Books read January through December 1991
| Author | Olsen, George H. (BSc. CEng, MIERG, M Inst) |
|---|---|
| Publication | London: Heinemann, 1986 |
| Number of Pages | 330 |
| Extras | index, diagrams |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Electronics |
| When Read | January 1991 |
"New revised edition, International Edition".
A high level but very complete and satisfying survey of electronics. Chapters are: Electronic systems, signal waveforms and passive components; Semiconductors; Audio amplifiers; Integrated circuits; Power amplifiers; Power supplies; Oscillators; Radio; CRTs; TV; Hi Fi; Digital; Photo electric; Sample projects;
Olsen is particularly good at getting to the heart of the subject without belaboring the obvious. As a result, his book is more difficult than some other introductory texts, but does cover important material in a way in which the answers are there if you dig them out and think hard. This is the first book on electronics I've read in many years. I found it hard going. There was a new concept on every page or even half page. But it was also fascinating and enlightening.
I bought this book in a shop on St. Kitts during our December vacation there. I found myself compulsively reading it rather than the novels I had brought with me. The book has stimulated my interest and I am going to read more.
Looking back, I'm impressed that I read a 330 page technical book in one or two months. I see that this is the only book I read in January, 1991. I was indeed very interested and did go on to read more about electronics.
I wrote quite a bit about this book in diary entries starting on December 18, 1990, and continuing in January. The December entry talks a lot about whether and why I should read a book like this.
| Author | Stout, Rex |
|---|---|
| Publication | Mattituck, NY: American Reprint Co. |
| Copyright Date | 1938 |
| Number of Pages | 190 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery |
| When Read | February 1991 |
Nero and Archie blow a tire and damage their car on the way to a country fair in upstate NY where Wolfe will show his orchids. They spend the night at the home of a restaurant chain owner named Pratt who has bought a prize bull, Hickory Caesar Grindon, for $45,000, which he plans to barbecue as a publicity stunt. Before he can do it, his wealthy neighbor and rival's son first bets he won't, then is killed, apparently gored by the bull. Wolfe realizes immediately that the bull had nothing to do with it and sells his services to the neighbor, Osgood, to find the killer.
It transpires, after the usual to do, that the real Hickory Caesar Grindon was long dead, the bull was a non-prize winning substitute and the seller killed the young man to avoid blackmail over the discovery. The to do includes a night in jail for Archie for withholding evidence, a young vamp in love with Archie, and so on.
This is the earliest of the Nero Wolfe stories I've read so far, yet the apparent uniformity of style is amazing and quite delightful.
My recollection is that the novel opens with a scene at the farm. Nero and Archie are walking across a pasture when Nero suddenly orders Archie to freeze. He has seen the bull eyeing them at the far end of the field and realizes that they are in danger of being attacked and gored. Nero's childhood memories of rural Montenegro enabled him to see and avoid the danger.
| Author | Hilsman, Roger |
|---|---|
| Publication | Washington: Brassey's (U.S.), 1990 |
| Number of Pages | 312 |
| Extras | maps, photos, index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | World War II |
| When Read | February 1991 |
Son of an army officer, H went to West Point, leaving in 1943 to go to jungle training and then India and Burma. He served first in a regular unit where he was severely wounded in his first combat. After a long recovery he went back into action as one of four westerners and commander of a guerrilla unit of Chinese, Kachin, and Shan irregulars. He fought the Japanese for several months with tremendous success, killing hundreds for the loss of only six of his own men. He stayed on the move, constantly working his way deeper behind Japanese lines where Japanese combat troops were rare and convoys and depots more plentiful. When the Japanese surrendered he then parachuted into China to help free American prisoners there, including his own father.
After the war Hilsman became a regular officer but was bored and left for work in government / academic political circles, eventually becoming Undersecretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs under Kennedy. When Johnson took over H, who was opposed to escalation in Vietnam, was squeezed out.
There was a story in this book about an ambush that Hilsman set up. There was a path along the side of a mountain. On one side of the path the mountain rose steeply. On the other, there was a deadly drop off to a valley below. H's men reached this path before an oncoming Japanese infantry force. H had the men rig a long string of hand grenades, hidden in the bushes or rocks along the mountain side of the path and all connected together with string. When the Japanese force arrived on the path, H waited until they were positioned along the entire string of grenades, and then he pulled the string, pulling out the pins on all of the grenades. A hundred Japanese soldiers were blown off the path to their deaths. Not a single one of H's men was lost, or even exposed to the enemy.
H had a lot of respect for the front-line Japanese infantry. They were very tough and very experienced. He wasn't at all sure that his men could win a fight against them. That was one reason why he kept advancing deeper and deeper behind the retreating Japanese front. He had to stay ahead of the combat troops. The mountain ambush may have been against front-line troops, but H had rigged the odds in that incident.
It's not surprising that a man like Hilsman, deeply experienced in the reality of war and the reality of the Asian peoples and cultures, opposed the war in Vietnam. It's a terrible shame that men who knew less but thought they knew more squeezed him out of office.
| Author | Bernard, Josef |
|---|---|
| Publication | Blue Ridge Summit, PA.: Tab Books, 1990 |
| Number of Pages | 180 |
| Extras | index, photos, diagrams |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Electronics |
| When Read | March 1991 |
Another breezy and superficial book but with practical advice on common circuit applications.
The most useful sections give tidbits of advice, for example, To find the value of a current limiting resistor, determine the amount of voltage you must drop and divide by the current you want.
