Walker > Recent Status Updates

Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
By Drew Middleton's definition, this personal involvement made the war correspondents unable to fulfill their duty because they had lost their objectivity. Matthews's provision for open, honest bias so long as the reader was still given the facts did not work out any better. ... [reporting] failed its readers ... did not give them "competent, balanced, complete journalistic [picture].

Italy's War against Abyssinia 1935-1936 - "What Matthews was up against ... was that the truth, that the Abyssianians stood no chance against the Italians' mechanized army, was unpalatable; sympathy suspended the reader's critical judgment, and he preferred optimistic but fake reports from Abyssinia to the more factual reports with the Italian army." (Page 179)

Sounds like a lot of reporting today, doesn't it?

Just finished the chapter on reporting of the Russian Revolution 1917 - 1920. Reporting was filled with lies, propaganda, and so much censorship that the public was not aware of the travails of the Allied intervention efforts against the Bolsheviks.

The correspondents and government censors were both to blame. Some reports were overly optimistic and downright false and the censors prevented honest reports.

This goes through various wars and the details of how some correspondents just made up stories that never happened and how censorship was used by governments to propagandize the reports. This book is very detailed and documented. It covers American, British, and European reporting of conflicts throughout the world. It covers the Crimean war, Civil War, Boer, Russo-Japanese, Greco-Turkish. Just finished WWI. Wow.

The title of this book comes from a quote in 1917 of Senator Hiram Johnson, "The first casualty when war comes is truth." This starts with reporting of the Crimean war, 1854 - 1856 with the "first war correspondent", William Howard Russell. While the actual first was probably G. L. Gruneisen, Russel's work was the first organized effort to report war news to the civilian population. Very interesting book.

This non-fiction has been so informative and actually an exciting read to me. This goes into the depths of MI5 and MI6 British intelligence services.

Just finished Sir Anthony Eden. Next is Maurice Macmillan, 1957 - 1963.

I am enjoying this book. It covers the lives on the Prime Ministers in rather good detail, along with the events taking place during their careers.

I just got through Chamberlain, Churchill, and Atlee.

This is well written and filled with history. I am really enjoying it.

Just got to Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister from 1902 through 1905. This is really an interesting and well written book.

106 of 258.
This has certainly been an enlightening book. This goes into a lot of detail about each of the Prime Ministers with their backgrounds and the historical events taking place during their lives and careers. As an American, I studies American History in much more detail than that of England. This brings the Prime Ministers to life and provides so much detail. I am enjoying the history lessons.

I think this will be rather interesting to read about all of the British prime ministers from 1721 through 1979. This was published in 1980 when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

This is generally well written from a plot, characters, and development standpoint, but the incomplete sentences really started to gnaw at my grammar correction tendency. Commas and semicolons would have been more effective than periods and incomplete sentences. The art of developing compound sentences and complete paragraphs is sometimes ignored by some authors.

I am reading this for the second time. I appreciate the lack of foul language in the book. Incomplete sentences could be edited to make smoother reading.

I actually finished this a couple of days ago. I just need to get the review written.

Arnold and Noleen. How does one's depression affect those whom they love.

My Father's Hands - WWII short story. Sometimes we just know.

Restarted this since it has been a long time since I had started it. I am back up to speed on it, now.

I really finished this a few weeks ago, but I am, including this one, 6 books behind on writing reviews.

The writing is very detailed, descriptive, and vivid. I expected the encounter between the ranchers (wheat growers) and the railroad representatives with the marshal and deputies to conclude differently, but the outcome is believable. I am glad I am reading this again. I didn't remember much from when I read it 50 years ago.

Anixter is really argumentative, awkward, and rather uncouth in many ways. He is very uncomfortable around women. Barn dance going on now.

The author is very detailed in his descriptions of the characters, their thoughts, and their actions. The wheat farmers, ranchers, are fighting high freight rates the railroad is charging. This is set in the late 1800s. This was written in 1901 and was to be the first of a series of three novels, but the author died in 1902, so the other two were not written.

In that brief instant of silence following upon Magnus's outburst, and while he held them subdued and overmastered, the fabric of their scheme of corruption and dishonesty trembled to its base. It was the last protest of the old school, rising up there in denunciation of the new order of things, the statesman opposed to the politician; honesty, rectitude, uncompromising integrity, prevailing for the last time....

First chapter primarily about Presley, the poet. He is seeking inspiration for his epic dream poem of the West. We get a lot of background of the area and the ranchers. There are many details and descriptions that make it come alive.

I read this in high school and have thought of reading it again. I located my original paperback copy in my library room and started reading it. When I read it in high school, as I recall, it was a tedious read. I will make notes as I read along so I will be able to review it properly.

Close to finishing this. There are many twists and turns. The story is "told" by a spinster aunt. At times it tends to go in circles.

The murder mystery develops.

First sentence Chapter 1:
This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.

I actually finished this but need to get caught up on my reviews. I have three ahead of this one. I am like that butcher that backed into his meat saw.

My hard back copy was printed in 1977 and has 249 pages, but this was the closest I could find to the one I have. Originally published in 1908.

I paused this to read some other novels and am back into this one.