The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian (Shelby Foote)
First of all, the title needs more colons (I believe it is only tied by Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope: Special Edition in the colon wars).
So what can I say about this book? It's like Volume 1, which is to say, good. And big; It's very big. Good book to squash bugs with. This book covers the middle part of the war, and I guess it's my personal favorite, since it has the swing of the pendulum from south to north, and covers some of the war's biggest events at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Also, when I was reading Volume 1, some of the plastic on the cover started peeling up, and I couldn't help but pick at it. That did not happen with this volume. The end.
Grade: A+
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
"The Civil War" Volume 1
The Civil War: A Narrative - Fort Sumter to Perryville, Vol 1 (Shelby Foote)
It takes a certain amount of something to just flat out name your book "The Civil War", but in this case I have to admit the author has made a strong case to the definitive title. First things first: Even though this is only "Vol 1", this is a huge book, and when not being read, can be used as a weight to straighten out curved Magic card sleeves. At 800 big pages (not counting bibliography!) for a measly (as of this writing) $16 (cheap!), I believe this may be one of the cheapest cents-to-words ratios you can get.
And, of course, it's not just quantity, but also quality. Don't let the size of the books intimidate you - the material inside masterfully condenses and weaves the events of multiple theaters of war into one coherent, enjoyable narrative. I read all three volumes as a teenager, and I'm not saying that to brag, I'm mentioning it to illustrate that the material contained within is never obtuse. The only issue I had was that the book was published in 1958, so you do run across the occasional weird bit of slang, which is honestly more entertaining than anything else. What else can I say? Don't let the size scare you off; You'll want to pick this up if you have even the slightest interest in the subject. Maybe that should have just been the review. Well, there's always Volume 2.
Grade: A+
It takes a certain amount of something to just flat out name your book "The Civil War", but in this case I have to admit the author has made a strong case to the definitive title. First things first: Even though this is only "Vol 1", this is a huge book, and when not being read, can be used as a weight to straighten out curved Magic card sleeves. At 800 big pages (not counting bibliography!) for a measly (as of this writing) $16 (cheap!), I believe this may be one of the cheapest cents-to-words ratios you can get.
And, of course, it's not just quantity, but also quality. Don't let the size of the books intimidate you - the material inside masterfully condenses and weaves the events of multiple theaters of war into one coherent, enjoyable narrative. I read all three volumes as a teenager, and I'm not saying that to brag, I'm mentioning it to illustrate that the material contained within is never obtuse. The only issue I had was that the book was published in 1958, so you do run across the occasional weird bit of slang, which is honestly more entertaining than anything else. What else can I say? Don't let the size scare you off; You'll want to pick this up if you have even the slightest interest in the subject. Maybe that should have just been the review. Well, there's always Volume 2.
Grade: A+
Sunday, June 3, 2012
"America's Great Debate"
America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union (Fergus M. Bordewich)
First of all, I'm deducting half a letter grade for the book's title - I realize that this may be unfair and the publisher may have forced this on the author, but I can only grade the book that was presented to me.
Luckily, the rest of the book is pretty good. It's about the 1850 Compromise, which is one of those parts of history I enjoy reading about because they're usually fast-forwarded past. The main characters of the Civil War haven't appeared on stage yet, so you end up with heroes and villains you've probably never heard of - how many people now remember Tom Benton or the villainous Henry Foote? (Well, okay, turns out Benton was in Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage", so I guess a fair number of people remember him. Dang!)
In any case, I enjoyed this book a good deal. Bordewich doesn't waste time trying to justify, excuse, or apologize for anybody, which is a nice change, and even though the eventual outcome of the book described in the struggle is obvious, it's no less enjoyable for that. This is a good book to read as a prequel before a look at the civil war that's just over the horizon when the book finishes, and to that end I've been instructed to re-read the face-crushingly huge "Civil War" by Shelby Foote next, so look forward to that.
Grade: B+ (A- if re-titled)
First of all, I'm deducting half a letter grade for the book's title - I realize that this may be unfair and the publisher may have forced this on the author, but I can only grade the book that was presented to me.
