BillP's Book\Miniature\Wargame Blog

The last eight volumes of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series The Nutmeg of Consolation, The Truelove, The Wine-Dark Sea, The Commodore, The Yellow Admiral, The Hundred Days, Blue at the Mizzen, and The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey. This was my third or fourth time through the books and I enjoyed them just as much this time as I have before. They are absolutely enthralling. I’ll repeat the usual advice again. Read them in order, the series isn’t so much a series of self-contained novels as it is one long story. Second, find a good lexicon, you’ll need it to translate all the nautical terms and 18th-19th century language. I recommend King and Hattendorf’s outstanding A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O’Brian.

After finishing O’Brian, I hadn’t quite got my fix of Wooden Ships and Iron Men, so I reread C.S. Forester’s Hornblower Novels; Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, Lieutenant Hornblower, Hornblower and the Atropos, Hornblower During the Crisis, Hornblower and the Hotspur, Beat to Quarters, Ship of the Line, Flying Colors, Commodore Hornblower, Lord Hornblower, Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, and Hornblower Addendum – Five Stories. I honestly can’t tell you how many times I’ve read these after discovering them at some Post Library or another when I was 11 or 12 years old. The books are, to my mind, just as good as O’Brian’s books, but in a totally different way. It was interesting to see how both authors used some of the same historical incidents to inform the career of their protagonists. Anyway, I enjoy them, and continue to recommend them very highly.

Then there was The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower a novel by C Northcote Parkinson that purports to be an actual biography of Hornblower as if he were an actual person. The book fills in some of the blanks from the novels, and recounts Hornblower’s life after the books until his death as Admiral of the Fleet in 1857. The book was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of Hornblower, you’ll want to read this.

After 21 volumes of fiction, I was ready for something historical. Luckily, my wife gave me Dave Powell’s outstanding Decisions at Chickamauga: The Twenty-four Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle. This was a fascinating look at the decisions made on both sides that drove the events of the battle. In 207 pages Powell examines 24 different inflection points, lays out the options available to the commander, explains which option was chosen, and describes the effects of the decision. Also included in the book is a detailed tour readers can use to visit the sites of the decisions and see how the physical geography influenced those decisions. One note, this book is not a general history of the battle, so it should not be the first book one reads on it, but for anyone interested in the battle, I think it is indispensable. I can’t wait until the weather warms up so I can take the tour.

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover was a fascinating story of a young woman growing up among a family opposed to public education who couldn’t be bothered to home school either. As a result, Westover received only the sketchiest of educations mostly from her older brothers who had attended public schools for a time. For example, she learned to read as the result of a bet between two of her brothers. Westover eventually taught herself enough to excel on the ACT, earn a scholarship to BYU, and eventually attend Harvard, and earn her M.A. and P.H.D. from Trinity College Cambridge University. The book is a deep and extended look at growing up in a dysfunctional family and was very compelling. I recommend it highly.

The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy is the memoir of a long haul mover who shifts the household goods of the rich and powerful from place to place. Murphy is an excellent writer, with a good eye for interesting anecdotes and provides a fascinating look at an industry I’ve never much thought about. The book was consistently entertaining and interesting. Politically conservative readers should be aware that the author doesn’t share your political orientation and isn’t shy about letting you know that. You have been warned.

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh is kind of the liberal flip side to J.D. Vance’s conservative Hillbilly Elegy. Both books deal with the decline of the American working class and to some extent, the reasons for the decline. Smarsh realized early in life that the options of her parents and grandparents had been largely circumscribed by their having children before they were economically ready to support them and determined at an early age to never repeat that mistake. In fact, she frames her book as an extended letter to the child she never had, and goes to great length explaining to the child why she didn’t exist. In was an interesting and insightful look at how many Americans haven’t managed to navigate the changes in our economy.

Then it was back to fiction. Readers with a good memory might remember that I re-read John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire because the sequel had come out and I had it on reserve at the library. The library came through and I finished The Consuming Fire, the second book in The Interdependancy. Here’s the basic story. Humans are alone in the universe and have formed an empire along extra-dimensional travel nodes called “The Flow” which link specific systems to one another. There are very few habitable planets in the empire with virtually the entire population of the empire residing on large and comprehensive space stations none of which are self-sufficient but dependent on unique goods and resources from other space stations accessible via other “Flow” nodes. Now, it appears that those “Flow” nodes are collapsing, and it is the job of the current Emperox to ensure the survival of humanity after they’re cut off from one another. This is the second book in the series and I continue to find it interesting, but not interesting enough to buy it. As with most of Scalzi’s stuff its well written and engaging. I’m not sure the science actually works though. Why wouldn’t these space stations be self-sufficient since they all live in closed systems? Anyway, if you like Scalzi, or the premise sounds interesting, give these a shot, especially if you can get them for free from the library.

Finally, there was Han’s Fallada’s bleak and cheerless Every Man Dies Alone. This novel, based on a true story, details one couple’s efforts to resist Hitler and the NAZIs after their only son is killed during the 1940 Campaign in France. The couple decides to hand write post cards with anti-NAZI messages and drop them in public places to stimulate public dissatisfaction with the regime. After the first few cards are discovered and turned in to the GESTAPO by those finding them, an inspector is assigned to run down the authors of the cards. The book follows the parallel tracks of the couple and the investigation with several ancillary side plots of people peripherally involved. Eventually, the couple is arrested. The book is based on a true story, and the real-life couple were both executed for treason in 1943. As in history, the efforts of the couple were totally inconsequential, of the more than 200 postcards they wrote and distributed, only 18 weren’t turned into the GESTAPO. The book was, as I say, unrelievedly grim and depressing. I’m not really sure why I read it and I can’t really recommend it. Its not bad, there just wasn’t any philosophical and moral benefit that justified the misery.

