eBook Review: O Descobrimento do Brazil

No Cover

Manuel Ferreira Garcia Redondo, O Descobrimento do Brazil

From the Gutenberg Project

• Format Size Read this book online (HTML) 149 kB EPUB (no images) 67 kB Kindle (no images) 108 kB

1. Short review:   (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The chance to exercise my Portuguese. New -- to me -- information on Christopher Columbus.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Walk in the park.
The book is free to download.

2.2. What I did not like: The tedious Gutenberg license.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Brazilians, Portuguese, and me.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yeah, if they read Portuguese.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Odd to say so, but I might. I am not opposed to the notion.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     O descobrimento do Brasil: Prioridade dos portugueses no descobrimento da America (full title) was a 68-page paper Sr Redondo delivered at a conference held in 1911 in São Paulo, Brazil. Sr Redondo marshaled indirect evidence that the Portuguese discovered America before Columbus. That evidence included maps, ship logs, and the Treaty of Tordesillas.

 2.7. Other:
     I anticipated Sr Redondo's arguments before I read his paper. The view Sr Redondo took was typical of Brazilians. So what if the Portuguese discovered America before Columbus? The Portuguese did not exploit their discovery. Columbus did.
     What I found new and interesting was Redondo's argument that Columbus sailed with the Portuguese.
     Before 1492, Spaniards did not look west across the Atlantic for new lands to conquer. They looked south. Their goal was to drive the Moors from Spain. The only Europeans with any substantial knowledge of what lay west were the Portuguese.
     To get experience sailing the Atlantic, Columbus must have sailed with the Portuguese. Evidently his credentials as an Atlantic sailor were good enough to get him an audience with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Where did Columbus earn these credentials? Redondo said it was with the Portuguese. Who can say it was not?
     Why did Columbus not make his offer to the Portuguese? Redondo did not say, but I have a guess to venture. I bet Columbus did make his offer to the Portuguese, and they refused.
     Why did the Portuguese refuse Columbus? Because they thought he was wrong. You see, everybody knew the world was round. Everybody who counted, anyway. But Columbus miscalculated the circumference of Earth. He thought Asia lay just a short journey beyond the Antilles, that the voyage to Asia was short. (FWIW the Portuguese knew of the Antilles before Columbus made his voyage in the Santa Maria.) The Portuguese ran their own calculations and came up with the correct distance. By their reckoning, no ship could carry enough stores for the crew to survive the voyage. They remained wedded to their plan to circumnavigate Africa.
     I found Redondo's surmise that Columbus sailed with the Portuguese persuasive. His argument that the Portuguese found America first? Yeah, okay, and so what? The Portuguese made nothing of the discovery until the Spaniards got in the game. The Portuguese played the whole first quarter without anyone else on the field, and they did not score. The Spaniards suited up and began playing in the second quarter and scored three touchdowns: discovery of the Americas, conquest of the Aztecs, and conquest of the Incas. The Portuguese played catch-up from that point on. But unlike the Jets, the Portuguese did not pull off a comeback.

     The Gutenberg Project lists the work as 'O Descobrimento do Brazil'. I think this is an error. In Portuguese, Brazil is spelled with an 's'; thus, Brasil. And in Portuguese, 'descobrimento' is not capitalized in the title. Where the reference is to the work on Gutenberg, I used the errant Gutenberg version.

     YMMV.

2.8. Links: Manuel Ferreira Garcia Redondo

2.9. Buy the book: O Descobrimento do Brazil (Free to download)

eBook Review: A Sailor of Austria

John Biggins, A Sailor of Austria

• Product Details

  • File Size: 1570 KB
  • Print Length: 378 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 159013107X
  • Publisher: McBooks Press (September 1, 2005)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B005E8AMQA
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Lending: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars (45 customer reviews)
  • Price: $8.59 

1. Short review:
For DRM:   (Amazon rating: 1 out of 5 stars -- I hate it.)
For content:   (Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars -- I love it.)

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The history through fiction of the honorable service of men fighting for a collapsing empire. I enjoyed every minute reading this book.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Surprisingly, a roller coaster.
Good value for the money.

