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BOOKS READ IN 2003

The year of 2003 is about to close its doors and it is time to report once again the books I read this year. It is a meager list compared to prior years ---in both quantity and quality. I don’t think that I have read so little since retirement. I can’t blame my eye problems. My cataract surgery only shut down reading for a few days on each eye. I think that my interest in planting trees and mowing the farm kept me away from books more than anything else. So here goes:

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham---I did not finish reading this book. Some of the things that Grisham writes I really like and others just leave me cold. This book is in the latter category.

Hornet’s Nest by “Missy” Cummings---This is a book by a rare person. A female Air
Force officer who was selected for training in F-18 fighter jets. She eventually washes out of the elite training group she is in because of what she perceives as anti-feminist activity by the instructor staff at Pensacola where the training is held. Her story fails to convince me despite a spotless record prior to F-18 training. My opinion is that she broke under the severe tech pressure that super-sonic jet combat imposes on the pilot.
She is now a civilian and on the faculty of some University in the mid-Atlantic states. I think she was on the faculty of Virginia Tech for a short period of time. She is a very well educated person. I enjoyed reading the book but got tired of her continual complaint.

The Code Talkers by Chuck Bianchi—Interesting to me because of my insatiable
appetite for Navajo cultural orts from almost any table. It was fact-based fiction and fairly well written and even though I enjoyed it I wouldn’t recommend it for general consumption.

The Street Lawyer by John Grisham—Even though I do not have the Liberal’s
fascination with the plight of the homeless this was a better effort by Grisham than the book above. It concerns a lawyer who innocently gets himself in a very compromised position and becomes a street lawyer for the homeless and in doing so pins his former very prestigious law firm to the mat. Good writing.

5, King Arthur by Norma Lorre Goodrich—This is a very scholarly book. Ms. Goodrich
is a world renowned linguistic expert and possibly the world authority on Old French
linguistics. She sheds some new light on the Arthurian legend and disputes the fact that
Arthur ever dwelled in what is now Cornwall and also paints him as somewhat less than
a sterling character. It is a very interesting read.

6. Harvard Classics Vol. 42—English Poetry (Tennyson to Whittier)---I was looking up
something in Tennyson and got started reading poetry and couldn’t quit until I finished
the volume. I don’t have a very good poetic education but really enjoyed this read on a
day and learned to appreciate these English poets.

Marauders by Charlton Ogburn-- I was familiar with Charlton Ogburn only as the
leading exponent of the fact that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford , wrote the plays and sonnets that we have mistakenly attributed to William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon for centuries. In his book, The Mysterious Mister Shakespeare , he quite convinces me of this fact. I never knew however that he fought in World War II in the Burma theater as a member of Merrill’s Marauders that is another one of my interests. I stumbled on this fact reading one of the many book catalogs which stuff my mailbox regularly. This book is very well written and takes away some of the critical aspects of the Marauders that I picked up reading Quartered Safe Out Here.

8. Last Train To Blanket by Harry Marlin—This is possibly the best book I have read this
year so far. It is a collection of the newspaper columns written by this hometown
philosopher for the nearby Brownwood newspaper. It concerns events in the daily life of
the people of Blanket , Texas that probably comprise all of thirty or forty people during the
1930s and 1940s. It is a prosaic little book infused with a wry wit that is very pleasant to
read. Marlin has a dry sort of humor that is a bit reminiscent of Will Rogers. I thoroughly
enjoyed the book.

Homeland by Jan Epton Seale---Ms Seale is a Jr. College English Lit teacher at some unnamed school in the vicinity of McAllen Texas. Her husband is also a teacher in the vicinity. This book is really a paean to the Rio Grande Valley and its great “diversity”.
Ms. Seale is a good writer in general and I would have enjoyed the book were it not for her inordinate PC-ness ( I am sure she would mark off for that comment were I in her class but I am not) She leads a community crusade to save a fig tree in a vacant lot that is a chosen building site for a shopping center---stuff like that . I am going to send the book to Dottie Moss whose daughter teaches in a McAllen public school. She might even know this woman. Incidentally they cut down the fig tree. I cheered. She referred to it as a “wild” fig tree. Figs are not indigenous to South “Texas. Someone planted it.

Power Of Babble by John McWhorter---A very interesting book to me. It points out
The vast diversity in the 6000 or so languages and dialects that exzist or have existed
on the earth to date. Similarities between various American Indian language families
and Asian or Caucasion languages are shown as helpers in determining origin of
these people and their languages. The book is very well written and I liked it.

