Just finished David Baldacci's latest Calamity of Souls. While I like his writing, I'm afraid he's hitched a ride on the woke train. This story is about race -- in particular a black man unjustly accused of the murder of a white couple and defended by a white man in the south in 1968 or so.
First, in his Author's Note, Baldacci does a bunch of hand wringing about wanting to be "authentic" by using the N-word, but without offending anyone (he uses "N-----" instead).
Second, he succumbs to the current trend to refer to Black folks with a capital "B" and white folks with a lower case "w" (even in the same sentence). I'm afraid that one just grates on my nerves.
Thirdly, I'm afraid there are too many parallels to Grisham's "A Time To Kill".
It was still a good read overall, but not one I'd necessarily go out of my way to recommend.

^^^ I like Baldacci, but based on your review, I won't be reading that one.

I'm one book behind on my Jack Reacher reading so I started reading "The Secret" yesterday.

I just finished “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist” by Jack El-hai. It is the extremely well chronicled and documented story of Major Douglas Kelley (the psychiatrist assigned to evaluate and analyze the mental condition of the top Nazis after their capture and before and during the Nuremberg Tribunals). He evaluated in great detail Herman Goring (among others). It is very well written and absolutely fascinating as it uncovers the inner thought processes and the motivations behind their terrible war crimes. It also chronicles Kelley’s career afterwards, including his own mental decline that led to his suicide in 1958, oddly by the same method used by Goring - cyanide. If you’re interested in WWII history, this is a must read!

Reading the 9th in the Lewis Cole series by Brendan DuBois - Blood Foam. Great mysteries taking place on the short coast of New Hampshire and other local areas. Lewis being a former DoD research analyst and his friend, former mafia enforcer from the north end of Boston, solve interesting cases. Well written stories.

Finished The Battle of Franklin, but still on my Civil War kick, I'm reading Decisions at Franklin: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle.

Part of a series, it's a little different than your typical "battle" book. It goes through scenarios leading up to and during the battle, explains what decision had to be made, lays out the options, and then tells what option was chosen, and the outcome of the choice. I'll definitely read others in the series, probably Shiloh next, as I have visited that battlefield many times and studied the battle.

The series, at this point, is only available in paperback. Being used to reading on a Samsung tablet using a Kindle app, it took a little getting used to going back to physical books, ha ha.

Edited to add 6/25/24: I've mostly finished Decisions at Franklin, and it was a fascinating read. I think there are a couple more scenarios they could have covered, but overall it was great.

And there's a bonus in the book: The last 1/4 of the book is a battlefield tour of the campaign, starting out in Georgia (!) where Hood reached his decision to move west through Georgia and Alabama before turning north into Tennessee, and then the battle itself. I was quite happily surprised by this. I think I'm going to grab my Dad sometime and take part of the tour with him. That ought to be a blast.

I think next I'm going to read Atlas of the Civil War. It covers the flow of battles throughout the course of the Civil War. I know a little about many of the battles (a lot about Shiloh, Franklin, and Nashville), but I don't really know much about the flow of the armies throughout the War.

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So I decided to read 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi.

It's an account of the attacks on the diplomatic compound and "secret" CIA base in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11/2012. I'm about a third of the way through, and it largely is mirrored by the movie. Good writing, with some background on the lead-up to the attacks.

I've had it for a while but haven't read it, and when I heard Mark "Oz" Geist (who was there) on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast (highly recommended), I decided to go ahead and read it. I'm going to try and follow it up with Sarah Adams' Benghazi: Know Thy Enemy. Sarah, also interviewed on Shawn Ryan's podcast several times, was a CIA targeter (not analyst) with a lot of inside information on the attacks and follow-up on bringing the perpetrators to justice. Her interviews on the podcast about her work in the CIA are eye-opening and fascinating.

The Witcher series, currently reading "Baptism of Fire".

Fire and Blood by GRRM.

Attaturk in the Nazi Imagination.

Just finished Sirens, Lights, and Lawyers: The Law & Other Really Important Stuff EMS Providers Never Learned in School

Great stuff as a provider and looking forward to sharing it with my next EMS class.

Finished the other two in The Three-Body Problem trilogy. Dark Forrest and Death's End. If you saw the Netflix show there are parts from all books that were featured. Dark Forrest was a bit slow but the ending was good. The third book was plodding. Jumped around from time to time and never really gathered any momentum, and the end just kinda fizzled.

BearBio ever sat in the East?

Recently finished Storm Cell, the 10th in the Lewis Cole series by Brendan DuBois. Two left in this series however...

last night I started reading Gregg Allman's autobiography, My Cross to Bear.

Just started reading "Red Sky Mourning" by Jack Carr

I really like Erik Larson books and he has a new one out, "Demon of Unrest - A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak and Heroism at the Damn of the Civil War". This book takes you through the election of Lincoln to the surrender of Ft Sumter in a deep study. Very well researched, thanks to diaries and papers that have survived. I've read all of Larson's books and can't wait for the next one.

Just finished "Buried Dreams" by Brendan DuBois. The Lewis Cole mysteries take place near where I grew up in southern NH. Unfortunately, I see this morning that he (DuBois) was arrested for possessing child porn.

Elizabeth Brayers's George Eastman: A Biography

710 pages(!)

quote:

Originally posted by PKFan:
Just finished "Buried Dreams" by Brendan DuBois. The Lewis Cole mysteries take place near where I grew up in southern NH. Unfortunately, I see this morning that he (DuBois) was arrested for possessing child porn.

I have two books left to read in the Lewis Cole series. I'm disappointed to read about his "hobby". Asshole.

Currently reading Kristin Lavranstatter by Sigrid Undset as the summer selection of my book club.

At 1,140 pages, it is certain to take the full summer to get through it.

I have found that I don't have time to read like I used to, as in it takes forever to finish a book,

however, saying that I have yet to finish Costello's autobiography,

and have a stack of stuff to read afterwards,


also, FWIW, I found out JJ Burnell has an autobiography out, and it seems to be expensive, since it was apparently not released in the US