2.2. What I did not like: It's DRM'd. If a book is published with DRM, I give it one star. No exceptions. The content I review separately.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Everybody. Some will like it. Some won't. Biggins will find his audience. Maybe he has already.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. One chapter contains strong hints of sex, but there is nothing graphic.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes, but the DRM gives me pause.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     In the spring of 1915 a young Austro-Czech naval lieutenant Ottokar Prohaska, just returned from foreign parts, find himself posted to the miniscule Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Submarine Service in the Adriatic port of Pola. In some trepidation at first because he has no experience of submarines, his fears are soon set at rest when he discovers that nobody else has either, least of all his superiors. There follow three and a half years of desperate adventures fighting for the House of Habsburg aboard primitive vessels, contending not just with exploding lavatories and the transport of Libyan racing camels but with a crew drawn from a dozen different nationalities and a decaying imperial bureaucracy which often seems to be even more of an enemy than the British, the French, the Italians, and the sea itself. Prohaska rises to become the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s leading submarine commander and a holder of its highest military decoration, the Military Order of Maria Theresa, (Militär-Maria Theresien-Orden). The closing months of 1918 see him and his crew return home aboard a damaged boat from Palestine, only to find that the homeland they have fought for over the last four years is collapsing, and that they themselves are stateless persons: sailors without a navy returning to a country which no longer has a coastline.

 2.7. Other:
     I did not know this book was DRM'd until I began to write this review. I tweeted this book with five stars.
     I started to write the plot-in-a-nutshell, and opened Calibre to refer to the book 'cause I could not recall with certainty if Prohaska was a Fregattenleutnant or a Linienschiffsleutnant. Could not open the book because it is DRM'd. Connected my Kindle and tried to open my Kindle copy with Calibre. No joy.
     So instead of writing a proper plot summary I copied and edited the extended book blurb from John Biggins website.
     There are other ways to discourage piracy. DRM is a bloody frelling nuisance. I truly enjoyed this book. Now I'm angry. That's how I shall remember the book. I got angry over it.
     Anger is not the memory you want to leave with your customers.

     Those who read my reviews regularly will notice that I put in fewer links. That is intentional. In the future, for DRM'd books, I will not give any links.

     YMMV.

2.8. Links: John Biggins at Amazon

2.9. Buy the book:  A Sailor of Austria: In Which, Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire

Movie Review: Gravity

Gravity
1. Short review: -- Worth a rental, not more.

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: Sandra Bullock. That's good, because SB and the SFX are the movie. The cinematography.

2.2. What I did not like: The physics. There are more inaccuracies than Wikipedia points out, but the glaring one is this:

“When Kowalski unclips his tether and floats away to his death to save Stone from being pulled away from the ISS, several observers . . . contend that all Stone had to do was to give the tether a gentle tug, and Kowalski would have been safely pulled toward her, since the movie shows the pair having stopped and there would thus be no centrifugal force to pull Kowalski away.”

     I understand literary license to change facts; that is, it ain't truth, it's fiction. I have used it myself. But there are limits and Gravity exceeds them.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: A lot of people but not everybody.

2.4. Are the movies appropriate for children to see? I suppose so. It has shots of dead people, but the kiddies are watching The Walking Dead, so what the hey?

2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? No.

2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:

2.6.1. How I rate movies:

-- I want my money back.
-- Worth a rental, not more. <-- Gravity (for the cinematography)
-- Worth first-run theater price once.
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. 

Running time: 91 minutes.

2.6.2. The plot.

2.7. Other:

     Gravity grossed north of $700 million in theaters. Rumors are that SB's payday was $70 million. I think she earned it.
     The cinematography was stunning. It tried not to call attention to itself, but it was so well crafted that at one point I said out loud, "God, that's beautiful." And the Oscar goes to Emmanuel Lubezki.
    
     Maybe it's just me and since the gate was $700 million that's likely, but I found the story boring. Gravity is Lost in Space with debris collisions substituted for the Robot flailing about as he cries, "Danger! Danger!" That and Gravity has better SFX.

     YMMV.

