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Maybe I'll try that book. My husband is in the hospital for the last two weeks and all I've been reading are samples of books that don't capture my attention through what is probably no fault of their own.
Last edited by katzenfreund; 12-07-2016 at 02:03 PM..
Reason: edited the text you quoted to include link
I love this book; I'd gotten it from the library (after waiting about 2 months...) and by the end of the first chapter I knew this was a 'must buy'. I honestly could not lay this book down until I'd finished it.
LAB GIRL by Hope Jahren
In “Lab Girl,” geochemist Hope Jahren combines beautiful writing and a comprehensive scientific background to craft a beautiful memoir of a life spent figuring things out . . .Deft and flecked with humor, “Lab Girl” is also a hybrid — a scientist’s memoir of a quirky, gritty, fascinating life punctuated by mesmerizing dispatches on botany. From the prologue on, a reader itches to call out fun facts to innocents nearby: “The average ocean plant is one cell that lives about twenty days. The average land plant is a two-ton tree that lives for more than one hundred years.
An excellent primer on Trump, his rise, his obsessions.
I read it but it was more a business biography, in my opinion, than a biography that gave insight into the man. I had read all that information before in articles. Maybe there is no 'there' there, though, to write about.
Diamonds, gold, and war : the British, the Boers, and the making of South Africa / Martin Meredith, c2007, Public Affairs, 968.0481 Mere.
Subjects
South African War, 1899-1902 -- Causes.
Diamond industry and trade -- South Africa -- History -- 19th century.
Gold industry -- South Africa -- History -- 19th century.
Afrikaners -- South Africa -- History.
South African War, 1899-1902.
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Africa -- Administration.
Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- 1837-1901.
South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909.
South Africa -- Politics and government -- 1836-1909.
South Africa -- History.
Summary
A history of the tumultuous period leading up to the 1910 founding of the modern state of South Africa explores how the discovery of vast diamond and gold deposits led to a fierce struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the region.
Length xi, 570 pages, [16] pages of plates : maps, chapter notes, select bibliography, index
Excellent read, good on C. Rhodes, the various fortunes of UK & Boer arms against the Zulu & other natives, & each other. I read most of it - through C. Rhodes, the Boer wars. Rhodes is an odd one, but he did accomplish a lot. Very interesting history. The setting for Zulu, Breaker Morant, others.
Last edited by southwest88; 12-10-2016 at 04:24 PM..
Reason: Zulu! & others
1944 : FDR and the year that changed history / Jay Winik, 1957-, c2015, Simon & Schuster, 940.5373 WINI
Subjects
Roosevelt, Franklin D. -- (Franklin Delano), -- 1882-1945 -- Influence.
World War, 1939-1945 -- United States.
Political leadership -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Notes
The sphinx -- Spring 1944 : everything all at once. Tehran ; "I want to sleep and sleep twelve hours a day" ; Escape, part 1 ; Escape, part 2 ; "This is the year 1944" ; "Could we be granted victory this year, 1944?" -- The road to 1944. Beginnings ; Mills of the gods ; Giant cemeteries ; Riegner ; 1943 ; "The acquiescence of this government in the murder of Jews" -- The fateful decision. Trapped between knowing and not knowing ; The wind and the silence -- 1945 -- Reckoning.
Summary
"Chronicles the events of 1944 to reveal how nearly the Allies lost World War II, citing the pivotal contributions of FDR, Churchill, and Stalin,"--Novelist.
It was not inevitable that World War II would end as it did, or that it would even end well. 1944 was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler's waning power. Instead, it saved those democracies--but with a fateful cost. 1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the planning of Operation Overlord with Churchill and Stalin, the unprecedented D-Day invasion and the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But on the way, millions of more lives were still at stake as President Roosevelt was exposed to mounting evidence of the most grotesque crime in history, the Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of European Jews. Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on Roosevelt, whose rapidly deteriorating health was a closely guarded secret. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Was a rescue even possible? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world's reach, including the liberation of Europe, one challenge--saving Europe's Jews--seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt's grasp.--Adapted from book jacket.
Europe, WWII, Jews, the Allies, Nazis. A long look @ the Allies & especially the US on the Jewish Holocaust. An examination of what happened & why. Terrifying reading.
1944 : FDR and the year that changed history / Jay Winik, 1957-, c2015, Simon & Schuster, 940.5373 WINI
*****************
Europe, WWII, Jews, the Allies, Nazis. A long look @ the Allies & especially the US on the Jewish Holocaust. An examination of what happened & why. Terrifying reading.
I second that. Excellent book. I have read earlier books about the inaction of the U.S. and the Allies regarding the Jewish Holocaust. This book is damning and puts it into context.
Our man in Charleston : Britain's secret agent in the Civil War South / Christopher Dickey c2015, Crown Publishers, 973.786 DICK
Notes
An Englishman of the Americas -- Observations on the price of Negroes -- Quasi-war -- First shots -- Wicked designs -- The reign of error.
Summary
"Between the Confederacy and recognition by Great Britain stood one unlikely Englishman who hated the slave trade. His actions helped determine the fate of a nation. When Robert Bunch arrived in Charleston to take up the post of British consul in 1853, he was young and full of ambition, but even he couldn't have imagined the incredible role he would play in the history-making events to unfold. In an age when diplomats often were spies, Bunch's job included sending intelligence back to the British government in London. Yet as the United States threatened to erupt into Civil War, Bunch found himself plunged into a double life, settling into an amiable routine with his slavery-loving neighbors on the one hand, while working furiously to thwart their plans to achieve a new Confederacy. As secession and war approached, the Southern states found themselves in an impossible position. They knew that recognition from Great Britain would be essential to the survival of the Confederacy, and also that such recognition was likely to be withheld if the South reopened the Atlantic slave trade. But as Bunch meticulously noted from his perch in Charleston, secession's red-hot epicenter, that trade was growing. And as Southern leaders continued to dissemble publicly about their intentions, Bunch sent dispatch after secret dispatch back to the Foreign Office warning of the truth--that economic survival would force the South to import slaves from Africa in massive numbers. When the gears of war finally began to turn, and Bunch was pressed into service on an actual spy mission to make contact with the Confederate government, he found himself in the middle of a fight between the Union and Britain that threatened, in the boast of Secretary of State William Seward, to 'wrap the world in flames.' In this masterfully told story, Christopher Dickey introduces Consul Bunch as a key figure in the pitched battle between those who wished to reopen the floodgates of bondage and misery, and those who wished to dam the tide forever. Featuring a remarkable cast of diplomats, journalists, senators, and spies, Our Man in Charleston captures the intricate, intense relationship between great powers on the brink of war"-- Provided by publisher.
"The little-known story of a British diplomat who serves as a spy in South Carolina at the dawn of the Civil War, posing as a friend to slave-owning aristocrats when he was actually telling Britain not to support the Confederacy"-- Provided by publisher.
An excellent book, from the UK POV. A good look @ the issues, politics, shifting political lineup on the Union, slavery, the CSA. Very readable, lots of irony all around.
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So Good I Had to Buy It!
