Category Archives: Books

Hannibal and Me in Bogota, Colombia

I just received the following email from one Matt Aaron, and it’s the sort of spontaneous, casual and genuine feedback that makes authors happy:

I just finished the audio version of Hannibal and Me this morning, walking through a park in Bogota, Colombia.

I am in a transition period, now in my late 20’s. This book has helped me understand my current path and a general direction for the next 10-15 years.

Thanks for writing this!

-Matt

Thank you, Matt.

PS: I guess I should really get myself that audio version now, to hear what my book sounds like. 😉

‘Drinks with’ me on Zocalo Public Square

Andres Martinez

Andres Martinez is a great journalist, writer and now think-tanker. And he’s had a career of Sophoclean ups and downs that could have been a storyline in my book.

He and I had drinks the other day. Now Andres has penned a “Drinks With” column about me on Zocalo Public Square, an intellectual gathering point for the Los Angeles area.

It’s more about me than about the book. But Andres does use a phrase I will steal from now on when telling people what type of book it is:

genre-bending

Thank you, Andres!!

Hannibal and Me … and Mr Crotchety

There are reviewers, and then there are reviewers. And then there is … Mr Crotchety.

Who is Mr Crotchety?, you ask.

He (and I am reasonably confident that he is indeed both human and male, as allegedly pictured above) first presented himself to me in 2008, when he wrote a reader letter to The Economist about a piece I had written (about “Slow Food”). Here is that letter:

Date: 16 September 2008

To: letters@economist.com

Subject: slow food

Regarding: (11 Sep 08) Revolutionaries by the Bay

Many years ago I sat down in a Slow Food restaurant in New England. It seems like only yesterday when I walked out. The food was not memorable, but the service was glacially slow and inattentive (this was before global warming). Does the service have to be European also?

Mr. Crotchety

That set the tone for all that was to follow. Mr Crotchety, possibly encouraged by me, poured himself into the blogosphere and, under his increasingly notorious nom de guerre, began spreading his wit more widely.

Here on The Hannibal Blog, for example, we were soon turning the epic tale of Hannibal the Carthaginian into its … limerick version. (Read through the comments in that post, too: We expanded the mission to Zen Senryus.) In retrospect, it is hard to believe that both Polybius and Livy overlooked such an obvious literary device.

But Mr Crotchety never over-indulged himself with his blog commentary. Sometimes he crotched, sometimes he didn’t. Over time, I became aware that an entire subculture of the blogosphere was secretly yearning for one of his ambushes. They bestowed the ultimate kudos.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that this same Mr Crotchety has now, via Sprezzatura, written his own and inimitable review of Hannibal and Me. Follow the link, and may the kvetching and crotching continue over there….

Jack Covert likes my storytelling

Jack Covert

Jack Covert, the founder of 800-CEO-READ (America’s leading direct supplier of business literature to companies and organizations) and a sort of bestseller-prophet, has “selected” (ie, recommended) Hannibal and Me. Thank you, Jack!

(The rest of you, remember: My book can be a business book, but need not be. It’s a life book.)

He says that I do

a fine job turning this adventure book into a personal development guide of sorts

and concludes:

[W]hat makes or breaks a book like this, with its uncommon structure and sometimes lofty subject matter, is the storytelling, and this book is one of the best in that regard that I have read in a long time.

Storytelling! One of my favorite subjects and highest aspirations. Great note to end on. Thanks again.

Talking with Fiammetta about Hannibal & Me

Fiammetta Rocco

Here is an 8-minute podcast of a chat between Fiammetta Rocco, our Books & Arts editor at The Economist, and me, about Hannibal and Me.

We were all over the place in our actual conversation, but our colleague Lucy Rohr did a Herculean job of editing it down to 8 minutes.

Topics covered: Tiger Woods and Eleanor Roosevelt, in particular, plus some Meriwether Lewis and the rest of the gang. 😉

(And if you want an amusing visual of how I tape these interviews with London, go back to this old post.)

Strategy & Taoism: the chess master’s view

Howard Goldowsky

Some of the first reactions to my book are now streaming in, which is enormously suspenseful for me. You are each projecting yourself into the stories in my book, each finding completely new ways of looking at them and, yes, your own lessons to take away from them. This is just as I intended, so I’m feeling good.

Here, for instance, is an email I just got from one Howard Goldowsky, who happens to be a chess wizard, and thus a strategy connoisseur, as well as a chess writer. Check out his Amazon page.

(By the way, I will never post or publish your emails or other reactions without explicitly asking for permission. So never worry if you want to critique the book to me discreetly.)

Here is Howard:

I think that the last few paragraphs about equanimity sum up your entire book. In a way, what you present in “Hannibal and Me” is almost a Western interpretation of Taoist and some Buddhist philosophy. In my mind, it’s no accident that the book’s finale included a passage from the East. Is not the essence of self-actualization the monk’s daily routine of meditation, ‘chop wood and carry water?’

Chess expertise parallels life more ways than imagined. In chess there is a very distinct line between strategy and tactics. In chess, good players are always trying to level their emotions to equanimity. In chess, we often use our opponents’ aggressiveness against them. In chess, there is a constant balancing act between general principles and specific situations. Too many parallels to mention here….but these are universal truths we’re talking about, so it’s not such a wonder that these parallels exist.

