PacMan: Behind the Scenes with Manny Pacquiao

By Gary Andrew Poole
Da Capo Press, $15.00, 280 pages

Go behind the scenes into the life of Manny Pacquiao, one of the world’s most famous boxers. Author Gary Andrew Poole captures the essence of Pacquiao in this biography, Pacman. As the only fighter to capture seven championship belts in seven different weight classes, Pacquiao continues to impress the world with his skills and personality. Learn about Pacquiao’s background growing up in the fourth poorest province in the Philippines and how he made his way to Manila and eventually to the United States. In 2001, the fighter joined up with well-known trainer, Freddie Roach and Pacquiao’s career rocketed to a whole new level.

From Rags to Riches

It seems like Pacquiao has done it all. He has been involved in acting, music recording and politics. In 2010, he was elected to the House of Representatives in the 15th Congress of the Philippines. Boxing fans and readers new to the sport will enjoy Poole’s writing. This updated edition has a new afterword by the author. It would be nice to see some photographs of the legend throughout his life, but otherwise the book is fascinating and well written.

Reviewed by Kathryn Franklin

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Frank Lloyd Wright: Essential Texts

Edited by Robert Twombly
Norton, $25.00, 303 pages

Few American architects are better known and more popular than Frank Lloyd Wright. He was a prolific writer who witnessed immense change throughout his life. Raised in the Victorian era, Wright sought to distance himself from the strict rules of architecture and create a new style for Americans. Frank Lloyd Wright: Essential Texts  is a collection of the architect’s writings edited by Robert Twombly, a scholarly expert on Wright’s life and work. Twombly has carefully selected texts that show Wright’s architectural philosophy, presented chronologically. Omitted are Wright’s political writings, which can be found elsewhere. Twombly’s introduction provides a nice overview to acquaint readers with his biography. He also writes a commentary before each text. Included are black and white photos of some of Wright’s best work. Readers will enjoy public lectures, essays, speeches, a booklet and a tribute to Wright’s mentor, Louis Sullivan. With almost five hundred buildings to his name, Wright will forever be remembered for his contributions to American architecture. Fans of design, the written word and Frank Lloyd Wright will appreciate all that this book has to offer.

Essential for Wright Fans

Reviewed by Kathryn Franklin

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Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake: A Memoir

By Anna Quindlen
Random House, $26.00, 182 pages

Anna Quindlen has a terrific life.  A successful marriage and great career, self-sufficient and well-adjusted children, plentiful and supportive friends, and an affluent upper middle class lifestyle make the transition from middle-aged to older if not exactly saluted at least not entirely unwelcome. In this book of essays, the former New York Times columnist and best-selling author observes and considers among other things aging parents and unexpected changes in memory and physical appearance, the importance of girlfriends and faith,  and the quantity of material objects accumulated during the course of a comfortable existence. Unlike fellow writer Nora Ephron, who has also written on similar topics but with more self-deprecating humor, Quindlen approaches her subject with a sincerity and earnestness that is, at times, difficult to swallow. There are too many pat statements like “We understand ourselves, our lives, retrospectively” and “Progress is always relative” and, finally, “I want to be able to walk through the house of my own life until my life is done.” Although there are certainly readers who will appreciate, and perhaps even find inspiration in these superficial musings, I am not among them.

Reviewed by Linda Fredericksen

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Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man: Guts, Glory, and Blood in the World’s Greatest Game

By Jay Atkinson
Thomas Dunne Books, $25.99, 325 pages

Rugby, a game originating at Rugby College in England, is a violent game played with very little or no pads against fellow players with the same goal of beating each other into submission. As a player for 17 years this reviewer is close to this subject. A saying amongst players is that if you want to go to the post game drink up you need to play in the match. When you get two or more players together the topic of what injuries have been inflicted upon their bodies always comes up. Author, Jay Atkinson is no different.

“Years of high-pitched competition have, of course, led to a few injuries: torn cartilage in my knee, broken cheekbone and eye sockets, a detached retina, cracked ribs, compressed disks in my neck, a ruptured hamstring, root canals in all my front teeth, torn ligaments in both ankles, and dozens of stitches, bruises and blisters.”

This is a story about a gifted player that has played rugby most of his life and toured the world in doing so. The rugby culture is one that binds players together as friends and teammates. Most matches are followed by a drink up where the two teams get together and the home provides a post game meal and a few beers. Friendships can last a lifetime. Players such as Mr. Atkinson can move between teams and play for clubs whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself. Players and non-players alike will enjoy his journeys as a writer, teacher and rugby player. For those that have little knowledge of rugby and how the game is played this book is a must read.

Reviewed by Brian Taylor

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Frederick Law Olmsted: Essential Texts

Edited by Robert Twombly
W.W. Norton & Company, $24.95, 344 pages

Frederick Law Olmsted is usually considered the best landscape architect of the United States. Often thought of as the first real landscape architect long before it was even considered a real discipline, he helped build a profession that many people still thought was unnecessary. Olmsted wandered European gardens and brought many ideas back to the United States. He designed Central Park in New York, a chain of parks in Boston and Washington D.C., and he helped design San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and the landscaping at the Chicago’s World Fair. Olmsted was instrumental in helping to create park systems in cities across the United States. He felt that parks should be a place to escape from the hectic world and should be in every major city.

His work and his writings have greatly influenced modern landscape architects. In Frederick Law Olmsted: Essential Texts, we get to hear from the man himself through this collection of his writings from various magazines and newspapers of his time. He relates his ideas and thoughts on gardens, the cities of Chicago and New York, the size of cities, and much more. His 19th century writing style may be a bit off for modern readers, but it is well worth the read.

