Recent Reads

With this summer being the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1 there have been quite a few new books released on that topic.  Four that I recommend are "The War that Ended Peace" by Margaret MacMillan, "A Mad Catastrophe, The Outbreak of WW1 and the Collapse of the Hapsburg Empire" by Geoffrey Wawro, "Prelude to Blitzkrieg, The 1916 Austro-German campaign in Rumania" by Michael Barrett, and "Catastrophe 1914; Europe goes to war" by Max Hastings.  The first book is an excellent review of the events that led to the war, covering the period from approximately 1880 through July 1914.  The second two cover portions of the "eastern front" in WW1 which doesn't get a lot of coverage in western press.  Both are excellent.  And the last one by Max Hastings covers the first 4 months of the war.  I view it as "The Guns of August" extended through December.  An excellent read.

The trip to NC also regenerated interest in the Civil War, especially the "Overland Campaign" of 1864.  I read books about the North Anna River campaign, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and a travel guide of the overland campaign.  I really need to get down there to explore those battlefields, probably on my own since the family isn't interested.

I've also read two books for my book group, "Six Guys from Hackensack" (so so) and "Devil in the White City" (quite good).  A couple of classics and supposedly top contemporary fiction novels were also read (Great Expectations, Return of the Native, and the Crying Lot of 49-which I didn't like).

Finally I read a book in a genre that I usually have no interest in...Romance.  Only this is bit more explicit than the regular romance novels.  There's no "she fell breathless into his arms" stuff here...it is VERY explicit. A woman who joins us for our weekly trivia contests has been teasing me about a particular author and I finally asked her to lend me the books.  She lent me two, and I read one.  I didn't like it that much and thought the story was silly.  Plus I couldn't care less about the characters.  I started the second one of the series, had the thought "I just read this in the last book" and put it down.  I'll skip it.  As for the explicit parts, well, let's just say books like this should be read having someone you're quite fond of close by.  'nuff said.