"The Kate Logan Affair" with Alexis Bledel and Laurent Lucas (2010)

Have you ever stood by helplessly while a situation spun wildly out of control, only to wonder later how it happened? That is exactly the predicament in which a French businessman, played by Laurent Lucas, who portrays a man engaged in computing probabilities, finds himself. His own life expectancy is 82 years old. He takes this as a certainty.

Alexis Bledel, who plays Kate Logan , a rookie police officer in a small American town, mistakes Lucas as a fugitive and pulls her pistol on him as he sits in his car outside a convenience store where both have gone for coffee. When she realizes her mistake she is apologetic, but as the day goes on she begins to worry that should the man complain, she just may lose her job.

And thus initiates a chain of events in which she returns to apologize again, which begins an encounter with the Frenchman, each step taking him further and further from the world he took for granted. At the same time Officer Logan becomes more and more entrapped in a situation of her own making, which must now be undone. But who will pay the cost to save her career?

Tersely filmed and directed, this film explores the seemingly harmless lines we sometimes cross, and the consequences which those actions ultimately have on those around us; and ourselves. Ecellent script and performances make this film one not to be missed.

"These Few Precious Days" by Christopher Andersen (2013)

I picked this book up with no intention of reading it all the way through, let alone review it. It seemed as if it would be the gossipy type of “beach book” you take on vacation and don’t expect much of. I love being wrong.

In this carefully annotated and indexed book, the author has penned a comprehensive look at one of the most fascinating power couples ever. This is the story of the marriage of President and Mrs. Kennedy during the 1,000 days that they inhabited the White House, as well as the world stage. It is a fascinating story because it is so well documented and it accurately reflects the attitudes of the early 1960’s.

Relying on the memories of those who were closest to the couple; a range which spans everyone from the President’s sisters to the White House Staff; the author covers just about every base there is in telling the story of the Presidents numerous affairs, as well as his respect for his wife. If that seems odd; as it does to me; then reading this book will expose you to the jet set world of the 1960’s when everybody, it seems, was pushing the boundaries of the ordinary, and accepted, social mores.

The fact that the President had his hands full with one world crisis after another during this period, did little to slow down his Lothario like appetite for women; any women; anywhere; anytime. This appetite was always present, even before he became President, but was exacerbated by his use of powerful steroids and painkillers, mixed with amphetamines. Dr. Jacobson, known to millions as Dr. Feelgood, was logging more air miles that Hillary Clinton as he traveled back and forth from New York to Washington, California, Florida and even accompanying the President on his first foreign summit with Khrushchev in 1961.

But more than anything else, this book is the portrait of a woman coming to terms with a world she did not much like, yet came to command. From her efforts to restore the White House to her last years as an editor, this woman was as close to a Queen as America has ever had. Surprisingly, this was a fascinating book to read.