The author "was the technical editor of Computers and Electronics and Radio Electronics magazines."
The author almost makes it sound as if an understanding of theory is useful, but not too important in electronics.
There are nice sections on 555's and 741's but not very careful in their treatment. Some statements seem downright false to me.
I re-organized the text on my book card to put my editorial judgments in the comment section and leave the rest in the abstract. I didn't write very much for either section.
Looking at my review, it now seems cavalier to me. Who am I to criticize the editor of two important electronics magazines? But I don't have the book before me and remember much less about electronics today than I knew about it in 1991, so maybe I should just trust my judgment of that time.
I got interested in electronics when Marcia and I went to St. Kitts in the Caribbean, and I found Electronics Made Simple (see above) in a local bookstore and read it. I retained some interest for some years and read more, including this book. I also did some experiments with a prototyping board and various integrated circuits and passive components. The 555 mentioned above was a timing chip. If I remember correctly, you could supply current to one of the pins and, when its full capacitance was reached, a switch would trip and current would be discharged on another pin. Varying the input current varied the amount of time before the output occurred. There were versions of the chip that had two timers and there may have been some with more. I think the 741 was an amplifier chip. The 555 and 741 were among the most common chips in electronic systems in those days.
In the end, I think I'm more of a software than a hardware guy. I'm not good at assembling little parts, or big ones either, with my hands. I'm not happy when a part melts or catches fire or just does nothing. I much prefer debugging a program over a circuit board.
| Author | Cremer, Peter |
|---|---|
| Author | Brustat, Fritz |
| Original Language | German |
| Translators | Wilson, Lawrence |
| Publication | Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984 |
| Copyright Date | 1982 |
| Number of Pages | 244 |
| Extras | index, photos, list of U-Boat casualties |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Naval; World War II |
| When Read | March 1991 |
Cremer was the only early U-Boat "ace" to survive the war. He writes here of what it was like on patrol in the Atlantic, continuing to fight in boats with horrifying damage and against extraordinary odds. After serious wounds he was sent to headquarters where he participated in directing the Battle of the Atlantic, never really appreciating the extent of the numerical, technological, and intelligence superiority of the British and Americans until all was lost.
I didn't write much about this book at the time and don't remember anything about it now. Perhaps it is overshadowed in my memory by other submarine books I read such as Iron Coffins, Sharks and Little Fish, and especially, Das Boot.
There is a critical, moral part of me that condemns Peter Cremer for fighting for Nazism, a curious part of me that wants to know what it was like to serve in and command a U-Boat and direct them from headquarters, especially in the teeth of the overwhelming force that our side brought to bear against them, an intellectual part of me that sees fewer differences between the men on each side than my critical, moral part wants to perceive, and a sympathetic human part of me that doesn't like to see human beings smashed, as they were in this great battle.
One of Hitler's greatest intellectual failings as a leader, a failing apparently shared by Cremer, was an ignorance of the outside world. He apparently had little idea how much latent strength existed in the USSR or the USA, or even of the smaller UK.
I read in one of my books, I don't remember which one or whether it was history or fiction (probably fiction), that there was a radio broadcast from London in the Spring of 1944. It said something like, "The Germans believe in overwhelming force. Soon they will learn what overwhelming force really is." The poor U-Boat crews, and the Nazi master who sent them out, found out about overwhelming force.
| Author | Clarke, Arthur C. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Bantam Books, 1989 |
| Number of Pages | 420 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | April 1991 |
Seventy years after the Rama spacecraft passed through the solar system, another Rama craft appears. Clarke and Lee make up a history of earth during the intervening years and then create a crew of 12 scientists, military men, and journalists, to explore the new craft.
There is more story and less science than in the first book. The crew is not so pure. A duplicitous woman, Francesca Sabbatini, manipulates several of the men to achieve her own ambitions. The heroes of the story, Doctor Nicole des Jardin, half African former Olympian athlete, etc., Richard Wakefield, computer engineer, Shakespeare fanatic and genius, and Michael O'Toole, general and committed Catholic, are all eventually stranded on Rama, heading off into space, while the evildoers make it back to Earth after failing to destroy Rama II. We are left ready for Rama III.
I like this stuff. It's simple and sappy, but lots of fun. I think I detect some character complexity, which may have been added by Lee.
My recollections of this book, the Rama series in general, and Arthur C. Clarke, are now more positive than the comment above indicates about my thoughts when I wrote it. People like Clarke and Asimov were not highly literary writers (though they had some number of literary moments), but they were clear headed men of science whose thoughts about our situation were usually pretty interesting.
| Author | Smith, Peter C. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Orion Books, 1990 |
| Number of Pages | 183 |
| Extras | photos, bibliography, index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Aviation |
| When Read | April 1991 |
A military techno-history of the use of aircraft in ground attack / army cooperation roles from WWI through Vietnam, Mid East, Korea, Falklands, etc. with greatest emphasis on World War II.
Smith holds that close support is a specialized branch of air combat which only works well when the machines are designed for the purpose, the men are trained for it and dedicated to it, and the leadership is committed to making it work. He derides the U.S. and British Air Force notions in World War II that close support is not important and, if done at all, can be done with fighters that have a secondary role of bombing and strafing. Among American forces he thought that only the Marines and the Navy understood close support and practiced it well. That continued into Korea. Only in Vietnam did the U.S. learn to change its priorities.
Naturally, Smith is one of those anti-communists who regarded the rebels in Malaya, Vietnam, and many other places as only worth being bombed to bits.
