History is Not Boring discussion
What are you reading?
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Tracy
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May 17, 2015 06:01PM
The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend
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I'm finally getting through Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle which I've had on my shelf forever! It's got a lot of interesting tidbits on the Gilded Age and World War I, but it does jump around in time quite a bit. Better content than writing quality overall.
There was a sale at our library and among other books I got two about history.The other one is from 1578 (yes, that's correct, unless it's 1584, but I don't think that matters much), The Chronicle of Livonia, about the history of the Baltic countries until then.
The other one that I have been reading a bit is a memoir from 1957 by a Finnish man that spend nine years (1945-54) in Soviet prisons, forced labour camps and exiled in Siberia. He had been arrested illegally with 18 other men by the Red State Police and given to the Soviet officials. (The Allied Control Commission was in the country, the Communist party was again legal and they were in government and had the Ministry of Interior in their hands resulting in "The Years of Danger".) A year ago I read a biography of one of those other men, a White Russian emigré.
The absurdity of it all makes it sometimes almost laughable but of course it's not funny. Among the many nationalities (at least German, Austrian, Baltic, Balkan, Korean, Japanese, other Asian, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, English, American, French and Italian citizens were mentioned) there were also one prisoner accused of antirevolutionary propaganda. Nothing special about that, except the man was blind, deaf and mute without any education. But on the other hand many of the prisoners were well educated so they had interesting discussions. The name of the book ("Beria's Gardens") is one that has been familiar to me since childhood, before I even knew who Beria had been or what it was about, so it's interesting now to read it.
Emily wrote: "I'm finally getting through Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle which I've had on my shelf forever! It's got a lot of interesting tidbits on..."I liked that one. The second one isn't as interesting.
I liked that one. The second one isn't as interesting.I liked it too. Three stars on my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Overall, I thought the content was great, but the writing quality wasn't up to snuff.
I just finished the Hornblower series. Listened to most of the books (read one because it had an awful narrator) & read all the short stories in chronological order. Highly recommended.
I've just begun reading "Mr. Darwin's Shooter" by an Australian named McDonald, an historical novel which promises to have a lot of historical detail in it - the story of the young man who accompanied Darwin on his voyage on the Beagle in the 1830s. The real young man was Syms Covington, and not much is known about him. Covington shot or captured many of the animal and bird specimens that Darwin collected and subsequently researched and wrote about in his "The Origin of Species." It should be an interesting take.I read "The Voyage of the Beagle" quite a number of years ago, and it was fascinating to learn about new lands and peoples as seen through Darwin's eyes. I read another book a number of years later about Darwin's struggle with the concept of evolution, which went against his religious grain (he initially was going to study for the ministry) - I think his struggle contributed greatly to his later-life hypochondria.
I started "Prisoner, Spy, Guerilla", it's a memoir by an Ingrian man born in 1920. A week loan, so not sure I get to finish it in time but I wanted to try after seeing it as a VIP loan.The first deportations in his village happened in 1931, the neighbouring village had been emptied a couple of years earlier, I guess. I'm not sure were they already executing them at that time or did they let the forced labour to finish the job. The rest lost everything because of random taxes.
I'm finally reading a Horrible Histories book! I fell in love with the kid's TV series on Youtube, and my sister found me The Groovy Greeks. So far, I actually might like the skit series better. I'm not one for comic strips, which is a lot of the book. Still, it's funny stuff :)
Among all the bad things that has happened to the author of the memoir I am reading (he's lost several relatives in Gulag), he also fell in love for the first time. Some of the old customs were still followed and one of them was that most/all girls who had had the (Lutheran) Confirmation (usually when they were 15), slept in their own rooms during the summer and it was natural that their boyfriends stayed there too during weekends, and so did he that summer when he was 16. (There is actually a word for it, "a night run" or "on a night foot".) But they also knew that illegitimate children were not accepted, however there was only one in the village and he was about 20 already.
I'm reading Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties
I'm reading The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey and I'm just loving it. Two modern brothers cross the entire Oregon Trail in a covered wagon pulled by three mules. Quirky brothers, quirky people along the way, even a quirky dog. Plus lots of history that you never saw in the old western movies. I won this as a first-reads book from goodreads.
I'm reading The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration -- Isabel Wilkerson
I am reading I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing up in the Holocaust by Elli Friedmann.
I've been reading parts of "The First Total War" by John Langdon-Davies. He writes for example about the Soviet guide about skiing and bayoneting on skis. It's obvious that the author of that guide knows nothing about fighting on skis, which makes it funny. I think I have heard about it before but this book has pictures from it.
I am reading Phineas Gage: A Gruesome But True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman which is the history of brain trauma and about medicine in general.I'm also reading Black Earth: The Holocaust As History and Warning by Timothy Snyder.
And I'm reading Between the World and Me by Ta_Nehisi Coates which covers much of the history of racism in America.
