An Introduction to Solzhenitsyn Sale from ISI: http://tinyurl.com/bpoul5
February 12th, 2009
Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart by Jeffry Wert
The last book in my recent stint of reviews on the American Civil War is a good one – Jeffry D. Wert’s Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J.E.B. Stuart. Kevin asked me if I wanted to read and review this book and I hesitated because I normally do not like to read biographies (many of them are boring). I am glad I made an exception for this book.
J.E.B. Stuart is one of those Civil War figures everyone has an opinion of. Some love him and think he was the greatest cavalryman in the war and others loath him and think that he cost the South a victory at Gettysburg (and possibly for the war). I have to admit that I was part of the latter group. However, since reading this book, I have changed my tune and lean more toward the former camp.
February 12th, 2009
Honest Abe’s 200th
One of the perennial problems us book addicts have is that the books we want to read always outstrip the books we can read. And as a blogger I regularly dream of connecting my reading to current events and/or holidays and presenting a timely and insightful commentary on the appropriate date.
Alas, it is most often not to be. And today’s 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln‘s birthday is no different. I had grand plans only to fall behind schedule and miss the deadline. There will be no great Abraham Lincoln post from me today I am afraid (except this one). Instead, I thought I might point out some books on Lincoln that might be of interest to readers.
Let me start with a book I have read, Thomas Keneally’s Penguin Lives Series volume on Abraham Lincoln. I am a big fan of the series and have collected, and read, quite a few of the volumes. I concluded my review of Keneally this way:
If you are looking for an in-depth and analytical study of Lincoln, Keneally’s work is really not for you. If on the other hand you are looking for a brief but fascinating narrative of his life, this work might suit you. It is an interesting and easy read largely because the subject is so fascinating and important.
There is no shortage of large tomes on Lincoln so if, like me, you enjoy shorter works Keneally is a good place to start.
I have already mentioned in these pages my guilt (this is a reoccurring problem and thus complaint) over not having read The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. had this to say about this interesting book:
John Stauffer’s collective biography of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln stands apart from other biographies by focusing on how each man continually remade himself, with help from women, words, self-education, physical strength, and luck. In the process Stauffer gives us the texture and feel–a “thick description”–of the strange worlds that Douglass and Lincoln inhabited. The result is a path-breaking work that dissolves traditional conceptions of these two seminal figures (Lincoln the “redeemer” president, Douglass the assimilationist). He reveals how Douglass towered over Lincoln as a brilliant orator, writer, agitator, and public figure for most of his life. He shows us how words became potent weapons for both men. And he tells the poignant story of how these preeminent self-made men ultimately converged, despite their vastly different agendas and politics, and helped transform the nation.
And last but not least, another book in the TBR pile is 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History by Charles Bracelen Flood. Publishers Weekly offered this Starred Review:
Critically acclaimed historian Flood (Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War) provides a brilliant, compelling account of Lincoln’s dramatic final full year of life-a year in which the war finally turned in the Union’s favor and Lincoln faced a tough battle for re-election. After Union defeats at the Battle of Cold Harbor and the siege of Petersburg, Confederate General Jubal Early came within five miles of Washington, D.C., before he was beaten back; General Sherman’s September victory at Atlanta followed, with his bloody march to the sea. At the same time, Lincoln found himself running against his own secretary of the treasury, Salmon Chase, for the Republican nomination, and then against the Democrat (and general) George B. McClellan for the presidency. Lincoln won by a narrow popular majority, but a significant electoral majority. At the close of 1864, as Lincoln celebrated both his re-election and the coming end of the war, John Wilkes Booth laid down an ambitious plan for kidnapping that soon evolved into a map for murder. Combining a novelist’s flair with the authority and deep knowledge of a scholar, Flood artfully integrates this complex web of storylines.
So if you are looking for some books on Lincoln in honnor of his bicentenial birthday all of the above are worthy of consideration.
If you have a favorite book on Lincoln drop it in the comment section below.
February 11th, 2009
Why might a magazine that alre…
Why might a magazine that already has a digital version not make a subscription available on Kindle? Am I missing something?
February 11th, 2009
The Ghost War by Alex Berenson
Cover of The Ghost War
You had to think Alex Berenson felt a little pressure on his second book. The first won an Edgar Award after all and ended with its hero saving New York City from a biological attack. How to top that?
In The Ghost War Berenson continues the exploits of John Wells while mixing in a little more geopolitical tension. Here is how Publishers Weekly describes it:
Having foiled an al-Qaeda plot targeting Times Square in 2006′s The Faithful Spy (which won an Edgar Award for best first novel), maverick CIA agent John Wells confronts a very different threat in this pulse-pounding sequel from New York Times reporter Berenson. When the CIA’s efforts to extract Dr. Sung Kwan, a North Korean scientist and an invaluable source on Kim Jong Il’s nuclear ambitions, result in the deaths of Kwan and the rescue team, Wells’s significant other, Jennifer Exley, searches to identify the person in U.S. intelligence who compromised Kwan’s security. Meanwhile, Wells returns to Afghanistan, the scene of much of the action in The Faithful Spy, to find out what outside country has been helping the Taliban reassert itself. While the mole hunt will be familiar to genre buffs and the characters and the perils they face aren’t as nuanced as those in John le Carré or even David Ignatius, the author’s plausible scenario distinguishes this from most spy thrillers.
If the first book was focused on the character of Wells, the second book is propelled more by the looming conflict between China and the US. It also introduces the stress and strains involved in the relationship between Wells and Exley.
Berenson continues to give you a variety of perspectives as you see the action through the eyes of multiple characters. As the plot points touched on by PW above reveal, he builds up a series of seemingly unrelated but ultimately interconnected threats and/or plot threads. North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, and China all play a part.
But the big picture is China. The tension builds as Berenson lays out a plausible scenario whereby the US and China could find themselves on the brink of war.
More below. read more »