Talking To The Ground by Douglas Preston---I loved this book. It concerns a
Yankee turned cowboy who lives on the Big Rez near the four corners area. In
addition to being a cowboy he is a writer. At an art sale he bumps into a good looking
woman and they hit it off and she moves in with him as a POSSLQ and oh, yeah, she
has a nine year old daughter going on 23, if you know what I mean, and the daughter
doesn’t like the cowboy. The cowboy/writer explains to the lady that he is impressed
with the Navajo mythology and always wanted to retrace the route of the Creating
Spirit of the Navajo fifth level as he crossed the desert from the sacred mountain of
the Navajo to Shiprock—a journey of about three weeks on horseback with no
access to civilization and the possibility of dying of thirst. The woman says, “ That
sounds great, when do we start?” The nine year old said, “Bullshit, I’m not going to
piss in the sand for three weeks.” But her mother convinces her and they go buy
some horses and do travel across arid desert and have a multitude of experiences
and the nine year old falls in love with the cowboy/writer and he kisses her mother
and rides off into the sunset. It is a beautiful book. I could hardly put it down. All
of the above slathered with great gobs of Navajo mythology. It actually happened too
as the illustrations show. The various comments of the nine year old keep you
laughing. .

Why Do Some Shoes Squeak by George Simpson—A book of trivia that has
a few very interesting items. The author however is not very rigorous in citing his
sources of information so you never really know if he knew or just made it up. Not
worth walking a mile for.

The Enduring Navajo by Laura Gilpin--- This is a coffee table book of some of the
most beautiful and interesting photography of the Big Rez as it was fifty years ago
that I have ever seen. It also has a very enlightening text about Navajo culture , which
you probably now understand interests me. The Navajo have great reverance for the
old whereas the more nomadic tribes like the Cheyenne and Comanche encouraged
them to go off and die quietly when they got to the point that they could not keep up
with the tribe. Maybe that is why I like the Navajo.

14. Inside the Whitehouse by Ronald Kessler---Definitely a gossip book but
never the less interesting. Kessler gets nearly all of his information from former Whitehouse workers and Air Force One crews and the Secret Service. His book covers all of the presidents from Nixon through Clinton’s first term I was astounded that all of the Whitehouse children were such brats. Amy Carter used to routinely crumble crackers on the carpeted floor of Air Force One and then repeat the act as soon as the steward had swept them up. Nixon’s daughters were demons also. If the book were any longer it would have been a bore and I am not too sure that it wasn’t anyway.

15, The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman---Not as good as Hillerrman’s usual Navajo Tribal
Police mysteries but it is nice to see that he is still trying and he does introduce a great
new character in Bernadette Manuelito who is a rookie Navajo Policewoman reporting
to Sergeant Jim Chee with whom Hillerman readers are familiar.. Bernadette is pursuing
her hobby of Navajo ethno-botany seed collection when she discovers a body she
thinks is a natural death and is busy trying to get away from the dead body when she is
shot at by persons unknown. She messes up the crime scene by inadvertently
destroying some evidence. To top it all off she is in love with her boss Jim Chee.. I
should not have been harsh with my opening statement. It is a pretty good book.

16. Sharpe’s Havoc by Bernard Cornwell--- Of course I had to have the latest Sharpe’s
novel. This one goes back to the beginning of the Peninsular war and Sharpe and his
riflemen are still on their way south toward Lisbon from where they got separated from
Sir John Moore’s defeated column. They are at Oporto just a few steps ahead of
Marshal Soult’s advancing troops. Wellington has not yet arrived on the scene in
Portugal but soon does. Good rollicking Sharpe’s adventure---what else can I say—
It is full of sex and swords.

Texas Trees by Benny J. Simpson—A gift from Pam and Pat. Super reference book on native Texas trees. For every species there is a state map showing which counties the tree is adapted to and what type of soil is required. I’ll spend hours with this.

18. The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman---Another mystery starring the beautiful
Bernadette and the unconscious Sergeant Jim Chee who everyone but him
can see that Bernadette is in love with him. Bernadette has resigned from the NTP and
is working as a Border Patrolman when she and Chee independently discover a drug
smuggling scam that is most ingenious and nearly get wiped out before they can wrap
it up. Bernadette resigned from the NTP because she was in love with her boss ---who
was Jim Chee.

