My Ten Books to Read While Recovering

I’ve known for months that I’d be laid up for at least six weeks following my surgery. What I did is what every book freak would do in such a circumstance-hoard books to read while recovering. You wouldn’t want to run out now would you? A fellow hoarder will get that.

So what I am optimistically hoping to read? All kinds of stuff I’m interested in. Here’s my list in no particular order along with some comments.

1. Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy

I picked this one up at a Waukesha antique store for a couple of bucks! Goldsworthy is the gold standard (no pun intended but not bad) among historians dealing with ancient Rome and Caesar is an interesting character whether you consider him a villain or hero. He clearly thought he was a hero and so did the Romans since every Roman Emperor following the death of the Republic named himself  “Caesar.”

As a point aside my dad used to raise German Shepherds when I was a small child back in the 50’s. I still remember some of these magnificent animals. My dad was into American Indian names for most of the dogs. I know, not very politically correct but this was back in the 50’s and our baseball team was the not very pc Milwaukee Braves who are now the not very pc Atlanta Braves and who, before moving to Milwaukee were the not very pc Boston Braves. Maybe if they move again they’ll drop the very cool Braves for something like the greenies” or “the harmonies” or something equally lame. Geez, I hope not.

So, anyway, we had a Geronimo and a Taza that I remember but we also had a Nero and a Trajan both Caesars. Now, how cool is it to have a dog named Trajan one of the soldier-emperors! Not so cool having a Nero but Nero the German Shepherd was one faithful dog who was a body-guard to this two-year-old and his mom.

Reading about Ancient Rome is one of my niches. I have quite a few books (mostly military) in my library and like some other niches tend to buy for a period of time like 6 months to a year everything that interests me on a subject. Then I get bored and move on to another niche. The subject of Rome however is one I tend to go back to a lot. I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to write a book on the intersection of the New Testament and Roman history (a guy named Paul Maier has tried that with some success,The Flames of Rome: A Novel by Paul L. Maier ) and even put an idea or two down on paper.

2. Sitting Bull: The Life and Times of an American Patriot bu Robert Utley

If Goldsworthy is the gold standard among Roman historians then Utley is the gold standard among the American West historians. I read his Frontier Regulars (US Cavalry on the plains, 1848-1891) many years ago and was hooked by his style and eye for detail. I would not say the American West is a period that I read a lot of but do enjoy “going there” from time to time, so when I saw Sitting Bull at the same Waukesha antique store on sale for a couple of bucks I could not resist.

Sitting Bull is another interesting character. Clearly a hero to his people and to be admired by those not of his people. He is famous mostly for the Custer fiasco  and along with Crazy Horse and Geronimo among the best known American Indians who gave the US government grief for many years. I’m looking forward to diving into this one.

BTW, I don’t like Custer. I didn’t like him as an American Civil War General and less so as the guy responsible for the Little Big Horn where 250 American Cavalry were wasted both figuratively and literally. Yeah, I know, Custer was bold and something can be said for that but “his glory at their expense” irritates me. Not the kind of officer to inspire leadership as far as I’m concerned. I used to get into mega-debates with my dad about Custer. Dad liked him and had a fascination with the 7th Cav. I miss that and my dad. As for the 7th Cav, yeah, Gary Owen!

3. Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base by Annie Jacobsen

I dunno, the title says it all. It’s not something I’d ordinarily seek out but my friend JP recommended it. My dad was kind of into UFO’s back in the 60’s and 70’s and used to buy all the latest magazines with the latest scoops. I used to read them and still am curious about all that. I don’t think Jacobsen’s book is all about UFO’s as much as it is about the Stealth program and secret US weapons testing that went on at Area 51 during the Cold War that we won btw, thank you Ronald Reagan! I’m looking forward to a nice relaxing read with this one. It’s not an area I am well versed in. I read a few pages and like Jacobsen’s style.

