RaveBook PostIf ever there was a ballad composed in the fullness of a lifelong affair, it is Magdalena ... Davis’s approach engages readers with the country’s rich prehistory and turbulent history in repeated touches. Like an oil painter, he lays down a first reference to a historical figure or a dramatic episode, then returns, often several times, adding depth and nuance ... Davis’s candid and searingly ambivalent treatment sheds light on this little-known fact: Bolivar \'was perhaps the only major revolutionary hero who was fundamentally informed by natural history\' ... By means of vivid depictions of scientists like Vargas at work, Davis breathes light and life into science itself. He illuminates not just the reciprocal influence between home-grown Colombian scholars and their European counterparts, but also the rich terrain where modern science meets indigenous ways of apprehending the natural world.
Amaryllis Fox
MixedBook PostWho knew spooks could write? Amaryllis Fox certainly can. Her Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA is an addictive read. If you’re up for a thriller, you could hardly do better ... The book glitters with the killer lines and delicious improbabilities that make for a great yarn ... As in any good thriller, there is more to Life Undercover than action ... Fox’s plunges into her own heart are moving ... Most unexpected is the quality of the prose ... Enthralled though I was, however, Life Undercover left me ill at ease. The first problem is truth ... Fox told NBC two characters are \'composite,\' that her \'aim was really to capture the kind of ‘Capital T’ Truth, the emotional truth…\' Such are the hallmarks of fiction. Truth, of course, is not absolute. But with so many acting on their \'emotional truth\' these days, the difference between substantive accuracy and fake news matters. This book proves that Fox has not stopped deceiving people, including herself ... From risking her life for an underground cohort of Burmese resisting an all-powerful junta, she pivots to seeing Americans—denizens of the mightiest country on earth—as the defenseless victims upon whom to lavish her devotion. In a shell-shocked twenty-something, I can understand the confusion. In the mature memoirist, it is harder ... Don’t get me wrong. There is much to recommend this book—from the sheer bravura to Fox’s dedication to finding nonviolent ways through the most fraught conflicts. But...she should perhaps write a second memoir a few decades hence, when she’s gained some perspective on what she was really doing and what she was doing it for.
