petermc loves nonfiction - Part III

Welcome to Part 3 in my challenge to read 75 books in 2009.

Work and family commitments may keep me from posting comprehensive reviews as often as I would like, but I hope there will be something as equally interesting to readers in my far shorter progress reports and discussions :)

Previous Threads:
Part I
Part II

The 2009 Book List

January
01. Dining with Terrorists: Meetings with the World's Most Wanted Militants by Phil Rees
02. Whirlwind by Joseph R. Garber
03. The Night in Lisbon by Erich Maria Remarque
04. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
05. 11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944 by Stanley Weintraub
06. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
07. The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
08. God Rest Ye Merry, Soldiers: A True Civil War Christmas Story by James McIvor

February
09. Generation Kill by Evan Wright
10. The Himmler Brothers by Katrin Himmler
11. One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick
12. The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle
13. Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life by Timothy W. Ryback
14. High Hopes: My Autobiography by Ronnie Corbett

March
15. Shooter by Jack Coughlin
16. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
17. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun
18. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo
19. The Black Hole War by Leonard Susskind
20. Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier's Perspective by Paul Rieckhoff
21. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
22. We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah by Patrick K. O'Donnell

April
23. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
24. The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq by Rory Stewart
25. Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar
26. The Prince by Nicolò Machiavelli
27. Genesis by Bernard Beckett
28. Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama by Stephen Fox
29. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes (Abandoned)
30. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
31. Gallipoli: The Turkish Story by Kevin Fewster, Vecihi Basarin, and Hatice Basarin
32. How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

May
33. The Old Huntsman, and other poems by Siegried Sassoon
34. Counter-Attack and Other Poems by Siegfried Sassoon
35. Picture Show by Siegfried Sassoon
36. The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
37. Five Days In London by John Lukacs
38. Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Dire Warning: Churchill's First Speech as Prime Minister by John Lukacs
39. In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton
40. The Spectator: A World War II Bomber Pilots Journal of the Artist as Warrior by David Zellmer
41. Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty
42. Alice In Sunderland by Bryan Talbot
43. Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of USO Hostesses during World War II by Meghan K. Winchell

June
44. The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education by Craig M. Mullaney
45. The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
46. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri
47. The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
48. The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri
49. Gallipoli by Les Carlyon
50. The Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri
51. The Traveler by Daren Simkin and Daniel Simkin

July
52. The State of Jones by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer
53. Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War by Gary Gallagher
54. After Chancellorsville: Letters from the Heart edited by Judith A. Bailey
55. The Night Battles by M.F. Bloxam
56. The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina by Ken Wells

August
57. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
58. Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland
59. Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of His Life by Philipp Bouhler
60. The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern World by Justin Pollard
61. City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macaulay

September
62. The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
63. Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale
64. Vessel of Sadness by William Woodruff
65. The Road to Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood by William Woodruff
66. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton

October
67. The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
68. Empire of Blue Water by Stephan Talty
69. A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan by Michael K. Deaver
70. LeMay (Great Generals) by Barrett Tillman
71. Four Weeks in the Trenches: The War Story of a Violinist by Fritz Kreisler
72. The Alamo by John Myers Myers

November
73. The Curtain Falls: Last Days of the Third Reich by Count Folke Bernadotte
74. Follow That Bird!: Around the World With a Passionate Bird-Watcher by Bill Oddie
75. Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans by Winston Groom
76. Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War by Paul Daley
77. My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell

December
78. Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
79. In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002 by Bill Murphy Jr.
80. Deployed: How Reservists Bear the Burden of Iraq by Michael Craig Musheno and Susan M. Ross
81. The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Parsons

Book 59

Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of His Life by Philipp Bouhler

A wounded veteran of the Great War, Philipp Bouhler was one of a growing number of disillusioned young men in Germany in the early 1920s to find a home and hope within the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDP). Becoming the second secretary of the party by 1922, and Reich Secretary in 1925, Bouhler's dedication to the cause saw his rise in power continue. Among the many offices he held, he was Reich Leader and Member of the Reichstag for Westphalia (1933), Police Chairman of Munich (1934), head of Adolf Hitler's Chancellery (1934), and Chairman of the Official Party Inspection Commission for the Protection of National Socialist Literature; a role that also placed him in charge of Hitler's private correspondence.

But perhaps Bouhler is best remembered as the leader (alongside Hitler's personal physician, Dr Karl Brandt), of the 'euthanasia programme', Aktion T4 (codenamed T4); as decreed by Adolf Hitler in September 1939. T4, which granted a "mercy death" to "patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment", officially ran from October 1939 to August 1941, and was responsible for the extermination of 70,273 people. Evidence at the Nuremberg Trials determined however that physicians continued the T4 programme well after August 1941, with a final estimated death toll of approximately 275,000.

Bouhler was also an author of several books. As head of the Reich Office for Writings on School and Instruction, he published Kampf für Deutschland: Ein Lesebuch für die deutsche Jugend (The Battle for Germany: A Textbook for the German Youth) in 1938. A keen student of history, Bouhler also wrote Napoleon: Komentenbahn eines Genies (Napoleon: A Genius's Cometary Path) in 1942; reportedly a favourite of Hitler's. But, it is his book Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of His Life, published in 1938 by Terramare Publications, that concerns us here.

Terramare Publications (1937-1940) was set up for the publication of official propaganda pamphlets for distribution in English-speaking countries, of which Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of His Life is designated "No. 1". Parroting many of the themes from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, this 48-page book, illustrated with 21 B&W plates, briefly covers Hitler's birth, WWI service, his postwar years leading up to his membership of the NSDP, the 'Beer Hall Putsch', subsequent imprisonment, and eventual rise to power against the forces of communism.

Given what we now know of the holocaust, and Bouhler's yet future role in T4, gives a chilling aspect to the reading of one paragraph in particular; delivered in the vigour of the righteous rhetoric of the whole.

"The fuhrer enacted laws against racial degeneration which definitively prevent the further propagation of the unfit and mentally deficient or unhealthy, who were costing the country 200,000,000 marks annually for support and attendance. A law was also passed to prevent the further mongrelizing of the German people through intermixture with the Jews, who are of a totally different racial stock."

That Hitler had been discussing the euthanasia question since 1933, and had consulted the Reich physicians' leader Gerhard Wagner in 1935 on the issue, culminating in the concentration of mental patients in large, state-run institutions from 1936 and a directive from Bouhler's office to SD desk II 113 (political churches) to prepare an opinion about the church's attitude towards euthanasia in 1938*, suggests that the decree of 1939 was already, at the time of writing, a matter of course.

Perhaps the final paragraph extolling the virtues of Adolf Hitler best illustrates the tone of the book...

"His movement has restored the nation to its old position of honour. Because of this achievement and because he himself has the qualities of the born leader, he has become the idol of the whole nation. They thank him for their national renaissance, the restoration of their honour and their prestige, for their freedom and their bread. And so they have willingly placed their future in his hands, trusting unconditionally to the wisdom of his leadership."

Philipp Bouhler and his wife were captured by US troops in the Third Reich's final death throes, but never faced trial; committing suicide on 19 May 1945 while being transported to the Dachau Concentration Camp.

Links:
Excepts from Bouhler's "The Battle for Germany: A Textbook for the German Youth"

"Adolf Hitler: A Short Sketch of his Life" - Download a PDF copy

Colour picture of Philipp Bouhler (on left, wearing glasses)

------------------
*Source: Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1 by Saul Friedlander (pp.209-210)

Hi Peter

I'm simply stopping by to thank you for recommending the book The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous. It is captivating and engrossing. How I wish I had more time to read it in a more concentrated effort. I've read many books on Katrina and this one is a very good take on the disaster.

#3 Linda - I'm so glad you're enjoying it :)

Review

Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt by John Burroughs

Having succeeded to the Presidency upon William McKinley's assassination in 1901, winning the presidency in his own right in 1904 was an important event in Theodore Roosevelt's political life overriding "Great Loop Tour": a 66-day trek mostly by rail through the American West in the spring of 1903 that encompassed 14,000 miles, 25 states, and more than 260 presidential speeches; it is the longest trip by a sitting president in U.S. history

"a chilling aspect" - yes, that's the word for it... phew...

Starred you again, Peter!

#5 & #6 - Nice to see you've both found the new thread :)

I've rewritten part of my last review, so if you're interested you might want to pass a new eye over that. I'm sorry if it seems to be more a biography of the author and a lesson in history than a review, but I can't help thinking that, since this book was written for propaganda purposes, these aspects are an integral part of the book itself.

---------------------
New acquisition: A Tale of Two Monasteries: Westminster and Saint-Denis in the Thirteenth Century by William Chester Jordan

Edit: Touchstones - Grrrr!

>2 petermc: Wow.

Peter, one of the things I like most about The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous is the fact that, unlike some others who wrote regarding Katrina, the author doesn't seem to be making a political statement. Rather, he is simply presenting stories of those who were impacted by the flooding in St. Bernard's Parish.

I visited St. Bernard's Parish last summer. It was heartbreakingly sad and oh so tragic. And, this was, of course, a few years after the horrific event.

I'm sorry if I mentioned these books to you before, if so, please overlook the redundancy. If you haven't read them, I recommend the following:

http://www.librarything.com/work/704866/book/32263955
http://www.librarything.com/work/3841565/book/32408581
http://www.librarything.com/work/3592396/book/32683468
http://www.librarything.com/work/1192623/book/32813319

I'm working on The Last Lecture now. I also like non-fiction, I have to force myself to read ficiton. You have a very interesting list.

I concur with whisper, and add to her recommendations The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley, Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum, and the newly released Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (the last of which DOES make a political statement).

#9 and #11 - Wow, thanks for the recommendations, which I've listed together here for convenience. They are all on the radar :)

The Katrina List:
- 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose
- City Adrift: New Orleans Before & After Katrina by Jenni Bergal
- Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City by Billy Sothern
- Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City by Jed Horne
- The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley
- Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum
- Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

#8 Terri - "Wow" works on so many levels. Thanks for taking the time to read what might better be called an essay than a review. I know many people are scared off by long reviews.

#10 busy91 - Thanks for dropping by. I do enjoy fiction, but I have always gravitated to nonfiction, and in particular history. Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture is a touching book, and I recommend that you watch the video of the actual lecture (available on the internet) if you haven't already.

abw
I hadn't heard of Zeitoun. I'll try to get this from my local library. Did you like this book?

I have a copy of The Great Deluge but haven't read it yet.

Peter, 1933 was when Hitler began his policy of Gleischaltung, centralising everything, stripping the little towns and provinces of their power under the guise of efficiency. I knew that this affected education, etc., but hadn't been aware of HOW total his grip was at that point, or that he had begun his program of euthanasia that early. Chilling indeed.

Excellent review. Thanks!

>13 petermc:. Peter, in this case, I used "Wow" to mean that I was stunned into silence (a rare occurence) by the information in your post as well as being in awe of your description. Sometimes, there isn't much else to say. Great essay!

whisper--I liked Zeitoun a lot. I'll be putting my review up probably today or tomorrow. I think kidzdoc has already reviewed it and gave it very high marks. It's just been published, so whether your library has it may depend on how fast it gets new books.

Deborah, is it worth the $ spent to purchase this book? I may visit Barnes and Noble tomorrow.

I left you a message on your profile, but yes I do think it's worth buying.

Completed: The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern World by Justin Pollard

If Alexandria can be called the 'birthplace' of the modern world, I thought it would be interesting to now read about the 'birth' of democracy, in....

Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale

Pollard's book was superb, and just a chapter into Hale's work of a lifetime's study, I can confidently predict that this book is going to be even better!

Book 56

The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina by Ken Wells

As a native of the the Louisiana bayou country, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Wall Street Journal features editor (now senior editor for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine) Ken Wells was probably one of the best qualified journalists to report on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Demonstrating a close affinity with the bayou residents, their lifestyle, and the environment, Wells reports on the all-encompassing devastation of August 2005 on one of America's 'forgotten' communities, St. Bernard Parish, by one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. A devastation that did more than just uproot trees and flood homes, but touched at the very existence of the bayou way of life.

Rather than focus on the political, for which there are legions of accounts, Wells instead turns his attention to the human story; to the individuals who characterize all that is best about the human spirit in the face of fearful odds. If Wells' story has a main protagonist, it is local shrimp-boat captain Ricky Robin. With a rich family history in the bayou extending back 250 years, Robin rode out Katrina in the "sheltered Civil War-era harbor called Violet Canal", in the 56-foot-long steel shrimp trawler that he built himself, providing safe haven to a multitude of displaced locals. This book is his story, as it is the story of a cross-section of men and women whose paths and lives are intertwined in this small and closely linked community.

Wells however does not ignore the larger story, and examines the levee failure due to poor design and engineering; and the flawed Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, which contributed to the disaster by providing a direct route for the category 5 surge that caused so much of the flooding and damage. Wells also looks at the subsequent courtroom battles following the storm; many of which were still unresolved at the time of publication.

Entering St. Bernard Parish just 9 days after the storm, Wells would make many return trips, charting the progress of his central characters, while meeting many new ones along the way. Many of the stories emanating from these visits would find publication in the Wall Street Journal, and as a result Joe and Selina Gonzales would realize their dreams of moving their battered yet still intact home back to its original location through the efforts and generosity of citizens, from across the States, moved by their plight.

Divided into two parts, the first half of the book focuses on the adventures and misadventures of selected locals during the Hurricane itself, through oral histories that Ken Wells has so diligently and compassionately compiled. While in the second half of the book, we journey with Wells as he tours the Parish in Katrina's wake, and over the coming months and years as he documents the ongoing saga.

Ken Wells is the author of several fiction books set in Louisiana - the Catahoula Bayou trilogy, comprising of Meely LaBauve, Junior's Leg, and Logan's Storm; and a political satire in Crawfish Mountain. He has also written a non-fiction account of his search for the perfect beer joint in Travels with Barley: A Journey Through Beer Culture in America.

Link:
The Ken Wells Books Page

#20: Adding both of those to Planet TBR.

#21: That one is already there :)

Wow, that Katrina list is great! ...now, which ones to add to TBR??

Peter - another excellent review.

Great review Peter! Thumbs up to you!

Just found you here - great review of the Hurricane Katrina book!

#23 Daniel - Add them all!

#24 Linda - Ah, shucks....

#25 Cushla - Nice to be found :)

And, thanks to all for your kind words about the review. I keep going back and tweaking words and sentences, but I think I'll leave it alone now.

That is a great review Peter. It makes me want to read the book even more. I'm interested to track down some of his fiction too.

Book 61

City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macaulay

Marketed to children between the ages of 9 and 12, adults should not shy away from this well written and superbly illustrated large-format book on the planning and construction of Roman cities.

Using as his model "hundreds of Roman cities founded between 300 B.C. and A.D. 150", Macaulay tells his story through the development of the fictional city of Verbonia. Detailed and engaging black and white pen drawings throughout the book compliment the clear and descriptive text perfectly, and provide step-by-step construction details and scenes of daily life, that bring the city and its people to life in the readers imagination.

Although published in 1974, Macaulay's text holds a timeless truth; a message that is as valid today as it was over 2000 years ago. Romans, recognizing "the danger of overpopulation" designed cities to hold a predetermined maximum population after which new cities would be built. Overpopulation "not only burdened the existing water, sewerage, and traffic systems but eventually destroyed the farmland on whose crops the people depended."

"This kind of planning," Macaulay notes "is the basis of any truly successful city. The need for it today is greater than ever."

David Macaulay is also the author of many other books of a similar vein. Such as, Rome Antics, Castle, Pyramid, Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction, Underground, Mosque, Mill, Ship, Unbuilding, and the very popular The New Way Things Work.

#28: Good review on this one. McCaulay's work has been a favourite for a long time and this one sounds very good.
I know I wept when I saw all the beautiful vineyards continuing to be torn up west & north of Auckland for the advance of suburbia about 15 years back.

#27 - Thanks, and I'll look forward to your own take on this book :)

#29 Kerry - I will edit my review to note some of his other books. They are very good, and it's a sign of their quality that they are still popular after 30 years.

