David's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 03 Sep 2024 07:09:52 -0700 60 David's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #1)]]> 32508 482 Michael Connelly 0446612731 David 5 4.11 1992 The Black Echo (Harry Bosch, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #1)
author: Michael Connelly
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/03
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Civil War, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox]]> 874419 1120 Shelby Foote 0394746228 David 0 4.53 1974 The Civil War, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox
author: Shelby Foote
name: David
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vengeance of the Dancing Gods (Dancing Gods, #3)]]> 584384 303 Jack L. Chalker 0345315499 David 0 3.76 1985 Vengeance of the Dancing Gods (Dancing Gods, #3)
author: Jack L. Chalker
name: David
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: fiction, fantasy-and-science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[They Came for the Schools: One Town's Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America's Classrooms]]> 196775540 288 Mike Hixenbaugh 0063307243 David 5 4.44 2024 They Came for the Schools: One Town's Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America's Classrooms
author: Mike Hixenbaugh
name: David
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves:
review:
Excellent reporting, listening to the podcasts before reading the book.
]]> <![CDATA[How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future]]> 35356384
Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die--and how ours can be saved.]]> 320 Steven Levitsky 1524762938 David 5 4.16 2018 How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future
author: Steven Levitsky
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves:
review:
Excellent read, insightful, well written and researched. A little dated given recent events but helpful provided context on recent developments in our country.
]]> The Island of Dr. Moreau 29981 Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.

Ranked among the classic novels of the English language and the inspiration for several unforgettable movies, this early work of H. G. Wells was greeted in 1896 by howls of protest from reviewers, who found it horrifying and blasphemous. They wanted to know more about the wondrous possibilities of science shown in his first book, The Time Machine, not its potential for misuse and terror. In The Island of Dr. Moreau, a shipwrecked gentleman named Edward Prendick, stranded on a Pacific island lorded over by the notorious Dr. Moreau, confronts dark secrets, strange creatures, and a reason to run for his life.

While this riveting tale was intended to be a commentary on evolution, divine creation, and the tension between human nature and culture, modern readers familiar with genetic engineering will marvel at Wells’s prediction of the ethical issues raised by producing “smarter� human beings or bringing back extinct species. These levels of interpretation add a richness to Prendick’s adventures on Dr. Moreau’s island of lost souls without distracting from what is still a rip-roaring good read.]]> 160 H.G. Wells 0553214322 David 0 currently-reading 3.73 1896 The Island of Dr. Moreau
author: H.G. Wells
name: David
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1896
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Midnight’s Children 14836 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,� all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight� s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.]]> 647 Salman Rushdie 0099578514 David 5 3.98 1981 Midnight’s Children
author: Salman Rushdie
name: David
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Dead Lions (Slough House, #2) 15823478
The disgruntled agents of Slough House, the MI5 branch where washed-up spies are sent to finish their failed careers on desk duty, are called into action to protect a visiting Russian oligarch whom MI5 hopes to recruit to British intelligence. While two agents are dispatched on that babysitting job, though, an old Cold War-era spy named Dickie Bow is found dead, ostensibly of a heart attack, on a bus outside of Oxford, far from his usual haunts.Ěý

But the head of Slough House, the irascible Jackson Lamb, is convinced Dickie Bow was murdered.ĚýAs the agents dig into their fallen comrade's circumstances, they uncover a shadowy tangle of ancient Cold War secrets that seem to lead back to a man named Alexander Popov, who is either a Soviet bogeyman or the most dangerous man in the world. How many more people will have to die to keep those secrets buried?]]> 348 Mick Herron 1616952253 David 5 4.03 2013 Dead Lions (Slough House, #2)
author: Mick Herron
name: David
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 David 0 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) 6149 Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]> 325 Toni Morrison David 5 3.96 1987 Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1)
author: Toni Morrison
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/03
date added: 2024/03/03
shelves:
review:
Fantastic book. Complex, compelling and thoroughly enjoyable. An emotionally taxing and worthwhile novel. I always see something moe, even on the fourth read.
]]> The Sound and the Fury 10975 366 William Faulkner David 4 3.86 1929 The Sound and the Fury
author: William Faulkner
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1929
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/30
date added: 2024/01/30
shelves:
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]]> Small Mercies 61812308 The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River —an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,� the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.]]> 303 Dennis Lehane 0062129481 David 5 4.21 2023 Small Mercies
author: Dennis Lehane
name: David
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves:
review:
Lehane has wriiten a great narrative that can really make one pause in self-reflection at ho the way racism is taught, passed on in a culture. Well written as usual, with a good pace, interesting with tough detail to keep it vivid but not encumbered. Set in a volatile setting, the violence is really expected.
]]> <![CDATA[Slow Horses (Slough House, #1)]]> 7929891
London, England: Slough House is where the washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what's left of their failed careers. The "slow horses," as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated here. Maybe they messed up an op badly and can't be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they all have in common, though, is they all want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another.

River Cartwright, one such “slow horse,� is bitter about his failure and about his tedious assignment transcribing cell phone conversations. When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, River sees an opportunity to redeem himself. But is the victim who he first appears to be? And what’s the kidnappers� connection with a disgraced journalist? As the clock ticks on the execution, River finds that everyone has his own agenda.]]> 320 Mick Herron 1569479011 David 0 3.95 2010 Slow Horses (Slough House, #1)
author: Mick Herron
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blood & Ivy: The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard]]> 41832751

His shocking discoveries in a chemistry professor’s laboratory engulfed America in one of its most infamous trials: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. John White Webster. A baffling case of red herrings, grave robbery, and dismemberment, it became a landmark case in the use of medical forensics and the meaning of reasonable doubt. Paul Collins brings nineteenth-century Boston back to life in vivid detail, weaving together newspaper accounts, letters, journals, court transcripts, and memoirs from this groundbreaking case.


Rich in characters and evocative in atmosphere, Blood Ivy explores the fatal entanglement of new science and old money in one of America’s greatest murder mysteries.]]> 368 Paul Collins 0393357325 David 0 to-read 3.53 2018 Blood & Ivy: The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard
author: Paul Collins
name: David
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA["One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964]]> 334044 420 Aleksandr Fursenko 0393317900 David 5 to-read 4.04 1981 "One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964
author: Aleksandr Fursenko
name: David
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Moby-Dick or, The Whale 153747 "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.]]> 720 Herman Melville 0142437247 David 0 3.53 1851 Moby-Dick or, The Whale
author: Herman Melville
name: David
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1851
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves:
review:
You have t pace yourself, the narrative is so rich the reading pace has to be measured.
]]> Mr. Texas 78086724
Sonny Lamb is an affable, if floundering, rancher with the unfortunate habit of becoming a punchline in his Texas hometown. Most recently, he bought his own bull at auction, saving it from being sold to a slaughterhouse. But when a fire breaks out at a neighbor’s farm, Sonny makes headlines in another way: Not waiting for help, he bolts to the farm and heroically saves the family’s daughter and her horse, riding the animal out of their burning barn. Within days of the event, he attracts the notice of a mysterious man named L.D. who arrives at his door and asks if he’d like to run as a Republican for his district’s representative seat. Though Sonny has zero experience and doesn’t consider himself political in the least, he decides to throw his hat in the ring . . . and he wins.

