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Even though I'm engaging in reckless procrastination, I think I'm still far too lazy right now to actually talk much about the books I've been reading. So only a few words about them this time. But how about this: Anyone want to know anything more about them? Just ask.
Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War. An excellent history, fascinating and lucidly written. I need to reread Thucydides.
Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child. An imaginative take on the myth of the changeling. I enjoyed it, but for me, it did drag at parts.
Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms. It’s Waugh, what else to say? I still have to read the next two books in the trilogy.
Ha Jin, Ocean of Words. One of my favorite authors. This is a collection of short stories about the Chinese soldiers stationed on the Russian border in the 1970s.
Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War. Caputo’s service in Vietnam--probably one of the best war memoirs I've read, and, sadly, all too relevant today. If I was the grand vizier of the world, I'd make this required reading.
Kenzaburo Oe, Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids It’s been sitting on my shelf so long I forgot I hadn’t read it. Oe’s—winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature—first novel. It tells of a group of Japanese reform school boys who relocated to the countryside during WWII, but reads like myth or allegory.
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried. More about memory and storytelling than about war. I liked the rhythm of it.
Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. Loved it. I like following archeological news, so nothing entirely unexpected, but a lot of the detail was new and it was fascinating to see it all compiled in one place. Mann, a journalist, synthesizes recent (and some not so recent) findings about peoples living in the Western Hemisphere before Columbus.
Hmm. Although I think I was selecting fairly randomly, but I seem to have read a lot of books relating to war.
Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War. An excellent history, fascinating and lucidly written. I need to reread Thucydides.
Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child. An imaginative take on the myth of the changeling. I enjoyed it, but for me, it did drag at parts.
Evelyn Waugh, Men at Arms. It’s Waugh, what else to say? I still have to read the next two books in the trilogy.
Ha Jin, Ocean of Words. One of my favorite authors. This is a collection of short stories about the Chinese soldiers stationed on the Russian border in the 1970s.
Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War. Caputo’s service in Vietnam--probably one of the best war memoirs I've read, and, sadly, all too relevant today. If I was the grand vizier of the world, I'd make this required reading.
Kenzaburo Oe, Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids It’s been sitting on my shelf so long I forgot I hadn’t read it. Oe’s—winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature—first novel. It tells of a group of Japanese reform school boys who relocated to the countryside during WWII, but reads like myth or allegory.
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried. More about memory and storytelling than about war. I liked the rhythm of it.
Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. Loved it. I like following archeological news, so nothing entirely unexpected, but a lot of the detail was new and it was fascinating to see it all compiled in one place. Mann, a journalist, synthesizes recent (and some not so recent) findings about peoples living in the Western Hemisphere before Columbus.
Hmm. Although I think I was selecting fairly randomly, but I seem to have read a lot of books relating to war.