Personally, I'd cry too if I saw vineyards being ripped up. I collect wine, although my collection is very modest at only 200 bottles, and while most of my collection is French (Bordeaux, Bourgone, and Champagne) one of my favourite wines is actually from NZ. I'm going to keep the name a secret though ;)

A Quick Flick

Food for Thought: Thought for Food by Vicent Todoli

I was ready to dismiss this book as an exercise in artistic excess, trading on the success of Ferran Adria and his world renown restaurant elBulli. Especially so after what amounted to little more than a photo book in A Day at elBulli. But, after now having drawn it from it's slipcase and 'flicked' through it's 400 high quality pages, I will happily eat my words, although I'd be far happier eating the gloriously photographed food pictured in the book - every dish ever created by the world's number one restaurant. And plenty of 'food for thought' in the engaging round-table discussions. A gastronomic tour de force.

#31: I will be looking for that one!

Peter - thanks for the most interesting review of the Philipp Bouhler book. Reading through, I was wondering when he wrote that book - if you consider that he committed suicide in 1945? Is this his profile of Hitler in the 1930s or even perhaps a propaganda piece, considering the spread of Hitler's totalitarian control? I would imagine it is a frustrating work to read, if you consider the authorship. A really fascinating subject.

Have you read LIfe and Fate by Vasily Grossman, or the diaries of Eichmann as he tries to justify his Nazi involvement post-war?

....and the David Macaulay books are superb. I spend many hours perusing The Way Things Work with my kids and enjoying it immensely myself. (the great benefit of having kids is it opens up a new world of books).

#33 - I hope my review (message #2) answers all of those pertinent questions you raise about the Bouhler book. I have not read the Grossman book, but am aware of it. I actually have a couple of books on Eichmann in my TBR pile and hope to read them sooner than later.

#34 - Hear Hear! I actually found the Maccaulay book while at the surprisingly large children's English book section of my local library here on the quieter outskirts of Tokyo.

If you've recently been on Kerry's thread, you'll have seen me discussing my latest read, Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel, which I will finish tonight. Basically copying and pasting from my message there, I thought it would be also worthwhile to preface my coming review with the same information....

The Art of Travel is a great book - I love his writing style, and have his The Consolations of Philosophy and The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work waiting in the wings. I am also very excited at the idea of his new book A Week at the Airport, which will be published later this month. It will be a fascinating addition to The Art of Travel. Just check out the blurb from amazon UK....

In the summer of 2009, Alain de Botton will be invited by the owners of Heathrow airport to become their first ever Writer in Residence. He will be installed in the middle of Terminal 5 on a raised platform with a laptop connected to screens, enabling passengers to see what he is writing and to come and share their stories. He will meet travellers from around the world, and will be given unprecedented access to wander the airport and speak with everyone from window cleaners and baggage handlers to air traffic controllers and cabin crew. Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, de Botton will produce an extraordinary meditation upon the nature of place, time, and our daily lives. He will explore the magical and the mundane, personal and collective experiences and the interactions of travellers and workers all over this familiar but mysterious site. Like all airports, Heathrow (the 15th century village of Heath Row lies beneath the short stay car park) is a ‘non-place’ that we by definition want to leave, but it also provides a window into many worlds – through the thousands of people it dispatches every day. A Week at the Airport is sure to delight de Botton’s large following, and anyone interested in the stories behind the way we live.

Did any LTers see Alain up on his pedestal and go over and say 'Hi'?

I just got de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life in from PBS this week. I will have to move it to the top of Continent TBR and then see if I can track down The Art of Travel.

Peter - I am wondering if you have seen the excellent TV program Status Anxiety, which DeBotton narrates superbly. It was a revelation to see how we are driven by 'peer pressure' and capitalist acquisition. I imagine you have already seen it.

#36: I had heard about this during my recent trip to London. However, my arriving and departing flights were at Gatwick Airport, not Heathrow.

#37 Stasia - I look forward to your reviews as always :)

#38 Karen - Indeed I have! From MY REVIEW of How Proust Can Change Your Life, back in April...

Historian, philosopher, essayist, entrepreneur, television presenter; Swiss born Alain de Botton first came to my attention through the excellent and thought-provoking 2006 three-part British documentary "The Perfect Home", based on his book The Architecture of Happiness. I next ran into de Botton, in an earlier 2004 documentary, Status Anxiety, based on his book by the same name. In each, de Botton proved that philosophy needn't be the preserve of the intellectually superior, but could be made relevant to everyday life; what has been coined the "philosophy of everyday life."

#39 Darryl - Bad luck! I was just thinking... Wouldn't it be fascinating to see this become a yearly event? It would be interesting to collect each of the books to see what take different writers can bring to the subject.

I suppose this idea comes to mind because I am equally intrigued by the "The Wine Makers' Collection", where each year a respected winemaker is selected to make a wine from the same parcel of vines at Chateau d'Arsac, Bordeaux. Thus, we can see how the same terroir is expressed differently in each winemaker's ideal wine.

Hi Peter, Looking forward to your review on the Art of Travel, looks like a fascinating book!

Although right now I am deeply wishing I could sit down and try all those wines in a tasting (even if it was a Bordeaux..)

Read 0 pages over the weekend - If life just doesn't keep getting in the way!

However, I did finish the following (excellent) two books on Friday...

- The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
- Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale

And, I added the following two books to the permanent library (thanks to Kerry for putting me onto these)...

- The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized The Southern Seas During The First World War by Richard Guilliatt
- Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War by Paul Daley

Will read a short story today on the commute home, that has been published as a book (so I'll count it), ...

- An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

To be followed by...

- Vessel of Sadness by William Woodruff
I also have Woodruff's The Road To Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood, which I also plan to read this month in remembrance of this famous historian, who died one year ago this month, aged 92.

Book 62

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

"If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all its ardour and paradoxes – than our travels," writes Alain de Botton in the opening chapters of his book The Art of Travel (2002). "We are inundated with advice on where to travel to, but we hear little of why and how we should go," de Botton continues, stating that a study of these very questions "might in modest ways contribute to an understanding of what Greek philosophers beautifully termed eudaimonia, or 'human flourishing'."

Through five sections entitled 'Departure', 'Motives', 'Landscape', 'Art', and 'Return', that explore the many facets of the traveler's experience, the author leads us through his own personal journey of discovery; from a holiday in Barbados to a conference in Madrid, from a weekend in the Lake District to the deserts of Sinai; using as his guides philosophers, writers, and artists; fellow travelers; to give his journeys focus and direction, encouraging us to see and experience the world with new eyes and open minds.

Reviewers have described Alain de Botton as erudite and self-depreciating. They have called his writing delicious, charming, elegant, subtle and offering nuanced truths. They have called this book refreshing, utterly charming, and profoundly readable. And I heartily agree with each and every one of them.

Alain de Botton is a philosopher, writer, TV presenter and entrepreneur. He is the author of several works on philosophy, including How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), The Consolations of Philosophy (2000), and most recently The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009). His new book, "A Week at the Airport" will be published this month (September, 2009). You can visit Alain de Botton at his website - http://www.alaindebotton.com/

Peter;
Thank you so much for the added link:

"I also have Woodruff's The Road To Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood, which I also plan to read this month in remembrance of this famous historian, who died one year ago this month, aged 92."

What a beautiful man and what a nice little tribute to him.

I pulled 3 recx off your thread by him. Am very much looking forward to reading them. He sounds like he was some man.
belva

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Woodruff

I have The Art of Travel home from the library right now. It does look interesting and I'll try a few pages later tonight. Somewhere here there is also a copy of Status Anxiety which I bought for my son a few years ago.

Look forward to your thoughts avatiakh. I must admit it sounds very good.

#44 Belva - I'm now well over half way through William Woodruff's Vessel of Sadness, an autobiographical work of fiction based on the Allied invasion of Anzio in 1944. It is told through several perspectives, creating a moving and powerful whole. Highly recommended.

#45 Kerry - Looking forward to your thoughts on The Art of Travel. I have not read Status Anxiety (yet) but enjoyed the TV documentary.

#46 Claire - It is good! ;)

Book 63

Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale

With a rich vein of silver from the Athenian mines at Laurium discovered in 483BC, debate in the capital centered on how to spend the surplus. Fearing the threat posed by the Persians under the rule of Xerxes, the Athenian soldier and statesman Themistocles, called for the expansion of the Athenian Navy, with the construction of 200 triremes, and the fortification of the three harbours of Peiraeus.

In a country in which warfare on land was dominated by the relatively wealthy Hoplites, citizen soldiers who were responsible for purchasing their own equipment, the triremes by contrast would be largely manned by Thetes, the poorest class of free men in Athenian society. With Themistocles' greatest fears soon becoming stark reality, and with the Athenians eventual defeat of the Persians, the prosperity and dominion of the Athenians became ever more reliant on their naval force, and therefore the Thetes; the birth of democracy was as inevitable as it was radical.

In John Hale's landmark book, which was seven years in the writing, and the result of a life-time's work, the story of the Athenians, their navy, the battles, and the birth of democracy, from the time of Themistocles to Philip II and Alexander the Great, is laid out clearly and with the authority and detail that belie their ancient origins. Hale also looks to the theater, utilizing the comedies and dramas of the period to add further insight to the issues and attitudes that pervaded ancient Greece.

Authoritative, yet accessible to the lay reader, Lords of the Sea comes with an excellent series of in-text maps, a glossary, a chronology and extensive endnotes. If there are any negatives, it might be said that the telling of each naval action may sound slightly repetitive, names and dates pile up, and the author is reliant on the same limited set of sources that all writers on this subject have referred to in previous histories. However, if you are looking to buy one book as an excellent introduction to the subject, this book deserves to be in your collection.

John R. Hale (Ph.D) is the Director of Liberal Studies at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. An archaeologist with over 30 years of field work experience, and a keen rower, Hale has a special interest in ancient watercraft and naval history. He has contributed to such esteemed journals and magazines as Antiquity, Journal of Roman Archaeology, and Scientific American.

Sharing an excerpt from The Art of Travel, that I think explains my love for history...

"Nietzche also proposed a ... kind of tourism, whereby we may learn how our societies and identities have been formed by the past and so acquire a sense of continuity and belonging. The person practising this kind of tourism 'looks beyond his own individual transitory existence and feels himself to be the spirit of his house, his race, his city'. He can gaze at old buildings and feel 'the happiness of knowing that one is not wholly accidental and arbitrary but grown out of a past as its heir, flower and fruit, and that his existence is thus excused and indeed, justified." - The Art of Travel p.110

I read An Occurrence at Owl Bridge earlier this year and really enjoyed it. Bierce at his best!

Finished Vessel of Sadness by William Woodruff last night, and after Lords of the Sea, and in a philosophical mood à la mode de Alain de Botton, I have been ruminating over the immortal words of Carl Sagan reflecting on the deeper meanings of the photograph taken by Voyager 1, when it turned its camera back on the earth in 1990...

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

You can listen to Carl Sagan himself reading this HERE

Book 64

Vessel of Sadness by William Woodruff

In 1940 a young Oxford scholar, William Woodruff, volunteered to serve in the Army. Joining the 24th Guards Brigade he would serve in North Africa and the Mediterranean region, taking part in the Battle of ANZIO in 1944. Married in the same year he left English shores, by 1944 he had been married 4 years, but had seen his wife for only as many weeks, and his son not at all. These are the experiences that define one of the characters in Woodruff's 1969 novel Vessel of Sadness - a distillation of his experiences at war and at ANZIO, covering the four months it took for the Allied armies to fight their way 40 miles from ANZIO to Rome.

There is no real story line in this fragmented, and (some say) detached, yet powerful and hauntingly poetic work. There are no orders of battle, no battle plans. This is not a story told from one man's perspective, but from the perspective of many, through oral histories, conversations and letters - from a young Italian boy hiding in a cellar; to the German, British, and American soldiers who fought on the front line; to the deliverer of telegrams back in England and the housewives who received them. The narrative is not steeped in glory, but in the horror and sadness of war; the futility and waste; death and fear.

William Woodruff, the famous British economic historian, died in September, 2008, aged 92. He is the author of The Road To Nab End: A Lancashire Childhood, an autobiography of his life during the Great Depression, that became a best seller in the UK; and its equally successful sequel Beyond Nab End. As well as Vessel of Sadness, Woodruff also wrote of the war in Shadows of Glory. You can read more at his website: http://www.williamwoodruff.com/

#52: I am going to look for that one. Thanks for the review!

ETA: 'for'

#51. Peter, that is as moving a performance as I've heard in a long time. It gave me chills. Thanks for the link!

#53 - You're welcome :)

#54 - I watch it at least once a week, and never tire of it!

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I just spent 10 minutes with The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City by Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, and can I say that this is without a doubt the most comprehensive history ever written on the Warsaw Ghetto. It isn't cheap, and it's over 900 pages long, but I'm getting a copy - it is that good!

"The authors explore the history of the ghetto’s evolution, the actual daily experience of its thousands of inhabitants from its creation in 1940 to its liquidation following the uprising of 1943. Encyclopedic in scope, the book encompasses a range of topics from food supplies to education, religious activities to the Jundenrat’s administration. Separate chapters deal with the mass deportations to Treblinka and the famous uprising. A series of original maps, along with biographies, a glossary, and a bibliography, completes this masterful work. - Product Description (Amazon).

#55: After having read The Diary of Mary Berg, I will be looking for that one, too!

#56 - Found a good review HERE :)

Hi Peter - The Warsaw Ghetto is now sitting on my wishlist at bookdepository.com after reading #55. I found the review also.
#56 - I'll have to wishlist The Diary of Mary Berg as well.

That sounds amazing. I got halfway through Norman Davies' book on Poland but gave up.

Slightly OT but I've seen quite a few interesting books stories in the Globe & Mail recently.

#57: Thanks for posting that, Peter!

>27 arubabookwoman: re: Macaulay. Have you seen the PBS Cathedral based on his work? Really superb. Castle was okay, interesting... but Cathedral was wonderful IMO.

I notice that the Warsaw book is over 800 pages long. It seems to be an exhaustive account of the time - did you enjoy the read, Peter? The review sounds enticing but the detail sounds a bit overwhelming?

Just dropping by to say hello - you've been missing for a while. Hope everything is well with you!

First of all my deep regards to Susan and Cait for your kind interest in my welfare. I have been silent since September 10th, but we can blame work for that, as well as a visit from my mother who flew in to see her youngest grandchild for the first time.

It also means I've not had much time for reading, and so I've had little to say on that front. Since my last post, I have finished The Road to Nab End by William Woodruff, which is one of the best autobiographies I've read in a long time. This book only covers Woodruff's first 16 years, and I'm now on the look out for the sequel Beyond Nab End. Having read the first however, I now understand why these books became such best sellers in the UK. I hope to put a review up before too long.

I will also finish Alain de Botton's The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work today, which is another fine piece by this superlative writer. I can't wait to start on The Consolations of Philosophy and Essays In Love.

#61 Susan - I have not seen the full PBS production of Cathedral, but I have seen a 4-minute 'best of' compilation on YouTube. There is a lot of fascinating Macaulay vids on YouTube - it's well worth the time to seek out a few!

On Cathedrals - there have been some excellent documentaries on the subject, but one of the best is the BBC production How to Build a Cathedral (unfortunately, no longer available via iPlayer at the BBC website).

Thanks for the kind message :)

#62 Karen - Of what I've read, yes, the Warsaw book is exhaustive; and not a light read by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you have a serious interest in the subject, and given the arcane nature of much of the information as well as the price of the book, you may prefer to find a more general history.

#63 Cait - Thank you for your concern :)

I'm so glad it was 'life' which kept you away :)

Yay, you're back. Hope your mum had a great trip to see her grandkids. Real life getting in the way of reading here too...

edited to add that I've just clicked the dratted wishlist button for Nab End,and had never heard of it till now!

Glad to see you back :)

#66 Cushla - My advice: wish list Nab End and Beyond by William Woodruff, which, as the title suggests, includes both titles in a single edition. Really great book.

#67 Cait - :)

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About to start The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins. I found Dawkin's The God Delusion to be a real treat when I read it last year, so I've been looking forward to his latest. I've yet to read any of Dawkin's earlier works, although a copy of his The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution at my local bookshop is proving very hard to resist!