19, Secret Corners Of the World by National Geographic---Another coffee table book
with super photography of some wild and remote places in the world that I would like to visit---like the Marquesas Islands and Northeastern Afghanistan (but not right now).

Patience And Fortitude by Nicholas A Basbanes---Patience and Fortitude are the
names given to two marble lions before the entrance to the New York Public Library at 43rd Street. The book is a history and description of the libraries of the world. It is a very entertaining and informative book. I lack a few chapters finishing it but will go ahead and put it in the first half report.. This book was a gift from Cathy and Dave. I was pleased to learn that I have been in three of the most unusual libraries described in it---the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan (the oldest existing public library in the world),
The Vatican Library and the Library of the Palace of San Lorenzo in Escorial, Spain.
Anyone who visits Spain or Italy shoulkd make it a point to see these great libraries.

Someone Has Blundered by Denis Judd---A super little book outlining the major
series of mistakes and blunders made by the British Army and the people who
administer it during the reign of Queen Victoria. Judd points out the Afghan War of 1835-42, the Crimean War of 1854-6, The Indian (Sepoy) Mutiny of 1857-9, the Zulu War of 1879, the First Boer War of 1880-1, and finally the Second Boer War of 1899-02
as being anything but admirable administration although there were exhibitions of extreme bravery and courage by various troop units. Judd feels that the British Army was virtually abandoned from 1815 to 1853 and that it took the rest of the century to get it sorted out. I like the way Judd writes.




So there you have it for the first half of 2003. It is not an impressive list in terms of quantity for me but it does have a few jewels in it. I look forward to a better showing in the second half with my new eyes.

Now without further adieu here is the second half of 2003.

Touch The Earth by T. C. McLuhan. A beautiful little book, well illustrated, of speeches by prominent and famous American Indians. It is very poetic and I find the ability to express themselves among the Indians to be astounding. Well put together.

Shakespeare, In Fact by Irving L. Mateus. This book is written in direct confrontation to Charles Ogburn’s book claiming that Edward de Vere wrote the plays and sonnets we ascribe to Shaksper. He doesn’t convince me even though his argument at times seems sound. He follows the more conventional view that the bard of Avon wrote the plays and really considers Ogburn to be a rabble rousing journalist rather than a scholar. I still favor the theory that Ogburn puts forward.

Jungle Dragoon by Paul D. Walker. Walker was a platoon commander in Vietnam
And this book is the story of his tour of duty there. The platoon that Walker lead was a light tank and jeep equipped group and their duties were many and varied. The book is well written but I acquired a dislike for Walker’s “command personality”. He definitely did not major in humility in school.

Popski’s Private Army by Vladimir Peniakoff. This is a delightful book and everyone
should read it even if you have no interest in military history. The author is the son of Belgian mother and a Russian father who fought in the last few months of WWI in the French Army where he learned to hate the French. He grew up in Egypt and speaks good Senussi Arabic, English, French and some Italian. When WWII starts he is in his early fifties and in some way talks himself into the British Army where he proposes to lead a platoon behind enemy lines to gather information and to “spread despondence and despair” among the German and Italian troops. He does this for the whole North African part of the war and is referred to in all military correspondence and messages
as “Popski” and his platoon as “Popski’s Private Army”. He writes with a great deal of humor and never takes himself too seriously even when he is promoted to Major and given a medal for valor. His platoon designed their own uniforms and wear a shoulder patch and beret badge labeled “PPA”. He recruited his own mixture of Arabs, New Zealanders , renegade Frenchmen and a few Brits to form his platoon. Good book.

The 26 Letters by Oscar Ogg. A super little book for those who like to grovel in
obscure data (me). It takes each letter in the alphabet and shows how it evolved from its source to the shape it has in our modern alphabet. It also analyzes a variety of printing fonts and the use of capitalization and italics and script versus block printing. A good book for a couple of hot summer afternoons when you can tell whoever asks you why you are reading in bed all day that you are doing “literary research”. I enjoyed it immensely.

