The Book of the Year

This year I've been doing a lot of reading.  A lot of history reading, to be specific. I think I've read more this year than any year in the past and learned a tremendous amount.  Now at the end of the year I made my list of what the best books are for the year and I think the actual best book of the year is Wilson by A.Scott Berg, a tremendous biography of the President Woodrow Wilson. I've read several biographies of Wilson but this one does an excellent job of combining the research involved in presenting his life and his two terms as President, while reading like a very entertaining novel.

The runner up and very close behind Wilson by a margin, is Catastrophe:1914 by Max Hastings about that first year of World War 1. Max Hastings is perhaps the best battle writer out today.

Shelby Foote's Civil War Trilogy

I just finally finished tackling the massive three-volumes of Shelby Foote's narrative of the Civil War. It took three months, about the same when I read the trilogy the first time ten years ago. Foote was such a tremendous writer, he brings the war alive. With all the stellar volumes about the American Civil War, it's no small compliment to say that Foote's trilogy is pretty much certainly the standard as the overview of the whole war. Bruce Catton's civil war trilogy comes close and McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom is the best one-volume history of the war, but Shelby Foote's is the monumental achievement.

Graham Hancock's novel War God review

Posted originally on the Rogan Board-

I finished War God and enjoyed it very much. Graham Hancock has spoken of a hesitation on the part of publishers to put out his fiction writing on the pigeonholed as a non-fiction writer and that would be ridiculous on the part of those publishers as he is a fine fiction writer. I think his observations from his non-fiction works, I think, add to the richness of his description. At some point I'll read War God again as there were a lot of characters to follow and keep track of.
I read a lot of history but haven't really studied that era of history to any degree so it was especially good for me that he included that War God and History section at the end of the tieing together his fictional aspects of the story with what are commonly accepted as historical facts pertaining to that era. Overall, lots of intriguing characters like Alvarado, Tozi, and of course, Cortes. Lots of violent and brutal battles and actions sequences and some powerful scenes such as the gruesome sacrifice. I look forward to the next two books and I commend Graham for making the book available for 2.99 on Kindle.

Banshee

Based on a recommendation by a friend, I ordered the blu ray of the Cinemax tv show Banshee. It took me only three days to watch the full ten episodes and it more than delivered. Not at all a family show it has very few limits in its action and sexual action. The tale of an ex-con, with a bit of a knack for being in place at the right, or wrong depending on how one looks at things, manages to steal the newly arrived sheriff's identity before anyone in town has met the sheriff. His purpose of being in the town is to track down his ex girlfriend and former accomplice, who now has a family. In their earlier lives they had run afoul of the Russian mob and now Sheriff Lucas Hood has run afoul of the town's rough Amish mob boss. I cannot recommend Banshee enough if you are looking for some action with twists and turns.

Back with the blog

Between posting on Facebook, posting on the Rogan Board, the Hoffman Forums, and the Boxingscene Forums, I post a lot of content every day, and it's easy to forget that I have a blog also, one that now I haven't updated in almost a year. That will change and I will be on here more frequently for those who check out the blog.