The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Haywood Hill 1952-1973

The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Haywood Hill 1952-1973
by John Saumarez Smith (Editor)
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780711224520
Publication Date: January 1, 2004
Pages: 191
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Frances Lincoln

This collection of previously unpublished correspondence with Heywood Hill is filled with gossip about life in Paris, tales of her writing life, and her own personal request for books. Hill in turn provides news of customers - many of whom were the elite of post-war London - and reports on how Mitford's books were being revived in London. It is an intimate and charming look at a world that has all but disappeared and will appeal to anyone interested in postwar English literature and/or high society.

Here’s the thing about publishing a person’s letters post mortem: they were written to friends – in this case one, very good, very long-time friend – and as such contain all sorts of personal references, names of mutual friends, inside jokes, and most frustratingly, a shorthand form of communication built up over years that’s really only obvious to the correspondents themselves. The editor Johns Saumerez Smith, does his best to clarify as much as possible, but there’s quite a lot that went over my head regardless.

In addition to the insider knowledge required to really, really appreciate this collection, Johns Saumerez Smith, in an effort at conciseness, interest, and probably respect of Haywood’s and Mitford’s privacy, edited each letter down to the bits he felt were humorous, with the effect that as a reader, I felt a bit frustrated – because references would be made to one thing or another in one letter that were never followed up on in subsequent letters. There are letters in their chain of correspondence that are missing in the archives, and Johns Saumerez Smith did his best to summarise (I assume from other sources) the gaps. But the one thing that really irritated me is that Saumerez Smith left out letters that exist but have already been published in one of the other 2 broader collections of Mitford’s letters, making the (erroneous in my case) assumption that the reader had already seen them, because, of course, the reader would have already read both the other collections.

Overall though, I enjoyed this glimpse into Mitford’s life, and the drama at the Haywood Hill bookshop … I wish they’d discussed it more and in fuller detail; it sounds like quite a drama. A lot of joy comes through though, and a lot of irreverence, so that even if I didn’t understand all the references, I enjoyed the glimpse I got into a valued friendship.

A Farmer’s Diary: A Year at High House Farm

A Farmer's Diary
by Sally Urwin
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781788160698
Publication Date: April 4, 2019
Pages: 248
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Profile Books

Sally Urwin and her husband Steve own High House Farm in Northumberland, which they share with two kids, Mavis the Sheepdog, one very Fat Pony, and many, many sheep. Set in a beautiful, wild landscape, and in use for generations, it's perfect for Sally's honest and charming account of farming life.

From stock sales to lambing sheds, out in the fields in driving snow and on hot summer days, A Farmer's Diary reveals the highs, lows and hard, hard work involved in making a living from the land. Filled with grit and humour, newborn lambs and local characters, this is the perfect book for anyone who has ever wondered what it's like on the other side of the fence.

It will come as no surprise to anyone, with the loony menagerie we have, that MT and I enjoy being surrounded by animals, and have both flirted with the idea of someday doing some small scale farming. Extraordinarily small scale; a few acres with a variety of edible landscaping, a small garden, and a few more rescue animals that would seem sensible.

If we ever thought anything more than that would appeal, this book would have put paid to that fantasy. Farming is hard, which isn’t a newsflash for most people, but more than that, it’s a form of voluntary indentured servitude that guarantees 365 sleepless nights a year, as Urwin’s diary attests.

From context, this seems to be the book form of one year of Sally Urwin’s blog entries. They’re well-written, funny, heartbreaking and depressing all at once. I mean, come on, one of their breeding rams is named Randy Jackhammer. For someone like me, these memoirs of farm life are fascinating, and a potent reminder of why I’m still working in IT. I enjoy living off the land, but as the author so brilliantly illustrates, depending on the land for your living is a horse (or a sheep) of en entirely different colour.

A fascinating read.

The Madman’s Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

The Madman's Library
by Edward Brooke-Hitching
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781471166914
Publication Date: October 7, 2020
Pages: 255
Genre: Books and Reading, History, Non-fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

This is a madman’s library of eccentric and extraordinary volumes from around the world, many of which have been completely forgotten. Books written in blood and books that kill, books of the insane and books that hoaxed the globe, books invisible to the naked eye and books so long they could destroy the Universe, books worn into battle, books of code and cypher whose secrets remain undiscovered… and a few others that are just plain weird.

From the 605-page Qur'an written in the blood of Saddam Hussein, through the gorgeously decorated 15th-century lawsuit filed by the Devil against Jesus, to the lost art of binding books with human skin, every strand of strangeness imaginable (and many inconceivable) has been unearthed and bound together for a unique and richly illustrated collection ideal for every book-lover.

