Category Archives: Biography

I’m The Man

04 Tuesday Jul 2023

Posted by in Biography, Reading

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I’m The Man: The Story of the Guy from Anthrax by Scott Ian
2014 / 303 pgs. (98,000 words) Autobiography.

In 1988, I was introduced to the band Anthrax. I was searching for my musical tastes, and I discovered the album, State of Euphoria by Anthrax. The opening Cello to Be All, End All got me hooked on Anthrax. After that, like many fans, needed to find everything they made. Discovering Stephen King after I heard Misery Loves Company and like many, Antisocial just drove me out of my mind.

The first metal band I saw was Anthrax during the Persistence of Time tour, so, when I saw Scott Ian’s book, I’m the Man, diving into the world of a rock start and band that I still follow was a glittery delight. This book wasn’t a disappointment. First, Scott started with the formation of Anthrax and all the trials and members that he went through until they finally got to the band that is still around today. The challenges of removing his best friend from the band to getting the final player needed to take the group to the next level, Dany Spitz.

Scott shares the time when Metallica came out to New York to record their first album, Kill ‘em All, to meeting the band and helping them out when they arrived. Also, the day he walked up to Cliff and found out that Dave Mustaine was fired from Metallica.

He continues through the tours of opening for Metallica in Europe and the day that he finds out that Cliff died. The challenges of recording albums and constant touring. Meeting and befriending the members of Pantera. Learning of Dimebags death and how he dealt with it. The really interesting aspect that Scott tells is about how he cheated on his first wife which led to a divorce. His relationship with his current wife who was the adoptive daughter of Meat Loaf. His telling of how he tried to keep up drinking with Lemmy Killmister. This is just the beginning for this book.

Scott goes over the highs and lows, and there are many lows, for a Rock n’ Roll star. It’s a very fascinating read that I would recommend to anyone that enjoyed metal in the 80’s and 90’s.

Enjoy a good cup of coffee and a delightful book!

Lopaka

The Path To Power

19 Monday Jun 2023

Posted by in Biography, Politics, Reading

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Path To Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson Vol 1 by Robert Caro
1982 / 882 pgs. (263,718 words) Biography & Politics

This book the first in a series of four books (planned five) about President Lyndon Johnson and his rise from a small town in Texas to the White House. When starting this book, one can grasp the amount of research that went into the draft. The details about LBJ and his early life are amazing. It’s so vast, I can only highlight some points, or this post will be to long to read.

The story starts will LBJ’s family background. The Johnson’s and Bunton’s. It’s Bunton’s strain of the family that builds LBJ to what he becomes most famous for, the fearless politician that overpowered people with his will and height to get his way. It goes through LBJ’s childhood and how he was the center of everything. He demanded that. He wanted all the attention. He also wanted the best for him, and he didn’t care how he got it.

LBJ was very demanding and only cared about something if he could have full control over it. If he lost any authority, he wouldn’t care about it anymore. It was almost as if he was demanding people to follow him and only him. He was very abusing to those that where loyal to him.

Thes story follows LBJ through his time at Southwest Texas State Teachers College where he was notorious liar and exaggerated about everything. His nickname was “Bull” because everyone knew he was full of “Bull”s**t. This is also the start of LBJ’s political carrier when he created a group known as the White Stars to win control of the Student body from the Black Stars who he couldn’t join. The dark side of politics, the lying and rigging of the election started at STSTC for LBJ and it carried with him all the way to the White House.

After graduation from STSTC, he then goes to US Congress to serve as a secretary for Congressman. LBJ learns the inner workings of congress as the Congressman that he works for doesn’t really want to be in Congress.  This allows LBJ to build up his network for the eventual running for Congress himself which he embarks on in 1937 and wins.

The final chapters are about his failed bid for the US Senate in 1941. His years in the Congress until Roosevelt’s death. This is where Volume One ends.

I left out a vast amount of many details, like marriage to Lady Bird and the influence of Sam Rayburn on LBJ. This book is very dense and extremely well researched. While reading it, I never grew bored. It really is a page turner that I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed John Adam’s and Truman. The dept of this reminds me of another extremely well researched and narrated book At Dawn We Slept.

I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys a good biography about a politician.        

Enjoy a good cup of coffee and a delightful book!

Lopaka

John Adams

30 Friday Dec 2022

Posted by in Biography, History, Reading

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John Adams by David McCullough
2001 / 781 pgs. (188,00 words) Biography and History

Stunned is how I felt as I devoured every word of this masterpiece. Like Truman, this biography is very detailed and not a bore to read. Each paint stroke builds the picture that forms one of the great founding fathers of the United States; it also begs one to question why we do not know more about John Adams.

Honestly, when I started this book right after I finished Cycle of the Werewolf, I found myself reluctant as my knowledge of the Revolutionary/Colonial period of US history is weak compared to the W.W.II era. When I started, there was a feeling of dread and hesitance. David McCollough won the Pulitzer with John Adams and Truman. However, I was still unsure if I would enjoy reading John Adams with the same level of enjoyment as I did with Truman. All the feelings I experienced were put to pasture in the book’s first few pages.

This biography starts with the birth of Adams and a little background of his family in Quincy, Massachusetts. It builds from how his father raised him to Adams attending and graduating from Harvard. His eventual marriage to Abigail and the love that flows from them in letters they wrote to each other while he was away. McCullough even builds the events around Adams, like the Boston Massacre, how Adams successfully defended the British soldiers, and Adams’s essential involvement in the Declaration of Independence.

McCullough builds a wonderful picture as, naturally, the story progresses throughout the American Revolution and how the untold story of Adams going to France to help Franklin with the French. However, of his own volition, Adams goes to the Netherlands to negotiate trade and secure a loan from the Dutch. Congress eventually appoints him as minister to the Netherlands.

