The 2018 Nonfiction Challenge Part IV: History in April

Welcome to spring (for those in the northern hemisphere) and autumn (for those in the southern hemisphere.) Either way -- welcome to the fourth month of the non-fiction challenge, and a chance to devote four weeks or so to reading some of those books about history that you've had on your shelves.

So, how are we defining "history" for the sake of this challenge? To avoid any debate over when that begins, I'm being arbitrary, while drawing on a definition that my high school history teacher (who was inspirational) employed: to him, the era of CONTEMPORARY history, as opposed to the past, was a fluid one that was bounded by the period that the oldest living citizens (on average) could remember. So, with that in mind, and for the purposes of a neat and tidy cut-off date, I'm picking 1945, and the end of World War II. Someone born that year would be 73, so someone with clear memories of the period preceding it would probably be in their 80s and fall into that definition of the "oldest living citizens"...

So, when picking your books, look for something where the vast majority of the book takes place prior to 1945. If you want to read a book about the war crimes trials (which is resolving events that took place prior to that date), I think that's OK. But a book about the Cold War, which really kicked off subsequently to it, would not be. (On the other hand, we have a geography/geopolitics challenge looming large on the horizon...) Otherwise, the world is your oyster. Genghis Khan. The Middle Passage and efforts to abolish slavery. The US Revolutionary War. Biographies of people from this era. Military history. Social history. World War I and its incredible upheaval on the world. The Russian Revolution; ditto. The French Revolution, and the ideas that survived the rise and fall of Napoleon. The hunt for a Northwest Passage; the race to be first in Antarctica (since that was achieved in the early 20th century.) The Crusades from Western eyes or from Muslim eyes (Amin Maalouf has written about that...) How people learned that the world was round and not flat. The Irish potato famine, and how refugees fleeing a desperate situation at home has a long and venerable tradition. And so on...

As always, please come and tell us all what you're reading. Send out some book bullets. Post some comments, as you're reading and when you're finished. if you have any questions or other housekeeping messages, sometimes a PM will reach me more rapidly than post here, but try either -- certainly reach out and I'll answer. Or your fellow challenge members will! Welcome back to the fray for what I'm sure will be yet another month of great non-fiction reading...

What we're reading:











What's on deck for the rest of 2018:

May – Boundaries: Geography, Geopolitics and Maps -- a new offering. Anything about places, and boundaries, and how they affect our lives. So, a book about maps, about geographical features (Krakatoa?) or about geopolitics (Samuel Huntington?) or anything like that -- all are OK. I'm making this as eclectic as possible. (This is where some of those Cold War books might fit, I think...)

June – The Great Outdoors -- another hybrid challenge. Want to write about gardening? About the environment? About outdoor sporting events, from baseball to sailing? Do you want to read Cheryl Strayed's book about hiking and her misadventures on the Pacific Coast trail? As long as it happens out of doors, it's all fine.

July – The Arts -- from ballet to classical music, to jazz and rock and roll, to sculpture and painting, and the people involved in these -- oh, and books about books, of course!

August – Short and Sweet: Essays and Other Longform Narratives -- self explanatory. Essays from any anthology, longform pieces from the New Yorker, etc. Please make them reasonably long and not just an 800-word news feature from Mashable. Think, New York Times Magazine, perhaps, or London Review of Books, or...

September – Gods, Demons, Spirits, and Supernatural Beliefs -- from the Book of Common Prayer to things that go bump in the night. A biography of the Dalai Lama? Go for it.

October – First Person Singular -- This is the spot for anything first person. Anything that anyone has written about themselves and their lives in any way. Tina Fey? Paul Kalinithi? (sp?)

November – Politics, Economics & Business -- The stuff we all know we should know about but sometimes hate to think about, especially these days. Call it the hot button issues challenge. Immigration/Racism? Banking regulation? Minimum wage debates?

December – 2018 In Review -- Frustrated because you've got leftover books? You've got too many book bullets from other people? Or -- omigod -- that new biography was just published and you must must must read it? Or you've been reading the lists of best reading of 2018 in the NY Times and just realized, omigod, you MUST READ this one book before the end of the year? This is your holiday gift, from the challenge that keeps on giving...

I have already started to read The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, about American rowers in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. A friend read it and said she knows I will like it and so far, so good. I'm only about 50 pages in so far.

If I have time, I may also attempt to squeeze in another, The Frozen Thames which is billed as history but might also even be seen as travel. We shall see.

I have an Early Reviewer book to review that will fit the history category, so that will be a priority - Voices from the Second World War: Stories of War As Told to Children of Today. If I can squeeze another one in this month, I'd like to read The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust. April 12 is Holocaust Remembrance Day, and April 29 is the anniversary of the liberation of Dachau. I had a college professor who was among the U.S. military personnel who liberated Dachau. (He was a chaplain.) Dachau is the only concentration camp I've ever visited, and less than a month later I was sitting in class listening to my professor talk about what it was like to witness the liberation.

I've got an Early Reviewers book I'd really like to finish. The last I looked a day or two ago, it's got a 4.81 rating on LT. The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis by David E. Fishman.

I'd also like to get to Code Breakers: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy.

Also in my pipeline is the new Gary Krist book, The Mirage Factory about early 20th century L.A.

>4 lindapanzo: I picked up the audiobook of Liza Mundy's book when it was the Daily Deal... :-) And I just requested an ARC of The Mirage Factory from Amazon Vine... :-)

>2 jessibud2: Your mention of that reminds me that I have an ARC of a book about the 1936 Olympics, by Oliver Hilmes. It's apparently a day-by-day rather glitzy look at the event itself, rather than at Germany during the Games, so I have been putting off reading it so far (in spite of an appealing cover.)

Too possibilities for April, China Miéville's October, and/or Timothy Snyder's Black Earth. Neither light reading, but both near the top of one of the mountains.

I’ve got two I’m planning to read. Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing and Triangle: The Fire that Changed America by David Von Drehle. There’s also the possibility that I’ll read Adam Hochschild’s To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918. So many good ones to choose from.

I am planning* on The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin, about a weather disaster in the Midwest in the 19th century.

*subject to change, of course!

I plan to read The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris, which was shortlisted for this year's Wellcome Book Prize.

To further study my brave ancestors in Eastern Tennessee who stayed loyal to the Union during The Civil War,
I'm reading The Dreaded 13th Tennessee Union Cavalry: Marauding Mountain Men by Melanie Storie.

>5 Chatterbox: I've read three of Krist's books and loved them. The one about Chicago and the one a couple of years ago about New Orleans. The one about the Pacific Northwest avalanche that hit a train was very good, too.

I used some of my First to Read points to ensure myself a copy of the Krist book.

I will be (am) reading Munich, 1938 by David Faber. Hope I can finish it by the end of April....

Lots of options. I'll see what calls to me when I'm ready to read it.

I am reading a book I have had on my shelves for ages. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 by Frederick Taylor. I am actually 80 pages into this book and so far it is good.

I've already started my first book for this challenge, and in fact have got so far I might well finish it tomorrow! It's Dominic Selwood's Spies, Sadists and Sorcerers: The history you weren't taught in school (it's a collection of his newspaper columns, so a pretty quick read). Once that's finished I am going to read The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France by Simon Kitson and Catherine Tihanyi.

I'll be finishing John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World, his classic eye witness account of the Russian Revolution. I had started reading it earlier this year for a seminar.

I have a lot of pre-1945 history to choose from. I'm still not sure what I will read. I've narrowed it down to Queens of the Conquest, Empress Dowager Cixi, Benjamin Franklin, or Bound for Canaan, which are all on my shelf. RL is way more in the way of reading lately, so I can't get too ambitious, but I'd like to read at least 2 of these.

I'll circle back and do the book images a little later, I hope. Dealing with migraine nonsense again today -- apologies.

>16 streamsong: I have the most vivid recollection of where/when I read this! It must have a few years after the movie "Reds" came out, and I had picked up the book on a trip back to the US in the spring of 1984, and then read it while sitting in the sun on the roof of our student dorm in Japan, trying to avoid most of the other students... :-) I finished it on a ferry boat to Sado Island (a traditional place of exile for Japanese political prisoners, like Siberia, and actually not far distant, being in the Sea of Japan) while everyone else was watching the Los Angeles Olympics. Which, I suppose, dates me!

>11 lindapanzo: I like First to Read -- except that I have to read it on my laptop, which is a problem, ergonomically and in terms of backlighting. I can't get the content onto my Kindle (and don't have an iPad.)

>9 kidzdoc: When I read that, I initial wondered why you were reading a book about butchering... *eyes roll* I remember reading in a few places that surgeons were according much, much less respect than physicians for many centuries, until suddenly there was a flip at some point -- probably with the arrival of anaesthetic? I don't know when, though. Likely when survival rates improved!!

