First sentence:
"For sixty-five days, the Mayflower had blundered her way through storms and headwinds, her bottom a shaggy pelt of seaweed and barnacles, her leaky decks spewing salt water onto her passengers' devoted heads."
Description:
"How did America begin?
That simple question launches acclaimed author Nathaniel Philbrick on an extraordinary journey to understand the truth behind our most sacred national myth: the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony. As Philbrick reveals in this electrifying new history of the Pilgrims, the story of Plymouth Colony was a fifty-five year epic that began in peril and ended in war. New England erupted into a bloody conflict that nearly wiped out the English colonists and natives alike/ These events shaped the existing communities and the country that would grow from them." -- from the back cover
My thoughts:
I learned a lot from this book concerning early interactions between Europeans and the various tribes in New England. For example, I didn't know, before reading the book, that Plymouth was a separate colony from the Massachusetts Bay colony to the north. I also learned that a big part of the reasons for the wars between the settlers and the natives was desire for power and for land.
Date read: 10/1/2016
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History
ISBN-10: 0143111973
ISBN-13: 9780143111979
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 2006
# of pages: 463
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Thursday, May 28, 2015
May 2015: Sea of Glory; The Last Hot Time; Gray Mountain
My thoughts:
I liked this book about the U.S. Exploring Expedition. Philbrick's prose nicely details both the discoveries and the people involved.
Date read: 5/15/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History
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My thoughts:
I liked this fantasy of a man who crosses worlds to become a doctor for otherworldly characters.
Date read: 5/21/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy
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My thoughts:
I liked this book about a lawyer who enters a new world and discovers she can make a difference in people's lives.
Date read: 5/27/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction
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Saturday, April 4, 2015
Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth
"Nonnatus House was both a convent and the working base for the nursing and midwifery services of the Sisters of St Raymund Nonnatus."
Description:
When twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood's most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are the true stories of the people Worth met who grew up in the dreaded workhouse, a Dickensian institution that limped on into the middle of the twentieth century.
Orphaned brother and sister Peggy and Frank lived in the workhouse until Frank got free and returned to rescue his sister. Bubbly Jane's spirit was broken by the cruelty of the workhouse master until she found kindness and romance years later at Nonnatus House. Mr. Collett, a Boer War veteran, lost his family in the two world wars and died in the workhouse.
Though these are stories of unimaginable hardship, what shines through each is the resilience of the human spirit and the strength, courage, and humor of people determined to build a future for themselves against the odds. This is an enduring work of literary nonfiction, at once a warmhearted coming-of-age story and a startling look at people's lives in the poorest section of postwar London." -- from the back cover
My thoughts:
I liked the second book in the Midwife Trilogy series. I especially liked how Jennifer learned to look past the conditions to engage with the people directly. I'm looking forward to reading the third book, Farewell to the East End.
Date read: 4/3/2015
Book #: 6
Series: Call the Midwife #2
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir/History
ISBN-10: 0062270044
ISBN-13: 9780062270047
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2005
# of pages: 293
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Monday, March 16, 2015
Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth
"Nonnatus House was situated in the heart of the London Docklands."
Description:
"At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London's East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies...from the plucky warmhearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children, to the prostitutes and dockers of the city's seedier side...illuminate a fascinating time in history." -- LibraryThing.com member description
My thoughts:
I enjoyed this memoir about working as a midwife in the East End of London in the 1950s. Worth's description of the people she met and worked with brought the period to life. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse.
Date read: 3/15/2015
Book # 4
Series: Midwife Trilogy, #1
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Memoir/History
ISBN-10: 0143123254
ISBN-13: 9780143123255
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2012
# of pages: 352
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Tuesday, February 24, 2015
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
"On a warm spring evening just before Easter 1927, people who lived in tall buildings in New York were given pause when the wooden scaffolding around the tower of the brand new Sherry-Netherland Apartment Hotel caught fire and it became evident that the city's firemen lacked any means to get water to such a height."
Description:
"In One Summer Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life.
The summer of 1927 began with one of the signature events of the twentieth century: on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane nonstop, and when he landed in Le Bourget airfield near Paris, he ignited an explosion of worldwide rapture and instantly became the most famous person on the planet. Meanwhile, the titanically talented Babe Ruth was beginning his assault on the home run record, which would culminate on September 30 with his sixtieth blast, one of the most resonant and durable records in sports history. In between those dates a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her corset-salesman lover garroted her husband, leading to a murder trial that became a huge tabloid sensation. Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole in Newark, New Jersey, for twelve days—a new record. The American South was clobbered by unprecedented rain and by flooding of the Mississippi basin, a great human disaster, the relief efforts for which were guided by the uncannily able and insufferably pompous Herbert Hoover. Calvin Coolidge interrupted an already leisurely presidency for an even more relaxing three-month vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gangster Al Capone tightened his grip on the illegal booze business through a gaudy and murderous reign of terror and municipal corruption. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed and forever changed the motion picture industry. The four most powerful central bankers on earth met in secret session on a Long Island estate and made a fateful decision that virtually guaranteed a future crash and depression.
