The Things I Use Daily

Nicole, my good lady wife, recently cleared out bags of junk from our house, and we took a full carload of bags and boxes to the local Savers thrift store (see: "charity shop" for you UK readers).

As I was unloading all the excess we've collected in the past eight years, I started thinking about the things that survived the purge. What are the most useful items I own? Here's the list, in no particular order:

Bodum Stovetop Espresso Maker

You can't beat the crema of an coffee shop espresso, but this little gizmo comes close, without the costly repairs and high cost of fancy automated machines. The genius of this is its simplicity - the heat forces water up through the espresso grounds and into the serving chamber. Once the metal is cool, it takes two minutes to clean out (note - do NOT use soap), and is good to go again. Other great tasting coffee making methods? The French press and old-school pour-over method.

Watch


Matthew Battles at The Atlantic wrote a great piece about the decline of the wristwatch recently, but for me, the curmudgeon who STILL doesn't own a cell phone, my watch is essential. Nicole tells me I have no concept of time and I invariably underestimate how long just about any task will take - with the notable exception of writing. I am Captain Lateness, I admit, but at least wearing my old, scratched steel chronograph gives me a slight chance of being within 10 minutes of my appointment times. And its still the best fashion accessory (unless you're into pocket squares or bowties).

Free Weights


I don't have any idea why gyms insist on dropping thousands of dollars on the latest machines - particularly the thigh strengthener thing that MUST have been invented by medieval torturers. The fact is, free weights work stabilizing muscles better, enable you to perform an almost unlimited array of exercises and burn more calories because you're supporting the entire load. Add in dip bars and a pullup bar, and you've got the perfect strength training setup. With this kit, the right trainer - such as my good friend Mr. Cory Maxwell - could get your heart rate off the charts in just a few minutes.

Concept2 Rowing Machine


I'd been looking for a cheap, lightly used Concept2 for five years when I finally came across one three summers ago. Why did it take so long? Because the machines have a very high resale value and most people who buy one realize it's the best way to work every muscle in your body this side of cross-country skiing, so don't want to give up their machine. Now, if you see a C2 at a gym it's typically underused (just like free weights) because it's hard work - at least if you use it properly instead of jacking it up to maximum resistance and moving the handle with all arms and back power - the common technique mistake. If you can grab a cheap one on Craigslist, check out The Pete Plan for an easy-to-follow training schedule, and see the Concept2 forum for encouragement and advice.  Best thing about the rower? You can get a killer workout in 20 minutes - great when I'm on deadline.

Etymotic MC5 Headphones 


I used a pair of Sony studio cans for the longest time, but while they offer great sound quality, they leak noise like Julian Assange leaks secrets and don't cancel outside noise (think kids banging on my office door, noisy neighbors) unless you turn up the volume to ear-splitting levels. So, while it is probably criminal to drop 80 bucks on headphones, I did just that at the beginning of summer on the Etymotic MC5s. Like my good friend Mr. Tom Seibold, I am an avid web researcher, and I spent many an evening combing audio forums for reviews, warnings and endorsements, with three criteria in mind: noise cancellation, sound quality, durability.

Results? I can't hear a bloody thing once I've got the triple flange silicone earplugs jammed in, I've cut the volume level on my laptop and iPod by more than 50 percent, and I'm hearing parts of old favorite songs I'd never noticed before (example: Ludovico Einaudi at the Royal Albert Hall - heart-breakingly beautiful piano + strings). Now, there is a breaking in period - putting the afore-mentioned plugs in hurts like heck the first few times, but I got over that quickly and would buy these 'phones again in a second if I lost them.

HTC Flyer tablet


Fact: Writers write things, and most like to do so with a pen. Problem: this leads to half-full notebooks all over the house, which it takes ages to trawl each time you need specific info. Solution: HTC Flyer + Stylus. OK, I am still ticked off that I paid 80 bucks extra for the stylus (curse you, Best Buy!) but I now have a digital notepad that I use several times a day. The notes are synched to Evernote, so I can review them later on any device, and (this is key) perform a full text search to find a specific word or term. I'm also using the Flyer's camera to take pics of expense receipts, emailing them to myself and presto! no more using a scanner. Liking Amazon's Cloud Player music service, too. And if I ever get into ebooks, the ability to write on them - just like the good ol' days of literary criticism with Mr. Tyler Blake at MNU - will be most welcome.

