books for 2013
Apr. 2nd, 2013 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerI haven't been keeping track of books this year, so I'm probably going to miss out a few titles. But, then, if I'm not remembering them, they can't have made that much of an impact, right?
Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the War Against the Taliban by Stephen Tanner (1) I started listening to this last year. It does a good job of fulfilling exactly what is promised in its title. It does a good job of refuting the proposition, often raised by those who don't study Afghanistan much but like simple, bold statements, that no one has ever been able to conquer Afghanistan--that it's a land of illiterate tribesmen camped in impenetrable mountains that's completely ungovernable. What the author demonstrates is that plenty of armies, including Alexander's have conquered Afghanistan. Afghanistan itself has been a mighty kingdom, not only capable of ruling itself but able to reach out to dominate other nations or states in the region, even conquering and ruling mighty Persia itself. Afghanistan has been, especially in the centuries before oceans became major sea routes for trade, one of the most pivotal areas of the world, acting as a gateway between Persia, India, and the Turkish-dominated Central Asian steppe. It has been the birthplace of learning and culture, as well as the home of cruel, despotic, and barbarous leaders. It's an incredibly complex place, partly because of its landscape and partly because thsi history has left its mark on the country in the form of multiple ethnic and religious factions and historical great-power relationships, regionally and internationally. It's also a fascinating country, filled with history, languages, traditions, and culture from time out of mind. Highly recommended, especially but not exclusively if you like military history.
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2) Written six years before his Little America, which I reviewed last year, Imperial Life covers the initial occupation and governance of Iraq by the US Coalition Provisional Authority. It lays bare the foolishness, the partisan politics, the naivete, the insularity, the cultural blindness, and above all the sheer, horrific stupidity of this clueless viceregal government that tried to govern a country it didn't understand, appreciate, or even control. The list of decisions made without any knowledge of the reality on the ground, p0urely for US domestic political reasons, some of which proved nothign short of disastrous for Iraq, is sickening. As is the repeated insistence of powerful people in the US government to not only not enlist but to actively ignore, denigrate, or discourage those with valauble knowledge or expeiernce to share. I grew up during the Vietnam era, and I had hoped that, if nothing else, that whole experience would cause us to learn *something* about working in (and, effectively, governing) countires very different to our own. Of course, what it did (keeping in mind that most of those running our government during the Iraq War had been at lower levels in government during Vietnam) was create a willful blindness, an aversion to learning anything fromt hat experience. This is a very good book, but a depressing one. I won't even say anything about the cats.
Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter Bergen (3) Don't bother watching Zero Dark Thirty; just read this book.You'll learn a lot more about al-Qaida, bin Laden, the search for him, the White House decision-making process, and the operation that ended in his death. Bergen probably has the distinction of being the only person to have interviewed both bin Laden and all the people who hunted for him and eventually killed him. He's certainly the only person outside Seal Team Six to have seen both the models of the Abottabad compund built by the raid planners and to have walekd around the compound itself. This is a fascinating look into the world of the Islamic jihadist community, into the world of the counterterrorist (CT) analysts, and into the realm of the highly trained soldiers and sailors who form the point of the US CT spear.
Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett (4) The first in DD's books about Nicolas van der Poele, a young man growing up in Burgundian Flanders of uncertain parentage and unrecognised talents. This book introduces all the pivotal characters that will come to play the dominant roles of this huge and fascinating eight-volume saga. Most of the action takes place in the Flemish city of Bruges--where the reader meets Nicolas (called Claes) as he lives the life of an apprentice in a thriving dyeing business, that of the Charetty family--or in Italy, where the . in addition to the Charetty family--solid, middle-class burghers and owners of the business and Claes's masters and second family; the St Pol family--Scots-French merchants and nobles who have a curious relationship with Claes; the van Borselen family--nobles and merchants of Bruges; and the Adorne family--Genoese merchants married into Burgundian life. The Niccolo stories are a fascinating introduction to the role of finance and trade in the medieval/Renaissance world. Subsequent volumes take the story, resolve some complications and then add more, add more characters, and move the action to settings firther afield, while the characters, in their hearts and minds, stay grounded in Flanders and Burgundy.
Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett (5) The second Niccolo novel, this carries our hero(es) to the limit of the European world of the era, launching a Charetty trading mission to the rump Byzantine state of Trebizond, at the east end of the Black Sea, girt by mountains and best by strong and fractious neighbours--the mighty Ottoman Empire, almsot reaching its crescendo; the White Sheep Turkomans; the Kingdom of Armenia; and the many small but powerful Italian city states--Genoa, Florence, and most of all the mighty and sinister Republic of Venice. Riveting, full of adventure and intrigue, magniciently plotted.