Lately I have been doing a lot of non-fiction reading and I heartily recommend Empire of Deception by Dean Jobb. It is about a truly amazing swindler who lived in the 1920s and who until Bernie Madoff was the biggest con man in the US. Great story, the author is a journalist from Halifax, Nova Scotia where some of the story takes place, but the majority of the time the book is set in Chicago. Great read.
I finished The African Queen by C.S. Forester. I highly recommend it to everyone, especially if you liked the movie. My 5 star review is here:https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(Fixed the review link)
Jim wrote: "I finished The African Queen by C.S. Forester. I highly recommend it to everyone, especially if you liked the movie. My 5 star review is here:[book:The African Quee..."
Thanks for the review and note about The African Queen!
Finished a lot of fine books this summer. Had to slug my way through The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtney. Did quite thoroughly enjoy Billy Martin which us a good read for baseball fans. Just finished Vol. 1 of the Poldark series by Graham Winston (12 volumes) and have just 100 pages to go in A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss about the beginning the stock market in England in the early 1700's and which is the first of his Benjamin Weaver series.
Blaine wrote: "Finished a lot of fine books this summer. Had to slug my way through The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtney. Did quite thoroughly enjoy Billy Martin which us a good read for baseball fans. Just finis..."What did you think of the Poldark book? I've watched the TV series, but it seemed to focus more on the scenery than on the plot. Is it the sort of thing that's better as a book?
Emily wrote: "Blaine wrote: "Finished a lot of fine books this summer. Had to slug my way through The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtney. Did quite thoroughly enjoy Billy Martin which us a good read for baseball f..."Hey Emily, I loved the first book of the series. Such a quick and easy writing style. There certainly is more scenery in the PBS show than the book. The plot is very good. Some things are definitely different. I got a much different feeling about Ross Poldark than was portrayed in the show. Also a big difference as to the age when Demelza enters the picture. Much younger in book. Not nearly as much Warleggen interaction in the first book. Again they made this first season from the first two books and so they may have done some timeline cramming to make things more volatile than what Vol. 1 really is about,I definitely think you should give Book 1 a try. I really enjoyed it and I think you will too. Hope this helps.
After having spent way too many hours on long and difficult books I decided to take a break and read
Whoops! Made a mistake there. Here I go again, I have decided to take a break and read WHERE THE HEART IS by Billie Letts. Have read her book Honk and Holler Opening Soon which was really good and so I decided to read this book. I always am amazed at how books are categorized as women's books, and yet I (a 61 year old guy) really enjoy many of them. Leading a book club with 16 ladies makes me always search for books that everyone will enjoy and Letts produced a winner with Honk and Holler and so I am hoping for a nice, light read as the summer ends.
Began CIRCLING THE SUN by Paula McLain on my Kindle. Very enjoyable beginning to this book. Fast read and good writing. This is the author of the acclaimed novel THE PARIS WIFE, which I have not yet read but hope to in the future.
Blaine wrote: "Emily wrote: "Blaine wrote: "Finished a lot of fine books this summer. Had to slug my way through The Persimmon Tree by Bryce Courtney. Did quite thoroughly enjoy Billy Martin which us a good read ..."Good to know! I'll put it on my to-read list!
Sally wrote: "I've just begun reading "Mr. Darwin's Shooter" by an Australian named McDonald, an historical novel which promises to have a lot of historical detail in it..."I finished "Mr. Darwin's Shooter" some time ago. Interesting writing style - the author was trying to (and for the most part succeeding in) write the story in the language and vernacular of the day. Some might be put off by this, but I like the challenge, especially since I have plans to write an historical novel myself. More novel/storytelling than anchored in historical fact, but I suspect that this was necessary since almost nothing is known or recorded about this character in real life. But I recognized the factual information surrounding Darwin himself, having read his Beagle journals myself some time ago.
Just finished reading "Defining the Wind" by Scott Huler, about Sir Francis Beaufort of the British Admiralty, whose 1806 table by which to determine wind force at sea with the use of sails is not only still in use today but is quite lyrical. Huler's adventures in tracking down the roots and branches of this story are well told and a lot of fun to read, with side trails into other departments into which the Beaufort Scale morphed, such as tornado force, hurricane force, wind force on land, wind force at sea in modern times when the chief driving mechanism is no longer sails, etc. Beaufort's main idea was to identify something not easily measured in terms understandable to the common layman, using commonly known observations: "Calm: smoke rises vertically from chimneys." I was sad to get to the end of this book.Next up: finish "Longitude" by Dava Sobel, which is related to Beaufort, but earlier times.
Also, I'm in the middle of "Anam Cara" by John O'Donahue, an Irish poet, philosopher, and theologian, about the Celtic concept of a "soul friend" or (in Gaelic) "anam cara." The Celtic idea is that we may each be connected to a soul friend, one who is closer to us than blood, deeper than friendship, and that this spiritual relationship can exist across geographic distance, and can manifest itself between two individuals who may not have met yet. I acquired this book, hoping it would inform the same concept which has emerged in the novel I am currently writing. But (half-way into the book) I have found almost nothing which describes or explains this connectedness. I hope it's in there, so I am continuing to read. So far, I have found out more about "anam cara" on the internet than in this book. I am puzzling about why one would write a book titularly about a subject which is not addressed directly in the book.
