4 Stars. I'm not quite sure what I expected when I downloaded this book from the library but it's not exactly what I got. Not that I'm complaining; this book is absorbing. My review keeps turning into a book report because I want to discuss so many of the ideas I just read! I knew this was nonfiction about the worlds of [...]
Hmmm.... Where to start? I mostly found this book fascinating and the inaccurate history we are taught infuriating but I also had problems with the tone. I'll start with the positives.... Loewen's main complaint is that our American history textbooks invariably teach from the point of view of White males of European descent. The [...]
I almost always have one nonfiction book on the go that I read exclusively before bed. I'm primarily a fiction reader so I don't usually fall into the "one more chapter" trap that keeps me awake way past my bedtime if I follow this plan. This was not a great book for that. It's intelligently written, presented, and argued, but [...]
5 Stars. This book fascinated me from the moment I started reading. I made heavy use of the highlight function on my Kindle, highlighting 53 passages. 53! I would like to share them all here but I believe that would get me in trouble for copyright infringement. This book about plagues was somehow hilarious! I’ve worked healthcare for [...]
This is probably one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. I've been reading about one nonfiction book a month for the past five years or so but I'm still a fiction reader in my heart of hearts. I generally read my nonfiction at night before bed because I don't worry too much about falling into the "one more chapter" trap [...]
4 Stars. I don't know that I agree that these Olympics "changed the world" but I would definitely agree that they showcased changes that were happening in the world at large. I'm not a sports fan but I read this for the "Eclectic Reader Challenge" as a sports book that I might be able to tolerate. I was pleasantly surprised to find [...]
Author Kenneth C. Davis sets out to fill in the gaps of the average reader's knowledge of mythology. Don't expect a book of stories about Zeus and Hera; they're here but so are gods from Egypt, Celtic lands, Africa, the Americas, Asia, India, and just about every culture you can think of. This was not what I expected. I thought I was getting something along the lines of Edith Hamilton's Mythology--the actual myths in one big collection. I should have paid more attention to the subtitle, "Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned" (emphasis mine). Davis definitely took a historical approach to all these legends and myths. It was interesting and I learned a lot, but it wasn't necessarily what I was looking for. Each part began with a timeline of important events for a specific culture or country and then there were a series of questions about the mythology. Most of the answers were framed in history. It makes sense, but it didn't make for very riveting reading for me. There were also little sections called "Mythic Voices" that did excerpt as directly as possible from the original sources. A list of the important gods/spirits/tricksters/etc. and a brief synopsis of each god's most significant stories was at the end of each part. These were my favorite bits but they felt like afterthoughts. I was pleased when I realized that lesser-known cultures were included, but they were necessarily vague. I'm specifically thinking about the sections on Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands. There are a lot of different peoples living across a big area and they didn't necessarily have the same beliefs. Davis did what he could to draw out their commonalities and focus on those. He was hampered by the…
"'I think this is the greatest generation any society has ever produced.' I know that this was a bold statement and a sweeping judgment, but since than I have restated it on many occasions. While I am periodically challenged on this premise, I believe I have the facts on my side." So writes Tom Brokaw in the introduction to this book about the World War II generation, and he proceeds to make his case by telling individual stories of survival, courage, leadership, and trail-blazing. I pretty much loved this book. I have always liked reading books centered around WWII, but I haven't actually read much non-fiction, and especially not exactly like this. I got what I expected and more. I expected stories about the heroes, both celebrated and unsung, and their exploits in the war. I may have even expected stories about the women on the home front. I did not expect Brokaw to tackle some of the issues this generation had to overcome. He did not shy away from segregation, both in civilian life and the military. He confronted the issue of the Japanese internment camps. He took a close look at the women in uniform during the war and the paths they had to forge to get anything that even resembled equality. I was impressed that he included those topics, and I learned a lot from the personal stories he used to make his points about these issues. I also didn't really expect the personal stories to dwell so much on life after the war. I was a little disappointed at first; after all, the war was what drew me to the book. But I quickly got over it and realized that this generation didn't let one major event define their lives completely. They moved on and shaped…
Seabiscuit. An American Legend. I think the only reason I even know the horse's name is because of the movie they filmed a few years ago. I'm obviously not a horse-racing fan, right? I don't even remember why I grabbed this at a library book sale. A friend here on GR must have given it a good review. But I am so glad I read this. I've gotten much better about reading non-fiction over the past six months, but I was amazed at what a page-turner this was for me. I've been reading non-fiction before bed, thinking that would be a good time to squeeze it in because I wouldn't have to worry too much about getting caught up in the story and staying up all night. Bad move with this book. I was doing the "one more chapter" thing quite a bit. It was just a perfect mix of an underdog story and excellent writing. Hillenbrand has a gift for putting you right into the action. Not knowing if Seabiscuit was going to win or lose any given race, my stomach would knot up and I would start reading faster as he came out of the gates. I was worried about injuries. I was furious with jockeys whom I thought were cheating. My heart pounded as Seabiscuit came down the home stretch and I read ahead to find out if he pulled it off this time. What the heck has happened to me?!? Where did the woman who thought "Non-fiction is boring" go? This horse and his team are truly all-American legends. It seems that we love underdog stories and Seabiscuit, owner Charles Howard, trainer Tom Smith, and jockey Red Pollard were all underdogs at some point. Reading about their struggles and triumphs and, yes, even failures, was inspiring.…
Telling the story of an epic flood of the Mississippi River in 1927, this book explores the early history of flood control efforts and a rivalry that made flood controls at the time practically a joke, the politics involved in decisions for handling the flood itself, the politics of disaster relief, and the impact of the flood into the future. It's too much. There is a ton of interesting detail in this book, but I got bogged down in the details. Any one of the above aspects of the flood would have made an interesting, shorter book on its own. Putting them all together made me read at a stupefying pace and left me confused as to who was who and what was going on where. Just too much. However. The author makes a lot of good points. He asserts that the flood was responsible for hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrating out of the Mississippi River valley, the slow decline of New Orleans, the death of a way of life in the South, the eventual shift of the black vote to Democrats, the beginnings of big government in America, and could someday lead to the mouth of the Mississippi transferring over to the Atchafalaya. It's interesting to see how one event led to so many changes in America. Reading this as the Mississippi is currently having another epic flood is interesting too. I have to say that I've gotten pretty good at keeping my head in the sand when it comes to national news, but this flood has even made it into my awareness. Today's flood is being compared to the flood of 1927. I read a brief article about it before I wrote this review, and I now have an understanding of the flood control measures that…