Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times by Michael Beschloss. Interesting but not groundbreaking.
Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands. Technically, I’m re-reading this one.
I also just finished re-reading Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold. I’m a huge Bujold fan and I keep re-reading her books. This re-read was prompted by seeing a cheap copy at a thrift store.
(Also to SCAdian) I’m reading this book because I’m writing a short story in which the main character, like the one in Job, washes dishes for a living. In my story, that occupation enables her to solve a mystery, and I want to be sure I’m not inadvertently plagiarizing Heinlein by having her say/do something his main character does. (Even though I’ve never read this book, my husband did year ago, and he mentioned this occupation.)
Betrayal in Berlin: The True Story of the Cold War’s Most Audacious Espionage Operation, by Steve Vogel . In September of 1954 US Army engineers began to dig a 1476-foot-long tunnel reaching from West Berlin into East Berlin. The CIA were going to use the tunnel to tap into phone and telegraph cables used by the Germans and Soviets – a top secret operation expected to yield all sorts of intelligence. Unfortunately, an English traitor had already informed the KGB eight months earlier, in January, when the project was still in the early planning stage. Fortunately, that particular traitor was the KGB’s best source in Europe, so to protect his identity, they allowed the project to go ahead. The first tap went live in May of '55, and actually yielded more intel than had been expected, but the following April the KGB decided it was time to “discover” the tunnel and expose the CIA’s nefarious plot…
Finished Job: A Comedy of Justice, by Robert A. Heinlein. Not recommended. However, the fantasy story I’m working on does not, fortunately, inadvertently plagiarize Heinlein’s story, so I can go ahead with it.
Still reading Adventures for Readers (Book One), edited by Fannie Safie.
Next up: The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives, by Adam Smyth, and If You Shoot the Breeze, Are You Murdering the Weather?: 100 Musings on Art and Science, by Alan Dean Foster.
I just finished Dave Barry’s latest, Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass – How I went 77 Years without Growing Up. This really does appear o be his memoirs. He quots frequently from his earlier work, and gives many more details and incidents from his life than in earlier works. It’s funny, too, of course. But it has an air if finality to it, as if he’s saying that this is his last book. He might still write end-of-the-year news roundups and the occasional humor piece, but no more books (unless they issue compilations of previously-written stuff).
Now it’s on to an Ace double I picked up Stranger than you Think and The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream, both by “G. C. Edmondson”. This turns out to be the pen name of José Mario Garry Ordoñez Edmondson y Cotton (1922-1995). I hadn’t read his stuff before, but it’s pretty good so far. He shows familiarity with standard SF tropes and a desire to play with and trash them. His chosen publication name looks like an attempt at protective coloration to get around people who would be spooked by his triple-barreled hispanic name. According to his Wikipedia bio, he spoke six (!) languages and did translating work, as well as writing westerns. Gardner Dozoid considered him a “neglected author”, which, so far, appears to be on the money. The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream was a Nebula award nominee for Best Novel but lost to Dune. It spawned a sequel.
On audio, I’m reading Thomas Jefferson’s Creme Brulee: How a Founding Father and his slave James Hemings introduced French Cuisine to America by Thomas J. Craughwell. Hemings was the brother of the famous Sally Hemings. More interestingly, he was half-brother to Jefferson’s wife Martha. Relationships were complicated in 18th-19th century Virginia. I assume that the book will get to these arcane connections eventually. The book is fascinating so far.
I’ll add that Dave Barry to Mount TBR, thanks.
I finished The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs. It was very loosely inspired by his dissatisfaction with Gandalf after reading LOTR. The best parts were when he channeled his inner M.R. James and dipping into really creepy. Overall I don’t think it’s a good intro to John Bellairs work, in part because it’s more fantasy than horror, but if you’re already a fan it’s not bad.
I just received The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier from a bookstore order. I hope to start it this weekend. I love time travel books with some substance.
This was recommended to me by a fellow fantasy fan many years ago, bu it took me a long time to track down a copy. When I finally read it, I was completely disappointed, I’m afraid.
