The History Book Club discussion

Jim, this is your thread for 2018. I have included the link to the required format thread and an example. If you had a 2017 thread - it will be archived so when you get the opportunity move over your completed books and formats to the 2018 thread - but we will allow time for you to do that.

Please follow the standard required format below - I hope you enjoy your reading in 2018. Here is also a link for assistance with the required guidelines:

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Our Required Format:

JANUARY

1. by Winston S. Churchill
Finish date: January 2017
Genre: (whatever genre the book happens to be)
Rating: A
Review: You can add text from a review you have written but no links to any review elsewhere even goodreads. And that is about it. Just make sure to number consecutively and just add the months.

IMPORTANT - THE REVIEW SHOULD BE SHORT AND SWEET - THERE ARE NO LINKS OF ANY KIND IN THE BODY OF THE REVIEW ALLOWED. NONE. DO NOT REFER TO ANY OTHER BOOK IN YOUR BRIEF REVIEW. THE ONLY BOOK CITED IN YOUR REVIEW IS THE ONE YOU ARE REVIEWING - NO OTHERS. ALL LINKS TO OTHER THREADS OR REVIEWS ARE DELETED IMMEDIATELY - THERE WILL BE NO WARNING. WE CONSIDER THIS SELF PROMOTION AND IT IS NOT ALLOWED AND IS IN VIOLATION OF OUR RULES AND GUIDELINES.

Jim, I believe you are new to these threads - we are here to help you with the standard format which once you get it under your belt is extremely easy. Check out the How To thread because it gives you all of the details you need to be successful. It takes everybody a couple of entries to get the knack and you can always rely on looking back at the example in comment box one if you forget.

We are here to help and hope you enjoy your thread in 2018.

Regards,

Bentley

Thank you, Bentley. It was a lot of work, but you finally stopped playing catch up and got to mustard.

JANUARY

1. by Marcus du Sautoy
Finish date: January 27, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Science--Mathematics
Rating: B
Review: A history of the search to prove the Riemann Hypothesis: the idea that prime numbers have a pattern, first postulated in an 1859 paper by the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann (1826-66). Very math-intensive and at times hard to understand.

FEBRUARY

2. by Andrew Hodges (no photo)
Finish date: February 2, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Science--Mathematics
Rating: B
Review: An interesting book about the role that each of the numbers 1 to 9 play in life, culture, and especially their interconnectedness in mathematics.

3. by Jon Krakauer
Finish date: February 5, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Biography--Adventure--Travel
Rating: B+
Review: The tragic story of Chris McCandless, who hitchhiked to Alaska, walked into the woods north of Mount McKinley (Denali), and whose remains were found four months later, originated in an article Krakauer wrote for Outside magazine.

4. by Charles Seife
Finish date: February 6, 2018.
Genre: Nonfiction--Science--Mathematics
Rating: B
Review: The ancients hated, feared, and banned the number zero, for good reason. In this fascinating book, Seife traces the origin and uses of zero, and explains why it will destroy the universe.

5. by Victor Hugo
Finish date: February 22, 2018.
Genre: Classic Literature--Historical--Historical Fiction--Romance--European Literature--French Literature.
Rating: B
Review: I finally finished this monster of a book--the Fall River Press/Barnes & Noble hardcover, published in 2012 to presumably commemorate the sesquicentennial (150-year anniversary) of the novel's original 1862 publication, crams the 1,463-page mass-market paperback edition into 908 pages of tiny print--on my fourth attempt. The only reasons I didn't give the story of Jean Valjean and of the vast underclass everywhere, about which no one cares, a grade of A, are the tangents on which Hugo flies.

6. by Max Brand
Finish date: February 26, 2018.
Genre: Western
Rating: B+
Review: Max Brand is the most well-known of at least 15 pseudonyms under which American author Frederick Faust (1892-1944) wrote. This fifth Max Brand western (and third originally published in 1921 alone) follows Andrew Lanning, whose uncle forces him to fight the town hothead, and who finds a posse on his tail after nearly killing the hothead with a single punch.

MARCH

7. by Erich Maria Remarque.
Finish date: March 1, 2018
Genre: Classics--Historical--Historical Fiction--War
Rating: A
Review: In what is arguably the greatest war novel of all time, Remarque, through Paul Baumer, a young soldier in the German army during World War I, eloquently depicts the horror of senseless killing.

8. by Ivan Turgenev
Finish date: March 5, 2018
Genre: Fiction--Classics--Cultural: Russia--Literature
Rating: A
Review: I read an alternate cover version of this classic about the interactions and reactions among fathers and sons and brothers (even those from other mothers) and sisters (even those from other misters). It is hard to like the main protagonist, Bazarov, but easy to pity his parents.