John Quincey’s picture is painted simultaneously, showing how travel with his father builds his reputation and experience. What is fascinating, and is eloquently shown by McCullough, is the events of times and how they changed the United States and people’s perspectives. For example, when Napoleon invaded Russia and seized the city, John Quincy was minister to St. Petersburg. Another example, John Quincey, was a Senator when President Jefferson sent to the Senate for their approval of the treaty that was eventually known as the Louisiana Purchase. Finally, who was Secretary of State when Spain negotiated the sale of Florida for $5,000,000? The Adams of the Adams-Onis Treaty, John Quincey.

The novel continues into John Adams’s times as the 1st Vice President of the United States, to his hatred of Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams the 2nd President of the United States. Also, the famous relationship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, eventually to the moment infamous in American History, their death on July 4th, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.                            

There is much more that I am not writing about, as this review would be very long. The rating should say how much I enjoyed this novel. I would absolutely recommend this if you were fascinated with the Presidents of the United States. This novel brings a very different light and appreciation for John Adams. 

Enjoy a good cup of coffee and a delightful book!

Lopaka

Truman

27 Sunday Nov 2022

Posted by in Biography, History, Politics, Reading

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Truman by David McCullough
1993 / 1,120 pgs. (280,000 words) Biography, Politics, and History

Truman, what an outstanding annals and page turner. Many times, I found myself wanting to continue devouring another page beyond my mandatory hour obligation. All confession, I started this novel with a skeptical mindset if I would enjoy reading a vast biography. I was very pleasantly amazed at how much I genuinely enjoyed reading Truman.
  
This biography is a telling of Harry S. Truman from the day of his birth to his death and the real impact he had on the United States. It does not start off with the simple, Harry was born on 8 May 1884. McCullough starts with events that happen to Harry’s grandfather and father which would impact Harry throughout his life. The author builds a narrative that shows how actions of those, that even before you were born, could have a profound effect on our lives even almost a hundred years after the fact.

McCollough then builds from Harry growing dealing with having to wear glasses to wanting to attend West Point. Showing how Truman’s love of history and reading and how that would influence and even impact decisions and relations with political leaders during his presidency.

The underlying narrative with Truman which is well known today is how everything for Truman came later in his life than what normal people would expect with life experiences. For example, he went to fight in France during World War I as a Captain at the age of 33. Most of those under his command were between the ages of 18-23. Harry Truman was also the only President that deployed to France and served in combat in the first world war. He did not marry his love of his life, Bess Truman until he was 35 years old. 

There are many details of Truman’s time as a Presiding Judge, his relationship with the political influential family Pendergast. The same family that eventually helped Truman become Senator which, after his election, Senator Truman started the Truman Commission that monitored spending and corruption with New Deal Programs. Finally, how and why Truman became Vice President knowing that he would have to take over for Roosevelt because many, including Roosevelt himself, knew that the President wouldn’t live through his fourth term.

Naturally, I can expound more, this is a massive and detailed biography, however, I’ll give some of the juicy tales that I really enjoyed and showed the true Harry Truman like we’ve never knew before.  Harry wrote to Bess everyday and in one of his letters, while he was President, he called Bess his “Juno, Venus, Minerva, and Proserpina.” I’m not trained in the classics and had to look up Proserpina and it was a perfect name for Bess.

As an airman, we’ve also loved the fact that Truman signed the National Defense Act of 1947 that among its many actions created the United States Air Force.  He signed in on board “The Sacred Cow”, the presidential aircraft.  However, why he signed it on the plane is never explained. He was on the plane to fly home to see his dying mother and delayed the plane for an hour so he could sign the legislation. Once it was brought to him, he signed it on the plane and flew home, however, sadly, his mother died before he arrived in Missouri.  

This biography won David McCollough the Pulitzer Prize. He also received the Pulitzer for another biography, John Adams. I would absolutely recommend Truman. This is a masterpiece 

Enjoy a good cup of coffee and a delightful book!

Lopaka

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

09 Friday Jul 2021

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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin 1791  / 151 pgs. Biography

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is listed as a must-read for great American works.  It doesn’t disappoint.  Franklin was writing it in the last ten years of his life and was unable to finish it.  He started writing it in 1771. Beginning in 1720, when he was 14 and moving through his last entry for 1757, it covers his earlier years.  Naturally, many would like to read about the years not written as Franklin died in 1790 at 84.

However, the book still gives an excellent view of Franklin’s fascinating world and how he thought and created his political and business viewpoints.  Most know of the stories that he was a founding father of the United States, the United States Minister to France during the Revolution, printer, and scientist.  Naturally, those are the highlights in U.S. history books.

What this biography shows is how truly a renaissance man he was.  In 1733, he taught himself French, then Italian, Spanish, and Latin.  He was a lover of books and didn’t enjoy drinking throughout the day.  His first son died of Small Pox.  Franklin could have gotten him inoculated and regretted not getting the procedure completed.

Franklin founded an Academy for poor children to gain a higher education for free called the Academy and College of Philadelphia and was its First President.  Today the Academy is called the University of Pennsylvania.

Franklin’s biography goes into much of his early life. It’s not a fast read as there is much information in each paragraph.  The way it’s written makes the reader sometimes forget they are reading an Autobiography.  After finishing it, I now understand that Franklin kept vastly detailed journals.  I was sad to discover what I desired to devour, his insights and thoughts from 1760-1788, were never finished as he died before he could complete them.  However, I wasn’t disappointed by any of this book.  I would recommend it if you want to learn about how Franklin developed himself into the man we know in today’s history books.       
              

Enjoy a good cup of coffee and get lost in an excellent book,

Lopaka

Next Read – The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli