Category Archives: Biography

PROMPT: Book

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Daily writing prompt
What book are you reading right now?
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Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway by Jeffrey Meyer; a biography of Ernest Hemingway that is written in an interesting and creative way. Rather than a chronological telling of life events, the book relates Hemingway’s life to a series of other individuals and events.

BOOK: “The Jefferson Bible” by Thomas Jefferson

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The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of NazarethThe Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas Jefferson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

PDF available online [Public Domain]

Thomas Jefferson (yes, the same one who wrote the Declaration of Independence) produced this book by cutting and pasting excerpts from the Gospels so as to produce a distillation of who he believed Jesus was and what Jesus’s essential teachings were. It mixes parables and other New Testament teachings with biographical description.

There is an introduction which offers the reader more specific insight into Jefferson’s thinking than can be gleaned merely from what he includes and what he trims. The Introduction also discusses the similarities and differences between Christian philosophy and that of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans.

If you’re looking for a condensed version of the New Testament, I’d highly recommend this book. Jefferson was obviously a sharp guy who looked at the Bible from the perspective of Enlightenment-era thinking.

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BOOKS: “John Brown” by W.E.B. Du Bois

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John BrownJohn Brown by W.E.B. Du Bois
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available free online at Project Gutenberg

“John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry” is one of those historic events like the “Teapot Dome Scandal” that American kids have to memorize a rote fact about to regurgitate on an American History test a couple times during their scholastic lives, never to be thought of much again, forever a familiar name lacking all depth of understanding. (At least that’s how it was in my day.) Unlike the Teapot Dome Scandal, which I suspect is not learned about in detail because it was somewhat complex and boring, I think the minimalist coverage of John Brown might reflect a bit of national embarrassment. For Brown’s tale is not complicated, and it’s certainly not boring. Brown thought slavery was an abomination, and he devoted his life to freeing slaves by whatever means he could, which culminated in a raid on an arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virgina, at the convergence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, a raid intended to liberate weapons to the cause of arming freed slaves and other abolitionist fighters.

It’s a shame that more is not learned about John Brown because he was such a fascinating and principled individual, and in a sense his story isn’t just an embarrassing tale of a sparse few virtuous people against a mainstream that was — at best — indifferent to slavery. But there is a potential for pride in the fact that Brown and those who fought with him were able to see slavery for what it was and to stand strong against that mainstream, to make the fight of the oppressed their fight and — in the case of Brown and others — to pay the ultimate price in the conduct of that fight.

W.E.B. Du Bois’ biography of John Brown came out in 1909 and may not be written in the novel-esque style that a writer today would write it, but it is well-written and readable. Du Bois’ book is a full biography of Brown, if focused on his abolitionist aspect. Du Bois tells a little of Brown’s backstory and of his work life and then explores his experiences fighting in Kansas. However, this book does really shine in its account of the Harpers Ferry Raid and its aftermath.

Readers interested in American History or the biographies of virtuous individuals are urged to read this account of the life of John Brown.

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PROMPT: Name

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Where did your name come from?
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I wasn’t consulted on the matter. Like most, I labor under the impression that it came from my parents, but for all I know it was just a random person off the streets who scribbled it on the clipboard hanging off the hospital bassinet. If there even was a hospital…

PROMPT: Describe Yourself

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How would you describe yourself to someone?
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Of middling tallishness, perpetually perplexed, and independently impoverished.

BOOKS: “Lost in the Twentieth Century” by Albert Szent-Györgyi

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Lost in the Twentieth Century (Annual Review of Biochemistry Book 32)Lost in the Twentieth Century by Albert Szent-Györgyi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available Online – NIH National Library of Medicine

This is the very brief autobiography of a fascinating man. Szent-Györgyi is most famous for work in biochemistry involving Vitamin C, work that won him a Nobel Prize. However, his life is not only notable for science before and after the Nobel (after he worked on the physiology of muscular activity, on electron activity in physiology, and on cancer.) He also performed important works outside the laboratory, notably he conducted an espionage / diplomatic mission during the Second World War (“Espionage” in that he traveled to Turkey under false pretenses, under cover of giving a lecture at a university, “diplomatic” in that the trip’s true objective was to negotiate with the Allied powers.)

