komet2020's reviews
1711 reviews

Reading The Secret Life of John le Carré confirms for me a quote I read recently that is ascribed to Jackie Kennedy: "I have three lives - public, private, and secret." So it was with David Cornwell (better known as John le Carré).

Adam Sisman had been enlisted by Cornwell a decade ago to write his biography. From the start, Cornwell had given Sisman complete access to his papers and people with whom Cornwell had friendships and relationships through the whole of his life. From reading this book, which details some of the ups and downs Sisman experienced with Cornwell while working on the biography (which was published in 2015), I was both amazed and surprised (if not wholly shocked) about the various affairs and dalliances Cornwell had with a variety of women through 2 marriages. 

I've been a fan of John le Carré's fiction since the mid-1980s and found him to be a fascinating, intriguing person from all the interviews I've heard him give either on TV or radio. Yet, in all that time, I gave little - if any - thought to his personal life. 

From reading this book, it becomes clear how much Cornwell took pains to hide his secret life from the public, though many of the characters in his novels are clear reflections of the women in that aspect of his life, as well as his knowledge of the spy world. Cornwell is the embodiment of the assertion the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson once made when he said that "I am a part of all that I have met." He at times tried to undermine Sisman as he worked on his biography when it seemed to him that Susman might shed light on this secret life he lived, which was rife with duplicity, deceit, hypocrisy, passion and tenderness. So, Sisman refrained from making plain this facet of Cornwell's life so long as he and his wife Jane were alive. But once both were gone (Cornwell died in December 2020, age 89, and Jane died 6 months later), Sisman felt free to publish what he had learned about Cornwell's secret life. 

I think for those of us who like to read biographies, we want to know, inasmuch as it is possible, the full arc of the person's life who is the subject of the biography. Otherwise, the biography is, at best, a half truth of what the subject of the biography was in life, warts and all. I appreciate learning about this side of Cornwell. This doesn't in any way detract from my deep admiration of his talents as a writer because his novels for me are so engaging, insightful, and a joy to read. 

This is a book I much enjoyed reading. It's a sure keeper, one that I will be eager to re-read in times to come. 

This book is a collection of news stories Ernest Hemingway wrote while serving as a correspondent for the Toronto Star during the spring of 1923 as part of his reportage of the French Occupation of Germany's Ruhr Valley. 

My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy is a life affirming, informative, and photo-rich book in which Clint Hill, a former Secret Service Agent who was in charge of the security detail for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy from 1961 to 1964.

Hill shares with the reader his impressions of Mrs. Kennedy and the people in her circle whom he encountered during the travels she took to France (a state visit with President Kennedy), India, Pakistan, the UK, Latin America (state visits to Venezuela and Mexico with President Kennedy), Italy, Morocco, Middleburg VA where Mrs. Kennedy could indulge her love for horses and horseback riding, to the home in Wexford VA which the Kennedys had rented as a weekend getaway from the White House, as well as the various places where Mrs. Kennedy travelled or spent time within the year following the assassination of President Kennedy.

Many of the photos in this book come from Hill's personal files (which he had not looked upon for decades) and had never before been published.

I very much enjoyed reading this book, which I found deeply moving. In reading My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy, I felt myself a part of these travels and what I have learned about Mrs. Kennedy and the way she carried herself and related to people, has deepened my respect and admiration for this woman who had to weather a lot of personal tragedy while in the public eye. 

JACKIE: Public, Private, Secret is an extensive, engaging, comprehensive, and at times entertaining biography of one of the 20th century's most famous women, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

Reading this book helped to add to my understanding of an intriguing, perplexing, and extraordinary woman who helped to shape, with her first husband, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a short-lived renaissance in a decade (the 1960s) that would also be marked by conflict and tragedy. She was like the phoenix, who arose reborn from the ashes left in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination, and lived out the remainder of her life not far from the view of the public, as fully as possible.

This is an easily readable book that also explores the varied and complex relationships that Jackie Onassis had with her family, associates, and friends, which gives the reader the full measure of a woman who, despite being a unique, public figure, managed to live a life with its store of secrets.

J. Randy Taraborrelli should be complimented for the depth and quality of research he brought to Jackie. There is a section in the book that lists all the various sources he used in preparing this biography. 

For anyone with a special interest in Jackie Onassis, I highly recommend this book. It shows, as Jackie's mother, Janet Auchincloss, once observed of her oldest child: "There's something about her that's so unique. No one I know looks like her, speaks like her, writes like her, or has a better idea of who she's expected to be in the world. She was much too young to be widowed when we lost Jack. It wasn't fair. But somehow, she goes ever forward despite a tragedy so great it would've destroyed most other women. Winston Churchill once said, 'It's the courage to continue that counts.' I believe that's true, and I have so much admiration for my daughter's courage." 

