Shelved: Books Read and Reviewed in August 2025

 

Author profile

Sanibel Flats.  Randy Wayne White.  Minotaur, 1990.  397 pages.  Book 1 of 28 in Doc Ford series.

I began another iconic "Florida Man" series.  These are the adventures of Marion "Doc" Ford who retires from life as a special government agent to live a quiet life in a rustic house on stilts on Florida's Sanibel Island.  Also a real marine biologist (the doctorate ), he plans to collect, process, and sell marine life specimens and drink beer.  However, we all know that no government agent can ever really retire, at least in the world of fiction,  and they often get dragged into more, and more dangerous, situations than in their careers.  Doc Ford is no different.

In this case, an old high school buddy is murdered, and his eight-year-old son is kidnapped, held prisoner by the sadistic leader of a guerilla army in the process of revolution in a fictional Central American country, a country that Ford had spent a lot of time in as an agent.  With another buddy named Tomlinson, Ford heads to Masagua to rescue the boy and get to the bottom of why his high school buddy died.  There's a nod to history as Mayan culture and artifacts figure into the plot, but almost all of that is purely fictional.  It's a good adventure story, with the expected twists and turns, and it's different from the other series that I enjoy by Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiaasen.  It's a straight adventure mystery, without the satire and humor.  I'll be reading more in the series. 

The Stingray Shuffle.  Tim Dorsey.  William Morrow, 2003.  320 pages.  Book 5 of 26 in Serge Storms series.

Serge Storms continues his history-filled Florida odyssey in this fifth book of the series.  Like other Serge books, there is a huge cast of characters, some new some recurring, including various gangs - in this case, Russian, Jamaican, Italian, and a couple of Caribbean and South American cocaine cartels, along with a book club and a group of z-list Reno nightclub entertainers.  Like Serge, they're all involved, some unwittingly, in the ongoing search for a briefcase filled with five million dollars.  However, there are some differences as well.  Serge actually leaves Florida, for New York City of all places! And Serge doesn't really play vigilante in this book.  

The historical theme of this book is railroad history in Florida and the huge role that railroads played in developing Florida.  (Ironically - if I am using that word correctly - I'm realizing that I almost never see, let alone cross a railroad track in Florida these days.)  The climax takes place aboard an Amtrak train from NYC to Miami during a special murder mystery interactive trip.  As usual, chaos and hilarity result. In this book, the reader can see that Dorsey is still developing the Serge character and story formula that we know and love.  We get more of a view into Serge's past and internal psychological battles; he struggles with himself more than in later books.  Also, his traveling buddy Lenny is almost totally irrelevant.  I forgot he existed for most of the book.  His later companion, Coleman, is much more involved and interesting, far more developed and fleshed out.  Not one of my favorites in the series.

CBS Sunday Morning

Desi Arnaz:  The Man Who Invented Television.  Todd S. Purdum.  Simon & Schuster, 2025.  368 pages.  Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy to read and review.

Desi Arnaz died prematurely at age 69, before earning his due.  Only in recent decades have books and documentaries cited his innate genius when it came to the entertainment business and specifically television production.  Yet, his great genius was balanced, even overwhelmed, by his many deep flaws, flaws that deeply scarred his life and reputation.  Given extraordinary access to previously unshared family documents by Lucie Arnaz, author Todd S. Purdum has succeeded in telling his full life story, the good and the bad.  After his family was forced to flee political upheaval in Cuba in the mid-1930s and relocate to Miami, the teenaged Desi embarked on a career as musician and singer, and he was generally regarded as mediocre in both talents, but his good looks and great work ethic quickly paved his way to the stage and to minor roles in Hollywood, where he met the woman that would forever change his life, Lucille Ball.  Their marriage was always volatile, to say the least, as he was never able to "forsake all others," blaming his constant patronage of prostitutes on his Latin heritage, and as he eventually fell deeper and deeper into alcoholism.  However, professionally they were America's golden couple, with tens of millions of tv viewers regularly tuning in to "I Love Lucy."   As the producer of the show, he brought innovations to television production and the business behind it that forever changed the industry and dominated the industry, revolutionary changes that are only now being matched by the still-evolving streaming models of in-home entertainment.  The book finally gives him the recognition that he deserves but doesn't gloss over the negatives.  It's a great read for any fans.   

