Briefly Noted

“When I was five years old, my dad was working at the New York World’s Fair, and he had gone to the Dutch Pavilion and he bought this kit—Make Your Own Medieval Village. One night after supper, we cleared the dining room table and cut everything out and glued everything together. It was like magic. I thought, ‘Wow, I want to do that.’ … After watching him build it, I went out to the driveway and drew our VW bus from all sides on a big sheet of cardboard, cut it out, folded it, then glued it together. I’ve been making things ever since.”

“Fresh from his masterful The Summer of 1787, Stewart takes on one of the seamiest events in American history: the vengeful impeachment of Lincoln’s successor as president; the Senate failed to convict Andrew Johnson by a single vote. At issue was the continuation of Lincoln’s plans to reintegrate the South into the union after the Civil War. But also at stake, as always, was party politics. Stewart takes readers through a tangled web of motives and maneuverings in lively, unadorned prose. … As he sums it up, in 1868 none of the country’s leaders was great, a few were good, all were angry, and far too many were despicable.”

“The Union dead are buried on a hill with a view of the Tennessee River. It is a lovely spot, cooler for the breeze that comes off the water, and each grave has a small white maker. Outside the gates of the graveyard there is a copy of the Gettysburg Address written on a metal plaque. The Confederates are buried in a mass grave in a trench that lies at the bottom of the hill, but they at least were all together, and they were home. I did not pass another soul in the park save the ranger at the gate who told me to leave when it was dark.

“If anybody tells you Tennessee has changed much, tell them to come out to Shiloh. Tell them to listen hard to the stories of the men you pick up on the road on your way there.”

“It’s the grand compendium of all that we know about how to undertake this most difficult of transitions, from an economy that burns fossil fuels to an economy that lives mostly on the incoming power of the sun in its many forms. … There are extensive, deeply documented chapters on everything you need to know to make sense of our situation: on forests and soils and how they might be made to sequester more carbon. On wind turbines and solar power and geothermal energy (which intrigues Gore) and biomass. He’s less sanguine about carbon capture from coal and about nuclear power, as much on the grounds of cost as anything else—but he’s careful not to shut the on any option, which is appropriate considering the scale of crisis we face.”