My Omaha Obsession: Searching for the City

For those who drive by a forgotten mansion in an unlikely part of the city and wonder who lived there, what happened to them, why does no one save this magnificent edifice. . . those who can smell the strong coffee and hamburger grease of the nickel stand that morphed into a sleek 50's diner and lament the loss of charm, ingenuity. . . and who are intrigued by the rambling thoughts of a relentless researcher who also needs to know who, how, why?

perfect

Jarring misuse of vocabulary on every other page makes it very hard to appreciate the amount of research done in good faith. Ex: "the covetous home nestled in the hidden Rockbrook area." An inanimate object cannot be covetous--it can be coveted, but not covetous. There are so many examples of this "I learned a word or at least I thought I did so I shall drop it in here despite the fact it's absolutely wrong" sort of error that I stopped marking them and decided the author waived any right to a helpful editor. The cheery spirit of the amateur researcher is heartwarming, but in the eagerness to show how much labor she went to, she drags the reader down dead ends for no good reason and dilutes the occasional nuggets of interest. No one needs a multi-page blow by blow of directory listings that proved to be fruitless: just tell us you had to work hard to eliminate many red herrings before you finally came across the answer so that I'm still awake for the real info. I too am obsessed by Omaha--and wish the history of our fair city could have a good editor do justice to her.

Omaha is my hometown and a lot of things this book talked about I knew about. BABA Oran Z