Blog Archive
6. Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
MacMillan's book is a WWI history-buff's treasure, full of details not just about the major powers but all the lesser squabbles (that later in the century took center stage. Balkans, I'm looking at you) and their players. Lloyd George is one of many major players, along with US President Woodrow Wilson (pushing his League of Nations) and the irascible French PM Georges Clemenceau, who pepper this book with personality.
Those three also come off less harshly than other historians might claim.
The prose is crisp as a fall leaf...and sometimes as dry. On the balance, I was engaged. I don't know about you, but non-fiction for me is just as fascinating and enthralling as fiction, with the added bonus of having happened. The only downside, especially with a topic as ranging and complex as the fallout from World War I, is the volume of data that must be conveyed to understand the good stuff.
What I knew about the peace talks was informed by the few world and European history classes I'd taken over my academic career. The conference produced the Treaty of Versailles, and quite directly, World War II. That would've been my one-line description of all that took place in the City of Lights during 1919.
According to MacMillan, I am half right. Yes, that ubiquitous treaty was produced by the victors and Germany signed it, but MacMillan argues that the treaty did not have to lead to another world war. It's an important conclusion of the book, one I'm not sure she - or other histories - support. Here too is where the Big 3, and many other Allied diplomats, get off with a slap on the wrist: they are seen as punishing Germany within its means, not realizing the destabilizing influence of the treaty or the extremists (left and right) who were waiting for just such an opening to forge a new nation.
But the fate of Germany, how bad the war reparations really were (or could be, or weren't) and the rise of extreme nationalism are supplemental topics left for closing paragraphs and epilogues. She concerns herself more with the whole of the conference, the road from Armistice Day through the end of 1919.
(The 1920 treaties are mentioned as well, but for all intents, this book tracks the first six months of 1919 ending in Versailles as the main "story," with the other four or five major treaties the [much-needed] secondary narratives.)
I enjoyed it, though it took me a while. In fact, I had this book on my shelf for nearly two years (and it was borrowed from a co-worker who, when I read it, had been gone for over a year himself!) before deciding it was time to get it out of the way. I'm glad I did, as it rounded my perspective on this important year in world history.
What I most took away is how screwed up the Balkan and Eastern European delegations were and how their rabid nationalism and racism was a poison that slowly took control of everything between Russia and Germany and on down to the Mediterranean. And today, the same prejudices aren't far out of mind in the fragile, post-Communist countries.
Few realize that much of the international woes we face now started, in large part, in the apartments of Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau...with a little help from delegations large and small, European and not, totalitarian, democratic, socialist and theocratic. The divvying up of Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and Eastern Europe and to a lesser extent Asia: these major acts have led to countless deaths, small wars and what we perceive as "terrorism."
Solutions to these problems require an understanding of their origins. And this is as good a book as any to get the ball rolling.
-Erik
Posted by : The Den of Mystery on Sunday, October 11, 2009 | Labels: Margaret MacMillan, Non-Fiction, Paris 1919, Review, War, World War I | 0 Comments
5. & 7. Along Came a Spider; Kiss the Girls
by James Patterson
Until these two, I hadn't read a James Patterson book (though I frequently had the half-hour required to down one...). These are his first Alex Cross mysteries, introducing the Washington, D.C.-based detective and his supporting cast. You might've seen the big screen adaptations featuring Morgan Freeman as Cross.
Please read these books if you even remotely enjoyed this movies. They are so much better, and a fine example of the mystery-detective genre. Cross also is more Denzel Washington (in both age, personality and build) than the ageing gentleman Freeman.
5. Along Came A Spider - long/short, two kids are kidnapped from their elite DC elementary school by a teacher obsessed with the Lindberg baby, and Cross gets backed into the case against his wishes. Of course, there are twists and turns as befits the genre, a love interest in the form a female Secret Service agent and an ending that is both satisfying and bleak.
7. Kiss the Girls - oooo, a serial killer. All the craze since Hannibal Lecter warmed our hearts (in the oven), serial killer stories give us a glimpse at a black patch of humanity that we can't not stare at. Cross here investigates the disappearance of his (early 20s) niece and discovers she's not the only one who hasn't shown up for class. To top it off, there appears to be a killer operating with a similar MO on the West Coast. What's the connection, and can Cross solve it before it's his niece they're finding mutilated in the woods?
Technically speaking, Patterson shows improvement as a writer in this book. He brings in another woman to work with Cross (the only woman to escape the East Coast Casanova killer), but she's not the same as the Secret Service agent or a slightly different Clarice Starling. A satisfying addition.
These books are both in their second decade, and it's easy to pick them up and call them cliched. After all, Patterson has many imitators and these two were some of his best. But when you head to the beach this summer, or have a rainy weekend, crack them open and put aside your preconceived notions about the author who'll have ten books published this calendar year with his name on the cover.
