Long Term Troubles Loom for Kids and Cell Phones

Disconnected: How To Reconnect Our Digitally Distracted Kids by Thomas Kersting
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A short and sweet book, almost a long pamphlet, detailing the dangers kids face from extensive time on the Web. (Adults, too.) And while Nicholas Carr covered this topic a decade ago, there is new research showing a spike in the amount of time youngsters spend interacting online. As Carr pointed out in The Shallows, excessive screen time erodes focus, increases anxiety, and leads to social retardation. Ten years later, the situation is much worse. But there is hope.

Fascinating read, particularly if you have kids.


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Scott Captures Pacific Brutality

Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila by James M. Scott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With its emphasis on atrocities, the book examines the butchery committed by Japanese troops against the Filipino population of Manila during the fighting there in February 1945. Brutal as the SS in Poland, the deliberate murder and rape of civilians is augmented by the haphazard rain of artillery fire employed by the attacking Americans. Survival in certain neighborhoods was problematic and whole families up to several generations were annihilated.

Decisions by commanding generals MacArthur and Yamashita are examined, with the book closing on War Crimes trials held in Manila only months after the war ended, with Japanese mines still being detonated by the unwary.

Well-written and fast-moving, Scott explores a little-known aspect of the fighting in the Pacific; an atrocity worth recalling the next time someone cries, 'Hiroshima.'

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Conrad Not Pleased with Nostromo

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Upon completion of Nostromo, Joseph Conrad told a friend, "Personally, I am not satisfied. It is something—but not the thing I tried for."

Conrad's "something"contains numerous characters, great and small, set in a violence-racked, fictitious South American country. As Costaguana's resources are tapped by American and European investors, resentment, greed, and betrayal roil the nation and spawn yet another revolution. Wealth is sought, gained, lost and hidden, always with a price.

Conrad jumps about in the time line, changing points-of-view, foreshadowing, advancing the story, then later filling in details. For substantial periods, I was left guessing as to which details really mattered and which character backstories would pay off. However, the last fifty pages raced along, indicating that, perhaps, other narrative sections might've been equally condensed.

As a note, I would avoid the Brent Hayes Edwards edition, since the introduction seems designed for people returning for their third helping of Nostromo and is a nest of spoilers.

Uneven, but fascinating book.


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Screams From My Father Lots of Fun

Screams From My Father by Paul Gleeson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Funny noirsh tales make up this collection from back-in-the-day. A most rapid read, running the gamut from ironic to hilarious.


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