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I continue to read How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now by James L. Kugel. It's a masterpeice of bible scholarship and is one of those books that you can dip in and out of as the mood takes you. The paperback is currently a 'bargain book' at amazon, although I think so highly of it that I'm really happy I sprung for the hardback :)

Also on the go, is Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War by Paul Daley. My only real issue so far is that Daley relies and quotes from H.S. Gullet's The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine* so much that I wonder why I don't just read that instead!

* Volume VII in "The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918" (1923)

>68 petermc: My favorite books along the line of Kugel's are
How to Study Your Bible by Arthur and Understanding and Applying the Bible by McQuilkin. The former is more, as the title indicates, practical how to's while the latter is more about theory ... very good analysis of different approaches to hermeneutics. I'd say while scholarly the McQuilkin is an accessible and interesting read. The Arthur book is less interesting but very practical. My two cents :)

#68. The Greatest Show on Earth is on hold at the library waiting for me to pick it up. I'm very much looking forward to it.

Peter and sgtbigg, I'm 300 pages through the Greatest Show on Earth and it will be on my top 5 books for this year. I've learnt so much and it's been really fun to read too. I am embarrassed at how little science I really know, and I'm bang smack in the target market for Dawkins' book - people who would like to be able to hold their own in an argument about evolution vs. creation. I really hope you both love it as much as I am! I bought The God Delusion last weekend and will try to get to that one soon (although we have just found out we're moving to Switzerland, so reading time is vanishing in favour of househunting and 1001 Jobs to Do Before You Move....)

OK, rave about Richard Dawkins over. Back to those jobs.

#68 Susan - Your 2 cents is gratefully received :)

#70 Mike - ...and I'm very much looking forward to your review. I finished the prologue and chapter one this morning on the way to work, in which Dawkins defines his thesis, and how it relates to his previous books.

Like The God Delusion, Dawkins isn't exactly shy in coming forward. Take this excerpt from Chapter 1...

"Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips . . . continue the list as long as desired. That didn't have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn't. It didn't have to be true, but it is. We know this because a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and (my) book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it."

#71 Cushla - Wow! Switzerland! Wow!

#72 Peter, yes wow! but am wondering which job to do first!!

Richard Dawkins is unabashedly straight forward in his writing and I love it. I am savouring the idea of launching into his latest, which is on my TBR too The Greatest Show on Earth. His rational thinking is such a relief to read.

Double 'wow' for the Switzerland move, Cushla - I am pea-green.

Hi Peter, I just got Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War from the library. I've been going to the library to read extracts from The Mounted Riflemen in Sinai and Palestine : the story of New Zealand's Crusaders by A. Briscoe Moore (1920) which is based on many interviews and accounts of those involved in the action but I didn't get to finish it before it was returned. It will be interesting to read the recent Devils on Horses: in the words of the Anzacs in the Middle East 1916-1919 to see how it relies on this primary source.

Looks like I'll have to wishlist the Richard Dawkins books after all these recommendations. All year I've been adding books at a much faster rate than I've been reading them!

Oh yes, and add me to the 'wow' Switzerland group for Cushla!

Kerry you are adding as many books as Peter to my list - I think I saw Beersheba at the library last week... I have read embarrassingly little NZ military history.

Peter sorry for threadjacking over here with my news. I am blurting it out randomly at the moment!

#77 - my new mission is to find great works of Swiss literature to add to your list. I can't think of any at present apart from Heidi, but there must be some. Children's writer Jürg Schubiger won last year's Hans Christian Andersen Medal but I don't know if his work is translated to English.

>78 avatiakh:: Homo Faber by Max Frisch...he's Swiss.

#77 Cushla - Threadjack away!

I'd add more Swiss authors to the pile, only I don't know any!

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It's the last day of September, and my thoughts begin to turn towards October. As October is my birthday month, I thought I'd read something by someone who shares the same birthday as me (although perhaps not the same year!). I looked up the births and deaths list for my specific date at wiki to find some candidates, and have a couple of very interesting possibilities worth considering.... hmmm

#79 Tad, thanks for the rec (and the ones on my thread). I just read the reviews quickly of Homo Faber and one has a major spoiler in it, but I'm glad - I don't think I have the stomach for it!! But I'll look for his William Tell re-write.

Peter, if you tell us the date we can help with your quest!

Peter we share the bday month :)

#81 Cushla - Thanks for the offer, but I've now got two authors who share the same bday, both of whom have writen books I've always wanted to read, so there's a happy coincidence!

# 82 Susan - :) :) :)

What a great plan, Peter! I'll have to do that next year for my birthday month!

Book 67

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

Halfway through Chapter 8 of Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth and I fear to say that I have no compulsion to finish this bestselling book.

Having grown up fascinated in the subject of evolution and natural selection, I have read fairly extensively on the topic (including Darwin's On Natural Selection as a primary school student), and over the years have pretty much kept abreast (on a very casual level) of developments in various popular and specialized publications. Unfortunately, as well written as this book is, and as passionate as Dawkins is to his subject matter, reading this book makes me feel like I'm retaking classes in Natural Selection 101 (but perhaps that is also to Dawkins' credit - making a complex topic accessible to all).

So what was I expecting from this book? Good question! Obviously, I'm just not the targeted readership :)

You also get the feeling, as I did in The God Delusion, that Dawkins is preaching to the choir. Religious fundamentalists will fail to be moved by his arguments. In fact, Dawkins' compassion often gets the better of him, and his attacks on the creationists, whom he routinely lambasts and treats with derision, will do nothing to win them over to the Darwinian world-view.

I worry that people might take this post as intellectual snobbery. That is far from the case. Rather, it's serves as a warning. If you already know a bit on the subject, then this book might not hold anything for you. However, if this is a subject you've barely begun to explore, then it forms a clear and superlative summary of evolution and the evidence that exists to support it. And for that, it has my highest recommendation.

Interesting to read your reaction - I am the target market!! No science at all... I bought it for my husband (who did honours in biochem before he switched to econ) but started reading it before he got a chance, and I've already told him I think it'll be too easy for him. But for me, it's one of those AMAZING books. And I agree that I don't think he'll convert anyone, but I love the derisory asides.

Hmmm, just realised I already said most of that above! Never mind.

#85 - Dawkins does usually sound like he's preaching to the choir. I'd like to hear about someone who changed their mind about evolution from reading one of his books. Or really from reading any book. I find it hard to imagine that anyone who really believes in creationism and therefore does not believe in evolution reading a book and suddenly changing their mind. Maybe it happens but I'd need some evidence.

I'm only up to chapter 2 so I'll see how it goes.

#86 Cushla - As I said, superbly written for those unversed in the deep, dark, mysterious occult of evolutionary science. For comparison, it will be interesting to see what your husband thinks of it.

#87 Mike - I think that books do have the power to change. But with reference to creationism vs evolution, you'd have to find a mind open to the possibility of change, or present evidence so powerfully irrefutable that to argue any other way would be an exercise in futility, AND DEFIES FAITH! I think I was looking for something meatier here, and I do admit, even at Chapter 8, Dawkins is still 'softening us up' to paraphrase the esteemed scientist. So, I haven't necessarily deserted the book entirely.

Look forward to your thoughts :)

>87 sgtbigg: "So, I haven't necessarily deserted the book entirely." LOL We'll have to see who wins on this one -- any bets?

#89 Susan - The smart money is on 'deserted', because I'm now three chapters into a new book, which I was planning to read in September to commemorate 'Speak Like a Pirate Day'; namely Empire of Blue Water, or to give it its full title Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign, which is quite excellent!

After a couple of false starts, I've also finally made a good dent on the first volume of David Glantz's "The Stalingrad Trilogy", To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942. This is what I like to call a 'meat and potatoes' book. No pastry, no fluff, just good scholarly stuff, crammed into 486 densely typed pages before a wealth of appendices and endnotes. The second volume of this work is being released this month!

This is a book / series I'm going to be investing a lot of my time in from now on, and together with several other big books and lengthy series awaiting my attention, why I doubt I'll be participating in the 75-book challenge for 2010.

#90: Peter, I read one of Glantz's books earlier this year, When Titans Clashed, and enjoyed it, so I am looking forward to your reviews of 'The Stalingrad Trilogy.'

Peter - please come back to the 75ers. We don't count, really we don't and we want to follow what you read. (if you go elsewhere let us know).

Peter--I second that! You are not required to number the books and we would really miss your suggestions, reviews and the good discussions they generate!

Yes Peter--you have to stay. :)

Just make it the 7.5 book challenge. Don't goooooooooo!

Petermc, for an evolution book that makes your brain break a sweat, I like Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life by Martin A. Nowak. I'm not going to claim I understand it thoroughly but it is something to dip into from time to time.

#96 - "...for an evolution book that makes your brain break a sweat..."

I got tingles up my spine when I read that. Evolutionary Dynamics goes on the wish list!

And to all: Thank you so much. What can I say? See you in 2010 for the 7.5(?) book challenge! Maybe I'll post reviews chapter by chapter ;)

Chapter by chapter reviews? Great idea!

Glad to see you sticking with us!

I agree it will be cool if you come back, I have had enjoyed reading this thread (plus I found some great books!).

I'm also glad you are staying around -- regardless of how you choose to do your reviews. :-) I, too, like nonfiction, and I've added several of your titles to my Wishlist.

Count me in as another non-fiction lover! I also read this thread regularly, though I don't post too often. Glad you decided to stay.

Well, I am humbled! Thanks again :)

Back to books...

Having decided to count Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth in this years count, despite having lost the inspiration to complete the second half, let me say that there is no lack of inspiration to complete my current read - Empire of Blue Water.

Growing up on a section of Australian coastline steeped in the history of shipwrecks and mutinies from the 1600s, my love for maritime history began at an early age, and my childhood was dominated by dreams of treasure hunting and 'pieces of eight' (I bought a metal detector as soon as I could afford one!). So, it felt like 'coming home', like slipping into a pair of comfortable old slippers, when I broke the spine on this exceedingly well-written history of the pirate Henry Morgan. You can hear the waves rolling gently against the shores in this book, the creaking of ship timbers, the sounds of canon, muskets been let off on nights of drunken debauchery. Ahhh, for the good ol' days...

#102

Empire of Blue Water has been added to my Wishlist. I love sea stories--I was raised on them because my Dad was in the US Coast Guard. Last year I really enjoyed A Pirate of Exquisite Mind, a great biography of a "Gentleman Pirate" who was pragmatically a pirate because that was the only way he could get to the places he wished to study. I think now I'm ready to read about a real pirate!

Glad you decided to come back next year otherwise I might start actually making some headway on my tbr pile. Speaking of which, I'll be adding Empire of Blue Water to said list.

Have you read Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes yet, Peter? It covers the travels of Captain Cook, so you might want to give it a try.

Oh and yes, I am adding Empire of Blue Water to Planet TBR.

Book 68

Empire of Blue Water by Stephan Talty

John Steinbeck (the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist) wrote his first novel, Cup of Gold: A life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, with Occasional Reference to History, about the Welsh privateer, in 1929. In 1935 the swashbuckling Australian Errol Flynn would romanticize the Admiral in the movie, "Captain Blood".

But for some semblance of truth, we must travel back in to the time of Sir Henry Morgan (1635-1688), in Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin's The Buccaneers of America. Exquemelin (1645-1707) not only knew the most feared pirate on the Spanish Main, but traveled with him on his greatest raids as a 'barber-surgeon'. His first-hand accounts are not only referenced extensively in this new account by Stephan Talty, Empire of Blue Water, but his book, originally published in 1678, has been recognized as one of the most important sourcebooks of seventeenth century piracy ever written.

Considering himself a privateer, rather than a buccaneer, Morgan's name would become infamous for a series of increasingly daring and dangerous raids on the mainland strongholds of the immensely rich and powerful Spanish Main. Puerto Principe, Porto Bello, Maracaibo, and perhaps the most important of all, Panama; all these cities would fall to the young Captain and deliver prizes worth millions to himself, his crew, and the English government.

How the exploits of a cut-throat would become the stuff of legend, one only needs look at Henry Morgan's escape after the Maracaibo Raid. Returning home, Morgan found his way barricaded by three Spanish warships and a fort. In a plan that befitted his ingenuity and brazen contempt for his adversaries, Morgan turned his flagship, the Satisfaction, into a fire ship. Filled with explosives, the deck was crewed by wooden pirates. Therefore convinced this was not a fire ship attack, as intelligence had initially (and correctly) suggested, the Magdalen failed to take evasive action, and soon found itself burnt to the waterline.

Proceeding to run aground one of the remaining Spanish ships, while capturing the other in the resultant confusion, Morgan's way was still blocked by the fort's cannons. In a masterpiece of stratagem, Morgan then faked a land attack on the fort, forcing the Spaniards to shift their guns to the landward side. Then, using only the movement of the tide, Morgan let his ships slide silently past the fort under the cover of darkness, until loosening the sails they set course for home. The sound of the sails catching the wind alerted the Spaniards in the fort, but the ships were beyond effective range by the time the guns were retrained.

Empire of Blue Water however is not just a book on the life of Henry Morgan, it is a history of the region, and English and Spanish politics. It is the story of how one seemingly insignificant man would come to play such an important role in international affairs. It is also the story of Port Royal, the pirate city of Jamaica, and the earthquakes that would ultimately reshape the pirate's map and mark the end of the 'Golden Age of Piracy'.

#106: Nice review, Peter. I will be looking for that one.

Hi Peter
I'm simply stopping by to say hello. I hope all is well with you and your family.

Linda

I'm not really into maritime books, but this one sounds like it'd have enough other stuff to make it really good. Thanks for the review!

(oh and my 2 kids would like me to read a pirate book. ahoy there me arties!)

Brilliant review...as tempted as I am to add this to the wishlist, I've just finished an attempt to organize that overstuffed thing, and I'm resistant to add to it...I think I'll have to leave it at your review.

Great review. I was going to add it to my wishlist but I have become very interested in The Buccaneers of America so I may try that first.

Thank you all for your kind comments :)

#111 Claire - If you are interested in downloading a good scanned copy of the 1893 edition of...

"The Buccaneers of America - A True Account of the Most Remarkable Assaults Committed of Late Years Upon the Coasts of the West Indies by the Buccaneers of Jamaica and Tortuga (both English and French). Wherein are contained more especially the Unparalleled Exploits of SIR HENRY MORGAN, our English Jamaican Hero, who sacked Port Bello, burnt Panama, etc."

Then, may I direct you to this LINK.

The size of the PDF copy is approximately 30MB.

What is interesting about this edition, is that it also contains the journal of Basil Ringrose, who traveled with and documented the "Dangerous Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and others performed in the South Sea for the space of two years". The activities of pirates in the South Seas were not covered by Exquemelin, thus the addition of the Ringrose journal to this volume. Fittingly for a pirate, Ringrose was killed in 1686 on a 'plundering raid'.

Quick Notes:

1. The Dreyfus Affair was the biggest racial (anti-semitic) and political scandal to rock the recently formed French Third Republic in the 1890s, and had ramifications that carried through to the Second World War. It bordered between farce and tragedy and was recently the topic of one of my favourite BBC Radio 4 shows, In Our Time.

(You can download a copy of the 45 minute radio show from the website. This weeks episode, "The Death of Elizabeth I", is also very good as an introduction to the topic and period.)

One of the participants on "The Dreyfus Affair" was Ruth Harris, Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford University, who has written a book on the topic called Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century, which will be published in 2010(?). It's on my watch list. Ruth Harris is also the author of Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age.

2. Just completed A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan by Michael K. Deaver. Review pending...

That radio show looks GREAT! I'm about to get an MP3 player (yes I am about 10 years late) and once I figure out downloading I can listen while I walk...

Quick Notes:

1. Finished book 70 this morning, LeMay (Great Generals) by Barrett Tillman. This is a slim volume from the Great Generals series. No fluff here, but I felt in the end that while I had a lot of hard facts about aircraft types, Air Force history, and LeMays initiatives, I didn't get a real feel (so to speak) for LeMay himself. However, I am now sufficiently impressed in the man to look forward to reading the recently published biography LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay (2009) by Warren Kozak.

