Starting off with aspects of her youth in southern California, struggling with an absent celebrity dad, snakes, and brush fires, Cash promises more than she delivers, touching on events without conclusion. Tales of Catholic school, growing up in California, and visiting her dad in Tennessee after her parents divorced are well written in key spots. She skimps on deeper thoughts, seeming to hold back when things get interesting. Filling in blanks with name-dropping and recounting her privileged globetrotting while suggesting a torment she never explains, Cash drifts in and out of her pursuits, from attending Vanderbilt University to traveling throughout Europe and writing songs. Without chapter titles, an index or table of contents, Composed feels more like an accounting to some unseen authority than a biographical narrative and at times it is tedious; like listening to a parent rattle off a list of acquaintances who’ve died. Gradually, Cash finds her way. By the last third, she writes about becoming self-made, facing what she describes as living on false premises for 30 years, making better records, raising children, hearing the first passenger jet streak low over Greenwich Village from her daughter’s school and watching the Twin Towers burn, and grieving for her father, who remains an enigma to her even after his death, her stepmother, June Carter Cash, whom she deeply admires, and her mother, whom she says “gave just the right amount of nurturing, not too much to suffocate or too little to starve”.

Though she mentions without elaboration “dark nights of the soul” and a teen-aged trip to Mexico after ditching school in that same passage, Cash, who survived brain surgery, Walk the Line (which she apparently hates), and motherhood and marriage, relaxes toward the end, making this light, easygoing book rewarding for those interested in her music, writing, and Johnny Cash. Speaking of her work, expectations and legacy, she notes: “It took me a long time to grow into an ambition for what I had already committed myself to doing, but I knew I would be good at it if I put my mind to it. So I put my mind to it.” Composed is more strained than composed, but when Rosanne Cash expresses herself, she offers a counterpoint to her father’s iconic line, “I’m Johnny Cash” that has more to say than simply “I’m not”.

Recent releases include Ella Fitzgerald singing Irving Berlin tunes “Blue Skies” and “Always” and George Gershwin’s “I’ve Got a Crush on You”, “How Long Has This Been Going On?” and Somebody Loves Me”. The mini-collection offers Ella’s less maudlin, more enchanting version of “Over the Rainbow”, an infectious “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and her explosive take on Johnny Mercer’s “Something’s Gotta Give”. This CD makes a perfect introductory gift or for adding finely remastered works to your own stash.

Billie Holiday is among those featured in the series. Though I am not a huge fan, her talent is undeniable on these familiar songs, which range from Sammy Cahn’s and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “All the Way” to “Blue Moon” and songs from Porgy and Bess. But I really notice the quality of the remastered songs on the Fred Astaire collection. These recordings are superior to Sony’s Essential Fred Astaire CD and others. The magnificent dancer could carry and craft a tune with his own distinctive style. Here, he sings the usual, “Night and Day” (Cole Porter), “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (George & Ira Gershwin) and “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (Irving Berlin), among others. With fewer scratches, his vocal skills come through.

This hardcover reference volume, making use of the 1930s archives of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, which re-emerged in the 1990s after years in Soviet Russia, relies on letters and reports detailing attacks on Jews by Germans. The documents show how the German volk (people) embraced Nazi attacks on Jews. Filled with notes, a bibliography and an index, this is a factual history, not a philosophical examination, of Nazi Germany’s atrocities (for why the Holocaust happened, read The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff).

“In the first month of the war,” Longerich writes, “Jews were almost wholly excluded from German society…In September 1939, for example, an (unpublished) general 8 p.m. curfew was imposed on Jews, their radios were confiscated, and their telephones were disconnected in summer 1940.” He continues: “Jews’ ration cards were marked with a ‘J’, they were only permitted to use certain shops, and the times when they were permitted to shop were strictly regulated by the municipality (and often limited to one hour a day)…These drastic measures had the effect of starving the Jewish population and ensuring that they devoted most of their energies to obtaining food.”