>6 Caroline_McElwee: Black Earth is another book that is calling to me. As is Denmark Vesey's Garden, about slavery and memory in South Carolina, but in the case of the latter, I'm not yet sure how much is history and how much is contemporary (sadly, given the subject.) The author is trying to deal with the way that the legacy of chattel slavery endures in everything from psychology to economics, judging from a quick scan of the book's contents. I want to read this soon, but it requires more focus and concentration than I seem able to muster right now.

>17 nittnut: If you do read Queens of the Conquest, I'll be interested in your thoughts. I confess it was a disappointment for me. I've had the Franklin bio from the Athenaeum for a while (cough) and really like Isaacson's writing, so probably should focus on that, too. Besides, it overlaps with my current Thomas Paine obsession.

I'm reading Be Like the Fox, partly a biography of Machiavelli and partly a history of Florence during his era.

>18 Chatterbox:

i wonder if surgeon's "butchering" improvements went (hand in glove) with washing hands?

>18 Chatterbox: I have First to Read books on my PC. Which is right next to the TV where I watch all my baseball and hockey games. It limits my reading time but can still get them read, though not as conveniently.

Hope your migraine gets better soon! I just picked The Woman's Hour up from the library, so that will be my book of the month.

I plan to read Remember the Ladies: Celebrating Those Who Fought for Freedom at the Ballot Box by Angela P. Dodson and 1491 by Charles C. Mann.

I have two for this month’s challenge:

Code Girls by Liz Mundy ( as an aside, when will we stop referring to women as “girls”? Girlhood stops at 18.

Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson
Ferguson is sometimes good and sometimes very bad at history.

I have just finished my first for this month's challenge, Dominic Selwood's Spies, Sadists and Sorcerers: The history you weren't taught in school. I made a start on it last month and then found it quicker than I expected! I hadn't realised it is based on the author's newspaper columns, so each chapter was a pretty quick read, and provides just an overview. He takes various events in (mainly English) history, and looks at what we know (or assume we know) and what has been overlooked. Overall I found this very entertaining and easy to read, although I would have liked some more depth, and as it is a series of standalone newspaper columns there was some repetition in the book. It has though given me a couple of characters from the Second World War who I'd love to find more out about - Juan Pujol Garcia (a Spanish spy who fooled Hitler into thinking he was a Nazi intelligence officer and fed loads of false information about the build-up to D-Day which led to the Germans being underprepared and mainly expecting an invasion further round the coast) who ended up being decorated by both sides, and Noor Inayat Khan, a British Muslim woman who worked as an underground radio operator in Nazi-occupied Paris, who was ultimately captured by the Gestapo and shot in Dachau concentration camp.

I just finished The Food Explorer, which was just published this year. It is about David Fairchild, who in the 1890's and early 1900's traveled the globe under the auspices of the US Dept of Agriculture to find new crops for American farmers. He also oversaw a few proteges who continued his work after he got married and settled down. We owe to Fairchild the dates grown in California, the grapes used to make California raisins, and the introduction of Egyptian cotton to the US, to name just a few. His main protege, a man named Meyer, introduced many crops, as well, including the eponymous Meyer lemon. That pretty much summarizes the main points of the book for me, besides learning that the initial shipment of cherry trees from Japan to Washington DC had to be burned because they were infested with various foreign insect pests. The second shipment thankfully passed inspection. I don't think I'd recommend this book, since it didn't have that much interesting information overall, and I didn't particularly like Fairchild.

I thought I'd posted here already - obviously not. I'm reading a lot about the campaign for the vote in the UK, so hoping to finish / start the various books I've picked up and put down again about this, this month including Rebel Girls, The Life and Times of a Respectable Rebel, Vanishing for the Vote, Hearts and Minds: the untold story and A Lab of One's Own.

If it turns up at the library in time, I'll also be reading Bad Girls: the history of rebels and renegades about Holloway women's Prison. Hoping the book lives up to the interesting talk the author gave about her research I caught last week.

>24 Matke: Despite what I said up in #4, I’m actually planning to read Code Girls. I’ve heard great things about it and it’s been near the top of the pile for quite awhile.

After finishing A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson for March's travel theme I'm planning to stick with Bryson for April. I've had One Summer: America 1927 on my shelf since shortly after it was released and it's time to finally read it.

>29 SuziQoregon: - Great choice. I loved this one

>30 jessibud2: Yay! Good to hear.

I started a book called Eeuwelingen (Centenarians? Would that be a word?) Life stories of hundred year old people in the Netherlands. The oldest interviewed person was a woman who was born in 1890. The book was made in 2000.

It promises to be interesting, but I hope I'll manage to finish it, as I still have to finish my choice for March and January;-)

>26 karspeak:

Never heard of Fairchild until this mention, but glad he got the delicious dates growing in California!

Just downloaded the audiobook for Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 by Sally M Walker.

I really wanted to listen to The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy and Extraordinary Heroism but the line is so long at my Halifax library (7 people each waiting on 13 copies) that I'll try this YA version. I've read the fabulous Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan, a fictional account of that day.

Did you know that Nova Scotia still sends a Christmas tree to Boston every December as thanks for the help and support after the explosion? Even after 100 years the tradition continues.

>34 raidergirl3: - I read Blizzard of Glass earlier this year and while I am a huge fan of audiobooks, myself, I would suggest that if you can find a hardcopy at your library, it really helps as the book includes photos, diagrams and street maps and those all really enhance the story. The book is well-written and the story is riveting.

And did you see the stamp Canada Post put out a few months ago, to commemorate the 100th year anniversary?

>35 jessibud2: Thanks for the suggestion. I may look into that. I haven't seen the stamp, but the Heritage Minute with Vince Coleman is a family favourite!

I got so engrossed in my history book for this month, that I read 75 pages in it while sitting in a waiting room waiting for a friend I was giving a ride back to her house on Saturday. Granted I was pretty much a captive audience, but I was very willing. Frederick Taylor is writing a book that makes me want to buzz through it. I am just starting section two, and in the first chapter he is laying out why Dresden was an important military target in February of 1945. I knew it was a major transportation hub, but in December and January it had 28 military trains a day going through its marshaling yards. This book also has a map that shows the layout of the central part of the town. This helps in trying to figure out why fires spread so quickly and the section on incendiary bombs explained why they were so hard to put out.

I love it when historical works include maps. It helps the reader to understand events so much better.

#35
I have Blizzard of Glass in my library collection. I have looked at it, but not read it. I agree that the photographs and other illustrations included in it would be helpful. If you can get it, it will enhance the reading experience.

I just realized that the book I started yesterday would qualify for this month. It's a YA book Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 by Albert Marrin. I'm still planning to read One Summer: America 1927 but it's good to know that will be my second for this month's challenge.

Wow - thank you for another impressive display!

What a reading challenge that list would make, as well,
matching them up with their fictional offspring...

>2 jessibud2: I loved The Frozen Thames!

I have three that I have picked out from my TBR pile:

My Life as an Indian by J. W. Schultz

Covered Wagon Women, Volume 2 by Kenneth L. Holmes

Sergeant York by John Perry

>18 Chatterbox: Wow! Great memory! I haven't seen Reds, but I'll have to track it down.

>42 streamsong: I had loved the movie, and was so glad I had been able to find the book on my spring trip back to the US and Canada (I had very few English-language books with me, and oddly, our grad school library didn't include this one...) Perhaps because I read it closely, I vividly remember the circumstances... There are a few books like that. For instance, my first foray into Virginia Woolf happened in the months after I moved back to Canada, in late 1985, and I had a half-basement in which my living room/kitchen was located (tiny living room area, separated from the kitchen only by a counter. There was only room for a (very, very comfortable) love seat that I had just bought, and I remember curling up in the rather dark and somewhat depressing room and doing a lot of reading of Woolf's essays there, while I tried to find my feet after (yet another) international move. Just as I remember reading William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain in my little mews house in London, tucked off main road, on a courtyard. It had a giant cathedral ceiling about 30 feet high, and big windows -- it had originally been converted into an artist's studio. So it was flooded with some kind of light (often grey!) and I could lie on the floor and stare at the clouds and sky. So I listened first to the episodes of the book that were broadcast on the BBC, and then went out and bought it and read the rest in front of the gas fireplace at the center of that same immense room. Still the nicest living room I have EVER had.

>34 raidergirl3: I remember reading Curse of the Narrows which was a very good account of the Halifax explosion.

For the history challenge I have The Devil in the White City started as well as the very cheeky Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage and Manners. I'm not sure which one I'll finish first. Oh and then there is The Victorians: Britain Through the Paintings of the Age which I should finish soon before I run out of renewals.

#43
From the Holy Mountain is a book I have been wanting to read for a long time. People who are readers, including you, have touted its virtues for several years on LT and I have checked it out of the library several times. However, it just hasn't sung to me yet. Maybe I will get to it for the religion category later in the year.