27. Home Waters by Joseph Monniger. One of the best books I read this year. It is purely
and simply a dog story but a good one. It concerns an assistant professor at a private
girl’s boarding school in Vermont (he teaches English composition and literature) who
on taking his golden retriever to the vet for routine shots learns that his dog has a series
of malignant tumors on his back . The dog has surgery but the Vet expresses doubt
that the dog would live much longer or that he got to all of the malignant tumors. The
dog has always been his constant companion at fly fishing and the prof decides to take
a sabbatical fall semester and drive around some of his favorite fly fishing areas in
Wyoming, Montana and Idaho with his dog in tow. The book is the story of the
adventures that he and the dog have during the three months fishing and gets you all
choked up when he pets the dog on the last week of the trip and feels the tumors
growing back again on the dog’s back. The dog is still alive when the book ends. This
book could easily be maudlin but avoids it by the owner’s acceptance of the inevitable
for his companion and by the dog’s great dignity. It is books like this that make
strong men cry.

The Court Martial Of The Bounty Mutineers. This was not a novel but rather a reprint of the actual Court Martial minutes. It had been a long time since I had read about the trial of the mutineers and I wanted to refresh my memory. It is always a surprise to me that as many of the Bounty mutineers were pardoned or acquitted on a technicality and avoided punishment of severity---and of course those on Pitcairn Island never got punished at all but ended up killing each other. It had been twenty or thirty years since I read this the first time. Pondering the mutineer’s fate was overdue.

The Pillow Book Of Lady Wisteria by Laura Joh Rowland. This is a murder mystery
and a well crafted one. I shall look for more books by this author the next time I go to the used bookstore.

The Olive Farm by Carol Drinkwater. Carol Drinkwater is a nom de plume. She is
actually the actress who played the role of Herriot’s wife in the TV series “All Creatures Great and Small.” She is in love with a French movie and TV producer (actually a German who immigrated to France after WWII) and they have a strange relationship where they live together in France on weekends and vacations and he lives in Paris and she lives in London during most of the year. They decide to make their life less frenetic and buy an Olive Farm just a few miles from Cannes and spend more time together . This book is the story of the implementation of that decision. It is just the kind of story I love and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and the troubles they encountered with French government and red tape in general. But they persevered through vast changes in regulations concerning the olive oil production industry in France. I enjoyed the book tremendously. Ms Drinkwater is an excellent writer. There is already a sequel out and I have it but have not yet read it. It is called “The Olive Season”.

Fading Victory by Admiral Matome Ugaki. I have spent more time with this book this
half year than with any other book. It is fascinating to read this very complete almost daily journal of the Pacific War. Ugaki was Chief of Staff to Admiral of the Combined Fleets Yamamoto who was the principal architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. He was thus in an excellent position to know every tiny action that occurred and this book is his analysis of each operation and why it succeeded or failed. Without a doubt this book has to be the volume that captured me completely this year. In April of 1943 Admiral Yamamoto divided his staff into two parts and each got on separate planes to travel to a destination in the then Japanese occupied Philippines. As was his custom Ugaki was always transported in a separate vehicle from Yamamoto in order to preserve command continuity in case one vehicle or the other was shot down. As it happened this strategy did not succeed. The US Air Force sent twenty eight P-38 lightning fighters to attack both planes over the Philippines. Both Japanese planes were shot down and Yamamoto was killed and Ugaki survived but was severely wounded and went through a long rehabilitation. I remember the incident very well. The US forces had been alerted as a result of breaking a message to the Japanese high command in Japan concerning the movements of Yamamoto and his staff. Fifty years later I have heard discussion of whether this was a fair exercise of military might or a cowardly murder. In 1943 it was only considered to be one of those “all is fair in love or war” acts and everyone rejoiced that the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack had lost his life in the resulting war, When the Japanese surrender came Ugaki put on his dress uniform, went down to the naval base in Yokosuka and asked the navy pilots there if any would do him the honor of dying with him by piloting a plane with both aboard into a military target on Okinawa. He was addressing about two dozen pilots (Ugaki was not himself a pilot) and all of them volunteered. Ugaki selected one and they took off heading for Okinawa and were never heard from again. “Fading Victory” is an outstanding book well edited and of super interest to anyone who has a penchant for military history. My number one book of the year so far.

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. This is a play in which my grandson in Austin had a
leading role. It is a most complex play and convoluted plot and I guess that it was good that I didn’t go see him in the role because I barely understood it when reading and with my deafness would never have understood it when performed. It is really two plays in one with alternating scenes taking place in the twentieth and the nineteenth centuries. It concerns an English professor (my grandson’s role) who is writing a thesis on the involvement of Byron in the murder of an English squire. The nineteenth century “play within a play” is set in the same manor house in the time of that murder. The character of Byron never appears on stage but all the characters that do so are closely associated with Byron. It was a fantastically complex part but I am sure that Charles did a more than adequate job of playing the lead. I enjoyed reading the play.