As Sonny navigates life in politics—from running a campaign to negotiating in the capitol—he must learn the ropes, weighing his own ethics and environmental concerns against the pressures of veteran politicians, savvy lobbyists, and his own party. In tracing Sonny’s attempt to balance his marriage and morality with an increasingly volatile professional life, Lawrence Wright has crafted a hilarious, immensely clever rollercoaster ride about one man’s pursuit of goodness in the Lonestar State.]]> 323 Lawrence Wright 0593537378 David 5 3.92 2023 Mr. Texas
author: Lawrence Wright
name: David
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2023/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> Madame Bovary 2175 329 Gustave Flaubert 0192840398 David 5 3.70 1877 Madame Bovary
author: Gustave Flaubert
name: David
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1877
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/03
date added: 2023/10/06
shelves:
review:

]]> The Communist Manifesto 30474 The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels' revolutionary 1848 summons to the working classes, is one of the most influential political theories ever formulated. After four years of collaboration, the authors produced this incisive account of their idea of Communism, in which they envisage a society without classes, private property, or a state. They argue that increasing exploitation of industrial workers will eventually lead to a revolution in which capitalism is overthrown. Their vision transformed the world irrevocably, and remains relevant as a depiction of global capitalism today.]]> 288 Karl Marx 0140447571 David 5 3.67 1848 The Communist Manifesto
author: Karl Marx
name: David
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1848
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/02
date added: 2023/09/02
shelves:
review:
Excellent edition, love the essay on The Young Hegelians. Such a powerfully written work with some powerful points even if the scope of its perspective is so narrow.
]]> Crime and Punishment 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky David 5 4.26 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: David
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/02
date added: 2023/09/02
shelves:
review:
Finished reading this classic again for class. As good as the first time I read it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future]]> 51811923 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers, a remarkable, behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to run the world’s most powerful intelligence agency—the CIA—as well as a sobering glimpse at the espionage and surveillance challenges of the future.

Only fourteen men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world’s most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to all these individuals, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities—spying, espionage, and covert action—take place on every continent.

Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests. For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world’s elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners—or clashes—with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. He covers every topic from the influence of the White House on intelligence activity to simmering problems in the Middle East and Asia to rogue nuclear threats and cyberwarfare.

A revelatory look at the CIA’s impact across the globe, The Spymasters uncovers the inside stories behind the CIA’s seven decades of activity and elicits predictions about which issues—and threats—will occupy the espionage and surveillance landscape of the future. Including eye-opening interviews with George Tenet, John Brennan, Leon Panetta, and David Patraeus, as well as those who’ve just recently departed the Agency, this is a timely, essential, and important contribution to current events.]]> 400 Chris Whipple 1982106409 David 4 3.99 2020 The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future
author: Chris Whipple
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/16
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves:
review:
Great book, great interviews and solid use of sources. Seeing the interviews in the documentary helps to visualize these remarkable men and their service.
]]> <![CDATA[The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]> 331 David Grann 0385534264 David 5 4.14 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
author: David Grann
name: David
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/06
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves:
review:
Excellent research, writing and story-telling. I will read everything that Gran writes. I enjoy the epilogues as well. I respect that he personally visits the places of the story trying to get a sense of the first hand information that his research reveals. Excellence.
]]> American Gods 30165203
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...]]> 635 Neil Gaiman David 0 to-read 4.11 2001 American Gods
author: Neil Gaiman
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed, the Man who Broke the Filibuster]]> 9230712
The last decades of the nineteenth century were a volatile era of rampantly corrupt politics. It was a time of both stupendous growth and financial panic, of land bubbles and passionate and sometimes violent populist protests. Votes were openly bought and sold in a Congress paralyzed by the abuse of the House filibuster by members who refused to respond to roll call even when present, depriving the body of a quorum. Reed put an end to this stalemate, empowered the Republicans, and changed the House of Representatives for all time.

The Speaker's beliefs in majority rule were put to the test in 1898, when the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor set up a popular clamor for war against Spain. Reed resigned from Congress in protest.

A larger-than-life character, Reed checks every box of the ideal biographical subject. He is an important and significant figure. He changed forever the way the House of Representatives does its business. He was funny and irreverent. He is, in short, great company. "What I most admire about you, Theodore," Reed once remarked to his earnest young prot�g�, Teddy Roosevelt, "is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments."

After he resigned his seat, Reed practiced law in New York. He was successful. He also found a soul mate in the legendary Mark Twain. They admired one another's mordant wit. Grant's lively and erudite narrative of this tumultuous era--the raucous late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--is a gripping portrait of a United States poised to burst its bounds and of the men who were defining it.]]> 448 James Grant 1416544933 David 0 to-read 3.35 2011 Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed, the Man who Broke the Filibuster
author: James Grant
name: David
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Drowning 59345230 New York Times bestselling author T. J. Newman—whose first book Falling was an instant #1 national bestseller and the biggest thriller debut of 2021—returns for her second book, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, and sinks to the bottom with passengers trapped inside, and the extraordinary rescue operation to save them.

Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.

More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.

Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.

There’s not much time.

There’s even less air.

With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them—against impossible odds.]]> 304 T.J. Newman 1982177918 David 4 4.10 2023 Drowning
author: T.J. Newman
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/19
date added: 2023/06/19
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]]> Falling 56614951
There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard.

What you don't know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot's family was kidnapped.

For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die.

The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane.

Enjoy the flight.]]> 304 T.J. Newman 1982177888 David 3 fiction 3.79 2021 Falling
author: T.J. Newman
name: David
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/08
date added: 2023/06/08
shelves: fiction
review:
While not compelling or sophisticated, I chose this book as a break from he heavy non-fiction that I have to read this summer. If you want a light adventure to read by the pool or on the beach, this is your book. If you want a sophisticated, well-structured plot with lots of development and deep character development, this is not it. I must say, as a traveller, I did appreciate the "inside" view on the workings of a flight crew.
]]> <![CDATA[The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021]]> 60399106
The bestselling authors of The Man Who Ran Washington argue that Trump was not just lurching from one controversy to another; he was learning to be more like the foreign autocrats he admired.

The Divider brings us into the Oval Office for countless scenes both tense and comical, revealing how close we got to nuclear war with North Korea, which cabinet members had a resignation pact, whether Trump asked Japan’s prime minister to nominate him for a Nobel Prize and much more. The book also explores the moral choices confronting those around Trump—how they justified working for a man they considered unfit for office, and where they drew their lines.

The Divider is based on unprecedented access to key players, from President Trump himself to cabinet officers, military generals, close advisers, Trump family members, congressional leaders, foreign officials and others, some of whom have never told their story until now.
--penguinrandomhouse]]> 725 Peter Baker 0385546548 David 0 4.46 2022 The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021
author: Peter Baker
name: David
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/04/01
shelves:
review:
I did learn a few new things (I am a news junkie) and was further suprised by the incompetency of that administration and its failure to protect the institutions that we have come to respect.
]]> <![CDATA[Wicked Capitol Hill: An Unruly History of Behaving Badly]]> 14060548 128 Robert S. Pohl 160949587X David 4 3.86 2012 Wicked Capitol Hill: An Unruly History of Behaving Badly
author: Robert S. Pohl
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/04/01
shelves:
review:
I twas good for reading before a tour of the city, some good historical background in some instances. It was an enjoyable read after some heavy non-fiction.
]]> 1984 61439040
Alternate cover edition can be found here.]]> 368 George Orwell 0452284236 David 5 4.21 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: David
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons]]> 58724805
"Ben Riggs manages to walk the fine line between historical accuracy and fun about as well as anyone and SLAYING THE DRAGON is equal parts historical accuracy and entertainment. It was an essential read for me while directing and producing the Official D&D documentary but I’d recommend it to anyone regardless of the subject material. It’s a wild and fun ride through the turbulent history of one the most influential brands in our lifetime." - JOE MANGANIELLO

Co-created by wargame enthusiasts Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the original Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game released by TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) in 1974 created a radical new the role-playing game. For the next two decades, TSR rocketed to success, producing multiple editions of D&D , numerous settings for the game, magazines, video games, New York Times bestselling novels by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and R. A. Salvatore, and even a TV show! But by 1997, a series of ruinous choices and failed projects brought TSR to the edge of doom―only to be saved by their fiercest competitor, Wizards of the Coast, the company behind the collectible card game The Gathering .

