Recent Books

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card
There are books by Orson Scott Card that I haven't read! This is not one of them. I had not, however, read this book since high school. The story takes place on a future earth where the technology has been developed to be able to watch the past. Basically the ultimate DVR machine. Go anywhere in time, see anything you want. Historians clearly work a bit differently with this new tool - they actually watch the past. A few of the people decide that the general conquering of the Americas by Europe lead to a great deal of suffering and lead the world down a very destructive past. Coincidentally, the world is in need to saving, and someone has discovered that they can send things back in time to chance the past. So, three of these historians go back to stop Columbus and re-create the world.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson
From the author of The Devil in the White City, this book is about the sinking of the Lusitania, a big and fancy passenger ship that was sunk by a German U-Boat on its was from NYC to England during WWI. Sorry for the spoilers, but it happened over 100 years ago people. C'mon, read a newspaper! The book spends a lot of time building up to the actual sinking, covering the loading of the boat, the captain, the famous passengers, the not-famous passengers, the weather, President Wilson's dating life, etc. It was interesting, but not terrific.

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
From the author of Dead Wake, this book is about the tenure of the US Ambassador to Germany in the 1930s. If this book doesn't sound absolutely thrilling, you have successfully judged the book without even looking at the cover! The 1930s was a terrible time for a lot of people in Germany - you know, Hitler and all that. But I'm not sure that the viewpoint of William Dodd and his promiscuous 20-something daughter was the most exciting angle. The book covers Dodds attempts to work with the Nazi government to protect Americans from harassment in Germany, get American debts repaid, and encourage the Nazis to not, well, do all those things the Nazis are famous for. His daughter, in the mean time, was dating Nazi officials, that is, while she wasn't dating Russian diplomats. (She was a real piece of work.) This book took me a long time to read, because it just wasn't interesting enough to make me want to stay up reading - 4 pages and I'd be ready to turn out the light and go to sleep.