Dorsai! by Gordon R Dickson
I am not sure how to review the first book of a 13 book series, especially given that I am not convinced I will read more of them. This is especially true for this book or the path this book takes because there’s a LOT of exposition in this book and a lot of set-up for future books and furthering the story. This book is military science fiction, with a galactic imperial flavor to it. In a way, it feels like a combination of Robert […]
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
Scanning through the reviews of this book on Goodreads and taking only the negative or critical reviews, I found the following two ideas predominated those: Wilkerson’s book is a solid overview of the concept and history of the American caste system, but not as incisive or in-depth as it could be AND the concept of race still being an issue is deeply offensive or laughably absurd. You can imagine which one of these two paths I am more likely to take. I do have some […]
Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills
I am kind of in a mode recently of reading a lot of history books, and one of the questions that arise, especially in reading American history, is how is the history being written impacted by who is writing it, the focus they’re taking, and the things they end up saying. That’s true about all histories, but US history presents some thorny questions that almost always need addressing, or else face the potential of basically saying nothing. The Civil War is at the heart of […]
The Pale-Faced Lie by David Crow
At its heart this memoir is the story of a young boy growing up with an abusive father. There are some particularities to this story that add context, plot, focus, and some pretty harrowing moments, but that central idea never fades from this story. David Crow’s father was a former prisoner at San Quentin, whose crimes and legends are murky both for David in the memoir and for us as readers. His father seems to be constantly running his mouth, inflicting damage on his family, […]
Paco's Story by Larry Heineman
Freud by Stefan Zweig
I Hold a Wolf by the Ears by Laura van den Berg
Paco’s Story This short novel was published in 1987 and won the National Book Award. Larry Heineman tells us in this 2002 introduction to the book is that he wanted to tell a story that is as much about story telling as the story itself. This happens a lot in war novels, and especially in Vietnam novels and books like Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship me Home and The Things they Carried. I think part of […]
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
I obviously should have read this book before I read Masha Gessen’s other book The Future is History, as that one ends up being a kind of sequel to this one, but alas. Having also read Timothy Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom also acts as a kind of accidental primer for this one, but in reverse. This book catalogues the rise of Putin, after first detailing the general history of Russian democratic politics of the 1990s. Putin was more or less installed in 2000 with […]