Book

Missive #176 Published 14 December 2023

There is more to this latest volume in the""Mainstream of America"" Series (Lewis Gannett, Editor) than is indicated by the subtitle: The Settling of the Eastern Shores, 1607-1735. As is proper, the author, a professor of English at the University of Connecticut and author of four similar studies, writes of time and place, problems and personalities, in the early American settlements on the Atlantic seaboard, but gives as well a sense of the first stirrings of nationality, of future independence, of which the settlers were barely aware.

Missive #175 Published 12 December 2023

This is what I would call a coffee table book that was originally published as an online book in 2012. There is very little text however the 140 photographs do have captions. Some of them are interesting others not so much.

Missive #172 Published 7 December 2023

This book was published almost 30 years ago with the author predicting what was going to happen over the next 10 to 40 years. A lot of what he thought was going to happen has come to pass. An interesting read although I think the race wars will be driven by 'elites' hiring racial groups to do their fighting for them. Time will tell.

Missive #171 Published 5 December 2023

The second volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization, Volume 2 chronicles the history of ancient Greek civilization. Here Durant tells the whole story of Greece, from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the final extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome.

Missive #166 Published 25 November 2023

Prolific septuagenarian poet, novelist and essayist Berry (Citizenship Papers, 2003, etc.) returns with another collection of essays, most published (or delivered as speeches) in 2004. The astonishing thing about these pieces is not their lucidity and grace, not their plain profundity, but the variety of his subjects, the dimensions of his knowledge, experience, interest, passion.

Missive #164 Published 22 November 2023

This is the second book in the Viking trilogy which I have enjoyed. I think Severin writes better historical fiction than the nonfiction travel books that he wrote early in his career. He has a couple more fiction series that I will read when I finish this one.

Missive #163 Published 20 November 2023

Jim Waring is a gunman who is tired of chasing fugitives and wants to settle down. Unfortunately, he has agreed to one final hunt to help avenge a friend. There are two separate story lines here, and the second involves Jim's estranged son Lorry Adams. Eventually, the two stories connect and the mysteries do unravel.

Missive #160 Published 16 November 2023

This is the first book in the Tale Of Krispos trilogy and book five in the The Videssos Cycle. I have read them out of chronological, as well as publication order, so have only a couple more books to read in this series. However, there are more Turtledove books to be read which is a good thing.