All this and much, much more transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bill Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor. In that year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order." -- Amazon.com
My thoughts:
This is a very good book focusing on one summer in American history. I liked learning about Lindbergh's transatlantic trip to France and other pilots in this era, Babe Ruth and his setting a new home run record, and other events and people of the time.
Date read: 2/23/2015
Book #: 3
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History
ISBN-10: 0767919408
ISBN-13: 9780767919401
Publisher: Doubleday
Year: 2013
# of pages: 509
Binding: Hardcover
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Saturday, October 4, 2014
George Washington's Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade
"He was twenty-one years old and knew that in a matter of moments he would die."
Description:
"When General George Washington beat a hasty retreat from New York City in August 1776, many thought the American Revolution might soon be over. Instead, Washington rallied—thanks in large part to a little-known, top-secret group called the Culper Spy Ring.
Washington realized that he couldn’t beat the British with military might, so he recruited a sophisticated and deeply secretive intelligence network to infiltrate New York. So carefully guarded were the members’ identities that one spy’s name was not uncovered until the twentieth century, and one remains unknown today. But by now, historians have discovered enough information about the ring’s activities to piece together evidence that these six individuals turned the tide of the war.
Drawing on extensive research, Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger have painted compelling portraits of George Washington’s secret six:
- Robert Townsend, the reserved Quaker merchant and reporter who headed the Culper Ring, keeping his identity secret even from Washington;
- Austin Roe, the tavern keeper who risked his employment and his life in order to protect the mission;
- Caleb Brewster, the brash young longshoreman who loved baiting the British and agreed to ferry messages between Connecticut and New York;
- Abraham Woodhull, the curmudgeonly (and surprisingly nervous) Long Island bachelor with business and family excuses for traveling to Manhattan;
- James Rivington, the owner of a posh coffeehouse and print shop where high-ranking British officers gossiped about secret operations;
- Agent 355, a woman whose identity remains unknown but who seems to have used her wit and charm to coax officers to share vital secrets.
American Revolution." - from Amazon.com
My thoughts:
This is a fascinating book about another side to the American Revolution. Recently I've started watching the AMC drama Turn: Washington's Spies about the same topic and I highly recommend it.
Date read: 10/3/2014
Book #: 36
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre; Thriller
ISBN-10: 1595231102
ISBN-13: 9781595231109
Publisher: Sentinel
Year: 2014
# of pages: 272
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Ghosts of Cape Sabine by Leonard F. Guttridge
"It was 18 September, 1883."
Description:
"Twenty-five men went north. Only six returned alive.
In July 1881, an expedition compose mainly of American soldiers sailed off to establish a scientific base in the remote Arctic region of Lady Franklin Bay. What happened afterward is a remarkable saga of human achievement and human frailty, of heroism, hardship, bad luck and worse judgment. Compounded by deliberate political negligence back home, especially on the part of Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the late president, and increasingly fierce dissension in its own camp, the expedition's fate, and that of its would-be rescuers, eventually encompassed starvation, mutiny, suicide, shipwreck, execution. . . and cannibalism.
The story has been only partly known, and full of dark riddles, but more than seven years of research by acclaimed historian Leonard Guttridge have uncovered journals, letters, diaries, and other documentary material that for the first time provide intimate day-by-day details of the swirling events surrounding that ill-fated voyage, from turbulent birth to bizarre and tragic finale. The result is a work of nonfiction narrative that reads like a novel--a raw, vivid, harrowing adventure, brilliantly told." -- from the inside flap.
My thoughts:
Last year I read North by Roger Hubank, a fictional account of the Greely expedition. Afterwards, I wanted to read an historical account of the Greeley expedition. In this book, I learned more about problems with the first two relief attempts. I liked Guttridge's detailed end notes describing the sources from institutions such as the National Archives and the Library of Congress.
Date read: 3/12/2013
Book #: 6
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History
ISBN-10: 0399145893
ISBN-13: 9780399145896
Publisher:G.P. Putnam's Sons
Year: 2000
# of pages: 354
Binding: Hardcover
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Sunday, July 27, 2008
Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton
First sentence:"The island can be smelled before it can be seen."
Description:
"The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago--remote, tranquil, and now largely ignored. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, Run's harvest of nutmeg turned it into the most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a fierce and bloody battle between the all-powerful Dutch East India Company and a small band of ragtag British adventurers led by the intrepid Nathaniel Courthope. The outcome of the fighting was one of the most spectacular deals in history: Britain ceded Run to Holland, but in return was given another small island, Manhattan.
