Current Reading - November 2020

I'm currently slogging through Tudors: The History of England by Peter Ackroyd which is pretty good, but takes some careful reading since there are lots of names to keep track of. Still, very interesting. I'd be reading more, but I just got a new gaming computer and it is that time of year :)

Just finished Seventeen Fathoms Deep, a pretty good journalistic accounting of the loss of the USS "S-4." The central focus is on the participants who left personal accounts but the author could have stood to make a visit to the National Archives in Washington.

>2 Shrike58: If you have an interesting in that field, I can recommend On the Bottom: The Raising of the Submarine S-51 by Edward Ellsberg. Ellsberg was the naval officer in command of the recovery effort so this is a first person account and it is a very interesting story from the point of view of marine salvage.

Ellsberg also wrote a trio of books about his experiences in WW2, which you can find bundled in one Kindle download titled "The World War II Chronicles: Under the Red Sea Sun, The Far Shore, and No Banners, No Bugles". The first two books are very interesting, especially the first one. The third is a bit of a catch-all of his later experiences. And of course you might be able to locate the individual books.

>3 jztemple: Williams leans heavily on Ellsberg. What really got the author going was that the commander of the "Paulding" left a substantial archive relating to the disaster to the SUNY maritime academy, that he discovered basically untouched.

Well I found you again. I have to admit that was a rather "interesting" event that happened. Oh well, welcome to 2020. Hopefully I'll finish the book about women climbing in the Colorado Rockies so I can add it. >1 jztemple: I have a record of what I read as well. . good old start and end date in the book's record! Since I started marking everything there about 4 or 5 years ago, I don't start reading a book a second time unless I really want to!!

>5 ulmannc: I do start and end dates as well. I find it help me remember more about the book.

Finished The Fatal Land yesterday evening, which essentially aims to cut through the romance of the Highland soldier serving the Empire and look at the personal motivations of both the officers and enlisted men. The short version being three cheers for King & Britain, particularly if we can make it work for us. While I'm impressed with the author's scholarship his assumption appears that you will have your background knowledge about the period in order before you tackle what is essentially an exercise in narrative sociology.

>5 ulmannc: 2020: The gift that keeps on giving.