Current Reading: April 2022

Finished an excellent Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell.

Stuck reading all day (not a bad thing, actually) and finished an interesting Forgotten Eagle: Wiley Post, America's Heroic Aviation Pioneer by Bryan B. Sterling and Frances N. Sterling.

>2 jztemple: Time to read is never a bad thing. Unless you're reading a not very good book like The Next Civil War, which turned out to be kind of lame and felt like yesterday's news; I kept turning pages mostly because the book was short and because I was looking forward to the critical commentary I was going to write!

I completed The Charles today. It is part of the Rivers of America series. It was an enjoyable read. It's the best one I have read so far as I go through the series in alphabetical order. I guess that is sounding like a broken record but I have 50 or so more to go through.

The discussions about early settlements along the Charles, Revolutionary activity and the battles of Lexington and Concord were well done. I'm going to have to look at the bibliography a bit more to find his sources for the battles.

Queens of Jerusalem: the Women Who Dared to Rule by Katherine Pangonis
The royal women who influenced medieval Jerusalem and its surrounding environs

Finished Blood Runs Coal, a pretty good "True Crime" account of the assassination of labor leader Jock Yablonski (and his wife & daughter), ordered by Tony Doyle (then head of the United Mine Workers), and how justice was done.

After the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport
The author's new book about Russian expats and exiles in Paris following the Russian Revolution.

Galileo's Daughter a non-fiction based on the letters between Galileo and his cloistered daughter. Really, a biography about Galileo and not so much about his daughter.

Finished Bobs: Kipling's General: Life of Field-Marshal Earl Roberts of Kandahar, VC by W.H. Hannah. Rather hagiographic but interesting never the less.

Wrapped up The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, which I found to be very enlightening due to the sociological way by which the author compares and contrasts the two dynasties in question, while keeping an eye on their deeper cultural roots.

Finished Russia's Crony Capitalism over lunch. Actually rather prescient in regards to ongoing events, but rapidly becoming dated.

I completed Through Glacier Park in 1915 by Mary Roberts Rinehart. She is much better known for her mysteries, I think. I enjoyed this book a lot as it gave a good picture of how one traveled at this time right around when Glacier Park was created.

Finished up The Hello Girls, which examines the service of the U.S. women who served as telephone operators in the Great War, and how they came to be recognized as the U.S. Army's first official female combatants (late and grudgingly). Posting here, as opposed to the military group, due to how this is as much social history as military history.

Wrapped up Bubble in the Sun, which turned out to be a really excellent business and social history of the 1920's real estate boom in Florida.

>7 princessgarnet: I just found this group, huge history fan, so forgive me for jumping in; you might be interested in reading Memories: from Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi, a popular journalist in russia who was caught up in the escape from the bolsheviks. She joins other exiles on the way to Paris. The writing is incredible,with excellent notesin the back. Highly recommended! And in turn,I would like to read that book as well; did you like it?