"Once again, the Earth is under attack. Alien "buggers" are poised for a final assault. The survival of the human species depends on a military genius who can defeat the buggers. But who? Ender Wiggin. Brilliant. Ruthless. Cunning. A tactical and strategic master. And a child. Recruited for military training by the world government, Ender's childhood ends the moment he enters his new home: Battleschool. Among the elite recruits Ender proves himself to be a genius among geniuses. In simulated war games he excels. But is the pressure and loneliness taking its toll on Ender? Simulations are one thing. How will Ender perform in real combat conditions? After all, Battleschool is just a game. Right?"

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

After reading around forty pages, I almost stuffed this book back on my crowded library shelves. Ender Wiggin, at six-years old was being abused by seemingly everyone, and especially his vicious older brother Peter. Maybe it brought back memories of my own sad and tortured childhood. In "Ender's Game", humanity is fearful that the buggers, a race of machine-building, interspace-traveling, intelligent insects (who were unexpectedly defeated decades earlier by gifted commander Mazer Rackham) will return and exterminate Mankind. The world government, in the form of the International Fleet, is frantically searching for a leader who can defeat the buggers. In an attempt to discover the next Mazer Rackham, the I .F. begins screening children as young as age four with surgically implanted monitors at the base of their necks. Those children chosen, are ripped away from their families and at age six, begin to experience intensive military discipline and non-stop combat training. Penned in 1977, author Orson Scott Card, amazingly predicted the world-wide impact of the internet (viewed on portable 'desks' in his novel) but missed CDs, DVDs, MP3s and, like virtually all futuristic writers, the 1989 dissolution of the Soviet Union. The ending caught me totally by surprise, but then again, I was cold-cocked by my wife of twenty-five years when she demanded a divorce. This is an entirely readable science fiction novel, with no outrageous plot holes or non-understandable scientific jargon, and I'm glad I read it. However, due to the violence inflicted on children, I do not believe I would ever re-read it.

Begun: 05/02/2005   Finished: 05/19/2005

"Industry insider Ronald B. Tobias reveals the creative, political and financial truths of writing for film and television. In candid, instructive interviews, he takes you behind the screens to show you how directors, actors and others look at a script. Learn from John McTiernan, Director of Die Hard and Hunt for Red October; Stephen Soderbergh, Writer and director of Sex, Lies and Videotape; Alan Arkin, Star of Glengarry Glen Ross; Charlton Heston, Star of The Ten Commandments; Patrick Markey, Producer of A River Runs Through It; Andrew Laszlo, Director of Photography of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier; Tom McGuane, Screenwriter of Missouri Breaks; and Jack Gilardi, Agent and executive vice president of International Creative Management, which represents many of Hollywood's leading talents."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

I feel so fortunate. After reading the excellent "Zen and the Art of Screenwriting: Insights and Interviews", hoping for another great book about writing, I ordered "The Insider's Guide to Writing for Screen and Television" by Ronald B. Tobias. I was not disappointed. Like William Froug's 'Zen' book, author Tobias' work has interviews and personal anecdotes harvested from a lifetime in screen-biz. Unlike the 'Zen' book, in the very end pages, author Tobias goes into the exact layout of a screenplay including the why's and why-nots. In addition he lists several (as of 1997) software suppliers of screenwriting programs along with uttering the valuable caveat, that many of these companies will allow you to test their creations for free for fifteen days. You might be asking yourself why is the form that the screenplay is written in so important? Author Tobias explains, that to seasoned readers of TV and movie scripts, the seemingly awkward lay-out of the screenplay fades away like an approaching mirage and they are able to scan the white sheets of paper like we scan the pages of "The Wall Street Journal" or, for those of us handicapped by a public school education, "USA Today". He also recommends, by title, several other books, magazines and adds important lists non-members can order from The Writer's Guild of America. And certainly the most important fact from this book is that the 5% of good screenplays come from those of us who have a story we must tell, perspire persistence and write well. And sometimes rhyme.

