It’s been awhile since I did my book reports. Some recent reading:
Start with the easy. Joseph Wambaugh’s “Hollywood Crows”. This is the second in Wambaugh’s series on the Hollywood Division of the LAPD. It’s full of whacky police characters dealing with whacky citizens. The first book was more a series of vignettes with multiple threads woven together. This book has plot with the vignettes and characters interwoven. If you like cop stories and like Wambaugh, you’ll like this series. I enjoy it. The books are like margaritas. They’re nice to relax with on a summer day.
Next comes Michael Connelly’s “Reversal”. Connelly is famous for his detective Bosch books. This book has Bosch in it, but it’s centered around his half-brother, lawyer Mickey Haller who has been the protagonist in several earlier books. There are so many ways he could have gone with the story. He hints at so many things. But with a legal game in play, one can’t know what is real and what is manipulation. I like detective stories not legal stories, but this book still worked for me. There’s one small piece of the ending I didn’t like (has to do with a juror). My other problem is the character Mickey Haller who, at times, gets emotionally stupid.
My favorite book in at least a year: Lee Child’s “The Enemy”. It’s not very often a book sucks me so that the world disappears, and only the story exists. This book did that for me. Why did I like it so much? Besides liking main character (Jack Reacher – I’ve already read more than a half-dozen of Reacher books, so I know the character well), it’s all the contexts/settings of the plot. The plot combines together the great military downsizing of the early 1990’s (the “peace dividend”), WW II – both before and after the war, integration of the military and racism. Reacher has personal issues to deal with as he attempts to solve a murder. There’s the politics of the military. So lots coming together that feeds, motivates, and moves the characters. Another thing I like, Reacher makes mistakes, many of them, some of them obvious (though he also has a solution epiphany on a plane which seemed a little silly). Though Reacher makes some mistakes, he only does one thing stupid (towards the end of the book, in California when he attempts to arrest a suspect). In the end, he does a brave and honest thing. Reacher followed Travis McGee’s (and Meyers!) old adage: when having to choose what is the right thing to do, do that which you find the most difficult, and it will be morally right. Reacher chose the harder path, but it was the right path. The basic plot is a puzzle with lots of convoluted elements. In the end, the solution makes everything clear. Not realistic, but if I wanted realistic, I’d read nonfiction.
This is not the first Reacher book, but I think it’s the earliest chronologically. It might be one of the best books to start with in the Reacher series. There’s violence (not a lot). There’s sex. There are two trips to Paris. I loved it.
It’s the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. I decided to read Shelby Foote’s Civil War. This is a mammoth book. I’m done with volume 1, which is the smallest volume. I think I’ll get through the three volumes by summer’s end, but it might be close.
I’m enjoying the book and learning a lot. Talk about a CF by the Federalist! This is the first book I’ve read on the Civil War. I’ve done a lot of reading on the Revolutionary Era but know (soon to be knew) next to nothing about this time period. Makes me want to go to the East Coast and visit some sites. Many, many years ago I was tied to a group of historians who would meet every year to tour a relatively unknown, unpreserved Civil War site. Part of the reason for the trip was research, to work out where things actually occurred. I never had the opportunity (time or money) to spend a weekend with them. Somewhat sorry now.
As always, the more I read of and by Lincoln, the more I like the guy.
There are some style aspects of Foote that make it hard for me to follow. Though most of the writing concerns the war itself, he’s often not explicitly clear about the names of battles. I’m often wondering what battle am I reading? I’ll read Oxford’s history of the Civil War after this, the much acclaimed “Battle Cry of Freedom” by McPherson.
I took a break from the Civil War after volume 1 and read a book on organizational change. It’s titled “Switch” and written by a couple of brothers. It’s a very good book with practical advice. It’s a bit light, but light is where you start, so that’s a plus in my book.
Hopefully I’ll get more time to read soon. Work has been demanding for the last several months and hasn’t given me much free time. Thus, I didn’t do a reading report until now.
