Shapiro, Laurie Gwen. The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon. New York: Viking, 2025.

I grew up in the state of Kansas, and, as a child I heard a lot about aviatrix Amelia Earhart. The ironic thing I learn from this biography is that she and her family don’t spend all that much time in her hometown of Atchison. Yet her brief life there is foundational because her well-to-do grandparents see to it that she and her sister are educated by way of local elite schools. Amelia will later graduate from Columbia University in NYC. Another surprise for me: Although Earhart does become a noted pilot, her main career is that of social worker, and she stays with it a number of years before beginning to devote more time to aviation.
 
Most readers realize how and when Earhart is going to die, but Shapiro does seem to “foreshadow” Amelia’s path to that end throughout the book, beginning with “However, dating an aviator came with exasperating asterisks, and Sam lived in fear that he might one day discover his sometimes girlfriend, whose commitment he was finally winning over, had perished, despite spending hours in the field” (68). In addition, Amelia experiences several aviation failures, including crashes that destroy a number of expensive airplanes.
 
The book skillfully weaves together the stories of two individuals, Amelia Earhart and her husband George Palmer Putnam, and both narratives are important in order to understand the couple as a “unit.” Putnam is heir to the Putnam and Sons publishing empire, but though George works there for some time, he never flourishes to the degree that he becomes qualified to take over the reins when the opportunity arises. Instead, he becomes sort of a high-class huckster, selling (mostly) literary talent—but most especially he promotes the aviation career of his wife. Earhart, it turns out, isn’t as disciplined as she should be. For one, she doesn’t put in enough flight hours to be top-notch, and later on, particularly during her final hours over the Pacific Ocean, her failure to master Morse code will more than likely affect her ability to handle the perilous situation she sets up for herself and her alcoholic navigator, Fred Noonan (yet another error in judgment, but because of her weak reputation she can’t find a more reputable person to fly with her).
 
Shapiro sums up Earhart’s epic failure in 1937 this way: “The technical limitations of Amelia’s onboard equipment soon became apparent. Inadequate equipment, an off-calibrated compass, and erroneous chart coordinates converged into a navigational catastrophe. These issues, worsened by unexpected headwinds and a major navigational deviation, led to a bleak conclusion: Amelia Earhart and Fred Noon had vanished, possibly due to running out of fuel. Luck had been a lady before, but this time, she could no longer outrun fate” (388).
 
Though Shapiro is an excellent journalist and writer, I can’t help but be put off by some typos and sloppy copyediting:
 
Here Shapiro is writing in the past tense but then she shifts to the present for no apparent reason: “When the crayon heiress felt that a bigger house was needed and asked her parents for the money, George couldn’t be more pleased” (14). “. . . couldn’t have been more pleased” seems the preferable usage here, and I wonder why a copyeditor doesn’t catch the slip.
 
Needless repetition: “George told the candidate that he wanted to do one more discreet background check but would report back as soon as he could” (88). How about eliminating the second “back”?
 
Needless repetition: “. . . a protective smile gracing her face as memories of her own childhood curiosities flooded back. With her background as a social worker . . .” (148). How about “flooding into her mind” or similar?
 
Needless repetition: “. . . leaving him furious after defeat. After Elinor underwent . . .” (182). How about replacing the first “after” with “following”?
 
Needless repetition: “She recounted an encounter with a flock of pigeons . . .” (283). These are both embedded in other words but repetition is still avoidable. How about “She recounted a set-to with a flock of pigeons”?
 
Overall, I wish to say that the book is a very satisfying read, especially for fans of Amelia Earhart. It certainly gives readers a fuller and more accurate view of the woman’s life than the short feature I was forced to teach my sixth graders from the basal reader in the 1980s. Nothing there indicated Fred Noonan’s alcoholism or Earhart’s shortcomings.

​Up Next:
MON 9/22: WHAT I'M THINKING ... 
TUES 9/23: A Writer's Wit | Liz Murray
WEDS 9/24: A Writer's Wit | F. Scott Fitzgerald 
THURS 9/25: A Writer's Wit | Barbara Walters
FRI 9/26: A Writer's Wit | T. S. Eliot
      My Book World | Allan Massie, Dark Summer in Bordeaux

Lorca, Federico García. Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca. Edited by Francisco García Lorca and Donald M. Allen. With an introduction by W.S. Merwin. New York: New Directions, 2005 (1955).

A woman who taught Spanish at the high school where I once worked as an English teacher recommended that I read Lorca’s work, that we had “a lot in common.” She may have been referring to the fact that I, too, am gay. Perhaps she meant more.
 
