LINCOLN'S GENERALS (Gettysburg Civil War Institute Collection) edited by Gabor S. Boritt

Published by Oxford University Press in 1995.

Lincoln's Generals is a collection of 5 essays written by scholars of various aspects of the Civil War. In this case, they focused on how Lincoln worked with his various generals, mostly the generals of the Army of the Potomac. They are organized in roughly chronological order.

The first essay was very well-written. It was by Stephen W. Sears and concerned Lincoln and McClellan. The weakest, for me, was the second essay, ostensibly about General Hooker. It's focus was really the macho culture of the time that required men to prove themselves manly by exposing themselves to fire. It wasn't a bad essay, but it really was not about the relationship between Lincoln and Hooker.

The other three essays were about Meade, Sherman, and Grant. 

I got an appreciation for the difficulties of Lincoln's political position, especially as the election of 1864 approached. Viewing things from 161 years later, it seems like it was all pre-ordained. The reminder that it was a close thing was welcome.

I rate this collection 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Lincoln's Generals (Gettysburg Civil War Institute Collection) edited by Gabor S. Boritt.

KING RICHARD I: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY of AMERICA'S GREATEST AUTO RACER by Richard Petty with William Neely

Originally published in 1986.

Richard Petty is NASCAR's winningest driver, with 200 wins. He raced from 1958-1992. He won seven championships, he won the Daytona 500 7 times and is one of the few drivers to win at every track he competed on during the course of his career. In 1967 he won 10 races in a row (!) on his way to winning 27 races for the season. 

He also won the very first NASCAR big time car race I ever saw at Michigan in 1981. 

I was already a fan - and I was sure that he would win every race I attended from the point forward (he didn't).

The Petty family raced in stock car races back when they really were stock cars - you could buy replacement parts at local dealers or in junkyards. They raced when you could drive the car to the track - but that was a bad idea if you were caught up in an accident and couldn't drive it back home.

They got in on the ground floor of NASCAR, with Richard Petty's dad winning 3 of the early championships and Richard, his brother, and his cousin serving as his underaged pit crew and car builders.

Petty's story is interesting enough, but because his story coincides with so much of the early history of NASCAR, it also tells their history as well - especially from the beginning to the mid-1970s. One could easily say that Richard Petty and NASCAR grew up together.

I found this to be an enjoyable well-told autobiography/history. Very well told. The cover quotes Playboy magazine as saying that King Richard I was "The best sports book of the year." They may have been right - it is very good.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: King Richard I: The Autobiography of America's Greatest Auto Racer.

2 B R 0 2 B (audiobook) by Kurt Vonnegut

Originally published in 1962 in the magazine If: Worlds of Science Fiction.

Published in 2017 by Author's Republic.

Read by Phil Chenevert

Duration: 19 minutes.

Unabridged.

2 B R 0 2 B is set in a future world where the population is kept at a strict limit so that the living can live in a clean and safe environment. When a new person is born into the world, someone must volunteer to leave because aging has pretty much been cured. The Federal Bureau of Termination keeps track of all of the births and deaths to be sure that the math works out. The phone number for the Federal Bureau of Termination is 2 B R 0 2 B - pronounced "two be or naught to be."

The story is about a father whose wife is about to give birth to triplets. One of the grandparents of the triplets has agreed to die. Unless something changes, the future parents will have to pick out two babies to kill...

This is an intentionally provocative short story that had a quick and brutal ending that surprised me. 

I rate this short story 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut.

STAR TREK: TIMETRAP by David Dvorkin

Published in 1988 by Pocket Books

I used to be a gigantic reader of Star Trek books. In the mid-80's I had a rather large collection. In fact, my cousin and I had a complete collection if we put ours together (we would share back and forth so we wouldn't miss any book). I was quite the fan. I ran across this book when I was picking through the stacks of a used book store that had lost its lease and picked it up for old times sake.

I don't remember the plot of Timetrap at all so this must have been published after I had stopped making sure I had EVERY Star Trek that was printed.

Synopsis:

The story occurs in the same region of space as The Original Series episode "The Tholian Web." The Tholians had the ability to make an area of space phase in and out of alternate universes. Or, maybe it was natural - who knows? After all, the Tholians are a mysterious species and no one knows much about them.

In that show, a federation ship was trapped and phasing back and forth between universes. No one knew that this was the case and Captain Kirk ends up trapped on that ship and comes within seconds of death because he personally led an away team to an unclear and dangerous location. What can you do? He's the captain, he can pick the away teams and if he wants to risk his life it is his prerogative. 