I decided to add one more book to my list for this month. I have the audio of Stacy Schiff's The Witches: Salem, 1692. It's 18+ hours of audio, but I have a road trip coming up in another week and I should be able to get through a good chunk of it while I'm driving.

>46 cbl_tn: I downloaded that one some time ago (was it AudioSync?) and haven't listened. It might be a good candidate for my Florida trip in the summer. I might start the week before the trip so I can finish it on the drive down and have a "fun" listen coming back. AudioSync announced the 2018 titles. We'll all be acquiring even more audio stash.

>47 thornton37814: Yes, it was a Sync download last year or the year before that.

Finished Be Like the Fox by Erica Benner yesterday. Here's my take on it:

Niccolò Machiavelli has a reputation for political machination and the amoral getting and keeping of power. But this is due to folks who know him from his most famous work, The Prince. In reality, Machiavelli wrote lots of stuff, and lots of it was written in defense of republicanism, at least as it was understood in 15th/16th century Florence. Benner's book is both a biography of Machiavelli and a history of this very interesting time in Florence. In between, Benner uses Niccolo's own words to show that he really was a more complicated thinker and a more interesting person than the genius that taught Medici princes how to operate.

Benner chose to write this book in present tense, and has reconstructed her version of dialogs on occasion from letters to and from Machiavelli. These choices make for a more engaging story, but was a bit disconcerting until I got used to it. That aside, this was a worthwhile look at an interesting figure.

Moving right along...

Sergeant York by John Perry - Read and reviewed

Covered Wagon Women, Volume 2 by Kenneth L. Holmes - Currently reading

I've started The Children's Blizzard, and it's off to a good start. He is providing background on how the families ended up where they did, and I've always found stories of immigration and Western settlement fascinating.

I finished Simon Kitson's The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France. The author did a good job, I thought, of showing the tensions and nuances of the Vichy position - although they were collaborating with the Germans, nevertheless they were keen to ensure continued French sovereignty and so their secret service pursued Nazi spies in their territory, thus breaking the terms of their armistice with Germany. But even though they were going after Nazi spies, that didn't mean that they were pro-Allies (it was clear from this that they were particularly unimpressed with the Brits, and also worked to unmask Allied intelligence agents). It was a bit dry, but not dull. 3.5/5.

I'm not sure if I'll manage another one for this month, as I have a couple of other challenge books on the go elsewhere. I'm already excited about my May choice for this challenge though, and might end up starting that early!

I have had a really good start on my selection for this month. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 is really really good and is a great example of narrative non-fiction. I am about half done with this title. The first half of the book is all about what kind of bombing was done by the RAF (who received most of the blame for what happened in Dresden) and why the decision to bomb cities at the end of the war was made by the Allies (including the USA and Russia). The author also dispels the idea that Dresden was crowded with refugees. According to him it was no more crowded with refugees than other cities in eastern Germany and that refugees spent, on the average, only 2 days in Dresden before being moved to smaller cities in the center and southern parts of Germany. The author sets the historical stage for area bombing by covering the bombing of Coventry to a good depth so that the reader understands that this bombing was the first time firestorms were documented. He also explains that it took several years for military planners to learn how to create them. He does tell the readers that the bombing of Dresden was deliberate and planned by the British and the Americans. It was requested by Russia. There were actually three targets picked for the night of February 13, 1945 - Chemnitz, Berlin, and Dresden. Breslau was on the list but it was already on the front lines of the Eastern Front so was scratched from the list. Dresden was picked because the other two targets were under heavy clouds that night. Time and Chance combined for the target to be Dresden. This has been one of those un-put-downable titles that makes me wonder why I waited so long to read it.

So many great reviews of books up this month -
it might be fun to run the covers early next year and have people
(who wanted to - no herding cats here)
choose a different one from that group.

I am reading Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. The book was prominently mentioned by Ta-Nehisi Coates as a primer on the American Civil War as part of the Charlottesville controversy over Confederate monuments. https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/11/five-books-to-make-you-less-stupid-abo...

My Civil War loving father bought a copy for me after we were discussing the issue. Based upon the size of the book and the later start (Dad is still rereading it) it is unlikely that I will finish the book in April but I am at least going to start work on it.

I have been so totally engrossed in my book Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 that I have been foregoing television to read at night. I haven’t picked up my knitting needles in three days! This one is a winner.

Or maybe I am in the mood for reading about WWII.

I was hoping to finish Hearts And Minds: The Untold Story of the Great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote this month, which I was enjoying but got a bit stalled on - but a colleague has asked to borrow it, so that's looking unlikely!

>55 Oberon: that has long been on my pile Erik, but probably not for this year. I look forward to your thoughts.

I completed Society in Early North Carolina: A Documentary History edited by Alan D. Watson. It's a little unusual in that the author makes his points by using primary source documents contemporary to early North Carolina to illustrate his points. Review is on my thread or on the work page.

I finished reading Remember the Ladies: Celebrating Those Who Fought for Freedom at the Ballot Box by Angela P. Dodson. The title is taken from the famous quote by Abigail Adams to her husband John Adams, then a representative to the second Continental Congress, to "Remember the Ladies". The book provides a good overview of the women's suffrage movement in the U.S. It is set up almanac style with 2 columns per page, pictures, and side stories about individual suffragists and associated topics such as the Temperance Movement.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and thought the material was well organized and presented. However, I did find a glaring error. In discussing the Quaker background of early leaders like Lucretia Mott, it is stated on page 72, "Ben Franklin, a cousin to Lucretia Mott, had founded the colony of Pennsylvania as a haven of religious freedom for Quakers and other sects that did not accept the Church of England." Ben Franklin founded Pennsylvania?!! Then correctly stated on page 292, "Alice Paul...was a descendant of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania."

>60 GerrysBookshelf: However, I did find a glaring error. In discussing the Quaker background of early leaders like Lucretia Mott, it is stated on page 72, "Ben Franklin, a cousin to Lucretia Mott, had founded the colony of Pennsylvania as a haven of religious freedom for Quakers and other sects that did not accept the Church of England." Ben Franklin founded Pennsylvania?!!

Oops!

I finished my book for this month! I can't believe I am so far ahead of the eight-ball on this one. However, the book was good and totally engrossed me. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 by Frederick Taylor is an excellent example of what we now call narrative nonfiction. The book starts out as a history of the bombing of Dresden in 1945 and it covers the early air war as well as the later. It turns out that technology plays a big role in the success of the Allied bombing campaign. The British and American's developed several instruments that allowed them to guide bombs better so that they were more effective. The Allies developed tactics that also improved bombing efficiency. And of course, by the end of the war, the total defeat of the German Air Force was another factor in bringing the war to the cities and the civilian population. There is coverage of the bombing of Coventry, Lubeck, and Hamburg as well as that of Dresden. There is also the "luck" factor. The author makes the case that many lucky breaks converged to create the bombing of Dresden so effective. These include the almost total lack of air raid shelters, and no air raid defenses, plus meteorological factors. (Certain weather conditions have to be present for firestorms to occur.) The author has extensive appendices that break down causality figures and he places the number at the same place that the German authorities in 1945 did - around 30,000. He does this in order to debunk, what he sees as inflated figures given by the Russian authorities in the Cold War and to warn people that the figures given by the psuedo-historian David Irving are wrong. This last part of the book was as interesting as some of the chapters on the stories of the survivors. I was unaware that many of the casualty figures given for Dresden come directly from David Irving and his early books on WWII. The figure of 300,000 started out as a typo and the Russians never corrected it in their reports because it suited them to keep the figure high. Irving chose that number even after it was proved that it was not correct.

I remember reading about David Irving a few years ago, but I was not aware that he had been plying his trade (that of Holocaust denier) since the late 1950's. It was interesting that a book published in 2004 is still dealing with his faulty research.

I am going to start reading another book since I have almost half of the month left. I am not sure which one will be next, but Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea seems to be catching my eye. But then there is another of those National Geographic Directions series books that I also am contemplating. I have South of the Northeast Kingdom by David Mamet waiting for me to open the pages. That one is strongly pulling at my reading strings.

It looks like we are doing well with our historic reads. This is one theme that I have lots of books on the shelf to cover but my first book for the theme this month was from the library.

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners was a behind the scenes look at what was really happening in the homes and streets of the time. Far from our sanitized imaginings, it was a time of bugs, dirt and inequality.

Oneill has chosen to debunk our myths about the time in a humourous and irreverant style. It was funny and refreshing. I now have a greater respect for what my forbears lived through.