Das vergessene As: Der Jagdflieger Gerhard Barkhorn (The Forgotten Ace: The Fighter Pilot Gerhard Barkhorn) is a comprehensive account of Barkhorn's military career in the German Luftwaffe during World War II and his postwar service with the Bundesluftwaffe in West Germany, which spanned from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. The book has plenty of photos (black & white and color), maps, and illustrations encompassing Barkhorn's wartime and postwar military service. Any aviation and model airplane kit enthusiast will be thrilled with this book, which has text in both German and English.

Barkhorn (1919-1983) was one of only 2 fighter pilots in the history of warfare to be credited with shooting down at least 300 enemy aircraft in aerial combat. 

 

I first became aware of women journalists holding prominent positions in the national news broadcast media as a small child in the early 1970s. Before going to work, my Mom would have the TV turned on to The Today Show, which was hosted by Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs. Barbara Walters was the woman journalist in the national spotlight who made the biggest impression on me then, followed by Stephani Shelton (CBS), Ann Compton (ABC), Sylvia Chase (also with ABC), Lesley Stahl (CBS), and Jessica Savitch (NBC). Nancy Dickerson did not enter my consciousness then, though I may have seen her on TV without taking note of her presence.

On Her Trail helped so much to give me a full and comprehensive view of the arc of Nancy Dickerson's life, both as a pioneering journalist and to a smaller extent --- courtesy of the author, who provided useful and valuable insights throughout the book into the woman he knew while growing up (and by his own admission, not always valuing his mother) and later as a young journalist himself when their relationship became closer, shortly before Dickerson's death --- her self apart from journalism in some of its complexities.

Among Nancy Dickerson's achievements as a pioneering woman journalist were: the first woman TV journalist (with CBS) to cover first-hand a national political convention (the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles) and 2 presidential inaugurations (JFK in 1961 and LBJ in 1965), as well as providing coverage in real time of the March on Washington and President Kennedy's assassination (from the time Kennedy's body and a grieving Mrs. Kennedy returned to Washington -- along with the newly sworn-in President, Lyndon Johnson, and his wife -- aboard Air Force One hours after the tragedy that had taken place in Dallas earlier that day: November 22, 1963) and subsequent state funeral.

John Dickerson provides what is perhaps an apt summation of his mother --- "The full life of Nancy Dickerson can withstand the scrutiny. To look at the frailty, tenderness, nastiness, vanity, generosity, love, pride and humility all in proper proportion still yields a very impressive woman, and a more genuine one. Mom loved image and glamour and insinuation, but she also liked to know a true thing when she could find it. She would understand my need to search for the story because she had that same need. I went looking for my mother's story and found a woman who was compelled to find stories and tell them too."

For anyone who wants to gain a understanding of the struggles experienced by women to gain acceptance and respect as journalists in the U.S. national news broadcast media from the 1950s to the 1970s and beyond, I highly recommend reading On Her Trail and learning about Nancy Dickerson, who was a rather remarkable person. 

In the main, Bf 109 JABO UNITS IN THE WEST relates the history of the use of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter as a Jagdbomber (fighter-bomber) from 1940 (during the Battle of Britain in which it was used as a 'nuisance raider') to its later deployment during 1941-42 in low altitude hit and run raids against British coastal shipping and military targets in Southeast England. 

By July 1942, the Bf 109 would be replaced as a fighter-bomber by the Focke Wulf FW 190, which was more ideally suited for the role, owing to its speed and ability to take enormous punishment and still bring its pilot home.

Like all books in the Osprey Series, this book is rich in illustrations and photos highlighting the Bf 109 in its role as a fighter-bomber in Western Europe between 1940 and 1942. 

 

ONE FIGHTER PILOT'S WAR is an account the author wrote in November 1999 for his family of his service during World War II as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Force (USAAF). Following Walcott's death in 2003, his son J. Andrew Walcott had it edited and published in 2015. 

John W. Walcott had been in his senior year at the University of Michigan studying engineering when he enlisted in the USAAF in 1942. He was officially called up in February 1943, underwent flight training in PA and TX, won his wings in April 1944, and was assigned to the 31st Fighter Group in Italy during the late summer of 1944. The 31st flew P-51 Mustangs, which Walcott only learned to fly with said unit before taking part in his first combat mission over Hungary, where he was part of a strafing attack on a block of locomotives. He would fly 39 combat missions up to April 17, 1945. 

