Lansdale did a book called “Zeppelins West,” which sounds pretty neat but is hard to get. The sequel “Flaming Zeppelins” didn’t seem to review as well.
Currently reading and enjoying When Darkness Falls by James Grippando. Great police/lawyer/mystery and best of all it’s free from Amazon for the kindle!
I finished it waiting for a plane. I would still recommend it to people interest in the naval battles off Guadalcanal–it had a fair number of very interesting things to say, and quite a few that I had had no inkling of. Norman Scott’s training of his cruisers before Cape Esperance comes to mind, and I’ve not seen Halsey’s effect on the South Pacific Force described with such care to note what a difference he actually made.
On the other hand, it’s not a book you can use exclusively: Hornfischer makes some interesting but odd choices in structuring his narrative, working with something like flashbacks that makes for gripping reading but not necessarily for detailed battle reports. You’ll still, I’m afraid, have to read something else for those.
In other news, I got a cheap copy of Game Change, the story of the 2008 election, which I almost got through on the plane. It’s a very interesting book! I wouldn’t want to count the number of uses of the word “fuck” in the candidates’ private talks, and if half of what’s in there is true, I’d say news TV might as well stay home next election for all the “analysis” they brought.
As I brought home with me about ten kilos of books, I’m not sure what I’ll be starting on next. House of Leaves seems to call out to me, just browsing through the pages…but there’s so much else…
Finished So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman. Thought-provoking story based on a real life case of a woman who was held as a sex slave for months and her body dumped. It’ll piss you off. Hoffman offers no answers, but it does raise consciousness about women as victims, in real life as well as in TV and movies.
Next up is an ARC of Doc by Mary Doria Russell – it’s about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and I’m looking forward to it.
Now reading:
Good stuff.
The description sorta reminds me a bit of Primo Levi’s masterpiece The Periodic Table - though that book is more autobiography-by-elements.
In a good way? Tell us more. I’ve long been interested in Halsey. We’re distantly related by marriage.
I’m reading Bossypants by Tina Fey, Hardly Knew Her, by Laura Lippman, and just finished The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd.
Bossypants is hilarious. Hardly Knew Her is a book of short stories–generally horrible people murdering others for no good reason, but some of it is really funny (I’d never read anything by that author before and I will again), and The Secret Life of Bees…I don’t care, I liked it!
MY copy of The Pale King by David Foster Wallace arrived yesterday and I read it late into the evening. Amazing Stuff.
Yes, absolutely in a good way. Hornfischer is fairly complimentary to Halsey. Although I knew the facts, I had not yet encountered much of the oral history he uses to support his point that Halsey was a urgently needed breath of aggressiveness in the SoPac. Indeed, much of Hornfischer’s book is written to emphasize the benefits of aggressiveness in U.S. commanders (he’s a big fan of Scott, too). He frames some things that I would have taken issue with positively: for example, Halsey’s order pre-Santa Cruz “Strike, Repeat, Strike,” which I’ve long considered the height of inanity (well, who, where, what, why, when??) becomes part of Halsey’s larger effort to instill greater morale in his largely demoralized forces. And Hornfischer backs that up by noting that the fleet responded to this: it had long been longing to be taken off the leash, and finally got to do it.
There’s more, but that’s the gist; I recommend the book, it’s a very interesting take on the campaign, and infinitely, orders of magnitude better than the ridiculous Morning of the Rising Sun.
OK, thanks, Enterprise! You may know that there’s a new USS Halsey in the fleet: USS Halsey (DDG-97) - Wikipedia
Blackberry, my book club read The Secret Life of Bees a few years back. I’m a dude and I liked it, too.
Havana Nocturne, T.J. English, history about the mob in Cuba.
I’m reading Killer of Men by Christian Cameron.
I highly recommend it for those like historical fiction - it is far better written than is usual for the genre. Good in both the history and the fiction aspects, which is rare.
Finished Moby Dick; didn’t really think it was worth the bother. I’ve read much worse, but I don’t see where it gets it’s rep.
I read a Philip K. Dick book, The Crack in Space (randomly picked from the bookstore shelf). I kind of felt like I should read something by him, and maybe I made a lousy choice, as I didn’t think to much of it.
Just starting to read Nausea.
For me, the key to Moby Dick is that it is a book about an obsession - written so that the writing style and content are both obsessive. In short, the book reflects its subject-matter.
Such a recursive, self-referential style was quite revolutionary in its time, and it is still quite impressive today.
Just finished HIs Excellency George Washington by Ellis; started re-reading Summer Lightning by Wodehouse, just for fun; and have started John Adams by McCullough.
Finished Shaman, Healer, Heretic: An Olivia Lawson, Techno-Shaman Novel.
As mentioned above it is an rather uninspired urban fantasy. The mythos for the world is rather blurry and explained poorly. Science has married magic and allowed Techno-Shamans to enter the middle-world and under-world to heal people. Despite this, when our protagonist is visited by a kachina, Olivia says it is impossible.
The middle-world and under-world have been invaded by an ancient god bent on destroying everything and it is up to our techno-shaman (and her reluctant companions) to vanquish the evil.
I am doubtful that I will read the next in the series.
Although I loved Ellis’s Founding Brothers, I was rather disappointed by His Excellency. Flexner’s Washington: The Indispensable Man and Brookhiser’s Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington are much better, I thought. I’ve just started Chernow’s Washington, and so far, so good.
I read Fiddlers by Ed McBain, and was pleasantly surprised.
I used to be an addict, but then he started losing his game, too much padding (Especially the Deaf Man stories), so I stopped.
But he seems to have regained his inspiration and I hope to try a few more.
I used to be a Lyndsay Davis fan, who writes classical Rome “Who dunnits”.
The last book of hers that I attempted to read was Alexandria.
It was so dreadful I gave up on it a quarter of the way through.
But I thought that after a good few months that I’d give it another chance.
I might not have been in the right mood the first time.
So I tried again.
It was truly dreadful.
I gave up again and will never, short of having a knife held against my throat, ever even attempt a Lyndsay Davis book.
The genre’?
As I said a male investigator in exotic ancient Rome.
The result ?
So our children wandered into the banquet, sleepy eyed and frightened at waking up on their own (These are supposed to be ROMAN ARISTOCRATIC children, with a slave matron 24/7 you’ll remember)
She didn’t actually write "Look at their sweet widdle faces ", she didn’t have to.
And then in the course of this action adventure,detective story we’re treated to an acount of the kids being taken to the zoo,around the tourist spots of Alexandria, what they said,how the local kids reacted to them and ON and ON and ON.
None of which was even vaguely relevant to the story, let alone moved the story along in any way.
You honestly feel like ringing her up and saying “For GODS sake have another fucking baby and stop boring everyone shitless with youre obsession”.
Though I suspect that it might be too late for that.
After releiving myself with that long overdue rant…
I am about to start reading the latest Joe Abercrombie novel.
I read the original trilogy and enjoyed it but felt that the end was a let down.
It does finally pick up. Was pretty good, but still, felt like 400 pages of story in a 900 page book.