Reading List Again

At Mom's request, here is my latest update...

• Africa House, by Christina Lamb. Unusual but true story about an Englishman who built a proper English manor house in the middle of the Rhodesian bush. The writer stumbled upon some of Stewart Gore-Browne's relatives in Africa and his house, and then spent years researching his life and how it all came about. Not exactly a fast mover, but I enjoyed it. It's a unique story that covers life in Rhodesia from WW I through the late sixties. Woven through it is his tortured but unrequited love for his 20-years-senior aunt, his courtship of another woman who ultimately spurned him, and finally his marriage to her daughter, all in the search for someone to share the joy of the great house in the bush.
• Four Against the Arctic, by David Roberts. The non-fiction account of four Russian sailors who were shipwrecked on a barren island in the Arctic for six (yes, six!) years. They went ashore to hunt, the pack ice moved in and crushed the ship they came from. All this happened in 1743, so the details on the non-fiction aspects of their adventure are pieced together from sketchy materials. However, the process of stitching the story together is part of the book, and that is interesting itself. I got this book to read in Chamonix, because one of the people who is involved in the trip to the island in search of clues was from Chamonix.
• Baker Towers, by Jennifer Haigh. A novel about a coal mining town in Pennsylvania around WW II timeframe. Centers around immigrant families working their way up in America, the pull of a small town vs. the lure and opportunity elsewhere. Good family story.
• The Green Age of Asher Witherow, by M. Allen Cunningham. New agey garbage that I was drawn to because it takes place in the West Bay back in the days when they were coal mining. A long trudge.
• Spook, by Mary Roach. After the delightful Stiff, that both Kyla and I enjoyed, I got this one for Kyla for Christmas. She finished it and left it for me. Funny and good natured, Mary Roach travels the world in search of scientific evidence of the afterlife. Highly recommended.
• Bury the Chains, by Adam Hochschild. This is the same guy who wrote King Leopold's Ghost, another book I enjoyed quite a bit. This time he charts the course of the effort in England to ban the slave trade, starting in 1787 and lasting 50 years. (Banning the slave trade is different than banning slavery.) It was one of the first real activist movements in the world, and the story of how it was done turns out to have established the kinds of campaign techniques we see all the time today. Fascinating set of characters and politics spanning the globe in an age when nothing was instantaneous. Well written and highly recommended.
• Not a Good Day to Die, by Sean Naylor. The non-fiction story of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. Tora Bora had already taken place, and we were executing one of the biggest military operations against an enemy -- Al Qaida, you remember them, right? -- that we had mounted since WW II. Very detailed account of the planning and the battle. Too detailed for easy reading, it reminded me a bit of We Were Soldiers Once... and Young. With the calls for Rumsfeld's resignation, you can form your own ground-level view of the impact of fighting according to the Rumsfeld doctrine out of this non-political book.
• The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, by John Crawford. Another non-fiction war book, this time about a reservist's time in Iraq. The book has no political bent to it, but sticks to short vignettes of life in the infantry. You can imagine (or you can after you read this) how it feels to be yanked out of college, sent out there on a mission that evolved from the dash to Bhagdad to patrolling the streets among snipers, all the while being given excuses about why you're not being sent home. Always good to hear the good news first hand, that's what I say -- you can't trust the mainstream media!

Along the way (as I think I mentioned in an earlier blog posting), I read Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell. Funny and enjoyable, but she has an even more difficult time suppressing her politics than I do, so be forewarned. Enjoy.