Szent-Györgyi has some interesting quips and insights that make it worth reading this pamphlet-scale book, even though his Wikipedia page probably contains as much information. He had an interesting way of thinking about matters, both scientific and not, and was politically and socially engaged in the world.

If you’re curious about Szent-Györgyi or enjoy biographies, in general, I’d highly recommend reading this one.

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PROMPT: Taglines

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If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
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30% More Nuts.

BOOKS: “George Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction” by Christopher Wixson

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George Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)George Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Wixson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – OUP

This concise guide to George Bernard Shaw is an exploration of the works of the prolific playwright and how his philosophy and life experiences influenced the stories he created. The book is arranged by periods of Shaw’s own determining, including: Unpleasant, Pleasant, Puritan, Political, Extravagant, and Farfetched. The book does mention Shaw’s novels, literary criticism, and some of his major non-literary activities, but largely in the context of the comedies, tragedies, and histories he wrote for the stage.

If you are interested the works of George Bernard Shaw and how they came to be, I’d recommend this book. It’s a quick read and offers some fascinating insights.

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BOOK REVIEW: “Becoming Ghost” by Cathy Linh Che

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Becoming Ghost: PoetryBecoming Ghost: Poetry by Cathy Linh Che
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Simon & Schuster

This collection is built around the surreal emotionality of the author’s parents having both lived through the war in Vietnam and also having served as extras in the film, Apocalypse Now. [For those unfamiliar, Apocalypse Now was a Francis Ford Copp0la film based loosely (and partially) on Joseph Conrad’s novel,Heart of Darkness. The film follows a military officer sent upriver to assassinate a rogue Special Operations colonel during the Vietnam War, and shows the war from various perspectives as the would-be assassin travels through the country to complete his mission.]

At times, the poems read like a poem-shaped biography, but that’s not all there is to the book. There are points that imagery and language are used to shoot beyond a mere telling of events, in order to create emotional resonance with the core strangeness of living through a traumatic event only to portray a background individual (someone like one’s own past self) in a fictional retelling of events based on those through which one lived.

The poetic forms vary somewhat, though all within the modern, free verse style. Most notably, the author uses the golden shovel approach of Terrence Hayes extensively.

This collection grabbed me both with its clever language and its thought-provoking central premise. I’d highly recommend it for readers of poetry.

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BOOKS: “A Carpet Ride to Khiva” by Christopher Aslan Alexander

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A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk RoadA Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road by Chris Aslan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – ICON Books

“Travel-centric memoir” is how I’d classify this book, but it’s one of those books that isn’t easily categorized. The author cleverly interweaves explorations of Uzbek history and culture with his own story of living in the Uzbek city of Khiva for seven years as an NGO worker and traditional crafts entrepreneur. The side voyages into history and culture not only support the readers’ contextual understanding of the author’s story but also make for a fascinating journey of understanding of the locale. Uzbekistan has had many lives, from beating heart of the Silk Road to forgotten backwater of the Soviet Union, and these many lives have shaped what Uzbekistan is, and what it’s becoming.

I should point out that Uzbekistan has apparently made a hard shift since the days described in this book (late 90’s early 2000’s, i.e. fairly early in the wake of independence from the Soviet Union.) I mention this to avoid discouraging travelers through discussion of the author’s experiences. [I, myself, am planning a trip in the near future.] I’m sure that Uzbekistan continues to have deep-seated problems, but it seems to be making great efforts to be tourist-friendly these days. Which is not to say that the individuals were ever unfriendly to travelers. The author describes an Uzbek people who are warm-hearted, welcoming, and helpful. But when the author was there it was also on the list of the biggest human rights violators, corruption was ubiquitous, and tourism was almost non-existent. In fact, the penultimate chapter of the book describes the author’s experience of a visa denied, ping-ponged deportations, and a life sharply diverted by corruption.

The final chapter is intensely compelling and describes the author’s (late 2000’s) visit to Afghanistan to help apply the lessons he learned in Uzbekistan to building a rug weaving operation in that war-torn country (allowing women to make some money, an activity disallowed by the Taliban before and since.)

This is a fascinating book, and I’d highly recommend it for travelers and those interested this lesser-known part of the world. Even the descriptions of silk production, rug weaving, and natural dyes (topics that I expected wouldn’t resonate with me) were interesting and engaging.

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