2. Will also finish today, Four Weeks in the Trenches: The War Story of a Violinist (1915) by Fritz Kreisler. This short memoir of Kreisler's time as an officer in the Austrian Reserve during WWI is also available online HERE

3. The bookshops here in Japan are starting to fill up with new books on the fall of the Berlin Wall; cashing in on the 20th anniversary! Do you remember where you were when it fell? At the time I was living in Shropshire in England, and watched the whole thing live on TV.

4. Am excited to see John Keegan's new book The American Civil War: A Military History finally hit the shelves. I have this on order as I've enjoyed other books by this author.

5. Was planning to finish a half written review of Deaver's book last night, but got sidetracked with my family tree project. In fact I got so absorbed in that, that by the time I realized what time it was, I had only 3 hours left to sleep before having to get up for work! Yawn...

115, point 2: thanks for that link!

Also love the show 'In Our Time'. Bragg is a wonderful host, too.

Do you recommend the Kreisler novel? Most of your books are ending up on my TBR pile, although I do not hold quite such an interest in American history as you.

Get some rest!

I had been looking forward to Keegan's new book but I I read a NYT's review
of it and I'm not so sure now. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on it when you get to it. I haven't decided if I'll read it or not yet.

Book 71

Four Weeks in the Trenches: The War Story of a Violinist (1915) by Fritz Kreisler

Warning: May contain SPOILERS

Although having resigned his commission as an officer in the Australian Army two years before the outbreak of war in 1914, Fritz Kreisler did not hesitate to cut short a "cure" in Switzerland to rejoin his unit after reading in the newspaper on the 31st of July, 1914, that it had received an order for mobilization. On the eve of World War I, Fritz Kreisler, the Austrian-born violinist and composer, was arguably the leading young violin virtuoso of the period, but professions meant nothing under the "great cloak of brotherhood", as Kreisler noted...

"Among the reserve officers of my battalion were a famous sculptor, a well-known philologist, two university professors (one of mathematics, the other of natural science), a prince, and a civil engineer at the head of one of the largest Austrian steel corporations."

As a platoon commander in charge of "fifty-five men, two buglers, and an ambulance patrol of four," the "happy days in Leoben came to an abrupt end" when his regiment received orders to start immediately for the Russo-Austrian front as part of the Third Army Corps. Marching day after day under heavy loads of 50 pounds or more, fatigue and exhaustion soon set in. Still deep within Galicia (Map of the Eastern Front, 1914), the sounds of heavy artillery and the realization of how far the Russians had penetrated came as a shock to Kreisler and his men, but fatigue "vanished as if by magic", and "despondency" was soon replaced by enthusiasm under "the intense excitement of meeting the enemy so soon."

With trench warfare still yet to bog down in the stalemate that would characterize fighting on the Western Front for much of the war, Kreisler and his men found themselves scrapping depressions in the ground to cheat death, as the situation might shift at any moment. In these circumstances and under heavy bombardment, frayed nerves and sheer exhaustion resulted in a particular form of fatalism. It was only in those last moments before battle that men would reflect on what they had done and what they would be called upon to do.

"Every face I saw bore the unmistakable stamp of the feeling so characteristic of the last hour before a battle, - that curious mixture of solemn dignity, grave responsibility, and suppressed emotion, with an undercurrent of sad resignation. They were pondering over their possible fate, or perhaps dreaming of their dear ones at home."

But, as in all wars, battles are mere fragments of time against the interminable "monotony of trench life". And for Kreisler and his men facing the Russians, just meters away from each other in their respective trenches, these periods gave rise to an unusual form of camaraderie...

"By the morning of the third day we knew nearly every member of the opposing trench, the favorite of my men being a giant red-bearded Russian whose constant pastime consisted in jumping like a Jack-in-the-box from the trench, crying over to us as he did so.... His good-humored jollity and bravado appealed to our boys and none of them attempted to shoot at him while he presented such a splendid target."

A resulting meeting in No-Man's Land between the trenches "succeeded more in restoring good humor and joy of life among our soldiers than a trainload of provisions would have done." And, as Kreisler notes, this was not "an isolated case, for similar intermittent truces, sometimes accompanied by actual intercourse between the opposing forces, were quite common all along the battle line."

Kriesler's war would be short. Knowing that the Austrians were without provisions and desperately short on ammunition, the Cossacks carried out an attack in which Kriesler was wounded. "My next sensation was a crushing pain in my shoulder, struck by the hoof of a horse, and a sharp knife pain in my right thigh," Kreisler wrote. "I fired with my revolver at the hazy figure above me, saw it topple over and then lost consciousness."

Moved to a red cross hospital in Vienna, Kreisler would once more be united with his wife, Harriet, who had volunteered as a nurse to be as close to the front, and her husband, as possible. Pronounced "invalid and physically unfit for army duty at the front or at home, and consequently... exempted from further service," Kreisler wrote...

"My military experience ended there, and with deep regret I bade good-bye to my loyal brother officers, comrades, and faithful orderly, and discarded my well-beloved uniform for the nondescript garb of the civilian, grateful that I had been permitted to be of any, if ever so little, service to my Fatherland."

This short, but beautifully written memoir is out of copyright and freely available online. Written while on concert tours in America and published in 1915, it would have been a remarkable account at the time. It still is. Having toured America in 1888-89, and later from 1901 to 1903 in a series of tours, Kreisler decided to see out the war in the United States after his honourable discharge. This proved difficult at first due to the prevailing anti-German sentiment, but Kreisler does not touch upon this period in his memoir.

Recommended

#119: Thanks for posting the link to the book, Peter. I will check it out!

# To all - Sorry about the length of the review on the Kreisler book. Got carried away. It may contain a few spoilers, but we all pretty much know what happened. It's not a mystery novel, so I didn't hesitate about how much I should reveal.

#116 GUG - You're welcome :)

#117 Karen - Bragg is a indeed a wonderful host. He can be a little abrupt, but he has a keen wit. In answer to your question on the Kreisler book, I thought the best way to answer that would be to post a review. Please enjoy. The book is quite short and should only take you an hour at the very most to read. I've read it 3 times now!

#118 Mike - I read the NYT review as well, but it didn't put me off. As to when I'll get to it... I have so many books on my shelves here in Japan, that I'm really beginning to worry about how much it'll cost me to transport them back to Australia in a few years time. So, all new book orders are now being directed straight to my Australian address, where they patiently await my return. So, we're looking at a 2-year wait on the Keegan book, at least!

#119 Stasia - Enjoy!

I'm not sure you can spoil a non-fiction book...anyway, thanks for another great review. I do wonder what happened to the sculptor, philologist and two university professors.

#122 Daniel - Thanks for dropping by. I agree vis-a-vis the spoiler thing, but people can be a bit funny about stuff like that, so I thought I'd better include the warning.

Good question on his fellow officers. I suppose a bit of research in the Austrian archives might reveal all. Personally, I want to know what happened to the giant red-bearded Russian :)

There is one copy of Four Weeks in the Trenches available in the California Central Valley library system--and hopefully it will be on the way to my local branch sometime next week for me to pick up. Thanks so much for bringing this book to our attention--I love reading about music and musicians and another passion of mine is books about WWI. I didn't realize there was a book that included both! :-D

Wonderful review Peter, and have just copied off the book via your line to read ASAP. Thanks.

Great review!

It's not in Wellington library, but a keyword search uncovered another WW1 book that looks good (A storm in Flanders : the Ypres salient, 1914-19 by Winston Groom). So you've just managed to put 2 books onto the wishlist with one review, unless you tell me you've read that one and it's not very good.

Edited to add that I just clicked on your link and will read the story on line when I'm back from my Saturday morning playground trip!

Thanks for the link, Peter! I just read the story online, and found it extremely interesting. I agree with your "beautifully written" comment. It certainly made an impression on me.

#121 - Considering how many unread books I already have, a two year wait may not make that much of a difference. Fortunately I will not be moving anytime soon, so I don't have to worry about moving them.

#119: I just finished reading the Kreisler memoir. What a great snapshot of life in the trenches it is. Thanks so much for the recommendation!

#124 Carolyn - I didn't mention it in my review, but there is one fascinating little anecdote that Kreisler relates about how his music training resulted in a novel method to direct artillery fire!

#125 Karen - Look forward to hearing your opinion :)

#126 Cushla - I have not read the Winston Groom book, but I instantly recognized the author's name - he wrote Forrest Gump! But as well as writing fiction he is also the author of several nonfiction titles - i.e.

- Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War (1995)
- A Crimson Tide: An Illustrated History of Football at the University of Alabama (2002)
- A Storm in Flanders: The Triumph and Tragedy on the Western Front (2002)
- 1942: The Year that Tried Men's Souls (2004)
- Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans (2006)
- Vicksburg, 1863 (2009)

...and I haven't read any of them! (But I do have Patriotic Fire)

Looking forward to your thoughts.

#127 Terri - I'm so glad you thought it worthwhile.

#128 Mike - That's a date then! Look for my review, here on the 75-book challenge, in 2012 ;)

#129 Stasia - So glad you liked it. And personally, I think it's the perfect length for a book like this.

#130: I agree with you about the length - it was perfect.

As soon as I saw this 1,056 page behemoth I went weak at the knees.

Lust
Drool
Dribble
ORDERED!

132- In the States it's being released as Defend the Realm. I thought it would look lonely in its 1,056 page splendor on a shelf so I got it the 1,040 page The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson to keep it company.

#133 - OMG! How did I miss the release of the Wilson book. I want it!
.
..
...
....
.....

ORDERED!

OK, what can I say? - I am weak! I am ordering them both, too!

#135 Stasia - Good for you!

With respect to The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, the choice of going for the UK edition, published by Allen Lane, or the US edition, published by Knopf, was not an easy one. I love the quality of Knopf publications, and their typesets, but I didn't really want Deckle Edging, which is very inconvenient to quick flicks back and forth between pages.

-----------------------------

Quick Rant:

Just as there has been an influx in books commemorating the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, so has there been a slight trickle in general histories covering WWII, for the 70th anniversary of its commencement in 1939. Two that have recently caught my attention are...

- World War II: A New History by Evan Mawdsley
- The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts

Titles claiming something is a "New History" is almost as much an anathema to me as "Forgotten Voices" or "The True Story". As Piers Brendon wrote at the beginning of his damning review on the Andrew Roberts book...

"New History" is usually old history in disguise...

Just as "Forgotten Voices" are old diaries and interviews that weren't deemed important enough to be included in previous texts, and "The True Story" is a euphemism for "my version of events".

I like your rant.

I totally agree with your rant, Peter. I think the latest thing about WW2 is that the standard school-kid history taught to the Allies kids is now being expanded to include a more time-distance perspective. I am presently reading WWII Behind Closed Doors by Laurence Rees and really enjoying it to about a 1/3 in.

He presents a (dare I say it) different perspective on the Allies Leader agreements and Stalin's involvement, pointing out that the war really was vastly extended past 1945 for manyp European countries. Same stuff, different take, although he does present some newer information uncovered with the Russian emancipation of information after communism.

It is really a book about the personalities rather than the events. And to think I nearly didn't buy it because the cover title format irritated my sensibilities. I wonder if anyone else has read this one?

Love the rant, Peter!

Thanks people. Now just don't get me started on books written to fit into anniversaries!

#138 Karen - Am familiar with Laurence Rees books, but haven't read any. So many books, so many authors, so little time. So glad you're enjoying it :)

My current 'commute read' is The Alamo by John Myers Myers (don't you just love the name?). Written in 1948, many still consider it the definitive book on the subject. Indeed, Myers spends a large and scholarly portion of the book delving deep into the events leading up to the battle, which helps tremendously in placing The Alamo in context. Should finish this by Wednesday.

#140: I will be interested in seeing your review on that one. I live in Texas, but still have not made it to San Antonio yet.

Peter - have you ever read Insurgent Mexico by John Reed. A journalist, he spent four months of the Mexican Revolution with Pancho Villa. It's based on his newspaper reports and was first published in 1914. I haven't read it in years but I really enjoyed it at the time. He went on to write Ten Days that shook the world, by then he was a committed socialist.

#142 Kerry - I have not read Insurgent Mexico, but after your recommendation I did download a scanned copy of the 1969 edition (which is a reprint of the 1914 edition) from Google Books. Will take a gander at it. Thanks :)

#142 Kerry, I have Ten Days that Shook the World - picked it up at the DCM secondhand book fair here. The intro is by Lenin!

Cushla - I haven't read Ten Days that shook the world even though I've owned a copy for ages. Warren Beatty's movie Reds is based on his life.

Recent books that have caught my interest:

1. David M. Glantz is nothing if not prolific in his writings on the Eastern Front in World War II. With the recent release of To the Gates of Stalingrad, and the imminent release of Armageddon in Stalingrad, with a third title to follow in this Stalingrad Trilogy, we can now look forward to Barbarossa Derailed: The Battles for Smolensk, July-August 1941 in June, 2010 (detailed description).

Normally, I'm wary of the quality of research when a single author pumps books out this quickly, but in Glantz's case we needn't worry. Given the amount of research he's conducted over the years in this very specialised field, I'm sure Glantz has compiled enough material to regale us with tales of the Soviet struggle against German aggression for many books to come.

2. World War II is full of fascinating and tragic histories that would be all but forgotten but for those dedicated researchers who spend years of their time, money and effort to bring them to our attention. These are the stories of men, women and children who, in their own way, helped in the fight against those who sought to pervert a way of life that we all but take for granted.

Published this month, The Children Who Fought Hitler: A British Outpost in Europe by Sue Elliott and James Fox, about the children of the British Memorial School in Ypres, Belgium, is one such story.

"When Germany invaded in 1940 the community was threatened: some children managed to escape, others were not so lucky. But, armed with their linguistic skills and local knowledge, pupils of the British Memorial School were uniquely prepared to fight Hitler in occupied territory and from Britain. Still in their teens, some risked capture, torture and death in intelligence and resistance operations in the field. An exceptional patriotism spurred them on to feats of bravery in this new conflict. Whilst their peers at home were being evacuated to the English countryside, these children were directly exposed to danger in one of the major theatres of war."

A documentary film, "The Children Who Fought Hitler", based on the book, will be broadcast on BBC4 in the UK, on Remembrance Sunday, November 8, at 9pm. For more information, read the article, The children who fought Hitler: How British expats became the Third Reich's fiercest foes, at the Mail Online.

3. Finally ordered a book today that I've longed to get about my paternal Great-Granduncle and his son, my First Cousin (2 generations removed). Should be a fascinating read on these two remarkable men - even if I do say so myself ;)

I read one of Glantz' books earlier this year and am definitely up for reading more of his works. I will look for the books of his Stalingrad Trilogy.

The Children Who Fought Hitler: A British Outpost in Europe looks right up my alley as well, so there is another one to put in the BlackHole.

You must let me know how the book is (title?) about your relations!

I've asked my library to consider purchasing The Children Who Fought Hitler: A British Outpost in Europe as it sounds fascinating.

#147 Stasia - Will do. It's a scruffy dog-eared 1st edition from the 1930s, but that's all I could afford :)

#148 Kerry - You'll probably get it before I do. But, I have a promise from my sister that she will try to record the documentary for me and send it post haste. She'll be moving to Cambridgeshire at the time though, so I hope the DVD recorder is unpacked in time!

---------------

Currently Reading:

Just finished The Alamo by John Myers Myers, and have started on Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans by Winston Groom - a book I've been meaning to read since finishing the superb American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham.

#148 and #147 Kerry, I've just had a wee look in the Wgtn catalogue and it's in processing here, yay. Peter, it sounds really good. I hope you get to see the film soon!

Book 69

A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan by Michael K. Deaver; Forward by Nancy Reagan

"As the White House deputy chief of staff during the first term of the Reagan presidency, Deaver orchestrated Reagan's every public appearance, staging announcements with an eye for television and news cameras. From a West Wing office adjacent to the Oval Office, Deaver did more than anyone before him to package and control the presidential image." - Washington Post; Sunday, August 19, 2007

It is important to firstly clarify what this book is not. It is not a formal biography of Reagan, just as it is not the autobiography of its author, Michael K. Deaver. Rather, and as the title implies, this is a look back at Deaver's 30 years with the President, and friend, Ronald Wilson Reagan; a compilation of warm and intimate recollections that Deaver felt a 'duty' to commit to paper to memorialize the man, who, as Deaver was writing this book in 2001, was suffering from one of the cruelest of diseases, Alzheimer's. These are anecdotes that Deaver hopes readers may find "entertaining and even enlightening at times."