Whatever his politics, I'm pretty sure that Smith was right about his military history. Book after book describes the gigantic resources spent on strategic bombing, the significantly smaller effect it had than anyone expected, and the less than perfect role of the air force in supporting the troops on the ground. Both the Germans and the Russians developed specialized attack aircraft and, in the Russian case, it was the backbone of their offensive air force. They had medium bombers and a few heavy bombers, but most of what they used were IL-2 ground attack planes, specialized with armor, canon, rockets, and bombs, and specialized anti-air defenses including a back seat gunner, armor, and aerial tactics for defense. They were very effective.
American and British ground attack forces were also quite effective. Rommel described them as nailing him to the ground. But the US and Britain had vastly more material resources than the Russians and could have done more. As a World War II buff I've often wondered what would have happened if the U.S. had done a more thorough job using dedicated attack aircraft, dedicated anti-anti-aircraft forces with specialized weapons and tactics, and greater use of medium and heavy bombers in ground support.
However, we did the job. German soldiers complained about not being able to move during daylight hours. Reserve units called up to fight in Normandy took six weeks to go a distance that they expected to cover in two days, and they lost half their tanks, trucks and guns before ever reaching the front.
I'll note here that after this book, the next book I wrote up was in June. I don't know what happened to May. Did I spend the whole time reading Piece of Cake?
| Author | Robinson, Derek |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Bantam Books, 1990 |
| Copyright Date | 1989 |
| Number of Pages | 658 |
| Genres | Fiction; Historical fiction |
| Keywords | Aviation; World War II |
| When Read | June 1991 |
The story is about a fighter squadron before and during the Battle of Britain. The pilots are irresponsible youngsters, barely out of adolescence, led by a very wealthy, gung ho, upper class type commander who is above receiving advice from the one man, an American, who actually fought the Germans in Spain. The commander and a number of others are killed before they adapt their tactics to reality. But even with better tactics the squadron is ground down and killed, one or two at a time, by the relentless superiority of the Luftwaffe. In the last scene in the book, everyone takes off to intercept the 1,000 plane raid on London on September 7, 1940. Driven half insane by combat, fatigue, loss, and huge doses of fear, they fight on against the seemingly hopeless odds.
After reading the shallow and loutish Goshawk Squadron I did not expect much from R and picked up this book only because of the subject and from knowing that the BBC had serialized it. But in fact it turned out to be a very seriously conceived and reasonably well executed book.
The book is very impressive, not only in its air combat and technical sides but also in its understanding of the pilots. They are portrayed as limited and immature men, one is positively evil, but we understand what it was like for them and how desperate was their fight.
Books on this topic and with this intensity often leave an imprint on my memory. Here are some of the scenes that I still recall.
The squadron is flying in perfect formation in France when they come upon a lone German scouting plane. They execute a perfect series of maneuvers and shoot the plane down, impressing the hell out of a journalist on the ground. But it is pure foolishness. They killed the poor German because they had overwhelming forces.
Later, the squadron is landing, still under the command of the pompous commander. The two last planes in the landing pattern crash. The commander is furious that the two dead pilots didn't handle their planes well and collided with each other, but another pilot on the ground who actually saw it happen says that it wasn't a collision, a German followed them in and shot them down. The commander wouldn't believe it.
I spoke of a "positively evil" pilot. He was a killer and was just as happy to cause the death of a rival English pilot in a flying stunt as he was to kill Germans. The new commander (probably Fanny Barton, I don't remember who was in command at that point) hates the evil pilot but the American says that the squadron is lucky to have him. Later, the killer pursues a German plane out over the channel but suffers some damage to his plane and turns around to land. A German ace sees him and goes after him. The Englishman has no chance. He is shot down and killed.
The final scene that I'll recall had Fanny and the American shooting off revolvers in a building at the base. They were slap happy. They had taken so many risks and seen so much death that they had hardened themselves to everything and had no respect for anyone. It was a powerful scene.
I've seen movies and read books about the Battle of Britain. It's possible that I run things together in my memory. However, all of the scenes described above are from this book.
There was a follow-on, A Good Clean Fight, that I read four years later.
I wrote briefly about this book in my diary entry for May 19, 1991.
See my note on Goshawk Squadron (read in 1987) for mention of my email correspeondence with Derek Robinson
| Author | Brin, David |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Bantam Books, 1983 |
| Number of Pages | 480 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | July 1991 |
An adolescent SF story replete with dueling space ships, spidery aliens, hidden purposes, ancient civilizations and, a twist, intelligent dolphins and a chimpanzee together with the human heroes.
In the story, an earth ship crewed by a hundred or so dolphins, seven humans, and a chimp scientist, has fled to a far planet where it is hidden at the bottom of the sea. The ship discovered a derelict fleet of ancient spaceships which may have belonged to the "progenitors", the first intelligent race in the galaxy. And now ships from all the other races are fighting each other for access to the Earth ship, to get the information about where the derelicts were found. The treatment of these aliens is such that one is invited to take them seriously, I guess. But they are really high camp.
The treatment of the dolphins, while still in the juvenile spirit, is nonetheless interesting. There is much dolphin poetry and "whale dream". Quite nicely done.
Amazon describes this book as "The Uplift Saga, Book 2". There were books 1 and 3, which I have not read. This book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for 1983, which may have been why I read it.
If I remember correctly, the captain of the ship was one of the dolphins. Most of the ship was filled with water with a relatively smaller dry area for the seven humans and the chimp.