The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin

This was a solid and interesting read about an event I was not aware of until hearing about this book. A fast-moving and powerful blizzard struck the Great Plains of the US in 1888 and killed hundreds, including scores of children who were on their way home from school. Laskin provides some interesting details about weather forecasting at the time and puts the pioneer families' backgrounds and histories in context. Reading the details of the storm and extreme cold that followed it and how people either survived or didn't was harrowing, but overall, the book fell a bit flat for me. It may have been some of the repetition, or Laskin's need to theorize about what happened in places given the paucity of original resources, but something kept this from being at least a 4-star read for me. It also paled a bit in comparison to Isaac's Storm which is an excellent non-fiction account of another weather disaster in American history. 3.5 stars

>64 Familyhistorian: Oh, I want to read this one! Maybe I can get my hands on a copy before the month is out.

>64 Familyhistorian: - Meg, have you read Bill Bryson's At Home? I can't say it touches on undies but he sure does a great job about all the rest of home life way back when. It would make a great companion piece to this one, I'd bet

>64 Familyhistorian: It's a good one and a really enjoyable read, Charlotte. I hope you can find a copy.

>65 katiekrug: I have never read any of Bill Bryson's books, Shelley. I'll have to look that one up.

I finally finished reading Nancy Goldstone's Daughters of the Winter Queen. It's a classic case of the title really not describing the contents: rather than a biography, it's a history of a family and an era and the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) that culminated in the Treaty of Westphalia, with the story of the four granddaughters of James I of England (great-granddaughters of Mary Queen of Scots) being a kind of feeble overlay. Feeble, because one of them really doesn't do anything noteworthy, and one is only of academic interest (Louise Hollandine has an abortive romance, then runs off to France, converts to Catholicism and becomes a nun; she is of interest because she also is a talented painter, but has no greater impact on the world.) What is left is the story of Elizabeth Stuart, the Winter Queen of the title (called so because she and her husband ruled Bohemia for only a single winter before the Habsburgs evicted them, forcing them to raise a total of a dozen children in exile in the Netherlands) and two of her daughters, as well as several of her sons, and one or two of their children. So, we learn about Elizabeth's upbringing and the way James I and later, Charles I, feared her popularity in England and kept her out of the country; we learn of her diplomatic skill (which dwarfed that of her husband) and her struggles to get first her husband and later her eldest surviving son to regain his patrimony. As time goes on and those sons come of age, the focus shifts somewhat to their endeavors, including the activities of three of them during the English Civil War (Rupert and Maurice fighting with their uncle, Charles I; the eldest, Karl Ludwig, being an observer in London and refusing to take sides, while privately being convinced his uncle was a fool.) It's a story about how a family's fortunes rose and fell with those of the great powers surrounding them: Spain, France, Sweden, England and, increasingly, the Netherlands itself. Eventually, about 2/3 of the way through, we begin to learn more about the two most interesting daughters, the eldest and the youngest. Elizabeth formed a close friendship with the philosopher Descartes (and later Leibniz); unable to marry (no dowry; no Protestant suitors; no influential relatives) she ended up as abbess of a Protestant religious establishment, running the related domain to her heart's content. After a series of mishaps, mixed marriages (to Catholics) and illegitimate children, not to mention premature death, disqualified all of her 11 older siblings and their progeny from the running, it would be Sophia, the youngest of them all and the youngest daughter, who would emerge as the most significant. Because in 1700, it would be she whom William III would designate as heir to the crown after his sister-in-law, Anne Stuart, in order to secure a Protestant succession. And it would be Sophia's son, George, who would succeed as the first Hanoverian monarch, George I, when Anne died in 1714. All the way through the female line, back to Henry VII... This reminded me of the quirks of genealogy and relationships, because Karl Ludwig would become an ancestor of Marie Antoinette (because one of his great-grandchildren married Maria Theresa, and became Holy Roman Emperor.) So Elizabeth of Bohemia, through her British, French and Habsburg descendants, really is the "mother" of European royalty. Anyway. 4.15 stars. It does point out the silliness of religious wars...

>57 charl08: >60 GerrysBookshelf: cool that three of us are reading about Women's Suffrage. The Woman's Hour is about the fight to ratify the 19th amendment in Tennessee. I am learning a lot but not super-thrilled with the prose.

and >60 GerrysBookshelf: so annoying! And Franklin wasn't even a Quaker. My daughter's high school was named Franklin, and the mascot was the Quaker. They called the sports teams Fighting Quakers. (which is how I learned he was not Quaker, a Quaker friend educated me on that).

THE DREADED THIRTEENTH TENNESSEE UNION CAVALRY is a great short read for anyone intrigued
by learning that there was an actual large physical area of the South which supported the Union during the Civil War.

At great personal cost, from hatred and attacks by neighbors to being slaughtered with no weapons,
they endured the entire war as Southerners who believed in Lincoln. Though few were abolitionists,
and at least one had slaves, they did not share the KKK mentality which arose only a few miles away.

Old photographs taken during the war and at reunions enhance the tales of fear, bravery, and desolation.
The only African American pictured worked as a cook.

This book expanded my knowledge about my ancestor, James Bell, murdered in Limestone Cove, Tennessee:

"Here are buried the eight civilians killed at the home of Dr. David Bell in Nov, 1863.
Enroute to Kentucky to join Federal Forces, they were found by a detachment of Col.W.W. Witcher's
Confederate Cavalry, while waiting for breakfast."

One more...


Greenville: Images of America by Roger Kammerer

This is a (mainly) picture history of a town close to where I live. I enjoyed seeing the old photos, and reading the captions, but mourned to see how many of the lovely structures of the past had either burned down or been razed. The section on tobacco farming and auctions was fascinating. Recommended if you're interested in history, or seeing historic images of a small town in North Carolina.

>65 katiekrug: now you've done it...TWO book bullets!

I liked The Long Winter a lot, but that was a different time, from 1880-81.

I'm going to try to move on to my book about the Templars, by Dan Jones, so that I can return it to the Athenaeum's library and not get myself lynched for hogging it this long... :-)

The latest Caroline Moorehead about an Italian family resisting fascists, has arrived at the library. I'm only about 20 pages in, but v good so far... (A Bold and Dangerous Family)

> 75 - I think Cyrel (Toronto_c) recently read and reviewed this on her thread. I have only read one book by Morehead and really want to read more. She really does her homework and is a great storyteller.

>75 charl08: I think that's the best of her series about anti-fascist activities -- the least-known of the stories (we tend to forget about what happened in Italy!) and I kept gasping and going WHAT? and REALLY? while reading it. Fascinating.

>77 Chatterbox: Should have known that it was you I'd heard about it from! Belated thanks Suzanne :-)

I finished The Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss

This isn't one of my favorite non-fiction reads, and it took until near the end to get caught up in the story. But still, worth reading as it reminded me of how much history I don't know. This was about the fight to ratify the 19th amendment, for women's suffrage, in Tennessee. I hadn't realized before how much of the anti-suffrage movement was led by women, nor did I realize how much racism infused the debate. The South was against suffrage in large part because of not wanting to grant the vote to black women. Unfortunately some of the women's rights leaders bought into racist rhetoric in promoting the amendment, and also, once the amendment was passed, didn't work to make sure that black women also were able to exercise the right to vote.

This, and some of the in-fighting between different women's rights group, were reminiscent of our current political landscape, and that was interesting to read about. Also the final vote in Tennessee was very close, and very dramatic. That chapter was awesome!

It looks like I've read a couple of Stephen Bown titles that qualify. Both Island of the Blue Foxes and Scurvy lay bare imperialism's folly and hubris, the cheapness of the lives of the lower class workers who did the grunt work, and the unwillingness of the patron classes to embrace progressive ideas that were economically viable but threatened the social order.

Most fascinating to me: The correct cure for scurvy was used from the late 1500s to around 1630 by the British and Dutch East India companies. By around 1630, Bown notes that a new generation of board members, driven by greed for higher profit margins, decided that scurvy wasn't a real danger. Of course, it wasn't a danger precisely because it had been contained on lengthy voyages by using the correct cure. At any rate, the citrus juice cure was lost in the annals of time. Scurvy returned as a scourge on merchant voyages and became the bane of European navies. It would take until the mid-18th century for the cure to be rediscovered and then ... lost again, due to corporate greed, bureaucratic lethargy, a rigid social order, and the 18th century's obsession with a grand unified theory of medicine that prized philosophizing over prevention and treatment.

Lots of great titles in this thread. Thank you, everyone who posted reviews of their choices. I have died in a hail of BBs.

>80 libraryperilous: hahaha! I have that same feeling about a hail of BBs...

An unplanned trip and some planning for a life change have I pinged on my reading time and goals for the month. However, I’m engrossed in Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson. It’s fascinating so far, especially since I’m in Florida, the beautiful land of so many hurricanes. It certainly qualifies for the category.