2.8. Links:
IMDb review, Rotten Tomatoes review 

eBook Review: Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

George Mann (editor), Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

Product Details

• File Size: 1075 KB
• Print Length: 352 pages
• Publisher: Titan Books (February 11, 2014)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00EMX8T9A
• Text-to-Speech: 
• Lending: Not Enabled

1. Short review:   DRM'd. (Amazon rating: 1 out of 5 stars -- I hate it.)

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: The excepts at Amazon and SF Signal.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? I cannot say.

2.2. What I did not like: DRM. I manage my digital library with Calibre. DRM interferes with that. Calibre cannot do anything with a DRM'd book. For the DRM restriction, I give Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes one star. I returned the book, too. I wish Amazon included a tag for DRM in their product details, but until they do, I shall post a one-star review for each book I find DRM'd.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Sherlock Holmes fans? Can't say.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Can't say.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? No.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There are many stories, so there are many plots.
     At Amazon, AcerAcer wrote a 5-star review that includes a precis for each story. 

 2.7. Other:
     I liked the excerpt of this book I read at SF Signal and the teaser I read at Amazon. After I bought it, I discovered it was DRM'd. I returned it. In the return procedure, Amazon asked why I returned the book. One of the choices they posted was 'Digital Rights Restrictions'.
     Had I known at the time of purchase that this book was DRM'd, I would not have bought it.
     I offer no opinion on the stories.
     YMMV.

2.8. Links: DRM

2.9. Buy the book:  Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

Movie Review: A Few Good Men

A Few Good Men
1. Short review: -- Worth first-run theater price once.

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: Demi Moore for eye candy. Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Noah Wyle, and Cuba Gooding, Jr., for good performances. The rifle drill by the Texas Aggie Fish Drill Team at the beginning of the movie.

2.2. What I did not like: Aaron Sorkin's script. The story is good, but it is wrapped in dialogue that tries too hard to be cute.

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”--Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft  

     What King means is that if you write a line you just love, delete it. In A Few Good Men, Sorkin ignored King's advice. He did not kill his darlings. No. He hugged them, kissed them, held them up to the light and made us look at them again.
     When LTJG Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and LCDR Galloway (Demi Moore) meet in her office, LT Weinberg (Kevin Pollack) tells her that Kaffee has successfully plea-bargained forty-four cases in nine months. Kaffee says, "One more and I get a set of steak knives." After Capt Ross shreds PFC Downey on the witness stand because Galloway did not adequately prep her client Downey, Kaffee explodes in drunken anger and calls Galloway 'Galacticly Stupid'. Galloway walks out immediately after Kaffee's tirade, but she stops in the doorway, turns, and says, "I'm sorry I lost you your set of steak knives."
     This is an example of King parading his darlings for our view. I can hear him tittering to himself, "Oh, what a clever boy I am!"
     Just tell the damned story.

     Demi Moore's performance. Kiefer Sutherland's performance. Both of them speak their lines well but they are overshadowed by Cruise, Nicholson, and Bacon. Even Wyle outshone them.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: First, Aaron Sorkin and his family. Second, the American public.

2.4. Are the movies appropriate for children to see? Yes for ages 17 and up. No for younger due to language and violence.

2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? No.

2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:

2.6.1. How I rate movies:

-- I want my money back.
-- Worth a rental, not more.
-- Worth first-run theater price once. <-- A Few Good Men
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. 

Running time: 138 minutes.

2.6.2. The plot.

2.7. Other:

     Why in the world am I reviewing a twenty-two year-old movie?
     I saw A Few Good Men in a theater when it was released in 1992. Liked it well enough. I have seen it on TV at least, oh, a dozen times since then. It does not wear well. Sorkin's darlings become an annoyance on the third or fourth viewing. By the twelfth viewing they are just bloody awful.
     So why did I watch this movie again and again?
     'Cause I changed.
     The first time I watched A Few Good Men I bought into Sorkin's line: Lieutenant j.g. Daniel Kaffee is the good guy; Colonel Nathan Jessup is the bad guy.
     Now I'm not so sure.
     In the climactic scene, Jessup is on the witness stand:

     Think about what Jessup said. "We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it?"
     This is no less true today than it was twenty-two years ago.
     There is an insidious notion in the world today that we can all get along. I can live as I like, the other guy can live as he likes, and we can be, if not friends, at least civil to each other.
     This is demonstrably false.
     There are those in the world whose view is that I must live according to their precepts. Or die. I must 'walk this way' and 'talk this way' or else. How do I resist that? Sit down with them over tea and biscuits and reason away their deeply held convictions? 
 