9. by Dan Barry
Finish date: March 7, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Baseball (United States)--History--Minor Leagues
Rating: A
Review: An excellent book that frames the longest game in professional baseball history--33 innings and 8 hours, 25 minutes played April 18-19, 1981 (suspended) and June 23, 1981--with a history of Pawtucket, the ballpark, the teams (Rochester, NY Red Wings, a AAA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles; and the Pawtucket, RI Red Sox, Boston's AAA affiliate), players, and managers.

Jim wrote: "9. by
Finish date: March 7, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Baseball (United States)--H..."

I LOVED that book! What a great story.

10. by Margaret Helfgott (no photo).
Finish Date: March 8, 2018.
Genre: Memoir
Rating: B
Review: David Helfgott's big sister details many of the 1996 movie's inaccuracies concerning her brother's life and work as well as its depiction of the members of the Helfgott family, especially Peter, the patriarch. She also slams director Scott Hicks and David's second wife Gillian as greedy opportunists, although it is a credit to the author that she restrains her anger.

11. by L.M. Montgomery
Finish date: March 12, 2018
Genre: Classics--Fiction--Historical Fiction--Young Adult--Children's
Rating: B
Review: Good but sappy. I wonder how many people needed their ears surgically reattached because Anne talked them off?

12. by Michael Walker
Finish date: March 15, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Music--Rock-and-Roll--History--Culture--Pop Culture
Rating: A
Review: I haven't posted a review, but I found this book an excellent history of the "musician's enclave" (as Ben Fong-Torres put it) during the 1960s in Los Angeles, CA USA.

Good afternoon!

The children's books in question are all in my wife's condo in her living room; and while I remember reading Charlotte's Web as a child, I read it again, as well as the other three, all on Sunday morning, March 18, 2018, while staying with my wife.

Until you had given me the green light, I felt I should delete the messages and start fresh.

13. by Albert G. Miller (no photo)
Finish date: March 18, 2018
Genre: Fiction--Children's
Rating: A
Review: A cute book about Bambi and Thumper at play.

14. by Alma Flor Ada
Finish date: March 18, 2018
Genre: Fiction--Children's
Rating: A
Review: An often funny epistolary book featuring letters by famous fairy tale characters to each other.

The format is correct now. Thank you for your cooperation and explanation. Remember the listings here are only for books read and completed in 2018.

15. (no image) Cinderella by Patricia Daniels (no photo)
Finish date: March 18, 2018
Genre: Fiction--Children's
Rating: A
Review: A retelling of the classic folk tale.

16. by E.B. White
Finish date: March 18, 2018
Genre: Fiction--Children's
Rating: A
Review: A classic story of the friendship between a pig and a spider.

17. by Adrian Goldsworthy
Finish date: March 30, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--History--Biography
Rating: A
Review: I finished this excellent, detailed, well-researched biography of the most famous Roman who ever lived, this morning, a day before it's due at the library. Caesar was more a force of nature than a human being.

APRIL

18. by Peter Greenberg (no photo).
Finish date: April 7, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Travel
Rating: B+
Review: Though dated (2007), this book provides detailed information for both novice and seasoned travellers alike.

19. by Ronald W. Clark (no photo).
Finish date: April 18, 2018
Genre:Nonfiction--Biography--Science
Rating: A
Review: In what is widely considered a "definitive biography", Clark gives a detailed portrait of one of the most famous scientists who ever lived.

Good progress Jim

20. by Hunter Davies
Finish date: April 23, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Biography--Music--Rock/Pop
Rating: A
Review: One of several books that my friend Dave and his wife, who are spring cleaning, have given me, this is an excellent biography, through 1977, of the world's most celebrated pop band.

21. by Liz Evers (no photo).
Finish date: April 25, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--History--Science--Culture
Rating: B
Review: Found in the Barnes & Noble bargain bin, a good overview of the history of time: how we live in it, measure it, and think about it.

22. by James Di Clerico (no photo).
Finish date: April 26, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--History--Sports--Baseball
Rating: A
Review: An excellent history of "the summer game" as it developed in my home state of New Jersey, including a list of every New Jersey-born major leaguer through 1989.

MAY

23. by Robert Fulghum
Finish Date: May 7, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Humor--Writing-Essays
Rating: A
Review: Robert Fulghum's second book has many truisms and a few LOL moments.

24. by Sylvia Nasar
Finish Date: May 25, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Biography--Mathematics
Rating: A
Review: This 1999 biography of the brilliant mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. (1928-2015) was made into the critically acclaimed movie.

JUNE

25. (no image) A New Jersey Reader by J.C. Furnas (no photo).
Finish Date: June 6, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Fiction--USA--New Jersey
Rating: A
Review: I didn't know how to categorize this 1961 hardcover anthology of New Jerseyana, a catalog record (59-7518) at the library of Congress that I bought at a library book sale.