Michael K. Deaver was with Reagan from 1966 as "Dutch" campaigned to become the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975), through to his first five years as the 40th President of the United Sates (1981-1989). Suffering health problems, including kidney failure, from a combination of stress and alcohol abuse that caused multiple hospitalizations, Deaver resigned from the White House staff in May 1985. Shortly after he would open his own company, Michael K. Deaver, Inc.; working as a lobbyist on Capital Hill - a business that would prove phenomenally successful and eventually lead to his downfall.

Accused of selling access to the President, Deaver would eventually be convicted of perjury over statements made to a congressional subcommittee, and federal grand jury, undertaking investigations into the claims. Merely citing the court cases, Deaver does not dwell on his personal crises but how it affected his relationship with the Reagans, and how they were eventually able to move past it to reforge that special relationship. Nancy Reagan would say that Deaver was like a son to her husband. Reagan would counter that they were more like brothers.

Alcoholism was a condition that afflicted both of Deaver's parents, as it did Reagan's own father. Some of Deaver's insights into Reagan stem from this mutual and unspoken bond. As well as his recollections of the attempt on Reagan's life in 1981, Deaver also discusses his relationship with Nancy Reagan - a determined woman devoted to her husband, to his Presidency, and to his image. Deaver also reflects on the Bitburg Controversy, which, as architect, he takes full responsibility. And, for Reagan's stand against the overwhelming advice to cancel the visit, amply gives credence to the title of this book; Reagan as "a different drummer".

The final chapters, as Deaver visits Reagan in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's, are touching and sentimental; a moving legacy to Reagan's memory. Complaints I've read on the book stem from individual political ideologies, to the fact that Deaver doesn't offer anything new, or provide significant critical insight. Some suggest that it lacks structure. To these last few points, I would say that Deaver clearly defines his aims in the opening pages of the book, and that while certain themes call for reminiscences spanning multiple time frames, there is a clear overall chronology and the writing is such that the narrative is not difficult to follow. Whatever shortcomings it may have, I enjoyed this book immensely.

Michael K. Deaver died of pancreatic cancer on August 18, 2007 at the age of 69. He is also the author of "Behind the Scenes", co-written with Mickey Herskowitz; and Nancy: A Portrait of My Years with Nancy Reagan.

#151 re A Different Drummer

I enjoyed your nice, balanced, review. I'm adding this to my wishlist.

#151: I agree with Carolyn. I am adding that one to the BlackHole.

BTW - I received my copy of The Defence of the Realm today. I know I will not be getting to it before next year, but I am glad to have it in hand nonetheless!

Carolyn & Stasia - Thank you both for your kind comments :)

Stasia - For reasons outlined in Message 121 above, in a comment to Mike (sgtbigg), my copy of The Defence of the Realm is in Australia, 7000 km away :(

Even if you don't get to it until next year, it will still be a year before me! So, I patiently await your review.

I have added The Children Who Fought Hitler: A British Outpost in Europe and A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan. I also enjoyed your review of the Deaver book. It is always a pleasure to read your thread.

#155 Regina - Thank you very much for your kind words :)

I have recently finished another book that you'll be able to read about soon. The review is a work in progress. Or should I call it an essay? My reviews are getting longer and longer, and this next one will be no different! In fact, it may be the longest yet. However, in writing these wordy dissertations, I'm really helping to focus my own knowledge on the topic. And, if people come away from these reviews (should I call them 'history lessons'?) having learnt something new, or inspired to read the book itself, then I'm happy :)

Hi Peter, one of the reasons I love visiting your thread is to read your lengthy 'essays'. I know I won't be reading a lot of the books you read, life is too short, so your reviews are the next best thing.
I didn't get round to reading The Art of Travel before the book was due back at the library, but have located my copy of Status Anxiety so will have a browse through that instead.

#157 Kerry - I'm really sorry you didn't get a chance to read The Art of Travel. It is one of my favourite books in 2009.

Talking of Alain de Botton, I have just finished seeing the romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer (official website), which highlighted his book The Architecture of Happiness. In fact, I couldn't help but wonder if the writers were not influenced by de Botton's 1993 novel Essays In Love (published in the US as On Love: A Novel), or even his subsequent novel, The Romantic Movement (1994), which explore the philosophy and psychology of love and relationships.

Anyway, speculation aside, (500) Days of Summer is possibly the best film I've seen in 2009. It is smart and witty, with a plethora of literary, musical and artistic references. It also has a superb soundtrack which I plan on tracking down (and I never usually do that!).

This may be repetitive, but De Botton did an excellent TV program on anxiety status which was fascinating. I highly recommend it.

#159 Karen - I second your recommendation.

From my review of How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton (back in April), I wrote...

Historian, philosopher, essayist, entrepreneur, television presenter; Swiss born Alain de Botton first came to my attention through the excellent and thought-provoking 2006 three-part British documentary "The Perfect Home", based on his book The Architecture of Happiness. I next ran into de Botton, in an earlier 2004 documentary, Status Anxiety, based on his book by the same name. In each, de Botton proved that philosophy needn't be the preserve of the intellectually superior, but could be made relevant to everyday life; what has been coined the "philosophy of everyday life."

Of the two I preferred "The Perfect Home", but both are excellent.

You know.... I've suddenly realized that I have yet to formally review de Botton's The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, which I finished in September!

Well you've convinced me, and I've decided to 'fix' my 999 challenge and include a book by de Botton, I'll either turf a bunch of longer essays by DH Lawrence or a biography on Neil Gaiman both of which are not enticing me at present. DH Lawrence and Italy is an older used book with dusty, rusty pages, the Gaiman bio Prince of Stories is a big book that I don't feel up to at present.
I've requested The Art of Travel again, and also The Architecture of Happiness and will read one of them. I've also requested his dvd Philosophy: a guide to happiness.

On another note I just noticed that my library is following up my purchase request and buying 2 copies of The children who fought Hitler : a British outpost in Europe, so I'll be able to read that sometime in the future.

to add: I've also requested A week at the airport : a Heathrow diary.

#161 Kerry - I'm glad you've decided to give The Art of Travel a chance! Crikey... what if you don't like it? You might strike me from your reading list! As for his latest, A Week at the Airport, I've read unflattering reviews. One of the accusations leveled at him is that he reuses material from The Art of Travel. I'll await your review, and hopefully comparison, with interest.

I believe the DVD you noted, i.e. "Philosophy: a guide to happiness", is adapted from his book The Consolations of Philosophy, which, by all reports, is amongst his best works. I have it, bu have yet to read it (I'll make a definite effort to pick up the DVD myself after I have).

The Great Escape: The Reckoning - A Review (TV Documentary)

Remember the 1963 classic WWII film The Great Escape staring that all-star cast including Steve McQueen, James Garner, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, and Richard Attenborough?

If you do, you'll remember that final scene as 50 recaptured escapees are mowed down by a nasty Nazi manning a machine gun. Well, it's a good story, but that's exactly what it is - a story! The truth is far different, but no less horrifying.

For the facts, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to beg, borrow, or even steal, a copy of the superb recent BBC documentary, The Great Escape: The Reckoning (UK residents can watch it online HERE). As this documentary shows, rather than being herded together for one mass execution, these men were shot as and where they were caught by local Gestapo agents, before being cremated and their ashes returned to the prison from which they escaped, Stalag Luft III.

Ex-policeman, and RAF officer, Frank McKenna, was given the post-war task of tracking down the men responsible for these executions. Executions that had incensed a nation now bent on revenge. For the agents rounded up by McKenna's men, the excuse "I was only following orders" was a common one, but in this documentary the case of Emil Schulz is highlighted and begs a moment of introspection.

Through an interview with his daughter, and other documentary evidence, we learn that had Emil not followed orders to shoot the two escapees Bernard Scheidhauer and Roger Bushell (the mastermind of 'The Great Escape') he would have faced execution himself, full in the knowledge that his family would be then interned and possibly face a similar end. Kill or be killed! Fine moral lines indeed, but given the pervading mood at the time Shulz was found guilty of the crime, and hung at Hameln prison at 11.21am on February 26, 1948.

Of course Emil could have refused the order, just as the Wehrmacht soldier Jozef Schultz had done in 1941 when asked to participate in the execution of Serbian guerrillas in Smederevska Palanka (Central Serbia). Faced with this 'kill or be killed' dilemma, Josef tore the insignia from his uniform, removed his helmut, threw down his gun, and joined the guerrillas lined blindfolded against the haystack (image). He died by their side.

Link: He shot the hero of the Great Escape in cold blood. But was this one Nazi who DIDN'T deserve to hang? - Mail Online

#162 - I won't hold it against you Peter, I know that I found his Consolation of Philosophy a little hard going, but I was travelling with my 5 children at the time so possibly wasn't in the best frame of mind for reading it and didn't get past the first chapter or so. I will just set myself a daily goal of 30 pages for The Art of Travel. Adding it to my 999 challenge gives me that extra incentive to read it. And I've requested a couple of the Montalbano books to follow up.
I'm not intending to read the Heathrow book, just flick through it. I'm like everyone else here on LT, greedy to read everything but time poor.

#164 Kerry - I won't hold it against you... - Thanks.

As for Montalbano, I'm going to allow myself his 5th (and maybe 6th?) mystery for Christmas :)

-------------------------------

New Additions

Recent new additions to the permanent library,

- The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson
- Fighting for the Cross: Crusading to the Holy Land by Norman Housley
- The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 by Chris Wickham
- The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew
- Armageddon in Stalingrad by David M. Glantz
- Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the US Navy by Ian W. Toll

Peter, I hope you're happy that you're turning me into a history buff. I saw an ad today for a World War I museum in Kansas City, and actually set it aside to visit for a road trip next year. I blame you. I never cared about wars before this year.

***sighs, as the piles of nice, gentle, non-war books piled throughout my house are relegated to the "later" stacks***

#166 Terri - "Ha Ha!", he cries, rubbing his hands together and laughing maniacally deep within the bowels of Conflict Castle. "Come my little one," he gestures, his eye catching a flicker of flame from the very pits of hell itself, "Come!"

Errr... excuse me, don't know what came over me there!

Welcome Terri :) *smiles sweetly*

Can I tempt you into reading Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans by Winston Groom? I just finished reading this book today, and would like to give it a very strong "read" recommendation for anyone looking for an engaging and well written popular history of this pivotal battle in US history.

#166 Terri, the WWI museum in KC (Liberty Memorial) is very good - we visited there last year. Evidently it is the only WWI memorial in the nation. They have lots of great exhibits, allow plenty of time.

>167 petermc: I hate you. My brother used to live in Nashville TN and my son lives there now, and my "touring" there has developed in me an interest in Andrew Jackson, and New Orleans is one of my favorite places in the world. And the book is in at my library. Although not for long. I feel all funny and out of control......what's happening to me???

>168 sjmccreary: Thanks, Sandy. That clinches it. I'm always looking for an excuse to get away for a weekend. That sounds like a perfect excuse.

#169 Terri -

"I hate you." - That's all right, many people do ;)

"I feel all funny and out of control......what's happening to me???" - I wouldn't dare to presume :o

I've been checking out the Liberty Memorial online; and it certainly looks impressive.

On Andrew Jackson - He has quickly become one of my favourite personalities from US history, and I will read more on him...

...I loved American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham,

...and have recently picked up The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Parsons.

...I'm planning on getting Robert V. Remini's 3-volume biography, which (if you balk at reading that) has also been abridged into a single-volume edition called The Life of Andrew Jackson.

...Remini, one of the preeminent authorities on Jackson, has also written a book on Jackson at New Orleans; namely The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America's First Military Victory.

...Freely available online are scans of Parton's 3-volume Life of Andrew Jackson (a good excuse for an e-reader if ever there was one), as well as many other contemporary (or near contemporary) accounts of the man and his life.

Please find below a small part of my review of The Curtain Falls: Last Days of the Third Reich by Count Folke Bernadotte. The book was originally published in Swedish in June 1945 as Slutet. Mina humanitära förhandlingar i Tyskland våren 1945 och deras politiska följder, and was subsequently serialised in the British Daily Mail, and translated into 18 languages. My copy is the First American Edition, published by Knopf, 1945.

This review covers just the Preface and first two chapters, PARIS November 1944 and STOCKHOLM New Year 1944-5. I am yet to decide whether to write up my notes from the remainder of the book, but in the meantime I hope people will find this of interest and perhaps it will compel them to read the book itself.

A new edition of this book was recently published as Last Days of the Reich: The Diary of Count Folke Bernadotte, October 1944-May 1945 by Frontline Books in 2009, including "a Preface by his two sons, and an Introduction by a leading Swedish author discussing Count Bernadotte's wartime record and his post-war assassination."

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Book 73

The Curtain Falls: Last Days of the Third Reich by Count Folke Bernadotte

Synopsis: In this fascinating memoir, published only months after the capitulation of Germany in 1945, Count Bernadotte recounts his role in the events surrounding the "last days of the Third Reich". Detailing his meetings with key players such as Heinrich Himmler, Walter Schellenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop amongst others; one of the most important humanitarian missions of the war took a decidedly political turn as Himmler sought Bernadotte to act as intermediary in a proposal of peace between Germany and the Western Allies, excluding Russia.

Part 1 - The Plan

On November 3rd, 1944, Folk Bernadotte, the Swedish diplomat and Count of Wisborg, grandson of King Oscar II of Sweden, attended a luncheon in Paris that was to change his life. The circumstances of that fateful day would, in turn, result in the liberation of tens of thousands of prisoners in German concentration camps and may of even, in Bernadotte's own words, 'helped bring about an earlier armistice than might otherwise have been achieved.'

At that Friday luncheon Bernadotte met the Swedish Consul General in Paris, Raoul Nordling, who regaled guests 'in a frank and vivacious way of his many adventures and experiences during the days preceding the liberation of Paris.' Nordling, as a negotiator 'between the Allied forces and the French underground movement on the one hand, and the German occupational authorities on the other,' was instrumental in preventing the deportation of 'large numbers of women and men,' while 'persuading the Germans to release a number of Frenchmen who had been imprisoned in France at the time of the capitulation of Paris.'

But it was not just Nordling's actions that impressed Bernadotte, as he noted: 'Nordling is not a civil servant who fears responsibility and takes cover under regulations and instructions. Rather, he acts fearlessly on his own responsibility.' While acknowledging that Nordling's necessarily close relationship with the enemy had sometimes lead to his activities being questioned or misconstrued (postwar accusations the author would also face), Bernadotte was nonetheless enthralled and inspired.

'As I listened to him I became infected by his enthusiasm. I asked myself if I couldn't do something similar for those who were languishing in German concentration camps. Thus was sown in me a seed that was to develop into the Swedish Red Cross expedition to Germany in the spring of 1945.'

With rumours circulating of plans to liquidate prisoners held within the infamous Nazi concentration camps in the event of a collapse in Germany's defences, time was of the essence if Bernadotte was going to realize his plans. But Bernadotte was also cognizant of the fact that all requests to the German authorities for Red Cross activities to be extended into the camps had been firmly rejected. Obviously a new strategy had to be adopted, and so it was that another 'encounter', this time with Norwegian diplomat, Mr. Niels Christian Ditleff, that 'proved to be of decisive importance to the execution of my scheme.'

Reading Bernadotte's memoirs one might be forgiven for believing Nordling and Ditleff were catalysts for Bernadotte's own initiatives. However, authoritative sources (of which the following are examples) claim that 1) Based on an entry in Bernadotte's diary, but not contained within his published memoir, Nordling had, at their meeting in Paris, directly 'suggested to Bernadotte that Sweden should send assistance to French internees in Germany, in the first case to the Ravensbruck camp where 20,000 French women were interned.' (Cesarani & Levine, 2002, "Bystanders to the Holocaust: a re-evaluation", p.245); and 2) Ditleff, a personal friend of Bernadotte's, had submitted a proposal to the Swedish government in November 1944 for a 'Swedish Red Cross delegation, headed by Folke Bernadotte,' to go to Berlin and negotiate the repatriation of Scandanavian prisoners. Or, as Cohen states: Bernadotte 'readily agreed to lead Ditleff's rescue effort' (ibid. p.245; Cohen, 2000, "A Stand Against Tyranny: Norway's Physicians and the Nazis", p.231).