I have finished The Boys In the Boat and I can tell you that it was a stellar read. I have been googling a lot and am trying to read/listen to interviews with the author, and watch some youtube film footage, etc. My review will come but probably not for a little while. This was really a riveting story and the writing is not the least of the reason for that. Brown did his homework and is a very talented storyteller.

Nearly finished Eeuwelingen life stories of hundred year old people from Holland. The book was written after the turn of the century, so the people in it were born before or around 1900, and died after the year 2000.

Their life stories are really interesting. They give a view of what has changed during the century, and what was important to people.

The book does not focus on how people got to this age, most of them do mention it, but only to say that they are amazed, and don't understand their good luck.

A lot of them have in common that they grew up in scarcity or outright poverty. Doing manual labour. Though most of them don't complain about it. Many of them say that when they were young people seemed more contented, one woman mentions that people used to sing in the streets. They miss the greater solidarity and social atmosphere then. I do think I know what they mean.

Some things have improved, reading their life stories it's clear that people had much less in life choices. Like the oldest daughter had to stay home and help out with the children. Or the money was needed and people had to start working at an early age.

And women's rights! There was one appalling story of a single woman who had to stay and live with her parents, was treated as a cheap live-in help, until she finally met a man and ran away from home at age 46.

There are a number of stories touching on politics, and world events. Mostly about first or Second World War. Often things I didn't know anything about. That don't feature in history books, or do, but these stories give a more personal view of what it was like.

So, not the traditional history book, but really worth while, social history of ordinary people.

>84 EllaTim: I wish that were available in English.

>84 EllaTim: That sounds fascinating! I do wonder about how the excess of choice/variety/options in our modern lives is just creating more stress, unhappiness and discontent for us - from the small things like the breakfast cereal aisle in the supermarket, or clothing options, to the bigger pieces like career, love life, or location in the world. Life used to be much simpler in a lot of ways.

I'm still reading The Templars by Dan Jones -- or rather, alternating between reading and listening to it -- and hoping to get it finished before month's end... I just am finding it hard to focus. Some of the broad outlines I know, and so I zone out and then I hit something that really is new and interesting and I zip back to attention and have to go back a few pages and re-read a bit to get the context.... Sigh. It's my fault, not the book's.

In a perfect world, it would be lovely to get closer to 150 posts -- 150 relevant posts, so as not to annoy people who get irked by pure filler -- so that we can make the end of the month transition seamless...

Just your friendly monthly reminder.

So, what makes for a great history non-fiction book, in general terms? For my part, I want scholarship, but I don't want it to feel weighty and ponderous.

>88 Chatterbox: To add a relevant post I'm making a real effort to finish October before May, but just the author alone is not motivating me through this forest of facts.

>86 evilmoose: It is interesting isn't it? Having some choices is a good thing. But too much is confusing. One other thing that lots of people mentioned is that they didn't feel so stressed for time. The pace of life was quieter. So in spite of not having mechanical transportation, people had to walk everywhere, they still had more time, seems contradictory.

>89 quondame: Wow, I would have imagined that a novelist writing a work of non-fiction history might have done better on that front, and found a way to ensure that what he/she was tackling was at least as entertaining a book as their fiction. Or perhaps Miéville was so intent on not having the book labeled as lightweight fare that the result was overbalancing in the other direction?

Conversely, I've read -- and will continue to read -- some novels written by historians. Some are quite good, or at least intriguing. Alison Weir's are among the first, although the results very. She has a couple of what I consider unreadable duds, and then some that give her a chance to float ideas and theories she couldn't in her biographies, where she had to stick to the known facts and clearly point to where she was only voicing theories, and even then, support those. I've read a very good novel by Tracy Borman this year, and have others by Ian Mortimer on my TBR list, and still others, like "The Butcher's Daughter" (no touchstone yet) by Victoria Glendinning (more biographer than historian) earmarked to read when they are available later this year.

So many books; so little time...

>88 Chatterbox:

If you read my review of THE DREADED THIRTEENTH TENNESSEE UNION CAVALRY at >71 m.belljackson:,
you can see that things that draw me to great historical non-fiction are learning new and specific facts
that expand what was formerly vague or general knowledge.

Photographs, maps, and art are great extensions to open dense or dry passages.

A personal connection is also usually welcome, Dr. David Bell vs Cotton Mather, for instance.
(Both my brother and father are named David Bell.)

And I love intriguing titles!

I think I agree on the scholarship without ponderousness. I also enjoy reading about characters, and books where I can make comparisons between history and current day. I think that River of Doubt is my all time favorite.

But sometimes I like books with lots of side stories... thinking of Timothy Egan and Douglas Brinkley.

>84 EllaTim: and >86 evilmoose:
I can speak only for myself, but I often feel stressed almost to paralysis by the choice of books immediately available to me. I dither and fuss...this one! Nope, this one. Wait, hasn’t this been on the TBR for forever?

It sounds laughable and certainly privileged (although the dilemma is free for anyone with access to a good public library), but it’s nevertheless a real and very present problem. Fortunately for my peace of mind, an upcoming move has forced me to take stock of buying habits and the backlog of unread physical books.

I can see that this problem could easily happen with other areas of life. And of course one doesn’t miss what one doesn’t know about.

Hmm...

91> I used to read a good deal of historical fiction - so many of the old classics and swashbucklers were, though I guess Robinson Crusoe isn't strictly historical. But after a few princess dancing in the woods, unknown villeins storming a castle, sorts I mostly stopped, though much of my knowledge of what happened when is due to fiction - I usually do check out dates and persons while or after reading.

I was hoping for a more intriguing book from China Miéville, but I perhaps the very strength of his beliefs makes him present in such a distanced way as obvious partisanship might sink the credibility of his presentation.

I'll have to look up Alison Weir to see if she writes about times I find interesting.

I appreciate a nonfiction author remembering that less can be better. I recall reading a book about the Lusitania, and struggled to finish it because the author had to put everything into the story, slowing the flow of the tale. There is no need to share all the trivia of a historic event just because it exists.

>92 m.belljackson: Those are all good points. It's always intriguing to me to know what pulls someone into what seems like a very specialized title of that kind. But then, I'll read books that seem very specialized to others, too, and they just don't feel that way to me, because like you, I've arrived at them through my interest in the broader subject!

>94 Matke: Oh, god, I have such a massive TBR problem. When I saw problem it really is. I have piles of unread ARCs. Talk about privilege. And the GUILT. Oh, and unread library books from the Athenaeum, which kindly allows me to renew and renew and renew, as long as nobody else wants them... And my reading tastes/appetite never seem to match what I SHOULD read.

I'm still reading A Bold and Dangerous Family about anti-fascist opposition to Mussolini, but rather distracted by the unusual appearance of blue sky to go out and do some gardening.

If you will forgive a suggestion, perhaps for the next thread if the initial introductory post was split into several posts it would help make the 150 more achievable as we get into the inevitable mid year drop in posts.

Munich, 1938 is coming along, but unless I develop a way in which to suspend the progression of time in the next day, it is not getting finished this month and will have to be rolled over into May. It's a good book - it's filling in a lot of the blanks in my understanding of the time-period - but it's just taking a lot of time to finish. Not going to ditch May on account of it. I have that book targeted; I just need to make sure that the library sees that I get it from the right library and not from the local community college library, where timely delivery of books to the people who want to read them means less than nothing to them.

Looks like a good time to start mentioning books for May - I'm thinking about John McPhee.

A Bold and Dangerous Family

Great and gripping account of history that I didn't know - the story of the Rosselli family and how they opposed the Mussolini regime. I had no idea that there was organised resistance to Mussolini, or the existence of prison islands full of protestors (surely the perfect setting for a novel?) or that Paris became the new home for these antifascists who'd escaped and were trying to encourage opposition to the Italian regime. As well as an overarching story of opposition told through a focus on one Jewish, principled family, it is full of minute details from the archives - the fascists not only sent spies to follow their opponents, they read their mail and archived recorded conversations in triplicate. It also adds little gobbets from contemporaries, highlighting the obsessions of the period with gender and health. So when Italy invaded Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in the 1930s:

Winston Churchill and Austen Chamberlain called for sanctions against Italy if she violated the covenant of the League (of Nations), causing Marinetti to decry British 'snobismo', alcoholism, degeneracy, lack of genius and above all their 'sexual abnormalities'.!!

In one of those weird reading serendipities, given my current focus on the history of feminism, Sylvia Pankhurst kept turning up, along with other feminists, supporting work against Mussolini and trying to persuade the British government to stand up for the rights of those imprisoned unfairly.

Rather than telling the story as if Italy was alone in the madness, it's clear from this book that not only did the British fail to support the opponents of fascism, but they and other Europeans all but looked the other way. It's frightening to think of fascist youth groups meeting in cities across the UK in the 1920s and 30s and the lack of political will to oppose extremism, even as Franco and Hitler expanded the web of dictatorships across Europe.
This is the second Caroline Moorehead I've read. It had a hard act to follow, I thought Village of Secrets was an amazing book, but this is another I'd like on my shelf permanently.