32. Ratking by Michael Dibdin. Once again a new mystery writer for me. The protagonist
detective is an Italian and has certain characteristics similar to the Pink Panther. He
always is in trouble with his bosses because of the unorthodox way he goes about
solving the cases assigned to him. It is well written and I will read more by this author.

Range Wars. An anthology. I had read portions of this book before and was tempted
back to this volume because I saw it discussed elsewhere. This is an analysis of Texas literary art by Texas literary artists and I nearly threw the book in the foireplace when Larry McMurtry panned the efforts of J. Frank Dobie , Walter Prescott Webb and Roy Bedichek and fails to give them the veneration which I have long thought that they deserved. On this second reading however I began to see that perhaps McMurtry was possibly right ---at least in part and that Texas letters needed a bit of jarring and shaking up to get it out of a rut. I still like Bedichek however

Destroyer Skipper by Tom Sheppard. The adventures of Commander Sheppard when he was an executive officer aboard a destroyer and later when he was a peace-time skipper of a destroyer. It is a good personality study of a man in a command post and I enjoyed reading it but I can’t say that it imparts new art or knowledge to the world


Well that is the list for 2003. It is certainly not as distinguished or as lengthy as some years past but it is what I read.. Usually I list the ten best books of the year but I think that I will be satisfied with five for 2003. It simply was not a stellar literary year for me---due to my choices and the amount of time I spent reading this year. My five favorites from the year above were:

Fading Victory by Admiral Matome Ugaki---I spent a lot of time reading this book and following the actions on maps and looking up parallel works and it was very rewarding to do so. Ugaki was a very serious and dedicated man and he believed in Japan and what he was doing. Whoever edited his diary did a masterful job of putting in enough detail and writing to preserve continuity but not enough to tire the serious reader. What a treasure trove for the serious student of military history! And it is an entertaining read to boot.

Popski’s Private Army by Vladamir Peniakoff. This was a super entertaining and riotously funny book. I enjoyed it tremendously and would recommend it to most anyone whether they were a military history nut like myself or not.

Patience And Fortitude by N. A.; Basbanes. A very informative book about the history of libraries and about some of the unusual libraries in the world. I enjoyed it

Home Waters by Joseph Monniger. Reeking with sentiment but I eat that stuff up about dogs anyway. I have been without a dog since I had heart surgery and I think that it is time that I got another one. Every old man needs a dog. It makes him feel “superior” again.

The Olive Farm by Carol Drinkwater. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but I enjoyed the story of these two people who knew nothing about agriculture or growing olives in particular and all of the blunders and mistakes that they made and how they finally defeated the vast mechanism of the French government and were designated as as skilled producers of olive oil for export. It is an easy read and a good one. In ten years it will be a forgotten work but I enjoyed reading it.

Good reading to you! I’ll try to improve my literary discrimination in 2004.

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Last edited by Mugtoe on 12-21-2003 at 03:58 PM

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BTW, kids, these aren't just for your perusal. I want reports from each of you on what you read this year and what you thought of it. That's an assignment. Good readers are generally decent writers, and you all read something if you're posting in this forum. We always have time for what's important, and this is your minds we're talking about here. Get busy and get me your lists. You all have a little extra time in the holidays and no writing assignments to do elsewhere. Allow me to keep you in shape in that regard.

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Books read 2003, no order

1. The Killer Strain – Marilyn W. Thompson. Thompson is an editor for the Washington Post and she does a good job of chronicling the Anthrax postal attacks in the U.S. Part of this book seems to want to blame the administration for mistakes that cost people their lives, but I it seems to me the argument is more easily made with the benefit of hindsight. One thing that the book does a good job of illustrating is the immediate inoculation and evacuation of congresspersons and their staff, while postal workers continued to work and go untreated (even though it was known that the material was delivered though the mail). In any case, the book is well-written and a pretty good read, even though there is still no real conclusion as far as what happened (Thompson does outline some of the popular theories).