Book Edits - Everything Comes Full Circle

Last weekend was a blur of quad espressos, 18-hour work sessions, little sleep and headphones jammed so deep in my ears for so long I'm surprised I got them out again. Why? Responding to my editor's comments and changes to the manuscript for my forthcoming book, Our Supreme Task: How Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance. 

20,000 words, one reformatted chapter and two completely overhauled chapters later, and the book is in production. To quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "And there was much rejoicing."


So I could concentrate, I split my time between a local Starbucks - where I shamelessly hogged the only big table, spreading out pages in a random order that MIT mathematicians would struggle to interpret - and Mabee Library at my alma mater, MidAmerica Nazarene University. Late Sunday night, it struck me that there was something circular about finishing this process at the latter venue. In the second half of 2009, I spent many evenings hidden away in a corner of this library, poring over interlibrary loan books as I researched the background to Churchill's speech, his life in 1945 and 1946 and the people influenced by his unlikely appearance in Fulton, Missouri. Now, in September 2012, here I was again, this time trying to get past my ego and make the cuts needed to wrap up the project (more on this in the next blog post).

This got me thinking: how does location affect research and writing?

For certain texts, such as Thoreau's  Walden, a certain location is essential, and could not have been any different. But what about President Obama's inauguration address, written in a Washington Starbucks by then 27-year-old Jon Favreau (not to be confused with the Iron Man director, this Favreau is one month younger than me and is the Director of Speechwriting in the White House - unbelievable!)? Did the partially overheard conversations, whir of grinding beans and whoosh of the steam wands affect the content or tone of this speech? Is David McCullough's narrative voice so consistent because he writes each book in seclusion in a modified shed, as did children's author and onetime propaganda agent Roald Dahl?

I welcome your insights and opinions, dear readers!

Postscript: I realized, after re-reading the piece on Favreau in The Guardian (linked to above) that James Fallows of The Atlantic was the same age as Favreau when appointed head speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter. Fascinating.

Citations: Source for Mabee Library picture: MidAmerica Nazarene University
Source for David McCullough image: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
These two entities hold the copyright to the images.

Reading this Week - Communism, Robert Harris and Too Much of My Own Writing!

I've wanted to write a new blog post at multiple points this week, but editing the manuscript for my forthcoming book on Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech has me tied up. Not that it's a bad experience - it's quite liberating to receive edits and comments from a fresh set of eyes and someone whose job it is to edit. When you're too close to your own writing (as we all are), you don't see the repetition, the passive voice and the myriad other individual and persistent mistakes.

The key here is humility, and the realization that my editor and I want the same thing - a well-written, engaging story that people will want to read.

Anyway, all that aside, I've had the chance to read a couple of interesting things this week, that weren't composed by my own hand (amazing how un-interesting your own work becomes when you've read each word multiple times, believe me):

First was this wonderful interview with Robert Harris, conducted by Judith Woods over at The Daily Telegraph. In case you're not familiar with him, Harris is the author of all manner of wonderful historical fiction books, including Fatherland, The Ghost (which became the film The Ghost Writer, starring Pierce Brosnan and Ewan MacGregor) and Conspirata (the second part of his Rome trilogy, and a bargain at $6.40 on Amazon). I've bought everything he has created since my good friend, Mr. Jon Manley, lent me a copy of Fatherland more than 10 years ago.

In the interview, which he rarely consents to, Harris talks about his creative process, politics and the story behind his forthcoming book on the financial industry, The Fear Index (my lucky friends in the UK can get it several months before us poor buggers living stateside and yes, if anyone wants to send me a copy, I won't turn them down!). Harris combines historic authenticity with the page-turning suspense of a master novelist, and I'd love to sit down and talk writing with him over a pint of stout.

Other than that, I also read this wonderfully succinct and atmospheric piece on Prague’s Museum of Communism, written by another historical novelist, Thomas Mallon for The Atlantic. As my book has the specter of Communism as a backdrop, I'm always interested to learn what life was like in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to discover what its legacy has been. I implore you to read Mr. Mallon's take. I'm looking forward to reading his forthcoming book, Watergate, in February.