Luckily, the rest of the book is pretty good. It's about the 1850 Compromise, which is one of those parts of history I enjoy reading about because they're usually fast-forwarded past. The main characters of the Civil War haven't appeared on stage yet, so you end up with heroes and villains you've probably never heard of - how many people now remember Tom Benton or the villainous Henry Foote? (Well, okay, turns out Benton was in Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage", so I guess a fair number of people remember him. Dang!)
In any case, I enjoyed this book a good deal. Bordewich doesn't waste time trying to justify, excuse, or apologize for anybody, which is a nice change, and even though the eventual outcome of the book described in the struggle is obvious, it's no less enjoyable for that. This is a good book to read as a prequel before a look at the civil war that's just over the horizon when the book finishes, and to that end I've been instructed to re-read the face-crushingly huge "Civil War" by Shelby Foote next, so look forward to that.
Grade: B+ (A- if re-titled)
Sunday, May 27, 2012
"dot.bomb"
dot.bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath (J. "First initials make you look like a douchebag" David Kuo)
Yes, it's another goofy business book. This one covers the rise and unsurprising crash and burn of Value America, a company I'd never heard of, which differed from a typical .com boom/bust story in that it had a vision for a inventoryless system (dealers ship directly to customers), hypothetically cutting costs to a bare minimum. Obviously this didn't work, and if you weren't already put off by that first sentence, you might be interested to read this book. The beginning deals with raising the capital to start the company, and while this could be a little dry, I found that it moved right along. The real meat of the book starts when Kuo joins the company and, well, you know how the .com bubble turned out. Getting there is an interesting ride, if hard to recommend for the general reader - but, like the other goofy business books, I'd recommend picking this up if you see it in your local bargain bin.
Grade: B
Yes, it's another goofy business book. This one covers the rise and unsurprising crash and burn of Value America, a company I'd never heard of, which differed from a typical .com boom/bust story in that it had a vision for a inventoryless system (dealers ship directly to customers), hypothetically cutting costs to a bare minimum. Obviously this didn't work, and if you weren't already put off by that first sentence, you might be interested to read this book. The beginning deals with raising the capital to start the company, and while this could be a little dry, I found that it moved right along. The real meat of the book starts when Kuo joins the company and, well, you know how the .com bubble turned out. Getting there is an interesting ride, if hard to recommend for the general reader - but, like the other goofy business books, I'd recommend picking this up if you see it in your local bargain bin.
Grade: B
Thursday, May 24, 2012
"The Battle of Brazil"
The Battle of Brazil: Terry Gilliam v. Universal Pictures in the Fight to the Final Cut (Jack Mathews)
I'm not a huge Brazil fan - I saw it once and thought it was pretty good - so I only read half of this book, that being the book's first part, a narrative history of Brazil's troubled post-production. The second half is the entire 161 page screenplay, which I didn't feel the need to read, even the way it's presented here with every other page sprinkled with interesting factoids. The first half of the book I enjoyed a great deal, but it's a little hard to recommend - although it's well written, it's a well-written history of a backstage Hollywood power struggle, which I don't imagine has a huge audience. I refuse to engage in the pointless cliche of writing something like "If you're a huge Brazil fan, you'll love this book," both because if you are chances are you have it already, and because I have more respect for my readers than to baldly state something so self-evident.
Grade: C+
I'm not a huge Brazil fan - I saw it once and thought it was pretty good - so I only read half of this book, that being the book's first part, a narrative history of Brazil's troubled post-production. The second half is the entire 161 page screenplay, which I didn't feel the need to read, even the way it's presented here with every other page sprinkled with interesting factoids. The first half of the book I enjoyed a great deal, but it's a little hard to recommend - although it's well written, it's a well-written history of a backstage Hollywood power struggle, which I don't imagine has a huge audience. I refuse to engage in the pointless cliche of writing something like "If you're a huge Brazil fan, you'll love this book," both because if you are chances are you have it already, and because I have more respect for my readers than to baldly state something so self-evident.