I probably appreciated most of all the poems written when Lorca lived in New York City, not only because it is material with which I am more familiar but because he does seem to touch a nerve concerning our shared sexuality. In “Ode to Walt Whitman,” “the boys were singing showing, their waists” (131), as if to tempt me into this kingdom already tempting me with Whitman himself. Lorca invokes Whitman with descriptors such as “aged,” Whitman, “old man” Whitman and other variations of the grand poet’s name, as if he might rise from the very grave he has occupied, by that time, at least forty years. Almost as if Lorca wishes to crawl into the crypt with his hero.
 
Not for one moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,
nor your shoulders of corduroy worn out by the moon,
nor your thighs of virginal Apollo,
nor your voice like a pillar of ashes:
ancient and beautiful as the mist,
you moaned like a bird
with the sex transfixed by a needle,
enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine,
and lover of bodies under the rough cloth (133)
 
I would be tempted to copy out the entire poem for readers, but it is best you secure your own version of the book, underline and savor the passages you wish to remember.
_______________________________________________
Up Next:
MON 9/15: WHAT I'M THINKING ... WHAT HAPPENED TO LABOR DAY?​
TUES 9/16: A Writer's Wit | Lord Bolingbroke
WEDS 9/17: A Writer's Wit | Cheryl Strayed
THURS 9/18: A Writer's Wit | Francis Parker Yockey
FRI 9/19: A Writer's Wit | William Golding
      My Book World | Shapiro, Laurie Gwen. The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage That Made an American Icon

Hao, Karen. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. New York:  Penguin, 2025

I occasionally read out of my fields of study (literature, writing, and music) or out of my depth, to give myself a challenge. In the case of this title, I have done both, but once having begun the task, I was determined to finish the book. I perhaps liken the experience to being a second-year French student attempting to read Camus or Molière; you might comprehend only a fraction of what you’re reading. Problems for the general citizen hoping to understand Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be considerable: apprehending modern technology in general; absorbing specialized vocabulary (AI engenders a very slick and plentiful argot); and fully grasping the culture of people in this field who may believe that AI is capable of solving all human problems, and that there is very little chance that AI could ever advance far enough to think for itself and thus rule our lives without human intervention.
 
As the subtitle would seem to indicate, the book is about one forty-year-old-man named Sam Altman, the CEO of his own company, OpenAI. It begins as a nonprofit, using its lofty goals of employing AI technology to benefit all humanity. However, the organization gets lost in the weeds along the way. Repeatedly, throughout the book, Hao demonstrates a certain duplicity on the part of Altman. He assuages one party in the company by taking their side and then does the very same thing with a different party. Then he acts all What? Me? when confronted. It is a behavior that cannot be sustained over time, especially in light of the fact that the company, and Altman particularly, begin to make money by the fistful. 
 
There are two chapters out of the twenty or so that regular people will more readily understand. One is when Hao takes readers to South America (Venezuela) to view how OpenAI exploits its employees there to perform tasks for cheap that no one in the States would do: really tedious work for which workers are paid literally pennies for each task. In other words, AI uses—let’s be honest—slave labor. Oh, and along with its other insipient problems, OpenAI consumes a great deal of electricity which, in turn, creates a great deal of heat. Such heat must be reduced by using cooling units like water, exhausting a resource already in short supply in Venezuela (later the company does develop air-cooled methods).

​Another chapter is about Annie, Altman’s younger sister, who, through a series of misadventures winds up nearly destitute. Her family members believe that she is largely responsible for her own misfortunes, and they do not help her beyond minimal financial gestures. Sam Altman, the family member who, by now is the most able to help his sister, does perhaps the least. The situation becomes stickier when she accuses him, quite convincingly to readers (although Hao makes it clear we cannot know for sure), that he has sexually molested her throughout her childhood. The remaining chapters of the book, at least to this reader, are largely written for people in the biz.
 
Readers must understand the vocabulary of AI, that “compute” is no longer a verb but a noun, according to Hao, “a term of art for computation resources, that Open AI would need to achieve major breakthroughs in AI capabilities” (59). As in “Does the program have enough compute to do the job?” Although Hao does define certain words from their first use, it would also be nice for the publisher to provide readers with a glossary should there be a second edition in the offing (that is if the publisher is really attempting to inform the hoi polloi about AI). Despite this shortcoming, Hao is a well-respected and well-informed journalist who has done a tremendous multi-year job of researching the heck out of this book, yet, for the most part, it is not easy for the non-IT person to understand. Seems as if there might be two books squeezed between these covers: one about AI and its many wonders and downfalls, its unexplored routes of endeavor. The other is about the miscreant personality of one man who gains power too early in his life and does not know how to manage it. If one wants to read about how these two subjects merge, then this is that book. Happy reading!

