"The Adventure of English"

The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language (Melvyn Bragg)

I was a little let down about this book; I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this seems more like a book for a middle school student. I didn't really learn much; Bragg's writing keeps things moving briskly, perhaps too briskly. At times I felt like a passenger on a train going too fast past some interesting landscape I wanted to stop and check out. This is easy to recommend if you're just starting with this subject, but I had the sinking feeling that I knew more than the author about the subject through most of the book.

Grade: C+

"The Klingon Art of War"

The Klingon Art of War (Keith R.A. DeCandido)

A look into the culture and backstory of the Klingons from Star Trek, this book is presented in-universe as an ancient collections of precepts for how to live an honorable life, annotated with commentary by a modern Klingon.
And it's pretty good! I always appreciate when a group like the Klingons that can too frequently be boiled down to "angry" and "hits stuff" gets fleshed out, and they're in capable hands here; I guess it helps the book's readability that the Klingons are a culture that values conflict as a way to better themselves, so it's rare to go more than a few pages without something interesting happening. You don't need to be much of a Trek fan to enjoy this book, but if you are, you'll be rewarded with a few "I remember that!" moments from the TV shows.

Grade: B

"Fordlandia"

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Jungle City (Greg Grandin)

This is a bit of an odd duck. The author uses the history of the titular Fordlandia plantation in Brazil to explore more general thoughts on the unfulfilled promise of Ford's hope that industrialization would lead to a economically friendly, quasi-socalist, peaceful future. This is interesting stuff, but it doesn't quite mesh with a history of the Fordlandia plantation; I also found it a little brief (years are skipped outright towards the end). This is an interesting little book, but not really that easy to recommend; approach it as a curiosity and I think you'll do fine.

Grade: B-

"The Boxer Rebellion"

The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 (Diana Preston)

I'm a little torn on this book; it's well written (major bonus points for not throwing out untranslated French like many history books do), but the book has a major problem the author herself brings up on page 335: "... most of the available diaries and accounts were written by Westerners." I don't think the author quotes a single non-Western source; it's great to have Western primary sources, of course, but having all the primary sources be Western diaries tilts the book, possibly fatally. If you want the Western view of the rebellion, this is an easy recommend; otherwise, keep looking.

Grade: B-