"Conversation in Cuba has to be clever. That's all they have." 
​
— Nelson Demille, The Cuban Affair

Robert Coram's Boyd is one damn-clear, awe-inspiring portrait of a warrior and leader. This is the story of a fighter pilot who threw out the book and then rewrote it. Still more, he rebuilt the fighter jet and in doing so, shifted a nation's entire approach to war. 

John Boyd (1927-1997), Coram writes, was "arguably the greatest fighter pilot in American history." And his contributions to military science once he left the cockpit were even greater still, with the designing of a revolutionary, paradigm-shifting fighter jet: the F-15. The man, along with his two best friends, did this behind the Air Force's back. They worked late nights, early mornings, and weekends for over six years on their secret design (codenamed: "The Lord's Work"). Bucking the smug attitudes and in-vogue opinions at the Air Force and Navy, Boyd's F-15 was a lightweight and highly maneuverable gun-armed jet. Fat planes were sitting ducks. Missiles were still in their infancy and couldn't track enemies reliably. But the military's committees and procedures were heading in the wrong direction. "They were bureaucrats. Boyd was a warrior." One with literally thousands of fight hours, an undefeated combat vet and flight instructor who proved himself in Korea.

Boyd's resume and life's work is beyond impressive, but Coram explores the pilot, colleague, friend, son, husband, and father with tremendous nuance and insight. At the halfway mark of Boyd's dogged pursuit of a workable F-15 design,"Boyd had established a pattern: no matter what his contributions to the Air Force or to the national defense might be—and there were significant contributions to come—his outspoken nature, his lack of reluctance to criticize his superiors, and his love for conflict with others would hinder his promotion through his career." 

As Coram draws him, the man's virtues and shortcomings are both epic and universal to us more-mortal folk. There are tons of lessons: Boyd's mental and physical stamina, his ability to focus deeply on tactical problems and stay in the zone, his impressive immunity to interruptions and distractions, his uncompromising attitude to learning the math, science, and maneuvers firsthand—all these are wonderfully drawn throughout the bio—as are his occasional bouts of vanity and spitefulness with rivals, his poor communication skills and consistent inability to recognize emotional vulnerability as a strength not a weakness.

My favorite aspect of Boyd's story though, is that it shows just how far and high a polio-surviving kid from the small city of Erie, Pennsylvania can fly when he has the guts to try all the planes, and build his own. [JG]
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This Side of Paradise. Tender is the Night. The Beautiful and the Damned. The Last Tycoon. The Great Gatsby. 

The original manuscripts of these five F. Scott Fitzgerald novels have been snatched by a team of thieves right from the vaults of Princeton University's library. The FBI manage to apprehend two of the thieves quickly, but they won't talk. And worse, the manuscripts have been moved by the remaining thieves to a new, safe location that even they don't know about. 

Ruling the trail officially cold, the FBI throw in the towel, but Princeton's insurance company refuses to. It's them who are on the hook for $25 million owed to the university as recompense if the manuscripts are not returned undamaged within six months. So the hunt is on, and Mercer Mann, a failed novelist and lame duck visiting professor, suddenly finds herself playing spy on behalf of the insurance company. Her loans—and potential payout— are too high to resist. 

She's got to cozy up to the target, an eccentric businessman in her hometown on Camino Island, Bruce Cable. Cable owns a thriving bookstore, which possibly contains a backroom full of first editions and sundry book valuables. All this so far is merely set up. Grisham's thriller rolls through its twists and turns effortlessly as Mercer's lover-spy mission unfolds. Plus, how is a book nerd like me supposed to say no to a book about book heists? ​[JG]

"So, when do they attack the bookstore?" 

— John Grisham, Camino Island
​

This dystopia explores sex, politics, and religion. Set in the near future in New England, the story follows Offred and several other Handmaids in the Republic of Gilead. They're not humans. They're property.

Women are forbidden to read, write, skip church services, flirt or touch a man other than their Commander, or possess contraband such as lingerie and music with love lyrics. They cannot leave the house without permission. Homosexuals, atheists, and other impure individuals are hunted by soldiers, then hanged from Gilead's high stone wall as reminders to citizens that they're all 'Under His Eye.' A Handmaid's only hope is to get pregnant from their Commander, and as fast as possible, else they're shipped off to the colonies, an anarchical cesspool beyond the frontiers of 'civilization.' 

Clocking in at just over 300 pages, The Handmaid's Tale is a powerful read. There are scenes where I was so nervous and engrossed that I realized afterwards I had moved to the edge of my couch and gripped the pages tighter. Margaret Atwood's storytelling ability to draw Offred and others as not just victims of injustice, but well-rounded individuals with dreams and personalities made me care about each of them. Their resilience, fears, cunning plans, and temptations to betray one another—all within a terrifying, airtight world that seemed to always be closing in around them—was fantastic. I haven't seen the hulu original series starring Elizabeth Moss, but if it's only half as good as the book, I'll be delighted. [JG]

[*] "Lillies used to be a movie theater, before. Students went there a lot; every spring they had a Humphrey Bogart Festival, with Lauren Bacall or Katherine Hepburn, women on their own, making up their minds. They wore blouses and buttons down the front that suggested the possibility of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able t choose, then. We were a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice." 

[*] "We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semidarkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren't looking, and touch eachother's hands across space. We learned to lipread, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other's mouths. In this way we exchanged names, from bed to bed. Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June." 

[*] "In returning my pass, the one with the peach-colored mustache bends his head to try to get a look at my face. I raise my head a little, to help him, and he sees my eyes and I see his, and he blushes. His face is long and mournful, like a sheep's , but with the large full eyes of a dog, spaniel not terrier. His skin is pale and unwholesomely tender like skin under a scab. Nevertheless, I think of placing my hand on it, this exposed face. He is the one who turns away." 

[*] "Now we walk the streets, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles. There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Free to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it." 

[*] "Give me children or else I die." 

[*] "I am like a room where things once happened and now thing does, except the pollen of the weeds that grow up outside the window, blowing in as dust across the floor." 

[*] "Under His Eye."

"Every recorded story implies a future reader."

— Offred, The Handmaid's Tale