Begun: 04/25/2005   Finished: 05/06/2005

Also Enjoy:
20 Master Plots and How to Build Them
by Ronald B. Tobias

"Tom Wolfe’s modern American satire tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street “Master of the Universe” who has it all — a Park Avenue apartment, a job that brings wealth, power and prestige, a beautiful wife, an even more beautiful mistress. Suddenly, one wrong turn makes it all go wrong, and Sherman spirals downward in a sudden fall from grace that sucks him into the ravenous heart of a New York City gone mad during the go-go, racially turbulent, socially hilarious 1980s."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Almost two decades after this New York Times bestseller hit the shelves, and only after witnessing author Tom Wolfe on a recent "Book Talk" interview on CSPAN, did I decide to read "The Bonfire of the Vanities". I have not seen the movie of the same name, however, I understand from the interview, that it was 'poorly done.' My 637 paged copy of this trade paperback began with a confusing confrontation between the mayor of New York and a Jesse Jackson-type Black spokesman. But I didn't let that stop me. Prior to its reading, I imagined the book to be about the high life of the rich, and it certainly is, however it is actually more of a richly fleshed-out "Law and Order" type episode spread over the thirty days during which I consumed it. Ignoring the New York and Southern America dialects spelled out by author Wolfe: 'That's nuthun Shuhmun' (and I'm not certain how necessary those were for a book created to be read silently to one's self) I soon found myself, heart throbbing, in the supple leather seats of a black, two-door Mercedes 'roadster', rocketing up a highway ramp somewhere in the Bronx, and hooked on this finely written piece. Talented authors, whether by design or not, force their readers to forever carry pieces of their story. From Hemmingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" I will always remember the long walk of the captured with villagers on either side, ending with a forced leap to death from the cliff at the end of the path. From "Bonfire" I will always see in my mind the extravagant parties with the overly gracious hostess meeting incoming guests and guiding them to clusters of "conversational bouquets", like a gardener planting bulbs next to one another in the freshly turned warm earth of her garden. The author calls the wives of these millionaires, who have starved themselves in the late 1980s fashion of Karen Carpenter, "X Rays." If you are searching for a book with a clear cut, warm and fuzzy happy ending, this work, ending with a five-page epilogue isn't it. However, if you are interested a reading that has plenty of twists and turns in the burroughs of New York and visits courtrooms, lawyers, cops, thugs, luxuriant Fifth Avenue Townhomes, bond market trading floors, eleven-dollar-a-drink restaurants, the alcohol-soaked psyche of a tabloid journalist, and the tortured egos of married men who can't keep their pants zipped, all the while painting word pictures that will remain in the frame of your mind for years, read "The Bonfire of the Vanities."

Begun: 03/31/2005   Finished: 05/01/2005

Also Enjoy:  The Great Gatsby  by F.Scott Fitzgerald

"Bosco's descriptions of violence, horror, filth, and gallows humor, plus portraits of caring but demoralized staff working against inept bureaucrats more concerned with their own comfort than that of their patients, make this an eye-opening experience. A troubling book, difficult to put down, this belongs in psychology and social work collections." -- Scott Johnson, Meridian Community Coll. Lib., Miss.

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Under the cover of anonymity, author Dominick Bosco describes the doings of the administration, the physicians, the nurses, the psych-techs, the grief ridden parents (who have signed their rights away to the state) and the patients behind the walls of a massive and unnamed mental hospital. In the 1950s my brothers' and I were forced by the heavy, smoky and smelly traffic along Van Buren Avenue, to hurriedly pedal our bicycles and tricycles by the eight foot tall barbwire topped fence of the Arizona State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. I remember inmates occasionally approached and spoke nonsense at us. This was the same state facility that multiple escapee Winnie Ruth Judd, the woman convicted of chopping up a couple of people and shipping them via train in foot lockers, sometimes was to be in residence. Then, a quarter of a century later, I found myself inside that same twenty acre wire enclosure. . . but enough about me. Within the three hundred twenty-three pages of this book, which Bosco thankfully breaks into forty-three short and sad chapters, I learned all I need to know about our state-run mental hospitals; from their funding by the legislature, to the view of life from behind the eyes of a psychotic held inside their walls. We have all heard that government tax dollars for the mentally ill were massively sliced during the 20^th Century and that many 21^st Century inmates of our jails and prisons are psychotics and schizophrenics who should instead be patients in our mental hospitals. And listening to my friend undergoing guard training at Sheriff Joe's jails, I believe this is the case. However, since the mentally ill can't speak to legislators or hold mass demonstrations or even vote, the limited amount of tax dollars available find their way to those with the largest mouths: Seniors and Gays. Seniors and AIDS-stricken Gays, both of whose problems stem from the way they conduct their lives, as contrasted to the severely mentally ill chronicled in this book, who have absolutely no choice, no way to avoid their unbelievably sad and unavoidably expensive fate.