     At the lunch at the O Club at Gitmo, LCDR Galloway reminds Col Jessup that the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet sent out a memo "warning that the practice of enlisted men disciplining their own wasn't to be condoned by officers." Jessup replies that on the record he gave the memo its due attention; off the record such practices were an invaluable part of unit training.
      It does not matter if you dislike Jessup and his sentiments. It does not matter if I dislike Jessup and his sentiments. He is right. The military has long used peer pressure as a training tool. Enlisted men discipline their own all the time to get them to conform to unit standards.

     Remember the Tailhook scandal? A retired Marine gunnery sergeant said to me, "We train these men to kill and then we're shocked they don't act like choir boys when they're in Vegas?"

     Bismarck said, "Those who like law and sausages should not see either being made." The same is true for the training of soldiers. It ain't just. It ain't pretty. It's only necessary.

     Someone stands a post on that wall tonight. He ain't me, and he ain't you. We don't have to like him, but we should respect him.

     YMMV.

2.8. Links:
IMDb review, Rotten Tomatoes review 

eBook Review: Prince of Mercenaries

Jerry Pournelle, Prince of Mercenaries

Product Details from Baen's Books

Published 3/1/1989
SKU: 0671698117
Price: $5.00
1. Short review:  (Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars -- I love it.)

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked:  I am a fan and a friend of Jerry Pournelle. He writes well. I enjoy his Falkenberg's Legion stories.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Roller coasters. There are three stories packed into this novel, woven together to make a coherent whole.
Good value for the money. 

2.2. What I did not like: Nothing. It's all good.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Science fiction fans. Military sf fans. JP fans.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. No worries.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     Falkenberg's Legion is bivouacked on Tanith, the second worst world in the CoDominium. Tanith is hot, covered by jungle, teeming with vicious indigenous fauna, and continually overcast. It is also the sole source of borloi, the drug that keeps the welfare citizens of Earth placid and pliable.
     A couple of interludes tell you how Lieutenant Mark Fuller and Captain Peter Owensford joined the Legion. These come from the novellas 'Silent Leges' (Fuller) and 'His Truth Goes Marching On' (Owensford). These stories also give you much of the background of the CoDominium.
     The constituted gov't of Tanith hired Falkenberg's Legion to 1) reduce a collective of contract fugitives and 2) ensure the delivery of borloi from opposition farmers. The Legion did the first. To do the second, the Legion has to 1) find the hidden borloi and 2) take it from Barton's Bulldogs, another mercenary force. They must do this without destroying the borloi. Without the borloi, neither party in the conflict will have the money to pay the mercenaries.
     With the help of Prince Lysander of Sparta, Falkenberg accomplishes his objectives.

 2.7. Other:
     I like military sf. Jerry's CoDominium world is one of my two favorites. The other is Hammer's Slammers.
     Jerry Pournelle writes well and that shows through in Prince of Mercenaries.
     I read this book in a couple of days on Calibre. I downloaded it to my Kindle, but I did not have a spot in my reading rotation for it. That is why I read it on Calibre. Originally, I planned to work it into my reading rotation, but it was such a rocking good read that I devoured it in a couple of sittings.
     Only recently did I discover that Baen's Books website offers books from other publishers, too. E-Reads offers the famed Dangerous Visions. You can also pick up Schlock Mercenary.
     Check out Tor Books offerings to see what a goat rope Tor has become.
     YMMV.

2.8. Links: Jerry Pournelle 

2.9. Buy the book:  Prince of Mercenaries

eBook Review: An Ace of the Eighth

Norman J. 'Bud' Fortier, An Ace of the Eighth

Product Details 

• File Size: 1207 KB
• Print Length: 378 pages
• Publisher: Presidio Press; Reissue edition (December 18, 2007)
• Sold by: Random House LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000XUDHT8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Price: $5.99

1. Short review: (Amazon rating: 1 out of 5 stars -- It's DRM'd.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked: The information I've not seen elsewhere. 
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Should be a roller coaster, but it is a walk in the park.
     If you are a hardcore air combat history fan, it is worth the money. Otherwise, buy a different book.

