The History Book Club discussion

Here is your new thread for 2013.

Our Format:

JANUARY

1. Winston S. Churchill
Finish date: March 2008
Genre: (whatever genre the book happens to be)
Rating: A
Review: You can add text from a review you have written but no links to any review elsewhere even goodreads. And that is about it. Just make sure to number consecutively and just add the months.

Note: I will delete required format post once you get started.

JANUARY

1. Salman Rushdie
Finish date: January 2013
Genre: memoir
Rating: A
Review: Using the name he used while in hiding from the Fatwa, Rushdie outlines, highlights and generally limns the events of those years - eleven? I've been a fan for a long, long time and followed his adventures in marriage and hiding, so reading this was great fun as well as enlightening - as to his point of view, of course.

There's a lot of name dropping, finger pointing and thanking, but in general I felt it was an insightful, honest and thorough look at a very difficult time for him - one which the press may have used for its own purposes.

Thanks, Bryan!

2. Jonas Jonasson
Finish date: January 2013
Genre: fiction (historical?)
Rating: A-
Review: When 100-year old Allan Karlsson sneaks away from his nursing home there's no telling what will happen to him. We follow his twisting adventures with gangsters and thieves in the present time, while in alternating chapters we get to go back to his life prior to the home.

It seems this bachelor man learned how to make explosives at a very young age and after being orphaned took off to see the world. He met Franco and Stalin and Truman and LBJ. He was in Los Alamos in 1944 and in Paris in 1968 and in Tehran and North Korea sometime in between.

It got a bit long with all the adventures but as Allan enjoyed saying, “Things are what they are and whatever will be will be.” (This is NOT a political book by any means.)

3. Irène Némirovsky
Finish date: January 2013
Genre: fiction (historical/classic?)
Rating: A
Review: Némirovsky was a very popular writer in France prior to the Viche government but she was ethnically Jewish so her fate was sealed. Nevertheless some of her work has been found and translated into English. She is best known for Suite Francaise.

All Our Worldly Goods is her last completed novel prior to her death. It basically a 250-page family saga spanning 3 generations from 1900 or so to the outbreak of WWII in France. The setting is a smallish town in northern France, and the theme is pretty much the old provincial money, status and Catholic-based values vs love and war. Exquisite writing.

Irène Némirovsky

5. Amitav Ghosh
Finish date: January 2013
Genre: historical fiction
Rating: B+
Review: The history of Burma and India from the late 19th century through WWII is great but the characters are rather lifeless.

6. Jason Goodwin
Finish date: January 2013
Genre: historical crime
Rating: B+
Review: The Snake Stone is the second in Goodwin's books about the19th century Istanbuli detective eunuch, Yashim. The plot is twisty and meaty and Istanbul definitely comes alive in the hands of Goodwin who is a scholar of Byzantine history.

Good, Becky, please add January to the top of message 2, so we know what month you are on. Thanks.

Hi Becky - don't forget to correct message 2 with Bryan's helpful admonition.

MARCH

7. Jon Meacham
Finish date: March 2
Genre: biography
Rating: B+

Review: Pretty good biography overall but focusing on Jefferson's quest for and maintenance of power.

8. Christopher Hitchens
Finish date: March 22
Genre: long biographical essay
Rating: A

Review: A biographical essay more than a whole biography. Hitchens gives more space to TJ’s time in France which I appreciated.

9. Cicely Veronica Wedgwood (no photo)
Finish date: March 29
Genre: European history
Rating: A+

Review: A classic - first published in 1938 this book is well researched and beautifully written although dated in some respects.

APRIL
10. Daniel Walker Howe (no photo)
Finish date: April 2
Genre: US history
Rating: A+

Review: Howe says there is no particular theme – he wants to tell a story. The story is that of what happened in and to the US between Jefferson’s presidency and the Women’s Conference in Seneca Falls.

MAY
11. Christopher Tyerman (no photo)
Finish date: May 21
Genre: Crusades - Middle East/Europe
Rating: A-

Review: Very well researched but Tyerman needs to learn how to write - it's way too wordy.

JUNE
12. Matti Klinge
Finish date: June 27
Genre: History
Rating: A-

Klinge stays away from controversial subjects (of which there are many) and sticks to the basics. Nice illustrations and a few maps.

13. W. Harland Boyd (no photos)
Finish date: June 28
Genre: Local History
Rating: B+

Review: The full title is Stagecoach Heyday in the San Joaquin Valley 1853-1876 so this little hard cover book is local history and published by the Kern County Historical Society. For those who are interested.

JULY
14. Timothy Egan
Finish date: July 21
Genre: Biography
Rating: A-

Review: Egan tends to fall in love with his subjects but he did a pretty good job on this. Fast paced - good subject. The book could have had more photos but they're readily available online.

AUGUST
15. Charles Slack (no photo)
Finish date: August 25
Genre: Biography
Rating: A-

Review: Fascinating book - far more to Hetty than what the yellow journalists and rumor mongers of the day would have us believe. Focus is on her business acumen but it's a general biography.

16. Janet Wallach (no photo)
Finish date: August 30
Genre: Biography
Rating: B-

Review: Not as good as Slack's book - too much emphasis on the "clothes and parties" of the "Gilded Age" (for my tastes). Some interesting tidbits not included in the Slack. Wallach seems determined to turn Green into a feminist sweetheart.