Short month, short list. Didn't enjoy any of these as much as I'd hoped, but nor would I discourage anyone from reading them. Full list for 2013 available at this link
The First World War was the
overwhelming disaster from which everything else in the twentieth century
stemmed. Fourteen million combatants died, four empires were destroyed, and
even the victors’ empires were fatally damaged. World War I took humanity from
the nineteenth century forcibly into the twentieth—and then, at Versailles,
cast Europe on the path to World War II as well.
In World War One, Norman Stone, one of the world’s greatest historians, has
achieved the almost impossible task of writing a terse and witty short history
of the war. A captivating, brisk narrative, World War One is Stone’s masterful
effort to make sense of one of the twentieth century’s pivotal conflicts.
Note: The White Guard led me to
this, and, though I did not learn as much as I’d hoped, I am newly appreciative
of the role of declining empires and nascent states (including the USSR) in
WWI. Not something taught in Canada. Also, improvements in munitions and other
technologies changed war forever.
Your hard work is paying off. You are doing well in your field.
But there is something standing between you and the next level of achievement.
That something may just be one of your own annoying habits. Perhaps one small
flaw - a behaviour you barely even recognise - is the only thing that's keeping
you from where you want to be. It may be that the very characteristic that you
believe got you where you are - like the drive to win at all costs - is what's
holding you back. As this book explains, people often do well in spite of
certain habits rather than because of them - and need a "to stop"
list rather than one listing what "to do". Marshall Goldsmith's
expertise is in helping global leaders overcome their unconscious annoying
habits and become more successful. His one-on-one coaching comes with a
six-figure price tag - but in this book you get his great advice for much less.
Recently named as one of the world's five most-respected executive coaches by
Forbes, he has worked with over 100 major CEOs and their management teams at
the world's top businesses. His clients include corporations such as Goldman
Sachs, Glaxo SmithKline, Johnson and Johnson and GE.
Note: Somewhat self-congratulatory study
of how leaders and organizations can improve. Overlong, like most books of this
kind, but full of examples and theories with practical utility.
At the age
of ten, when Martin Amis spent a year in Princeton, New Jersey, he was excited
and frightened by America. As an adult he has approached that confusing country
from many arresting angles, and interviewed its literati, filmmakers, thinkers,
opinion makers, leaders and crackpots with characteristic discernment and wit.
Included in
a gallery of Great American Novelists are Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Truman
Capote, Joseph Heller, William Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike, Paul
Theroux, Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. Amis also takes us to Dallas, where
presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is attempting to liaise with born-again
Christians. We glimpse the beau monde of Palm Beach, where
each couple tries to out-Gatsby the other, and examine the case of Claus von
Bulow. Steven Spielberg gets a visit, as does Brian de Palma, whom Amis asks
why his films make no sense, and Hugh Hefner's sybaritic fortress and sanitised
image are penetrated.
There can be
little that escapes the eye of Martin Amis when his curiosity leads him to a
subject, and America has found in him a superlative chronicler.
Note: Series of erudite
interviews and book reviews about American personalities, written with the
acerbity that only the British can seem to pull off. Not a wasted word, but not
much to take away either.
Robert Ferrell offers the first book-length account of the
Coolidge presidency in thirty years, drawing on the recently opened papers of
White House physician Joel T. Boone to provide a more personal appraisal of the
thirtieth president than has previously been possible. Ferrell shows Coolidge
to have been a hard-working, sensitive individual who was a canny politician
and an astute judge of people. Drawing on the most recent literature on the
Coolidge era, Ferrell has constructed a meticulous and highly readable account
of the president's domestic and foreign policy. His book illuminates this
pre-Depression administration for historians and reveals to general readers a
president who was stern in temperament and dedicated to public service.
Note: Read this after a review of
the new biography, which casts Silent Cal as a conservative hero. From this it
looks like Hoover and Mellon were running the country during the roaring
twenties, and the president was not much involved.
Long ago, the Storyteller claimed, in this first book of THE
BELGARIAD, the evil god Torak drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the
Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as
it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe.
But Garion did not believe in such stories. Brought up on a quiet farm by his
Aunt Pol, how could he know that the Apostate planned to wake dread Torak, or
that he would be led on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger by those he
loved--but did not know...?
Note: Standard fantasy, better
than some, not as good as others. A gift to Ana (which is why I read it), but I
did not move on to Book II, although I briefly considered it.
White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakovs semi-autobiographical first
novel, is the story of the Turbin family in Kiev in 1918. Alexei, Elena, and
Nikolka Turbin have just lost their mothertheir father had died years beforeand
find themselves plunged into the chaotic civil war that erupted in the Ukraine
in the wake of the Russian Revolution. In the context of this familys personal
loss and the social turmoil surrounding them, Bulgakov creates a brilliant
picture of the existential crises brought about by the revolution and the loss
of social, moral, and political certainties. He confronts the reader with the
bewildering cruelty that ripped Russian life apart at the beginning of the last
century as well as with the extraordinary ways in which the Turbins preserved
their humanity. In this volume Marian Schwartz, a leading translator, offers
the first complete and accurate translation of the definitive original text of
Bulgakovs novel. She includes the famous dream sequence, omitted in previous
translations, and beautifully solves the stylistic issues raised by Bulgakovs
ornamental prose.
Note: Did not really know
anything about what happened in the Ukraine during World War I. Learned a
little, but did not enjoy the story as much as I’d hoped, especially after the
Master and Margarita.
With the wry and admiring eye of a modern Tocqueville, Jason
Goodwin gives us a biography of the dollar and the story of its astonishing
career through the wilds of American history. Looking at the dollar over the
years as a form of art, a kind of advertising, and a reflection of American
attitudes, Goodwin delves into folklore and the development of printing,
investigates wildcats and counterfeiters, explains why a buck is a buck and how
Dixie got its name. Bringing together an array of quirky detail and often
hilarious anecdote, Goodwin tells the story of America through its most beloved
product.
With the wry and admiring eye of a modern Tocqueville, Jason Goodwin gives us a
biography of the dollar and the story of its astonishing career through the
wilds of American history. Looking at the dollar over the years as a form of
art, a kind of advertising, and a reflection of American attitudes, Goodwin
delves into folklore and the development of printing, investigates wildcats and
counterfeiters, explains why a buck is a buck and how Dixie got its name.
Bringing together an array of quirky detail and often hilarious anecdote,
Goodwin tells the story of America through its most beloved product.
Note: So much of monetary policy seems
to have been driven by the need to pay for wars, which can be expensive. And at
the end of the day, it’s just paper.
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