Eisenhower: A Short Bio Of A President Long On Leadership Skills

My friend and former editor Frank Wilson offers a good review of Paul Johnson's Eisenhower: A Life for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

As recounted in Eisenhower: A Life, a new brief biography by the British writer Paul Johnson, the life of Dwight David Eisenhower was one of steady, uninterrupted success - five-star general, supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, 34th president of the United States, elected twice, both times by landslides, and still popular when he left office. Heck, just a year before he died, he hit a hole-in-one on the golf course.

Yet one feels sad when one finishes Johnson's book. Not for Eisenhower, but for the country he served so well.

A joke making the rounds as his presidency neared its end told of the Eisenhower doll: You wound it up and it did nothing for eight years. But we could use plenty of that nothing these days. As Johnson points out, Eisenhower gave America nearly "a decade of unexampled prosperity and calm. The country had emerged from the Korean War and the excesses of McCarthyism. Inflation was low. Budgets were in balance or with manageable deficits. The military-industrial complex was kept under control. . . . Thanks to Ike's fiscal restraint, prices remained stable and unemployment only a little more than 4 percent."

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

 

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20141014_Short_bio_of_president_long_on_leadership_skills.html

 

You can also visit Frank Wilson's popular literary blog Books, Inq via the below link:

 

http://booksinq.blogspot.com  

Note: As for keeping the "military-industrial complex" under control, one should bear in mind that it was the so-called military-industrial complex that has kept us safe all of these years, won the Cold War, put us in space, took us to the depths of the ocean, gave us the Internet and other technological advances, and even killed bin Laden.

"The Drop": Dennis Lehane's Latest Crime Thriller Is Understated And Perfectly Paced

Frank Wilson, my friend and former editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, offers a good review of Dennis Lehane's crime thriller The Drop in today's Inquirer.

Bob works at Cousin Marv's. Marv really is Bob's cousin, but the bar that bears Marv's name isn't really Marv's anymore. Controlling interest has fallen to some Chechen mobsters, who use the place to drop off the day's take from gambling, drugs, and prostitution for an overnight stay and a next-day pickup.

So when two guys in ski masks - one with a pistol, the other with a shotgun - rip the joint off, it's lucky for Bob and Marv that all they get is the money the bar made that night, about five grand.
Bob doesn't fail to notice the two guys could easily drop-kick him and Marv through the goalposts of life, but another thought distracts him: "I just want to raise the dog, he thought for some reason. I just want to teach it tricks and live more of this life."

... Quite a few threads go into this taut little thriller, which started out as a short story called "Animal Rescue." (The film version, which features James Gandolfini in his last role, is scheduled for release on Friday.)

What makes The Drop so good is not just the pacing, which is just about right, but the mood, which mirrors perfectly Bob's supremely understated personality.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/20140907_Lehane_s_latest__understated_and_perfectly_paced.html

You can also check out Frank Wilson's popular literary blog, Books, Inq, via the below link:

http://booksinq.blogspot.com

'Sworn Sword' A Book Of Action And Contemplation

My friend and former editor Frank Wilson reviewed James Aitcheson's Sworn Sword for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

You can read the reviw via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/20140105_Book_review___Sworn_Sword__a_book_of_action_and_contemplation.html

You can also read Frank Wilson's literary blog Books Inq via the below link:

http://booksinq.blogspot.com
 
 

Return To Elmoreland: A Look Back At The Great Crime Writer Elmore Leonard

I was saddened to hear that the great crime novelist Elmore Leonard passed away. He was 87.

 

I briefly met Elmore Leonard when he came to Philadelphia for a reading and answers questions from the audience at the Philadelphia Free Library.

I went to the event with my friend and former editor, Frank Wilson, the retired book editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who introduced Elmore Leonard to the audience that night.

You can read about that night with Elmore Leonard in my column via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/05/return-to-elmoreland-elmore-leonards.html

And you can visit Frank Wilson's popular literary blog Books, Inq via the below link:

http://booksinq.blogspot.com

Orders From Berlin: A Mystery Behind A Whodunit

Frank Wilson, my friend and former editor, wrote a good review of Simon Tolkien's thriller, Orders From Berlin for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Simon Tolkien's latest novel is the third he has written featuring English policeman William Trave.

In the first two, set mostly in the late 1950s, Trave is an inspector in the Oxford police department. This new one, though, takes place nearly 20 years earlier, during the London Blitz, and Trave is just another young cop, transferred from Oxford to London, and, in addition to being the assistant to Deputy Chief Inspector John Quaid, has weekend civil defense duties.

Quaid has his doubts about Trave:

He was a queer fish, this new assistant of his. . . . He was built like a boxer, with a square jaw and muscled arms, yet he was always reading poetry books in the canteen, looking as if he were a hundred miles away. As far as Quaid was concerned, Trave thought a damn sight too much for his own good, and it was a constant source of irritation the way he always had to have his own take on their cases. . . . He didn't seem to understand there was such a thing as a chain of command in the police force . . . and there'd been times when Quaid had seriously considered throwing the book at him.

In other words, Trave's most distinguishing characteristic - his refusal to be seduced by the obvious - is already in evidence.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/20130120_A_mystery_behind_whodunit.html

You can also visit Frank Wilson's popular literary blog, Books, Inq, via the below link:

http://booksinq.blogspot.com.com

Frank Wilson's Review Of Thomas Nagel's 'Mind & Cosmos'

My friend and former editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer Frank Wilson wrote a good review of Thomas Nagel's Mind & Cosmos.

You can read the review via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/20121223_Atheist_rebuts_neo-Darwinism.html

After his retirement from the Inquirer Frank Wilson went on to publish a popular literary blog called  Books, Inq.

You can visit Books, Inq via th below link:

http://booksinq.blogspot.com