2.2. What I did not like: DRM. Any book that is DRM'd gets one star from me.
     As for the contents: 
     The lack of combat details. What details there are apply to strafing ground targets and pilot scheduling. Often the squadron was grounded by weather. Much of the book is taken up with not flying because of weather, hazardous flying in weather, and operational losses due to weather. Fortier did not write as much about himself or his actions as he did about his squadron mates. 
     The cover. The cover gives the reader the impression that this is a book about P-47 Jugs. It is not. It is a Mustang book.
     The cover did not come with my Kindle file. The cover I got is an ugly generic cover. 

2.3. Who I think is the audience: Hardcore air combat history fans.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Sure, if they are hardcore air combat history fans.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? No.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell.

     None. This is a memoir of a P-51 Mustang pilot in WW2. Fortier wrote about training, transport to England, escorting bombers, fighting gaggles of Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs, killing Me-262s on their final approach, 7½ hour escort missions (that's a job), strafing Luftwaffe airfields deep in Germany, engine failures and landing at forward bases, trying to find an airfield when weather rolled in, other pilots ditching in the Channel and being picked up, and other pilots ditching in the North Sea and disappearing. That is most of what I expected. I also expected that Fortier would detail his own aerial combats, but I did not get that.

 2.7. Other:

     I rate the content of this book -- 3 stars; that is, It's okay. I learned that Mustangs flew looong escort missions and were based in England the entire war, that Jugs flew air-to-ground missions from forward bases, that air-to-air losses were dwarfed by losses in air-to-ground missions, that the Luftwaffe managed to put planes in the air until the end but was overwhelmed by the hundreds of American fighters that invested German skies every day. I learned that ditching in the English Channel was an inconvenience but ditching in the North Sea was a death sentence. Good stuff but not the reason I began the book.
     When you write a memoir, write about yourself, not the guy next to you. Fortier thought he was modest by writing about his squadron mates instead of himself, but he was just boring. You can't tell an adventure that someone else owns with the intensity and immediacy of an adventure that you own.
     Already I have forgotten much of the book. Some Amazon reviewers wrote that Fortier began flying escort with P-47s. I do not remember that. To me, this is a Mustang book.
     One thing that stands out in my mind is that the P-51B/C razorback model carried four guns. The wing was so narrow on the B/C model that the guns were mounted at an angle. This caused jams. The wing camber was increased on the bubble canopy D model so the guns could be mounted upright and two more guns were added. (The B/C models were identical. The B or C identified the factory. P-51Bs were built in Inglewood, California. P-51Cs were built in Dallas, Texas.)

Addendum: I searched the book, and, sure enough, Fortier did fly Jugs. But the cover picture is wrong for Fortier. By D-Day, he was flying Mustangs. (Those stripes on the Jugs in the picture are invasion stripes that were painted on for D-Day ops.)

     YMMV.

2.8. Links: Norman J. 'Bud' Fortier

2.9. Buy the book: An Ace of the Eighth

Movie Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany's
1. Short review: --It made me sick.

2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked:
Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, and Patricia Neal are physically attractive actors. The sets are beautiful. Moon River.

2.2. What I did not like:

     How doest thou disgust me? Let me count the ways.
     Mickey Rooney's performance of I Y Yunioshi. MR played the buffoon to give us unneeded comic relief. There is nothing so serious in the movie that we need comic relief. This is not Macbeth. MR played Yunioshi as a buck-toothed, near-sighted Japanese. What? Were there no Japanese actors in Hollywood who would take the part? Perhaps I am imposing modern morals on a fifty-year old film, but I found MR's stereotypical portrayal of a Japanese character offensive.
     Buddy Ebsen's performance of Doc Golightly. Doc was portrayed as a country hick. He was a veterinarian, for Christ's sake. I am offended with the New York attitude that anyone from anywhere but New York is a hick.
     The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the characters. AH played Holly Golightly as an air-headed golddigger. (AH refused to portray a prostitute, so, in the film, Holly Golightly was written as what Truman Capote called 'an American geisha'. Nonsense.) Holly Golightly was paid $100 a week to visit a mafiaso in Sing Sing prison and bring back a 'weather report' to his lawyer. At a time when the working wage was $40 a week. And she could not figure out that this is a code? GP played Paul Varjack, a broke wannabe author who moonlights as a gigolo. Or a kept man.
     Their lives revolve around looking good, fashionable parties, fashionable people, and money. You could stand in the waters of this movie's intellectual depth and not get your ankles wet.
 