Yeah, it’s his first book, I believe, and not up to the quality of the Johnny Dixon or Lewis Barnavelt books.
I just finished The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones’s latest horror. It’s a masterpiece.
Going into the book with no plot spoilers beyond the title would be best, I think: the slow unfolding of the horror is much of the book’s joy. But more than most horror, this has literary aspirations–which it meets. It reminds me more of Beloved than of anything else I’ve ever read, with a helping of Blood Meridian.
This isn’t, for various reasons, an easy read. But it’s fascinating, and beautiful.
I’ve just finished The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies. It’s a study of how come so many institutions - governments, corporations, markets, charities - keep making decisions that no one wants. Not just decisions some people don’t like, mind you, but decisions that manifestly aren’t in anyone’s interest at all. And moreover, decisions that cannot easily or fairly laid at the door of any one person.
That sounds dry, but it’s a very fun read, taking in the sad fate of ground squirrels who lacked the paperwork to exit Schiphol airport, computing ponds, auto-aiming gunsights, the origins of management consultancy and the last days of Salvador Allende’s government.
These are all linked by the notion of viable systems, and the work of one Stafford Beer, who more or less invented cybernetics and the study of how organisations handle information.
It turns into a much more political book than you might expect at first, taking dead aim at Milton Friedman, mainstream economics and the notion of shareholder value as the organising principle for society.
Well worth a read for anyone who wants to generate institutional change, or just to understand why there’s no one to complain to about being bumped from your flight.
I finished Thomas Jefferson’s Creme Brulee: How a Founding Father and his slave James Hemings introduced French Cuisine to America by Thomas J. Craughwell. It’s a good book, but it’s also pretty clear that Craughwell didn’t have a huge amount of primary material to use. His book has got a lot of background material and period history, along with a lot of “informed speculation” about James Hemings. He’s got a great story there, but obviously not as much that is bolstered by primary sources as he’d like. Still, lots of interesting stuff about how Jefferson was one of the first, if not the first, to introduce Americans to sparkling champagne and macaroni and cheese, among other things.
The social dynamics of Jefferson’s family must have been bizarre, with the Hemings’ being not only slaves, but relatives. James, as the book points out, could have escaped as free man as soon as he set foot in France, under French law. Even if he wasn’t aware of it at first, it would’ve dawned on him as he apprenticed as a chef (and learned much more French than Jefferson ever did). Only he didn’t leave. He ultimately committed suicide six years after his return (and manumission), and I can’t help but think that there’s a story in that. But Craughwell doesn’t pursue it.
Now on audio I’m on to Liar’s Circus: A Strange and Terrifying Journey into the Upside-down World of Trump’s MAGA Rallies by Carl Hoffman. Journal Hoffman treats his living in the MAGA world as if he was investigating an obscure tribe elsewhere in the world. The book came out in 2020.
The Peace War Vernor Vinge
A sci-fi classic from the 1980s. The setup is a bit convoluted, and unfolds slowly. In the late 20th century a group of scientists invent a force field projector and use it to take over the world. A group of rebels held by one of the inventors of the device fights back.
Enjoyable and well-written book
I finished Kara Swisher’s book Burn Book: A Tech Love Story I really wish I had read it instead of getting the audio from the library. Ms Swisher may be a fabulous interviewer (if you don’t believe me ask her) but dayum is she the most monotone, deadpan reader ever! Woman never changed her tone to talk about her babies or her stroke! Other than that I enjoyed the book and it made me long for the old Wild West days of the early 2000s before Facebook, Twitter and Elon Musk.
Oh yeah and I started the new thread: 2025 is officially half over now
I finally finished The Devils, by Joe Abercrombie. It was an okay adventure story, but a lot of action scenes one after the other tired me out. I don’t want a literal blow by blow of every fight! I also didn’t care for the ending, and didn’t realize it was the beginning of a series. I won’t be reading any further.
i finished department q. very good. i liked that they dealt with how injured one would be after years of captivity.
on to james comey’s fdr drive. a bit law and order ripped from the headlines. so far so good.