Unearthed from Ben Riggs’s own adventurous campaign of in-depth research, interviews with major players, and acquisitions of secret documents, Slaying the Dragon reveals the true story of the rise and fall of TSR. Go behind the scenes of their Lake Geneva headquarters where innovative artists and writers redefined the sword and sorcery genre, managers and executives sabotaged their own success by alienating their top talent, ignoring their customer fanbase, accruing a mountain of debt, and agreeing to deals which, by the end, made them into a publishing company unable to publish so much as a postcard.

As epic and fantastic as the adventures TSR published, Slaying the Dragon is the legendary tale of the rise and fall of the company that created the role-playing game world.]]> 293 Ben Riggs 125027804X David 5
Ben Riggs has constructed an honest narrative and worth reading for anyone interested in the fall of TSR or maybe just to reminisce a bit on the worlds we used to explore in our adolescence.]]> 3.93 2022 Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons
author: Ben Riggs
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/02
date added: 2023/02/02
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Excellent honest account of the demise of TSR and new form under Wizards. I too lament the loss of the box sets and modules I used to purchase at Waldenbooks in the 1980s. I remember walking miles to the local mall, hitting Waldenbooks, Orange Julius and then expending any leftover change in the mall arcade. Those were carefree teenage days.

Ben Riggs has constructed an honest narrative and worth reading for anyone interested in the fall of TSR or maybe just to reminisce a bit on the worlds we used to explore in our adolescence.
]]> The Leftovers 10762469
Kevin Garvey, Mapleton's new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin's own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin's teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she's definitely not the sweet "A" student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he's distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start.

With heart, intelligence and a rare ability to illuminate the struggles inherent in ordinary lives, Tom Perrotta has written a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection and loss.]]> 355 Tom Perrotta 0312358342 David 5 3.41 2011 The Leftovers
author: Tom Perrotta
name: David
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/02/01
shelves:
review:
Excellent novel, great story and deep personal. Perrotta knows how to make very related characters with such everyday feelings and problems that relate to the reader as human beings. Excellent work.
]]> The Reivers 210825 305 William Faulkner 0679741925 David 0 3.78 1962 The Reivers
author: William Faulkner
name: David
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/18
date added: 2023/01/21
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Fantastic coming of age story set in Faulkner's invented Missippi setting.
]]> <![CDATA[American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis]]> 60141696 From award-winning, New York Times bestselling historian Adam Hochschild, a fast-paced, revelatory new account of a pivotal but neglected period in American history: World War I and its stormy aftermath, when bloodshed and repression on the home front nearly doomed American democracy.

The nation was on the brink. Angry mobs burned Black churches to the ground and chased down pacifists and immigrants. Well over a thousand men and women were jailed solely for what they had written or said, even in private. An astonishing 250,000 people joined a nationwide vigilante group—sponsored by the Department of Justice.

This was America during and after the Great War: a brief but appalling era blighted by torture, censorship, and killings. Adam Hochschild brings to life this troubled period, which stretched from 1917 to 1921, through the interwoven tales of a colorful cast of characters: some well-known, among them the sphinxlike Woodrow Wilson and the ambitious young bureaucrat J. Edgar Hoover; others less familiar, such as the fiery antiwar advocate Kate Richards O’Hare and the outspoken Leo Wendell, a labor radical who was frequently arrested and wholly trusted by his comrades—but who was in fact Hoover’s star undercover agent.

A groundbreaking work of narrative history, American Midnight recalls these horrifying yet inspiring four years, when some brave Americans strove to keep their fractured country democratic, while ruthless others stimulated toxic currents of racism, nativism, red-baiting, and contempt for the rule of law—poisons that feel ominously familiar today.]]> 422 Adam Hochschild 0358455464 David 0 to-read 4.16 2022 American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis
author: Adam Hochschild
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams]]> 60468246 Ěý
Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. A singular figure at a singular moment, Adams amplified the Boston Massacre. He helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party. He employed every tool available to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Samuel Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason.

In The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Schiff brings her masterful skills to Adams’s improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies. Arresting, original, and deliriously dramatic, this is a long-overdue chapter in the history of our nation.]]> 422 Stacy Schiff 0316441112 David 0 to-read 3.64 2022 The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
author: Stacy Schiff
name: David
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle]]> 60647674
A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Abraham Lincoln was president when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions inextricably bound up with money, power, race, identity, and faith. He was hated and hailed, excoriated and revered. In Lincoln we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.

At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen in popular minds as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment was essential to the story of justice in America. Here is the Lincoln who, as a boy, was steeped in the sermons of emancipation by Baptist preachers; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him light to see the right.

This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination at Ford’s Theater on Good Friday 1865: his rise, his self-education through reading, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans of the nineteenth century, Lincoln’s story illuminates the ways and means of politics, the marshaling of power in a belligerent democracy, the durability of white supremacy in America, and the capacity of conscience to shape the maelstrom of events.

Lincoln was not all he might have been—few human beings ever are—but he was more than many men have ever been. We could have done worse. And we have. And, as Lincoln himself would readily acknowledge, we can always do better. But we will do so only if we see Abraham Lincoln—and ourselves—whole.]]> 676 Jon Meacham 0553393960 David 0 to-read 4.44 2022 And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle
author: Jon Meacham
name: David
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile]]> 58777696 From the New York Times bestselling author of RIVER OF DOUBT and DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC, the stirring story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time, and its complicated legacy

The Nile River is the longest in the world. Its fertile floodplain allowed for rise to the great civilization of ancient Egypt, but for millennia the location of its headwaters was shrouded in mystery. Pharaonic and Roman attempts to find it were stymied by a giant labyrinthine swamp, and subsequent expeditions got no further. In the 19th century, the discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone set off a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe - and extend their colonial empires.

Two British men - Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke - were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton was already famous for being the first non-Muslim to travel to Mecca, disguised as an Arab chieftain. He spoke twenty-nine languages, was a decorated soldier, and literally wrote the book on sword-fighting techniques for the British Army. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton's opposite in temperament and beliefs.

From the start the two men clashed, Speke chafing under Burton's command and Burton disapproving of Speke's ignorance of the people whose lands through which they traveled. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. When they returned to England, Speke rushed to take credit, disparaging Burton. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton, to Speke's great envy. The day before they were to publicly debate, Speke shot himself.

Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals, whose exploits were even more extraordinary. This was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan's army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without his talents, it is likely that neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived.