4. Minor Prophets by Charles L. Feinberg

Someone handed me this book 20 years ago (some books have a very long shelf life at our house) and I don’t remember who, but thanks. Never got a round to it but should have. The Minor Prophets are the lesser known Old Testament guys. Charles is an old line dispensationalist and I just finished a class that featured a book by one of his sons, John Feinberg, a progressive dispensationalist if that means anything to you. That book was Continuity and Discontinuity (Essays in Honor of S. Lewis Johnson, Jr.): Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments by John S. Feinberg. It was an excellent exercise in critical thinking led by our Sr. Pastor Matthew Henry if you are into theology and knowing the difference between systematic theology versus biblical theology which are not one and the same. I don’t think Charles will be as heavy reading as John and the other essayists, at least I hope not. Besides the Minor Prophets is something I need to work on. As a matter of fact I need some work with major prophets too.

5. The First World War by John Keegan

I got this one from my son and daughter-in-law for either Father’s Day or my birthday which are close together. My son buys me books he’d like to read. I don’t know where he gets ideas like that. Keegan is the gold standard among English military history historians and I am weak in WW1 history, although it’s a fascinating period. That I never got into a lot of reading about the period probably reflects the fact I used to war-game with miniature and doing WW1 in miniature was a bit of a drag from a game point of view. I did play this WW1 flying game for a while back in the 70’s and that was fun like who doesn’t know who Richthofen was!

My son picked up his copy at the library and bought a spanking new one for me. He’s a good kid 🙂 I started this last week while I was still full of pain meds and could not see straight. I had to put it down. I will pick up again just as soon as I finish #6. I think.

6. Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs by Robert Spencer

I’m familiar with Islam mostly from a historical perspective while knowing something of Islam as a comparative religion. The Arab/Israeli Wars, 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have encouraged me to find out more over the years. Spencer’s name popped up on a website where I read his questions and answers about himself before I bought. That was a useful exercise.  Apparently the libs don’t like him, nor do many Muslims so I thought he might be a good read. I ordered a couple of used books from Amazon by Spencer. I started Stealth Jihad and thus far found it intriguing. The book is heavily footnoted, which I like, especially when dealing with such a hot button issue. I’ll say this, I do believe there is much to Spencer’s thesis that there is a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam, a conclusion I had reached well before I read Spencer. It was that “Religion of Peace” thing we keep hearing about that makes me nervous. Christianity and Islam both have violent pasts and I’ve always thought Islam does not like to acknowledge such things or paper it over. If you listen to Islam you’d think the Crusades was a one-way street with the Crusaders the bad guys and Islam the victims. This attitude ignores how Islam got the Holy Land in the first place and in the first place they took it from the Eastern Romans (Byzantines) who had been there roughly 700 years. It’s little details like that which make me suspicious.

Islam also has sharia law and is not shy about pushing it and I find that deeply troubling as well. Since I ordered two books by Spencer and one has not arrived so I cannot list. But, this entry should count as two!

7.The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (Liberation Trilogy) by Rick Atkinson

I read the first in the trilogy (An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy) and could barely put it down so I ordered number 2. I had #1 laying in a drawer for a couple of years. I think a good friend bought me the book. Everything this guys gets me is great. In fact the standing joke is, “I hope you don’t have it.” Anyway, I was on one of my niche reading kicks at the time and didn’t want to plunge into WW2 again until I exhausted myself reading whatever else it was I reading. So, I put #1 in a drawer and promptly forgot about it. Upon rediscovery I yelled at myself for not reading it sooner. I love Atkinson’s style. WW2 reading can be dry, fact oriented a void of the human interest  perspective. Atkinson can transition from Eisenhower and Patton, to home front, to Churchill and Montgolfier  to the GI Joe  or British Tommy in the mud and yuck of the Italian Campaign without missing a beat between human interest and detailing what happened. I’ve read a lot on WW2 stuff but Atkinson’s books will stand with the likes of Cornelius Ryan in my opinion.

8. Warrior of Rome III: Lion of the Sun (Warrior of Rome 3 by Harry Sidebottom)

I like historical novels to a point and there are a couple of writers that are real enjoyable. Sidebottom is one of them. Bernard Cornwall is another. I picked up volume one of this trilogy a couple of years ago (Fire in the East: Book One of Warrior of Rome by Harry Sidebottom) for 25 cents at antique store in Kenosha or Racine. It was gripping right out of the gate, featuring a Romanized German General on a suicide mission trying to hold a fort against the Sassanid Persians, perhaps Rome’s greatest enemy. It was a real page turner so I figured Volume Two would be as well but for some reason I ordered #3 instead of the intended #2 which means of course I’ll have to fix that asap, get Volume Two, read it and then read Volume Three. A good hoarder does not read of sequence.

