DWD's Reviews

  Published by National Geographic in 2012. 443 pages. Winston Groom is best known as the author of the novel that inspired the classic Tom Hanks movie Forrest Gump . Most people don't know that Winston Groom wrote several histories, including three about the Civil War. ****Synopsis**** Shiloh, 1862 is, of course, about the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, sometimes known as Pittsburg Landing in southern Tennessee very close to where Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi touch.  The commanders were Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and Don Carlos Buell for the Union and Albert Sidney Johnston, P.G.T. Beauregard and Braxton Bragg for the Confederacy.  Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) Grant was on a roll of sorts. He was the only winning Union commander, having won the Battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Kentucky in the winter of 1861-62. These welcome victories not only buoyed the sagging morale of the Union after the loss of the first big battle of the war, Bull Run,...

Published in 2006 by Tantor Media. Read by Grover Gardner. Duration: 10 hours, 10 minutes. Unabridged. Winston Groom, best known as the author of Forrest Gump , is also a historian of sorts. He has written 14 non-fiction books, using his research skills he honed as a journalist to investigate a historical topic. In this case, the topic is the Battle of New Orleans. Most people know everything they know about the battle from the catchy Johnny Horton song: I n 1814 we took a little trip,  Along with Colonel Jackson down the might Mississip We took a little bacon and we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans. I knew a little bit more, having read a little about the battle. I didn't know much, however, not really being a fan of the War of 1812 or Andrew Jackson. But, I am a fan of Winston Groom so I decided to give it a try. Groom is skilled at telling a narrative history and at the end, I had a much better idea of how the Battle of New Orl...

George Patton (1885-1945) Published in November of 2015 by Blackstone Audio, Inc. Read by Robertson Dean Duration: 16 hours, 2 minutes Unabridged George Marshall (1880-1959) Winston Groom, forever associated with his iconic character Forrest Gump, has written an interesting and solid history of three equally iconic World War II generals: George Patton, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall.  Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) Groom's triple biography format works quite well as all three of these men's life stories were on parallel tracks once they entered World War I and they all knew one another and had worked with one another in one capacity or another through the years (the story of Patton and MacArthur meeting up and working together on the front lines of World War I is a great one). The histories of these men during peacetime only served to reinforce my impression that both of these men were eccentric, sometimes to the point of being bizarre - especiall...

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2013 Read by Robertson Dean Duration: 17 hours, 23 minutes Unabridged Winston Groom, the author of Forrest Gump , has delivered an impressive triple biography of three of America's aviation pioneers with The Aviators . The book focuses on Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973), auto racer turned World War I flying ace, Jimmy Doolittle (1896-1993), test pilot and the first person to perform a landing using only instruments (this sounds sort of mundane but it meant that planes could take fly in all sorts of weather - not just on clear days), and the world famous Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) - the first man to fly solo over the Atlantic in an airplane and a truly international celebrity. Charles Lindbergh (right) with a P-38 on an island in the South Pacific during World War II in 1944. Each of these men had very different personalities but each shared a passion for being in the air. Charles Lindbergh is by far the most famous of the three, even...

Published by Regnery Publishing, Inc. in 2012. Winston Groom, forever to be known as the author of Forrest Gump , has busied himself with a series of non-fiction books as of late. His latest is this short biography, Ronald Reagan: Our 40th President . The publisher lists this book as "juvenile nonfiction" but this adult also enjoyed this 148 page biography. This is not a controversial "let's set the record straight" book. I detected no political bias except for the fact that is a generally friendly book towards Reagan. That being said, Groom covers the lows of Reagan's personal (strained relationships with his children, for example) and political life (Iran Contra - it gets more attention than almost any aspect of his presidency) and covers them as thoroughly as a book of this size should. Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) This is a great book for high school students because it is easy to read, does not dwell on topics for too long and covers all parts...