Despite the differences in accounts, and perhaps Bernadotte's failure to properly credit others in his own favour, it was initially suggested that efforts be restricted to effecting the release of Norwegian civilians, and that 'to be successful it would be necessary to get access to the head of the SS, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler,' who, encouragingly, was said to hold the Scandinavian people and countries in some regard. Formulating a plan for the internment in Sweden of Norwegian and Danish prisoners in Germany (Danes had been included on the insistence of the President of the Swedish Red Cross, Prince Karl), it was clearly recognized that any meeting with Himmler with respect to humanitarian missions to the concentration camps would be difficult, bordering on the impossible, to achieve through formal diplomatic channels.

It was thus decided that Bernadotte would attempt to organize a meeting as a private individual whilst travelling in Germany under the pretext of inspecting a 'Red Cross expedition to ascertain if it required reinforcing in order to carry out its task.' That task was to 'collect and send home the numerous Swedish-born women who had married Germans and now found themselves homeless and with no near relations.' Thus it came to pass that in February, 1945, Bernadotte arrived in 'war-weary' Berlin.

Book 74

Follow That Bird!: Around the World With a Passionate Bird-Watcher by Bill Oddie

If you grew up on a steady diet of British television comedy (like I did), you can't help but know of Bill Oddie (picture). Alongside fellow 'Goodies', Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden, the trio (picture) delighted a whole generation of children (and adults) growing up between 1970 and 1982. Bill Oddie not only co-wrote the "The Goodies", but was responsible for the music. However, his talent didn't just run to comedy. Behind the scenes William Edgar Oddie (b. 1941) was a keen birdwatcher, who would go on to host British wildlife programmes such Springwatch / Autumnwatch, How to Watch Wildlife, Wild In Your Garden, Birding with Bill Oddie, Britain Goes Wild with Bill Oddie and Bill Oddie Goes Wild.

Bill has also written several autobiographical books on his life as a birdwatcher, of which I have Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book and its equally delightful and amusing sequel Bill Oddie's Gone Birding. The truth is I'm a fan, and a mad keen birdwatcher too (that's my photo at the top of the page)! And by some weird cosmic coincidence we share some important dates - when Bill Oddie celebrates his birthday on the 7th July, my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary; and on my birthday in 2003, Bill Oddie received an OBE for services rendered to Wildlife Conservation in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace!

Follow That Bird!: Around the World With a Passionate Bird-Watcher is very much a continuation of his previous two books - taken offshore. From the Isles of Scilly, to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, where he honeymooned with his second wife Paula while filming a wildlife documentary, Bill Oddie is in fine form; as equally at home discussing his 'dips' and 'twitches' as he is making wisecracks, or examining the personalities and psyche of his birdwatching brethren.

I loved it!

ETA - If you're a Bill Oddie neophyte and your appetite has been whetted by this review, then may I suggest that you start with Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, closely followed by Bill Oddie's Gone Birding. Not because they need to be read in order, and not because these earlier books are a little stronger (although I believe they are), but because they are immensely more rewarding to follow in chronological order and each does provide added depth and context to the next.

#172: I am looking for that one. Thanks for the recommendation, Peter.

#172 Thanks for the review, very inteteresting.

#173 I used to adore the goodies when I was a kid! Anyway that will make a great Christmas present for someone I know. Thanks!

Your last few recommends have all hit my internet basket. Thanks Peter. I love books on birds, too, so eagerly await their arrival.

Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book has duly been added to my wishlist. I am a "casual" birdwatcher and an avid memoir reader--so I'm looking forward to finding the book. As I get more time, I can see myself becoming an avid birdwatcher. Thanks for another good suggestion--and, no, I'm not being sarcastic! :-)

To Carolyn et all,

Thank you for your kind comments. Before you hit the order buttons I feel I should expand a little on the two titles I referred to above, so you can add to or alter your wishlist accordingly...

Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book
Originally published in 1980. My copy is a Methuen paperback reprint, dated 1986, at 148 pages in length. A new edition was published in 1998 by Robson Books and has some additional material (158 pages). It's available at amazon UK for a measly GBP4.24!

This book is basically about birdwatching, threatening to reveal "the truth", and it does so with Bill Oddie's unique brand of irreverent humour. Oddie tackles the big philosophical question upfront in the first chapter, "Why watch birds?", before launching into an indispensable glossary of birdwatching terms and phrases, defining the various types of birdwatchers from ornithologist to twitcher. The sometimes difficult subject of bird identification is covered in chapter four, followed by the appropriately named chapter, "Covering the cock-up"!

Bill Oddie does not fail to give his expert advice on the topics of equipment, clothing and bird books; while ending with a bit of fun in "The birder's songbook"...

(To the tune of 'I tawt I taw a puddy cat')

I tawt I taw a Spotted Crake
Creeping down the drain.
Oh no! It's just a Water Rail
And I've dipped out again!

This book is unashamedly English in content and outlook. It is less autobiographical than his subsequent book, Bill Oddie's Gone Birding, but is full of insight and wit borne of 30 years of bird-watching experience.

Bill Oddie's Gone Birding
My first edition Methuen hardback (180 pages), published in 1983, is probably one of the most loved and treasured books in my collection. This is Bill Oddie's first real birdwatching memoir. From his earliest years collecting eggs, to birding the Midland reservoirs, and his dedicated 'patch', Bartley Reservoir, we follow the rites-of-passage Bill Oddie went through to become one of Britain's best know birdwatchers today. He also takes us on a journey around the British coastline to the observatories such as Dungeness, Monk's House and Cley.

Filled with personal photographs and drawings, this volume is a nostalgic look back at birdwatching in the UK in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It's full of the wit and humour, insight and irreverence of his first book, and has my highest recommendation (if this is the sort of thing you like).

Currently reading...

Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War by Paul Daley
After a shaky start - Daley is not a military historian and it shows in the opening chapters - this book has improved immeasurably as the author's journalistic background in 'features' shines through and he starts to explore the modern meaning of Beersheba for Australia through his meetings with light horse enthusiasts at home and in Israel.

The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Parsons
A well-written and engaging look at the election of 1828 between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. Putting aside whether it was "The Birth of Modern Politics" or not, the events of that period make fascinating reading and this book seems to satisfy on that count alone.

>164 avatiakh: Kerry - 5 children?? As in - five??? OK, now I am tenfold awed at how many books you get through....

Peter: I saw this and thought of you - apologies if you've got it through other channels:

Sassoon's manuscripts go online

And:

- so nearly 75!!
- your sister's moving to Cambridgeshire!!

Well, I wrote a heap of stuff here and then lost my post!! So shall write again..
Thanks for the birdwatching books info, opened my doors this morning to listen to the birdsong especially the tuis calling.
A gem of a book, and the only one I've read in this line is journalist Steve Braunias' How to watch a bird. I'll just quote - Steve Braunias writes: 'When a black-backed gull flew past the balcony of my girlfriend's apartment in downtown Auckland on a sultry evening last summer, it came so close to where I was standing, so suddenly and dazzlingly, a white flash against the black night, I was bowled over with happiness. I thought: 'Birds, everywhere.' That became the opening sentence for my next Sunday column. 'Birds are everywhere in New Zealand, on coasts, riverbeds, in bush, forests, islands, at sea, on lawns, roofs, telephone wires - a massive, fleeting population, an irresistible presence. I wanted to know more about them. 'This book, then is my personal journey - a beginner's guide to bird-watching. It's also a New Zealand history, a geographical wandering, and an affectionate look at the people who are captivated by birds.'

I have the Daley book home from the library but it hasn't been opened and will probably not get a look in at present, I might read a few extracts before taking it back and look forward to your review. I'm enjoying The Art of Travel and can now see why you were thinking about reading Madame Bovary.

#164 - yes, 5. Yasmin, my oldest daughter now lives in London, so only 4 at home. I have had a year off from my voluntary & part time work so have read more than I usually do but next year's goal is to read less books!

#179 Rachael - OMG! Fan-bloody-tastic as they say back home in Australia. Thank you. There are going to be a few late nights in front of the computer going through this collection. It's fascinating to see what words have been crossed out, changed, etc... - gives some added insight into their composition.

Actually, I've passed 75, it's my reviews that are lagging!

Yes, my sister is now happily ensconced in the Cambridgeshire countryside - a short and leisurely drive from Cambridge itself!

#180 Kerry - I'm glad you're enjoying The Art of Travel, and while I fully intend to read Madame Bovary it won't be in the immediate future.

Thank you for the heads-up on the Steve Braunias book. It goes directly to the wishlist. You know, I've birded extensively in Australia, Japan and England, have held bird and even bat banding licenses, and once worked at a Bird Observatory; but I've yet to 'bird' NZ. It's high on my list of things to do!

As for the Daley book - I'm just a couple of commutes away from finishing this, and I'm really enjoying it. I've actually got a family military link to this part of the world, so it gives the story an added dimension for me.

Five kids! Wow! Two's enough for me ;)

Glad to be of service, and hope you enjoy - a fitting day for them to make the announcement. Am newly impressed by my sons' school's headmaster - apparently they all went out into the playground and had the radio on for the two minutes' silence (seems counter-intuitive to broadcast a 2-minute silence, somehow, but I can't really complain since I did essentially the same thing over the internet).

Do tell your sister to wave vaguely south-east when she's in town - she'll get me and flissp both :-)

petermc

Thanks for the clarification on the Bill Oddie books. I will be hunting for both of them, but I think I will read the memoir first Gone Birding--it will prepare me for the more "technical" stuff in Little Black Bird Book.

The Children Who Fought Hitler - A Review (TV Documentary)

Let me start this quick review by quoting the opening paragraphs from Tom Sutcliffe's review in The Independent,

"Some small-print disclaimers first, relating to product description. The Children Who Fought Hitler, to start with, a title that conjures up images of human waves of boy-soldiers, running through the rubble-filled streets of Berlin to see who can get to the bunker first and take out Adolf with a Sten gun.

In reality, intriguing though it was, Testimony Films' programme about three alumni of the British Memorial School in Ypres, could more accurately have been called "A Teenager Who Fought the Germans as Well as Two Adults Who Were Children When the War Began", which doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

This documentary examines the establishment of the British Memorial School in Ypres, and more specifically - the war-time activities of its three most notable former students: Jerry Eaton, Elaine Madden, and Stephen Grady.

One-time school captain Jerry Eaton had, by the beginning of the war, already left the school to join the air corps in the UK. After flying mainly reconnaissance he would eventually come to participate in a combat role, staying with the air force until his retirement in 1972 with the rank of Wing Commander.

Seventeen-year-old Elaine Madden and her Belgium aunt, made it to the beaches of Dunkirk dressed as retreating servicemen and from there to England, where Elaine joined the SOE and was eventually parachuted back into Belgium as an operative. Hair-raising as the venture was, Elaine's cool demeanor was her saving grace.

Stephen Grady, unable to find passage to the UK, was eventually caught by the Germans and imprisoned for looting a downed German bomber and painting it with anti-German slogans. He was imprisoned, released on the efforts of his town mayor, who then recruited him into the local resistance. At the age of 16 he became head of his section.

Each of these remarkable men and women are still alive today, and tell their stories direct to camera. Utilizing photographs, newsreel footage, and scenes from feature films, this is a compelling piece of documentary film making, based on the premise that it was the school that gave these children, raised on foreign soil, the strong British patriotism that lead to their remarkable service record. Just don't approach the film expecting hordes of defiant "children" :)

Note: According to Sue Elliott, the co-author of The Children Who Fought Hitler: A British Outpost in Europe, the film was conceived first thus dictating the title of the book, which is much wider in scope (source).

I thought you might enjoy this short article about Churchill's speech: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10608960

#185: I bought the book, Peter, and am hoping to get to it some time next year. I will have to see if I can locate the documentary online somewhere.

#186 Kerry - Thank you. An article that would be outright hilarious but for the tragedy which underpins its analysis!

"Godwits" also makes my wishlist - Many thanks indeed!

#187 Stasia - I look forward to your comments. As the author has stated, the book is wider in scope than the documentary, and she was forced, by the dictates of marketing, to give it such a provocative but ultimately misleading title.

-----------------------------------

News

1. Finished Book 75 last week, namely Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans by Winston Groom. It was a great read. Note however that I will not be writing an individual review for this book. Rather, on the completion of my current read, The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Parsons, I will be doing a combined review that will include each, together with American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Book 57).

2. Just finished Book 76, Beersheba: A Journey Through Australia's Forgotten War by Paul Daley, which I will be writing a review of in due course. Mixed feelings about this book, but what I will say now is that anyone with an interest in Australian or NZ military history, World War I (and in particular the Sinai and Palestine Campaign), and travelogues, might like to consider adding this to their list.

I have read a couple of Winston Groom's nonfiction books, but not the one you mentioned. I will see if I can locate a copy.

Congratulations on the 75!

Congrats!

Congratulations on the big 75!

Congrats of the 75.

Congratulations on your 75th book, Peter!
What a coincidence. That's the next book on my own reading pile...

OK, I'm in too - congratulations on managing to read 75 books in what must be an extremely busy life with a new baby in the house.

#190-195 - Thanks peoples!

Stasia and Terri - As always I look forward to your views :)

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More Military TV

With November 11th being Armistice Day, there has been an embarrassment of riches this month in military related programming. Some more examples of what has recently come my way, are...

Blitz: The Bombing of Coventry (BBC Documentary)
A good documentary detailing the bombing of Coventry in England, on November 14, 1940. Eye-witnesses (children at the time) tell of their horrifying experience in the bunkers and on the streets as the bombs carpeted Britain's key industrial city. Told against a backdrop of contemporary film and re-enactments.

Not Forgotten (Documentary)
This documentary, part of the Not Forgotten series on Channel 4 in the UK, examines why 2.5 million men from the across the British Empire chose to fight and die for "King and Empire" in World War I. Through the personal stories of four such men, from India, Jamaica, Ireland and Canada, Ian Hislop (writer and presenter) surmizes that they fought for "us" because they were "us".

Into the Storm (TV Film)
The sequel to The Gathering Storm (2002). This biographical film of Winston Churchill during his days as wartime Prime Minister, is told as a series of flashbacks while he anguishes in France over the upcoming results of the first postwar election. Most of the highlights are in there, but it's skip and jump as almost 5 years is condensed into 90 minutes. A good grasp of the history will help fill in the gaps.

Occupation (TV Series)
A 3-part TV series that depicts the trials and tribulations of three British service men who served in Iraq. Morals go out the window as one starts up a security (read mercenary) firm, one is troubled by the whole moral dilemma of his experiences, as the other falls in love for an Iraqi doctor and heads back into action to be with her. It's all a bit over the top, but it makes for compelling soap-styled TV.

Congratulations Peter!

Hi Peter, I haven't stopped by in awhile, and I've missed a ton of good stuff. Congrats on 75.

Back to post #170 - sorry to drag you back into US Indian removal, but ... back in my college days I read a short book by Robert V. Remini on Andrew Jackson called The legacy of Andrew Jackson : essays on democracy, Indian removal, and slavery. This was 15 years ago, so it's been too long and I don't remember any of the details. But, this was basically a defense of Jackson regarding the Indian removal policies (note - he was NOT defending the policy, only Jackson). Jackson was, of course, the prime mover behind clearing out Native America populations in the South and east of the Mississippi river. The clear-out happened during his presidency, and was consistent with his pre-presidential military history of fighting Native Americans - whom I presume he clearly saw as an enemy. At that time I found Remini's defense astoundingly offensive. Of course I was more idealistic and less circumspect at that time than I am now. And, of course, Jackson was a man of his time, not ours. But still - a defense...really?

