The slow pace of reading continues unabated. I still haven’t figured out why. I guess its more miniature painting and TV watching than in previous years. Anyway, since my last post I have finished:
The first five Jack Reacher books (Killing Floor, Die Trying, Tripwire, Running Blind, and Echo Burning) after having watched the recent Amazon Prime limited series. This is my second trip through the series and they’re as good as I remember.
Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War by Roger Lowenstein is an outstanding account of how the US managed to finance the War. As a bonus, Lowenstein also provides a pretty good account of how the Rebels tried to finance their war. It was a fascinating look at something I’d always wondered about, and I recommend it highly. Tip of the hat to Dr Gerry Prokopowicz of Civil War Talk Radio for turning me on to it.
Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos by Michael Imperioli & Steve Schirripa was a very entertaining book about everybody’s favorite Mafia TV show. The book really does tell the inside story of how the show was made and gives voices to all the actors who participated. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll want to run right out and get this one. I was absolutely enthralled by it from start to finish. It really was like hanging out in a bar for an afternoon talking with the cast and crew.
Mrs. Kennedy and Me: An Intimate Memoir by Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin Hill is a very respectful memoir from Jackie Kennedy’s favorite Secret Service agent. Mr. Hill was the head of her protective detail during her time in the White House and was perhaps best remembered as the guy who climbed over the back of the limo, put Jackie back in the car and shielded her and President Kennedy with his own body during the trip from Dealey Plaza to Parkland Hospital. During the three years Hill protected her he travelled all over the world with her and has a wide variety of amusing and entertaining stories while ever descending into sensationalism or salaciousness. One can tell that he was more than a little bit in love with her. As a side note, it was shocking how much different the world was back in those days. The First Lady of the US travelled all over the world with, basically, three Secret Service agents, one of whom was usually doing advance work at the next destination. If you’re a fan of Jackie O, I recommend this, if you’re “over” her, you’ll probably hate this.
Sea of Tranquility: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel was an excellent novel from one of my favorite writers. The book covers a series of vignettes set across more than two centuries, from the 1890s Pacific Canada to the 22rd century Moon Colonies. Gradually the reader realizes that the vignettes are connected. As a bonus, several of the strands from some of Mandel’s other novels are intertwined. The book was just outstanding. It is beautifully written and intricately plotted. I’ve read everything this writer has published and can’t wait for more.
The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi’s latest novel and I enjoyed it immensely. Imagine a parallel world where Godzilla-like monsters (called “Kaiju” in Japan) exist. Proceed to the idea that nuclear radiation thins the boundary between our world and the parallel Kaiju world, which explains how Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and their colleagues have made periodic appearances in our world. Of course, the world would maintain a scientific and security mission on Kaiju world to study the creatures and prevent their appearance in our world. Since this is a Scalzi novel, you can imagine that things will rapidly go pear-shaped. Anyway, this is an excellent book, vintage Scalzi. If you like his other stuff, you’ll love this.
The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens covers all the various Indian Wars in the American West from the 1830s until Wounded Knee. The book is an excellent overview, covers all the salient facts and personalities, and is an excellent place to start understanding what happened. Interestingly, Cozzen’s makes a great deal of usage from Native American sources and generally does an excellent job of comparing and contrasting those sources with the more traditional accounts from the White participants.
Wargame Scenarios: The Peninsular War by Jonathan Sutherland and Diane Canwell was a bit of a disappointment. The book purports to be a collection of scenarios to recreate the Peninsular War during the Napoleonic era. But there really isn’t enough information included in any of the scenarios to actually allow a player to get a game going without a fair amount of D-I-Y homework. All of the maps provided are sketch maps (without anything in the way of a legend or scale) on an 8 x 5 grid. All of the orders of battle provided are simply lists of units with a brief description of their training/morale state (e.g. “Green Cautious” or “Experienced Steady”) there is no info on numbers for any of the units. The book also included a brief overview of the war itself to show the context of the battles themselves. At the end of the day there is simply not enough info for a player to get a game on the table. Not recommended.
Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History by Richard M. McMurry is a brief little overview of the Confederate Army of Tennessee and Army of Northern Virginia with an eye toward explaining why the two armies had such different experiences and apparent levels of proficiency during the war. McMurry examines a wide range of factors and reaches the conclusion that the differences were the result of a combination of many of them. It was interesting and thought provoking. I recommend it to anyone interested in the ACW. A tip of the hat to Dave Powell who turned me on to it years ago. It’s not his fault I just got around to reading it.
Churchill’s Greatest Fear: The Battle of the Atlantic 3 September 1939 to 7 May 1945 by Richard Doherty is an outstanding account of the battle of the Atlantic. Doherty covers all the action, the technological developments, the various ebbs and flows of the U-Boat successes, and the historiography of the Battle of the Atlantic in an easily accessible, interesting way. This book is an excellent place to start for anyone who wants a foundational understanding of the longest battle of WWII.
Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman by J. Evetts Haley is a biography of one of the seminal cattle ranchers in Texas during the second half of the 19th century. After the Civil War (during which he served as Texas Ranger guarding the frontier against Indian attacks) “Charlie” Goodnight was the first man to set up a cattle ranch on Texas’s Llano Estacado, the famous “Staked Plains”. He also pioneered the “cattle drive” where herds of thousands of animals were driven by cowboys hundreds or thousands of miles from the ranch to a railhead or cattle market. Goodnight blazed the “Goodnight-Loving Trail” from central Texas to Wyoming, invented the “chuck wagon” and served as the inspiration for several fictional western characters including both Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call in McMurty’s Lonesome Dove and R.J. Poteet in Michner’s Centennial. The book was written in 1936 and is based not only on extensive interviews with Goodnight himself (who died in 1929), but a great many interviews with his contemporaries. It was an excellent book and if you’re at all interested in the American West, I recommend it.
41 for the year.
BillP's Book Blog 