Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman

Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, though a quality show, was a bit too sciencey for me (though my use of the word “sciencey” is a good indicator of my scientific aptitude). His show, which premiered about a year ago on the Science Channel, explores scientific questions seemingly without answers. This review is of the show’s first episode: “Is there a Creator?”

Freeman doesn’t pull any punches, jumping right in with a question that could easily stir up some controversy; after all, religion and science are often thought of as opposites. The show, with narration by Freeman of course, alternates between interviews with scientists and scientific explanation (complete with animated diagrams, like those movies we’d watch in science class). Though the scientists interviewed don’t come out with anything conclusive (can you imagine the headlines: “Science TV show proves the existence of God” or, conversely “‘There is no God!’ shouts Freeman”), both sides seemed to be equally represented.

Unfortunately, I was never really drawn into the show. Maybe it was because I watched it at the end of a long day and didn’t really feel like exercising my mind anymore. Maybe it was because I couldn’t consider the idea that the creator is a computer programmer and we’re in a virtual world like the Sims. Maybe it was because I was distracted by Freeman pronouncing the last syllable of creator as “tore” rather than “ter.” However, those are all personal issues with the show. As I watched it, even though I wasn’t too interested, I continually thought about how much my dad and my grandpa (Papa, I’m talking about you!) would have enjoyed it. I’m just not the ideal audience.

Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman gets a 3/5.

Watch Jon Stewart's Interview with Morgan Freeman

Buy the Season 1 DVD

The Switch

I was under the impression that The Switch was aiming to be an uproarious romantic comedy—taking the comedic angle more than the romantic one—and, truth be told, I was over the movie before it even started. However, The Switch had a lot more heart than most rom-coms, and, in fact, almost doesn't belong to be classified that way. And, though I don’t plan on watching it again, The Switch was not a bad movie-- certainly better than I expected.

Wally (Jason Bateman) and Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) are best friends who drift apart after Kassie has a son via sperm donor and moves away. What Wally and Kassie don’t realize is that Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) is actually their son together, since drunken Wally accidentally dumped Kassie’s donor sperm and replaced it with his own. When Kassie and Sebastian move back to New York and into Wally’s life, Wally realizes both that Sebastian is his son, and that he has feelings for Kallie, and is unsure what to do about either.

Though the trailers play up the relationship between Wally and Kassie, the one that the story really follows is that between Wally and Sebastian—who, can I say, is absolutely adorable. I want Robinson to be every movie's “cute kid.” Though it certainly got too cornball on more than one occasion, Wally’s and Sebastian’s interactions seemed genuine, and—though I am loathe to admit it—had me teared up on one occasion. And Bateman certainly had more chemistry with Robinson than he did with Aniston.

The romance plotline, with Kassie’s sperm donor Roland (Patrick Wilson) coming in to complete the love triangle, could have been more developed and less cliché. Though I didn’t mind it taking a back seat to Sebastian’s story, it was what kept The Switch from being a good movie. Still worth the watch, though, with a 3/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Jennifer Aniston. (It is the most awkward interview I have ever seen on the Daily Show)

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Jason Bateman

(Yes, this movie was promoted twice—a two for one deal for me!)

Buy the DVD

Hope you all had a Happy 4th-- that's why this review is one day late!

Fair Game

Valerie Plame’s identity was leaked around the time when I started paying attention to politics and the news, and as the trial also coincided with a time I had to bring in current event articles to my government class, I came into the movie version of her life with some background knowledge, but was ready to get a story linking it all together. Fair Game, starring Naomi Watts as Plame and Sean Penn as her husband Joe Wilson, gave me the story I wanted.

Though it begins with a few of Plame’s earlier CIA missions, Fair Game focuses almost entirely on the circumstances leading to her leaked identity and the aftermath of the situation, especially the effects it has on the relationship between Plame and Wilson.

Watts and Penn both did an excellent job portraying their characters—I thought of them as Valerie and Joe rather than Naomi and Sean— motivations were clear, and neither over-acted.

Fair Game kept me interested, but still felt more like a movie designed to educate, something you would see on the History channel or in a school government class, rather than a movie you would watch for entertainment. That being said, it gets a 3/5 (but almost gets a 4).

I’m sorry this review is so short—I watched the movie about 3 weeks ago, and forgot to write the review until now (having a job is a really wonderful thing, but it also limits my free time). I also apologize that there was no new update last week; I was on vacation.

