Ian O’Connor. The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. as reviewed by Ted Odenwald Ian O’Connor is well known to Bergen County sports fans as a knowledgeable analyst, a lover of the game of baseball, and a biting critic of capitalistic baseball, the business […]
Michael Connelly. The Fifth Witness. New York: Little, Brown, and Company. 2011. as reviewed by Ted Odenwald When Mitchell Bondurant, a mortgage official for California’s Westland Bank, is viciously murdered, police investigators arrest Lisa Trammel, an activist who has been aggressively protesting and litigating against unfair practices in mortgage foreclosures. […]
Kenneth Slawenski. J.D. Salinger: A Life. New York: Random House, 2010. as reviewed by Ted Odenwald An unauthorized biography could very easily become the ultimate weapon of revenge upon an individual who had dedicated much of his adult life to protecting his privacy. Whether attempts to examine his life appeared […]
Michael Korda. Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010 As reviewed by Ted Odenwald There are more than 50 biographies of British war hero, T.E. Lawrence, ranging from total adulation to sneering skepticism and debunking, from political and military analysis to psychoanalytic dissection. […]
Alice Hoffman. The Red Garden. New York: Crown Publishers, 2011 as reviewed by Ted Odenwald Through a collection of interwoven stories about the citizenry of rustic Blackwell, Massachusetts, Alice Hoffman has earned a place of honor on the bookshelf near Saroyan’s The Human Comedy, Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, and Joyce’s Dubliners. […]
Laura Hillenbrand. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. New York: Random House, 2010. as reviewed by Ted Odenwald He was unbroken, though beaten, starved, tortured, humiliated, cast adrift, diseased, and imprisoned. U.S. Army Air Force Lieutenant Louie Zampirini endured hardships that nearly destroyed him physically, […]
