- How America Saved the World by Eric Hammel (Tatnuck Bookseller)
- The Freemasons by Jasper Ridley (Tatnuck Bookseller)
- David Crockett by Michael Wallis (The Alamo Bookstore)
- Unstuck in Time by Gregory D. Sumner (Books and Beans)
- Salinger by Paul Alexander (Annie’s Book Stop)
These five books boil down to three biographies and two history books.
That’s pretty much the way I roll on a month-in month-out basis. If I read five
books, three or four of them are biography or autobiography. And even one of the
history books was primarily focused on the decisions of Franklin Roosevelt and
the key military leaders in the United States during the pre-war years. In
essence, it was a biography. Here then is where I bought the books and what
they were about.
Tatnuck Bookseller - Westborough
That said; How America Saved the
World by Eric Hammel posed a contradictory interpretation of just how
prepared the United States was prior to the start of the Second World War.
Common thinking holds that the U.S. pulled together after the attack at Pearl
Harbor and miraculously put two million soldiers and all the armaments they
needed together in less than two years. The book argues that Roosevelt and his
planners held a meeting as early as 1938 that launched the country into a true
arsenal of democracy mode. The detailed and comprehensive writing was very
convincing.
The Freemasons by Jasper
Ridley provided a history of the secret organization that sorted the myths from
the truth. It was interesting to read that at every major moment in history,
where someone has accused the Freemasons of ulterior or suspect motives, there
turned out to be just as many Freemasons on each side of the controversy. In
the Revolutionary War, where masons such as Washington and Benjamin Franklin
were leading the rebels, the British were being led by men who also were
masons. Once you understand the real behavior of these and other leaders in
history, the Freemasons are not so hard to understand.
Books and Beans -
Southbridge
At the Books and Beans shop
in Southbridge I found Unstuck in Time by
Gregory D. Sumner, which is a clever “biography” of the fourteen novels written
by Kurt Vonnegut. As the author unravels each novel, it becomes clearer how
Vonnegut evolved as a writer and as an observer of the human condition.
Vonnegut was focused on the American Dream, which also evolved over the years.
The theme of being unstuck in time moves through each novel developing its own
inertia with each novel building on the one that went before.
Annie’s Book Stop – W.Boylston
The elusive writer, J.D. Salinger is the subject of Paul Alexander’s
book, Salinger. For those who have
read The Catcher in the Rye, it is
fascinating to learn about the recluse writer and the events in his life which
may contribute to our understanding of where his story ideas came from. It is
well known as a writer’s axiom that one should write about what one knows. So,
a backwoodsman might write a tale about a bear hunting excursion and a dancer
might write about a round the world cruise assignment for an entertainment
troupe. That all makes sense. But, how does one write about a young boy named
Holden Caulfield and create a literary triumph? The biography is fascinating
and illuminating. But, not all questions are eventually answered.
The Alamo Bookstore – San Antonio
While on a reunion with friends I served with in the Air Force, we
visited the Alamo in San Antonio and I found a great book, David Crockett by Michael Wallis. I didn’t find the book in a rural
New England bookstore, but it was one of the books I read in November; so, I am
reporting on it. David Crockett was a man who became a legend in his own time.
His contemporaries made him a legend for the things he did throughout his life.
Today, he is sometimes reduced to a man who fought and died at the Alamo. But,
in essence, that was one of the least consequential actions of his life. The
real story of Crockett is more fascinating than the TV series or the portrayals
in Hollywood films.
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