YouTube documentary

The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures: A True Tale of Obsession, Murder, and the Movies. Paul Fischer.  Simon & Schuster, 2022.  416 pages.  Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free book to read and review.

Like me, have you lived your life thinking that motion pictures were invented by Thomas Edison or the Lumiere brothers? Well, you're wrong, and I taught it wrong all those years.  The real inventor of motion pictures was Louis Le Prince, a Frenchman who lived and worked primarily in Leeds, UK and New York City, who made his first films in 1887 and 1888.  Why doesn't he get the credit?  Because, before he could complete the legal processes of obtaining patents and properly introduce his invention to the world, he disappeared without a trace.  In 1890, Le Prince went to Dijon, France to visit his brother and settle his recently deceased mother's estate.  After a few days there, he was to take the train to Paris and then Calais, catch the ferry to England for a little work, and then sail home to his wife and children in New York.  His brother saw him off at the station, and Poof!  Neither he nor his luggage were ever seen again. His wife didn't know for sure that he was missing until several months later, and he was finally declared legally dead 7 years later. In 1893, Thomas Edison started promoting his new motion pictures invention, and the illustrations and patent application descriptions looked and sounded very much like Le Prince's work, leading Le Prince's wife to believe that Edison had at least stolen her husband's work and at worst may even have had her husband murdered.  I must admit here that I am firmly in the anti-Edison camp, and any assertion that he was a murderer on top of being one of the most horrible Americans in history is going to pique my interest.

You know the meme "That meeting should have been an email"? This book should have been an article or a short YouTube documentary.  The overwhelming majority of the book is a tedious slog through detailed descriptions of cameras and techniques and legal actions.  Very little of the book is about Le Prince and the mystery of his disappearance, but Fischer does finally present a logical, but still shocking, theory about what happened.  If you're tech-y or legalistic, you'll enjoy.  If not, skip this book and read The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel by Douglas Brunt, a very similar story about a disappearing inventor, instead.

 

The Heat Islands.  Randy Wayne White.  Minotaur, 1992.  276 pages.  #2 of 28 in Doc Ford series.

Marion "Doc" Ford is just an average marine biologist and former National Security Agent who wants to live the bachelor life in his stilt house in Dinkins Bay of Sanibel Island and study the tarpons, sharks and other marine life, supporting himself by selling collecting, preparing, and selling lab specimens for schools and labs.  However, any reader of crime fiction/thrillers knows that no secret agent has ever actually retired to a quiet life.  Sure enough, Doc is minding his own business when a crooked Florida developer (I don't think there's any other kind.) turns up dead, and one of Doc's marina buddies, quiet and unassuming fishing guide Jeth Nicoles is arrested for his murder.  Although Jeth seems resigned to being convicted for the crime, Doc is sure that he is innocent and sets out to prove it.  It's a solid "Florida Man" crime novel with mystery, action, and quirky characters that make South Florida different.

Author talk

How To Sell A Haunted House.  Grady Hendrix.  Berkley, 2023.  432 pages.  

Looking at some time sitting in a waiting room, I wanted a physical book to read, so I grabbed this off a shelf.  Grady Hendrix is an expert in the horror genre, specializing in the cheesiest horror fiction of the 1960s and 1970s.  His nonfiction book, Paperbacks From Hell, is a hilarious and enlightening history of popular culture through the lens of horror.  In each of his own novels, Hendrix selects a sub-genre and incorporates all of the defining characteristics of that sub-genre to tell a thrilling scary story full of humor.  In this case, obviously, the sub-genre is haunted houses.  Estranged siblings Louise and Mark suddenly lose their parents in a car  accident, leaving them to dispose of the family home.  Uncomfortably brought together by the tragedy, they quickly become enmeshed in deep, dark family secrets that threaten not only their lives and sanity, but the life and sanity of Louise's 5-year old daughter.  The house and its contents fight the planned disposal.  As the tagline says, "some houses don't want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them."  It's a fun-scary read that ticks all the boxes of the haunted house sub-genre.  On another level, I can also see why this book connected with so many people.  If you've ever dealt with family issues - who hasn't? - or disposed of your parents' property - a huge chunk of your life - this book will stir thoughts and feelings.  