Watch Naomi Watt's interview with Jon Stewart

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The Town

I watched Ben Affleck’s movie The Town more than a week ago, but I’ve had troubles sitting down to write the review. After finishing the movie, I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it, and, over time, no more clarity has been found.

The Town takes place in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood, a location rife with crime, particularly bank and armored truck robberies. Doug (Affleck) and a group of his buddies make their living by performing these robberies, and the movie opens will the group robbing a bank managed by Claire (Rebecca Hall). Though it’s a little rocky, the guys eventually end up pulling off the robbery, but not without killing a guard and taking Claire as an incredibly temporary hostage. However, more problems are to come. This robbery causes FBI Agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) to begin to seek out the guys. Additionally, Claire lives in the same neighborhood as Doug and when the two meet at a Laundromat, they begin to fall in love (Doug recognizes Claire, she does not recognize him).

This relationship was the thing that bothered me about The Town. I couldn’t understand how Doug would allow himself to spend enough time with Claire to fall for her, and I also didn’t get how they fell in love so fast. I know The Town is an action movie, and wasting time on scenes developing a romantic relationship is probably not what the audience wants, but it was this (and, oddly enough, not the robberies and violence) that kept the movie from being believable to me.

The Town is without a doubt an action movie (though one with a bit more depth than the typical action fare, I assume). As this blog has already made clear, action movies are not my favorite. However, The Town was the first action movie I’ve seen for this project where the car-chases and gunfights didn’t seem gratuitous. Though they still aren’t things I particularly enjoy watching, they fit within the story and didn’t distract me.

I appreciated that The Town did not have distinct lines drawn between good and bad characters. Typically, you’d be led to root for either the FBI agent or the robbers, but The Town did no such leading. Sure, the robbers were wrong to steal and kill, but the movie showed the personalities behind their tough-guy characters and explained how they got in that situation. Conversely, it was clear that Agent Frawley was just doing his job—he wasn’t crooked, he wasn’t malicious. I liked that characters weren’t cut and dry and that I was able to choose for myself who to support. However, instead of picking a side, I found myself not cheering for either one; I just didn’t care.

The Town gets a 3/5. It’s worth watching, but not worth buying.

Watch Jon Stewart interview Ben Affleck

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And I’d like to thank Anna at the Chelsea District Library for taking my new profile picture (finally, it’s Daily Shill relevant) and writing about the Shill in the library’s e-newsletter!

The Ghosts of Cannae

There is an endless list of things on which I am not an expert. Ancient History is one of them. BUT, my college roommate, Theresa (the one who introduced me to the Daily Show) is an expert. (Okay, maybe not technically an expert, but she was a Classics major and sure knows a whole lot about it). When Robert O'Connell's book The Ghosts of Cannae was promoted on the show, Theresa offered to read and review it for me. There was an internal battle: If Theresa reads this one, I won't be able to say I read everything promoted in 2010 versus If Theresa reads this one, I won't have to read it.

The latter won out, so, without further ado, here's Theresa Tejada, The Daily Shill's Senior Classics Correspondent.

Emily and I have been watching The Daily Show together for years. In fact, our communal love of Jon Stewart’s wit and insight was one of the first things that bonded us two freshman college roommates together. When Emily told me about her ambitious project to review every book, every movie, and every other type of entertainment peddled on The Daily Show, I wanted to get involved somehow. Robert O’Connell’s appearance on the show over the summer gave me my opportunity. As a Classical Studies major, The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic got me pumped. Ancient history doesn’t make it into popular culture often, and when it does, it’s often pretty inaccurate or an embarrassment. So thank you, Jon Stewart, for bringing some credibility to the field.

I believe that The Ghosts of Cannae would be an interesting read to anyone. While Cannae might be a foreign term to most people, the main character is not. Hannibal, the famed general who notoriously trekked his troops and a legion of elephants over the Alps, is the protagonist of the story (and the namesake of my doctor!). Hannibal, the Carthaginian who reportedly took a solemn vow at a young age that Rome was his mortal enemy, shook the Roman Republic to its core and reportedly killed 48,000 soldiers at deadly battle at Cannae. This devastating loss challenged Roman values, character, and government and set to stage to fundamentally change the structure of its civilization.