Norton, Graham. The Life and Loves of a He Devil. London: Hodder, 2014.

This entertaining book by a British “chat show” host (primarily, though he’s trained and performed as an actor and has worked both in NYC and London) is divided into eight sections. These include one on his love of dogs, one on his Irish upbringing, an honest one on his love affair with booze, and perhaps the most fascinating, a section on Divas, and one on Men (you know, as in, “Axe Murderers I Have Known,” but in Norton’s case, “Men I Have F———d”).
 
Some Quotable Quotes:
 
“In retrospect, I realise what a privilege it was to be exposed to such a varied and strangely cosmopolitan group [his Irish compatriots] at an early age, as it set me up to be able to talk to anyone and only be intimidated by a very few, as I made my way into the big, bad world” (49).
 
From “Divas,” after witnessing Liza Minelli sing: “I watched the show from a box to one side of the stage and was as captivated as everyone else. Sure, there were topey sections and she wasn’t the mover or vocalist she had been, but the whole evening was worth it for the moment when she sang a little snatch from ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ for the first time in public [the signature song of her late mother, Judy Garland]” (145).
 
From “Men” Norton relates this cautionary tale from a friend named Ben: “He had just moved into the first flat he had ever bought and was understandably proud. He spent the afternoon assembling his new bed from Ikea and that night went out to celebrate. And what better way to mark this occasion than by christening his pristine bedroom? He met a man and invited him back. The were getting on very well and . . . had reached a point in the proceedings where a little help was needed, so Ben reached into his beside [sic] cabinet for the lube. They continued. Almost immediately, Ben sensed something was wrong. Things were quite uncomfortable, even painful. He tried to keep going but had to admit defeat. He turned on the light and discovered that he hadn’t taken lube from the drawer; he had in his hand a tube of wood glue” (237).
 
At any rate, I read this book aloud to my partner, and we both laughed and cried at very nearly the same events. We are amazed at two things about Graham Norton: one, how hard he laboured to get where he is today, and also how much he has accomplished by the age of fifty when this book is published. With his energy and creativity he easily has two more decades in the business if he wants them!

Up Next:
​TUES: A Writer's Wit | Rachel Carson
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Meg Wolitzer
THURS: A Writer's Wit | John F. Kennedy
FRI: My Book World | Jonathan Lethem, The Feral Detective

Rutherford, Margaret. Margaret Rutherford: An Autobiography as Told to Gwen Robyns. London: Wyndham, 1972.

Recently I caught a couple of Rutherford’s Murder films on Turner Classic Movies, in which she plays Agatha Christie’s detective, Ms. Marple. And I became fascinated with the actor, how intricately and honestly she played the part, though the stories are relatively simple. Like a lot of actors/artists she suffered in her personal life early on. At age three her mother died, and an Aunt Besse raised her. It is easy to imagine her life as she was born in 1892, just a few months before my maternal grandmother was born. I usually don’t care for “as told to” books because the prose does sound as if it has been dictated onto a recording and transcribed word for word. But Rutherford’s spoken prose apparently is so eloquent, it doesn’t seem to affect the quality of the written result. Besides, her accounts are terribly interesting.
 
Rutherford celebrated nearly fifty years in the acting business before, because of physical difficulties, she quit, just before her death in 1972—at age eighty. She seemed to make the most of her life no matter what. She went after and earned the career she desired. She traveled for both work and pleasure. She “adopted” adult children after she was married because she had none of her own. At age fifty-four she married fellow actor, Stringer Davis. He died a few months following her death. Perhaps some of her tips to actors are dated, but for the most part probably not. Kindness, consideration of fellow workers, and generosity never seem to go out of style. I paid entirely too much for this used copy, but I do think it has been worth it! If only it were signed!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY 2025!
​Up Next:
​TUES JAN 7, 2025 : A Writer's Wit | Zora Neale Hurston
WEDS JAN 8, 2025: A Writer's Wit | Robert Littell
THURS JAN 9, 2025: A Writer's Wit | Simone de Beauvoir
FRI JAN 10, 2025: My Book World | Nic Stone, Dear Martin