The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson, "The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America," (London: Abacus Books; 1990), 293 pages.

In the late 1908s, Bill Bryson, an England-based American writer, returned to the United States to retrace the travels taken on family vacations during his youth. The travels he took were the material for this book. Bryson wanted to visit what he called the magical places of his youth, or perhaps more accurately, the places he visited on family vacations of his youth that formed magical memories for him. Motivated by the recent passing of his father, a semi-famous baseball writer, and looming middle-age, Bryson returned to his home town, borrowed a car, and set out to see small town America. His journey was not just a retracing footsteps of old trips, it also took on a quest to find the dreamy small town of the movie of his youth, a timeless place where Bing Crosby would be the priest, Jimmy Stewart the major, Fred Macmurray the high school principal, and Henry Fonda the owner of the gas station. Bryson called this fictional town Amalgam, a mixture of the picturesque towns encountered in fiction.

Bryson traveled from Des Moines, Iowa to all corners of the lower 48 states of the United States. The book contains detailed descriptions of the places he visited, together with reflections from his childhood. Bryson writes with perception, accuracy and wit. He captures the vast contrasts in the United States, the gaps between the wealthy and the poor, the prevalence of violent crime, and America's large scale abandonment of small town "high street" commercial life in favor of large scale commerce of big box stores and shopping malls. Bryson praises the staggering physical beauty of the United States while simultaneously recoiling at the homogenization of its look alike suburban developments, gas stations, motels and fast food outlets frequented by overweight hicks wearing bad clothes.

The Lost Continent established Bryson's reputation as a humorous travel writer. At times he is a rude smart-alec that prompts deep belly laughs in reader. At times he is cruel when he makes fun of the local residents of the small towns he visits. At the time of the writing of this book, Bryson has lived outside the United States for a long time. This book shows that the America of his youth is gone; Americans' way of life and their towns and cities have changes from how he remembers them. It’s as though Bryson is a foreigner in his own country and he is disgusted with a lot of what he sees. Despite his smart-alec outrage and humorous put-downs, Bryson writes quite beautifully about the places he visits, most notably the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, and numerous small towns in New England and the Mid West. The book also contains many historical fact that enable Bryson to provide a back story to the places he visited thereby acting as a story teller and educator for the reader. Bryson's eye for detail, love of useful facts, historical details, and good yarns are his great strength. His gift is to tell great stories about significant human achievements and follies that move and excite people. In The Lost Continent we see the potential he developed later on in more serious and scholarly books.

If this book has a weakness it’s the uneven pace. Bryson starts slowly, describing in great detail his travels on the Iowa and Illinois back roads. It’s as though he is travelling slowly, but writing a lot. By the end of the book, Bryson covers great distances with less detail. As times it appears as though he is racing across the western states as though he is on a deadline to traverse these great distances in a short period of time and in as few pages as possible so he can flop over the finish line in time for his return flight to England. The pace is that of a sprinter compared to the leisurely stroll at the start of the book. If you can get past this minor blemish, Bryson's "culture shock" and humorous self-obsession with how America has changed, you should enjoy this book for its moments of serious reflection and first-rate story telling about things that both tarnish and make America great. These alone are worth the purchase price of this book.

Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by Bill a Mason and Lee Gruenfeld

Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by Bill Mason and Lee Gruenfeld, (New York: Villard Books; 2005), 365 pages.

Confessions always make good reading. From the times of Saint Augustine we've read them in great number. Those of us that live quiet lives seem always willing to pay for the confessions of Saints and sinners. Bill Mason fits into the sinner camp. He was an exceptional jewel thief that plied his specialized craft in Cleveland and South Florida. During the day, Mason worked a a successful property manager and real estate investor. On the side, he was a jewel thief that over his career stole more than $35 million worth of jewels from wealthy industrialists, actors, show business personalities, and wealthy socialites. This book reflects on his early life and early crimes, his growing confidence as he successfully completed more dangerous robberies, his relocation to Florida and fresh crop of new targets, his embarrassment of the Florida police, the five years he spent as a fugitive, his time in jail and prison, and the events that led to him retiring from a life of crime.

Mason's confessions show how the life of crime does not pay. We read of his excitement of successfully completing a succession of heists, and the highs of completing a range of jobs. But we also read of his brush with death after being shot by a security guard, the dogged pursuit of him by the Florida police, the misery he caused his family by long absences in jail and being a fugitive from the law for five years, as well as the stress and strain he caused his wife by her not knowing whether he will come home from a job. Mason paints a pretty good picture of the highs and lows of his criminal life and appears genuine when he apologizes for all the misery and pain he inflicted on his wives and children. He regrets the life that he lived, but shows that even though he had a lot of fun for a while, in the long run his live as a master jewel thief was not worth the suffering he inflicted on himself and those he loved. Let's hope that any potential criminals that read this book learn from Mason's experience and heed his advice.