I appreciate that O’Connell introduces and critiques his ancient historians early on in Chapter 1. History didn’t serve the same purpose to the Romans and to Livy and Suetonius (our two main sources on the Second Punic War). O’Connell also challenges and elucidates modern classicists, but his book doesn’t read like a boring scholarly journal. It is easy to tell that O’Connell is a historian (who uses the word “abattoir” and what does it mean?) and sometimes the complex military maneuvers are a little boring, especially if that’s not your forte. But he also writes in a fun, humorous and accessible style. My favorite passage is probably: “of course, Alexander really was a Greek, seemed convinced of his divinity, and was probably crazy.”

Sometimes, his fascination borders on Orientalism, especially towards the Carthaginians (modern Tunisia), of whom the archeological record is less complete and viewed through the eyes of the Romans. I wonder what The Ghosts of Cannae would be like if O’Connell had written it a year or two later, when he had time to digest the recently discovered child burials outside of Carthage suggesting that the child sacrifices how frequently touted throughout the book was a myth (http://www.archaeology.org/1101/topten/tunisia.html).

The first few chapters were a little rough to get through. I thought that his flash-forwards were confusing and a little heavy on the military strategy for my taste. He has a daunting task of succinctly introducing the complex civilizations of Carthage and Rome to explain what aspects of their culture were instrumental in affecting the outcomes of the Second Punic War. His description of the Roman cursus honorum, the civic positions in Roman government, might be the most efficient explanation I have ever read or heard. Once O’Connell reaches Cannae, the narrative hits its stride and becomes much more enjoyable.

Overall, I give The Ghosts of Cannae a 3/5. I took issue with some of O’Connell’s assertions and was hoping for a longer and more thorough explanation of why this battle was a game-changer in the history of the world instead of his timid six-page epilogue. On the other hand, I appreciated his passion for the subject that I also dearly love and it would have made my hour-long presentation on Scipio Africanus for Junior Seminar for Classics Majors much easier. I hope everyone who reads it enjoys it.

Watch Jon Stewart's interview with Robert O'Connell

Buy the Book

Gasland

Gasland, the HBO documentary written and directed by Josh Fox, presents an absolutely appalling look at the consequences of “fracking,” a hydraulic drilling process that extracts natural gas from the ground.

Fox gained interest in the consequences of fracking when he was offered thousands of dollars to allow fracking on his land. Fox declined the money and went on a quest to learn how fracking has affects the land and the people who live on it, focusing specifically on the water quality.

The effects are devastating, and seemingly undeniable consequences of the fracking process (though the companies who perform this process steadfastly refuse blame). Fox interviews countless people forced to buy water because fracking has ruined their source, people suffering from medical issues due to consuming contaminents released during the fracking process, and people who are able to set their water on fire. Yes, set their water on fire. Though it’s exciting to see a flame shooting out of a faucet, it’s terrifying to think that people are left to drink that water.

Though watching Gasland exhausted and depressed me, I’m glad to have seen it and learned about the fracking process—I hope that it brings attention to the issue and helps to decrease the occurrences of fracking. The documentary dragged a bit toward the end, perhaps because it deals with such a heavy subject. I’m giving it a 3/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Josh Fox

Buy the DVD

I hope to have a second review for this week—I’ve finally finished Jimmy Carter’s tome White House Diaries.

Cyrus

It’s been almost a week since I saw Cyrus, and I’m still not sure exactly what I think of it. Like most indie films, this sort-of comedy, sort-of drama starring John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, and Jonah Hill, presents interesting, funny characters, but also seems to end about 15 minutes before the storyline does (which can be frustrating).

The premise: John (Reilly) is not doing so hot with his life until he meets Molly (Tomei) and really falls for her. She’s crazy about him too, but it’s complicated by Cyrus (Hill), her grown son who she is incredibly (kind of creepily) close to. Cyrus, upset that there’s another man in his mother’s life, pretends to accept John while secretly attempting to undermine him.

Generally, the movie was pretty funny, and Reilly, Tomei, and Hill were all fine actors, but something didn’t make it there for me. Perhaps it was the lack of closure, but, in addition to that, the movie was kind of predictable. I don’t mind a predictable comedy, but since Cyrus was obviously trying to be something more, I wanted a surprise or two.

Don’t get me wrong; Cyrus is still worth watching if the concept intrigues you. I’m giving it a 3/5. It employed a neat technique of putting a sort-of montage of scenes over a single scene’s dialogue, to indicate time passing and relationships changing. And it did a super job of making the relationship between Cyrus and Molly weird, but not too creepy. And, it did make me laugh out loud, more than once. But it definitely remains a 3 movie.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with John C. Reilly

Buy the DVD


Sorry if this review is a little more casual and scattered than usual. Just as I was about to go to bed last night, I remembered that I had yet to write my review for today—and I did not have time to write one in the morning. Tomorrow’s will be better, I swear.