Longerich describes Treblinka as a “densely forested setting” which was “screened off from the eyes of the outside world.” At first, the mass murder at Treblinka was, he writes, “a crazed massacre” with an arrival area that was scattered with corpses. When new Jews arrived to see the mayhem, he explains, “[Nazi] guards reacted to the panic that arose with further shootings.” By the end of 1942, he notes, “precisely 713,555 people had been murdered in Treblinka.”

With a new introduction and new material on the victims, ghettos, and death camps, Longerich, currently working on a biography of SS leader Heinrich Himmler, has “significantly reworked, shortened in some places and extended in others” his history of the Holocaust into over 600 pages. This should be another important resource for those seeking knowledge of the 20th century’s second most evil dictatorship.

The other is an interesting 1997 interview with then-BP Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Browne published in the Harvard Business Review. Mr. Browne comes across as a thoughtful company leader. When asked about the changing rules of competition, he replies, in part: “If we drill each well more efficiently than the last one, we can make a lot more money–which is exactly what we’re trying to do.” His point that the profit motive is the best assurance of quality drilling procedures is well taken and, whatever BP’s decisions since he was in charge, the extent of BP’s role in causing the current spill will undoubtedly affect their ability to make money in the future, indeed, if BP even survives as a company.

John Browne also talked about the difficulty of deep water drilling, which is essentially mandated by the government due to environmentalist bans and concerns about closer offshore drilling. Browne said: “We have a big acreage position in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico, where drilling is an enormous technical challenge. The water there is between 2,000 and 8,000 feet deep, and then you have to drill 7,000 and 12,000 feet below the seabed to reach hydrocarbons. Because the water is so deep, you can’t affix anything to the seabed, and no human being can go down that far. So you have to use special vessels to drill. They are very expensive, and because it’s fashionable to be drilling in this area, they’re becoming even more expensive. In 1995, we spent 100 days on average drilling deepwater wells. We now spend 42.”

That was 1997 and it certainly sounds as though BP was well aware of the risks and was working to measurably reduce exposure to risk. There is no dispute that government regulations and bans on offshore oil drilling are an integral part of the cause of the current spill and the attacks on British Petroleum by the U.S. government are a deflection based on the government’s guilt in causing the destruction. To whatever extent BP made mistakes, they should make amends, but when it comes to oil, safety, and fixing problems, I trust BP more than I trust the government.

I do not know much about the company’s rich history, but I am generally impressed by Mr. Browne in the Harvard Business Review interview, conducted by Steven Prokesch. Asked about business relationships, echoing banker John Allison’s views on self-interest in business, Mr. Browne explains: “You can’t create an enduring business by viewing relationships as a bazaar activity–in which I try to get the best of you and you of me–or in which you pass off as much risk as you can to the other guy. Rather, we must view relationships as a coming together that allows us to do something no other two parties could do–something that makes the pie bigger and is to your advantage and to my advantage.” He goes on to cite a case involving oil field services company Schlumberger, which developed a logging tool for BP which allowed BP to better gauge drilling horizontal wells.

Browne also offered six points on building distinctive relationships. “The most important aspect of any relationship,” he answered, “is understanding what your partners hope to get out of it and to work hard to help them achieve that goal. It is the key to transforming a contractual relationship into a genuine collaboration.” Point two is that you have to deliver on promises. Third, he said, “you never build a relationship between your organization and a company or a government. You build it between individuals.” Fourth, Browne advised keeping relationships relatively open, flexible and cooperative; fifth, that you approach an opportunity with what he calls humility, by which I think he means an awareness of one’s limitations, and sixth, that you build relationships for the long-term. Responding to the follow up question, he recommended that businesses “instill the belief that competitive performance matters–that producing value is everyone’s job and that to produce value you need to focus so that you don’t get distracted by things that aren’t central.”

Later in the interview, he relates the story of how BP’s step-by-step approach to horizontal drilling resulted in oil wells he calls “the longest drilled in the history of the oil industry” that saved the company $ 75 million. Mr. Browne concluded: “So, contrary to what some may believe, you can institutionalize breakthrough thinking.” [Emphasis his]. Yes, you can, if you are free to compete in business, to drill for oil, and, first and foremost, to think.