OK, enough slacking. Back to my manuscript and a well-earned glass of Samuel Adams Octoberfest!

Chroniclers

With the brief lull following my manuscript submission, I’ve finally been able to start reading for pleasure again. Having zeroed in on Churchill-focused books for the past three years, I scoured my shelves for something completely unrelated, and settled on Juliet Barker’s Agincourt, which vividly recreates the battle between heavily outnumbered British troops and their French foes on October 25, 1415.

One of the central figures is Henry V, the iconic English monarch. Previously, I had (somewhat embarrassingly, for an Englishman) only read of his exploits by way of William Shakespeare in Henry V, and through watching the film portrayals by Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh.

Such the Bard’s reputation and flair for characterization that we (or at least, I) often forget that he took creative license in his portrayal, and was crafting plays to entertain common, noble, and royal audiences rather than to provide an accurate historical record.

Still, it came as a surprise when Barker revealed that the incident that defines Act I, Scene II – the French prince sending Henry a set of tennis balls that mocked his youth and poured scorn on his negotiators’ attempts to acquire former British territory in France by peaceful means – was merely a myth. Shakespeare did not invent this incident, but seems to have conveniently used this piece of royal tittle tattle for dramatic effect and to set up one of Henry’s most famous utterances in the play:


We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard

In fact, Barker contends, Henry did not believe that negotiations with the French would yield the land he was claiming without force and while the French did not play ball with English diplomats, no tennis equipment was sent across the English Channel to irk the monarch. So much for fancy words and clever plot tools.

Click here to keep reading on The Historical Society's blog

Erik Larson Interview for Historically Speaking

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Erik Larson, whose books include The Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck and Isaac's Storm, for leading journal Historically Speaking. The Historical Society recently published an excerpt from the Q&A, which appears in the September issue of HS. During our conversation, Larson talked about his latest book, In the Garden of Beasts, a masterful account of American Ambassador William Dodd's time in Germany as Hitler was consolidating power. We also discussed the impact of Larson's journalism career on his books, the research tools he used and the value of going to Berlin to experience the city as Dodd would have. Here's a snippet:

White: Is it true that you were inspired to write In the Garden of Beasts after reading William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?

Larson: The thing that caused my imagination to kick in was the fact the Shirer had been there in Berlin and had met Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels, but he met them at a time when nobody knew the ending. And that’s the key thing— nobody knew the ending. What would it have been like to have met what turned out to be these awful people when nobody knew what was coming down the pike?

From there I started looking for characters. It’s a process—finding what kind of narrative energy this person could apply. I read memoirs, newspaper accounts, and letters, looking for little things that might lead to bigger things. I knew nothing about Dodd when I stumbled across him. I found him compelling but by no means someone I could hang a book on; he was a little dry, and I’m not that interested in diplomatic history. But I liked the fact that he was a plain-spoken, low-key guy who was thrust into a job for which he was anything but qualified. From a narrative perspective that made him interesting. He was an outsider, and that’s what I was looking for—an outsider who entered into the world of the Reich during its first two years. Then I discovered that Martha Dodd had written a memoir. After reading that I decided that these might be the two perfect characters, and happily both underwent transformations in their first full year in Berlin.

Click here to read more

An Epitaph for Surprise

I used to look forward to the surprise of discovering a favorite singer’s new album
To stumbling across a book that looked interesting but could go either way
To going to a new restaurant on the off chance that the food was tasty, while accepting the risk that it would be anything but

But now, as a society, we’ve lost the joy of surprise
Everything is “leaked” – from news, to songs, to pics of forthcoming gadgets
Many websites and blogs live or die by the ‘scoops’ they provide us
Which, while satisfying our bloated need for what’s new and what’s next,
Have robbed us of the pleasure of just wait and see

Now, there are examples in which this new transparency is helpful,
Such as when taking kids on vacation and knowing that a hotel isn’t a party hub,
Or when researching a new car without taking a dealer’s word as gospel

But, on balance, maybe we should re-embrace what Frost called the road "less traveled by"
Ignore the all-seeing eye of the web once in a while,
And take a chance on surprise a little more often
What do we have to fear, except discovering what’s on the other side
Of utter predictability’s tedium?