In the book, it is some time later and Kirk finds a Klingon ship in a similar situation as the Federation ship was in "The Tholian Web". The Klingon ship is literally being torn to pieces by the stresses. Again, he personally leads an away team, The goal to kidnap/rescue members of the crew so they can be questioned as to why this Klingon warship was so far away from the Klingon Empire. 

But, something unexpected happens. The ship blips out of existence and Kirk wakes up 100 years in the future - in a time when the Klingons and the Federation have combined. The Federation won the continual Klingon/Federation Cold War and the Klingons are happy about and everyone is looking forward to the day when the Romulans will join as well.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise is pulling in every favor to keep investigating the disappearance of Captain Kirk in hopes of rescuing him...

My Review

Even with a book that is 37 year olds that has its own Wikipedia page, I am not going to talk a lot about the plot and any issues that I had with it because it would be nothing but a series of spoilers.

It isn't a bad story, but not a great one. I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Star Trek: Timetrap by David Dvorkin.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN by James Daugherty

Originally Published in 1943.
The edition I read was a re-print published by Scholastic in 1966.

While not a terribly deep dive into Lincoln, Daugherty's (1889-1974) very readable small telling of his life has some of the most poetic prose I have ever read in a biography. 

There are a couple of factual errors in the book. One example that I noted is the assertion that Robert E. Lee replaced a wounded James Longstreet at the head of what became known as the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862. It was Joseph E. Johnston. That bears very little bearing on the story of Lincoln, even though I am sure he would rather Johnston would have been in the fighting rather than Longstreet. 

Here is an example of Daugherty's excellent prose (concerning Lincoln's early days as a lawyer): 

For the long, bony, sad man who was Billy's partner, the law office became a sanctuary and a refuge and a workshop, where through the years he slowly grew and learned and thought out the dark meanings and drifts of a troubled time. (page 55)

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ABRAHAM LINCOLN by James Daugherty.

HARLEQUIN (Grail Quest 1) (audiobook) by Bernard Cornwell

Originally published in 2000.

Performed by Andrew Cullum.

Duration: 14 hours, 49 minutes.

Unabridged.

Also published under the alternate title "The Archer's Tale"

Harlequin is the tale of Thomas of Hookton during the early years of the Hundred Years' War. Hookton was a tiny English fishing village that was destroyed by French raiders from a ship. The raiders burn and loot the village, kidnap as many women they can, burn the village, and steal a religious relic - the famed lance that St. George used to kill the dragon.

Thomas heads off to join up as an English archer so he can get his revenge on the French noblemen that destroyed his hometown and get St. George's lance back. The bulk of the book is about his adventures in France in a series of battles in the Hundred Years' War serving as a harlequin.  A harlequin was the French term for an English long bow archer.

The battle scenes in this book are unbelievably well-told and Andrew Cullum's performance as the reader is fantastic - one of the best performances I have ever heard and this is my 799th audiobook review. 

But, I found the stuff in between the battles to be quite tedious. Normally, I am cool with all of the medieval rules and the posturing - but this was simply too much. This leaves me in the weird situation of praising a book, giving it a positive score (4 out of 5 stars) and choosing not to move on with the rest of the series.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Harlequin by Bernard Cornwell.

THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (The Great Courses) (audiobook) by Philip Daileader

Published in 2013 by The Great Courses.
Lectures delivered by the author, Philip Daileader.

Duration: 12 hours, 32 minutes.

Unabridged.

The idea behind The Great Courses is that anybody can have access to high quality college instructors who are truly experts in their fields. In this course the focus is the Early Middle Ages (roughly 300 CE to 1000 CE). 

Daileader starts with the start of the decline of the Roman Empire, somewhere around the year 300 CE. He looks at the trends of the late Roman Empire and how they led to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West (Rome, not Constantinople) and how those trends led to the political and economic systems that typify the time period we know as the Middle Ages.

There is a heavy focus on what is now France, which is well-deserved since Charlemagne is one of the biggest historical figures of this era. But, other areas get a fair amount of attention, like Ireland, Spain, and the Islamic world. The sudden appearance of the Vikings contributed a lot as well. The Byzantine Empire

Church doctrine and politics play a prominent role throughout.

I found this series of half hour lectures to be interesting, but not riveting. The section on the political machinations that eventually led to the rise of Charlemagne's empire was slow - necessary but tedious until it finally pays off and you just sit and wonder how it all worked out the way it did. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Early Middle Ages (The Great Courses) by Philip Daileader.