2.3. Who I think is the audience: New Yorkers in 1961.

2.4. Are the movies appropriate for children to see? No. No sex, no foul language, but behavior and lifestyles you would not want the kiddies to see.

2.5. On the basis of viewing this movie, will I pay to see the sequel? No, and thankfully there wasn't one.

2.6. Rating and the plot in a nutshell:

2.6.1. How I rate movies:
-- It made me sick.<-- Breakfast at Tiffany's
-- I want my money back.
-- Worth a rental, not more.
-- Worth first-run theater price once.
-- I will pay first-run theater price to see it again. 

Running time: 115 minutes.

2.6.2. The plot.

2.7. Other:

     The movie is 'loosely' based on the Truman Capote novella of the same name.

     Prayer.
     A year maybe three ago, I thought about the movie The Professional. Offered up a little prayer to see it again. Well, lo and behold, soon thereafter I found it on cable. Dubbed in French. Heh. Joke was on me. 

     I never saw Breakfast at Tiffany's, so I prayed to see it. This prayer I crafted more precisely. Lo and behold, this week I found the movie on cable. Very pretty people wearing very pretty clothes while they run through very pretty scenery. And all the while their souls are rotten.
     Yeah, I know George Axelrod wrote a feel-good, marshmallow ending for the movie that is nothing like Capote's ending.  His kissy-face ending did not save the story for me.
     The devil in a little black dress is still the devil.

     Look, sin is attractive. If it were ugly, we would not do it. Sin looks good, smells good, tastes good, feels good. But step by step, sin reduces your options until you have no choices left and you are a prisoner of sin. 

     Breakfast at Tiffany's is the New York City version of what happened to Eliza Doolittle after My Fair Lady. (Even the trailer nauseates me. How can anyone think these characters are attractive?)

     Now I pray to see Shenandoah. Perhaps this time I shall get it right.

     YMMV.

2.8. Links:
IMDb review, Rotten Tomatoes review 

DTB Review: Open Cockpit

Arthur Gould Lee, Open Cockpit

Product Details

• File Size: 7363 KB
• Print Length: 224 pages
• Publisher: Grub Street Publishing (October 25, 2013)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc. (Kindle edition.)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00G6SBIN8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• ISBN-10: 1908117257 (Hardcover)
• ISBN-13: 978-1908117250
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 5.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews) 
• Price: hardcover $16.63 plus shipping (what I paid); Kindle $10.09

1. Short review:  (Amazon rating: 4 out of 5 stars -- I like it.)

2. Long review:

2.1. What I liked:  Easy-to-read narrative by a flyer in the Great War.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? 80% walk-in-the-park; 20% roller-coaster.

2.2. What I did not like: The photos. There are six pages of black-and-white photos in the book plus the back of the dust cover and the cover photo (see above). They are not integrated into the text. They are just there. The cover photo is of a Nieuport two-seater of 46 Squadron -- AGL's squadron -- jinking to avoid flak, but when 46 Squadron flew Nieuports,  AGL had not joined the squadron.
     The non-scalable font. I have gotten used to e-books. I like to choose the size of the font I read. Not having that ability is an annoyance.

2.3. Who I think is the audience: I don't know. Air combat history buffs -- like me -- prefer hard history like AGL's No Parachute. The general audience does not read air combat history. Open Cockpit lies in no-man's land between the hard air combat history buffs and the general audience.

2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read?  Yes. No worries.

2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Had I read only Open Cockpit, I would not buy another book by AGL. Based on No Parachute,  I may order Fly Past.

2.6. The plot in a nutshell:

     There is no plot. Instead, there are unconnected chapters. Why AGL bothered to number the chapters I don't know. For examples, Fourteen, Ground Strafer (an account of AGL's ground attacks in a Sopwith Camel); Fifteen, The Red Baron (AGL flew combat against Rittmeister Manfred von Richtofen himself in June 1917 in a Sopwith Pup); Sixteen, Evening Patrol (AGL recounts leading a late patrol of himself, another experienced pilot, and three air-combat virgins). Why are these chapters together? I don't know. 
     The upside is that you can read the book a chapter at a time, as I did, without losing the thread. There isn't any thread.

