Closing Out a Disappointing Year

For the first time in a decade, I didn’t make it to 100 books this year winding up at 78. It will be interesting to see what happens next year. Despite my health issues being (hopefully) behind me, I can’t see my interest in wargaming, 3D printing, or painting miniatures declining. On the other hand, reading hasn’t suffered as much as modeling. I didn’t build a single model last year. Anyway, thanks for hanging out with me this year and I hope to see you next year.

Finished since the last update on 6 November where:

Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee by Paul L Stillwell was a nice, functional, biography of the WWII USN’s greatest naval gunnery expert. The book was engaging and well written but spent an inordinate (to my mind) amount of time on Lee’s early life and career at the expense of insight and analysis of his naval gunnery achievements and his participation in his various WWII actions.

The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons by Alvin Kernan is a slim little volume that does an excellent job of examining the (mis)use of the torpedo squadrons at Midway. Particularly interesting is his analysis of Hornet CAG Stan Ring’s notorious “Flight to Nowhere”. If you’re interested in Midway you’ll want to read this.

Safe at the Edge of the World: The Tour Series Book 2 and The Story of Grenville King: The Tour Series Book 3 by Jean Grainger are the second and third volumes in a series about everyone’s favorite tour guide Conor O’Shea and his various groups of troubled tourists on his bus. These were ok, but by now the premise is getting a little threadbare. In fact I’ve started the fourth one, but haven’t been able to get into it.

The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth is the book I read late on Christmas Eve with a glass of scotch after the rest of the people in the house have retired for the evening. I enjoyed it this year, as I do every year. As a special bonus, AppleTV+ has released a video adaption that is quite adequate. It’s not exactly the same as the book having a slight twist at the end, but it is a worthy effort and I suspect I’ll watch it again.

Making it So: A Memoir by Sir Patrick Stewart is a very insightful and introspective memoir from the skipper of NCC-1701D. As might be expected, the vast majority of the memoir is not Star Trek related but rather covers Stewarts early life (his dad was RSM of the Parachute Regiment making two combat jumps in WWII) and education. One of the most engaging aspects of the book is Stewart’s insight and thoughtfulness over the craft of acting and the differences between acting on the stage and acting in TV/movies. Throughout the book Stewart’s “voice” comes through such that one can almost hear him in one’s head while reading. I enjoyed the book immensely and recommend it highly.

Being Henry: The Fonz … and Beyond by Henry Winkler suffered a bit from being read immediately after Stewart’s book. Winkler’s book is much less introspective, aside from his struggles with dyslexia and I guess you’d call it low self-esteem, and much more topical. It wasn’t a bad book, it covers Winkler’s career in a functional, interesting, way, it just lacked the depth of Stewart’s.

If It Bleeds: Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat is the latest collection of short fiction by everyone’s favorite horror meister Stephen King. This is prime King. If you his other work, you’ll like this.

Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes is a disturbing little black comedy book about Hitler waking up in 2011 in a vacant lot where his Fuhrer Bunker used to be and his reactions to post-War German society. The book has moments of satirical brilliance, and has some pertinent things to say about the gullibility of a society imbued with mass media, but at the end of the day it just didn’t do it for me. The book come very highly recommended by James Holland and Al Murray (from the We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast) so your mileage may vary.

Billy Boyle: A WWII Mystery and The First Wave by James R. Benn are the first two books in the Billy Boyle series following the adventures of Ike’s “nephew” and former Boston PD homicide detective. I found the Kindle versions of the first three of these on sale for $1.99 each so I snapped them up. I enjoyed the first two as much as I did when I read them previously. I recommend them if you like detective stories or WWII historical fiction.  

Well, that’s it. 78 for the year, lowest total in the 17 years I’ve kept a blog. Thanks for hanging in there and hopefully, I’ll see you next year.

78 for the year.

Tags: book-review, books, historical-fiction, reading, wwii