In RIVER OF THE GODS Candice Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers.
]]> 349 Candice Millard 052552407X David 5 3.77 2022 River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
author: Candice Millard
name: David
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/07
date added: 2023/01/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World]]> 35106890 The dramatic, pulse-pounding story of Harry Truman’s first four months in office, when this unlikely, small-town former farmer and haberdasher had to take on Germany, Japan, Stalin, and the atomic bomb, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Heroes are often defined as ordinary characters who get thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and through courage and a dash of luck, cement their place in history. Chosen as FDR’s fourth-term vice president for his well-praised work ethic, good judgment, and lack of enemies, Harry S. Truman was the prototypical ordinary man, still considered an obscure Missouri politician. That is, until he was shockingly thrust in over his head after FDR's sudden death. At the climactic moments of the Second World War, Truman had to play judge and jury during the founding of the United Nations, the Potsdam Conference, the Manhattan Project, the Nazi surrender, the liberation of concentration camps, and the decision to drop the bomb and end World War II. Tightly focused, meticulously researched, and using documents not available to previous biographers,ĚýThe Accidental President escorts readers into the situation room with Truman during this tumultuous, history-making 120 days, when the stakes were high and the challenges even higher. ĚýĚý]]> 461 A.J. Baime David 5 4.57 2017 The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World
author: A.J. Baime
name: David
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/28
date added: 2022/07/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office]]> 34523269 Why have recent presidents failed to bring promised change?

In The Impossible Presidency, celebrated historian Jeremi Suri charts the rise and fall of the American presidency, from the limited role envisaged by the Founding Fathers to its current status as the most powerful job in the world. He argues that the presidency is a victim of its own success-the vastness of the job makes it almost impossible to fulfill the expectations placed upon it. As managers of the world's largest economy and military, contemporary presidents must react to a truly globalized world in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. There is little room left for bold vision.

Suri traces America's disenchantment with our recent presidents to the inevitable mismatch between presidential promises and the structural limitations of the office. A masterful reassessment of presidential history, this book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand America's fraught political climate.


]]> 368 Jeremi Suri 0465051731 David 0 to-read 3.86 2017 The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office
author: Jeremi Suri
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/12/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling David 0 4.57 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: David
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/20
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game]]> 9043964 Alvin S. Felzenberg 0786721634 David 3 3.66 2008 The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game
author: Alvin S. Felzenberg
name: David
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2020/11/08
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]]> <![CDATA[By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis]]> 1077799 208 John D.W. Guice 0806138513 David 5 american-history 3.86 2006 By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis
author: John D.W. Guice
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2020/01/03
date added: 2020/01/03
shelves: american-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Inside Camp David: The Private World of the Presidential Retreat]]> 34219872




Never before have the gates of Camp David been opened to the public. Intensely private and completely secluded, the president's personal campground is situated deep in the woods, up miles of unmarked roads that are practically invisible to the untrained eye. Now, for the first time, we are allowed to travel along the mountain route and directly into the fascinating and intimate complex of rustic residential cabins, wildlife trails, and athletic courses that make up the presidential family room.




For seventy-five years, Camp David has served as the president's private retreat. A home away from the hustle and bustle of Washington, this historic site is the ideal place for the First Family to relax, unwind, and, perhaps most important, escape from the incessant gaze of the media and the public. It has hosted decades of family gatherings for thirteen presidents, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama, including holiday celebrations, reunions, and even a wedding. But more than just a weekend getaway, Camp David has also been the site of private meetings and high-level summits with foreign leaders to foster diplomacy.




Former Camp David commander Rear Admiral Michael Giorgione, CEC, USN (Ret.), takes us deep into this enigmatic and revered sanctuary. Combining fascinating first-person anecdotes of the presidents and their families with storied history and interviews with commanders both past and present, he reveals the intimate connection felt by the First Families with this historic retreat.]]> 400 Michael Giorgione 0316439916 David 5 4.03 2017 Inside Camp David: The Private World of the Presidential Retreat
author: Michael Giorgione
name: David
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2020/01/03
date added: 2020/01/03
shelves:
review:
Good easy read and I learned a bit while getting an insider’s look into the happenings of the presidency
]]> <![CDATA[Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism]]> 173435 256 Douglas Brinkley 0060776846 David 4 american-history A bit more on the expansion of the Knights of Columbus and Father McGivney's shadow role would have been welcome, although with limited documentation to validate it, it would have been conjecture.]]> 3.98 2006 Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism
author: Douglas Brinkley
name: David
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2018/06/09
date added: 2018/06/09
shelves: american-history
review:
This was a well written account of the life of Father Michael McGivney using limited documentation. The bio information was sparse and the authors filled in with the history of the Catholic Church in Connecticut and New England in general. The founding of the Knights of Columbus was covered well as it is essential to the ongoing legacy of the life of Father McGivney. If you have an expectation of a full biography you will be disappointed. If you temper your expectations to a more general coverage of Father McGivney and Catholicism in Connecticut, you will be pleased.
A bit more on the expansion of the Knights of Columbus and Father McGivney's shadow role would have been welcome, although with limited documentation to validate it, it would have been conjecture.
]]> <![CDATA[SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome]]> 28789711 SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.]]> 606 Mary Beard 1631492225 David 0 to-read 4.04 2015 SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome
author: Mary Beard
name: David
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/01/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism]]> 17334495 Team of Rivals, captures the Progressive Era through the story of the broken friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, culminating in their running against one another for president in 1912.]]> 910 Doris Kearns Goodwin David 0 american-history 4.12 2013 The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
name: David
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2018/01/14
date added: 2018/01/14
shelves: american-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catholic High Schools: Facing the New Realities]]> 9937128
After presenting the history of Catholic schools in the United States and describing the major legal decisions that have influenced their evolution, Heft describes the distinctive and compelling mission of a Catholic high school. Two chapters are devoted to leadership, and other chapters to teachers, students, alternative models of high schools, financing, and the key role of parents, who today may be described as ''post-deferential'' to traditional authorities, including bishops and priests.

Written by an award-winning teacher, scholar, and recognized educational leader in Catholic education, Catholic High Schools should be read by everyone interested in religiously- affiliated educational institutions, particularly Catholic education.]]> 272 James L. Heft S. M. 0199796653 David 0 education 4.20 2011 Catholic High Schools: Facing the New Realities
author: James L. Heft S. M.
name: David
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2018/01/14
date added: 2018/01/14
shelves: education
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains]]> 6966823 The best-selling author of The Big Switch returns with an explosive look at technology’s effect on the mind.

“Is Google making us stupid?� When Nicholas Carr posed that question in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the Net is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.]]> 276 Nicholas Carr 0393072223 David 0 education 3.80 2010 The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
author: Nicholas Carr
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2018/01/14
date added: 2018/01/14
shelves: education
review:

]]> The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 24583 244 Mark Twain David 5 3.92 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
author: Mark Twain
name: David
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1876
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/04/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[A Most Fortunate Ship: A Narrative History of Old Ironsides]]> 3669355 421 Tyrone G. Martin 1557505888 David 0 to-read, american-history 4.43 1982 A Most Fortunate Ship: A Narrative History of Old Ironsides
author: Tyrone G. Martin
name: David
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/03/27
shelves: to-read, american-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution (Princeton Legacy Library)]]> 2957521
Originally published in 1982.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.]]> 424 Joel K. Goldstein 0691022089 David 0 to-read 4.33 1981 The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution (Princeton Legacy Library)
author: Joel K. Goldstein
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery]]> 8753495 From a master historian, the story of Lincoln's—and the nation's—transformation through the crucible of slavery and emancipation.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize

In this landmark work of deep scholarship and insight, Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner begins with Lincoln's youth in Indiana and Illinois and follows the trajectory of his career across an increasingly tense and shifting political terrain from Illinois to Washington, D.C. Although “naturally anti-slavery� for as long as he can remember, Lincoln scrupulously holds to the position that the Constitution protects the institution in the original slave states. But the political landscape is transformed in 1854 when the Kansas-Nebraska Act makes the expansion of slavery a national issue.

