book report V

Been a slow book month! I was reading one long work for most of the time. I have recently finished a journal issue on the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. It was written in the '30s, so right at the time CW was being renovated. Interesting details on how the restorers knew what materials to use, etc.

I also just finished a Louis L'Amour book of short stories, Yondering. It was basically stories from his own experiences as a sailor and merchant seaman. Still the usual standard of quality, but not as much to my taste as the westerns.

The book that took up so much time this month was Jeff Shaara's Rise to Rebellion. I've read most of his other works: Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, picking up where his father left off. (Michael Shaara was the author of the really excellent The Killer Angels, which was later made into the movie Gettysburg. He wrote in a unique style that his son has kept up in his own writings.) And the sequel to Rise to Rebellion, The Glorious Cause. The latter two chronicle the Revolutionary War and its inception. Now, having read all these works by this author, I felt they were good, but lacked the passion that infuses The Killer Angels. Until I read Rise to Rebellion. This book really seemed to be the one Jeff Shaara had always wanted to write. His enthusiasm for the time period enriched the book immeasurably.

Still moving through the life and times of Perry Mason—Erle Stanley Gardner's detective from first to last. Interestingly, Gardner wrote about Mason from the '30s through the '60s, and Perry Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake never age. Nor does the relationship between Mason and Street ever progress. Right now I'm deep in the works of the '30s, enjoying seeing how Gardner's writing is maturing.

And still working on Alan and Iris Macfarlane's excellent Empire of Tea, on the history thereof. Long read, but well worth it.