Anyway, that’s were I wound up, 27 books for the month of January. The fastest start ever.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading, but for reasons beyond me, not so much writing it up. Anyway, since the last time I posted I’ve finished no less than 33 books, to bring my total for the year to 129. In the last eleven years, since starting the blog in 2008, I’ve read a total of 1239 books (including repeats) averaging 112.6 books per year. So I guess 2018 was a bit above average.

First up was finishing out the library’s offerings of the Jack Reacher books: The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow, 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, Personal, Make Me, Night School, The Midnight Line, No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories, and Jack Reacher’s Rules all by Lee Childs. I continue to enjoy and be impressed by this series. Childs has maintained the quality writing and plotting admirably over the course of twenty-something novels and each one is both reliably formulaic and at the same time new and different. I eagerly await the most current volume from the library (I’m #145 in line for one of 23 copies) as well as additional books whenever Childs writes them

Next up was Welcome to Marwencol by Mark E. Hogancamp. After recently seeing the Steve Carrell movie I saw this on sale at Amazon for a dollar or two and snapped it up. It was a weirdly fascinating look at the world Hogancamp created in his backyard as a way of dealing with the trauma of a severe beating from a group of dirtbags who took exception to Hogancamp’s proclivity to cross dress. While the movie tells the story of Hogancamp’s beating and construction of MARWENCOL, the book is more focused on the narrative story of MARWENCOL itself. It was an excellent adjunct to the movie.

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi was a reread of the first volume of a series because the second volume has been released and I wanted to catch up. Here’s what I said about it in 2017 when I first read it and I don’t really see any need to update or change anything.

Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi is a sci-fi book set in a totally different universe than the one in The Old Man’s War. This human only (so far) universe is ruled by an Empire that depends on pseudo-FTL travel using a series of pathways between star systems called “The Flow”. One interesting wrinkle in this universe is that the “Flow” node to Earth has closed down and that planet system is no longer accessible to humans. Another is that all other human settled star systems (save one) lack inhabitable planets, so all of the multitude of human settlements are based on space stations. The “flow” is changing in ways that will profoundly impact the Empire and subsequently, there is a great deal of political and economic maneuvering between the great houses of the Empire

Frankly, I’ve got kind of mixed feelings about this book. It was very engaging while I was reading it. It was another one of those that kept me up when I should have been sleeping because I had to find out what happens next. But two things prevent me from recommending it unreservedly. First, it is obviously the first book in a very long series. The book just kind of stops after a major plot development creates a cliff-hanger reaching no real resolution. Second, after finishing it, and after thinking and reflecting on the book, my “suspension of disbelief” kind of breaks down and I realized that many of the premises of the book don’t actually work. I borrowed this from the library, and I’ll probably keep an eye out for future installments, but I don’t think I’ll be buying them.

I’m #1 on four copies of the sequel, The Consuming Fire so stay tuned.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking is Hawking’s last book, compiled after his death, and covers a number of scientific and metaphysical questions Hawking had been asked over the years; Is There a God, How Did It All Begin, Is There Intelligent Life in the Universe, and several others. The writing is excellent, accessible, and thought provoking. This might be my favorite Hawking book and I recommend it very highly to anyone interested in such things. I’m going to miss him.

Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly is the latest Harry Bosch novel. This one has a bit of a twist since it pairs Bosch up with Renee Ballard, the protagonist from another Connelly novel, The Late Show . In fact, this book is billed as Ballard and Bosch Novel Book 1 in the subtitle so I guess we can expect to see more from these two. I enjoyed the book, and I’m looking forward to the next one, but I think perhaps the addition of Ballard is a good thing since Harry is getting a bit long in the tooth.

The Shepard by Frederick Forsyth is my traditional Christmas Eve read. I read this late at night after everyone else is in bed. This year was no exception. I read it in my sister-in-law’s house in Ottawa with the snow falling outside and the wind whistling against the windows. I always enjoy it.

Since I had fourteen days in Canada over the holidays with nothing much to do I embarked on a re-reading of Patrick O’Brian’s epic Aubrey-Maturin series. Before the end of the year I finished the first 13 volumes: Master and Commander, Post Captain, HMS Surprise, Mauritius Command, Desolation Island, The Fortune of War, The Surgeon’s Mate, The Ionian Mission, Treason’s Harbour, The Far Side of the World, The Reverse of the Medal, The Letter of Marque, and The Thirteen Gun Salute. I continue to enjoy the books, I was very happy to see how well they held up. This time through I had a rather enjoyable juxtaposition of literature and real life. We spent the past week of our trip in Newfoundland where even today, everyday life has several characteristics in common with life in the Royal Navy two hundred years ago. While I was reading about Aubrey and Maturin eating salt beef & pork and boiled puddings, I was eating salt beef & pork and boiled puddings (critical components of the traditional Newfoundland “Jig’s Dinner”). As I was reading about Aubrey and Maturin drinking rum, I was drinking copious quantities of “hot rum punch” made by my father in law as we played Whist (another RN throwback if one remembers the game’s frequent appearance in the Hornblower Novels) in the evenings. Finally, while in a grocery story in St John’s, I discovered that “ship’s biscuit” ( a kind of hard tack) is still sold commercially there for preparation of traditional dishes. It was kind of surreal.

Anyway, that’s my year in reading, 129 books. Thanks to everyone who follows the blog and I’ll do a better job of posting for frequently in the new year!