There was a gateway to the outside that allowed dolphins to go from the seawater inside to the seawater outside. There, the dolphin captain got into a fight with a larger whale, also an intelligent creature, though not as much so as the dolphin. Sensing the whales overwhelming power and overwhelming self-confidence, the dolphin taunts him with sexual innuendos, leading the whale into making a serious mistake that the dolphin exploits to win the fight.
It's odd what sticks in one's memory.
| Author | Stout, Rex |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Bantam Books, 1990 |
| Copyright Date | 1948 |
| Number of Pages | 156 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery |
| When Read | July 1991 |
Nero and Archie investigate the poisoning of a guest on a popular radio talk show. Eventually, Wolfe reveals the talk show host herself to be the killer.
One odd twist in this story is that a hidden criminal is found behind the scenes but not dealt with. This diabolical man was running a complex blackmail scheme in which innocent people were blackmailed with threats to reveal misdeeds which they did not commit. It was because the talk show host actually did commit the crime she was accused of, she murdered the man she thought was the blackmailer - actually a pawn of a pawn of the mastermind. Stout seems to be setting up a Moriarty type for future use - though I hadn't seen him in later works. Maybe he appears in just one more, or maybe none.
In any case there is plenty of the always delightful Rex Stout wit and characterization.
The diabolical man ("Zeck") appears again in The Second Confession (Nero Wolfe, Book 15) and In the Best Families (Nero Wolfe, Book 17)
| Author | Mortimer, John |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Penguin Books, 1989 |
| Number of Pages | 225 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery; Comedy; Short stories |
| When Read | July 1991 |
Horace Rumpole is a fat, elderly barrister, working primarily as a defense attorney for petty criminals. Each evening he stops at Pomeroy's Wine Bar to restore his blood alcohol level with a few glasses of Chateau Thames Embankment, and then returns to his flat which he shares with his wife Hilda - "She Who Must Be Obeyed".
In this collection of stories, it must be about the fourth, Rumpole handles a variety of cases including: a minister accused of adultery in an ecclesiastical court, a young man accused of beating his wife in the bath after she made him sit at the tap end, a libel case in which the manager of a newspaper conspires with an author to defame her in print and then sue the paper - hiring Rumpole because they thought he would screw up the case, a probably framed man convicted of gun running for the IRA, a Christmas party with a thief and con man posing as a great lawyer, a long lost cousin claimed to have returned from Africa and pursuing Hilda.
Rumpole doesn't always win in these cases and justice is not always clear and simple. Rumpole's strategy isn't always a matter of finding the hidden fact, sometimes it's playing on the sympathy of a judge or jury.
I liked the character and the stories and the writer.
This was the first Rumpole book that I read. Since then I've read three more. John Mortimer is no longer alive, but he is still with us. In the Wikipedia bibliography for him I see 23 or so Rumpole books. I don't expect to read all of them but I hope to at least spend a little more time with this portly and endearing gentleman.
| Author | Baddock, James |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Walker and Copmany, 1990 |
| Number of Pages | 238 |
| Genres | Fiction; Spy |
| Keywords | World War II |
| When Read | July 1991 |
World War II spy, resistance, adventure thriller from an English school teacher who has learned the elements of the genre and is working hard, perhaps to make his living as a writer and escape the classroom?
The story is about a spy and a pilot sent to Holland to steal a Ju-88 equipped with the new Lichtenstein radar. They work with some Dutch resistance people, fighting against a disgraced but gallant Luftwaffe ace sent down to head security at the airfield, and a Nazi pig Gestapo chief who tortures people in the basement and forces a young woman to be his mistress.
In the end, the good guys kill the bad guy, escape from the good bad guy without killing him, and make off with the plane - but only after many of the good resistance people are also killed.
This is standard, formula fare. As is customary in this kind of literature, there is a mixture of logic and improbability. As always, some good people die along with the bad.
I have a sense that the writers who choose World War II for their adventure novels are a bit more serious, a bit more concerned about their characters, than some others. It's hard to write about Nazis and resistance people without a sense of the reality of Nazi oppression and suffering and heroic resistance.
I don't remember this book but I suspect that if I were to read the book and write up the comment today it would be a little different.
Today I might say less about the evils of Nazism, or maybe say the same amount, but also say more about my respect for, and my appreciation of, the men and women who fought against it. There are authors, I'm thinking for example of John Harris and also about the screen writers for Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List and many other books and movies, whose work is elevated by their sincere appreciation for the people who risked and often sacrificed their lives to destroy this evil.
| Author | Frankowski, Leo |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Del Rey / Ballantine, 1986 |
| Number of Pages | 259 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | August 1991 |
"Book 1 in the Adventures of Conrad Stargard."
A 28 year old Polish engineer falls into some kind of time machine inadvertently left open by a time traveling historical investigator and stumbles into 1231 AD. There he has many adventures, becoming a knight, right hand man of an enlightened baron, and an engineer of sorts who introduces windmills, improved metal casting and steel making, bee keeping, power looms, and many other innovations.
This is certainly an interesting subject to me. I have had many similar fantasies of introducing democracy, socialism, and advanced technology into Peru, or China, or Normandy, or wherever - always starting from a medieval or earlier base (Byzantium was another one from a very early period.)
But of course it's a juvenile book, written by a 45 year old teenager. The hero is surrounded by 14 year old beautiful nymphomaniacs. He is furnished with a super horse and fine steel sword. He happens to have been fencing champion at his university. And so on.
The engineering is partly believable, partly not. It is the product of a writer who knows something about his subject, but over extends, imagining too much.