9.The Blond Knight of Germany: A biography of Erich Hartmann

This book is the one that gave me the bright idea to hoard some books for the surgery recovery. I picked it up for a couple of bucks at an antique store in Pardeeville, WI. If you don’t know where that is don’t worry about. If you live in Wisconsin and don’t know where it is think the Dells area but south and east. I bought a Winchester 94 some years ago from this place. You can get some good stuff off the beaten track.

I like to read about WW2 and the name Erich Hartmann is one I’m familiar with ever since a geeky teen became fascinated with ME-109’s, Spitfires, Mustangs and Focke-Wulf 190’s. Erich was Germany’s top ace who shot down 352 enemy planes 345 of them being Soviet. It’s an incredible number and the fact that most were against the Russians earned Erich some time in a Russian gulag after the war. I may have read this back in the early seventies because it looked real familiar and the first and only edition came out in 1970. I figured for five bucks it was worth buying and reading again. It might be something of a collector’s item since it was printed in 1970 and that was the first and only edition.

10. After America: Get Ready for Armageddon by Mark Steyn

This one really ought to be first since I cheated and read it already. My plan was to order it, throw it on the pile and read after surgery since I was half way through #7 when it was time to go under the knife. Good plan, bad execution because when I got it I made the mistake of reading the introduction and then “just the first chapter.” I’m sure you see where this is going. Yep, could not put it down and I blew through it in less than two weeks which is just about what I’d claim as my “fast pace, relaxing type read.”

I got tuned into Steyn via Rush Limbaugh which means if you are a lib, called progressives these days you’ll hate it just cause you hate Rush and people who think the Constitution was not made with silly putty. Steyn has been called an alarmist which is one of the nicer terms you can actually use on a family friendly blog. Yet, the book is well-documented and uses the obvious data to good effect. Not only that Steyn has a sense of humor similar to my own with the biggest difference he is good at it. The subject matter is not funny though as I believe as Steyn does, that American is at a crossroads and if we don’t turn things around like now, we are destined to be become a second-rate, once was, nation. The last 60 years of creeping progressiveism (let’s be honest and just say socialism) has led this country down a path toward unsustainable debt and over spending. Steyn does a masterful job of talking about the consequences of continuing to follow this course.

Again like me, Steyn would consider himself a conservative rather than a Republican although conservatives are often stuck with Republicans because even the RINO’s are better than the progressives. I think. In fact so are Blue-dog Democrats better than the progressives but blue-dogs are an increasingly rare species under the Democrat tent. My FDR dearly departed parents would be horrified to see what has happened to “their” party.

To be honest I didn’t like Steyn when I first heard him on Rush. I confused him the Brit Stuart Varney on Fox who I did like but thought changed his accent on Rush. I wondered what the hec happened to the well spoken British Varney on Fox who suddenly became the “what is that accent anyway” Steyn on Rush. So, all those Brits do not sound the same and it turns out that Varney is not Steyn nor Steyn Varney. Stupid me.

I think Steyn is a Canadian, educated in Britain, though he did not graduate (I kind of admire that simply because the libs are over educated, arrogant, smarter than everyone else Obama types who think themselves an educated elite-so there), who lives in New Hampshire. I guess that makes Steyn a Can-Am-Brit of some sort. His religion is interesting too. Born Jewish, baptized Roman Catholic, raised Anglican, currently attending a Baptist church. Again, a lot like me except for the Anglican and Jewish parts and I’m an associate pastor at a Baptist church.

In any event, his book was a dead-on read as far as I’m concerned and as soon as I work through my list I’ll back track and read his first book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It by Mark Steyn

Me, except my left leg should be in a cast.

So, that’s it, my list of ten books (okay 11 but after 2 or 2 what’s realistic anyway) I hope to read between now and November 1st when my cast comes off. How am I doing?

Ha, way too optimistic I’d say.

I’m into my second week of the six weeks and only now am I able to focus on reading a lot. For whatever reason it’s been easier to write a little on a my blogs than it’s been to concentrate on reading. The pages have just been a bit of a blur while the pc screen is not so much. I know, get a kindle or something. I am reluctant to do that, there is just something about a real paper book that causes me to hoard. My next book I read will be on dealing with “book idolatry.”