A man of considered words and deliberate actions, Lincoln navigates the dynamic politics deftly, taking measured steps, often along a path forged by abolitionists and radicals in his party. Lincoln rises to leadership in the new Republican Party by calibrating his politics to the broadest possible antislavery coalition. As president of a divided nation and commander in chief at war, displaying a similar compound of pragmatism and principle, Lincoln finally embraces what he calls the Civil War's “fundamental and astounding� result: the immediate, uncompensated abolition of slavery and recognition of blacks as American citizens.

Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.]]> 336 Eric Foner 0393066185 David 0 to-read 4.17 2010 The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
author: Eric Foner
name: David
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/12/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945]]> 106317
The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike.

Freedom From Fear explores how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could.

Both comprehensive and colorful, this account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War, reveals a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed.]]> 936 David M. Kennedy 0195144031 David 5 to-read 4.19 1999 Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
author: David M. Kennedy
name: David
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden]]> 15811149
After masterminding the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden managed to vanish. Over the next ten years, as Bowden shows, America found that its war with al Qaeda—a scattered group of individuals who were almost impossible to track—demanded an innovative approach. Step by step, Bowden describes the development of a new tactical strategy to fight this war—the fusion of intel from various agencies and on-the-ground special ops. After thousands of special forces missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the right weapon to go after bin Laden had finally evolved. By Spring 2011, intelligence pointed to a compound in Abbottabad; it was estimated that there was a 50/50 chance that Osama was there. Bowden shows how three strategies were mooted: a drone strike, a precision bombing, or an assault by Navy SEALs. In the end, the President had to make the final decision. It was time for the finish.]]> 266 Mark Bowden 0802120342 David 0 to-read 3.77 2012 The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden
author: Mark Bowden
name: David
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Complete Book of U.S. Presidents]]> 1715991 769 William DeGregorio 0517082446 David 5 american-history Excellent reference book. 3.80 1984 Complete Book of U.S. Presidents
author: William DeGregorio
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/09/03
shelves: american-history
review:
Excellent reference book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield: A Tragedy of the Gilded Age (American Portraits, 1)]]> 10593692
Even before he was shot dead on the stairway of the tony Grand Central Hotel in 1872, financier James “Jubilee Jim� Fisk, Jr., was a notorious New York City figure. From his audacious attempt to corner the gold market in 1869 to his battle for control of the geographically crucial Erie Railroad, Fisk was a flamboyant exemplar of a new financial era marked by volatile fortunes and unprecedented greed and corruption. But it was his scandalously open affair with a showgirl named Josie Mansfield that ultimately led to his demise.]]> 206 H.W. Brands 030774325X David 4 3.25 2011 The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield: A Tragedy of the Gilded Age (American Portraits, 1)
author: H.W. Brands
name: David
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2013/02/07
date added: 2013/02/07
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[John Carter of Mars (Barsoom, #11)]]> 40388 Menace from Space
No sooner had John Carter fought off the seemingly invincible giant warrior attacking the mighty city of Helium than he was faced with a more terrifying challenge from the gulfs of space. Skeleton creatures from Jupiter were plotting the conquest of Mars—and their first act was to kidnap the red planet's warlord!

Includes:
John Carter and the Giant of Mars
Skeleton Men of Jupiter]]> 167 Edgar Rice Burroughs 0345329554 David 4 3.85 1943 John Carter of Mars (Barsoom, #11)
author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
name: David
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1943
rating: 4
read at: 2013/01/20
date added: 2013/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Warlord of Mars (Barsoom, #3)]]> 40379
Duration: 5 hr., 48 min.]]> 6 Edgar Rice Burroughs 1400130220 David 3 3.86 1916 The Warlord of Mars (Barsoom, #3)
author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1916
rating: 3
read at: 2013/02/04
date added: 2013/02/07
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Thuvia, Maid of Mars (Barsoom, #4)]]> 40387
Excerpt:
Upon a massive bench of polished ersite beneath the gorgeous blooms of a giant pimalia a woman sat. Her shapely, sandalled foot tapped impatiently upon the jewel-strewn walk that wound beneath the stately sorapus trees across the scarlet sward of the royal gardens of Thuvan Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth, as a dark-haired, red-skinned warrior bent low toward her, whispering heated words close to her ear. "Ah, Thuvia of Ptarth," he cried, "you are cold even before the fiery blasts of my consuming love! No harder than your heart, nor colder is the hard, cold ersite of this thrice happy bench which supports your divine and fadeless form! Tell me, O Thuvia of Ptarth, that I may still hope-that though you do not love me now, yet some day, some day, my princess, I-" The girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise and displeasure. Her queenly head was poised haughtily upon her smooth red shoulders. Her dark eyes looked angrily into those of the man.]]> 160 Edgar Rice Burroughs 0345339932 David 3 3.74 1916 Thuvia, Maid of Mars (Barsoom, #4)
author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
name: David
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1916
rating: 3
read at: 2013/02/01
date added: 2013/02/07
shelves:
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]]> The Gods of Mars (Barsoom #2) 841973
The Gods of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the second of his Barsoom series. It was first published in The All-Story as a five-part serial in the issues for January-May 1913.[1] It was later published as a complete novel by A. C. McClurg in September, 1918.

Excerpt:
For moments after that awful laugh had ceased reverberating through the rocky room, Tars Tarkas and I stood in tense and expectant silence. But no further sound broke the stillness, nor within the range of our vision did aught move.At length Tars Tarkas laughed softly, after the manner of his strange kind when in the presence of the horrible or terrifying. It is not an hysterical laugh, but rather the genuine expression of the pleasure they derive from the things that move Earth men to loathing or to tears.Often and again have I seen them roll upon the ground in mad fits of uncontrollable mirth when witnessing the death agonies of women and little children beneath the torture of that hellish green Martian fete-the Great Games.I looked up at the Thark, a smile upon my own lips, for here in truth was greater need for a smiling face than a trembling chin.]]> 190 Edgar Rice Burroughs 0345324390 David 3 3.88 1913 The Gods of Mars (Barsoom #2)
author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
name: David
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1913
rating: 3
read at: 2013/01/12
date added: 2013/01/12
shelves:
review:
Next in the series, much better than the movie. In fact, as I read, the movie had so little. If they had stuck closer the the original story, they would have had more of their target audience. I believe that Deja Thoris walks around naked. How about Lynne Collins that Way/ Yeah, teenage boys would have been lining up.
]]> <![CDATA[A Princess of Mars (Barsoom, #1)]]> 40395 186 Edgar Rice Burroughs 0143104888 David 3 3.81 1912 A Princess of Mars (Barsoom, #1)
author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
name: David
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1912
rating: 3
read at: 2013/01/09
date added: 2013/01/12
shelves:
review:
For pulp fiction, it was not bad. It still prefer Robert E. Howard, but Edgar can hold his own. I am plowing through the entire Barsoom series now.
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Sheet Music for Flute with CD]]> 2223324 24 John Williams 075791084X David 0 4.61 2003 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Sheet Music for Flute with CD
author: John Williams
name: David
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2013/01/12
date added: 2013/01/12
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)]]> 34
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
--back cover]]> 398 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618346252 David 0 4.36 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: David
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at: 2013/01/12
date added: 2013/01/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2012]]> 12394564 226 Allan J. Lichtman 144221211X David 5 3.90 1992 Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House 2012
author: Allan J. Lichtman
name: David
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2013/01/12
date added: 2013/01/12
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency]]> 2938650 297 Jeremy Lott 1595550828 David 3 3.52 2008 Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency
author: Jeremy Lott
name: David
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2012/11/23
date added: 2012/11/23
shelves:
review:
Written in a very vernacular style, this book had some great information but missed at least one important event in the vice presidency. Mr. Lott had obviously completed some great research. I learned quite a bit about Spiro Agnew but Mr. Lott did not go into Richard Mentor Johnson's election to the vice presidency, an important event in the office of the Vice President.
]]> <![CDATA[Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents]]> 387973 For some of our chief executives, great crisis meant great opportunity, as can be seen in the lasting legacies of Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. But what of presidents such as Ronald Reagan, who succeeded despite having served during relatively benign times? And what of luck? Isn't it possible that the onset of The Great Depression doomed a competent and intelligent Herbert Hoover to failure? In answer to these questions, Robert Dallek investigates the five qualities--vision, pragmatism, consensus, charisma, and trust--that have defined our most effective presidents. The product of meticulous research, the book presents numerous examples of these qualities in action, and also details the failures that accompany their absence.
From Washington's masterful efforts at nation building to Lincoln's leadership through the greatest crisis in the country's history; from the beneficent paternalism of FDR to Lyndon Johnson's tragic miscalculations in Vietnam and his achievements in advancing civil rights, Dallek offers a penetrating analysis of the presidency, the personalities who have defined it, and the strategies that led to their triumphs and defeats.]]> 256 Robert Dallek 0195145828 David 3 3.88 1996 Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents
author: Robert Dallek
name: David
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush]]> 586079
In the old days, Boller shows, campaigns were much rowdier than they are today. Back in the nineteenth century, the invective at election time was exuberant and the mudslinging unrestrained; a candidate might be called everything from a carbuncle-faced old drunkard to a howling atheist. But there was plenty of fun and games, too, with songs and slogans, speeches and parades, all livening up the scene in order to get people to the polls. Presidential Campaigns takes note of the serious side of elections even as it documents the frenzy, frolic and the sleaze. Each chapter contains a brief essay describing an election and presenting "campaign highlights" that bring to life the quadrennial confrontation in all its shame and glory.

