews as possible.

This is not an easy book to read and I think that is because what is told is not sensationalized. The matter of fact style makes it all the more horrific and chilling. A lot of time is devoted to how Poland was partitioned and how the people stuck in the various sections were treated by both the Germans and the Russians. Take your pick but neither was easy to survive as the invaders subjected the Polish people to massive indignities, repression, humiliations, loss of property, loss of their culture, and death. When one Pole – using an early escape route finagled by a Japanese diplomat who issued people visas through Japan – reached the Polish Embassy in Japan, he was initially so emotionally overcome by hearing Polish and seeing Polish emblems again that he couldn’t speak.

The documents that were made and smuggled back to the people desperate for a lifeline that might save them from Treblinka and Auschwitz – among others – were not used as I had imagined – as actual travel documents. Rather they were a means to elevate the status of those Jews to one that the Germans would acknowledge and, potentially, exploit. Under the Nuremberg Laws and later when Poland was partitioned, Jews lost their citizenship. But with a (mostly Latin American) foreign passport or a Honduran promesa, these people could claim a country again. The means by which German exploitation could help them lay in the fact that Germany was willing to exchange these “foreign” citizens for their own German citizens who had been trapped in other countries when the war started. Later in the war, Germany was (mostly) willing to hold (most of) these people apart from ones who were sent to the death camps, depending on their country of origin.

Did everyone jump at the chance to get a foreign passport? Actually, no. Plenty of people were suspicious for various reasons of the worth of documents and the process of obtaining them. Were they any good? Would stepping forward and showing them to the Germans be a means to salvation or just get these people on the next transport? One leader of a ghetto decided that he wanted to be the one in charge of deciding who got one and threatened to rat to the Germans about it if anyone tried to bypass his authority. Plus by the time the Germans began acting on separating those holding these papers, Jews had heard about what was going on at the death camps and were hesitant to get on any trains out of the ghettos. As they had learned, letting the Germans put them on a train to somewhere rarely resulted in going anywhere better.

As the war continued and appeals were made worldwide to anyone who might assist the operation, sand got dumped in the vaseline. Some of the countries whose (Swiss) honorary consuls in Bern (it wasn’t just the Poles doing this) were issuing passports or (easier to manage quickly) promesas initially balked at recognizing these irregularly issued documents – many in fear of being inundated by Jewish immigrants. Some diplomats and foreign service officers nitpicked at the legality of them and pressure was brought to bear to both support or disavow the documents’ legitimacy. Some countries eventually agreed to recognize the documents, some waffled and others flatly refused.

In the aftermath of the war, the Polish diplomats involved neither sought nor received recognition for what they had done. The whole exercise was consigned to obscurity. It’s also difficult to know how many lives were actually saved. An estimated (roughly) 8,000-11,000 documents were issued but often for more than one person. However an estimated 2-3,000 persons might have survived because of the documents which often were a means of evading a transport for a few more months or being put in a more favored section of Bergen-Belsen. In addition to the documents, a great deal of luck determined who lived. There was actually (finally) an exchange towards the end of the war in which roughly 300 document holders were sent via train to Switzerland – though tragically many died of health conditions on the way.

I’ll end with an excerpt from the book – Heinz Lichtenstern, whose story opened this book, never knew where his Paraguayan passport had come from, and he always considered it to be a last resort, a final throw of the dice. Yet it would undoubtedly save not only his life but also those of his wife and children. In the more than four decades that remained to him, he would continue his career as a metals trader and become a grandfather and a great-grandfather. He was but one of the many the ?ado? Group helped to save. Others would go on to be academics, rabbis, engineers, politicians, mathematicians, historians, and journalists—and in their time mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers—every one of them living proof of the Talmud saying that “he who saves one life, saves the world entire.” B

~Jayne

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