#197-199 - Thanks :)

Daniel - I have not read The legacy of Andrew Jackson (1990) but I'm aware of some of Remini's arguments. While sympathetic to the Indian's plight, he maintains that the tribes that migrated (removed) survived as entities, whereas those that didn't vanished altogether (to which he refers to the Yamasees, Mohegans, Pequots, Delawares, etc...). I'll definitely have to seek out this title to learn more!

Currently Reading...

I have a few books on the go, but I thought I'd pop in and let you know where I'm at on just a few of them...

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
As far from politically correct as you can possibly get! Fell in love with Thomas Hughes' school bully in Tom Brown's School Days, but for some unfathomable reason never got around to reading Fraser's take on Flashy's post-Rugby career. A thorough cad indeed, but damned if I can't help liking the bounder!

My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell
I may be only 105 pages in, but this memoir of Colby Buzzell's experiences as a machine-gunner in Iraq in 2003-2004 is becoming one of the best reads of the year. Don't read this book if you're offended by bad language, but it really is, to quote a another reviewer, "perhaps the finest and most genuine writing to come so far out of the war in Iraq."

The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Parsons
Don't invite me to your next party unless you want to hear me pontificate on the "corrupt deal", or give you a detailed breakdown of the election results for 1824 between Jackson, Adams, Crawford and Clay! At page 109, I haven't even started on the 1828 election yet, so imagine how much more of a bore I can potentially become ;)

Heading in to a long weekend here in Japan. Mine starts in just 2.5 hours from now. Have a good one!

I like Flashman too! He is a likeable rogue.

Oh I love the early Flashman books! When he was really a no good coward :)

Peter - If you want to come to you Houston, I'll throw you a part just to hear you "pontificate" about 1820's American politics. :)

And I would drive to Houston from Missouri to attend the party uninvited, just to hear the same thing!

#202 & 203 - On Flashman: I must say, I have both the book and the audiobook, and I find myself preferring the audiobook as read by the late David Case. His natural voice is a little too "Kenneth Williams" for me, but his reading of the novel (the voices of the young and octogenarian Harry Paget Flashman, along with the rest) are superb.

Claire, you say "the early Flasman books", at which book in the series do you think he looses his spark?

#204 & 205 - If I were any closer (distance of Tokyo to Houston: 10,782 km / 6,699 miles) I'd be down like a shot Daniel, but....

Can I take a raincheck?

Peter - in case you need directions: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=houston,+tx&daddr=t... - you will need a kayak and some time off work. :)

Peter - thanks for the recommend on the The Curtain Falls: Last Days of the Third Reich by Count Folke Bernadotte

I really enjoyed the insights of this man - and the internal machinations that happened within the hierarchies of Germany. I suspect, as you pointed out, that he gives a one-sided view of the dealings, but I am full of admiration for his bravery in traveling to war-torn Berlin and negotiating for the release of those Scandinavian POWs. It was a good perspective to my other read by Lawrence Rees

> 163 I know, I'm way behind on reading your thread! Your information on the Great Escape was fascinating. I learned so much in just that short blurb. Are you a history teacher, because if you aren't you should be! Thanks again for the enjoyable education.

>166 tloeffler: You reeled me in again. When I read "Can I tempt you into reading Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson... I thought "No", Andrew Jackson is my least favorite president for the way he treated the American Indians. But, then I read the rest of the title and your note, and it is enticing. DARN!

#206 I was going to say the best ones are pre-90s but I haven't read Flashman and the Mountain of Light (published 1990). It's not that they are bad but Flashman is forced into more heroic deeds to keep the story going. The historical fiction is still highly enjoyable.

My top 3 are:
Flashman at the Charge (light brigade)
Flashman in the Great Game (Indian Mutiny)
Flashman and the Dragon (opium wars)

My many thanks to all who dropped by. I'm on the tail end of a non-stop and utterly exhausting long weekend. My hypo 3-year-old has finally fallen asleep! And, at long last, I can sit down, read your good comments and respond...

#207 Daniel - Thanks for the map. I have printed it out, slipped it into a plastic waterproof sleeve, and have started work on a raft, à la Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki! Not only will I hold you to that promise of a party, not only will I pontificate on the injustices of the "corrupt deal", but I will also prove that America's Indians are in fact descended from ancient Japanese tribes, who crossed the North Pacific Ocean using only the materials and technologies available at the time ;)

#208 Karen - Thank you for checking back on that book. I really appreciate it! You say "one-sided", some might say "self-serving", but yes - let's not take anything away from the man for what he did accomplish given the extraordinary circumstances. I will also respond directly in your own thread, but given the lateness of the hour, and an early start tomorrow (4.30am), I'll have to do so then. Please forgive me.

#209-210 Regina - No, I am not a history teacher, but your kind comment has made every minute of every hour I've spent on this thread worthwhile, and I hope you learn a lot more before I'm done. I do hope you read Patriotic Fire and learn more of Jackson. He was certainly nothing if not an extraordinary man - despite his faults ;)

#211 Claire - Thank you so much for your considered reply. I look forward, in time, to comparing favourites :)

Who knows, a few weeks on a raft might be a nice relaxing break from your 3-yr-old?...actually, thinking about my own 3-yr-old boy, perhaps I'll grab a kayak and head your way instead. :)

Save room for me on that raft please!! Have done 2 weeks of both kids on my own and have one month left. Yay for sleeping 3 year olds Peter!

Might be back later to say something about all your books, but only when all today's jobs are done...

#213 Daniel - Ah! Kids, huh? Yet would we have it any other way?

#214 Cushla - Six weeks alone with two kids!?!?! - Ee gad! Good luck with your chores - hope to see you back :)

Basu De Odekaku - Words and Pictures by Mase Naokata
Japanese Language

Currently my son's favourite book, this is the Christmas themed version of a series of delightfully illustrated children's books by Mase Naokata. I've already noted the author's "Densha de Ikou" in a past thread. Traveling by bus, we follow a family's journey as they wend their way through valleys, towns and villages to their final destination - a restaurant on the edge of a snow-blanketed forest.

I know many reading this do not read or speak Japanese. No matter! It's the pictures that are central to my child's enjoyment of this book. Forget the text. We do :)

Ha - I greatly look forward to your rafting trip across the Pacific - perhaps the stuff for a self-revelatory book.

Looking at your last entry - I wonder if you are bringing up your kids to be bilingual or doing the Japanese alone. I cannot imagine how talented you must be if you are communicating in fluent Japanese, with Australian as your native language.

#217 Karen - The truth is in fact far less impressive, but I'd hate to shatter your illusions (and my ego)! Ideally, we would like to raise our kids to be perfectly bilingual, but the fact is, when living in Japan, Japanese dominates! We use our respective native tongues at home - me English (Japlish might be closer to the truth), my wife Japanese - so our kids can develop strong skills in both, but my 3-year-old's Japanese has turned out to be far stronger - factor in TV (favourite show), grandparents, Japanese speaking playmates, etc...

Peter, like Karen, I am impressed with your ability to speak both languages!

Please add my congratulations to the list of well wishers regarding reaching the 75 challenge goal!
And, I love the cover of your son's favorite book!

#219 Linda - Thanks :)

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Musings

They say that you should never meet your heroes. I suppose that includes meeting them through the medium of TV as well. Unfortunately, the truth of that wise old adage was driven home to me recently when I had the opportunity to 'meet' the prolific children's author Enid Blyton via the recent BBC telemovie, ENID. I don't know what I imagined Enid Blyton to be like, but judging by her books I would never have guessed at the ugly truth.

She was, if this movie is even only half accurate, a spiteful, vindictive, adulterous, self-absorbed, egotistical woman; who treated her own children shamefully. Physically and mentally she never really recovered after her father walked out on them when she was still just a child. Blaming her mother and shunning her own brother and sister, Enid left home as soon as she was of age, taking refuge in her books and pretending to all that her mother had in fact died many years before.

As I watched this movie I increasingly began to wish I hadn't. Sometimes ignorance is indeed bliss, and in the world of children's literature - innocence a virtue. I'll never look at Noddy, Big Ears, The Secret Seven, or The Famous Five - books that brought me such joy as a child - in the same light again, and I regret that.

I was also bought up on a diet of Enid Blyton. The world of books is very different to the world of the writer, I guess.

I also loved Arthur Ransome as a kid - and yet his life was one of escaping his wife and spying the Russian communist system, although I haven't finished reading his bio. yet. Not the guy I imagined at all. But Enid sounds much much worse.

Graeme Greene was also someone that you wouldn't want to be married to!

Chiming in on the conversation regarding the writer and the "real" person, years ago I worked with a prolific writer. People loved his books. Toward the end of my tenure when people would swoon and moon over this person and would ask which of his books happened to be my favorite, I simply could not contain myself and said "NONE!"

The words he wrote were glowing. The person he was and the person he portrayed were direct polar opposites. I was young and learned a lot about appearances vs. actuality.

When I was growing up we lived across the street from some English neighbors, and so I was exposed to Enid Blyton as a child. I still fondly remember Kiki the parrot. It's too bad she was a nasty person.

#221-223 - Thanks for your thoughts. As a famous American guru once said, "Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations." :)

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Recently Finished:
77. My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell
78. Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

Replaced By:
- Bonnie-Sue: A Marine Corps Helicopter Squadron in Vietnam by Marion F. Sturkey
- In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002 by Bill Murphy Jr.

Book 77

My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell

"I was sick of living my life in oblivion where every fucking day was the same fucking thing as the day before, and the same fucking routine day in and day out. Eat, shit, work, sleep, repeat.

At the time, I saw no escape from this. I was in my mid-twenties and I still had no fucking idea what the hell I wanted to do with myself...

I figured if I joined the military it might be a quick-fix solution to my problems, it would add some excitement to my life, and at the same time give me the sense that I had finally done something with myself. And who knows? A trip to the Middle East could be one hell of an adventure." (My War, p.21)

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In 2002, 26-year old San Francisco Bay resident Colby Buzzell, realized that he was going nowhere, and fast! Living paycheck to paycheck, working one dead-end job after another with nothing better in sight, Buzzell marched with a resolve born more of despair than patriotic fervour into the Pleasant Hill Marine recruitment office and declared, "I want to be a Marine". Thrown by the "we'll call you" response, a none-the-less fixated Colby brushed off an Army recruitment officer who had had the balls to wait for him just outside the Marine recruitment office front doors; his pitch falling on deaf ears until Colby heard the fateful words – the army was offering 2-year enlistments and a signing bonus of up to $4,000 - "I immediately envisioned myself in an Army uniform singing Airborne Ranger cadences."

While Army Specialist Colby Buzzell's experiences as a machine-gunner with the 1st Battalion, 23rd Regiment, during a one-year deployment in Iraq, are central to the book, they play a supporting role to the story of Buzzell's 10-week blog which he maintained while in the war zone. Reporting on the daily life of a grunt on the ground, his blog, entitled MY WAR, gained a sudden and wide-spread popularity that would result in repercussions not only for Buzzell, but for Army policy. This dichotomy between sanctioned Army media releases and the uncensored views from the man-on-the-ground, are intriguing questions that unfortunately are not explored in any great depth in this memoir, but the impacts as detailed by Colby are obvious and hard to ignore as he becomes a source of 'real' information that, in one case, grieving families are otherwise unable to obtain through formal military channels.

Another important aspect of this book is Buzzell's focus on the soldier's life in camp - the conditions, the deprivations, the thoughts and opinions of Iraqi translators, and his fellow soldiers. His portrayal of the ever-present fear of death and of the terrifying ordeal of being in battle are real and important contributions to the normally gung-ho accounts that soldiers traditionally prefer to immortalize in their memoirs. Dividing the book into four parts, Colby Buzzell further divides the text of his story into short titled pieces keeping effectively to the stylistic notions of the digital age. The most important blog entries themselves are reproduced in parts two and three, maintaining, in my opinion, all of their original force and immediacy.

This is possibly one of the best war memoirs that I've yet to read, and one can only hope that in time Colby Buzzell, who left the Army at the end of his two-year term, and has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, will follow this up with a post-war memoir. The original (and now heavily edited) blog can be found at: MY WAR. Pay special attention also to HIS ARTICLES in Esquire Magazine.

Tempted - so tempted with #77.

It is a very interesting premise about information 'leakage' and blogs, Peter. No aspect of life remains under wraps any more? I would have thought the military still controlled front line action/military secrets/etc but I guess the 'stand and blindly obey' culture has changed. I will be exploring your links. Thanks.

#225: Definitely looking for that one. Thanks for another great review, Peter.

#225 That does sound like a fascinating book. I think I'm going to add it to the list . . .

BTW, I can't get the links in your post to work. I just get a blank screen when I click them. :(

Peter - another great review. I'm fascinated.

#226 Karen - Go on - you know you want to ;)

#227 Stasia - Most welcome :)

#228 Terri - Turn that frown upside-down - links are fixed! Thanks for letting me know :)

#229 Daniel - Seek it out. This book is almost always in the Bargain Bin at Amazon (presently in paperback), which is where I picked up my hardcover version for a well-spent pittance :)

:)

Just thought I'd pop in to share one of those funny literary coincidences...I am, as you know, currently reading Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Lafitte at the Battle of New Orleans (almost finished--loving it!). I am also reading at work during my lunch breaks a huge book of essays called The Collected What If?. Today's essay was "Napoleon's Invasion of North America" and it wondered what would have happened if the French army in Saint Domingue had not contracted yellow fever in 1802. Long story short, it ended with Wellesley being sent to New Orleans in 1814 instead of Pakenham (where he "would not have committed the blunders perpetrated by his impulsive brother-in-law"), and I ended up knowing exactly what he was talking about!

So I'm just saying thanks for enhancing my reading experiences!

Very nice review of My War: Killing Time in Iraq, Peter!

#232 Terri - What an absolute thrill to read your message. Knowing your initial feelings regarding Andrew Jackson, I'm so glad you gave Patriotic Fire a go, and that you're enjoying it! Winston Groom is one of those authors that has the ability to bring history to life, and dare I say - entertaining? Many hardcore history buffs (the boring academic types) will dismiss him as being a 'popular' historian.

And what better accompaniment than to read the "What if?" book!

#233 Darryl - Thank you for your very nice comment :)

Book 79

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002 by Bill Murphy Jr.

Dubbed the "golden children" for graduating on the 200th year of the United States Military Academy's foundation, the West Point Class of 2002 had started their 'plebe' year in a time of peace. They would graduate in a "time of war".

Bill Murphy's "In a Time of War" intimately follows a small group of 2002 West Point graduates during their time at the academy and through their subsequent five year commitment to the Army. From the western bank of the Hudson River to Afghanistan and Iraq; from Ranger School to the front line; torn between duty and family; life, death, and suicide; little is left unexplored in this behind-the-scenes look at what it means to be a young army officer in the 'global fight against terrorism', while giving the reader an important insight into why so many officers with valuable combat experience are turning their backs on a long-term career in the armed services.

"In a Time of War" is an absorbing and emotional read that would strongly appeal to those whose preferences normally run to fiction; and while I strongly recommend this book, I do so with the following qualifications. I wonder by what criteria the key subjects of this book were chosen, and whether the author was not being expedient to the metred soap-operatic storyline. How would this book have differed in its underlying message had Murphy followed a different group of West Point Class of 2002 alumni?

On a personal level, I would like to have seen a 'dramatis personae' at the beginning of the book - it can be difficult to keep track of who's who, as Murphy's text bounces (rapidly at times) between characters both familiar and otherwise. And an appendix detailing the post-West Point careers of all 2002 graduates would also have helped to give the reader a deeper perspective into the themes explored in Murphy's book.

In comparison to Rick Atkinson's The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966, which covers the 20+ year careers of a select band of West Point graduates, the reader of "In a Time of War" is left without the same feeling of completeness, and without the added depth of insight into the long-term effects of military service and combat on its officers. But this is nitpicking - "In a Time of War" stands tall amongst its peers.

"In a Time of War" arose from research conducted by Bill Murphy Jr. as a research assistant to Bob Woodward for State of Denial. Bill Murphy Jr. is a lawyer and former Army Reserve officer, who has worked as an embedded reporter in Iraq for The Washington Post. You can visit the "In a Time of War" website at http://www.inatimeofwar.com

Peter, I read a similar book on West Point graduates last year entitled The Class of 1846. I am going to check your recommendation out as it will be interesting to see what has changed at the Academy in 150+years.