The 10-minute chat

One of you (Thank You!) texted in the picture above, taken in a Manhattan Barnes & Noble outlet. There it is, that bright orange jacket, hard to miss.

Unfortunately, I did not, yesterday, find any copies in my local Barnes & Noble outlet here in LA. The guy looked into his computer and said they were “on the way, could be tomorrow, could be in a week.” There’s modern logistics for you.

In any case, Bill Frank (“Billy the Brain”) of KKZZ radio has now posted our chat yesterday. It’s about ten minutes long.

I’m on my landline, and sounding somewhat distant, but it’s a good conversation.  Thank you, Bill!

The 4th review: New York Journal of Books

Wow. Just wow. What can I possibly say?

The New York Journal of Books has now reviewed Hannibal and Me.

(Remember, the previous reviews were by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews and Booklist)

I will quote some bits and then shut up.

Fight any urge to dismiss Hannibal and Me as boys-only self help. True, the book comes complete with warriors, military strategies, elephants, golf, and a seductress, but this book is a serious and fascinating exploration of issues many of us grapple with on a daily basis. Highly recommended.

When was the last time reading a book left you with a burning desire to read more books? Hannibal and Me: What History’s Greatest Military Strategist Can Teach Us About Success and Failure affects the reader in just this way. Having hung on to Mr. Kluth’s every word, this reviewer closed the book determined to read Jung again, revisit Maslow, and reacquaint herself with Eleanor Roosevelt….

And true to his word, he proceeds to beguile his readers with a series of charmingly rendered anecdotes, keeping us spellbound, and gently nudging us toward a deeper understanding of the triumphs and disasters of Hannibal (the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with his army in 218 BCE), Meriwether Lewis, Cleopatra, Tiger Woods, author Kluth’s own uncle (a key figure in postwar Germany), and ourselves.

Mr. Kluth tackles taboos, boldly reintroducing ideas banished from Western intellectual discourse since the 1960s. He dares, for example, to raise notions like duty—not the tired old just-say-no-back-to-basics-family-values platitudes The Right warms over each election cycle. This is something deeper…

In some ways Hannibal and Me is a synthesis of many the intellectual and spiritual movements since the sixties. As such it risks veering into the banal, or skirting New Age nonsense, but whenever Mr. Kluth approaches this precipice, he retreats in time, turning back to the stories of real heroes. …

I was surprised by the last bit, which we might find time here on this blog at some point to discuss:

Despite applying his considerable insight, charm and intellect to so many weighty questions, Mr. Kluth deftly avoids deep analysis of why male crisis so often involves betraying wife and family. … Mr. Kluth seems to hand cheating husbands and deadbeat dads the perfect justification for their behavior. One can almost hear everyday cheating husbands quoting Hannibal and Me to justify their bad behavior.

Hmmm. Really?

That’s for another time. For now: Jillian Abbott, Thank You!!

Dylan Ratigan and I, the backstory

So here are my five minutes on MSNBC with Dylan Ratigan.

And here is the backstory:

I had made a beginner’s mistake: Yesterday, I got a bit of redness above my right eye, eczema or something, as I occasionally do. Normally, I ignore it, but today I remembered some cream that my mom had once sent me for exactly this purpose. I fished it out of the closet and rubbed it on. And apparently, I got some in my eye.

Just as I was arriving at the studio, my right eye started gushing tears. Great.

This is what wives are for. So I texted mine, and she texted back, while I was still in the parking lot:

think about Hannibal and his one conjunctivitis eye.

So that’s what I did. I was clutching a Kleenex during the clip, and kept wiping the tears away.

So, not that bad a performance, considering. 😉

Off I go on radio and telly…

Dylan Ratigan

So tomorrow (January 5th) is the launch date, which means that you Kindlers and Nookers will get your book, and you Hard-copiers will get the Amazon or B&N shipping confirmation. And, of course, there are always those … whatchammacallit … book stores to walk into.

For me, it means I’ll be talking on radio and TV a bit. You can even call in to one show. See below.

1) Jiggy Jag

It actually started today, on a radio station called KJAG in Kansas, when I chatted with James Lowe, aka Jiggy Jaguar, formerly described as a “shock jock” (although I found him very meek). I was on Skype, so my voice quality is atrocious.

2) Billy the Brain

Gotta love these radio names. So tomorrow I’ll first be on a California radio station called KKZZ AM 1400 – Positive Talk Radio with, which also streams on BrainstorminOnline.com, with yes, Billy the Brain.

That’ll be at 1:40PM East Coast time, 10:40AM West Coast time. The Brain has asked me to tweet the call-in number, which is (805) 639-0008. Since I don’t have a Twitter account, let’s consider this hereby announced.

3) Dylan Ratigan, MSNBC

Then, at some point between 4PM and 5PM Eastern (1PM and 2PM Pacific), I’ll be on national television with Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC (pictured at the very top).

The important question here is obviously: shirt with tie, shirt without tie, turtleneck, or décolleté? (If you have an opinion on that, do offer it before I get dressed tomorrow morning.)

More as I find out about it…