I knew I wanted this book as soon as I saw it; gorgeously illustrated in full colour, and really well written, this is exactly what is purports to be. Broken into categorical chapters that include “Books that aren’t Books”; “Books Made of Flesh and Blood”; “Literary Hoaxes”, etc., the book covers a comprehensive span of the beautiful, the frightful and the unusual.

I enjoyed Brooke-Hitching’s writing style, appreciating his small infusions of humour as well as the information he imparted about each category and specific books. It was easy to read, but not easy reading; I found reading a chapter at a time worked well for my comprehension and enjoyment – the one time I tried to read more in one sitting, I found my eyes glazing over.

All in all, an enjoyable book and one that I’m happy to have on my bookshelves.

Venom

Venom
by Eivind Undheim, Ronald Jenner
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781486308378
Publication Date: October 1, 2017
Pages: 208
Genre: Natural Science, Science
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing

A fully illustrated guide to venom, its evolution in different animal groups, its effects and its treatments.
When we enter the world of venom, we enter the realm of one of the most diverse, versatile, sophisticated and deadly biological adaptations ever to have evolved on Earth.

Since it first appeared in ancient jellyfish and sea anemones, venom has proved so effective that it has since evolved independently in dozens of different animal groups. The authors reveal the many unique methods by which venomous animals deliver their cocktail of toxins and how these disrupt the physiology of the victims.

Jenner and Undheim also consider how humans have learnt to neutralise venom’s devastating effects, as well as exploit the power of venom in innovative ways to create new drugs to treat a variety of serious conditions. Fully illustrated throughout, this illuminating guide will appeal to all those with an interest in the wondrous world of venom.

This was not quite the book I was expecting, proving you can’t always judge a book by its cover and full colour photos. I originally thought it would be a fast-ish read. I should have known better though because it’s published by CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research.

33 days and two nightmares later, (seriously – first time EVER a book has given me nightmares) and I can say I’d happily recommend that @elentarri check this book out if she can find it. For anyone else out there that finds science, and especially natural sciences, fun and fascinating, and is happy to tackle a densely written narrative that falls closer to academic research paper than it does to popular science in writing style, you too should see if you can find this book.

Only 7 chapters and less than 200 pages long and filled with full colour illustrations, photos (warning: some of them are graphic) and charts, but don’t let this fool you: there’s a lot of hard science here. As I was reading it, I got the impression that it’s mean to be a primer or introduction for science students and hard-core amateurs. Chapter 1 discusses the definitive differences between a poison and a venom, luring the reader into a sense that this is definitely aimed at armchair scientists. By the time Chapter 5 rolls around, though, the writers are saying things like:

Not all enzymes conserve their ancestral activity while evolving into molecular killers, however. Some snake venom PLA₂enzymes, for example, have lot their enzymatic activity but they can still exert their toxic roles.

(Quote take at random from chapter 5 “Evolving Venoms”). By chapter 3 I had learned a lot but the authors were making me work for it. While I can say, how that I’m done, that I now have a good overall understanding of the concepts presented, it’s only a very thin veneer of all that this book offers. This is a book I’d have to re-read several times, slowly, before I could say I had an immersive understanding of the text.

While chapter 5 is, I’d say, the densest chapter, the authors do wrap the book up with two lighter chapters that were akin to a nice after-dinner sorbet. Chapter 6 discusses how venoms are used for traditional healing, cosmetics, recreational drug use (I can’t imagine ever thinking that smoking dried scorpions sounded like a viable option), rites of passage, spiritual vision quests, and modern medicines. I found this chapter fascinating from an anthropological perspective. Chapter 7 is a summary chapter that uses the honeybee as a microcosm example of all the concepts of venom relevant across the microcosm.

I have never been afraid of snakes and have always been one of the first to volunteer to interact with one, and while I’ve never been stupid about venomous ones, giving them a wide berth at all times, I’ve got to say reading this, especially Chapter 4 “Dissecting the power of venom”, planted a tiny seed of fear in me about ever running across them in any context. What few anecdotes the authors offer are chilling and I’ve been wondering if, when I can walk again, I could feasibly bush walk in thigh-high thick rubber waders. Maybe with some good insoles…

There are, of course, a lot of other animals covered in this book – as the authors point out, 25% of all phyla are venomous (mosquitoes are considered venomous). I have a whole new respect for the male platypus during breeding season (must look up when that is), and the slow loris?, well all I can say is if it puts its arms up to hug you, run away – fast. But the snakes are what leave the most indelible impression, making even the spiders look like the lesser evil.

All in all, a good book for those genuinely interested.

