Since 2012 I have read one Erik Larson narrative history a year. I only have one to go so I spread them out to savor. He writes some of the most compelling nonfiction out there, and whenever there’s a new one it’s just a treat! I’ve read Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts (my favorite so far) and Isaac’s Storm. I added Dead Wake to my library holds in January, two months before it came out. Yes, I was first in […]
Taking the Romance out of the Victorian Era
I picked this book based on a recommendation from NPR’s Book Concierge for 2014., under the category For History Lovers. It’s a very long, very detailed book. I did some research on the author afterwards and learned that she did live the life of a Victorian for a BBC show called Victorian Farm. So when she talks about what it was like to wear period clothes and use a scythe, she had that experience for a year. The book discusses everything from the morning wash […]
It’s not what you think
A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II (2012) by Adam Makos with Larry Alexander is a New York Times and international best seller. It also has five stars on Amazon. However, it’s not a book I would have chosen to read on my own. Although World War II is the neverending source of remarkable stories, the constant death and destruction is hard to take in. So, I only read about war once in […]
Seriously though, modern medicine is the best.
After being thoroughly taken by Dr. Mutter, I went on a medical history kick. Next stop: antibiotics. The title of this book is a little misleading. While there is, indeed, a German doctor Gerhard Domagk that Hager returns to throughout the narrative, this is actually the story of the many doctors, labs, marketers, wars, countries, and strokes of luck that led to the discovery of the first antibiotic, sulfa, and how that changed the world–and the world of medicine. Starting in the trenches of WWI, Hager details the devastation […]
The title of this book is a euphemism for LJG investigating a dude who has syphilis on his peen.
I really didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did, even harboring affection Gabaldon’s Outlander books, and especially the character of Lord John Grey, whom I find to be adorable and heartbreaking. The Lord John Grey series is a spin-off of Outlander, following Lord John Grey, a character first introduced in Dragonfly in Amber as a sixteen year old boy who encounters Jamie and Claire the night before the battle at Prestonpans, but he’s most prominent (at least as far as I’ve […]
Emotionally and historically epic.
The Lions of Al-Rassan is an incredible book that’s inspired by the religious and political conflict that marked Moorish Spain. It follows several characters from three at-odds religious groups: the Kindath (based on Jews), Jaddites (based on Christians) and Asharites (based on Muslims.) Though the religions as described in the novel bear no real-life similarity to their analogous counterparts, and the particulars of history don’t entirely line up with the events described in the book, GGK’s alternate imagining still captures the ideological turmoil that was rampant […]
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