#88
There are very few nonfiction works that I don’t finish and lots and lots of them that I never start. A few years ago I started Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark and I got only about a third of the way done with this huge tome because it, and I, got bogged down in a myriad of details that didn’t seem to take the narrative anywhere. I wanted to read this book because it was recommended to me. I think the problem with the book was that it was trying to explain every aspect of a very complicated event and as a result I never got out of the Balkans, (which in itself is problematic). I think that the problem with this book was that there were too many threads that had to come together and I didn’t have the energy to spend following each one of those to the coming together part - August 1914. I think that Barbara Tuchman’s approach in The Proud Tower or A Distant Mirror was much better. In those books she concentrated on one subject, or thread, and then at the end brought them together.

In general I find that non-fiction history is much easier for me to read than is nonfiction current political events. So much of that descends to easily into screed territory, and no matter how often they get their stuff on BookTV it is still gratuitous screed.

#89
The book may not have been easy to read, but that cover is OUTSTANDING! Whoever designed it should find it on the best of the year for book dust jacket design lists. I think it is a work of art.

Miéville has said that he wants to prove that a writer can excel at any genre, and he is going to write a book that fits into every one of them. He is clearly trying.

October



This is like an outline of what happened to whom in St Petersberg in the first 10 months of 1917. Some background is given for the situation and how in Feb 1917 bad choices on bad days lead to the fall of the government and resulted in a group that didn't seem able to govern leading the government (Provisional Government) and a group with many different ideas about what leadership should be trying to avoid governing (Soviet). It details how the Bolshevik influence grew and ebbed and coalesced in response to successes, failures, treachery, attacks, and leadership until they were pretty much the only popular group with coherent leadership.

It is in the Glossary of Personal Names that I found heartbreak.

Miéville gives brief descriptions of 55 people

55
-17 dead before Lenin in 1924
38
-2 deaths at unknown times, probably outside Russia
36
-13 people fled Russia - Trotsky killed on Stalin's orders
23
-13 people executed by Stalin or died imprisoned during his lifetime

Only 5 of the listed individuals outlived Stalin

I read this because I enjoy this author's fiction and respect him as a person of beliefs. I have very little interest in 20th century history, communism, or the Russian revolution. Oh, and for this challenge

John McPhee's ASSEMBLING CALIFORNIA sounds promising > any other McPhee suggestions that would fit for May?

As far as boundaries are concerned, there's been a copy of Map of a Nation floating around that I've meant to read (about the first comprehensive mapping of the UK) for ages.

I read a book about the borders of Eastern Europe that came out pretty recently Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe - I had mixed feelings about it, but it got great reviews.

>102 charl08: - Thanks for this review, Charlotte. I have only read one by Moorehead, Village of Secrets, earlier this year and this one is on my radar too.

>105 quondame: I've been umming and ahhing about whether to get this or not - I'm the opposite to you, I have no interest in Mieville's fiction (although my husband is a fan), but am interested in Russian history, particularly 20th century history. It is by Verso, so I think I will wait till one of their (around annual) '90% off all ebooks' sales (it's worth getting yourself on their mailing list just to hear about this, I always get tons of books for £1-£1.50 each) and see how I feel when I know it's cheap.

My borders book is going to be The Marches: Walks With My Father by Rory Stewart (walking the borderlands of England/Scotland). I can't wait to read it.

>99 charl08: That's a good idea, Charlotte; thanks. I'll do that. It will also make it simpler for me, I think...

>106 m.belljackson: Both Basin and Range and Rising From the Plains are works by McPhee that deal with geology and natural boundaries -- I think they would qualify for May's challenge, since we're talking about physical geography as well as maps and what people do with them (build countries around them, etc.)

For May, I'm planning to read Just Like Us, which follows 4 girls in Denver, Colorado, 2 of whom were born in the US to Mexican parents, and 2 of whom were born in Mexico. It centers very much on DACA, etc. Will this work for the challenge, since the US-Mexican border is the determining factor in these girls' opportunities, etc? The author is a journalist and is the ex-wife of Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado. While she was writing it, Hickenlooper was the mayor of Denver, and they were still married, which must have given her an interesting perspective.

>109 Jackie_K: Thanks for the Verso information! I have 3 excellent library systems withing 10min of where I live and mid-day can get to branches for all three within an hour, so my my need to spend $$ on books is minimal, but still, sometimes having surplus to requirements on my kindle is lovely. For paper books, there is, alas, precious little space left.
I'm the sort of liberal who likes the ideas and, since the 1960s in Berkeley, doesn't really like the people who see themselves as leaders. I can well imagine a Stalin sitting in the background brooding about all the flaming arrogance and idiocy in front of him.

>112 karspeak: Sounds a brilliant idea for a book. I will look for it.

>114 charl08: Her most recent book, which I also want to read, is called The Newcomers, and it follows the immigrant kids in a Denver high school ESL class for one year.

The Boys in the Boat - Daniel James Brown

I had not heard of this author before but this book came highly recommended to me so I was happy to give it a try, even though the sport of rowing was never on my radar. I am, however, a huge fan of narrative non-fiction and authors such as Erik Larson and Simon Winchester are among my favourites. I was delighted to discover, in the author's notes at the end of the book, that he cited Larson and drew on his book, In The Garden of Beasts, for some background information in his research.

And research, he did. Brown spent several years researching this book before he actually felt ready to sit down to write it. As he says in a few of the youtube interviews I watched after finishing, the book came to him. It started innocently enough when he happened to be talking to his neighbour, Judy, about another of his books that she had been reading to her dad, who was living with her and was nearing the end of his life. Through this conversation, Brown went to meet Judy's dad, Joe Rantz. As things do, one conversation led to another and slowly, Joe's story - the remarkable story of his life - began to emerge. When Brown asked if he could write a book about Joe, Rantz was reluctant. Unless the book was about *the boat*, meaning the crew, the boys. Sadly, Rantz died about 7 months after Brown met him but the seed was planted and with a lot of research and many many conversations with Judy, Brown found himself caught up in a part of history that seems to have gotten lost over the years.

Joe Rantz and the other members of his crew, were working class boys, from struggling families, in the years of the depression and the Dust Bowl, growing up on the west coast of the United States in the 1920s and 30s. They scrabbled to find whatever work they could, at a time when work was scarce, just to be able to put themselves through school. Brown goes into the early lives of each member of the boat (the 8 rowers and the 9th, coxswain), so we get to know them a bit. He also, at the end, reveals that for the rest of their lives, the 9 remained exceptionally close; they met yearly just to get together, and rowed together on the anniversary of their win, until they couldn't anymore. Most lived into their 80s and 90s. But it's Joe Rantz who is central to this story and his life is the one the reader is drawn right into. Abandoned as a child, and truly on his own from age 14, Joe was blessed with a positive attitude and a strong body. And a will to survive and make something of himself.

I learned how physically gruelling the sport of rowing is, how unforgiving and how relentless the training is. Joe had some very tough but wise and excellent coaches at the University of Washington. And he managed to rise to the challenge during his years there. His crew eventually went on to beat the best of American rowers, both in the west as well as the elite Ivy League crews of the east. In 1936, that meant representing the USA at the Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Hitler's Nazi Germany.

One of the things I most loved and appreciated about Brown's writing was his skill in broadening the scope, opening the focus of the larger story. This isn't just a biography of 9 men, or a journalistic report of a highly charged Olympic Games at a crucial moment in history. Brown has dug deep to learn details of not only the back stories but also the parallel stories of what was going on in Germany at this time. We learn in chilling detail about the façade that Hitler and his Nazi cronies created to present to the world, to *show* that Germany was clean and beautiful and safe, even while it was anything but. And, still being pre-war, this charade seems to have worked. This book was published in 2013, so the words were never mentioned, but to my 2018 ears, what the Nazis were doing to fool the world, truly rang of *fake news* and manipulating the media for their own purposes. In 1936, Germany had a Ministry of Propoganda, and their very own filmmaker in Leni Reifenstahl, to create the image and the fiction they wanted. Today, we have Fox news, alternative truths and twitter. I would dearly love to have Brown write a comment on this now....

I won't retell the story of this book. There are enough reviews here that anyone who hasn't read it yet and wants to, can get a sense of it from those. I also really loved the author's notes at the end of the book, chapter by chapter. I learned some interesting trivia there too, that didn't make it into the book itself. For example, among 8 Yale oarsmen who won Gold in the 1924 Olympics, years before Joe Rantz and his crew, was a young man who would, later in his life, become known to the world for something entirely different. His name was Dr. Benjamin Spock. Like that...