Ah well. I can't really enjoy these with the childish gusto I had when I was 13 - the peak period for my reading of ths type of book. But I still get a little out of it.
I remember a few things from the book. I remember that the hero was assigned three fourteen year old girls to provide for his sexual needs. That a 45 year old would dream of such a thing indicates either a sensitivity to a teenage male audience, or to middle aged men who never grew up, or maybe both. The one engineering passage I still remember had to do with beekeeping. The engineer specifies the construction of wooden boxes made of planed planks, as would be the case today with lumber from a sawmill. The carpenters assigned to do the work thought he was crazy. They sawed up a hollow tree and made bee's nests from the hollowed out trunk. This idea was not a great authorial achievement, but I seem to recall that Frankowski wrote as if it were.
But I shouldn't get hypercritical here. As I say more and more now, the author found an audience for his work and provided a pleasant pastime for some number of readers. It's not something totally worthless.
This isn't the place to write anything about my own time travel fantasies, but I'll mention what they were. Each one lasted me for some years. One involved Norman peasants uniting to resist the Vikings and building an egalitarian society that eventually also spread to England and crossed the ocean to "discover" and colonize America. Another had to do with Peruvian peasants casting off both Incas and Spaniards to build an egalitarian society that spread through South and Central America and parts of North America. Another was in the Byzantine Empire with very much the same theme.
I don't think about those things much any more. Nowadays I'm more likely to think that the present is as irredeemable as the past and that it is the unpredictable and enormous changes that will come from bio, genetic, and robotic engineering that will determine the future of humanity. The past is past and the present is gestating a future blindly, unsustainably, and unpredictably.
| Author | Laqueur, Walter |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1972 |
| Number of Pages | 640 |
| Extras | maps, photos, index, bibliography |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| When Read | August 1991 |
A superb history of the Zionist movement beginning with a survey of the Jewish emergence into Western culture in nineteenth century Europe and continuing through early modern Jewish thinkers, the lovers of Zion, Herzl, and the main movement from 1896-1948.
This work is both committed and yet objective. It offers the deepest sympathy for the movement while still facing all of the criticism fairly and squarely. It is in no sense a gloss or a polemic.
The initial chapters on how Jews moved rapidly and decisively into business, medicine, music, and science in Germany and other countries as soon as they were released form the ghetto were particularly interesting. So was the analysis of antisemitism which, only in the latter half of the nineteenth century, changed from a primarily religious to a primarily racial prejudice - closing off even conversion to Christianity as an escape for the Jews.
L believes that the Arab perspective is right, as is the Jewish one. But he believes that opportunities for compromise simply did not exist. He doesn't know how a different behavior by the Zionists would have helped. He doesn't know what they could have offered that would be short of giving up Zionism and yet be acceptable to the Arabs.
L had the deepest respect for all of the leaders. Many were highly intelligent, profoundly democratic, and deeply committed. His greatest admiration seems to be for Weizmann, a man who dedicated his life and worked with the greatest intelligence and consistency and realism.
A truly outstanding book.
I read a novel by Laqueur a couple of years before this and it impressed me enough that I decided to read this fairly long book. I'm glad that I did.
Certain books of history stand out. Isaac Deutscher's three volume political biography of Leon Trotsky was like that. It set a standard that would be very difficult for anyone to match. This book set a standard in its subject area. Laqueur had a deep understanding of what pre-Zionism history was really important, about how the Jewish community and key Jewish leaders and intellectuals developed in Europe and how they thought about the problems that they and other Jews faced, about the currents and counter currents in Zionism. It was the kind of book that, after I finished it, I felt that I really understood what happened and what it meant. That's not something one gets from all history books.
I wrote about this book in two diary entries, May 12 and August 9, 1991. They have a lot to say that's not in these book notes.
| Author | Slocum, Joshua |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1954 |
| Copyright Date | 1899 |
| Number of Pages | 294 |
| Extras | illustrations |
| Extras | Introduction by Walter Magnes Teller |
| Genres | Non-fiction |
| Keywords | Sailing |
| When Read | August 1991 |
On April 24, 1895, JS left Boston in the 37 foot Spray in an attempt to be the first man to sail alone around the world. He was a very experienced sailing captain but had lost a ship and endured some sort of mutiny off Brazil and so could not get any more work. Finding no satisfaction in farming or shipyard jobs, he completely rebuilt the Spray from a rotting hulk given to him as a joke. Then he set sail in her with a $1 tin watch for chronometer and whatever supplies and provisions he could scrounge from well wishers.
He sailed to Gibraltar, abandoned a plan to head for Suez because of pirates (he had a close brush off Morocco) and went instead to Brazil, round the Horn, and back east to west. He spent three years, stopping in many out of the way places where he was always treated well and often re-provisioned or repaired by navy, sailing, and yachts men who admired him for his venture.
Slocum's experience with the pirates, going round the Horn (a two month ordeal involving terrible storms and wild renegade Indians), storms at sea, illness and hallucination, losses to a chart eating goat, nasty officials in Brazil, etc., showed a man of extraordinary ability and resourcefulness.
He was also a charming writer and a charming man. The book is as fine and delightful a read as any I have read of personal accounts. For JS, some of the best times of his voyage were on the 71 day passage across the Pacific. The boat steered itself through sunny days and blue seas in the warm and unceasing trade winds while he lived on simple fare, read books, and enjoyed the sea - making landfall dead on where he planned after 71 days at sea.
This is truly a classic story of a man and the sea.