The parts of the book describing the stages of Walcott's flight training were very revealing, as was Walcott's conveying to the reader the everyday life of an USAAF aviation cadet who earned his wings and became a fighter pilot with a front-line fighter group during the latter stages of World War II in Europe. The book also has photos interspersed throughout to give the reader a palpable tangibility of the experiences of a fighter pilot, who, though not an 'ace', faithfully served his country to the best of his ability, hazarding his life every time he took to the skies. 

 

 

FROM SPITFIRES TO VAMPIRES AND BEYOND: A Kiwi Ace's RAF Journey is derived from a memoir Owen Hardy (1921-2018) had written in 2004 for his family in which he spoke with considerable candidness about his World War II experiences as a fighter pilot flying Spitfires and his subsequent service in the RAF postwar, which turned out to be a bit of mixed blessing for Hardy.

This book was edited by Air Marshal G.A. 'Black' Robertson (RAF retired) whose father had flown with Hardy during the war. What was remarkable about the book is how much, as a reader, I got a real, tangible sense of Hardy himself. His love for flying - going back to his childhood in New Zealand - shines through. Then he takes the reader through his flight training -- from New Zealand to Canada (for advanced training), and finally the UK, where he had his first flight in the Supermarine Spitfire, a plane he flew in combat (over Europe and North Africa) between 1942 and 1945.

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Hardy shamefully admits that "there was a great sadness and an empty feeling inside me. There was nothing ahead now, no certainty, no future except the unknown. A way of life had suddenly ended; a way in which, dare it be said, I'd enjoyed. It had become a drug, bringing excitement, creating expectation,. The prospect of civilian life was horrifying. The misery of my situation was destroying every hope, all interest. Unlike others, there was no hilarity or celebration for me on the cessation of hostilities."

The first 5 years of peacetime service in the RAF saw Hardy in command of a fighter squadron that was posted to Germany, flying the DeHavilland Vampire, one of Britain's first jet fighters. He also led an aerobatic team flying Vampires in Europe, where he enjoyed considerable success. But his time as a full time fighter pilot was numbered. For the remaining 16 years of his stint in the RAF, Hardy would be assigned to a variety of staff jobs in which airmen of his experience, he found, were often undervalued and passed over for promotion for some of the flimsiest, nonsensical reasons.

From Spitfires to Vampires and Beyond is a fascinating story of historical value, given that the number of World War II veterans still living is rapidly shrinking. It's smartly edited, with footnotes to give the reader a clearer understanding of some of the personalities and events Hardy describes, and contains photos from Hardy's RAF service. Simply put, this book is a keeper. 

 

Last May (2023), I went to the local main library - which is named for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - to see Jonathan Eig speak about his new biography of Dr. King, KING: A Life. It is the first biography on the life of Dr. King in 40 years. As I recall, it was a very interesting, and at times, enlightening talk, which showed to some extent the degree of research Eig carried out on his subject, as well as the fact that Eig had interviewed personally many of the few surviving veterans of the Civil Rights Movement who had worked personally with Dr. King and known him very well.

For all its 669 pages, this biography reveals Dr. King in all his complexity, his greatness, his unwavering dedication to social, racial and economic justice, the challenges he faced as a public figure and in his personal life (inclusive of his private indiscretions and the attempts of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to impugn King and destroy his credibility), his relationships with many of the key people in the Civil Rights Movement and with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and the hit his reputation suffered among the nation's leaders and general public when he spoke out publicly against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967 - one year to the day before his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone in support of striking sanitation workers there (overwhelmingly African American) with their grievances against the local government- and to initiate what he intended to be a Poor People's Campaign later in the year in Washington DC to press the federal government to enact into law legislation aimed at helping to bring about much needed economic reforms on behalf of the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised throughout the U.S.

Eig points out, as a summation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the following ---

"Our simplified celebration of King comes at a cost. It saps the strength of his philosophical and intellectual contributions. It undercuts his power to inspire change. Even after Americans elected a Black man as president and after that president, Barack Obama, placed a bust of King in the Oval Office, the nation remains racked with racism, ethno-nationalism, cultural division, residential and educational segregation, economic inequality, violence, and a fading sense of hope that government or anyone, will ever fix those problems.

"Where do we go from here? In spite of the way America treated him, King still had faith when he asked that question. Today, his words might help us make our way through these troubled times, but only if we embrace the complicated King, the flawed King, the human King, the radical King; only if we see and hear him clearly again, as America saw and heard him once before."

Indeed.