He might be a thriller factory now, but he started out as a good writer.
-Erik
Posted by : The Den of Mystery on Thursday, October 1, 2009 | Labels: James Patterson, Serial Killer, Thriller | 0 Comments
4. The Last Templar
The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury
Father-in-law Bud loaned this one to me, insisting I read it. As I've pawned off books on him, turnabout is fair play.
This is the second "Knights Templar"-craze book I've read (the first being The DaVinci Code), and it's easily the better. While the characterizations are Big Screen Action stock, and the plot isn't entirely original (but what is in this field?), the brisk clip of the narrative and healthy doses of action keep your fingers flipping pages throughout the night to see what The Secret Item really is that may - or may not - have made it out of the sack of Jerusalem so many centuries ago.
And that's the story: mystery item is sought by "evil" parties, comes into possession of a hero and later heroine (who, strangely, is so rampantly selfish as to be refreshing) and thus there is conflict. It spans the globe, has a Crusades-era sidestory, the deaths aren't overly gruesome, lots of chases and derring-do, and the romance isn't too forced or saccharine.
The opening heist featuring fully armored "Templars" on horseback raiding a museum would be terrific on screen (and it might be, as there was a mini-series earlier in the summer, but I've not watched it).
A note: this story was actually written as a screenplay BEFORE The DaVinci Code every came out, but was never produced. The writer was encouraged to turn it into a novel right around the time Dan Brown put his stamp on worldwide bestseller lists. So don't see this one as trite, a play on the Holy Grail-type story or just cheap paperback fiction.
It's a great beach read (not exactly high art, though), and I hear his subsequent scribblings are also quite good.
-Erik
Posted by : The Den of Mystery on Monday, September 28, 2009 | Labels: Action, Knights Templar, Raymond Khoury, Review | 0 Comments
1-3. The Chronicles of Narnia Books 1-3
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" by C.S. Lewis
I read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in 3rd grade, and saw a cartoon adaptation. Beyond that, I had little exposure save the two blockbuster movies. Mandy got me a neat, 1970s-era box set of the seven books in the Chronicles, numbered as the author intended - in publication order, not according to internal chronology. And so, I set out to discover if they are as "classic" as I've been lead to believe (and clear the palate after Why We Hate Us).
While the titular character, Telmarine noble Prince Caspian, is fleeing for his life from his wicked uncle and rallying the Narnians, the four Pevensie children are back again, finding Narnia overgrown and wild, far different from the peaceful kingdom they left. As the two stories link up, the book becomes more engaging overall, but never captures the magic of the first.
-Erik
Posted by : Erik M Held on Thursday, September 10, 2009 | Labels: 2009, C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia, Review | 0 Comments
0. Why We Hate Us
Why We Hate Us by Dick Meyer
Yeah, this one killed me last year.
I started it with only a few days left to reach 52 books, and this would've been it. By all counts, it was a great choice: conversational in tone, slim, a mix of pop culture and politics. After the recent (more/less rewarding) slog through The Inheritance, I wanted to read a lighter book on political theory and thought this would be it. At first glance, I expected sarcasm, humor and some serious talking points.
What I got was diatribe, vitriol and some serious talking points. This didn't really make me want to push to the finish line.
That and, the day after I started it, I found out Mandy was pregnant. News like that will stop any project cold, even at the endgame.
So I didn't get to 52 books last year, and this was the one that slowed me down just enough (we're talking a chapter-length from finishing).
I gave loaned this one to a friend, Matt Griffin, and he didn't make it through. Too mean, too many societal problems without solutions. I feel the same way.
Dick Meyer had a great idea, and the premise - why Americans are induling in a sort of European self-hate when their's is a great, if flawed, country - is sound. Unfortunately, the execution is bogged down in a lot of anger at the problems (and why they exist), wiht the "solutions" chapter a meager offering at best.
If you're a fan of Dick Meyer, and he isn't a bad writer, or want to explore the question behind the title (why do we hate us?), visit your local library before hitting up the bookstore or Amazon.
-Erik
Posted by : The Den of Mystery on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 | Labels: 2009, Dick Meyer, Review | 0 Comments
2008: Cover to Cover
"The average American spends three minutes a day reading a book." -Dick Meyer, Why We Hate Us
I took in this sentence while racing against the clock, trying to complete a goal I've been after for a few years now: reading 52 books, cover to cover, in one year. Were Meyer's statistic to mean something to me, it'd be that I need to get out more. As it stands, I defy the average with my love of reading. Read on!
Posted by : The Den of Mystery on Sunday, September 6, 2009 | Labels: 2008, Brandon Sanderson, Chris Offutt, Christopher Buckley, Review, Star Wars, Stephen King, Theodore Judson | 0 Comments