Slocum conveyed a dream like quality to that Pacific crossing. He was in a state of grace, a state of contentment, living in the present, unconcerned with future or past, desiring only to go on and on in the same way forever.
Well, maybe not forever. Life isn't like that for us humans. But it is fine to savor such an experience and to be able to look back upon it and take comfort and contentment from the memory.
Through Slocum's words, I can look back upon this passage, literary and nautical, and savor it too. But there is one difference for me. I am not alone. I have my lifelong lover and companion. In my own daydream of an idyllic life she is by my side and I am content.
| Author | Francis, Dick |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1990 |
| Number of Pages | 320 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery |
| When Read | September 1991 |
John Kendall is a 32 year old fledgling writer who has produced six survival guides and one novel. Working in a frozen garret with hardly any money, he is offered a chance to write the biography of an important horse trainer, paid by the trainer himself. Once there, he learns a great deal about horses, saves six people from freezing after an auto accident, saves another man from death by drowning after an attempted murder, and finally has an attempt made on his own life, shot with an arrow. But by grim determination and effort he saves himself and recognizes the murderer, who commits suicide. Kendall keeps it to himself since the murderer is the trainer's son.
This is all classic Dick Francis, live horses, dead bodies, young men of high personal competence who do what needs to be done. This is the first one I have read in which the protagonist is a writer - perhaps giving us some of F's own feelings about writing. He admires high literature and its practitioners but, basically, he writes to entertain not to enlighten. It is hard work for him but he does it in the same competent, workman like manner that all of F's heroes bring to all of their varied professions.
The characters around Kendall are drawn as always, head on and straight up. We are given the forthright, powerful, knowledgeable trainer, intensely alive jockeys who ride for thrills, a fine young woman, and a boy who loves pizza and outdoors. It's easy to be comfortable with the good guys.
Another fine read. I think F gets better and better every year.
I actually remember parts of this book. In the auto accident, Kendall is in a car with five other people, on their way to the horse farm. There are suitcases in the trunk. After the crash in freezing cold (this is before cell phones) in an out of the way place with no houses around, he gets everyone organized and has them pull all of their clothes out of their suitcases and put them on - including multiple sets of underwear, shirts, pants, whatever, to keep from freezing. Then they hike some miles to the farm house.
I remember being a little surprised that, when they got to the house, they warmed up, had some drinks, and returned to normal life. I was somehow expecting some big call to police or some other fittingly important action, but what actually happened made perfect sense.
| Author | Dwiggins, Don |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Hawthorne Books |
| Copyright Date | 1975 |
| Number of Pages | 245 |
| Genres | Non-fiction |
| Keywords | Aviation |
| When Read | September 1991 |
A simple and repetitive survey of the most popular and/or interesting homebuilt airplanes up to the time of publication. D devotes just about two short paragraphs to each in a narrative text and at the end provides photos and basic specs for each one.
I could not find a book card for this book. Did I misfile it? Did I not write it? Is the author not Don Dwiggins? I'll leave this entry open for now in case I come across a book card for it later. What precedes and follows is a description of the first edition found on Amazon.
"A plane builders guide - buttressed by carefully delineated instructions plus many photos and diagrams - to the construction and flying of original-design aircraft for fun. Don Dwiggins covers all types of aircraft - monoplanes, biplanes, planes with pusher engines, aerobatic ships for stunt flying, cross-country cruisers, seaplanes, gliders, sailplanes, and hang gliders."
The actual effort of building a plane is not discussed and one gets the feeling not only that anyone can build one, but even that anyone can design one! Clearly the book is intended to recruit more people into the homebuilt movement and the Experimental Aircraft Association. He might have done better to include a chapter talking about who should not build or design a plane and how much stamina is needed to finish one.
Still, it is delightful for an armchair pilot like me to read the book, fantasize flying the planes, and spend pleasant times comparing and choosing between them.
My first sailplane flights were around 1971. I flew in the University of Illinois Gliding Club, then resumed flying in 1986, flying until just a few years ago. Building a plane, like building a sailboat, was a dream of mine, but not a practical one that I ever attempted to carry out, or even very seriously considered. It was enough to look at the books and fantasize.
I misfiled the index card for this book and only discovered it today, so I deleted some of the information I inserted to say that I hadn't found the card and filled in the information from the actual card. Here are some more notes based on the text above.
After I gave up flying, if not before, I spent less and less time daydreaming about airplanes, sailplanes, and sailboats. Perhaps my advancing age has reduced my interest in adventure, or perhaps I've grown tired of the practical effort required to sail or to fly and the motion sickness I often experienced, or perhaps I am less given to daydreaming, or perhaps the Internet has siphoned off the time I used to spend daydreaming. Maybe I'll get interested again. Maybe not. However it is still possible for me to look at a photo of a sailplane or a sailboat and picture the sights and sounds and feeling of being in the cockpit.
| Author | Ghubron, Colin and the editors of Time-Life Books |
|---|---|
| Publication | Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981 |
| Number of Pages | 176 |
| Extras | Illustrations, index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| When Read | September 1991 |
This is a "coffee table" book about seafaring in the Ancient World on the Mediterranean, with extensions into India, Russia, and the Atlantic. The book is not deep, scholarly, or documented. It's a book for the casual reader - like me. There is just enough political and economic history to make sense of the maritime activities and to place them in context.