Reading Status Update: I’ve read 68 out of 208 of Venom

Venom
by Eivind Undheim, Ronald Jenner
isbn: 9781486308378
Publication Date: October 1, 2017
Pages: 208
Genre: Natural Science, Science
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing

A fully illustrated guide to venom, its evolution in different animal groups, its effects and its treatments.
When we enter the world of venom, we enter the realm of one of the most diverse, versatile, sophisticated and deadly biological adaptations ever to have evolved on Earth.

Since it first appeared in ancient jellyfish and sea anemones, venom has proved so effective that it has since evolved independently in dozens of different animal groups. The authors reveal the many unique methods by which venomous animals deliver their cocktail of toxins and how these disrupt the physiology of the victims.

Jenner and Undheim also consider how humans have learnt to neutralise venom’s devastating effects, as well as exploit the power of venom in innovative ways to create new drugs to treat a variety of serious conditions. Fully illustrated throughout, this illuminating guide will appeal to all those with an interest in the wondrous world of venom.

When I started this book, I thought it was going to be introductory, aimed at a mainstream audience. It’s introductory, in its way, but I can’t imagine it’s really meant for a mainstream audience; lots of latin names and terminology that’s not advanced (no molecular structures, so far) but not really reader friendly either.

I’m really enjoying it; I like the informative charts I’ve come across so far, and there is a generous number of full colour photographs that are beautiful. Some of the information is old-hat for me, but quite a bit of it is new, and I’m only done with 2 chapters.

This is a slow read that will ruin my average reading time stats, but will be well worth it, I think.

One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America

One Day: The Extraordinary Story Of An Ordinary 24 Hours In America
by Gene Weingarten
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9780399166662
Publication Date: October 22, 2019
Pages: 375
Genre: History
Publisher: Blue Rider Press

Two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Gene Weingarten explores the events of a random day in U.S. history, offering a diorama of American life that illuminates all that has changed—and all that hasn’t—in the past three decades.

On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day—chosen completely at random—turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing.

That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling.

One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.

The subtitle of this book should have been The Extraordinary Stories of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America; it would have better encapsulated what this book is about, in a way.

A day was chosen at random – December 28, 1986 – and Weingarten digs into the stories and events that happened in that 24 hours, fleshing out their backstories and, in some cases, providing epilogues (I appreciated this; it always annoys me that news outlets rarely follow up on stories). Some of them are beyond tragic; events that were catalysts for change both at home and around the world. Some of the stories are terrible and shocking on a more personal level, and many are hopeful, a few inspiring, and a couple are downright cheerful.

I remember being drawn to this book by the striking cover, and thinking that I’d enjoyed Bill Bryson’s One Summer, so I grabbed it on impulse when it first came out. It languished on my TBR for the last 3 years, give or take, until I finally grabbed it last weekend, and it grabbed me right back. Weingarten is a journalist, so the narrative voice is unapologetically journalistic, but he’s a 2 time Pulitzer winning journalist, so the writing is excellent. I found myself deeply involved in each and every story – even the ones I’d really rather have been more detached from. I was both reading parts out to MT, and telling him you really need to read this yourself. The stories are American, but very few of them are uniquely American; they’re stories of the human experience and for the most part could be the experiences of anyone, anyplace.

Weingarten didn’t quite stick the landing; the wrap up was a tiny bit messy and might have been tighter, neater, had he ended it a page sooner, but it’s a negligible niggle and really didn’t detract from a fascinating read.

The Orchid Thief

The Orchid Thief
by Susan Orlean
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780449003718
Publication Date: January 4, 2000
Pages: 300
Publisher: Ballantine Books

A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion.

In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,” Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay.

The first thing you need to know is that this is a book about Florida and orchidists. I am a (born and bred) Floridian raised in a family of orchidists.

I preface this review with these facts because there’s going to be a strongly sentimental bias to my feelings about this book. I can’t possibly be objective about either subject, because — let’s call it “Old Florida” even though I’m young enough to have missed out on the truly old Florida — is what my soul is made of. If it were a visible thing it would be full of scrub forest, swamp land and the Gulf of Mexico (and hush puppies and iced tea). And no way could I be objective about orchids; I literally grew up in greenhouses. My mother’s flower shop, which my father’s greenhouses and laboratory were attached to, was a road, a small-town library parking lot, and a dirt alley away from our home. I’m pretty sure were there a way to tally up time spent at home vs. the shop, the shop would actually win. And there are very few memories of my dad that pop into my head that don’t involve him watering his orchids, replanting his orchids, or bent over his sanitised glove box – a design of his own creation – or… the least pleasant from a sensory aspect: him cooking up his growing media, which often consisted of combinations of vegetable and fruit never, ever, designed to be together, like bananas and potatoes (omg, the smell). I have lost hours of my life to greenhouses sprinkled throughout Southwest Florida (and Illinois), and orchid shows, before I was old enough to be left to my own devices.

