In his own words
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The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea
Review: A very, very good book. Almost poetic in its tone and descriptions without being forced or contrived. A short, sad, glorious tale of a man, a boy, a woman, and the timeless eternity of the ocean. Overall rating: How I discovered or acquired this book: RNG4LRP Noteworthy experiences while reading this book: Coronavirus scare…
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Raid on St. Nazaire
Review: A very well written account of a daring raid in WWII. The first raid. A lot like the first bodybuilders, these first commandos had to make everything from scratch, including their units and themselves. It was a big eyeopener in that this was a real story, with real men, really dying. Not a movie,…
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Chariots of Fire
Review: An excellent treatment of my favorite movie. Overall rating: How I discovered or acquired this book: Noteworthy experiences while reading this book: Check out author’s other books? Recommend this book? To whom? Ratings (1-10, 10 being exceptional):
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Fathers and Sons
Review: Bazarov the Nihilist. Arkady the Starry-eyed Youth. Women of the Aristocracy. Men of the Aristocracy. Add vodka. Shake and pour into novel. It really works out well in terms of readability, pace, characters. It just works. Overall rating: How I discovered or acquired this book: RNG4LRP Noteworthy experiences while reading this book: Check out…
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Madam Bovary
Review: Lots of rapturous sighs. It was a good read, I can see why it is respected, and the characters are good illustrations of 19th century townspeople. A bit 2-D though. She’s a “fallen woman” and things go downhill and end very badly. He’s a starry-eyed optimist. Everyone dies at the end. Good work, but…
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The WWI Trivia Book
Review: Once again, a good book spoiled completely by so many errors and typos as to be a real disappointment. The author is a smart guy, but he needs to get a proofreader and fix the file. I learned a lot, the format is a good effort, with history, then facts, then trivia test questions.…
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Poetry of the First World War
Review: An excellent anthology. Obviously some of the most notables get lots of space, but there were some lesser knowns, as well as women and civilian poets. A very powerful book of verse from a very terrible period of our human experience. Excellent editing made for an excellent anthology. Overall rating: How I discovered or…
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Savage Beauty
Review: It took the author 30 years to write this. It’s less biography and more muckraking and airing of dirty laundry. It’s disappointing. All the bad, dirty details from personal letters inserted for no good reason. Like, I get you want to show the grit, the bad with the good, like Boswell avowedly did. But…
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The Pilgrim’s Progress
Review: Christian allegory. But… actually very well done, and it’s old, but holds up well. For the time and audience that it was written for it sure got its message across. The first part was more gritty, the second a bit too “okay now we got a dude with superpowers to get this pilgrimage done…