The decent text is supplemented by a great number of beautifully reproduced illustrations. Most are photos of paintings from the 17th - 19th centuries interpreting classical themes. Some (actually a lot) are photos of artifacts and a few are drawings of ancient scenes such as the harbors at Piraeus and Alexandria. The illustrations are at least as important as the text.
I liked the book. If the explanations are superficial they are nevertheless reasonable, coherent, and appropriate for a book at this level. With the fine illustrations, they stimulate the imagination to try to imagine those times.
There is much discussion of famous sea battles and warships but also much about commerce.
See the diary.
The fairly extensive diary entry was written on September 20, 1991.
| Author | Stout, Rex |
|---|---|
| Publication | Bantam Books, 1991 |
| Copyright Date | 1964 |
| Number of Pages | 136 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery |
| When Read | October 1991 |
A black man to whom Nero Wolfe owes a favor asks him to investigate a white girl who is engaged to marry his son. On account of the obligation, Archie is sent to check on her past but she is murdered before he can finish. Wolfe then undertakes to clear the accused black fiance by finding the real murderer, who must be someone working at the Rights of Citizens Committee (ROCC), a civil rights group for whom both of the young people worked.
In the end it turns out that the killer is a white volunteer at ROCC, a woman whose son committed suicide several years back when the girl refused to marry him. The woman could not stand the thought that the girl had turned down her son and chosen to marry a "nigger" instead.
Standard, which is to say very satisfactory, Rex Stout / Nero Wolfe fare.
Stout was a progressive liberal Democrat. He was active in the ACLU, in organizing writers against Nazism, and other progressive causes.
I may not have known anything about Stout's background in those days before the Internet or the Wikipedia, but this wasn't the only book where he showed his humanity.
| Author | Gann, Ernest K. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Simon and Sc, 1966 |
| Number of Pages | 342 |
| Genres | Fiction; Historical fiction |
| Keywords | World War I; Aviation |
| When Read | November 1991 |
A World War I flying story about a French sergeant pilot who sees his friend killed by a German pilot and vows revenge. The Frenchman, Paul Chamay, begins a private war of research and lone patrolling, first threatening, and in the end, meeting his opponent. The German, Sebastian Kupper, is a highly experienced and able squadron leader who is sick of killing and wants only to preserve his men and acquit himself honorably. When they finally meet, Kupper outmaneuvers the lesser pilot Chamay but his guns jam and he cannot finish him. Chamay realizes it but his hatred leaves him and he does not kill Kupper.
On the surface this is a simple war / flying adventure with a moral ending well suited to adolescents. But there is more to it. The minor characters are interesting and convincing - Groos, the senior German sergeant, a crafty, selfish manipulator, Pilger, Kupper's orderly, a dangerous patriot who feeds on Kupper's growing weakness, Hauptmann Siemelkamp, the venal and cowardly supply master who plots against Groos and Pilger to steal a ham.
I have read worse, less sophisticated books. G is a popular writer but one who does his best to put what he can into his stories. Of course the flying, as one would expect from Gann, is very good.
To my chagrin, I find when going to file this card that I read the book ten years ago and did not remember it at all. It is a shock, though it is not the first time.
If I read the book today, would I remember that I had read it before? Maybe, but I can't be certain. As I read these old book cards I can talk myself into believing that I remember more than I actually do. Sometimes what I remember, or seem to remember, is an image or a feeling, but it's very easy to manufacture images and feelings from who knows what sources of memory and imagination.
Writing things down is the best method available to me to fix (in the photographic sense) what is in my memory - not just for my posterity, but even for myself.
| Author | Mann, Thomas |
|---|---|
| Original Language | German |
| Translators | Lowe Porter, H.T. |
| Publication | New York: Vintage Books, 1961 |
| Copyright Date | 1901 |
| Number of Pages | 595 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | November 1991 |
A story told over a forty year period of the mid-nineteenth century of a bourgeois German family from the height of its prosperity and influence to its complete downfall and destruction.
The Buddenbrook family owns a grain business in Lubeck, founded in the 18th century. They live in a fine house with servants and spend summers by the sea at Travemunde. But there are problems. The daughter, Tony, is pressured to marry a man, Grunlich, who turns out to be a fraud and opportunist. There is a financial scandal and a divorce. Later she tries again in an ill-conceived match with a fat Bavarian named Permaneder who was not a fraud or an opportunist, but a lazy man who wished only to retire and drink at the pub. Tony's brother Christian is a ne-er do well cafe and club man. Brother Tom must shoulder all of the burden of the entire family. His life, however turns into a tragic descent into alienation, irrelevance, fear, jealousy, and disappointment. He sees that his wife has a life which is beyond his reach, and his little boy Hanno can never continue the family business or even the family line. Tom dies in a sudden horrible death leaving Christian, Tony, Hanno and the others to descend into the petty bourgeoisie. Hanno, a brilliant young musician, leads his own tormented life until finally, in a brilliantly written passage, he gives up in a struggle with typhoid.
This is a very rich and fully developed book in the mature style of Mann. It is truly incredible that he published this at the age of 25. He treats all ages with great understanding and sympathy, from the five year old Hanno and twelve year old Tony to the middle aged family heads and the old grandfathers and grandmothers. There are extraordinary passages on philosophy (Schopenhauer) and music.
I read this over a many month period, making a number of entries in my diary about it.