With a postscript analyzing the major changes in the ways Americans have chosen their Presidents from Washington's time to the present, Presidential Campaigns gives the reader a full picture of this somewhat flawed procedure. For all of its shortcomings, though, this "great American shindig" is an essential part of the American democratic system and, for better or for worse, tells us much about ourselves.]]> 496 Paul F. Boller Jr. 0195167163 David 3 3.72 1984 Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush
author: Paul F. Boller Jr.
name: David
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/11/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Winter of the World (The Century Trilogy #2)]]> 12959233 Carla von Ulrich, born of German and English parents, finds her life engulfed by the Nazi tide until she commits a deed of great courage and heartbreak. . . . American brothers Woody and Chuck Dewar, each with a secret, take separate paths to momentous events, one in Washington, the other in the bloody jungles of the Pacific. . . . English student Lloyd Williams discovers in the crucible of the Spanish Civil War that he must fight Communism just as hard as Fascism. . . . Daisy Peshkov, a driven American social climber, cares only for popularity and the fast set, until the war transforms her life, not just once but twice, while her cousin Volodya carves out a position in Soviet intelligence that will affect not only this war—but the war to come.

These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as their experiences illuminate the cataclysms that marked the century. From the drawing rooms of the rich to the blood and smoke of battle, their lives intertwine, propelling the reader into dramas of ever-increasing complexity.

]]> 940 Ken Follett 0525952926 David 0 to-read 4.36 2012 Winter of the World (The Century Trilogy #2)
author: Ken Follett
name: David
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/11/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, #1)]]> 7315573
This is an epic of love, hatred, war and revolution. This is a huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women.
It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and to two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. In a plot of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, "Fall Of Giants" moves seamlessly from Washington to St Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty.]]> 985 Ken Follett 0525951652 David 0 to-read 4.31 2010 Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, #1)
author: Ken Follett
name: David
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power]]> 15796868 Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.


Ěý
Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history.


Ěý
The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion.


Ěý
The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.]]> 907 Jon Meacham 0679645365 David 0 3.96 2012 Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
author: Jon Meacham
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/11/18
shelves: to-read, american-hist-rev-war-era
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America]]> 329424 360 Walter R. Borneman 0060761849 David 4 3.94 2006 The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America
author: Walter R. Borneman
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2012/11/18
date added: 2012/11/18
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[President Kennedy: Profile of Power]]> 14449 800 Richard Reeves 0671892894 David 5 4.08 1993 President Kennedy: Profile of Power
author: Richard Reeves
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2012/11/18
date added: 2012/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System � and Themselves]]> 10284779
Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book

â€� Too Big To Fail is too good to put down. . . . It is the story of the actors in the most extraordinary financial spectacle in 80 years, and it is told brilliantly.”Ě� â€� The Economist Ěý

“Vigorously reported, superbly organized . . . For those of us who didn’t pursue MBAs—and have the penny-ante salaries to prove it —Sorkin’s book offers a clear, cogent explanation of what happened and why it matters.”� —Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune

“Sorkin’s prodigious reporting and lively writing put the reader in the room for some of the biggest-dollar conference calls in history. It’s an entertaining, brisk book.”Ě� â€� Paul M. Barrett,Ěý The New York Times Book Review Ěý

“Sorkin’s densely detailed and astonishing narrative of the epic financial crisis of 2008 is an extraordinary achievement that will be hard to surpass as the definitive account.”Ě� —John Gapper,Ěý Financial Times Ěý

A brilliantly reported true-life thriller that goes behind the scenes of the financial crisis on Wall Street and in Washington, the basis for the HBO film Ěý

In one of the most gripping financial narratives in decades, Andrew Ross Sorkin-a New York Times columnist and one of the country's most respected financial reporters-delivers the first definitive blow- by-blow account of the epochal economic crisis that brought the world to the brink. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, he re-creates all the drama and turmoil of these turbulent days, revealing never-before-disclosed details and recounting how, motivated as often by ego and greed as by fear and self-preservation, the most powerful men and women in finance and politics decided the fate of the world's economy.]]> 640 Andrew Ross Sorkin 0143120271 David 0 4.13 2009 Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System — and Themselves
author: Andrew Ross Sorkin
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2012/10/21
date added: 2012/10/21
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians]]> 13259755
The author of the acclaimed biography of President James Polk, A Country of Vast Designs, offers a fresh, playful, and challenging way of playing “Rating the Presidents,� by pitching historians� views and subsequent experts� polls against the judgment and votes of the presidents� own contemporaries.

Merry posits that presidents rise and fall based on performance, as judged by the electorate. Thus, he explores the presidency by comparing the judgments of historians with how the voters saw things. Was the president reelected? If so, did his party hold office in the next election?

Where They Stand examines the chief executives Merry calls “Men of Destiny,’� those who set the country toward new directions. There are six of them, including the three nearly always at the top of all academic polls—Lincoln, Washington, and FDR. He describes the “Split-Decision Presidents’� (including Wilson and Nixon)—successful in their first terms and reelected; less successful in their second terms and succeeded by the opposition party. He describes the “Near Greats’� (Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, TR, Truman), the “War Presidents’� (Madison, McKinley, Lyndon Johnson), the flat-out failures (Buchanan, Pierce), and those whose standing has fluctuated (Grant, Cleveland, Eisenhower).

