50 Book Challenge - Page 3

#1: Into Tibet by Thomas Laird

Ostensibly the story about Douglas Mackiernan, the first CIA agent killed in the line of duty. However, the death of "Mac" happens around the middle of the book and pretty quickly the book no longer becomes about him but instead his comrade on the trip, Frank Bessac. This is Laird's first foray into non fiction and it shows. Often the connection between characters and the people themselves become unclear and creates a confusing story. Mackiernan's mission is a fascinating story and it gets told well. However,some of the more intriguing aspects of the story (the who knew what and when did they know it in the intelligence community) gets glossed over or without too much digging which was disappointing. Especially considering FOIA requests were needed to complete key aspects of the research for the book. Considerable amounts of time are devoted early on to Mackeirnan's personal life with no real explanation given which made the book sluggish at times. However, it becomes clear at the end why his personal life was important to the story.

I'm not sure what else to say about Into Tibet. It is a good story and it takes some will power to get through certain parts of the book, but it is a story that has been classified for so long (and guarded so well) that it added a sense of intrigue to reading the story.

#2 The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square by James Traub

While the title may lead you to think it is a history of the nefarious, seedy side of Times Square, the book is really anything but. Much of the history revolves around the early, formative days of Times Square while devoting only a short chapter to the crime riddled Times Square of the 70s and 80s. The book rarely strays past the history of two blocks of 42nd Street and often devotes more time to the history of American theater than it does to Times Square. Traub does have a lot of good research and is often too eager to share that information (such as saying such and such a theater was the place to stage popular plays and then proceeding to list seemingly every profitable play staged there) and too eager to shape the readers' minds ("We want to have a Times Square that is hospitable to Izzy Yereshevsky...[b]ut we cannot have it back", well no shit Sherlock). That isn't necessarily a fault of the book. The last third of the book isn't so much a history as an amateur sociological discussion of contemporary Times Square and is a bit of a bore.