Begun: 04/10/2005   Finished: 04/16/2005

"This unusual screenwriting book takes up where William Froug's earlier books left off. It offers the reader a tapestry of short essays and in-depth interviews with top screenwriters. Froug's essays cover such topics as avoiding the obvious, the birth of ideas, the process of rewriting, dealing with writer's block, creativity and spontaneity, handling rejection, breaking the screenwriting "rules, " and episodic forms."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

An interesting and uplifting book about the film business and those usually unknown scribes who scratch out our good and great screenplays. Until the very last pages there is never a word on how they should be written, hence the 'Zen' in the title. This oddly shaped book includes interviews with ten successful screenwriters and gives insights into the vagaries of writing and getting screenplays produced, hence the 'insights and interviews' in the sub-title. Just a wonderful and easy to read three hundred and thirty-three paged book for those of us who are certain we can write the words the screen actors speak. The way the book is laid out with an interview and then trailed by chapter laden with everyday facts about the movie business makes it never boring and very hard to put down . . . for those of us are chosen to write the next good and great screenplays.

Begun: 04/09/2005   Finished: 04/17/2005

Also Enjoy:  Zen in the Art of Writing  by Ray Bradbury

"In the long struggle for land and power, the old Dutch settlers in South Africa finally recognized British might, and in 1835 began the Great Trek northward to set up in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal. By 1899, however, it was clear that the stiff-necked Boer and the unyielding Britisher were destined to war, and the machinations of diamond king Cecil Rhodes lit the match to the powder keg."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

The Boer War by James Barbary is a quickly read 202 yellow-paged, large-font book that I pulled from my library Friday evening and completed Saturday morning. Unlike the U.S. Civil War, prior to the war the Boers enjoyed adequate financing from South African gold mines and had established a monopoly on dynamite and gunpowder manufacturing. On the last page Mr. Barbary writes " . . . the butcher presents his bill." Which was: six thousand British soldiers killed in action, sixteen thousand dead from enteric fever, fourteen thousand Boers dead, and a bill to the British taxpayer of $1,110,000,000. Ostensibly, the reason for the war was that the Boers enslaved the Negroes for cheap labor, while the British absolutely insisted they be free men. However, Pre-Suez Canal, British leaders and South African diamond baron Cecil Rhodes, knew that they could not afford a powerful non-aligned country to be in command of a port on the southern tip of Africa which could attack shipping rounding the continent. There were several firsts in this war and one was the British invention of . . . concentration camps. These horrible internments were populated with Boer non-combatants consisting of: men, women and children who were systematically burned out of their homes and plantations by the British. Since the Boers employed the then unusual tactics of guerilla warfare and fielded savvy generals, on 31 May, 1902, when the Boers surrendered the armies stood at 400,000 British troops versus 18,000 Boers. Two figures were made famous by this war: Colonel Baden-Powell, who went on to found the Boy Scouts and then twenty-five year old war correspondent, Winston Churchill. Who captured by the Boers, escaped and after many days, and much press coverage, made it back to the English lines.