Countdown to Lockdown

There are many reasons that I am not the type of person that Mick Foley’s book Countdown to Lockdown: A Hardcore Journal was written for. (Take, for example, the fact that my inner English major died a bit when I ended that sentence with a preposition rather than writing “for whom the book was written). However, the biggest bit of evidence that I am not Foley’s ideal audience is that I am not a fan of professional wrestling. I will admit, I have never seen a wrestling match (Is that even the correct terminology? I don’t even know that!), but I somehow doubt exposure to pro wrestling would make a fan out of me. In his interview with Jon Stewart, though, Mick Foley seemed like a pretty good guy—how smitten he was with Tori Amos was rather endearing. And, surely, reading a memoir of a professional wrestler would be easier than reading yet another book on the economy. I wasn’t dreading the book when I picked it up.

And it didn’t start off so badly, either. Foley was pretty funny, and he understood that his readers might have varying interests regarding wrestling—he began each chapter with a “wrestlemeter,” rating how much the chapter dealt with the sport (is sport the correct classification?) so that fans could skip chapters that didn’t fit their interest. Of course, as someone who was reviewing the book, I didn’t let myself skip any chapters.

As Countdown to Lockdown went on, though, I began to get annoyed with Foley. Even though he acknowledged early on that he’s been accused of being a name-dropper, that didn’t stop his name dropping tendency from irritating me after awhile. Foley seemed to alternate between self-importance and self-deprecation, neither of which I found particularly endearing. I never cared about (or fully understood) the wrestling stories, so the only thing that was going to make this book work for me was a liking for Foley (since the writing, though better than what you might expect from a professional wrestler, was nothing special).

But just as I was mentally lowering my rating for Countdown to Lockdown, Foley brought the book home with a few well-written, intellectually engaging chapters dealing with the premature deaths of wrestlers and substance abuse. I think the chapter on steroid use/abuse particularly deserves to stand alone and engage conversation on the morals and legality of performance enhancing substances.

So, in the end, I’m giving Countdown to Lockdown a 3/5. If you’re a professional wrestling fan, you’ll probably love it, and if, like me, you’re not, I recommend you pick and choose chapters for the best experience.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Mick Foley

Buy the Book

As a bonus, return to the Daily Shill later this week (probably tomorrow, but maybe on Thursday) for a review of the other book Mick Foley promotes in his interview: Samantha Bee’s I Know I Am, But What Are You?

Last Call

Daniel Okrent’s interview promoting his book Last Call was one of the ones that made me say, “I’m so glad I have to read this book!” I find the 1920s a fascinating time period, and prohibition is an exciting topic. Plus, I’ve been enjoying watching HBO’s new series Boardwalk Empire, which centers on prohibition, and my turn with the library’s copy of Last Call arrived just a few episodes into the show. I was eager to begin reading and get some more background information, which would surely just add to my enjoyment of the show. However, maybe because I’d hyped up the book, Last Call fell a bit flat.

Don’t get me wrong, Okrent is a fine historian and decent writer, and Last Call is a thorough exploration of the Prohibition period. Beginning with the initial campaign for prohibition, Okrent follows with the ratification of the 18th Amendment, the period of prohibition, and ends with the amendment’s repeal.

Last Call is filled with details about the people and events surrounding prohibition. And though I found many of these details to be, well, kind of boring, the ones Okrent hid in footnotes were delightful. It seems as though every so often he came across a “fun fact” in the course of his research that had little to do with prohibition; however, the stories were just too good not to share, so he added them in a footnote. I loved that.

But, the thing is, I expected Last Call to be a little more exciting—the “sexier” part of prohibition, if you will. I wanted less politics and more parties, less Al Smith and more Al Capone. Still and all, Last Call was a decent read and I’m giving it a 3/5. If you’re just reading it for fun, though, I recommend skimming (or skipping) the first section. Or, you know, you could just watch Boardwalk Empire instead.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Daniel Okrent (It's quite interesting!)

Buy the book

The White House Doctor

Connie Mariano’s book The White House Doctor: My Patients Were Presidents is an easy, interesting read. Mariano writes candidly about her time working in the white house under both the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, sharing anecdotal incidents and the path she took to get to her position.