The main diary entry on Buddenbrooks is September 14, 1991. There are some short references also on November 11 and 30.
| Author | Furst, Alan |
|---|---|
| Publication | Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991 |
| Number of Pages | 418 |
| Genres | Fiction; Historical fiction |
| Keywords | World War II |
| When Read | December 1991 |
An unusual and very well written story of a Soviet journalist and NKVD agent working in Europe in 1938-40. Andre Szara, of Polish Jewish extraction, was a believing communist who fought in the Civil War and who, afterward, wrote stories of the working class. But he is beaten down by Stalinism, becoming a furtive man who must do what he is told and carefully stifle himself in order to survive the purges which are decimating the ranks of writers and, especially, of Jews.
Szara is drawn into an NKVD intrigue by a Jewish Old Bolshevik faction member who has discovered evidence of Stalin's working for the Okhrana before the revolution. S writes the story but nothing comes of it. The publisher's office in New Jersey is burned out. Then S is brought into the NKVD, primarily to protect him. There he conducts operations against Germany and becomes a witness to the atrocities and abominations against the Jews. He sees the sack of a synagogue on Kristalknacht. He also witnesses a meeting between high ranking German and Russian officers and suspects collusion between Stalinism and the Nazis. He passes the proof on to his Jewish NKVD superior and protector, who is assassinated when he attempts to use it.
Finally, Szara begins to play his own game. He meets a wealthy French Jew who starts him on the road to selling secrets to the British in exchange for legal immigration visas to Palestine. In that manner he saves a few hundred Jewish lives. He is perhaps found out and recalled to the USSR. He is in Poland when the war breaks out. He escapes ahead of the Nazis and is found by an NKVD officer. S kills the officer on the probably correct belief that the man was taking him to be killed. There is more running, capture by Nazis, and more intrigue. In the end he escapes to Switzerland with his lover.
This book is better than good. The plot is bizarre but so were the times. It reflects them. It is a serious book on both political and personal levels and in artistic ones too. See diary entries for November and December.
The diary entries are for November 17 and 24, and December 21. The December entry seems particularly interesting to me now.
This was the first novel I had read by Furst. I've read more since then and expect to read still more in the future. He's a favorite writer of mine.
What other writer in the United States can write about these topics and scenes? What other writer can write about Poland, Hungary, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia as well as France and Italy? What other writer cares about those times and places? There were some in the past. Alastair MacLean and Leon Uris did. Furst is the only one I can think of at the moment who is still doing it.
| Author | Humble, Richard |
|---|---|
| Author | Editors of Time-Life Books |
| Publication | Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1978 |
| Number of Pages | 176 |
| Extras | maps, illustrations, index, bibliography |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| When Read | December 1991 |
This is the third volume in The Seafarers series, of which I read the first also, The Ancient Mariners by Colin Thubron. This one too is lavishly illustrated with period paintings and maps and a few modern drawings presumably commissioned for the work. There are many "side bars" with little essays on navigation or trade or the new plants and animals found in the New World.
There is quite a bit of material about the Portuguese explorers of the African coast and Indian Ocean, including Bartholomew Dias and Vasco de Gama. But the heroes of the book are Columbus and, especially, Magellan, who emerges as the most statesman like and bravest leader and explorer, not out for personal gain. Of five ships and crews only one ship with 18 men made it back to Spain. But it was a magnificent achievement against great hardship.
One surprise in the story, for me, was the way Portugal moved from fearful starving explorers barely surviving the first trip to India, to conquerors and devastators in just a few years. The next voyage to India after da Gama's burned out the cities and traders in which da Gama had been a suppliant just a few years before.
Only Magellan seemed to disdain personal profit. Only Magellan fought for his men. He was a great man.
I've encountered the story of Portuguese expansion in two different books quite recently, first in A Wind from the North: The Life of Henry the Navigator by Ernle Bradford, and then in A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William Bernstein. Bradford's account is more in-depth about Henry but Bernstein's is realistic about the negative impact that Portuguese expansion had on the peoples of the East and the ordinary seaman and soldiers of Portugal, who died in droves to enrich others.
| Author | Petievich, Gerald |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: New American Library, 1989 |
| Number of Pages | 248 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery |
| When Read | December 1991 |
Another hard story of police working back and forth over the borderline between law and criminality. The protagonist is Jose Stepanovich, a Vietnam veteran police sergeant assigned to lead a team of four cops against East LA street gangs. Unable to collect enough evidence to prosecute men they know to be guilty of murder, they set up a stake-out instead, waiting for a gang killing that they know will happen and then jumping in, not to stop the killing, but to kill the killers. Success goes to their heads and they start another stake-out but the gang gets wise to them and hits them instead, killing one cop. They plan a horrible revenge and get it, but now it is hard to tell who is gang member and who is cop. The three cops are killing for turf and revenge, just like the gang they are fighting.
There is a board of inquiry into the affair. The self-serving, ambitious, corrupt police captains on the board decide to serve up the three street cops but Stepanovich blackmails one and beats him in a fight, and protects the other two cops in his unit by resigning.
S never really comes to grips with what he has done. He fought for his code of honor. He stood up for his men. But he also drove away his girl friend who loved him but would not marry a "gang banger", a "veterano", a man who had become little more than a gang killer himself. In the end he leaves town for a police job in Oregon, frustrated, bewildered, and alone.
Not a deep book. Very simple for the most part. But effective and well done.
This book made an impression on me that I still remember. The lesson for police behavior may apply to other fields as well. There were American soldiers in Germany, in Vietnam, in Iraq, and for that matter even in the Civil War (I'm thinking mainly of Andersonville and Fort Pillow), who became so brutalized that they became war criminals. The transformation of homo sapiens into human being is a complicated, fragile, and inherently reversible process.