This voyage through our history provides a probing and provocative analysis of how presidential politics works and how the country sets its course. Where They Stand invites readers to pitch their opinions against the voters of old, the historians, the pollsters—and against the author himself. In this year of raucous presidential politics, Where They Stand will provide a context for the unfolding campaign drama.]]> 320 Robert W. Merry 1451625405 David 4 3.46 2012 Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians
author: Robert W. Merry
name: David
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2012/10/21
date added: 2012/10/21
shelves:
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]]> The Lincoln Conspiracy 13414572
From award-winning journalist Timothy L. O’Brien comes a gripping historical thriller that poses a provocative question: What if the plot to assassinate President Lincoln was wider and more sinister than we ever imagined?

In late spring of 1865, as America mourns the death of its leader, Washington, D.C., police detective Temple McFadden makes a startling discovery. Strapped to the body of a dead man at the B&O Railroad station are two diaries, two documents that together reveal the true depth of the Lincoln conspiracy. Securing the diaries will put Temple’s life in jeopardy—and will endanger the fragile peace of a nation still torn by war.

Temple’s quest to bring the conspirators to justice takes him on a perilous journey through the gaslit streets of the Civil War–era capital, into bawdy houses and back alleys where ruthless enemies await him in every shadowed corner. Aided by an underground network of friends—and by his wife, Fiona, a nurse who possesses a formidable arsenal of medicinal potions—Temple must stay one step ahead of Lafayette Baker, head of the Union Army’s spy service. Along the way, he’ll run from or rely on Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s fearsome secretary of war; the legendary Scottish spymaster Allan Pinkerton; abolitionist Sojourner Truth; the photographer Alexander Gardner; and many others.

Bristling with twists and building to a climax that will leave readers gasping, The Lincoln Conspiracy offers a riveting new account of what truly motivated the assassination of one of America’s most beloved presidents—and who participated in the plot to derail the train of liberty that Lincoln set in motion.]]> 353 Timothy L. O'Brien 0345496779 David 0 to-read 3.30 2012 The Lincoln Conspiracy
author: Timothy L. O'Brien
name: David
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/10/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth]]> 10146243 The President Is a Sick Man details an extraordinary but almost unknown chapter in American history: Grover Cleveland’s secret cancer surgery and the brazen political cover-up by a politician whose most memorable quote was “Tell the truth.� When an enterprising reporter named E. J. Edwards exposed the secret operation, Cleveland denied it. The public believed the “Honest President,� and Edwards was dismissed as “a disgrace to journalism.� The facts concerning the disappearance of Grover Cleveland that summer were so well concealed that even more than a century later a full and fair account has never been published. Until now.]]> 255 Matthew Algeo 156976350X David 4 3.93 2011 The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth
author: Matthew Algeo
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2012/07/24
date added: 2012/07/26
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence]]> 138808 482 A.J. Langguth 0743226186 David 0 american-history 3.73 2006 Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence
author: A.J. Langguth
name: David
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2012/07/24
date added: 2012/07/24
shelves: american-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said]]> 22584
When he finally found a man who would agree to counterfeiting such cards for him, that man turned out to be a police informer. And then Taverner found out not only what it was like to be a nobody but also to be hunted by the whole apparatus of society.

It was obvious that in some way Taverner had become the pea in in some sort of cosmic shell game—but how? And why?

Philip K. Dick takes the reader on a walking tour of solipsism's scariest margin in his latest novel about the age we are already half into.]]> 204 Philip K. Dick 1857983416 David 0 3.93 1974 Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
author: Philip K. Dick
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2012/07/24
date added: 2012/07/24
shelves:
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]]> The Fountains of Paradise 149049 332 Arthur C. Clarke 0446677949 David 0 3.96 1979 The Fountains of Paradise
author: Arthur C. Clarke
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at: 2012/07/24
date added: 2012/07/24
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, #1)]]> 7108001 Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.]]> 336 Seth Grahame-Smith 0446563080 David 5 fiction 3.72 2010 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, #1)
author: Seth Grahame-Smith
name: David
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2012/07/08
date added: 2012/07/08
shelves: fiction
review:
Fun read, the people and the events were accurately described, just the motivations and an understory was inserted. The screen play for the movie is quite different. I mean, come on, you have to keep a video age audience happy so the screenplay has more action and suspense to it. If you are a historian and you just do not take it seriously, you will have a lot of fun with it.
]]> <![CDATA[Second Foundation (Foundation, #3)]]> 29580 256 Isaac Asimov 0553803735 David 4 fantasy-and-science-fiction 4.27 1953 Second Foundation (Foundation, #3)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: David
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at: 2012/07/05
date added: 2012/07/05
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth, #1)]]> 76664
For Bink of North Village, however, Xanth was no fairy tale. He alone had no magic. And unless he got some - and got some fast! - he would be exiled. Forever!

But the Good Magician Humfrey was convinced that Bink did indeed have magic. In fact, both Beauregard the genie and the magic wall chart insisted that Bink had magic. Magic as powerful as any possessed by the King or by Good Magician Humfrey - or even by the Evil Magician Trent

Be that as it may, no one could fathom the nature of Bink's very special magic. Bink was in despair. This was even worse than having no magic at all..and he would still be exiled!]]> 344 Piers Anthony 034525855X David 5 fantasy-and-science-fiction 3.91 1977 A Spell for Chameleon (Xanth, #1)
author: Piers Anthony
name: David
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/07/02
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Foundation and Empire (Foundation, #2)]]> 29581 256 Isaac Asimov 0553803727 David 4 fantasy-and-science-fiction 4.23 1952 Foundation and Empire (Foundation, #2)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: David
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1952
rating: 4
read at: 2012/06/30
date added: 2012/07/02
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas (The Lamar Series in Western History)]]> 2746426 512 Gregg Cantrell 0300076835 David 5 texas-hist 4.14 1999 Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas (The Lamar Series in Western History)
author: Gregg Cantrell
name: David
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/07/02
shelves: texas-hist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lone Star Nation: How a Ragged Army of Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence - and Changed America]]> 6888
"For better or for worse, Texas was very much like America. The people ruled, and little could stop them. If they ignored national boundaries, if they trampled the rights of indigenous peoples and of imported bondsmen, if they waged war for motives that started from base self-interest, all this came with the territory of democracy, a realm inhabited by ordinarily imperfect men and women. The one saving grace of democracy—the one that made all the difference in the end—was that sooner or later, sometimes after a terrible strife, democracy corrected its worst mistakes."
--from Lone Star Nation

Lone Star Nation is the gripping story of Texas's precarious journey to statehood, from its early colonization in the 1820s to the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad by the Mexican army, from its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches to its day of liberation as an upstart republic. H. W. Brands tells the turbulent story of Texas through the eyes of a colorful cast of characters who have become a permanent fixture in the American Stephen Austin, the state's reluctant founder; Sam Houston, the alcoholic former governor who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisis and glory; William Travis, James Bowie, and David Crockett, the unforgettable heroic defenders of the doomed Alamo; Santa Anna, the Mexican generalissimo and dictator whose ruthless tactics galvanized the colonists against him; and the white-haired President Andrew Jackson whose expansionist aspirations loomed large in the background. Beyond these luminaries, Brands unearths the untold stories of the forgotten Texans--the slaves, women, unknown settlers, and children left out of traditional histories--who played crucial roles in Texas’s birth. By turns bloody and heroic, tragic and triumphant, this riveting history of one of our greatest states reads like the most compelling fiction, and further secures H. W. Brands's position as one of the premier American historians.]]> 582 H.W. Brands 0385507372 David 5 4.16 2003 Lone Star Nation: How a Ragged Army of Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence - and Changed America
author: H.W. Brands
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/07/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death of Kings (The Saxon Stories, #6)]]> 11734251
For the Viking-raised but Saxon-born warrior, Uhtred, whose life seems to shadow the making of England, this presents him with difficult choices. King Alfred is dying and his passing threatens the island of Britain to renewed warfare. Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne as well as ambitious pagan Vikings to the north.