Begun: 04/08/2005   Finished: 04/09/2005

Also Enjoy:
The Boer War 1899-1902  by Gregory Fremont-Barnes

And:
Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War
by Rick Atkinson

"An eye-opening investigation of charismatic "gurus" from Jesus to Freud to David Koresh, by the author of "Solitude: A Return to the Self". In "Feet of Clay", eminent psychologist Anthony Storr uncovers the personality traits that link these men and explores the incredible power they have wielded over their fanatical followers. 11 photos."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Great Britain based Anthony Storr writes eloquently about gurus; be they saints, sinners or madmen. And as I imagined he would, Jesus Christ, is analyzed (most respectfully) but, Muhammmad, other than a brief mention in the introduction, never makes it to the couch. Go figure. I burned through the chapter on David Koresh (aka: Vernon Howell) but every American's favorite, Charlie Manson, is left back in his California prison cell scratching swastikas in the linoleum with an incisor he ripped from his own jaw. After biographies about the reverend Jim Jones, of Jamestown fame, to televangelist Pat Robertson and the unknown Paul Brunton, author Storr goes on to explain why Man searches for answers, god and redemption. And continues with the why and how individuals become gurus and the techniques these powerful mentor's utilize, sometimes unconsciously, to attract and then retain disciples. While the first few chapters containing the real whack jobs, including the already mentioned, James Jones and David Koresh, and adding the Bhagwan Shree Rajaneesh, left me eager to read on, the book too quickly ran out of steam as I chugged through Carl Justuv Jung and Sigmund Freud, then began picking up energy through the section on Ignatius of Loyola and then finally settling down to a steady read of never being either boring or exciting. As if to put an exclamation mark on his work, the last black and white photo displayed is that of India-based moustached Mother Meera who speaks not at all, but simply holds the heads of her supplicants while they kneel before her! While, of course, not agreeing with everything put forward, I learned so much in this 244 paged book (that includes 14 pages of undisturbed footnotes) that it is difficult to be brief. So I will end my review with the conclusion, that according to Anthony Storr's definition, like virtually every guru mentioned, your Mr.Wonderful has apparently suffered two psychotic, life changing episodes spaced about a quarter century apart. I am taking on disciples now . . . tell your friends. <grin>

Begun: 04/02/2005   Finished: 04/07/2005

Also Enjoy:
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia
by Dennis Covington

And:  The Professor and the Madman  by Simon Winchester

And:  Messiah  (fiction)  by Gore Vidal

"Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works -- its chemicals, structures, and subroutines -- and how these systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives. For a hundred years, he says, many of us have assumed that the most powerful route to self-knowledge took the form of lying on a couch, talking about our childhoods."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:
Your Mr.Wonderful has read four other books wholly concerned with the human brain and Mind Wide Open is one of the best. Author Steven Johnson has written a delightfully easy to read book, contemporary and with concepts laid out clearly enough for the common man to grasp and then supplemented with thirty-eight pages of footnotes at the end of the book. Footnotes without those annoying superscripted numbers ¹ dotting the text like so many squashed gnats. Footnote entries that force meticulous people like me to stop my reading and flip to the footnotes in the rear of the book, then realize that I didn't get the chapter and page number needed to locate the specific footnote, so then I flip back to the text to get the chapter and page number, then flip to the back of the book once again, read the footnote, then flip back to the text to continue my reading until the next irritating little number halts me once more. Mr. Johnson wisely veered from social-political commentary, mentioning a single (thankfully only in footnote form) insane claim, by Shelley Taylor, where she states that as the gap widens between the rich and the poor, the poor are so stressed that they live far shorter lives than the rich. Is it possible that the Left has forgotten the grim statistics culled from the dismantled "Evil Empire" (the Union of Soviet Socialists) where there were no rich and no poor and everyone enjoyed a lifespan of somewhere around fifty-seven years? While in the Capitalistic West, with its 'wealth gap' it was not uncommon for citizens to live into their late seventies? So much of the mystery of the brain for Mr.Johnson revolves around how this or that or those unbelievably complicated and currently unknowable brain functions evolved. Your Mr.Wonderful, being a hayseed-dolt who lives in fly-over country, believes we were created by the God celebrated and feared in the Judeo-Christian Bible. The author ponders: Why do these hormones act the way they do in our brain? Because that's the way the God, who created the thousands of galaxies, from a beginning the size of a golf ball, designed us. Why is music such an incredibly important part of human existence? Because God created us to praise Him in song. Since I harbor little disagreement with how Mr. Johnson presents the affects of hormones on our brains, only the why, and although evolution is mentioned on virtually every page, I found it easy to ignore the unrelenting natural selection declarations, and I can highly recommend this book. If I've piqued your interest in the 'God' vs. Cosmic Billion Year Accident' controversy, pick up the book Icons of Evolution and read why what Darwin theorized in the 19th Century, even after one hundred and fifty years of massive inquiry and study, still remains only a cobbled-together, fragmented theory that is presented as accepted fact in our classrooms and news rooms simply because any and all evidence even seeming to favor Creation (Intelligent Design) is intently ignored or "pooh-poohed" out of the discussion.

Begun: 03/22/2005   Finished: 04/02/2005

Also Enjoy:
The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth about Autism
by Simon Baron-Cohen