 2.7. Other:
     A couple of items: 1) Manfred von Richtofen and 2) The Great War.
     The first book I read on air combat in The Great War was Quentin Reynolds, They Fought for the Sky.

     QR painted MvR as the villain of air combat in the Great War. In QR's book, MvR came across as a cold killer.
     That informed my view of MvR for years. But as I read more, including MvR's own Der rote Kampfflieger, I saw a different picture. There are many photos of MvR still extant. When he was photographed with his squadron mates, he smiled. Invariably. And his men smiled. Evidently, he liked them and they liked him. And MvR sat and slumped and relaxed. When he was photographed with his superiors, MvR stood to attention without a smile. Evidently, he was not comfortable with high-ranking officers. There is one photo of him smiling with a general. He was arm-in-arm with a squadron mate and appeared to be singing the praises of his mate to the general.
     That MvR was a calculating killer is born out in his own words. He was calculating. All combat pilots are calculating. Those that live, anyway. MvR took the most favorable attack because he wanted to live. The one combat in which he violated all his own rules cost him his life.
     It is a matter of record that MvR showed courtesy and chivalry to captured British airmen, going so far as to entertain them in his own mess.
     AGL called MvR a fair and worthy foe. That he was.

     In the last chapter, AGL called attention to the impact of the Great War. In one battle -- the Battle of the Somme -- "more British lives were lost than in the whole of the Second World War." During the Battle of Verdun, the French lost ten times as many men as the United States lost in all of the Vietnam War.
     These numbers are the reason I think the Great War is headline news in the military history of the 20th century and all else is below the fold.
     The price given above is what I paid. YMMV.

2.8. Links: 

Arthur Gould Lee

No Parachute
Fly Past 

2.9. Buy the book: Open Cockpit

Keith's Too Easy Sweet Potato Mash

     Gotta brine and roast that turkey. Gotta bake cornbread a day before to make the dressing and bake a single cup of dressing without sage for Uncle Ollie 'cause he doesn't like sage. Gotta shred cabbage and carrot and -- oh, why not? -- daikon for an autumn coleslaw 'cause the green salad last year just did not do the job against that mountain of meat and gravy. Gotta make Mashed Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives again 'cause they went like a house afire last year. Gotta cook carrots and string beans and umpteen other side dishes.
     Gotta drive to the next county to find a mom-and-pop bakery to buy cherry and apple pies 'cause Aunt Agnes recognized last year's offerings. "In my day we didn't serve up store-bought pies to family. We made 'em from scratch." Yeah, well, scratch me up some room in an oven that's filled with a twenty-five pound bird and two baking pans of dressing, you old bitty.
     Gotta clean the house in what few spare moments you can find so that it looks more like something out of Southern Living and less like something out of Field & Stream. Yeah, good luck with that.

     Need an easy-to-do side dish for Thanksgiving? I give you --

Keith's Too Easy Sweet Potato Mash (TA-DA!)

sweet potatoes (How many? As many as you want.)
1 quart plain yogurt

Microwave the sweet potatoes until they are soft. Don't even have to peel 'em. Cook 'em in their jackets. Let 'em cool for 10 minutes after pulling 'em out of the microwave. Scoop the insides into a bowl or pan or something (it's Thanksgiving and every pot, pan, and cup is in use). Add an equal amount of plain yogurt. Plain. Not the parfait with the fruit on the bottom or that blended mess. Plain. Mash the mixture with a potato masher. Me? I use a potato ricer. Hint: twist as you mash.

Add salt and pepper to taste, but go easy on the salt. One pinch, maybe two if you do a big batch, goes a long way. You should not taste the salt. It acts as an  aromatic to enhance the flavors already there. Fresh cracked pepper works surprisingly well with the sweet potatoes and yogurt.

I have not tried it, but I think a jalapeño, seeded and minced fine, would add a pleasant kick to KTESPM.

YMMV.