Uhtred's loyalty - and his vows - were to Alfred, not to his son, and despite his long years of service to Alfred, he is still not committed to the Saxon cause. His own desire is to reclaim his long lost lands and castle to the north. But the challenge to him, as the king's warrior, is that he knows that he will either be the means of making Alfred's dream of a united and Christian England come to pass or be responsible for condemning it to oblivion.

This novel is a dramatic story of the power of tribal commitment and the terrible difficulties of divided loyalties. This is the making of England magnificently brought to life.]]> 335 Bernard Cornwell 0007331789 David 4 fiction 4.28 2011 Death of Kings (The Saxon Stories, #6)
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: David
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2012/06/21
date added: 2012/06/21
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Demons of the Dancing Gods (Dancing Gods, #2)]]> 981781 259 Jack L. Chalker 034530893X David 0 3.77 1984 Demons of the Dancing Gods (Dancing Gods, #2)
author: Jack L. Chalker
name: David
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The River of Dancing Gods (Dancing Gods #1)]]> 1416797
There lay a world where fairies still danced by moonlight and sorcery became real. Joe could become a mighty-thewed barbarian warrior. Marge could be beautiful and find her magical self.

And it was even as Throckmorton P. Ruddygore, the strange wizard, had promised. But there was a great deal more, as they soon learned.

This was a world where Hell still strove to win its ancient war and demon princes sent men into battles of dark magic. It was a world where Joe and Marge must somehow help prevent the coming of Armageddon.]]> 263 Jack L. Chalker 0345308921 David 0 3.81 1984 The River of Dancing Gods (Dancing Gods #1)
author: Jack L. Chalker
name: David
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Elric Saga Part II (Elric Saga, #4-6)]]> 102287 471 Michael Moorcock 1568650418 David 0 4.18 1979 The Elric Saga Part II (Elric Saga, #4-6)
author: Michael Moorcock
name: David
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Elric Saga Part I (Elric Saga, #1-3)]]> 60132 374 Michael Moorcock 156865040X David 0 4.10 1984 The Elric Saga Part I (Elric Saga, #1-3)
author: Michael Moorcock
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Swords Trilogy (Corum, #1-3)]]> 399373 403 Michael Moorcock 0441792391 David 0 4.10 1971 The Swords Trilogy (Corum, #1-3)
author: Michael Moorcock
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Elric of Melniboné (The Elric Saga, #1)]]> 30036
The youthful Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. More interested in brooding contemplation than holding the throne, Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne, usually over his dead body. Elric of Melniboné follows Yrkoon's scheming, reaching its climax in a battle between Elric and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga. --Paul Hughes]]> 181 Michael Moorcock 0441203981 David 0 3.90 1972 Elric of Melniboné (The Elric Saga, #1)
author: Michael Moorcock
name: David
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction, fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo #2)]]> 424975

More than a marvelously thrilling drama, this classic novel, written in 1870, foretells with uncanny accuracy the inventions and advanced technology of the twentieth century and has become a literary stepping-stone for generations of science fiction writers.]]> 448 Jules Verne 0553212524 David 0 3.73 1869 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo #2)
author: Jules Verne
name: David
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1869
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: to-read, fantasy-and-science-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits]]> 451565 428 Friedrich Nietzsche 0521567041 David 0 to-read 4.24 1878 Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: David
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1878
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Histories 1362
Here is the historian, investigating and judging what he has seen, heard, and read, and seeking out the true causes and consequences of the great deeds of the past. In his History , the war between the Greeks and Persians, the origins of their enmity, and all the more general features of the civilizations of the world of his day are seen as a unity and expressed as the vision of one man who as a child lived through the last of the great acts in this universal drama.

In Grene's remarkable translation and commentary, we see the historian as a storyteller, combining through his own narration the skeletal "historical" facts and the imaginative reality toward which his story reaches. Herodotus emerges in all his charm and complexity as a writer and the first historian in the Western tradition, perhaps unique in the way he has seen the interrelation of fact and fantasy.]]> 784 Herodotus 0140449086 David 3 3.98 -430 The Histories
author: Herodotus
name: David
average rating: 3.98
book published: -430
rating: 3
read at: 2012/06/01
date added: 2012/06/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Foundation (Foundation, #1) 29579 The first novel in Isaac Asimov's classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.]]> 244 Isaac Asimov 0553803719 David 0 american-lit 4.18 1951 Foundation (Foundation, #1)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: David
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at: 2012/06/18
date added: 2012/06/18
shelves: american-lit
review:

]]> Prelude to Foundation 30013 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780586071113

It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall—those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.

Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire. . .the man who holds the key to the future—an apocalyptic power to be known forever after as the Foundation.]]> 460 Isaac Asimov David 5 fantasy-and-science-fiction 4.16 1988 Prelude to Foundation
author: Isaac Asimov
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2012/06/12
date added: 2012/06/17
shelves: fantasy-and-science-fiction
review:
This was an excellent lead up to the Foundation which I am currently reading Asimov is simply a master of a rolling narrative of a story line which is both interesting and suspenseful.
]]> <![CDATA[Hard Tack and Coffee: Or the Unwritten Story of Army Life]]> 11291192 8 John Davis Billings 1441741771 David 0 0.0 1887 Hard Tack and Coffee: Or the Unwritten Story of Army Life
author: John Davis Billings
name: David
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1887
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/06/14
shelves: american-history, american-civil-war
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour]]> 3537605 784 William C. Davis 0060167068 David 0 4.02 1991 Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour
author: William C. Davis
name: David
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/05/28
shelves: american-civil-war, american-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic]]> 450677
This masterpiece of narrative and analysis, first published in hardback in 2004, brings the latest scholarship to bear on the oldest questions. Well-known characters such as Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, and General Santa Anna—and the cultures they represented—are etched in sharp and very human relief as they carve out the republic whose Lone Star rose in 1836 and changed the course of a continent.

ĚýĚý]]> 376 William C. Davis 1585445320 David 0 american-history, texas-hist 3.83 2003 Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic
author: William C. Davis
name: David
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2012/05/28
shelves: american-history, texas-hist
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government]]> 1547892 An Honorable Defeat is the story of the four months that saw the surrender of the South and the assassination of Lincoln by Southern partisans. It is also the story of two men, antagonists yet political partners, who struggled to achieve their own differing visions for the South: Jefferson Davis, the autocratic president of the Confederate States, who vowed never to surrender whatever the cost; and the practical and warm General John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, who hoped pragmatism would save the shattered remnants of the land he loved so dearly.
Noted historian William C. Davis traces the astounding flight of these men, and the entire Confederate cabinet, from Richmond. Using original research, he narrates the futile quarrels of Davis and Breckinridge as they try to evade Northern pursuers and describes their eventual--and separate--captures. The result is a rich canvas of a time of despair and defeat, a charged tale full of physical adventure and political battle that sweeps from the marble halls of Richmond to a dingy room in a Havana hotel.
]]> 512 William C. Davis 0156007487 David 0 3.94 2001 An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government
author: William C. Davis
name: David
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2012/05/28
shelves: american-civil-war, american-history
review:

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