Generally, I was pleased with Mariano’s writing; her stories were engaging, and she wrote them with a storyteller’s – rather than an academic’s – tone. She delicately wrote about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, neither ignoring nor sensationalizing it. Though I would’ve like the book to have a more chronological organization (Mariano sorted chapters by subject matter rather than time), I didn’t find it difficult to follow. Also, the pictures in The White House Doctor were printed throughout the book, rather than in a middle insert like they are in most books. Though this is a small touch, I found it to be infinitely better; while looking at the pictures, I knew their context.

In her book, Mariano lightly touches on the stresses her job put on her family life. Though this was interesting, it fit awkwardly into the book. I don’t think it should’ve been removed, but perhaps it could’ve been better distributed over the book (it was all in the last two chapters).

I don’t have much else to say about The White House Doctor. If it sounds like the kind of book you might like, it’s worth reading; if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t recommend it to you. With that in mind, it gets a 3/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Connie Mariano

Buy the book.

Additionally, I'd like to thank Kate who keeps up a list of the books and movies from The Daily Show at www.squidoo.com. (Here is a link to her list, which is a lot prettier than the one I update). I've used Kate's list a lot this year, particularly when I've had to miss a week of shows due to vacation (or when I forget to update my own list). Plus, Kate was kind enough to post a link to this blog on her page! So thanks, Kate!

The Big Short

As you may have already realized, I’m tired of reading books about the economy. Because of that, I know I didn’t approach Michael Lewis’s book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, with the most open mind, and therefore, this may not be the fairest of reviews. Another thing not working in The Big Short’s favor is that I listened to the audio version of the book, and the narrator wasn’t super. The waitlist on the book was very long, but no one had checked out the book on CD, so I opted for that. One good thing came out of the long waitlist, though, and so I will further delay beginning this review to tell you the story.

Early this summer, I was working behind the circ desk at the Chelsea District Library, and a patron came to pick up a book he had on hold. The book happened to be The Big Short, so I mentioned that I was on the waitlist for that book as well.
A few days later, this gentleman returned to the library and said, “I’ve read about 50 pages of Lewis’s book, and boy is it a good one. Have you read the one Harry Markopolos just wrote?”
Sure enough, I had just picked up No One Would Listen that morning. “I just started it.”
“Well, if you like Harry, you’ll like this one. They’re both ruthless.”
Now, each time this man comes into the library, he’ll tell me about the latest book he’s reading about the economy and gives me his opinion on whether it’s worth reading. Even though I know I’ll probably never read one of the books he tells me about, I love having those interactions over the circulation desk. Because of my Daily Shill mission, I’m connecting with a patron that I wouldn’t have otherwise. And I’m glad for that.

And now, for the review.

The Big Short isn’t as bad as I may have made it sound. In it, he follows the financial moves of the handful of men who realized that the CDO market was doomed to fail. These investors and hedge fund managers purchased cheap insurance on these CDOs and ended up making tons of money.

Lewis candidly writes about these men. His stories of them are filled with direct quotes, and he doesn’t fill the book with technical talk that only economists could understand. I liked how he focuses on particular investors, which gives the reader characters to follow throughout the book. If it were the first book I’d read on the economic slump of 2008, I bet I’d have remained interested. Instead, though, I found myself losing focus. Rather than listening to the book over a short time span, I ended up listening to a disc here and there over the past 3 months.

But, even though it’s not going to be a fair one, I need to give The Big Short a rating. It gets a 3/5 because even though it bored me, I could see its merits. If you want to read a book about the economy, it’s probably a good choice.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Michael Lewis

Buy the Book

The Other Guys

I’m going to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to like The Other Guys. As much as I love Will Ferrell, the previews made it look stupid, and not in a good way. I was pleasantly surprised last week, then, when my family saw The Other Guys and realized it was quite funny.

The premise: Partners Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) are detectives with the NYPD who, rather than going out and getting bad guys, are stuck in the office doing paperwork. Gamble loves this lifestyle; Hoitz hates it. He also hates Gamble. But after the deaths of the department’s star crime-fighters (the perfectly-cast Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson), Hoitz sees an opening and manages to get Gamble to join him in investigating a jewelry heist. Of course, everything is not what it seems, and the two become wrapped up in a corporate fraud case.

Ferrell, as to be expected, is a delight – practically everything out of the man’s mouth makes me laugh. And Wahlberg stood his own, not only as a straight-man, but also making jokes of his own.

