The Missing Ink
The Lost Art of Handwriting
by Philip Hensher (Faber and Faber)
Will handwriting go the way of the film camera? British novelist, columnist and critic Hensher hopes it won’t. To that end, he’s given us a loving exploration of penmanship through history. With tales of 19th-century handwriting evangelists who crossed America, examinations of writing tools from fancy fountain pens to cheap Bics, as well as the role handwriting played in the work of Dickens and other authors, he makes us hope the handwritten word avoids extinction.
38 Nooses
Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End
by Scott W. Berg (Pantheon)
Here’s a Lincoln story that didn’t make the movie. Historian Berg tells of the 1862 conflict between white settlers and the Dakota people. It began when four drunken Native Americans murdered several settlers. US soldiers retaliated, defeating the Dakotas and sentencing 300 warriors to be hanged. President Lincoln intervened and the number was reduced to 38 people — still the largest public execution in US history. Ironically, as one group was sent to death, another was set free: Days later, Lincoln introduced the Emancipation Proclamation.
Nasser’s Gamble
How Intervention in Yemen Caused the Six-Day War and the Decline of Egyptian Power
by Jesse Ferris (Princeton University Press)
A new take on Egypt’s current crisis: In his book, the Israel Democracy Institute’s Ferris tells how the 1960s-era Egypt-Yemen conflict — which President Gamal Abdel Nasser later called “my Vietnam”— destabilized Egypt. The intervention in Yemen was supposed to take weeks. It lasted five years and set the stage for political Islam and Saudi Arabia’s rise in power. The destabilization, argues Ferris, led to the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel, and sowed the seeds that led to the 2011 Arab Spring.
The Three Stooges
Hollywood Filming Locations
by Jim Pauley (Santa Monica Press)
Author Pauley is billed as “a recognized expert on the Three Stooges filming locations.” And he’s nothing if not enthusiastic. He writes of discovering the real “Stooges Steps” from a 1941 short, mistakenly credited to a Laurel and Hardy film. Houses from Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart films were recycled for the Stooges. Loaded with rarely seen photos, this one is for Stooges completists.
Talking Pictures
Images and Messages Rescued From the Past
by Ransom Riggs (It Books)
An oddity of a book, made of photos found in junk shops, flea markets and garage sales, “Talking Pictures” is somehow compelling. We get not only the snaps of babies, sweethearts, vacations and the like, but haiku-like IDs from the photos. “This was when they loved each other,” reads one. A photo of four buddies in Vietnam is sadly labeled: “The ones on the left and right got killed when I got hurt.”