Vacation Reading - what did you read?

[samgrant]

Amazing what reading can be done away from the temptations of the web.

Managed to read four and a half books in my 11 days off:

Fields of Honor by Bearss, never knew of his wonderful, and humorous descriptions of battles.

The Union Generals Speak (The Meade Hearings on the Battle of Gettysburg), here is an examination of the conduct of the first Union general to defeat Lee, lots of stuff about Rad Republican Pols and self serving officers, would be interesting to compare/contrast some of these officers words here with those in Generals In Bronze. I'll have to look into that.

When the Yankees Came, a semi-academic account of the experiences of those in the South who were visited/occupied by the Yanks.

Started Grant by J. E. Smith, (in which I learned nothing new, except that just before Vicksburg, a riverboat steward threw his false teeth into the Mississippi), but interrupted that to read:

Andersonville by M. Kantor. This novel begs one to explore further the grim experiences of POWs, both North and South, and wonder at the horrors that a war must produce.

[elektratig]

Sam,

I thought I'd put in a brief plug for the book I'm halfway through now, Christopher Hitchens' slim biography of Thomas Jefferson. It's certainly not the first biography of Jefferson you'd want to read -- it assumes a general knowledge of the man and events. If you don't know of him, Hitchens is a highly opinionated and highly controversial -- and highly amusing -- commentator (most famously, he wrote a book trashing Mother Teresa), and it's fascinating to see what he chooses to emphasize and how he chooses to characterize people and events. He admires Jefferson a bit too much to blaze away with both barrels, although he doesn't pull punches where appropriate, but he's most fun when attacking other targets he really despises:

". . . Dumas Malone, Jefferson's most revered biographer, continued in this tone as late as 1985, writing that for Madison Hemings to claim descent from his master was no better than 'the pedigree printed on the numerous stud-horse bills that can be seen posted around during the Spring season. No matter how scrubby the stock or whether the horse has any known pedigree, owners invented an exalted stock for their property.' In other words, for many decades historians felt themselves able to discount Callender's story because it had originated with a contemptible bigot who had a political agenda. But one cannot survey the steady denial, by a phalanx of historians, of the self-evident facts without appreciating that racism, sexism, and political partisanship have also been manifested in equally gross ways, and by more apparently 'objective' means, and at the very heart of our respectable academic culture."

As you'll see, I've appropriated a quote from Hitchens' book as my tag line for the time being.

[30th_il]

Sam, I envy you! Summertime is usually the worst time for me regarding reading. I've just too much to do around the house, work and family and friends. In fact, I have had only 75 pages to go with "Nothing but Victory" for six weeks now and I have yet to finish it! Argh. Right now the "chore du jour(s)" is getting ready for my son's graduation party...(the house can never be clean enough according to my wife! ha!)

[aggie80]

Culp's Hill by John D. Cox. A very thorough, yet easy to read, exploration of the activities around this key piece of ground, with enough of the overall battle scenerio to put it in perspective. I look forward to visiting Culp's Hill with the book in hand, as it includes a detailed 'guide' on viewing the area.

[blue_zouave]

I'm taking the Zou-lets to the Oregon coast tomorrow, and I'm well armed with a stack of books for our sojourn there.

Shoulder The Sky by Anne Perry (Novel, WWI) Love her Victorian mysteries, will be interested to see how she treats the Great War.

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (Novel, contemporary) I liked her other novel, The Secret Life of Bees, though it was quirky.

Singing Bird by Roisin McAuley (Novel, Irish) Picked it up, looks interesting, I know nothing about this author.

And then the heavy stuff...

Victorian America, Transformations in Everyday Life by Thomas Schlereth
Social history of the last half of the 19th Century

Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War by Harry S. Stout The author is a professor of Religious History at Yale. I except to be challenged by this one.

Book reports upon our return!

Zou

[gary]

Last weekend I went to Washington, D. C. & read Tunnard's account of the 3rd Louisiana as edited by Ed Bearss. E/R home I read Geronimo's autobiography and then a book about the Seminole Wars. Started on Priest's book on the Battle of South Mountain.