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James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj reads as equal parts exposé, profile of the ultra-wealthy, and author’s journey. Crabtree examines the question of how so many Indians have reached the highest ranks of the Forbes’ billionaire list in the last ten years. Looking sharply at India’s history since independence, the author points directly at cronyism in... Continue Reading →
What is the nature of our own obsessions? How might helping others be the impetus to possibly finding our own peace? These questions swirled around my head as I read about J. Reuben Appelman’s personal investigations into the Oakland County Child Killer case in his book The Kill Jar. The OCCK case is a series... Continue Reading →
...The swells, the punters, the opium, and a few extra gelts... Paul French’s City of Devils combines one part oral history, one part entertainment rag, and one part true crime story to tell the bawdy history of the boom days in Shanghai between the wars. French describes it as “The Wild East,” an international settlement... Continue Reading →
Ken Bensinger’s Red Card is an explosive look into the corruption scandal that rocked FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, and the entire sports world in 2015. In a book that reads like Eichenwald’s The Informant or Lewis’s The Big Short, Bensinger follows the threads of investigation into bribes used to control the sponsorships,... Continue Reading →
I wish my merit badge requirement books had read like Ted Alvarez’s The Survival Hacker’s Handbook. Written with humor and sprinkled with some fun unconventional fixes, this book is a how-to guide (based on the author’s research and experimentation) for the weekend warrior who may fall into a sticky situation. Alvarez includes his own anecdotes... Continue Reading →
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