2. Fast Food Nation – Eric Schosser. This book was recommended to me at a wedding. One of the people at my table said you’d never eat fast food again. I figured I could stand to cut back anyways and bought the book. Here are the big spoilers: Fast food places hire high school kids and the mentally disabled, pay them minimum wage and take any of the skill out of the job by idiot proofing it; cattle companies hire illegals to work in dangerous conditions and expect them to get back to work while injured; meat is sometimes contaminated with ecoli (from feces) and is not screened adequately; there is no mechanism to recall bad meat right away and any power the USDA had to enforce and inspect has been largely stripped away. The book did not convince me to stop eating fast food, in fact it said after the Jack-In-The-Box bad meat scandal that companies are more careful about their supply. It did convince me to try to get grass fed beef when possible and raised some doubt in my mind the “everything is fine” response to the mad cow case by the USDA. The fact that retards can make my burger without messing it up and high school kids get some low paid work experience doesn’t bother me at all though.

3. Charlie Wilson’s War – George Crile. An excellent book about a Texas congressman known as a drunk and a skirt-chaser who was the secret driving force behind the funding of the CIA’s support of Afghan mujahadeen fighting the Soviets. Wilson’s travels through the Middle East with woman nicknamed Snowflake and Buckets while he tried to get the Israelis to build a donkey mounted anti-aircraft gun for radical islamists to kill Russians is a great read. Wilson’s CIA partner in crime, Gust Avrakotos, is almost as large a character as Wilson. This book also shows how the internals of government work, Wilson gets himself appointed to key committees, ones where he can influence policy and fund pet projects. He uses his position to directly carry out the Afghanistan campaign or to strong-arm others to get what he needs, all the while coming off in public as a drunken fool (which he was a bit of too). Charlie Wilson’s War casts the CIA role in Afghanistan as noble in helping the Afghans and also as sweet revenge for Vietnam, but it sort of glosses over how this lead to the situation we now find ourselves in. It does mention that some of the main Mujahadeen characters were later killed by US troops and the explanation of the Afghan situation does help to illustrate how things evolved. I think I have read that this book is being turned into a movie with Tom Hanks.

4. Red Rabbit – Tom Clancy. I sometimes get tired reading of Jack Ryan and his adventures and his wife’s greatness as a surgeon. This book (set in the past) involves the Soviet Union perceiving the Pope as a threat to their authority in Poland. A man who encodes messages for KGB headquarters defects (becoming the Red Rabbit) and supplies this information to the US and UK. Part of the book deals with getting the Rabbit and family out of the USSR and part deals with his information and what they should do with it. I thought the entire thing was a bit tedious.

5. Travels With Charley – John Steinbeck. I have an affection for travel books, and had read this one previously. This is the story of Steinbeck at age 58 driving a quarter-ton International pick-up with a camper in the bed across 34 states. He names the truck Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse and brings along his French poodle Charley. He had come to feel that as an American writer he didn’t really know much about what was going on in America. During his trip he describes people he meets, changes he has noticed in the country and trends that he predicts will become bigger in the future (he thinks mobile homes are the wave of the future because people can inexpensively move their entire home when new opportunity pops up elsewhere). I like this book because Steinbeck describes the country at its current state at the time and contrasts it with where it had come from. When Travels With Charley is read today you can attempt to link it all up to where we are today. It is also interesting to note that one used to be able to just pull up in a farm field and camp and if the farmer noticed you he might invite you in for dinner.

6. The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the discoveries of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus – Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. This book is written by two masons who attempt to unravel the mystery of Masonic rites. Using a few leaps in logic they connect the Hiram Abif legend to ancient Egypt and from there to the original Church of Christ. They believe that the Knights Templar excavated Solomon’s Temple and removed the original scrolls of the Jerusalem Church, possibly burying them beneath Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. They argue that Masonic tradition points to this, if viewed properly. They also think that Jesus’ church had the secrets of the original Pharaohs. This book is a bit disjointed, unevenly written and makes some far fetched conclusions, but was actually very entertaining to read. I think it held my interest because it went through a lot of subjects that I am not intensely familiar with (Egypt, the Bible, the Roman Church, Masons) and argued against the common history while linking each institution together.

7. A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway. This book has been on again off again for me. I really like the few Hemingway books that I have read but this one hasn’t really grabbed me. I think if I was more familiar with Hemingway’s contemporaries it might be a fascinating book, but I am not. In A Moveable Feast Hemingway tells the story of his time spent in Paris with other ex-pat writers and artists and how he honed his writing abilities.