26. by Richard Russo
Finish Date: June 12, 2018
Genre: Fiction
Rating: B
Review: This novel set in Cape Cod about a screenwriter's failing marriage and issues with his parents has melancholy, joyful, and hilarious moments by turns.

27. by Hans Weyandt (no photo)
Finish Date: June 13, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Writing-Books about Books--Reference
Rating: A
Review: The author and the owners, managers, and buyers of 25 independent bookstores each list their top 50 favorite books.

28. by Red Smith (1905-82) (no photo)
Finish Date: June 26, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction--Sports and Games-Sports--Writing-Journalism
Rating: A
Review: I actually read the hardcover edition of this book, which I bought at a library book sale, and loved it. Walter W. "Red" Smith's son Terence compiled 128 of his father's best columns, spanning a nearly 50-year career.

Really good progress, Jim, but your recent posts have left off the author link when there's a photo, and we need both. Can you fix that, please?

Author links have now been added to photos. Sorry about that.

Jim wrote: "Author links have now been added to photos. Sorry about that."

Thanks, Jim - you did miss message 24 though.

Got message 24.

Jim wrote: "Got message 24."

Excellent. Sorry to be a nag.

NP. If you're a nag, you'd need to be at a farrier.

JULY

29. by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Finish Date: July 7, 2018
Genre: Fiction
Rating: A
Review: The first of Thomas Hardy's great novels, published in 1874 and serialized in Cornhill Magazine, is an excellent tale of love, betrayal, obsession and murder set in rural southwestern England in the 1860s.

A great book! I've read it twice over my lifetime! There is a movie as well, but as usual, it pales by comparison to the book!

AUGUST

30. by Stuart Nicholson (no photo)
Finish Date: August 2, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction-History-Music-Jazz-Jazz Rock
Rating: B
Review: Excellent book about the subgenre of music combining jazz and rock from the likes of such bands and artists as Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Gil Evans, Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Herbie Hancock, and Weather Report, spanning the late 1950s to the late 1990s.

31. The Ox-Bow Incident (no image) by Walter Van Tilburg Clark (1909-71)
Finish Date: August 7, 2018
Genre: Fiction-Western
Rating: A
Review: I was drawn into this story about two drifters who get recruited into a lynch mob pursuing cattle rustlers and murderers. The 1940 novel was Clark's first published novel and was made three years later into an Oscar-winning film.

32. (1903) by W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Finish Date: August 12, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction-History-Sociology-Race Relations
Rating: A
Review: One of the first works in sociology, this is a powerful collection of fourteen essays in which Du Bois traces the history of slavery and racial prejudice, hatred and discrimination of the black man by the white, as well as solutions, that should be required reading in American schools.

33. by Daniel Barenboim (no photo) and Edward W. Said
Finish date: August 17, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction-Music-Classical Music
Rating: A
Review: A very interesting book of conversations between close friends about music, performance, writing, politics and life.

34. by David Crosby (no photo) and Carl Gottlieb (no photo)
Finish date: August 20, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction-Biography-Memoir-Music
Rating: A
Review: In this second memoir, a sequel to 1988's Long Time Gone, Crosby tells how he survived it all, including a liver transplant, an earthquake, a motorcycle crash, and his stupidity.

Good progress Jim with a lot of interesting adds.

35. (1992) by Bill Graham (1931-91) (no photo) and Robert Greenfield
Finish Date: August 28, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction-Biography-Music
Rating: A
Review: Loved this autobiography of one of the greatest music promoters in rock and roll history, despite its unusual format of discrete quotes from its subject and from the people in his life.

SEPTEMBER

36. (1930) by Agatha Christie (1890-1976)
Finish date: September 1, 2018
Genre: Fiction-Mystery-Crime-Amateur Sleuth
Rating: A
Review: In an effort to read more mysteries, but confused as to which ones, I assumed that I couldn't go wrong with a novel (or two) by Dame Agatha Christie. The first Miss Jane Marple (an elderly spinster) whodunit takes place in the fictional village of St. Mary Mead, where an unpopular church official is shot in the head.

37. (1920) by Agatha Christie (1890-1976)
Finish Date: September 4, 2018
Genre: Fiction-Mystery-Crime-Detective Fiction
Rating: A
Review: The first novel by "the best-selling mystery author of all time" introduces Hercule Poirot, a retired Belgian police detective, in the case of a poisoning at a country estate, set in Essex, England.

38. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgård
Finish Date: September 5, 2018
Genre: Nonfiction-Biography-Essays
Rating: A
Review: Three letters--each heading a section of the book on each month of autumn--as well as short essays on everyday things--all written for his then unborn daughter, comprise this book originally written in Norwegian in 2015 and translated into English in 2017.