A brilliant adventure story of unthinkable hardship and savagery, the navigation of uncharted waters, and the exploitation of new worlds, Nathaniel's Nutmeg is a remarkable chapter in the history of the colonial powers." -- from Amazon.com
My thoughts:
Engaging and informative, this history of the English-Dutch conflict over the spice trade kept my interest throughout the book. I had known a little about how important spices were, and how the search for a new way to the Far East led to Columbus' voyages, but I didn't know all the details about the hardships the merchants and sailors went through.
Date read: 7/17/2008
Book #: 45
Challenges: What's in a Name? Challenge, Non-Fiction Five Challenge 2008
Rating: 3*/5
Genre: History
ISBN-10: 0340696761
ISBN-13: 9780340696767
Publisher: Sceptre
Year: 2000
# of Pages: 373
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Saturday, May 31, 2008
1776 by David McCullough
First sentence:"On the afternoon of Thursday, October 26, 1775, His Royal Majesty George III, King of England, rode in royal splendor from St. James's Palace to the Palace of Westminster, there to address the opening of Parliament on the increasingly distressing issue of war in America."
Description:
"In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.
Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.
Here also is the Revolution as experienced by American Loyalists, Hessian mercenaries, politicians, preachers, traitors, spies, men and women of all kinds caught in the paths of war.
At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books -- Nathanael Greene, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of winter.
But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost -- Washington, who had never before led an army in battle.
The book begins in London on October 26, 1775, when His Majesty King George III went before Parliament to declare America in rebellion and to affirm his resolve to crush it. From there the story moves to the Siege of Boston and its astonishing outcome, then to New York, where British ships and British troops appear in numbers never imagined and the newly proclaimed Continental Army confronts the enemy for the first time. David McCullough's vivid rendering of the Battle of Brooklyn and the daring American escape that followed is a part of the book few readers will ever forget.
As the crucial weeks pass, defeat follows defeat, and in the long retreat across New Jersey, all hope seems gone, until Washington launches the "brilliant stroke" that will change history.
The darkest hours of that tumultuous year were as dark as any Americans have known. Especially in our own tumultuous time, 1776 is powerful testimony to how much is owed to a rare few in that brave founding epoch, and what a miracle it was that things turned out as they did.
Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history."
My thoughts:
This book is a very informative look at a single year in American history. I liked learning about the British and Loyalist point of view as well as the problems Washington had in keeping the army together. The portraits, letters and the maps also add to the experience.
Date read: 5/13/2008
Book #: 28
Challenges: Numbers Challenge, Non-Fiction Five Challenge 2008
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History
ISBN-10: 0743226712
ISBN-13: 9780743226714
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2005
# of Pages: 294
Binding: Hardcover
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Saturday, March 8, 2008
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
First sentence:"At the age of fifteen my grandmother became the concubine of a warlord general, the police chief of a tenuous national government of China."
Description:
"Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love.
Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history."
My thoughts:
While I've read about China in bits and pieces in fiction, this is the first comprehensive nonfiction book I read on China's history in the twentieth century as told through a family's harrowing ordeal. What struck me the most is how the shifting political alliances meant that anyone could be an "enemy" at any time. I also came to admire Jung's parents for sticking to their principles even when it meant exile and harsh punishment.
Date read: 3/8/2008
Book #: 14
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Nonfiction: History/Biography/Autobiography
ISBN-10: 0385425473
ISBN-13: 9780385425476
Publisher: Anchor Books
Year: 1991
# of Pages: 508
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Edison's Eve: The Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Wood
Description:"A rich and informative exploration of our age-old obsession with 'making life.'
Could an eighteenth-century mechanical duck really digest and excrete its food? Was 'the Turk,' a celebrated chess-playing and -winning machine fabricated in 1769, a dazzling piece of fakery, or could it actually think? Why was Thomas Edison obsessed with making a mechanical doll—a perfect woman, mass-produced? Can a twenty-first-century robot express human emotions of its own?
Taking up themes long familiar from the realms of fairy tales and science fiction, Gaby Wood traces the hidden prehistory of a modern idea—the thinking, hoaxes, and inventions that presaged contemporary robotics and the current experiments with artificial intelligence. Informed by the author’s scientific and historical research, Edison’s Eve is also a brilliant literary, cultural, and philosophical examination of the motives that have driven human beings to pursue the creation of mechanical life, and the effects of that pursuit—both in its successes and in its failures—on our sense of what makes us human."
My thoughts:
This was a fascinating book about early automatons, robots and dolls. The main theme was what does it mean to be human vs. machine and how people felt about machines with human qualities or humans with machine or doll-like qualities.
Date read: 5/26/2007
Book #: 42
Genre: History
Rating: 3* = good
ISBN-10: 0679451129
ISBN-13: 9780679451129
Publisher: A.A. Knopf
Year: 2002
# of pages: 304
Binding: Hardcover
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