One of the things I appreciated most about The Other Guys was that its jokes were not directed to a particular demographic: there were broad laugh-lines, silliness, and smart jokes. The lines that made my family laugh were different than the ones that made the people behind us laugh, but we all found the movie funny.

Though The Other Guys is clearly meant to be a comedy about action movies, rather than an action movie itself, it doesn’t let that stop it from having plenty of car chases, fights, and explosions. The movie lost me a bit in those sections – I would choose comedy over action in a heartbeat – but I can see why others would enjoy it.

Though I would never describe The Other Guys as a political movie, it does comment on the irresponsibility of Wall Street. Within the movie are a few digs at the SEC, and over the closing credits, graphics illustrate statistics of the misuse of bailout money and the disparity between CEOs and other workers. I never would have guessed that The Other Guys would remind me so much of some of the economy-centered books that I’ve read this year.

In the end, I’m giving The Other Guys a 3/5 (though it’s on the higher end of the “3-scale”). It’s worth seeing once, but not more than that.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Will Ferrell

Within Our Reach

Rosalynn Carter’s latest book, Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis is an easy one to get through. It’s not long, the print is big, the spacing is wide, and it is incredibly clear. However, it also reads like a high school term paper (albeit a very well written one).

Within our Reach is separated into eight chapters, each dealing with a specific topic within the mental health field, such as the stigma associated with mental illnesses and children with mental disorders. Each chapter is further divided into multiple subsections, and it is this fragmentation, combined with the “list-several-statistics-and-then-an-example” formula, that made me think of term papers.

Carter (along with her co-authors Susan K. Golant and Kathryn E. Cade) succeeds in relating the problems associated with America’s perception and handling of those with mental illnesses. However, it does not give a good indication of what the reader can do to help solve the problem. I can see how Within Our Reach could help to change the opinion of someone prejudiced against those with mental illnesses, but it seems unlikely that those people would pick up this book.

I give Within Our Reach a 3/5. Though I would’ve liked more from the book as far as solutions go, it does an adequate job of educating its readers.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Rosalynn Carter

Buy the Book.

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted, and I’m sorry about that. I’ve been in a bit of a rut as far as the Daily Shill goes. It’s been difficult for me to focus my reading solely on the books I need to review for this blog.

I have a wonderful job working at the circulation desk at the Chelsea District Library, where I see hundreds (maybe thousands? I have a terrible concept of numbers) of books each day as they are checked out and returned. When I check in books, I am tempted to take many of them home and read them myself. Though I’ve done a decent job of resisting, it’s not a 100% success rate. And so my reviews have been coming in a little slower, but I promise to get back on track this month.

No One Would Listen (Day of Reviews, Post 2)

Harry Markopolos, the man who warned the SEC that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme almost a decade before Madoff turned himself in, has written a book about the process entitled No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller.

In No One Would Listen, Markopolos shares a truly unbelievable situation. This guy figured out that Madoff was stealing billions from investors, but despite his many efforts, he could not get the SEC to investigate the case. Even after reading the book, I still don’t understand how the SEC managed to ignore the case. Markopolos did all the work, and they still didn’t do anything.

Markopolos’s personality is not at all removed from his book. He is blunt, angry, and bitter. Boy is he bitter. Though his points are justified, I got tired of the “SEC sucks” talk, even though I completely agree that they do suck. Markopolos ends up coming off as a bit of a jackass. In the epilogue, though, he shares his 16-point plan for fixing the SEC, and seems a much more reasonable guy. Most of his points make sense, and I do hope the government implements them.

It was a struggle for me to get through No One Would Listen, and though I can’t quite pinpoint why, I think it may have been a combination of it being yet another book about economics and it being the first Daily Shill book I read after my vacation. But despite my challenges, I wouldn’t warn you away from reading it. I wouldn’t recommend it either, though. It gets a 3/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Harry Markopolos

Buy the book

Comeback America

David Walker’s book, Comeback America, is filled with doom and gloom about our country’s economic state. He paints a rough picture of the pile of debt and the “borrowing is okay” mindset America has. Though he provides some potential solutions, the brunt of Walker’s focus is on the problems facing our nation.

