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I had a very slow beginning. For some reason, I could read very little from January to April. I finally reread a few books I've enjoyed, which got me back in a reading mood.
One of my goals was to read at least 50 books, and at least half of these from my TBR, which is an overhanging cliff.
So far this year:
Books not on my TBR
Ten Cities That Made An Empire by Tristram Hunt
When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning
Turner by Peter Ackroyd (a shortie - is this where Mike Leigh got his ideas for the movie?; readable but thin on Turner as an artist)
anyway, so far 3 non-TBR books
Books From My TBR
Rebellion by Peter Ackroyd - a readable history of the Stuarts and the English resistance to the dynasty
1636: The Viennese Waltz
1636: Seas of Fortune
1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies
It’s been so long since I read a Ring of Fire book that I went back and reread the mainline books.
Churchill’s Bomb by Graham Farmelo (good account of how Britain fell behind in the atomic race after a promising start.
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb (good account of La France profonde)
The Fireseed Wars by John F. Carr
Siege of Tarr-Hostigos by John F. Carr (I was a big fan of H.Beam Piper’s Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen, and have had John F. Carr’s continuation on my TBR for quite a while)
Many Thousands Gone: First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America by Ira Berlin (Ira Berlin has done for African-Americans something like what David Hackett Fischer did for early Anglo-American history in Albion’s Seed)
Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South by Stephanie McCurry (a good book about internal power relationships in the American Civil War South - it made a lot of things click for me)
Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch - at least as good as the first four PC Peter Grant books; can't wait for the next one
I’ve had most of Alan Furst’s Night Soldier books on my TBR for quite a while. I re-read Night Soldiers; it reminded me why I have the books on my TBR. I finally read Dark Star (#2), The Polish Officer (#3), The World At Night (#4), Red Gold (#5), Kingdom of Shadows (#6), and Blood of Victory (#7). It’s not a series as such, more of a universe - continental Europe during the Nazi-Stalin era. There are connected characters and themes, so they are better read in sequence. I’m enjoying them immensely for the atmosphere, so I expect to read #8-#13 over the summer.
Finishing up Brenda Wineapple’s Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877.
18 books so far, which is a bit off the pace to meet my goal, but I hope to catch up soon.
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