BillP's Book\Miniature\Wargame Blog

Battle of Surigao Strait by Anthony P. Tully is a very dense monograph on just this slice of the battle of Leyete Gulf. Tully has done an outstanding job of mastering all the primary source material and painstakingly analyzed it to give us what is probably the best account we’re likely to get of this action. He is particularly strong on the Japanese side to include the actual intentions and mindsets of Admirals Shima and Nishimura. I recommend it highly for anyone interested in getting deep in the weeds of this battle.

Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West by Steven E. Woodworth was an excellent account of Confederate command in the West. Woodworth does an excellent job of laying out the story and creating one coherent narrative. I’m not sure I agree with his conclusions though. Several times in the book, he castigates Davis for making a specific choice of commander, then in almost the same breath, concludes that Davis didn’t really have any better choice. Its kind of like those arm-chair commanders who deride Joe Johnston for not attacking Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign, then equally deride Hood for attacking. Make up your mind dude! Did Davis make the wrong decision? Or did he make the only decision available to him. Anyway, I recommend the book on a qualified basis.

No Way by S.J. Morden was the very forgettable sequel to the equally forgettable One Way which blog readers may remember as an account of a Megacorporation surreptitiously using prison labor instead of robots to build a Mars base then trying to kill the prisoners before NASA astronauts showed up so they could pretend the base was built by robots. This one tells the story of the lone surviving prisoner meeting the NASA astronauts and how all hell broke loose shortly thereafter. Neither book was very good, but I guess they were engaging enough to read them for free. If there is a sequel, and I get free access to it I will probably pick it up just to see what happens, but I can’t recommend it any more highly than that.

The Lieutenant: A Novel by Andre Dubus was a weird book about a week in the life of a young 1LT who is temporarily commanding the Marine detachment aboard a 1950s aircraft carrier while the regular commander is off the ship. As the novel opens, one of the 1LTs sailors is brought before him for a minor infraction. The punishment of the sailor sets in motion a series of events involving hazing and sexual misconduct that, in the rigidly homophobic climate of the book’s era, result in much misery and destruction of careers. It was sort of fascinating to see how much of the sturm and drang of the book was a direct result of society’s then-current view of homosexuality. Anyway, I saw the book for free on Amazon and picked it up. It was fascinating, but I can’t really recommend it.

Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen by David Sax was an excellent look at the rise and current decline of Jewish delicatessens and their food as well as a current (as of the 2009 publication of the book) survey of notable delis around the US. Sax is particularly strong on the history of the food, and why it became so pervasive in NYC. The travelogue portion of the book is a bit dated as some of the more notable delis mentioned (Stage and Carnegie in NY and the Atlanta New York Corned Beef Society) in the text are gone. If you’re a fan of deli, I recommend the book.

Leisureville Adventures in a World Without Children by Andrew D. Blechman is a kind of hit piece on age-restricted communities and on the Florida quasi-governmental entities known as Community Development Districts in general. Blechman seems upset that relatively affluent old people want to escape the day to day travails of snow, property maintenance, and school taxes in the North for unlimited golf and “early-bird” specials in Florida. I don’t recall what made me pick this up from the library, but while I don’t want those two hours of my life back, I don’t’ recommend this.

55 for the year

The first book up is Eri Hotta’s outstanding Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy. This book tells the story of how the Japanese government collectively decided to launch a war by attacking Pearl Harbor that they were pretty certain they couldn’t win. It was an incredibly horrifying yet enthralling story. The best summary I’ve seen came from the NYT Review:

“Eri Hotta’s “Japan 1941” seeks to reveal and explain the secret internal mechanics of the Tokyo regime that planned and executed the Pearl Harbor assault. Suffice it to say that Japan’s people were not lucky enough to be led by a Franklin Roosevelt. Instead the Japanese leadership was a sequestered gaggle of blinkered, hallucinatory, buck-passing incompetents, who finally pushed the vacillating Emperor Hirohito into gambling on war against the United States.”

I’d say that sums it up perfectly. If you have any interest in WWII in the Pacific or if you want to just how much of a disaster a feckless NCA can be for its country, you simply must read this. Tip o the hat to Consimworld’s Doug Dery for turning me on to it in his blog.

Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War by Richard Taylor is a particularly well-written memoir from an excellent amateur Confederate General. Taylor was the son of U.S. President Zachary Taylor, was educated at Harvard and Yale, served as an ADC to his father in the Mexican-American War, and became one of the richest planters in Louisiana. When the war broke out he joined the Confederate Army rising to the rank of LTG . The book recounts his adventures and operations throughout the war as well as his successful post-war efforts to defeat Reconstruction and “redeem” the Louisiana state government from the carpet-baggers and freedmen. As I say the book was well written. It also offers an interesting insight into the mind of a hard-core “Lost Causer”. I recommend it for serious ACW buffs.

Con Living by E.M. Foner is the latest installment of comedic sci-fi involving the denizens of a colony ship run by Flower an eccentric alien AI. In this latest book Flower has decided to run an intergalactic sci-fi and Cosplay convention on the ship to encourage more humans to decide to live aboard. Much hilarity ensues. Potential readers are cautioned that this is the third book in the series and there not the place to start.

Never Too Old for a Pierhead Jump by David Black is the sixth volume in the career of Harry Gilmour, everyone’s favorite RNVR WWII submarine skipper. This time our hero is yanked off the beach where he is recovering from his previous adventures and assigned to command HMS Saraband, a new construction boat headed through the Suez canal to the Pacific. During her passage from England Saraband has run into some sort of morale trouble that resulted in the former skipper and several other members of the crew being relieved and Harry being assigned. The rest of the book deals with Harry’s efforts to identify and fix the problem as well as British submarine operations in the Western Pacific. It is an excellent installment and I enjoyed it as much as I did the other five in the series. As with most series, it’s not the place to start. But if you enjoy WWII or submarine stories you’ll probably enjoy this set of books.

Finally, a very pleasant surprise. Uncommon Type: Some Stories is a set of short stories by “everyman” actor Tom Hanks. Each of the stories is very well done, absorbing, and fun to read. I was very impressed. The stories cover a wide range of topics and moods referring to everything from time travel tourism sci-fi, to a suburban “slice of life”, to bowling. The only common theme to the stories is that each of them somehow, no matter how peripherally, involves a type-writer. If you’ve got some time to kill and are looking for something light and engaging, I recommend those volume.

49 for the year