So believe me when I say that, other than my pedantic nitpicking over calling Florida’s ecosystem a jungle, Susan Orlean nailed both the state and the crazy orchid loving people in it. Including herself in the story creates a nice foil for the eccentric mix of people that make up the less civilised places of Florida (which is pretty much all the places). My sister would be a better judge of how close she came to the personalities of the players; I recognised the names but given my relationship with orchids (YOU MAY CALL ME DEATH), I was only ever a spectator, and a pretty disinterested as only a teenager can be, but Orlean captures the atmosphere, the close-knit community and the cattiness of the orchid world perfectly.

According to the publisher and book flap, this is a book about John Larouche (whom I’d never heard of until I read this), but really, it’s about all orchidists and their often unfathomable passion for a plant that is, objectively, ugly. Until it flowers, and then it’s spectacular. Specifically, this book is about the Ghost Orchid, a Florida native known only to live in a very few spots in the Fakahatchee Strand. A plant that consists of nothing but roots and a flower, no leaves. While Larouche is absent for much of the book, the Ghost Orchid is always present. This is a good thing because I doubt anybody could take an awful lot of a character like Larouche.

I could meander on in this review for quite some time, but I wouldn’t really be talking about the book, so I’ll just say: it was good; it was enjoyable and well written and enlightening. If eccentric characters a la Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil appeal to you along with the swampy, humid, atmosphere of Florida, you might find something to like in this read.

On a slightly related side note, my father passed away on this date in 2004, so the read felt especially timely for me. What made it even more poignant though, was what I found when doing a bit of googling about the Ghost Orchid; it seems Larouche was not entirely correct when he said nobody could breed the Ghost Orchid (breed, not clone, which is what Larouche was trying to do): it turns out my daddy could, and did. I found this except on an orchid site out of Delray Beach called HBI Orchids:

The Ghost Orchid, Polyrrhiza lindeni (old school name). We at HBI have been working on growing ghost orchids from seed for over 28 years ever since we first bought 3 ghost orchids flasks from Larry Evans. Larry did curating and flasking work for the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota. Selby once green housed the top premier specimens of this Florida species. The ghost orchid parents used by Larry originated in the Fakahatchee Strand and were first bred by him many years before ghost orchids were designated as an endangered species. Fakahatchee ghost orchids with their longer frog-legs/tendrils and ghostly all-white flower surpass the truncated short-tendril inferior class lindeni green-flower ghost orchid pretenders named Dendrophylax sallei from Cuba and Dominican Republic in any competition and will always be the more valuable type of this vanishing species to own.

I clearly remember my dad doing Selby’s lab/flask work; at that time they couldn’t do it themselves without contamination (orchid seed has to be handled in a completely sterile environment, sprinkled across growing medium in sealed, sterile flasks; otherwise just about any microbe floating in the air will overtake and kill the seedlings before they can start), so they’d asked him to do it in his lab. But I never knew they were ghost orchids or how special they are. So tip of the hat to Orlean for leading me back to my father in more ways than I bargained on.

Reading Status Update: I’ve read 112/300 pages of The Orchid Thief

The Orchid Thief
by Susan Orlean
isbn: 9780449003718
Publication Date: January 4, 2000
Pages: 300
Publisher: Ballantine Books

A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion.

In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,” Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay.

I’m still laid up, obviously, but feeling much more human, and I was ready for something a little meatier in my reading, while also feeling like I needed a taste of home while wallowing in my bitterness over the fickleness of fate. The Orchid Thief is fitting the bill perfectly. Susan Orlean, with the exception of referring to Florida’s natural state as jungle (it’s not), has nailed the state in both its feral and more civilised forms. The world of orchid collecting is also one I grew up on the fringes of, my father, and then my sister, both orchidists. For my sister it was a fleeting interest, lasting only a decade or so, if memory serves, but for my father it was a lifelong passion and between them they created well over a thousand hybrids that were sent all over the world. Fortunately he was, at heart, sane with a very unmoving moral compass, so none of the family had center-ring seats to the real insanity of the orchid collecting world Orleans is delving into. But there are familiar names and references that I’m thoroughly enjoying so far. Thankfully Larouche isn’t one of them – he’s an odd one.