Grade: C+
Monday, May 21, 2012
"Crap Cars"
Crap Cars (Richard Porter)
The Carthage to the Rome that is "The World's Worst Cars". This book differs from that one in that it has only 50 cars (to the 150 included in World's Worst), and the writing is much snottier. These aren't necessarily negative, but this is a really short book, basically 50 snarky paragraphs, and it does feel rather thin. Still, I enjoyed reading it, so I guess I can't be too hard on it.
Grade: C+
The Carthage to the Rome that is "The World's Worst Cars". This book differs from that one in that it has only 50 cars (to the 150 included in World's Worst), and the writing is much snottier. These aren't necessarily negative, but this is a really short book, basically 50 snarky paragraphs, and it does feel rather thin. Still, I enjoyed reading it, so I guess I can't be too hard on it.
Grade: C+
Friday, May 18, 2012
"On the Firing Line"
On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple (Gil Amelio & William Simon)
Okay, I know what you're thinking: "N Ham, you're extremely smart and good looking. Why the heck did you read this?" Well, I basically read this as a very long footnote to the definitive history of Apple Computers (a book originally titled "Apple"). This book went into more history on Amelio's 500 days as CEO before he was replaced by Steve "Steve Jobs" Jobs.
And how was the book? Well, it was entertaining, I'll give it that - in fact, I think I may need a new category to put this book and "Anatomy of a Business Failure" in. Since this is Amelio's side of the story, he of course paints himself in the best possible light, and while I did get tired of the way that you can never go a huge amount of pages between hearing about his PhD, his jet, his expensive wine cellar, his vacation house, his "Classic 1973 Mercedes-Benz", etc, I can't really say I was ever bored. I'd take anything you read in here with a grain of salt, and I wouldn't read this without reading "Apple" first (which I can't find on Amazon; Maybe a more unique title would have helped), but yes, I did enjoy this book. This is one of those books I personally enjoyed but have a hard time recommending to a general audience. I don't know that you'll get anything from this if you don't know a lot about Apple - for example, I couldn't help but laugh at Amelio bristling at his replacement killing the sad flop that was the "Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh" (which he calls "incredible," and I guess it is since it was a not particularly powerful computer priced, at the low end, to move at seventy five hundred dollars) and predicting doom for Apple after Jobs takes over again. So I guess I would recommend this book if you already have that kind of knowledge, and it doesn't hurt that I got this out of a clearance bin for $1 (or 1/300th the price of one of the bottles of wine Amelio had to mention he owns).
Grade: C
Okay, I know what you're thinking: "N Ham, you're extremely smart and good looking. Why the heck did you read this?" Well, I basically read this as a very long footnote to the definitive history of Apple Computers (a book originally titled "Apple"). This book went into more history on Amelio's 500 days as CEO before he was replaced by Steve "Steve Jobs" Jobs.
And how was the book? Well, it was entertaining, I'll give it that - in fact, I think I may need a new category to put this book and "Anatomy of a Business Failure" in. Since this is Amelio's side of the story, he of course paints himself in the best possible light, and while I did get tired of the way that you can never go a huge amount of pages between hearing about his PhD, his jet, his expensive wine cellar, his vacation house, his "Classic 1973 Mercedes-Benz", etc, I can't really say I was ever bored. I'd take anything you read in here with a grain of salt, and I wouldn't read this without reading "Apple" first (which I can't find on Amazon; Maybe a more unique title would have helped), but yes, I did enjoy this book. This is one of those books I personally enjoyed but have a hard time recommending to a general audience. I don't know that you'll get anything from this if you don't know a lot about Apple - for example, I couldn't help but laugh at Amelio bristling at his replacement killing the sad flop that was the "Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh" (which he calls "incredible," and I guess it is since it was a not particularly powerful computer priced, at the low end, to move at seventy five hundred dollars) and predicting doom for Apple after Jobs takes over again. So I guess I would recommend this book if you already have that kind of knowledge, and it doesn't hurt that I got this out of a clearance bin for $1 (or 1/300th the price of one of the bottles of wine Amelio had to mention he owns).
Grade: C
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)