The Good Start Continues Continuing

I’m still plugging away and have finished another couple of books since my last update. I’ve finished 22 books for the first two months of the year, which is on pace for 121 this year if I maintain this rate.

Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcom Gladwell is his rather strange take on the Allied bombing effort during WWII. He starts off superficially describing the rise of the strategic bombing doctrine in the US Army Air Corps between the wars, proponents of which he terms the “Bomber Mafia”, then goes on to describe it’s failure in the ETO and the PTO before finishing up by describing Curtis LeMay’s reconfiguration of the bombing effort in the Pacific using low level drops of incendiaries and the resulting utter annihilation of Japanese cities during the Spring and Summer of 1945. What makes the books strange was Gladwell’s attitude toward the bombing campaign which he seemed alternatively to both disdain and admire. I could never quite get a handle on what his actual thesis was or what the book was trying to say. Anyway, you can skip this one.

Morte d’Urban by J.F. Powers is a novel about the trials and tribulations of a very talented priest in a fictitious minor religious order in the American Midwest in the late 1950s/early 1960s. The book, which won the National Book Award for 1963, is Powers’ debut novel and is an outstanding window into one aspect of the American Catholic existence in that place and time. If you’re Catholic, or you have a deep interest in U.S. Catholicism in that era, I can’t recommend it enough. If you don’t have such an interest, there is not much for you here.   

Serenade to the Big Bird by Bert Stiles is a memoir by a B-17 co-pilot who completed a 35-mission tour with the 91^st Bomb Group in the Summer and Fall of 1944. Stiles was a talented write who had published short stories in the Saturday Evening Post, Liberty, and The American magazines before the war. The writing is excellent, very evocative of time and place, and I recommend the book very highly to anyone interested in the 8^th Air Force in particular or men at war in general.

The Bullets Flew Like Hail: Cutler’s Brigade at Gettysburg by James L. McLean is almost a moment-by-moment account of the battle viewed through the experiences of the men of the six regiments that comprised 2^nd Brigade, 1^st Division, 1^st Corps, Army of the Potomac. The book is extremely informative about the small parts of the battle these troops were directly involved in, and it is exhaustively researched, but it’s not particularly well written. Honestly, I read it only because my Great, Great, Grandfather Thomas Woods, fought with one of Cutler’s regiments, the 147^th NY, during the battle. If you have such an interest, this is the book for you. If not, it’s probably way too much information.

Bloom County: The Complete Digital Library Volume 1 by Berkeley Breathed is the collection of the first year, of the strip. I started reading the strip after it came out, so I missed the first couple of years. I must say, that even as a fan of the strip, the first year was a bit rocky and the strip only began to take on its familiar contours toward the end of the first year. I did enjoy seeing the beginning of something that I quite liked back in the day and I look forward to going through the other years (I purchased the complete nine volume archive for a few $$ on HumbleBundle.com). If you were a fan of Bloom Country way back in the 80s, this is for you!

Boudica: The Life of Britain’s Legendary Warrior Queen by Vanessa Collingridge was a massive, but probably unavoidable, disappointment. The problem is that we really know very little for sure about Boudica or her rebellion, and what we do know is from very short accounts in only two ancient sources, Tacitus and Cassius Dio. Once you’re read those two accounts (which don’t always agree!) you’ve got pretty much the extent of our direct knowledge about the woman. Collingridge has filled out the book by giving several chapters on the rise of the Roman Empire from the ashes of the Republic, the Roman Conquest of Britain, and a survey of how Boudica has been culturally depicted started in the Elizabethan Era when Tacitus was rediscovered. In fact, only six of the 21 chapters (9-14) of the book deal with Boudica or her rebellion the rest cover the other material I describe above. So at the end of the day, this book isn’t very satisfactory, but it’s the best we’re likely to get on the subject.

22 for the year

Tags: book-review, books, historical-fiction, history, writing