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Bird Aims At The Good Ames
AI BIRD is a wonderful story
teller. Author of four previous biographical tomes,
including the highly praised
American Prometheus: The
Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (with
co-author Martin J. Sherwin), Bird’s new book is about one of
the CIA’s most successful spies, Robert Ames. Don’t confuse
him with that turncoat Aldrich Ames, a counterintelligence
officer who was convicted in 1994 of spying for the
Russians.
That’s probably why Bird’s new
book is named
The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert
Ames (Crown/Random House, 430 pages,
$26.00
Amazon.com Price: $19.90)
Ames—the good spy—who learned to
speak like a native, cultivated intimate friendships with
key Arab intelligence officers, including Arafat’s
intelligence chief and heir apparent, Ali Hassan Salameh. He
became one of Ames’s key sources. (Salameh had a connection
to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich
Olympics. The Mossad tried twice to assassinate him, but
both times he was forewarned by his good friend Ames. On a
third attempt in 1979 Mossad succeeded by blowing up
Salameh’s car.)
First half of the book is a
fascinating story about Ames recruitment and training in the
CIA. This is a primer for anyone who wants to become a
spook. The end chapters describe in gripping detail how a
Shi’ite Lebanese man drove his bomb-laden car into the U.S.
Embassy in Beirut in 1983.
It is gut wrenching to read. Bird
has a keen eye for horrible detail. In the lobby, he writes,
a Lebanese woman of the consular section was screaming. "The
blast had peeled off part of her face and was bleeding
profusely."
One of the ambassador’s
bodyguards, Staff Sgt. Mark Salazar, was sitting in his car,
engulfed in flames, his leg lying on the asphalt. A Lebanese
security guard, using a long metal rod, tried to pry Salazar
out of the car. Each time he "tried to touch Salazar with
the rod, a piece of flesh would drop off." Salazar was
probably dead but just to make sure the guard pulled out his
pistol and shot him between the eyes.
Bird presents a gruesome account
of the bombing of the embassy and the killing of 63 people.
Among those who perished were 17 Americans, including seven
CIA agents and America’s superspy, Robert Ames. He was 49
and left behind a wife and six children.
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Page
Turners
THE STORY OF THE JEWS: FINDING THE WORDS 1000 BC – 1492 AD
Simon Schama, University Professor of Art History and
History at Columbia, knows how to tell a story. Instead of
burdening you with facts and boring you with dates, as if
preparing for an exam, he tells story after story, painting
a vivid picture of every historical event that keeps you
enthralled and turning the pages for more. He makes you feel
the personal impact of historical events, as if you were
there. Schama is a remarkable storyteller of world affairs.
He is quite adept at keeping your interest, having written
or presented 40 documentaries for BBC, PBS and the History
Channel. The Story of the Jews was presented in a
five-part series in March on PBS. The second volume of the
book, expected in the fall, will continue the journey of the
Jews to the present day. Ecco/HarperCollins,
512 pages, $39.99
Amazon.com Price: $25.27)
IPAD
AND IPHONE KUNG FU: TIPS, TRICKS, HINTS AND HACKS FOR IOS 7
You know you can’t live
without your iPhone, iPad or iPod. Now here’s a book of
instructions you can’t live without. Once you get your hands
on this excellent book—no matter how much you think you know
about those three Apple devices—you’ll be amazed to see how
much you have yet to learn.
This is essential
for anyone who wants to get more use out of those amazing
Apple devices. The Pragmatic
Bookshelf, paper, 294 pages, $19.00
Amazon.com Price: $16.56)
A
BIT OF WIT, A WORLD OF WISDOM
Wish I’d been endowed with wit; wish I’d had wisdom. Bereft
of both, I revel in Yehoshua Kurland’s delightful compendium
of humor and ethics. As a lecturer of Talmud, the rabbi (in
Far Rockaway, NY) begins each essay with a joke, hoping to
engage and inspire his students and readers. In an essay
about the importance of communication in marriage, the
author quotes a famous jokester: "It first occurred to me
that our marriage might be in trouble when my wife won an
all-expense-paid trip for two to Hawaii, and she
went—twice!" Lesson to be learned, Kurland says, "In those
moments of dissension, a wrong word, even unintended, can go
straight to the nerve, or even worse, can stab through the
heart." What’s called for is ongoing support to allow these
painful moments to dissipate through the bond of your love
and respect. Gefen, softcover,
175 pages, $18.95
Amazon.com Price: $17.06)
AND
EVERY SINGLE ONE WAS SOMEONE
Six million perished in the most catastrophic event in the
history of the world. Every single one—baby, teenager, man,
woman—had a face, a name. One million children were cut down
before their prime. There is a chamber at Yad Vashem that
overwhelms with innumerable photos of these missing
children. Everyone was slain for the singular crime of being
born Jews. Six million! Can you comprehend it? Didn’t think
so. New York-born Phil Chernofsky, educational director of
the Orthodox Union (OU) Israel Center in Jerusalem,
conceived this book to help you grasp that figure. As he
doesn’t have six million photos to display, Chernofsky lists
each victim’s crime: Jew. The crime of being born a Jew is
reiterated in 40 columns across each page. A very big book,
consisting one word "Jew," repeated six million times over
1,250 pages, is not a book that you read with your eyes. It
is a concept that stirs your heart.
Gefen, 1250 pages,
$80.00
Amazon.com Price: $53.93)
THERE
GOES GRAVITY: A LIFE IN ROCK AND ROLL
Vanity Fair writer Lisa Robinson
edited
Hit Parader and Rock Scene, wrote for
Creem, and produced an insightful weekly music column
for the New York Post. In the ‘70s and ‘80s she
traversed the rock landscape with her tape recorder in
pursuit of the major superstars to chronicle their
tumultuous lives and careers. Her gripping book is heavy
with celebrity stories, inside anecdotes, one-on-one
interviews and hot gossip. It will keep you enthralled cover
to cover. Riverhead/Penguin,
361 pages, photos, $27.95
Amazon.com Price: $21.13)
HOW PHOTOGRAPHS ARE SOLD
Alain Briot presents stories, advice and examples to help
fine art photographers sell their work. The author is a
master photographer who creates tutorials on DVDs and
mentors individual students. Check him out at
beautiful-landscape.com.
His book is essential to anyone who seeks to make a living
in photography. "People have not stopped buying fine art,"
he writes. "Instead, they have changed how they buy
fine art." Rocky Nook, soft, 180 pages, $36.95
Amazon.com Price: $23.16)
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