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I feel like answering "Arr!" to everything right now.
Arr!
I'm taking a reality break, and reading alternate history.. The "Thursday Next" books...
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Currently, I'm reading about how the current digital social revolution and how this is changing societal norms and the way we personally interact. It's history as its happening and how it's personally impacting my relationships. Fascinating stuff. I don't resent these social upheavals. They've always occurred but am interested how this one is personally impacting my life.
Currently, I'm reading about how the current digital social revolution and how this is changing societal norms and the way we personally interact. It's history as its happening and how it's personally impacting my relationships. Fascinating stuff. I don't resent these social upheavals. They've always occurred but am interested how this one is personally impacting my life.
Sally wrote: "Also, I'm in the middle of "Anam Cara" by John O'Donahue, an Irish poet, philosopher, and theologian, about the Celtic concept of a "soul friend" or (in Gaelic) "anam cara." The Celtic idea is that..."That's too bad, Sally. It sounds like an interesting topic.
I'm listening to an audiobook called "The Family" by Mario Puzo. It's a novel-style book about the Borgia family in a more humanized light. It's okay, but I'm finding that it's a lot of summary. Sort of like this: "In order to be strategically effective, the Pope did this and this and this..." "Oh and now here's this guy Duarte so we can have some dialogue about action that's taking place miles away on the battlefield."
Going back to one of my favorite authors, Joanne Harris and reading her book Blackberry Wine. Have previously read Chocolat and Five Quarters of the Orange. So far I have enjoyed this book as well as the others that I read.
Going back to one of my favorite authors, Joanne Harris and reading her book Blackberry Wine. Have previously read Chocolat and Five Quarters of the Orange. So far I have enjoyed this book as well as the others that I read.
Currently reading some historical fiction: "Pope Joan" by Donna Woolfolk Cross. It is really good. There's some evidence that Joan was real, but not concretely proven. Regardless, it makes for a great story. Highly recommend this book.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Just finished Penmarric by Susan Howatch and loved the book. She is a prolific writer that I just discovered earlier this year and I have most all her books loaded on my Kindle. Not sure what is next but I will decide that later today, I am reading All the Light We Cannot See out loud to my wife.
J. wrote: "I recently finished Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II by Susan Burch (who I love), and will soon be delving back into [book:The New Disability ..."Those both sound really interesting! I just started developing a character who is deaf and I need to do more research on deaf culture and education. Totally adding these to the TBR!
I am currently reading (well, listening to) Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air. It's been really interesting and giving me great ideas for my steampunk and historical fiction pieces.
I just finished Animal Farm and, even though I meant to read something else entirely, I started reading about the same subject, more or less, because I found the book as a week "VIP loan" from our library. It's about a Communist politician, a daughter of a member of the Politburo (who was buried in the Kremlin Wall). In the beginning she has just been released from the prison in the fall of 1939. Earlier this year I read a prison diary of one of her friends. The only thing I have a problem, at this time, is the first person narrative. It's kind of unsettling when you know she was a real person.
There must be something wrong with me. It's pretty difficult to make me laugh out loud but then I start reading a book about the war and I can't stop giggling because it has so many funny anecdotes. Like the time the men had to figure out how "to swim" their captain. He liked swimming a lot and sometimes when he had had too much to drink he wanted to swim at night, too. Well that wouldn't have been safe because it was already dark but he might have become "difficult" if he didn't get to swim. So someone came up with the idea that they would tie a rope around his waist and let him swim like that. So the captain got to have his swim and everyone was happy. Or when a staff sergeant tried to leave for a home leave wearing a Finnish jacket but without any stripes, a German pilot's cap that he had found somewhere in the woods on one of his missions and wide trousers with legs in boots, looking more like a Cossack than a soldier in a Finnish army. The major had to become angry, otherwise he would have laughed. From some mission they had brought a couple of bear cubs as pets and so on...
Also interesting are the meetings with the civilians, on both sides of the front, as they often spoke Finnish or Karelian there, too, and didn't really love Russians, either, so sometimes the soldiers went to have some tea with the locals while on a mission. On his first mission the author met a girl and they fell in love during the day the guerillas spent in the village so he wanted to take her with them. He was 19 and the girl was 17 and an orphan. But of course his father, who was also on the same mission, said no, as they had a long way back home and they might have to fight, too. But one can imagine what kind of a life they had had if a young girl was willing to leave her home and relatives to go with a group of unknown soldiers, officially their enemies.
Tytti wrote: "There must be something wrong with me. It's pretty difficult to make me laugh out loud but then I start reading a book about the war and I can't stop giggling because it has so many funny anecdotes..."I don't find that weird; funny things can happen even in war time! It's how our human brain takes a break from reality.
Here's an interesting article about how things were done in the early 1800's. http://www.countrysidemag.com/97-1-ho...
Hurray for living today!
History is Not Boring
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