Also, I spent a lot of time googling afterwards and found a few interviews and clips that I will link to here, for anyone who might be interested.

Rowing For Gold from "The Boys of '36"

The Miracle 9 - 1936 Olympic Men's Rowing Team

One on One with Daniel James Brown

film by Leni Reifenstahl

It is too late for this month’s challenge but I just started Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann for one of my real life book discussion groups. It would have fit right into this category. I am looking forward to reading this because I have heard so much about the book. I wanted to check it out from our library but it is always checked out and has a long waiting list. For that reason I did something I rarely do - I purchased a paperback copy. This is one my sister will enjoy reading so it will at least get two readings before I get rid of it.

I just got done meeting with my other real life book discussion group and for next month we are going to read Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City’s Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated A Nation by Brad Ricca. I was surprised to see that this is a work of nonfiction. The title, without the subtitle, as well as the paperback book cover, just screamed mystery novel - but it isn’t. It has an HV LC call number and that puts it squarely in the true crime category. This is not a book I had on my wishlist or my book radar but it sounds good and it would also have fit right into this category. I think it may work for one of the later categories, but it would have worked here as well.

>118 benitastrnad: It's tough to have book club discussions around non-fiction titles, I have come to conclude, but this does sound interesting...

>113 quondame: Heavens, yes, the kind of person who is SURE that they can do so, so much better than everyone else, if only everyone else would just SHUT UP and get out of the way. Doesn't that describe so many politicians? Even the ones who visibly strain to be gentle and solicitous and thoughtful?? I knew someone in university who wanted to become prime minister of Canada. He did end up heading the Green Party briefly, but at the time was a Conservative. That mindset was very much part of his makeup and still is, regardless of WHAT ideas he has. The ideas that he has are the BEST ideas. Sigh.

>112 karspeak: It would work if you can tell yourself HONESTLY that borders and geopolitics play a big role in the narrative. That it's not about immigration policy, for instance, but about bigger questions, like how and why we draw border lines where we do, and what that means. I realize that may be a fine distinction, but focus on the border and not on immigration...

>120 Chatterbox: Well, I don't see anybody who has strong convictions not believing they are the best ones to have, but honest power seeking is one thing, "we are doing this for you whether you think you need it or not" self-aggrandizers, and those argue for the sake of beating some one down are what wore me out. Along with all the "don't draft my ass" assholes who wouldn't have squeaked if their number was above the cut off line.

>122 quondame: Yes, you did a better job of making that distinction than I did. It's also the dogmatism of some people that can be very ... wearing?

I picked up some book bullets here, including The boys in the boat and the Mussolini book, very interesting!

I've still not finished the Nooteboom book I'm reading. Omweg naar Santiago. It's becoming a bit embarrassing. But he's now crossed the border into Portugal, and as this is a travel book, and a history and art book combined, there is also a lot of mention of borders, and politics, actually from Rome onwards. I'm just going to read on.

#124
I read Roads to Santiago and really liked it. In fact, it has inspired me to read more about the Pilgrim Way to Santiago, and perhaps someday soon I will go on that journey. I still think that this book is one of the better ones on the subject.

I'm going to be tardy this month. I'm still reading and enjoying One Summer: America 1927 but I'm definitley not going to finish it by tonight.

I have read one book that would qualify for this month's category (Very, Very, Very Dreadful) so I don't feel like a slacker.

I'm still looking for a book for next month. I have On the Map on my shelf but it's just not really calling to me so I'm considering other options and will see what other folks are planning to read before I decide.

I had hoped to read one book for this month's challenge, but it was not to be, RL got in the way. I'll revert later in the year, as I still plan to read the books mentioned above.

I have finished Queens of the Conquest. Starting with William the Conqueror and ending with the Empress Matilda (I don't count the brief bit of Eleanor of Aquitaine), this is the history of the queens of William (Matilda of Flanders), Henry I (Edith) and Stephen (Matilda), and Henry I's daughter Matilda/Maud's attempt to take the crown from Stephen. There were rather too many Matilda's in this very short space of history. I had pretty high expectations of this one, based on other books I've read by Alison Weir. I was disappointed. In the blurb it says, "Alison Weir strips away centuries of romantic mythology and prejudice to reveal the lives of England’s queens in the century after the Norman Conquest." I felt like she stripped all the actual romance away along with the romantic mythology, and very little of their lives was described. I am sure there is limited information available to work with, after all, but letters to and from archbishops and lists of gifts to monasteries and charters witnessed made for very dry reading.

>111 Chatterbox:

I've sent for McPhee's Basin and Range and will start with ASSEMBLING CALIFORNIA, which has plenty of borders
though not as extensive as some of his others.

Does anyone have any preliminary questions about geography and geopolitics? I would like to get the new thread up, but given that people do get unhappy if we don't have the automatic link (they DO lose the new thread, and then they lose the connection, and lose a month, and get grumpy), I would like to get 150 posts first. So if need be, I'll wait until tomorrow morning, or late tonight.

It doesn't look as if I'll finish Dan Jones' book about the Templars this month. I will finish it, and I'll update it here, but I'm just not able to devote as much attention to it as it deserves. I think my reading interests appear to be out of sync with the challenge subjects this year!!

>130 Chatterbox: - You could start the new one then just make a post in this one with a link in the post, couldn't you?

Not so many posts to go

I am happy to help

Are there any limits to the geopolitics? Dates, or this, but not that sort of thing?

*laughs at self trying to form an intelligent question about geopolitics when I've been up since 5 am and both of my children are reading to me about their wand (Pottermore) At. The. Same. Time.*

I got a late start and am only about a third of the way through 1491 by Charles C. Mann. But I’m finding it so fascinating that it won’t take me long to finish. I also have 1493 by the same author and will have to move that further up on my TBR pile.

It would make a great challenge to read ALL these books.

Has there ever been a Health and Humor Non-fiction challenge?

>132 jessibud2:, No because if you don't click from the link that forms at the bottom after 150 posts, it won't automatically transfer everyone's stars. I can certainly always add a link in a separate post, but in the past, when I have done so, several people have missed it or overlooked it, relying in the auto-star feature to draw their attention to the next month's post. Which is why I am such a bear about this -- because I'm the one that fields the PMs of the upset people who missed a month or even two month's worth of challenges and feel overlooked/left out. Arguably it's their responsibility, and that's technically true, but we all know how it gets... And it's not that had to push to get an extra ten posts or so.

>135 nittnut: That's actually a good question, especially in the circumstances!! I think of geopolitics as quarrels about boundaries, or even cases when boundaries don't match what countries consider themselves to be (if you follow that...) For instance, Gertrude Bell advising the European diplomats on creating Iraq, a largely artificial country, and what has followed from that. Or the legacy of colonialism in Africa, where tribal barriers are one thing, and national boundaries are a legacy of colonial "ownership." So a book on Sykes-Picot (the post-WW1 agreement that shaped the Middle East) might be interesting, or anything about the state of play in Ukraine today, where east and west feel different things about what their boundaries and alliances should be. Or perhaps alliances? Tim Marshall has written some stuff, too.

Prisoners of Geography is the Tim Marshall book that I was thinking of -- about ten maps that explain all you need to know about global politics.

There's also a book out there about the first map ever to use the word "America" -- it's all about geopolitics, too, because it all ties into the way the Pope divided the spheres of influence between the Spanish and the Portuguese in the "New World", and all the voyages of exploration.

In a nutshell, I don't think there are any date barriers.

>139 m.belljackson: We have NOT had a specifically health and humor challenge, though that's something to bear in mind. Health could certainly fit into either science or medicine challenges and we have had and will have those topics. Humor definitely could fit into the short item challenge that I added at popular request this year; a lot of the best humor writing (IMHO) seems to include shorter pieces/essays. Also, in December, there's a kind of "open mike" category. It might be worth thinking about a "wellness" challenge, though, where people could put in everything from books about meditation or yoga or exercise, to sports books, to medical health, to more open stuff -- alternative healing, humor, cultivating a sense of mental wellbeing and how we do that, etc. Keep it as open as possible, so it goes from what we do at the very scientific end to what we do to make ourselves feel better about this strange thing called life...

I'm old enough to remember the days before we had the automatic continuation feature, and people survived. I am flabbergasted that people would PM you, Suz, to complain because they forgot about a challenge.

There. That's my cranky contribution to getting to 150.

Okay, after THE DREADED 13th TENNESSEE UNION CAVALRY, the Marauding Mountain Men of the Civil War,

here are the books that first stand out to be read:

1491 (which I think I own and now will look for)
Bound for Canaan which I wish I owned
A World Ablaze - compelling title and want to learn more to honor my Mother's vehement Lutheran stance
(she could not believe that he could hate Jewish people and love Jesus)
and Remember the Ladies - well, yeah!!!