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (New York: Little, Brown and Company; 2013), 305 pages.

The Malcolm Gladwell publishing enterprise’s latest installment is David and Goliath. The format is similar to his previous efforts: a volume of essays with a theme. This volume is about what happens when ordinary people are confronted by giants. By giants, he means powerful opponents of all kinds from armies and mighty warriors to physical and intellectual disability, misfortune, and oppression. Each chapter tells the story of a person that faced an oversized challenge and was forced to choose to respond. Each person Gladwell covers was challenged to play by the rules or give up, strike back, or forgive. In exploring these stories, Gladwell tries to explore two ideas. First, he explores the idea that lopsided conflicts, like that between David and Goliath, produce greatness and beauty. Second, he believes that we consistently get these kinds of David and Goliath conflicts wrong. To Gladwell, we misread them or misinterpret them. The same qualities that give one side great strength and an overwhelming advantage are often sources of great weakness. Being an underdog can change people in ways that we often fail to appreciate: it can open doors, create opportunities, educate and enlighten, and make possible what might otherwise have seemed un-thinkable.

Gladwell uses examples to make his case. For example, he examines a sporting team with a novice coach and novice players that achieve amazing success against more experienced opponents by using unorthodox tactics. Gladwell examines school class sizes and student family wealth to show the positive relationship between wealth up to a certain point, after which there is a negative relationship between wealth and success. Parents of college-age children will find the chapter of college achievement very interesting. Gladwell explored research into success rates of students interested in science in non-prestigious colleges versus achievement of similar children at prestigious colleges. Gladwell reported that on average, it is better to be a big fish (bright kid) in a small pond (non-prestigious college) than it is to be a small fish in a large pond (a bright kid among very many bright kids at a large prestigious college). Gladwell also examined research into the productivity of faculty that graduated from non-prestigious colleges versus faculty that graduated from prestigious colleges and found that the faculty that graduated from less prestigious colleges were more productive (on average) than graduates of prestigious schools. Gladwell also examines how people that face great difficulties and sufferings often develop great skills and accomplishments in spite of these difficulties. The book contains three chapters on the limits to power, namely, how great power can act to sew the seeds of its own defeat, or result in tan expensive and fruitless use of power by the State.

While very readable, and at time quite engaging, Gladwell’s latest book lacks the gravity, punch or impact of his earlier works. It’s adequately entertaining enough for this reader to finish it, but only just. This is a book I looked forward to finishing: it started well, but faded badly. It starts well with what you would expect in a book with this title, but after the first third, starts to fade to the extent that it is not readily apparent how the final third fits the author’s purpose. Perhaps this is due to our interest in stories about David’s success, rather than Goliath-type failures. No book is perfect. Galdwell has written a book worth reading with brief moments of great insight, but overall, somewhat disappointing compared to his other works.

New Ideas From Dead CEOs by Todd Buchholz

New Ideas From Dead CEOs: lasting Lessons from the Corner Office by Todd Buchholz, (New York: MJF Books; 2007), 300 pages.

We all believe that the present time is the peak time for knowledge and wisdom. This book explicitly challenges that proposition or belief by suggesting that iconic business leaders and business founders from the past can provide valuable life and business lessons to people today. In this short book, Buchholz examines the lives and and business challenges of a dozen business leaders. The people he examines are self-made successes that faced numerous ups and owns on their way to making business history. The book is divided into chapters that, for the most part, chronicle one business leader and the business they built. For example, he reviews the life of A.P. Giannini and how he built the Bank of America, Sam Walton and Walmart, Ray Croc at McDonalds, Walt Disney at Disney, Akio Morita at Sony, and Estee Lauder at the company that bears her name. Two chapters cover two people: one covers Thomas Watson Sr. and Jr. at IBM, and another covers Mary Kay Ash and Estee Lauder before he writes a separate chapter on both women. Each chapter provides biographic material including their upbringing, their early careers, decisions they made., and events that forged their distinct goals and aspirations, as well as challenges they faced during the establishment of their business and how they overcame obstacles.

The strength of this book is the wide range of lessons it covers. For example, the story of Walt Disney's loss of ownership of his creative content in the 1920s as an animator formed his resolve to retain ownership of Mickey Mouse, the character the built the Disney corporation. By contrast, the author also shows the importance of concentrating on low prices to the development of Walmart, the use of research and development in the growth of Sony, and the willingness for franchisees to experiment in the development of McDonalds.

This short book is a good introduction in to the lives of successful business founders, and their unique and varied experiences that led to their growth and ability to dominate their various industries.  The book contains a useful end notes section for readers interested in getting more detailed works of the people covered in this book, for example, biographies, autobiographies and studies. It is a book suitable for the curious reader and business owner alike, or student interested in the factors that led to some major businesses becoming what they are today.