Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William Mann

 ★★★¼

GENRE: Biography
SUBJECT: Life of Katharine Hepburn
Setting: Connecticut, Hollywood
CHARACTERS: Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, Thomas Hepburn
DATE READ: June 17 - June 29
NO. OF PAGES: 656
Challenges: 75, Category, TIOLI , 
SOURCE: ARD stockpile

PLOT:....................................................................3.00
CHARACTERIZATION:.......................................3.00
TOPICS: ...............................................................3.50
STYLE:..................................................................3.50
ORIGINALITY:.......................................................3.50
ADDICTIVENESS:..............................................3.00
OWNERSHIP:......................................................3.00
Threshold Quality.................................................3.00
Average..............................................................................................3.19 


Just about every biography of Katharine Hepburn was written and influence by Katharine Hepburn herself, however, this book was undertaken after her death and the research that was used were paper trails -  itineraries of ships, trains, planes, along with schedules for theater shows, etc.  Mann also explored her sexuality in a way not previously defined.  He insinuates at times that she was gay, transgender, bisexual, but never comes to a conclusion.  

However, I'm not sure how well we can accept the stories that he tells.  Someone else's life will always seem different to other people than to the person who lived it.

This book said many things about  Katharine Hepburn as well as Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, and Howard Hughes but whether you care to believe it, is your choice.

Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor and Visionary by Kendall Haven

★★★

Genre: History

Subject: Biography

Setting: Scotland, USA

Main Characters: Alexander Graham Bell

Series: no

Dates Read: July 12

Number of pages: 114

Off the Shelf (pre-2012)? Source?: no, Public Library

Category for 12 in 12 challenge: History class

Did you know that Alexander Graham Bell was a talented pianist? His talent was so great that he could have been a concert pianist but his father believe that it was too frivolous and insisted that he give it up. His father wanted him to do something valuable in the area of sound (his own specialty was development of Visual Sound language). But Alexander (AGB) was not academically inclined. He was a visionary.

At the age of 8,with his brother Melville, AGB invented a wheat separator for a neighboring farmer. Later at his father's suggestion, they created a talking machine that could be "programmed" to mimic the human voice.

The early years of his life he spent helping the deaf learn to speak but he yearned to put his other ideas into action. Receiving funding from his future father-in-law to create a harmonizing telegraph, AGB "accidently" developed and created the telephone. And there is where most people leave AGB - the Telephone effected everyone and still does but at the age of 29 AGB wasn't finished.

Other inventions in his life were:

audiometer to measure hearing loss

creation of the decibel rating system

fiber optic photophone was ahead of its time (80 yrs.) so it flopped

a metal detector to try to find bullet in Garfield (would have worked except for the metal springs in the bed)

vacuum jacket - forerunner of the iron lung

graphophone (dictaphone) voice recordings

automatic butter churner, water delivery system, cooling fans,

aeronautical designs from aircraft to jet engines

hydrofoil boats

flat records for phonographs

He also financially supported other inventors - Samuel Langley - steam aerodrome and Albert Michelson, Nobel prize winner for measurement of the speed of light for a few. And he wanted to spread the word of scientific progress so he helped to create the National Geographic Society and publication as well as supplying money to start the Smithsonian publication.

AGB also warned of the "greenhouse effect" and of energy shortages he foresaw in the future.

So Alexander Graham Bell was not just the telephone, he was a visionary for his time and the future.

Andrew Johnson, A Biography by Hans L Trefousse

★★★

Genre: History

Series: no

Dates Read: January 25 - January 31

Number of pages: 464

Off the Shelf (pre-2012)? Source?: no

Category for 12 in 12 challenge: History Class

Andrew Johnson was a self-made man who was placed into a difficult position by his place in time. This enigmatic man was the only Southern Senator who remained loyal to the Union at the time the Civil War began. He believed whole-heartedly in the Union and the Constitution and throughout his life fought to preserve them. But he was a contradiction. He was a Democrat that served as Lincoln's (a Republican) Vice President, he was a white supremacist that was concerned about freed men of color, he was a politician who lost only two elections - one early one late in career - but was always looking for vindication by the people.

Johnson was a stubborn man who appeared to believe that he was always right when it came to political matters and here lies his difficulties. Since he was a Democrat in a Republican administration per se, he had little support for his plans for the Reconstruction of the nation at the end of the war and after Lincoln's assassination. He used the Presidential veto 29 times and was overridden 15. His personal feelings for other politicians frequently got in the way of vital legislation. However, he held ground in his belief of the powers of the Constitution and was vindicated at his impeachment proceedings by acquittal.

I still think I need more details concerning the impeachment process, so another book is in order for that historical event. As a President I don't think that he was great, but he wasn't as bad IMHO, as history makes him out.

Wild Rose: The True Story of a Civil War Spy by Ann Blackman

Read: October 24 - 28

Format: Hardback 307 pages

Source: Public Library

Subject: Espionage, Civil War

Category: The Engagement: this is getting serious

Challenges: 11 in 11, 75 Book, TIOLI, SYLL

Stars: ★★★

Rose O'Neale Greenhow, have you ever heard of her? To be honest, I hadn't but after reading this book, I'm surprised by that fact. When I think of a spy in wartime in the 19th century, a woman is not necessarily what I imagine, but Rose Greenhow played that part more than adequately. A strong independent woman, Rose, living in the Nation's capital, was a Washington hostess, presidential confidante and spy.

Living in Washington, Rose had a virtual list of Who's Who that befriended her over thirty years - John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas (her son-in-law), Dolley Madison, Chief Justice Roger Taney, Mary Chestnut, Presidents Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James Polk, and James Buchanan and she kept a correspondence throughout the war with Jefferson Davis and General Pierre Beauregard.

At the start of the Civil War, Rose Greenhow contacted the Confederate government and offered her services as a spy in Washington. She was given a special cipher and frequently during the early months of the war gathered important information regarding the troop numbers, placement, and planned movements. Never keeping her Confederate sympathies a secret, it is surprising the information she was able to gather and forward to the Confederacy. The success of the South at the first major battle at Bull Run can be linked to messages that she sent directly to General Beauregard.

In 1862 she was imprisoned (first in her own home and then in the Old Capital Orison) for nearly a year and then she was exiled to the south. President Jefferson Davis commissioned her to go to Europe to attempt to persuade England and France to recognize the Confederacy and aid them. During her time there, Rose met with Prime Ministers, Kings and Queens. On her trip home, while running the blockade outside of Wilmington, NC, her ship ran aground and rather than wait for the tide, she insisted on a lifeboat to make land. Swells ravaged the tiny boat and Rose was drowned. Rose Greenhow's strong independent spirit was her downfall because the ship safely made port the next morning.

This book was an amazing tale of a feisty woman of the South, who embraced the southern cause and risked her liberty and gave her life for what she believed in. It is well-written and very informative of issues that were previously unknown to this reader at least.

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood by Jean Leavy

Read: August 23 - August 25

Format: Overdrive equivalent of 553 pages

Source: Public Library

Subject: Mickey Mantle Bio

Category: Something Borrowed from the library

Challenges: 11 in 11, 75 Book, TIOLI, SYLL

Stars: ★★

This is a biography of New York Yankee Mickey Mantle. I'm not exactly sure how to review it so I will just tell you my feelings. I am an avid baseball fan - mostly the Baltimore Orioles therefore, you do hear about the dreaded Yankees. So I really expected to hear more about baseball, but what I read was basically about injures and inappropriate behavior by Mantle and his teammates. He couldn't seem gather his excellence from the field and continue it in his private life.

The first few chapters were interesting, but then it just seemed to be the same over and over - play great, injury, bad behavior, repeat. I guess hearing the life of another pro player who just died there was a great contrast - maybe Mantle was a great player who was denied his full potential by an early injury, but the injury wasn't what stopped him from being a great man.