I'm going to look for this one! Thanks for the great review!

#236 Stasia - ...and I will be looking for The Class of 1846. On a personal note, I hope one day to visit West Point as my family has a pre-military college connection to the site. By the way - Congrats on reaching 500!

#237 Terri - Thanks to you for taking the time to drop by, read my review, and comment :) :) :)

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Will finish today - Deployed: How Reservists Bear the Burden of Iraq by Michael Craig Musheno and Susan M. Ross

Will finish very soon - The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Parsons

Have started and am reading slowly (look for a review in 2010) - Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam by Jason Burke

#238: The Class of 1846 is not really about the time at West Point, but rather, the participants' involvement in the Civil War. The class was very divided as you can imagine. I hope you get your wish of visiting the academy some time.

Thanks for the congratulations, BTW.

I have The Class of 1846 on my wishlist, and have the good fortune that it is at our county library and thus easy to get my hands on . . . that may well be one that I read for my Civil War category in the 1010 challenge.

Couldn't resist posting the latest google logo depicting one of my favourite childhood comic characters - Popeye - launched 90 years ago in December 1919.

Love it!

Me too!

If Christopher Andrew's The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (US Title: Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5) is in your library, then you might be interested in a recent British television programme from ITV called Inside MI5 - The Real Spooks. This documentary is based on the book and features interviews with the author, and former MI5 Director General (1996-2002) Sir Stephen Lander, amongst others.

#244: I bought the Andrews' book from The Book Depository, so I have my hands on it already. I do not, however, know how to get my hands on the documentary. I wonder if Netflix would have it . . .

I do wish we had more access to the BBC TV programming! We have a BBC Canada but it runs old programs most of the time, and buys only select ones, very rarely documentaries. I wish there was a feed I could subscribe to that gives me full access. Anyone know about this?

Good luck to both of you. I hope you manage to get hold of a copy :)

Thanks also to you Stasia (and Darryl), who pointed the way to the graphic novel Bayou by Jeremy Love. I have been reading it ONLINE, and am almost finished the first 4 chapters which make up Volume One as published by Zuda Comics (a webcomic imprint of DC Comics).

I don't read a lot of comics, err... sorry... I mean 'graphic novels', but this is brilliantly written and illustrated (and let's not forget the superb work of the colourist, Patrick Morgan).

It's easily the best graphic novel I've read since the superlative Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot (note the nods to Alice in Wonderland in Bayou as well!).

(Yeah, yeah, OK... it's the only graphic novel I've read since the superlative Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot)

Anyway, thanks again guys!

I tried Netflix for a copy of the documentary, but no such luck!

#248 Stasia - Sorry to hear that :(

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So, last night I'm lying snug and warm in bed as the temperature drops into single figures outside, and I reach out to pick up Jason Burke's Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, and it's not there. In dawning horror, I realize that it's in another room and not being brave enough to walk the cold wooden floorboards between me and it, I resign myself to a night without the company of Osama Bin Laden.

Instead, I pick up The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorised Australia and the Southern Oceans in the First World War by Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen. What a brilliant opening chapter - history doesn't get written much better than this. Here is an extraordinary and compelling adventure story about the First World War German raider, and the lives of her crew and prisoners. Fiction lovers will enjoy this as much as the history buffs!

>246 kiwidoc: if you can find a decent proxy service, you can probably manage access to iPlayer - but I've never figured out how one finds a reliable proxy, myself. It seems to be an inherently dodgy system. There's almost certainly someone a bit more techie on here that can advise <<looks hopefully at TadAd>>...

#250 - You'll need ITV Player, rather than the BBC iPlayer, for "Inside MI5", but you're quite right. As of today, viewers have 27 days left to view this documentary HERE.

With a quick search of the internet, it's quite easy to find lists of current and reliable proxies. I use Avant Browser as my preferred web browser, which makes setting up proxies very simple.

I have absolutely not a clue what a proxy service is, so when the time comes, I am just following your helpful link, Peter!

Adding The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized the Southern Seas to the BlackHole.

#247 I agree Bayou is quite amazing (I am about half way through).

#253 Claire - At the moment I'm debating with myself whether to include Bayou as an official book on my year's reading list.

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What's going on...

1. Completed Book 81: The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 by Lynn Parsons. Overall, this is an excellent biographic overview of Jackson and Adams in the run-up to the 1824 election, and the central issues that dominated the campaigns for both the 1824 and 1828 elections.

2. Bonnie-Sue: A Marine Corps Helicopter Squadron in Vietnam by Marion F. Sturkey, is turning out to be a fascinating chronology of HMM-265 squadron (Bonnie-Sue), attached to MAG-16, 1 MAW, in Vietnam, during the period July '66 to April '68. Excerpts and chapter-by-chapter overviews can be found HERE.

The squadron is currently stationed in Japan.

3. Talking of Japan, today, December 14th, marks the 113 anniversary of the birth of General James Harold "Jimmy" Doolittle, who would go on to plan and lead the Doolittle Raid on April 18th, 1942 - "the first air raid by the United States to strike a Japanese home island (Honshu) during World War II."

#254: I will look for the Sturkey book as I intend to continue both my Vietnam War and Civil Rights movement into next year. Thanks for the recommendation, Peter.

#255 Stasia - Because this is very much a squadron history, Sturkey tends towards a lot of specificities such as code numbers, grid coordinates, flight formations, crew lists, etc... Also, I think his intended audience is, in large part, his fellow service men and other helicopter pilots, so he does not shy away from using technical terms and phrases particular to helicopters and flying them. These points, and the matter-of-fact approach, can border on dry and may put some readers off, but for anyone looking for an insight into the day to day realities of flying in Vietnam it is undeniably fascinating; and as a pilot myself I actually enjoy the technical aspects of the book.

Hmm, I may have to re-think it then, Peter, because I am so technically-challenged I would probably not be able to follow it.

#257 Stasia - I'm sure you would be able to follow it! It's not excessive. I just thought it worth mentioning the point here so people who may be influenced to find this title do so knowing exactly what to expect. I'd hate people to think they were picking up a combat narrative with page after page of exciting action / battle sequences :)

Ah, OK. All righty then, back into the BlackHole it goes!

I read quite a few comics/graphic novels so I was going to add it, but then I realised I hadn't been adding any of my web based reading. I think I maybe too old fashioned.. if it's not physical it doesn't "exist" :)

Edited to add: Actually I just finished it (and really enjoyed it) but as it doesn't finish off the story I am also torn whether I would add it...

#260 Claire - I've pretty much decided not to add it. As a frame by frame web comic, it isn't 'booky' enough for me :)

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FYI

In Chapter One of my current and unputdownable read, Bonnie-Sue: A Marine Corps Helicopter Squadron in Vietnam, author Marion F. Sturkey relates the story of Yankee Papa 13, and refers readers to the photo-essay, "One Ride with Yankee Papa 13", in the April 16th, 1965, edition of Life magazine.

Thanks to those good people at Google, this article with it's powerful photographs (many taken under fire) is available online HERE and is worth a look if you're at all interested in this book.

#261: Thanks for sharing that article, Peter. You are right - those photographs are powerful. Makes you wonder if those guys made it through the war.

>249 petermc: Of course you know that I will now have to find that book. Is it new? It seems it's not available to us commoners until April 2010...

#262 Stasia - "Makes you wonder if those guys made it through the war."

Wonder no more...

Crew Chief, Lance Cpl. James C. Farley, whose emotional outburst at the end of that harrowing mission (as caught by photographer Larry Burrows), not only survived the war but went on to become a minor celebrity as a result of that Life magazine story (1.7 million copies circulated). He was one of the five people featured in The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War (1999) by Paul Hendrickson.

You may also be interested in the first-hand stories related to this incident on THIS PAGE of the USMC/Combat Helicopter Association website.

The photographer Larry Burrows died in Vietnam in February, 1971, alongside fellow photojournalists Henri Huet, Kent Potter and Keisaburo Shimamoto, when their helicopter was shot down over Laos. Many of the pictures from "One Ride with Yankee Papa 13" have been published in the superb posthumous photo book Larry Burrows: Vietnam, of which a good selection can be viewed at the Larry Burrows page of the highly recommended The Digital Journalist website.

#263 Terri - I assume you're talking about The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorised Australia and the Southern Oceans in the First World War by Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen ;)

I have the paperback edition of this book which came out in Australia (were I bought it), earlier this year. It is available currently from Amazon UK.

The excellent Sydney Morning Herald BOOK REVIEW closes with the following endorsement...

"This story of the adventures of the Wolf is one of the best and most gripping books I have had the pleasure to read all year."

#264: Thanks for the additional info, Peter. I will look for the Burrows book at my local library. If they do not have it, I will check out the Larry Burrows page.

#266 Stasia - You're welcome.

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The war in Iraq / Afghanistan has been something of a theme for me this year, and will continue to be so in 2010. And, while reading will give you certain perspectives, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and from my post in #264 in which I mentioned the "The Digital Journalist", I'd like to draw people's attention to the current issue, Special December 2009 - January 2010, Issue 146, which features the superb photography of Lucian Read and David Bathgate in "Afghanistan: One War -- Two Photographers".

Also of note: the disturbing images taken by Paula Bronstein.

Old News



First screened in the USA in January, 2008, for the Sundance Film Festival, the German movie Die Welle (US Title: "The Wave"), was finally released in cinemas here in Japan just last month.

The movie is based on the book The Wave (1981) by Morton Rhue (pen name of Tod Strasser), which was a novelization of the short teleplay "The Wave" (1981), which in turn was based on a short story published as "Take As Directed" in the Spring 1976 issue of the CoEvolution Quarterly magazine, based on a 1967 experiment conducted by the author Ron Jones in a Cubberley High School history class in Palo Alto, California. Ron Jones hoped to demonstrate to his students the appeal of fascism, and how the German people allowed the Nazi regime to flourish.

I was reminded of the book today, and prompted to write about it here, when I walked past a "Die Welle" movie poster on the way to work this morning. Although I read the book way back in the early '80s, it must have had some impact on me as it is still vivid in my otherwise failing memory. I wonder if I'd feel the same about it if I were to read it again today?

Websites:
- The Wave
- Ron Jones Website
- The Third Wave by Robert L. Stephens - Excellent essay correcting a wealth of erroneous information

Top 10 Disappointments for 2009

With so many good book read in 2009, it proved impossible to come up with my favourites on a month by month basis, or to even whittle the list down to a Top 10, so I decided that it would be far easier to give you my Top 10 Disappointments (in order read).

I hasten to note that these books all offered something of value to the reader and should not be discarded out of hand. This is a personal and relative list.

11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944 by Stanley Weintraub
- Disjointed - greater story clouded by too many small details - dry - fails to create empathy with the soldiers - space given to celebrities feels gratuitous

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick
- Purple prose feels forced and ingenuous - sanitized - glosses over issues raised in "Generation Kill" - written like a politician

Shooter by Jack Coughlin
- Writing awkward and repetitive - braggadocio style - lacks introspection - cursory back story borders on the frustrating - perhaps one eye to commerciability and the other on the potentiality of a future movie deal, or designed to build a fan base for the author's subsequent sniper novels

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
- Predictable and contrived

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes
- Plenty of detail for what purpose? - who is actually the forgotten man? - thesis? - verges on the unreadable - abandoned

Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty
- Unbelievable with excessive Deus ex Machina!

Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of USO Hostesses during World War II by Meghan K. Winchell
- Reads like the doctoral dissertation it originally was - poor organization - repetitive - requires merciless editing - fails to let the girls 'speak', while selected excerpts from the oral histories repeatedly fail to convey the concept of "Good Fun", or a good read!

Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War by Gary Gallagher
- Labour of love but fails to stimulate enthusiasm - superficial analysis - limited selection of movies

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
- Preaching to the choir - treats his intended(?) audience with a level of disdain that quickly becomes tiring

LeMay (Great Generals) by Barrett Tillman
- Author loses focus on LeMay the man as he details the changes in the air force LeMay helped to bring about.

#268 I have to ask, have you seen the film and would you recommend it? I keep meaning to rent the DVD.

I think I will miss The Greatest Show on Earth. I thought the God Delusion was too much (and I happen to agree with him on many things!).

#270 Claire - Picked up the DVD a couple of days ago, and will be watching it before the weekend. Will let you know what I think - watch this space.

Other recent pickups for the Christmas / New Year season: "Brødre" (2004), "Katyn" (2007), and "Anonyma: Eine Frau in Berlin" (2008).

Tonight I've been catching up on episodes from the current series of "House" - love that show!

I was hoping that one of your disappointments would be on my TBR list so I could remove it, but no such luck. Sigh.

#272 LOL! I was thinking the same thing, but no dice.

It did not work for me, either. *sigh*

#272-274 - It did work for me, I had the Gallagher book on my list, but I think it will come off now. I already read the Dawkins book and I agree with you.

Hmmff - I have the Dawkins book on my TBR pile. It is moved down a notch but not discarded 'cos I have loved his others.

Merry Christmas.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your lovely wife and sons!

#270 Claire - Saw Die Welle tonight - Brilliant film on so many levels - highly recommended!

#277 Linda - A Very Merry Christmas to you Linda, and to your family. Always lurking, rarely commenting, I promise to do better in 2010 :)

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...and to all - A Very Merry Christmas :)

Have a wonderful Christmas, Peter!!

With only a couple of hours left here till the New Year, I must face facts - many reviews from 2009 remain unwritten or half-written, and after an excellent bottle tonight of NV Francois Seconde, Sillery Grand Cru, Champaign, and an equally excellent bottle of the 2002 Torbreck, The Struie, there's no way they're getting written this year! :(

To all, a very happy and prosperous New Year. Thank you for your interset and support in 2009, and I look forward to seeing you all again in 2010 :)

Happy New Year, Peter!

Cheers, Peter! See you in 2010!

Happy New Year, and happy reading in 2010!

Happy, Happy New Year to you and your family!

Happy New Year, Peter!

I have a BSc.(Hons) in chemistry and did Biology and Biochemistry on the why so I would consider that I have a reasonable background in science. I have also taught Biology at high School - including evolution to some kids with creationist leanings. However I really enjoy this as brought together the arguments well and presented some material that I have forgotten.

Hope you did finish it

#287 - Hi! I assume we're talking about The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins :)

Unfortunately, I didn't finish it, and honestly - don't believe I will. Too many other books on the pile!

I agree completely that Dawkins presents the history of, and evidence for, evolution very well! He is undoubtedly a superb writer; making the most complex concepts accessible to the lay reader. On these points I recommend the book thouroughly. However, this book is more than that. As Dawkins points out clearly in the opening pages...

"The history-deniers themselves are among those that I am trying to reach in this book.... Evolution is a fact, and (my) book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it."

But surely, as he states with the "history-deniers", it is the biased reader for which this book is written.

As Peter J. Bowler wrote in Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design, Dawkins (and the philosopher Daniel Dennett) presents "the theory of natural selection as the final nail in the coffin of religious belief."

Throughout the book (at least the half I read) Dawkins comes across as self-rightous, and his attacks on creationists are nothing if not derisive; and I found that off-putting.

Personally, I am in the Darwin camp, but I don't subscribe to Dawkins' approach. Rather, I subscribe to the Michael Ruse philosophy, as outlined by Peter J. Bowler in "Monkey Trials"...

"I am a pretty hardline skeptic on religious matters. But like Michael Ruse, I disagree with Dawkins and Dennett over the tactics to be adopted when confronted with the kind of situation that exists in America, or in any other country where fundamentalist religion tries to impose rigid limits on what scientists can investigate. ... Ruse argues that polarizing the situation further by stressing the most atheistic interpretation of Darwinism may put the whole enterprise of science and enlightenment at risk by inflaming the opposition. It may be better to oppose the fundamentalists by showing that they have oversimplified the response of religion to the quest for a science of origins." (p.3)

Thanks for your interest and taking the time to comment :)

Peter, I tried leaving you a message to say hi but couldn't. I hope everything's ok
and your plans to move back to Australia are going well. I just went hunting for your thread and it's gone!

All the best
Cushla.

He hasn't been around in about a month. I think he's in the actual moving process. Here's his current thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/79079