history

Assassination Vacation

04.09.2011 books

This is yet another book I discovered via Nick Hornby and his fine book-about-books entitled Housekeeping vs. The Dirt. At the end of that post, back in March of 2006, I mentioned that I wanted to read Assassination Vacation. It’s amazing that a book I read five years ago is still influencing my reading life. [...]

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The King’s Speech

01.01.2011 screen

This was a great movie about King George VI of the United Kingdom. It portrays a snippet of his life from about 1925 to 1940 and focuses on his close relationship to a speech therapist named Lionel Logue. The speech that the title takes it’s name from is a radio address that King George gave shortly [...]

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Manhunt

03.08.2009 books

The subtitle is The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, and that describes it very well. There is a little background early on, but for the most part this book starts the morning of April 14, 1865 and ends with Booth’s capture and death 12 days later.  It contains the kind of detail you don’t get [...]

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John Adams

02.10.2009 books

This is a long audio book, abridged it’s still close to 10 hours. But it’s certainly a great listen and it’s a small amount of time to spend when you consider the impact this man had on the United States of America. He was one of the chief architects of the Declaration of Independence and [...]

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The River of Doubt

01.10.2008 books

In the pantheon of great American ass-kickers, Theodore Roosevelt floats to the top of the “political figure” category. This 5’8″ fireplug of a man supposedly topped out at a solid 200 lbs during his most active days despite being born a sickly child. He had a long history of tackling hardship and defeat by “vigorously [...]

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Truman

04.07.2007 books

Truman’s presidency occurred during times of immense global unrest and he was forced to make a few of the most pivotal decisions in US history. These decisions certainly affected the standing and prosperity of the US during his lifetime, but they also had reverberations that would affect the political and economic make-up of Asia and [...]

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The Americanization of Ben Franklin

02.18.2007 books

Before this book, I’ve always had a tainted view of Ben Franklin because of the existence of those Ben Franklin stores. I could never figure them out. Were they supposed to be like a Walgreens, a Wal-Mart, or a Dollar General? Or are they a combination of all three? Well, here is what the Ben [...]

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1776

11.20.2006 books

This book starts with a speech by King George made around September 1775 (once again, I listened to it, so it’s tough to flip back and check facts, but I will give you the gist) . Effectively, King George questioned the sanity of a bunch rebels campaigning for freedom when they had it so good. [...]

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Guns, Germs, and Steel

04.03.2006 books

At one point in his life, Jared Diamond was a biologist in New Guinea studying birds. This was about the early 70′s, I think. (With audio books it’s difficult to verify the details because you can’t just leaf through the pages or refer to the index, so I apologize if I get the details wrong.) [...]

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