Category Archives: Book Reviews

Escaping in Plain Sight

I’ve always claimed so much of our past never makes it into the history books. This is especially true for stories about slavery. This being Black History Month, a recently published book gives another example of the ingenuity of slaves. William and Ellen Craft were a married couple, enslaved in Georgia but determined to escape

Read More

In Search of Happiness

What is your approach to happiness? This subject came to my attention recently thanks to the cover article in the Jan 16-23 issue of Time magazine. This special section, entitled “The Happiness Revival Guide,” includes a brief article “Catastrophizing Doesn’t Have to Be Catastrophic” by Martin Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania professor and coauthor of

Read More

Book Review: A Man of Iron

Which U.S. Presidents have won the popular vote at least three times? Of course, Franklin Delano Roosevelt holds the record for four (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944). but there have been two others: Andrew Jackson (1824 before also winning the Electoral College and becoming President in 1828 and 1832), and Grover Cleveland (becoming President in 1884,

Read More

The Speeches You Never Heard

It’s easy to be familiar with history’s great speeches, like President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But have you ever thought about speeches that were written and, for whatever reason, never delivered? Jeff Nussbaum has. As a speechwriter himself, he has researched and authored Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History. His underlying principle

Read More