8. The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield. When I was in high-school a friend read this book and was surprised to learn it was fiction. Another friend recommended it to me recently and said it had changed her life, so I decided to pick it up. This is a book about a secret text found in Peru that leads people to find inner mystical powers which are to lead humankind to some sort of utopia. I am surprised that I did not stop reading this book when it got into energy fields and auras. If you like new-age philosophy and believe in the healing powers of crystals you might like this book. I didn’t really.

9. The Trial of Henry Kissinger – Christopher Hitchens. I like Hitchens when I see him on television and I have liked articles written by him. As a result, I purchased this book and Why Orwell Matters. I tried reading his Orwell book first, but it is a book better suited to someone familiar with Orwell’s life and works (Amazon describes it as a passionate defense of Orwell). The Trial of Henry Kissinger takes the other side, prosecution. Hitchens says he wrote it as if it were going to be the evidence presented to try Kissinger on war crimes (and therefore only used things that could be explicitly documented). He feels that Nixon and Kissinger sabotaged ceasefire negotiations in Vietnam for political gain, thereby causing the war to drag on for a few more years and thousands of more lives to be lost on both sides. He implicates Kissinger in bloody coups, in genocide, in knowledge of the only assassination of a foreign diplomat in Washington, DC. An interesting book, but another that would probably be of more interest to someone who was already familiar with the subject matter. Many of the characters of 1970s despotism and villainy are unfamiliar to me.

10. The Devil in The White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America – Erik Larson. This book reminds me in some ways of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist in that it is a period murder/suspense story. The difference is that Carr’s story intertwined real characters and events in turn of the century New York with a fictional serial killer story. The Devil in the White City tells the story of actual events leading up to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, including the tale of a real serial killer. This book was interesting to me on many levels. The descriptions of Chicago (which was mainly a stockyard town) are fascinating, the story of the World’s Fair is great and I had read another book years ago called Depraved, which told the story of the killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes. I never really knew what a big deal the World’s Fair was, but this one followed Paris’ where the Eiffel tower was unveiled. Chicago battled horrible fairgrounds, lack of interest and various other setbacks to try to come up with something to rival Paris. The buildings were designed by the best architects of the day and the grounds were left to the hands of John Olmsted, famous for designing Central Park in New York. Holmes was meanwhile preying on young women attracted to the spectacle of the fair, luring them into his specially built house of horrors. The two stories feel a bit slapped together, as if they would have made better book separately. Since Holmes never had interaction with the creators of the fair the stories play out completely apart. Good book though.

11. Fingerprints of the Gods – Graham Hancock. Another alternate history book like The Hiram Key. The author is a former East Africa correspondent for the Economist and sets out to prove that there was once a great seafaring society before the last ice age. Hancock feels that ancient maps somehow accurately depicted South America and sub-glacial Antarctica. He argues that somehow people were able to calculate longitude, which requires an accurate timepiece. Also they were able to chart lands much much earlier than thought (and in the case of Antarctica before it was covered in ice, which would be a really long time ago). He points out that the Sphinx and neighboring pyramids are likely much older than ever thought, based on geological data (water erosion patterns). He feels that the Incas and Mayans inhabited structures much older than their society, which are now attributed to them. The book details incredible the building methods of ancient societies and common myths of a wise traveling people who arrive by boat. Hancock postulates that the surface of the earth moved and slipped Antarctica into a colder climate, thereby destroying this wise mariner society. This book had interesting parts but was too long and lacked the sense of adventure that the Hiram Key has. You can see where Hancock is going with all of his theories long before he gets there and he holds it like it’s a secret to be revealed at the end.

I'd probably recommend Charlie Wilson's War above the others.

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Hey, DM, I share your regard for Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie" It is a book that I also have read more than once. I prefer it to most of Steinbeck's novels. Since you like this genre you might life "Arabian Sands" by Wilfred Thesiger. It is an old book but one that I have read about six times over the years and enjoyed every time. One of the greatest
travel books I ever read was the biography "Captain, Sir William Francis Burton" by Edward Rice. That fellow really got around.

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I also am a bit lukewarm about "A Moveable Feast" by Hemingway. I have read nearly everything that Hemingway wrote and this is my least favorite of his works.

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Oxsan, do you write down your thoughts as you read a book (or when you complete it) or just sit down and compile a list at the end of the year? I flipped through some books on my night stand and bookshelf and picked out ones I thought that I had read last year. I think that I probably grabbed some 2002 selections and forgot some that I actually read in 2003. Before I actually went to look at the books I could only think of a few off of the top of my head that I had read in the last year. I do know there were a couple of books that I intended to read or started and lost interest (like Inside Al-Qaeda by Rohan Gunaratna). In any case I have just started For Whom the Bell Tolls and I think for 2004 I will try to make a list of books as I read them.

