GREAT book, and his others are good also.
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I read that a couple months ago and loved it. Some folks are getting it for Christmas.
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Thanks Jim, I was thinking of adding his others to my list so I will now.
I really slowed down at the end not wanting to bid the Count au revoir.
I’m glad to learn of yours and Jim’s review. I’ve been curious about it and The Lincoln Highway.
A birdy tells me I’m getting Atlas Shrugged for Christmas. Another I have put off for 40 years or so.
Blood Meridian is the most disturbing book I’ve ever read.
There are numerous companion books to Blood Meridian that are worth peeking through once you’ve done.
Reading “Who Can Hold the Sea,” James Hornfischer’s final book. It’s about the US Navy and American policy from '45 to '60 during the Cold War.
What’s your favorite?
“Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors”
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“The Fleet at Flood Tide - America at Total War in the Pacific 1944-45” is also excellent.
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Just finished Alpha, by NYT military reporter David Phillips, about the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher and his team in Mosul and afterwards. “Infuriating page-turner” I think is the blurb on the front and I can’t top it.
Also I Will So Enjoy the Pleasure of Your Company by Brian Hall, a historical novel about the Lewis & Clarke expedition. This was one of my favorite novels of all time. Brian Hall is funny, hella smart, brave, and a literary stylist. He teaches you how to read the book as you read it, but it isn’t handed to you. Bravura cameos by Jefferson and Washington Irving, too.
Also Runaway by Alice Munro. I’m realizing now that the reason I threw shade on Munro stories, and the legion of admirers they drew, when I was younger, was that I was younger, and didn’t know shit about shit. I bought a new book of her short stories today. This is one wise white Canadian woman, y’all.
And about to conclude the first of the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan trilogy, My Brilliant Friend, which I’ve been reading aloud to Mrs banedoodle for the bookclub. Tried this once before (and the miniseries on HBO is good) but didn’t get into it before having the mandated sessions. Now eating it up. There is perhaps something irresistible about large Italian dramas. It helped to not think of it as a “literary sensation”.
So there’re some titles for all you stuck in the ice and cold. Have you folks availed yourselves of the iPhone’s wonderful Books app, which enables lengthy free samples of just about everything? It is one of my favorite features of techno-capitalism.
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American Exception - Dr. Aaron Good (from my hometown)
Spring trip includes stops at Mesa Verde and (probably) Little Bighorn Battlefield. If anybody has background reading tips, I’d love to hear them. Thanks!
Regarding Little Bighorn; I have read and recommend two books.
Custer and The Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell and A Terrible Glory (Custer and the Little Bighorn The Last Great Battle Of the American West) by James Donovan.
Interestingly, Connell also has written Mesa Verde according to the promotional biography inside his Custer book but I can’t find any reference to it on-line.
I’ve been to Little Bighorn twice but I think one would get a lot more out of it with a guide. I’m sure the park could set you up with one. I did not use a guide at Little Big Horn but did at Gettysburg and at Antietam and it made the experience so much greater.
BTW, anyone seeing Little Big Horn should try to get out to Glacier Nat’l Park if not having seen it.
The most glorious real estate in this land in my opinion.
Mesa Verde is pretty cool. Jared Diamond’s book – Collapse, has a section devoted to what happened to the Anasazi or Ancestral Puebloans that once occupied the area. The book about Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen Ambrose was pretty good and, of course, the big climax was the Battle of Little Bighorn
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You can’t go wrong with anything by Ambrose.
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Anazazi: Richard Wetherill is pretty specific to Anazazi/Chacoan archeology
(There’s more to the title but it’s been decades since I read it)
Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides is a fantastic book about New Mexico, the Navajo, Kit Carson, and the annexation of the American Southwest. Highly, highly recommended.
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Son of the Morning Star by Connell is a damn good read.
The British are Coming by Rick Atkinson (first of an eventual trilogy) is well done as one would expect, given his excellent “Liberation Trilogy” on the European Theater.
I recently read Blood and Thunder. Very good. Very thorough.
Atkinson did an interview on the local NPR station here in the Bay Area several years ago. It was amazing.