Books We Read/Listen To

[concerned]

I tried Hard Times but couldn't move forward, so I put it down and resolved to try again. There is, however, a character in that one with one of the best Dickensian names ever: Mr. Gradgrind.

There's a BBC/PBS production of Little Dorrit I liked a lot. A young Claire Foy plays Dorrit.

I will have to watch that on the treadmill. I love Claire Foy; she was terrific as Anne Boylen and QEII

[UBlender]

I will have to watch that on the treadmill. I love Claire Foy; she was terrific as Anne Boylen and QEII

Is that Jim Boylen's wife or daughter?

[concerned]

Is that Jim Boylen's wife or daughter?

Second wife. She was beheaded because the ball didn't go in the hoop.

[USS Utah]

The Man Who Save the Union: Ulysses S. Grant in War and Peace by H. W. Brands

As commanding general in the Civil War he had defeated secession and destroyed slavery, secession's cause. For all the honor paid Robert E. Lee for brilliance and daring, it was Grant who had the harder task in their epic struggle. Grant fought in enemy territory against an army that typically stood behind developed defenses; Grant had to win while Lee had merely to avoid losing. Attackers almost always suffer greater casualties than defenders, but Grant's casualties, as a portion of his army, were lower than Lee's. His mistakes were few and never decisive. And in the reckoning that overrode all others, he came out on top: he won the war.

Grant's presidency is largely remember now for scandals which he was never implicated in. Forgotten is his role in post-war reconstruction, in enforcing civil rights for African-Americans. Grant also offered American Indians a distinct peace policy from that of the aggressive exploitation favored by his predecessors and most of his contemporaries. Native Americans, like the African Americans, could not claim lasting success for Grant's endeavors on their behalf for his struggle for minority rights against majority hostility or indifference was a battle he couldn't win. Nonetheless, he waged a good and honorable fight.

This is an excellent biography.

--

Betty Zane by Zane Grey

Before Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey was known as the master of the western novel, yet his first book was a historical novel rather than a western. The book's principle character, Betty Zane, also happened to be Grey's great-great-grandmother. The novel takes place at Fort Henry, near present day Wheeling, West Virginia, during the final years of the American Revolution. Trouble is brewing with the Indians which culminates in a siege of Fort Henry. With the defenders running short of food and ammunition, Betty volunteers to fetch some gunpowder from a cache outside of the fort, which requires her to sprint under the guns of the enemy in broad daylight.

Excellent

--

The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine

An excellent, detailed analysis of the Depression, its causes, its remedies, the American culture as influenced by the Depression and of the two presidents tasked with dealing with it. The Depression would lead to a major cultural shift in the United States, one that would last until the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.

I first read this book back in the late 1990s. I think I understood and comprehended more in this second reading. Fantastic.