Comeback America centers on irresponsible government spending, with special emphasis on social security, health care, and the pentagon. Walker’s credentials on this topic are high – he’s US Comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office. He has a genuine interest in our country’s fiscal responsibility, and he fills the book with appalling statistics (such as, if America’s debt was divided over the number of households in the country, each one would owe $483,000). Walker also avoids aligning himself with a political party throughout the book: he was a fan of Bush Senior and Clinton’s economic policies, upset with Bush Junior’s, and hopeful, but worried, about Obama’s.

As I was reading Comeback America, I knew what I was learning was important, but despite my efforts to engage, I was mostly bored with it. Walker’s writing is clear, but not particularly inspiring. Walker often gives speeches dealing with the same issues Comeback America does, and I would’ve rather heard him speak on them: his passion for the subject likely comes across better in speech than in type.

It’s difficult for me to settle on a fair rating for this book. Comeback America is not what I’d call an enjoyable read—something that is actually acknowledged by the author in the epilogue of the book—but I did learn a lot, and it’s made me think about the problem of excessive spending and how to deal with it. I give it a 3/5, but know what you’re getting into if you pick it up.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with David Walker

Buy the book

The Quants

Math and Wall Street: two subjects I know very little about. They also happen to be the subjects of Scott Patterson’s book The Quants. The Quants follows the professional lives (and a tad of the personal sides) of math geniuses that used their knowledge to develop trading strategies on Wall Street. These strategies made the Quants (the collective name for these math whizzes) oodles of money—that is, until they led to the near collapse of the market.

Patterson, a reporter for the Wall Street journal, writes like a journalist (no surprises there), saying what happened without attaching much commentary. His writing is clear and straightforward, which is a good thing because, despite having taken Econ 101 last term, I was confused by a lot of the economic stuff. Patterson did explain various theories and processes, and I probably could have understood The Quants better if I had taken the time to think about his explanations and taken notes to reference when the theories came up again. But I didn’t. So I spent a decent amount of time not really understanding what I was reading.

Another confusing aspect of the book was keeping track of the vast number of Quants that Patterson chronicled. It was easy to mix the different men up, even though a list of “the players” was given at the beginning of the book.

All things considered, I give The Quants a 3/5. It was a well written book, but one that sometimes bored and confused me due to my lack of prior knowledge. However, I would definitely recommend it to my econ major friends (yes, all three of you) or to anyone who wants to have more insight on how the United States got into our current economic state.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Scott Patterson

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And now, I must share two things that don’t really belong in a review, but have to do with The Quants. First, the author shares a name with an actor. On the three days that led up to the Daily Show interview, the Daily Show’s website promoted the interview with a picture of the actor, rather than one of the author (it was fixed the day of the interview). I love to imagine the person in charge of finding a photography thinking, “Who knew that Scott Patterson of Gilmore Girls fame knew so much about the economy? ”

Secondly, at one point in his book, Patterson was describing the lavish wedding of one of the Quants. He used the sentence “Guests dangled from helium balloons” and did not go on to explain it. How is that possible? Don’t you want to dangle from helium balloons at every wedding you go to?

Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy

As a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be a private detective. I ate up mystery books like the candy I would sneak from the cupboard; I wanted to dust everything for fingerprints; my cousin Lee and I opened our own detective agency, and when we didn’t get any business, we made up criminals to catch. So when I picked up Eamon Javers’s book Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy and learned that it was about corporate spies (which are like the advanced version of the private detective), I was thrilled.

Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy is separated into two parts: the first half focuses on the history of private detectives/spies, and the second focuses on the techniques used by these spies (and, randomly, a little bit about Russian spies). Though both sections were incredibly interesting, the first part was unquestionably my favorite. Javers travels through history, focusing on a particular group of spies or a certain incident in each chapter of the section. The chapter that drew my interest the most was “The Chocolate War,” which centers on the battle between Mars and Nestle over the safety of the Nestle Magic, a hollow chocolate ball with a toy in the center. Though I don’t remember the drama over this candy, I do remember buying my share of the “Wonderballs,” and, only a few months ago, wondered what ever happened to them. It was exciting when Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy answered that question.

However, though the subject matter was exciting and engaging, Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy could’ve used another draft. Its organization was weak, jumping from chapter to chapter without transition, and, at times, it was difficult to keep track of the people Javers was talking about. Also, aside from the “spy” part, I don’t see how the title fits the book.

That being said, I still recommend Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy if you are interested in corporate espionage. Despite the weaknesses in the structure and writing of the book, I’m glad I read it. I give it a 3/5, and it almost got a four.

Watch Jon Stewart's interview with Eamon Javers.