Conan Doyle for the Defence

Conan Doyle for the Defence
by Margalit Fox
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781781253564
Publication Date: July 25, 2018
Pages: 318
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Profile Books

Just before Christmas 1908, Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy 82-year-old spinster, was found bludgeoned to death in her Glasgow home. A valuable diamond brooch was missing, and police soon fastened on a suspect - Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant who was rumoured to have a disreputable character. Slater had an alibi, but was nonetheless convicted and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment in the notorious Peterhead Prison.

Seventeen years later, a convict called William Gordon was released from Peterhead. Concealed in a false tooth was a message, addressed to the only man Slater thought could help him - Arthur Conan Doyle. Always a champion of the downtrodden, Conan Doyle turned his formidable talents to freeing Slater, deploying a forensic mind worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

Drawing from original sources including Oscar Slater's prison letters, this is Margalit Fox's vivid and compelling account of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Scottish history.

4 stars for the writing, but I bumped it up .5 star because I learned a lot I didn’t know before I started.

The title is something of a misnomer, as it implies that Conan Doyle was an active participant in the defence of Oscar Slater, and he wasn’t – he didn’t involve himself until several years after Slater’s conviction and incarceration. Once he did, however, he did it to devastating effect, but to no avail; it wasn’t until he renewed his efforts some 15 years later, in partnership with an investigative journalist, William Park, that the gears of justice finally started to grind.

As much as this book is about the gross injustice served upon Oscar Slater (it was indeed Scotland’s Dreyfus affair), it’s also a revealing look into Scotland at the turn of the century, when science was just beginning to gain its capital “S” but society still stood firmly in the class and morality rigid past. The level of anti-Semitism was profound, something I would never have associated with Scotland, such is my ignorance of history.

In my status update, I had gotten just to the point in the book where it looked like the author was going to make an argument for pre-meditation on behalf of the Glasgow police, in framing Slater for the crime, while at the same time detailing the force’s stupidity. Her argument didn’t proceed quite along the lines it looked to be headed, but she did, in the end, paint the force as being results-oriented to the point of gross injustice. It’s clear that the only concern was not only an arrest and conviction, but an arrest and conviction of somebody deemed undesirable; an effort to kill two birds with one stone. That they were willing to forge documents and browbeat witnesses into perjury is clearly documented and the only greater injustice than the one done to Slater is that those most guilty were all dead before they could be held to account for their own crimes.

Because the story of just Conan Doyle’s participation in releasing Slater would have been more a pamphlet than a book, the text is liberally padded with small biographies of Slater, Conan Doyle, and Joseph Bell, as well as chapters detailing the types of reasoning used for investigation, and previous cases where Conan Doyle’s assistance prevailed in either convicting the right man, or releasing the one wrongly convicted. A small detour towards the end is made into Conan Doyle’s foray into the paranormal, and the author tried to tie it into the book by speculating that it might have negated his influence with the Scottish authorities, a justification that I don’t think she really established.

I feel like this book is one packs enough into a seemingly straightforward narrative as to offer almost endless avenues for discussions covering a wide variety of topics. As I said at the start, I learned a lot (granted I wasn’t starting from a very learned position); I found the narrative easy to read and much more engrossing than I originally expected and I came away with an even deeper respect for Conan Doyle than I started with.

The Haunting of America – DNF @ pg. 105

The Haunting of America
by Joel Martin, William J. Birnes
Rating: ★★
Publication Date: September 15, 2009
Pages: 400
Genre: History, Non-fiction
Publisher: Forge

In the tradition of their Haunting of the Presidents, national bestselling authors Joel Martin and William J. Birnes write The Haunting of America: From The Salem Witch Trials to Harry Houdini, the only book to tell the story of how paranormal events influenced and sometimes even drove political events. In a narrative retelling of American history that begins with the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century, Martin and Birnes unearth the roots of America's fascination with the ghosts, goblins, and demons that possess our imaginations and nightmares. The authors examine the political history of the United States through the lens of the paranormal and investigate the spiritual events that inspired public policy: channelers and meduims who have advised presidents, UFOs that frightened the nation's military into launching nuclear bomber squadrons toward the Soviet Union, out-of-body experiencers deployed to gather sensitive intelligence on other countries, and even spirits summoned to communicate with living politicians.

The Haunting of America is a thrilling exploration of the often unexpected influences of the paranormal on science, medicine, law, government, the military, psychology, theology, death and dying, spirituality, and pop culture.

How do you ruin a book with a name like that? Wrap a textbook in it.

It might not actually be a bad book if one is looking for an anthropological view of superstition and paranormal belief and their effect on the American political system, but I was just looking for some fun and slightly spooky stories about haunting in America. You know, what it says on the tin.

Ah well, another one off the TBR; progress is progress.