>142 Chatterbox: I'm considering Prisoners of Geography for May, but prior holds at the library may make that problematic.

>145 m.belljackson:

Yes, I found 1491 on top of Carl Sagan's Varieties of Scientific Experience(still to read)
and THE DA VINCI CODE (loved the pictures!)
and beneath Kyoto Mori's FALLOUT poetry
(no go on Touchstones for either author or book - fine book).

>140 Chatterbox: - Ok, I understand. Though I tend to agree with Katie; it seems odd, if not downright unfair, to put it on you when the month changes. But, whatever works best is fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-About/dp/150112147...
Not that I'm shopping or anything, but...

>144 katiekrug: LOL

Go Suzanne!

Yes, go Suzanne! I am planning on reading Maphead but if that doesn't work for me, I think I have a book about the silk road somewhere in my TBR.

>152 banjo123: - Rhonda, I have also chosen Maphead for May. I had also thought to add The Frozen Thames. But the more I think about it, I wonder if it will count. The cover blurb says the vignettes are all based on events that actually took place each time the Thames froze, throughout history. But no, now that I look more carefully, it does say it is a work of fiction. Too bad; it might have been interesting. But Maphead will be fine. I also have another book, The Map That Changed the World that would qualify for May, but knowing my slow reading pace, I doubt I'll get through both

Three's a crowd! I am also thinking of reading Maphead for this month :)

Or possibly a Suzanne rec from a few years ago - Unruly Places...

>153 jessibud2: Read The Frozen Thames anyway! It's so delightful (and very short). My library files it in nonfiction, but it is definitely 'based on real events' fiction. It's a wonderful book.

Does a book like Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the World fit this challenge? Exploring the world, etc

>152 banjo123: >153 jessibud2: >154 katiekrug:

Oooh - maybe I'll read Maphead with you. It's more readily available at the library right now.

>153 jessibud2: I agree with >155 raidergirl3: - go ahead and read The Frozen Thames because it's good and a quick read.

It's up, and I appreciate your patience. I fell asleep last night and then had some work things to deal with this morning before I could get to it.

I have followed Charlotte's suggestion, so the intro now is THREE posts instead of one!!

And I've added a post with reading suggestions from me. I'll also put an evergreen list up there, and add some others that people make, in addition to the fancy images.

>155 raidergirl3: Absolutely, that would be a great fit. Exploring without maps, trying to draw up the first maps (which were so prized that they were state secrets; stealing a mariner's charts was a horrific offense. Nowadays, you can buy them online, pretty much.) I've seen that book, and it intrigues me. I think he's also written about Marco Polo, although that would be a less logical fit, because while what he was seeing was new to him, it wasn't to the people he traveled with.

I ended up reading four books for the April challenge:

The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff (audiobook) - A thorough synthesis of primary sources from the Salem witch trials, but not as much analysis of how & why it happened as I had hoped for.

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke & Jennifer Armstrong (audiobook) - Memoir of a Polish teenager/young adult who spent most of the WWII years working in a hotel housing German officers. She managed to save the lives of about a dozen Jews by providing employment in the hotel and then hiding them in the basement of a German officer's villa. This could very well end up in my top 5 books for the year.

Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America's First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone (audiobook) - This turned out to be as much or more about the integration of the army as about WWII operations.

Voices from the Second World War: Stories of War as Told to Children of Today - The book's intro makes it sound like this is a collection of reminiscences from people who were children during WWII. While there is certainly some of that, at least half of the contributors served in the war in some capacity. While most of the contributors are British, there are a few stories from Americans, Italians, Germans, Russians, and Japanese individuals.

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing

”The order to abandon ship was given at 5 PM. For most of the men, however, no order was needed because by then everybody knew that the ship was done and that it was time to give up trying to save her. There was no show of fear or even apprehension. They had fought unceasingly for three days and they had lost. They accepted their defeat almost apathetically. They were simply too tired to care….The ship was being crushed. Not all at once, but slowly, a little at a time. The pressure of ten million tons of ice was driving in against her sides. And dying as she was, she cried in agony.”

And then, oddly enough, the realadventure began. Because these explorers, who were meant to cross the Antarctic continent overland from west to east, found that that goal was not going to happen because their voyage was doomed almost before it began.

I’ve read several books that deal with explorations into the coldest places on earth and it always amazes me how the men on these expeditions survive unlikely and brutal conditions. And I always ask myself the same question: How in the world is it possible to have so much courage, to go on when you are to the point of exhaustion, when you haven’t had any water to drink in way too long, when your hands and feet are probably suffering from frostbite? How do you just push yourself to go on? I can’t say this book answered this question but it was a stark reminder that there are people in this world who have demonstrated this uncanny ability. And the men on Shackleton’s expedition were among those men.

Using first-hand accounts in the diaries of the men on the expedition, Alfred Lansing has written a masterwork that details the horrendous conditions and the value of working together to accomplish a common goal. I don’t really know how not one person suffered from pneumonia or bronchitis as many of them were submerged in the arctic seas with little chance of drying out. Everything was cold and wet including the sleeping bags. But somehow these men survived, defying the odds.

”Though they had failed dismally even to come close to the expedition’s original objective, they knew now that somehow they had done much, much more than ever they set out to do.”

Indeed.

>160 brenzi: Wow, time for me to read that. I have been fascinated by the Franklin expedition (where not a man survived to tell the tale, and people have been trying for nearly two centuries to put together pieces of the puzzle). I know the Shackleton story, in its broad lines, but you've made the details sound compelling.

>159 cbl_tn: Amazing achievement on your part! I'm intrigued by the integration of combat troops in that era; saddened by the closed minds at various ranks that made so much impossible and blocked so many opportunities to men who simply wanted to serve. Somewhere I have an ARC of Irena's Children, which tells roughly the same story, just not the first person narrative.

Finished One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson.
I enjoyed this one a lot. The list of big events as well as the not so big that happened that summer is pretty amazing.

In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides

I am counting this as my April history read since my reading of Battle Cry of Freedom got off to a late start and is not progressing very quickly. In the Kingdom of Ice is the story of the USS Jeannette and its expedition to reach the North Pole.

The USS Jeannette is an odd public/private partnership between the US Navy and the newspaper publisher Gordon Bennett. Together a ship is purchased, reengineered to survive the crushing pressure of pack ice, and placed under the command of Captain De Long and sent north to test a theory that the North Pole lies within an open sea at the top of the world. News flash - there is not an open polar sea. Given this unfortunate reality, the trip of the USS Jeanette does not go as planned.

Wikipedia will happily spoil the ending the story if you are so inclined to look. In an effort to avoid such spoilers, I will simply say that the voyage of the Jeannette turns into a truly epic tale of arctic survival. Very entertaining book if arctic exploration is of interest. Recommended.

>163 Oberon: I really enjoyed that book. So did The Hubster.

It took me a while but I finally finished the other book that I was reading for the history challenge. It wasn't that the book was a slow read, I had too many reads going at the same time. The Devil in the White City was a very interesting look at the World's Fair in Chicago juxtaposed to the career of H.H. Holmes who took advantage of the crowds drawn to Chicago for his own nefarious ends.

38. Omweg naar Santiago by Cees Nooteboom (Dutch) **** 1/2



It took me forever to finish this book, but that doesn't mean it's not good, in fact it was excellent.

Nooteboom writes about travelling through Spain, on the way to Santiago, but he sees all corners of Spain before finally arriving there.

He looks at the landscape, at art, churches, cloisters. It's clear he knows about history, and he writes about the history of the places he visits. This way one gets a four-dimensional view of Spain, it's like looking at a labyrinth, everywhere you can see the present, but also the past is still there. And there is a lot of past in Spain, and it's very interesting. His way of presenting it is not straightforward from then to now, but more roundabout. And it's never dull!

I listened to the audio, and was rather annoyed by the reader, who tried to read Dutch with a Spanish accent. Read the text like it was a poem. Still, audio was a good choice, it worked well so I stuck with it. It's one of the reasons it took me so long to finish the book, I kept loosing my place in the book due to quirks of the library app. And I must have fallen asleep four times during the final chapter!

But I don't regret reading it, it gave me a very interesting view, and a way of looking at things. It made me interested to read a bit more about the history of Spain.

>166 EllaTim: Our Spanish professor also wrote a book about the Camino; however, she wrote more from the spiritual journey side of things than the history and culture one. I suspect I would like this one (and another book Amazon recommended when I added this one to the wish list). I don't think I'll end up purchasing either from Amazon, but I do think I can probably look for a copy in the used bookstore. I found some books on the road, but not these, in local libraries.

>167 thornton37814: It's a worthwhile read, and the Camino does play a part, but there's really a whole lot about Spain in general in it. The Camino is fascinating isn't it?

>168 EllaTim: Definitely!