Start with the easy. Joseph Wambaugh’s “Hollywood Crows”. This is the second in Wambaugh’s series on the Hollywood Division of the LAPD. It’s full of whacky police characters dealing with whacky citizens. The first book was more a series of vignettes with multiple threads woven together. This book has plot with the vignettes and characters interwoven. If you like cop stories and like Wambaugh, you’ll like this series. I enjoy it. The books are like margaritas. They’re nice to relax with on a summer day.
Next comes Michael Connelly’s “Reversal”. Connelly is famous for his detective Bosch books. This book has Bosch in it, but it’s centered around his half-brother, lawyer Mickey Haller who has been the protagonist in several earlier books. There are so many ways he could have gone with the story. He hints at so many things. But with a legal game in play, one can’t know what is real and what is manipulation. I like detective stories not legal stories, but this book still worked for me. There’s one small piece of the ending I didn’t like (has to do with a juror). My other problem is the character Mickey Haller who, at times, gets emotionally stupid.
My favorite book in at least a year: Lee Child’s “The Enemy”. It’s not very often a book sucks me so that the world disappears, and only the story exists. This book did that for me. Why did I like it so much? Besides liking main character (Jack Reacher – I’ve already read more than a half-dozen of Reacher books, so I know the character well), it’s all the contexts/settings of the plot. The plot combines together the great military downsizing of the early 1990’s (the “peace dividend”), WW II – both before and after the war, integration of the military and racism. Reacher has personal issues to deal with as he attempts to solve a murder. There’s the politics of the military. So lots coming together that feeds, motivates, and moves the characters. Another thing I like, Reacher makes mistakes, many of them, some of them obvious (though he also has a solution epiphany on a plane which seemed a little silly). Though Reacher makes some mistakes, he only does one thing stupid (towards the end of the book, in California when he attempts to arrest a suspect). In the end, he does a brave and honest thing. Reacher followed Travis McGee’s (and Meyers!) old adage: when having to choose what is the right thing to do, do that which you find the most difficult, and it will be morally right. Reacher chose the harder path, but it was the right path. The basic plot is a puzzle with lots of convoluted elements. In the end, the solution makes everything clear. Not realistic, but if I wanted realistic, I’d read nonfiction.
This is not the first Reacher book, but I think it’s the earliest chronologically. It might be one of the best books to start with in the Reacher series. There’s violence (not a lot). There’s sex. There are two trips to Paris. I loved it.
It’s the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. I decided to read Shelby Foote’s Civil War. This is a mammoth book. I’m done with volume 1, which is the smallest volume. I think I’ll get through the three volumes by summer’s end, but it might be close.
I’m enjoying the book and learning a lot. Talk about a CF by the Federalist! This is the first book I’ve read on the Civil War. I’ve done a lot of reading on the Revolutionary Era but know (soon to be knew) next to nothing about this time period. Makes me want to go to the East Coast and visit some sites. Many, many years ago I was tied to a group of historians who would meet every year to tour a relatively unknown, unpreserved Civil War site. Part of the reason for the trip was research, to work out where things actually occurred. I never had the opportunity (time or money) to spend a weekend with them. Somewhat sorry now.
As always, the more I read of and by Lincoln, the more I like the guy.
There are some style aspects of Foote that make it hard for me to follow. Though most of the writing concerns the war itself, he’s often not explicitly clear about the names of battles. I’m often wondering what battle am I reading? I’ll read Oxford’s history of the Civil War after this, the much acclaimed “Battle Cry of Freedom” by McPherson.
I took a break from the Civil War after volume 1 and read a book on organizational change. It’s titled “Switch” and written by a couple of brothers. It’s a very good book with practical advice. It’s a bit light, but light is where you start, so that’s a plus in my book.
Hopefully I’ll get more time to read soon. Work has been demanding for the last several months and hasn’t given me much free time. Thus, I didn’t do a reading report until now.
