John Sedgwick

A reporter spent a year at the Philadelphia Zoo and then wrote this book about it. He talks just as much about the keepers, administrators, construction, repairs, management problems and so on as he does about the animals- getting a lot of behind-the-scenes look at how the zoo operates. For me, these details about how the people and politics weren't nearly as interesting as the animals- so I ended up skimming quite a lot... That, and the fact that much of the humor missed the mark with me, is why this book rated low for me. On the other hand, I did enjoy reading about all the wildlife- attempts to breed a rhino, hand-raising baby animals- kangaroo, binturong, marmoset- veterinary procedures, moving gorillas from old bare cages into new outdoor habitats, tricky work with dangerously strong elephants, making a stubborn camel move into its shelter from the winter weather (it didn't want to go indoors), watching interactions among the group of wolves.. Some of the descriptions are very brief, others- the wolves, elephants, rhino and gorilla in particular- are longer or revisited through the book. You might want to know there's a several-page very detailed account of the rhinocerouses mating. He also keeps mentioning how dangerous certain animals are, or how stupid others, without much attempt to see beyond this sensational or disparaging attitude... There's a bit of history and side stories about collectors, which unfortunately only detracted from the main narrative for me. It's certainly a piece of its time, an honest look at what a zoo was like in the 1980's. Rather sad how ineffective most of the veterinary attempts were- there seems to be more mention of animals getting ill or dying than of new births and successful treatments- but maybe those just stood out to me more.

more at the Dogear Diary… (mais)

War of Two is a great companion read for fans of Ron Chernow's biography Hamilton or Gore Vidal's novel, Burr. Author John Sedgwick, descendant of Theodore Sedgwick to whom Hamilton wrote his final letter before his fateful duel with Burr, does a fine job of capturing the complex relationship between these two mortal frenemies (well, perhaps they were never quite friends but they knew one another for much of their adult lives and even jointly defended a client in a famous court case). Because Hamilton makes an early departure before he was fifty, about halfway through the book, and Burr lived to eighty, War of Two goes deeper into Burr than Hamilton. You get a lot more than you did in the Hamilton biography about Burr's ill-fated attempt to establish an empire in the west, a crime for which he was not found guilty of treason but which propelled him to flee the United States nevertheless. You also learn about his five years exile in Europe which seems to have devolved from partying with royalty to living in abject, pathetic poverty. Burr's final twenty years stateside were pretty uneventful and are given scant attention. Sedgwick concedes that there is an echo of Burr's roguish personality in America today. However, it is but a fog compared to Hamilton's lasting influence as creator of this country's economic and financial systems.… (mais)