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More Books I Have Been Reading
May. 2nd, 2012 12:06 pmA couple of book reviews, because I post nothing but book reviews these days. I have other posts I mean to write! About Downton Abbey and Fruits Basket and The Social Network! Seriously, I've been meaning to write about The Social Network since December. The angst! The betrayal! The fandom, which apparently saw a completely different movie than I did! Where to even begin?
But for now, a couple of book reviews.
1. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief, by James McPherson
I know nothing about the Civil War. As I'm going to be a Ph.D student in American history next year, this is a little worrisome, so I decided to try to remedy the situation.
This is a very good starting point. McPherson is famous for his Civil War histories, and with his lucid, incisive writing (he can even make battle tactics make sense! Without the use of maps!) it's easy to see why.
There are a great many points I could discuss about this book, but that one that sticks out at me is McClellan. McClellan was the general of the Union's most important army for the first few years of the war. How he hung on that long I do not know, because he was the most frustrating, incompetent, unwilling to attack general ever. Lincoln keeps sending him "MCCLELLAN ATTACK LEE'S ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES" telegrams, and McClellan keeps not attacking, but somehow it takes nearly three years before anyone fires him. Why? Why? WHY?
Apparently in person McClellan had tremendous charisma, but it doesn't come through in the paper trail he left behind. In his letters, he sounds like a petty, peevish megalomaniac with a messiah complex.
2. Shadowed Summer, by Saundra Mitchell.
I wanted to read Mitchell's new book, The Vespertine, but the library doesn't have it because the library doesn't have anything, so I read Shadowed Summer instead.
It's a beguiling mixture of things I love and things I hate. On the plus side, it's about two best friends - Iris and Collette - solving a mystery in their small Louisiana town of Ondine, which is so wonderfully described that you can feel the heat and the butterfly weed. Ondine feels like a real place; I don't know enough about Louisiana to know if it feels like a real Louisiana place, but it feels like someplace you could walk through. And a ghost story, to boot!
In the things I hate column, a love triangle. A love triangle where Iris and Collette like the same guy, no less! WORST KIND OF LOVE TRIANGLE EVER.
It's somewhat salvaged because Iris doesn't like the boy that much (half the time, she hates him for distracting Collette), and because Iris makes the right choice in the end - my best friend is more important than a guy I won't remember in two years. But still. Why love triangle, why?
But for now, a couple of book reviews.
1. Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief, by James McPherson
I know nothing about the Civil War. As I'm going to be a Ph.D student in American history next year, this is a little worrisome, so I decided to try to remedy the situation.
This is a very good starting point. McPherson is famous for his Civil War histories, and with his lucid, incisive writing (he can even make battle tactics make sense! Without the use of maps!) it's easy to see why.
There are a great many points I could discuss about this book, but that one that sticks out at me is McClellan. McClellan was the general of the Union's most important army for the first few years of the war. How he hung on that long I do not know, because he was the most frustrating, incompetent, unwilling to attack general ever. Lincoln keeps sending him "MCCLELLAN ATTACK LEE'S ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES" telegrams, and McClellan keeps not attacking, but somehow it takes nearly three years before anyone fires him. Why? Why? WHY?
Apparently in person McClellan had tremendous charisma, but it doesn't come through in the paper trail he left behind. In his letters, he sounds like a petty, peevish megalomaniac with a messiah complex.
2. Shadowed Summer, by Saundra Mitchell.
I wanted to read Mitchell's new book, The Vespertine, but the library doesn't have it because the library doesn't have anything, so I read Shadowed Summer instead.
It's a beguiling mixture of things I love and things I hate. On the plus side, it's about two best friends - Iris and Collette - solving a mystery in their small Louisiana town of Ondine, which is so wonderfully described that you can feel the heat and the butterfly weed. Ondine feels like a real place; I don't know enough about Louisiana to know if it feels like a real Louisiana place, but it feels like someplace you could walk through. And a ghost story, to boot!
In the things I hate column, a love triangle. A love triangle where Iris and Collette like the same guy, no less! WORST KIND OF LOVE TRIANGLE EVER.
It's somewhat salvaged because Iris doesn't like the boy that much (half the time, she hates him for distracting Collette), and because Iris makes the right choice in the end - my best friend is more important than a guy I won't remember in two years. But still. Why love triangle, why?