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my tastes run a little dif-ernt.

a game of thrones- george r.r. martin

the first book in one of the best fantasy series i've ever read. very descriptive yet never overly so, the story covers such a broad range of experiences that there literally is something about the plot for everyone: politics and intrigue, unknown horrors creeping closer to the edges of the civilised world, the relationships between brothers and bastards, and interesting plot threads left spinning on their own while the story goes elsewhere.

the sandman, endless nights- neil gaiman

i'm a huge neil gaiman fan, made so by the sandman series, so it's no wonder this book ended up on my shelf. seven stories about each of the Endless, it gives a lot of insight into past relationships between them and explains a lot of things formerly left up to the reader's assumptions. very good stuff. oh, and if you're not a sandman fan, pick it up! yes, it's a graphic novel/comic book. but it's also one of the greatest stories ever told- it's even offered in some literature courses in college.

i can't remember anything else i read this year. i think i re-read a bunch of stuff, but i don't have time to type it all out.

all i'm gonna say is read anything by steven brust and you will die happy. the end.

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I follow an intermediate course DM and bring my reading log up to date more or less on a monthly basis. However when I read I usually have at hand a spiral notebook which I fill with endless jottings of wisdom and sagacity. I call them my "Commonplace Books" which title I co-opted from E. M. Forster. I save these Commonplace books and have a stack of them about a foot high or maybe a little more---every once in a while I go back through them and look for something or other and marvel at what I wrote and wonder what I meant by it. I am finding as I grow older that I read a bit less and nap a bit more. It is still my number one occupation however. I find your choice of books to be more in my line of interest than most.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" is one of my favorites.

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quote:

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Originally posted by morgana
i'm a huge neil gaiman fan.

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I had never read any of his stuff.. but just got "Wolves in the Walls" for my son and found it rather charming.. now I want to try some of his other work.

I can't think back to what Ive read this entire past year.. so I'll just list from the last couple or so months that I can remember..

- The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffennegger *****

- Getting Things Done - David Allen ****

- 21 Things I wish My Broker Had Told Me - Frank Cook ****

- The Millenium Girl - Felske ***

- The Art of Seduction - Robert Greene **

- Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller ****

reading at the moment:

- For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway (a delicate 1940 copy that I just scored from my grandfather's house)

- Psycho Cybernetics - Maxwell Maltz (new version)

- The Law of Success - Napoleon Hill (Volume 1)

- Are You Dumb Enough To Be Rich? - G William Barnett II (more real estate stuff)

- Modern Real Estate Practice & study guide (rereading in preparation for my coming test)

- Time Enough For Love - Heinlein (when on the computer)

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Sabine, gimme more than stars. What did you like or dislike about them?

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Sabine, gimme more than stars. What did you like or dislike about them?

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*grumble*

The Time Traveller's Wife -

probably the most evocative book Ive read in the past year.. very clever and beautifully put together story that jumps about in time through the lives of a married couple.. the idea behind their situation is very creative and unique.. Henry suffers from Chrono-Displacement Order.. and is thrust about in time to experience both his and Clare's past and their future together.. the love story is perfect.. in that perfectly flawed way that makes it almost tangible and you are allowed to experience all the stages of their love.. the pain and the sweetness.

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There will be no grumbling. Now, where'd that ass avatar go?

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quote:

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The Time Traveler's Wife

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Last edited by Sabine on 01-02-2004 at 01:12 PM

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quote:

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"Oxsan"BOOKS READ IN 2003


Hornet’s Nest by “Missy” Cummings---This is a book by a rare person. A female Air
Force officer who was selected for training in F-18 fighter jets. She eventually washes out of the elite training group she is in because of what she perceives as anti-feminist activity by the instructor staff at Pensacola where the training is held. Her story fails to convince me despite a spotless record prior to F-18 training. My opinion is that she broke under the severe tech pressure that super-sonic jet combat imposes on the pilot.
She is now a civilian and on the faculty of some University in the mid-Atlantic states. I think she was on the faculty of Virginia Tech for a short period of time. She is a very well educated person. I enjoyed reading the book but got tired of her continual complaint.

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