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Citizens of London

I had an interesting relationship with Lynne Olson’s book Citizens of London. Sometimes I was drawn into what she was writing. Sometimes I was so bored with it, I would count the number of pages I had left in the chapter.

Citizens of London is a historical book about the relationship between the United States and London during World War II. The bulk of the book takes place in London (as the title suggests) and it focuses especially on John “Gil” Winant (US Ambassador to London), Edward Murrow (CBS correspondent), FDR, and Winston Churchill.

Olson is a good writer. She elegantly weaves in quotes with her writings and manages to flow from one thing to another without abrupt shifts. When she was talking about subjects that interested me—like the living conditions of wartime London or the various affairs Churchill’s family members had with Americans – I was a fan of Citizens of London. However, at least half of the book was talking about meetings between various US and British governmental authorities, a subject that I found dry, and one her adept writing could not save.

I give the book a 3/5. Though it wasn’t one that I loved, Olson gave a thorough and well-written description of Americans in WWII London.

Watch Jon Stewart’s Interview with Lynne Olson

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Rediscovering Values

Guess what. Turns out the book I read was called Rediscovering Values, not Comeback America (though it is by Jim Wallis). Since I got the book through interlibrary loans (a wonderful service that allows libraries across the county--and world-- to share books with each other) there was a piece of paper with loan info over the cover and I didn't read the title. But how I managed to think it was Comeback America despite it being a book all about rediscovering values is a mystery.

But anyway, Jim Wallis is a well-known preacher (though I hadn't heard of him before this challenge) and his book, as you may guess from the title, is about how Americans need to rediscover values. More specifically, he talks about how Wall Street's poor values (such as greed) helped to lead us into our current economic state, and how, rather than returning to normal when the economy improves, we should all re-evaluate our lives and what we see as most important.

I was wary about picking up a book written by a prominent preacher. I did not want to be preached at. And though each chapter of Wallis's book could be interpreted as individual sermons (mixing stories of the economy with stories from the bible and stories from ordinary people's lives), and though he certainly instructed readers on things they should be doing, he didn't proselytize. Though that could have been because the book seemed aimed at a religious audience, I like to think it's because Wallis wanted his book to be inclusive.

The feeling I got most out of reading Rediscovering Values was that I'd like to have a conversation with Wallis. He seemed like a genuine, good guy and someone, who despite having some views contrary to my own, would have a respectful dialogue about any issue. I suppose you could call Rediscovering Values one side of a potential conversation.

As a whole, Wallis is a fine writer, not super, not terrible (though he did repeat himself a bit). But I didn't get the sense that he was aiming to write beautiful sentences: instead he wanted to get his ideas across. Also, he had a lot of interesting facts peppered throughout the book, wrote a chapter on Detroit, and spent a few pages discussing Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer (which you can watch here). So I give the book a 3/5. If I were asked for a book recommendation, it probably wouldn't come up, but I definitely wouldn't dissuade you from picking it up.

Watch Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Wallis.

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Crash Course

I am not a car person. I hate driving, and I’m terrible at matching cars with their names. But I do live in Michigan, and I know many people whose families work for the auto industry, so I figured it’d be good for me to read Paul Ingrassia’s book Crash Course, even if I wasn’t enthralled by the subject matter.

But, as a whole, the book wasn’t boring. Ingrassia takes the reader through the history of the US auto industry (throwing in foreign auto companies throughout because they’re certainly relevant), and it turns out that life among the Big Three is pretty dramatic. CEOs get fired, Japanese companies get more of the market, and workers who stop working still get paid. And even though cars play a central role, it’s not really a book about the cars themselves.

It is the chronology that keeps Crash Course together – Ingrassia frequently jumps back and forth between companies, sometimes spending just a short paragraph with one before moving onto another. Mainly I liked the scattered style – it kept the book from getting boring. However, sometimes due to the jumps, I’d have a hard time keeping track of which company (or person) Ingrassia was talking about.

I learned a lot, though, from reading Crash Course. The book makes it abundantly clear how the auto industry has gotten to its current (dismal) state, and though the information it shares is often depressing and frustrating, I’m glad to have read it.

I give Crash Course a 3/5 (though it was practically a four). I went with a three because at times I did get a little bored and because I grew tired of the “company as a sinking boat” metaphor.

Watch Jon Stewart's Interview with Paul Ingrassia

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Come back on Tuesday, and I'll let you know what I thought of Date Night.