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

A Strong Start

Since the beginning of the new year, I’ve already finished eight books and in a notable departure from normal practice, two of them, the D&D book and the Longstreet bio, were actual hard copies rather than eBooks read on my Kindle.

Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs is exactly what it says on the tin, a comprehensive history of the groundbreaking RPG. I played D&D casually in High School, so I found the history of the game, and the detailed and comprehensive account of TSR’s development and marketing of it enthralling. Readers should note that it is heavily focused on D&D and not a larger history of TSR. I had hoped there might be some info about the TSR/SPI interaction but there wasn’t. I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in D&D.  

Flashman by George McDonald Fraser is the first book in the series about everyone’s favorite anti-hero. This is my second or third time through the series and it’s still excellent.

For those of you reading this BLOG who aren’t familiar with George McDonald Fraser’s Flashman books, they are a series of 12 historical novels using a minor character from Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s Schooldays. In Hughes’ book, Flashman is a coward and bully who persecutes Tom Brown and his friends before eventually being and expelled for drunkenness.

Fraser takes up where Hugh’s left off and tells us the story of the rest of Flashman’s life. The series is based on the imaginary “memoirs” of  “General Flashman” which Fraser describes (in a preface to the first book) finding in an antique tea-chest, in a Leicestershire saleroom in 1965. As the “editor” of the papers, Fraser produced a series of historical novels describing episodes of British and American history during the 19th century.

All sorts of major and minor figures from history appear in the books, everybody from Abraham Lincoln as a young Illinois Congressman, to Bismarck, to Rajah Brooke of Borneo to Geronimo (as a young boy named One-Who-Yawns). Fraser’s research was impeccable, and the books are heavily annotated, with end notes and appendices, as Fraser pretends to “confirm” or “correct” the “memoirs”. Often these notes inform the reader that a particularly outlandish character really existed or that an unlikely event actually occurred.

The great appeal of the series comes not only from the detail of sometimes obscure historical events, but also from the character of Flashman himself. The books are told in first person narrative, as if written by Flashman, a character who openly and freely admits to being a coward, lech and poltroon. Such an “anti-hero” is very refreshing and the perspective of such a character on historical events is delightful. All in all, if you are at all a fan of historical fiction, I can’t recommend these highly enough!

The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action by H.P. Willmott is a detailed and astute analysis of the series of naval and air battles fought between the U.S. and Imperial Japanese navies during the last week of October 1944. Willmott, as might be expected from his previous works, has a lot to say about the battle and the conventional wisdom regarding it. His over-arching theme seems to be that the correlation of forces was so heavily weighted in favor of the US that Japan had no real chance of affecting the outcome of the war, or even appreciably delaying the invasion of the Philippines. For example, Willmott, looking at both sides’ Order of Battle points out that the U.S. Navy deployed more destroyers to the battle than the Japanese had carrier-based aircraft. He also rather roundly castigates Halsey over his failure to form TF 34 and takes a few swipes at the historiography of the battle (he’s not a fan of Morison’s work). Potential readers should be aware that this is not a blow-by-blow account of the battle but rather an analysis of WHY “who did what to whom” and the larger effects of battle on the rest of the war. With that being understood, I recommend the book very highly.

After finding it deeply discounted for Kindle I purchased and reread The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Frankly, I had forgotten that the last time I read this, back in 2010, I didn’t think it had held up very well. Describing it this way:

“So, at the end of the day, we’ve got a book that touches on a bunch of themes, the future of military ops, time dilation, and how society might change, without examining any of them in a thoughtful way. Still not a bad read though.”

I’m not as negative about the book as I was last time I read it (that review is here: Bill Pilon, “Bill Pilon’s Book Blog from Atlanta, GA” #662, 9 Dec 2010 3:12 pm) but I can’t really recommend it except as a curiosity.

The next two books; A Magnificent Disaster: The Failure of Market Garden, The Arnhem Operation, September 1944 by David Bennett and Arnhem: Myth and Reality: Airborne Warfare, Air Power and the Failure of Operation Market Garden by Sebastian Ritchie came directly from watching Band of Brothers over my Thanksgiving break. Having watched Band of Brothers, I decided I needed to add some American Airborne troops to my 15mm miniature armies. But I had to order those figures from the UK (I use Forged in Battle and Peter Pig for 15mm). While waiting for them to arrive I found a US retailer that had Forged in battle British Paras, so I ordered and started painting them. Painting them got me watching a Bridge Too Far while painting, which caused me to re-read these two books. Reading these books together was illuminating. Bennett’s book basically considers Market-Garden a near run thing that could have gone differently had small issues (moving the 1^st AB drop zones, making two drops per day, lighting a fire under XXX Corps) been resolved. Then Ritchie comes along and demonstrates that none of those issues were actually fixable, that Market-Garden was more or less doomed from the start.  I enjoyed both books and recommend both highly for anyone who is a student of Market-Garden.

Blood Alone (Billy Boyle book 3) by James R. Benn starts with our hero waking up with amnesia in a field hospital in Sicily with a handkerchief embroidered with a monogram L in his pocket. Almost immediately people start trying to kill him and take the handkerchief. The rest of the book slowly unfolds the story which involves Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, US Naval Intelligence, the Sicilian Mafia, and the Allied conquest of Sicily. If you liked the first two Billy Boyle books, you’ll like this one. If you haven’t read them, don’t start here.

Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South by Elizabeth Varon is an interesting biography of Lee’s “Old War Horse” primarily focused on Longstreet’s career AFTER the Civil War. Varon has mastered the contemporaneous primary sources does an outstanding job of describing New Orleans in the immediate post war period and Longstreet’s position in local politics and his fight for Black social and political equality. She also convincingly demonstrates that the Virginia cabal of Lost Causers led by Jubal Early didn’t start blaming Longstreet for Gettysburg until AFTER Longstreet eschewed White Supremacy and adopted the Republican party. She ascribes Longstreet’s movement from pro-slavery White supremacist to integrationist favoring Black political power and social equality to his respect for Grant and his whole-hearted acceptance of the spirit of the surrender terms of Appomattox. Finally, she wraps up rather topically by noting that despite being the 3^rd most prominent and important surviving ex-Confederate there were no monuments or statues erected to Longstreet in the post-war era. She believes this was because of Longstreet’s failure to support White supremacy and sees this as proof that those statues and memorials that were erected were primarily intended to advance the cause of White Supremacy. This is a powerful book and I recommend it to anyone interested in the Civil War or Reconstruction.

8 for the year.

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.