Currently in progress:
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett
With Machinegun to Cambrai by George Coppard
Raiding on the Western Front by Anthony Saunders
Foch: Supreme Allied Commander in the Great War by Michael S. Neiberg
The Western Front: Ordinary Soldiers and the Defining Battles of World War I by Richard Holmes
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
In limbo somewhere
In the Skies of Nomonhan: Japan versus Russia, May - September 1939 by Dimitar Nedialkov
The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Laxdaela Saga
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Shards of Empire by Susan Schwartz
The Lily Hand And Other Stories by Edith Pargeter
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation by Francois Furstenberg
Doom Castle by Neil Munro
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the War Against the Taliban by Stephen Tanner (1) I started listening to this last year. It does a good job of fulfilling exactly what is promised in its title. It does a good job of refuting the proposition, often raised by those who don't study Afghanistan much but like simple, bold statements, that no one has ever been able to conquer Afghanistan--that it's a land of illiterate tribesmen camped in impenetrable mountains that's completely ungovernable. What the author demonstrates is that plenty of armies, including Alexander's have conquered Afghanistan. Afghanistan itself has been a mighty kingdom, not only capable of ruling itself but able to reach out to dominate other nations or states in the region, even conquering and ruling mighty Persia itself. Afghanistan has been, especially in the centuries before oceans became major sea routes for trade, one of the most pivotal areas of the world, acting as a gateway between Persia, India, and the Turkish-dominated Central Asian steppe. It has been the birthplace of learning and culture, as well as the home of cruel, despotic, and barbarous leaders. It's an incredibly complex place, partly because of its landscape and partly because thsi history has left its mark on the country in the form of multiple ethnic and religious factions and historical great-power relationships, regionally and internationally. It's also a fascinating country, filled with history, languages, traditions, and culture from time out of mind. Highly recommended, especially but not exclusively if you like military history.
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2) Written six years before his Little America, which I reviewed last year, Imperial Life covers the initial occupation and governance of Iraq by the US Coalition Provisional Authority. It lays bare the foolishness, the partisan politics, the naivete, the insularity, the cultural blindness, and above all the sheer, horrific stupidity of this clueless viceregal government that tried to govern a country it didn't understand, appreciate, or even control. The list of decisions made without any knowledge of the reality on the ground, p0urely for US domestic political reasons, some of which proved nothign short of disastrous for Iraq, is sickening. As is the repeated insistence of powerful people in the US government to not only not enlist but to actively ignore, denigrate, or discourage those with valauble knowledge or expeiernce to share. I grew up during the Vietnam era, and I had hoped that, if nothing else, that whole experience would cause us to learn *something* about working in (and, effectively, governing) countires very different to our own. Of course, what it did (keeping in mind that most of those running our government during the Iraq War had been at lower levels in government during Vietnam) was create a willful blindness, an aversion to learning anything fromt hat experience. This is a very good book, but a depressing one. I won't even say anything about the cats.
Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden From 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter Bergen (3) Don't bother watching Zero Dark Thirty; just read this book.You'll learn a lot more about al-Qaida, bin Laden, the search for him, the White House decision-making process, and the operation that ended in his death. Bergen probably has the distinction of being the only person to have interviewed both bin Laden and all the people who hunted for him and eventually killed him. He's certainly the only person outside Seal Team Six to have seen both the models of the Abottabad compund built by the raid planners and to have walekd around the compound itself. This is a fascinating look into the world of the Islamic jihadist community, into the world of the counterterrorist (CT) analysts, and into the realm of the highly trained soldiers and sailors who form the point of the US CT spear.
Niccolo Rising by Dorothy Dunnett (4) The first in DD's books about Nicolas van der Poele, a young man growing up in Burgundian Flanders of uncertain parentage and unrecognised talents. This book introduces all the pivotal characters that will come to play the dominant roles of this huge and fascinating eight-volume saga. Most of the action takes place in the Flemish city of Bruges--where the reader meets Nicolas (called Claes) as he lives the life of an apprentice in a thriving dyeing business, that of the Charetty family--or in Italy, where the . in addition to the Charetty family--solid, middle-class burghers and owners of the business and Claes's masters and second family; the St Pol family--Scots-French merchants and nobles who have a curious relationship with Claes; the van Borselen family--nobles and merchants of Bruges; and the Adorne family--Genoese merchants married into Burgundian life. The Niccolo stories are a fascinating introduction to the role of finance and trade in the medieval/Renaissance world. Subsequent volumes take the story, resolve some complications and then add more, add more characters, and move the action to settings firther afield, while the characters, in their hearts and minds, stay grounded in Flanders and Burgundy.
Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett (5) The second Niccolo novel, this carries our hero(es) to the limit of the European world of the era, launching a Charetty trading mission to the rump Byzantine state of Trebizond, at the east end of the Black Sea, girt by mountains and best by strong and fractious neighbours--the mighty Ottoman Empire, almsot reaching its crescendo; the White Sheep Turkomans; the Kingdom of Armenia; and the many small but powerful Italian city states--Genoa, Florence, and most of all the mighty and sinister Republic of Venice. Riveting, full of adventure and intrigue, magniciently plotted.
Currently in progress:
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett
With Machinegun to Cambrai by George Coppard
Raiding on the Western Front by Anthony Saunders
Foch: Supreme Allied Commander in the Great War by Michael S. Neiberg
The Western Front: Ordinary Soldiers and the Defining Battles of World War I by Richard Holmes
Boer Commando by Denneys Reitz
In limbo somewhere
In the Skies of Nomonhan: Japan versus Russia, May - September 1939 by Dimitar Nedialkov
The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Knights of the Cross; or, Krzyzacy by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Laxdaela Saga
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Shards of Empire by Susan Schwartz
The Lily Hand And Other Stories by Edith Pargeter
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation by Francois Furstenberg
Doom Castle by Neil Munro
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
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