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I am a bit disappointed in myself with this month’s misstep. Enough so that I feel some need to make amends. Therefore, rather than simply identify the books that fail me in a month, I will add those that surprise me or are better than anticipated. Why am I disappointed about the one book I [...]            Tim April 1st, 2013 | Tags: Books, fiction, history, illiterati, reading | Category: A Reading Life | Leave a comment |  Print This Post |  Email This PostYes, Russia is a broad topic but it’s true. Entirely by coincidence both books I’m reading right now deal solely with Russian history. A couple months ago I saw Martin Sixsmith’s Russia: A 1000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East on the shelves at the local B&N. Although I remain doubtful anyone can really tell a [...] Tim January 10th, 2013 | Tags: history, reading, Russia | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostFrancis Spufford’s Red Plenty may be the most fascinating book I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s the rare book where you think about the subject and have a hard time believing you are so involved with it. On the surface, Red Plenty is, for lack of a better term, a literary history of [...] Tim August 9th, 2012 | Tags: Book Reviews, creative nonfiction, history, Soviet Union | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostSeveral years ago I blogged about how I thought some of Amazon’s music recommendations for me were a bit wacky. Now its got me wondering about the general emails it sends out recommending books in various subjects. Yesterday I received an Amazon email suggesting some history books I “might be interested in.” Listed twice — [...] Tim August 2nd, 2012 | Tags: Amazon, Books, history | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostI grew up in an era when people still wrote letters. In fact, I remember my mother sitting down at least once a week writing to friends and relatives out of town, many on a weekly or biweekly basis. Today, though, letters are more rare. We tend to rely on email or text messaging to [...] Tim April 30th, 2012 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostWar crimes trials are a 20th Century invention. Although a vehicle for punishment and, perhaps, the reestablishment of the rule of law, one has to wonder the extent to which individual defendants truly acknowledge any real guilt. This is seen in the autobiography written by Auschwitz camp commander Rudolf Hoess while in prison following [...] Tim February 21st, 2012 | Tags: Book Reviews, Germany, history, nonfiction, Review Copy, World War II | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostAlthough I’ve only read three books this year, my early effort at spontaneity over planning in my reading selections means two of those books were biographies of two women at about the same time. They resulted in impressions as different as the subjects. On the disappointing end of the spectrum was Eva Braun: Life with [...] Tim January 12th, 2012 | Tags: biography, Book Reviews, history, nonfiction | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostEarly into reading Anna Funder’s Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, I came across a passage that made me think, “That is truly Kafkaesque.” For some reason, that sent my mind on a digression into the difference between something being Kafkaesque and something being Orwellian. While I eventually sorted it out in my own [...] Tim November 14th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, Germany, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | One comment - (Comments are closed) | Print This Post | Email This PostThe main ramifications of historic events are frequently easy to see. Often, though, we overlook the ripples that produce unexpected, or even untended, effects. Take 9/11, for example. It didn’t take a great deal of thought to realize it would bring the U.S. into direct armed conflict with al-Qaeda. And it was barely six weeks [...] Tim October 28th, 2011 | Tags: 9/11, Book Reviews, history, Iraq War, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This PostWorld War II is often seen as the last “good war,” a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. And there was plenty of evil to go around, not just in the Axis forces. Take, for example, the case of Marcel Petiot. Petiot, a French physician, was convicted of murdering 26 people in Paris during World [...] Tim September 16th, 2011 | Tags: Book Reviews, history, nonfiction, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews | Comments are closed | Print This Post | Email This Post |
      
 The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.
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