Reviewed by Kevin Winter

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By Rocket to the Moon

By Otto Willi Gail
Apogee Books, $12.95, 216 pages

Otto Willi Gail’s book By Rocket to the Moon (1931) harkens back to the days of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet. Gail was a science journalist and writer who studied electro-engineering and physics and inspired by the science of his day sought to advocate for space travel. Gail sadly died in 1956 more than ten years before we put men on the moon. This book is one of several Gail’s science fiction book that he wrote about space travel which were translated from German.

Though mostly for kids, Gail created some intriguing characters like Michigan journalist Tommy Bighead, a castaway and engineer Hans Hardt. They are together on this exciting and sometimes profound journey to the moon. One will find here some big ideas of the day. The result is sometimes mystical, but inspiring. This is a fun trip not just for kids, but also for parents who will read it to children if necessary. One is also in for a treat from included black and white drawings by R. von Crunberg. Strangely one will find typos in the work, but the story is engaging anyway.

Reviewed by Ryder Miller

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Saving Wright: The Freeman House and the Preservation of Meaning, Materials, and Modernity

By Jeffrey M. Chusid
W.W. Norton Company, $55.00, 256 pages

Highly Technical Work about the Freeman House

Frank Lloyd Wright is considered to be the best architect in American history. More people know of him, and his homes, than any other major American architect. Many of his homes are iconic and well known, but what about the homes that are not so well known, that did not quite work? This is a book about the Freeman House in Los Angeles.   The Freeman House did not quite work out the way that Mr. Wright wanted. His design for textile blocks never quite worked. His ideas about windows and doors, and a mild California climate by Midwest standards never worked either. The roof constantly leaked.  Air got in between the blocks, many of the blocks rotted away because of the moisture during the winter months. Even after the house was completed the Freeman’s hired another architect to make repairs. USC now owns the house and they have been preserving the house, making upgrades so that house will still stand for a long time.

This book is highly technical after the first two chapters.  Going into great detail on the construction process. This technical detail will throw off the average reader.

Reviewed by Kevin Winter

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Sugarhouse: Turning the Neighborhood Crack House into Our Home Sweet Home

By Matthew Batt
Mariner Books, $14.95, 256 pages

Home ownership is a long cherished American dream, but in Sugarhouse, Matthew Batt illustrates what can happen when renters buy their first house with no idea what lies beneath the wall-to-wall shag carpeting or behind the knotty pine paneling that covers everything in the kitchen (yes, everything). “Sugarhouse” refers to the neighborhood in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Batt and his wife, Jenae, purchase their home, not to the fact that it was a crack house. This book is a hilarious look at why an inspection report is virtually useless to everyone but the guy who gets paid to write it, and what happens when you’re the only fixer for your fixer-upper.

Sugarhouse isn’t just a memoir about reclaiming a house and making it a home. The author also has to deal with the death of his beloved grandmother and a grandfather whose grieving process includes taking off for Las Vegas with his dead wife’s nurse and buying her daughter breast implants. The most surprising part of this memoir is that Batt’s head didn’t explode from everything being thrown at him. Instead, he handles life, renovations and contractors with attitude, and pretty much everything else that comes his way with humor and aplomb.

Reviewed by Catherine Gilmore

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The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

By Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence
Thomas Dunne Books, $16.99, 368 pages

In 1999, South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony received a very unusual request: would he adopt a herd of troubled elephants? The disturbed pachyderms had exhausted the patience of their owners and would be shot unless someone was willing to take them in. Lawrence was stunned. His new reserve Thula Thula was beset by poachers and ill equipped to deal with well-adjusted elephants, let alone a herd damaged by years of negative human interaction. How could he possibly say yes? Yet, to save them from death, Lawrence put aside his misgivings and accepted the herd. He knew that bringing the magnificent animals to Thula Thula would change their lives. What he did not expect was how greatly they would change his.

Exciting, poignant, funny and often heart wrenching The Elephant Whisperer offers an incredible look into the world of wild African elephants. Lawrence Anthony’s incredible experiences with these wildly intelligent creatures are presented with refreshing candor and allow the natural drama of the African bush to run readers through a full spectrum of emotions. A brutal and beautiful story.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Goss

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Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Short, Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of a Confederacy of Dunces

By Cory MacLauchlin
Da Capo Press, $26.00, 300 pages

For fans of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, author Cory MacLauchlin’s new book Butterfly in the Typewriter is a must read. MacLauchlin presents a well researched and thoughtful account of what little is really known about the life and death of Toole, a very private man. While in the Army, stationed at Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico, Toole wrote his future Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It became the second work of fiction to be awarded the honor posthumously. Through interviews with close friends and colleagues, MacLauchlin was able to penetrate the inner circle of Toole’s academic world to discover that dark secrets haunt even those who exhibit a very different public persona. Toole’s outrageous sense of humor and his impersonations of those around him kept his friends in stitches and crying with laughter. However, paranoia over the rejection of his manuscript consumed Toole in the final months of his life. This experience was obviously too much to overcome and lead to his early demise. MacLauchlin addresses lingering questions about Toole’s life, such as the intrigue surrounding his sexuality, the reasoning behind his final journey and his mysterious suicide. One wonders whether his upbringing by a domineering mother or the familial duty he felt to support his parents led to his lack of female relationship. Little is lacking in the Butterfly in the Typewriter. After all, it is not solely about the conception of A Confederacy of Dunces. Reading this book will make fans want to revisit Toole’s masterpiece.

Reviewed by Kathleen Godwin

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