The Lincoln Myth.  Steve Berry.  Ballantine Books, 2014.  448 pages.  Book #9 of 20, Cotton Malone series.

Cotton Malone, the retired US Justice Department Special Agent turned rare book dealer in Copenhagen, is dragged back into action by his former boss.  All he wants to do is sell books, but old friends, his old boss, and/or the US President are constantly calling on Malone, and his dreams of a quiet retirement go up in smoke.  Every few months, some shadowy, evil organization is out to either take over the world or make lots of money or both by using some historical object or secret, and Cotton has to travel around the world to thwart the evil scheme.  In this case, a radical group of Mormons is out to lead a secessionist movement in the US, and the historical mystery revolves around a rumored secret agreement between Abraham Lincoln and Brigham Young that involves a document dating back to the Constitutional Convention.  If it exists, that document would rip the United States apart and upend American history as we think we know it. 

It's the standard Cotton Malone formula:  lots of action, shootouts in historic places, and betrayals.  As usual, somebody asks Cotton how he got his name, and Cotton doesn't answer. We also meet Agent Luke Daniels, the President's nephew and a younger version of Cotton Malone whom Berry has spun off into his own book series.  Naturally, Luke and Cotton clash from the beginning because they are so much alike.  Formulaic, but comfortable and intriguing.  I like the characters and the action, and the books are full of real history.  The history inspires Berry to create the mystery, and he always explains his inspiration and separates fact from fiction in his notes at the end of the book.  The stories are fun adventures, and they always appeal to history lovers who, like myself, are love the "What if?" questions that make history fun.

The Man Who Invented Florida.  Randy Wayne White.  St. Martin's Press, 1993.  294 pages.  Book #3 of 28 in Doc Ford series.

In this entry in the Doc Ford series, readers learn quite a bit about Marian "Doc" Ford's background.  There he is, living in his stilt house in Sanibel Florida, collecting marine specimens and running his scientific supply house, when, out of the blue, he finds himself tied up with his uncle Tucker Gatrell, the man who raised him from age 10 to 16, following the deaths of his parents.  He hasn't seen or had anything to do with his uncle in years, but his uncle needs his help.  Gatrell has lived quite a life, a life that parallels Florida's 20th century history.  He was a fishing guide for important politicians, celebrities and businessmen and a cowboy and rancher who takes credit for many events that shaped Florida, from railroad construction to amusement parks.  He's a professional schemer, whom some might even call con-man.  Now, he's discovered a "real" Fountain of Youth on his undeveloped property, but the state is threatening to quash his entrepreneurial dreams by seizing his land for a park.  Sounds simple, but White manages to throw in kidnapping, archaeology, and the origins of "The Orange Blossom Special," one of the classic songs in bluegrass history. The story climaxes in a huge chaotic mess that reminds me of the resolutions of Tim Dorsey's books.  The world of Florida Man fiction writers seems very incestuous, and they're obviously fans of each other's work, often referencing each others writing.  I could see Tim Dorsey being inspired by the ending of this book.  

"The Dig"  trailer

The Dig.  John Preston.  Other Press, 2016 (Original: Viking, 2007).  272 pages.

In 1939, as Britain braced for entry into World War II, Mrs. Edith Pretty, a widow who owned a farm at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, hired a modest, unassuming, self-taught archaeologist named Basil Brown to excavate the mounds that existed on her property.  The result was one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made in the UK:  one of the mounds was a royal burial mound that included an approximately 90-foot long boat and numerous other Anglo-Saxon artifacts dating back to the early 7th century.  John Preston delivers the fictionalized story of the next three months as professionals from the British Museum and other institutions shove Brown aside (robbing him of the credit that he deserves for several decades) and change the lives of all involved, as well as the understanding of British history.  Today, visitors to the British Museum in London and museums at Sutton Hoo can view the artifacts and reconstructions of artifacts on display.  This book was the basis for a recent Netflix movie of the same name.  It's interesting but slow-moving, like many British period pieces.

Coconut Cowboy.  Tim Dorsey.  William Morrow, 2016.  336 pages.  Book 19 of 26 in Serge Storms series.

Serge Storms is back for another chaotic and crazy history-filled Florida road trip.  This time, Serge and his buddy Coleman trade in their usual muscle car ride for a chopper motorcycle with a sidecar because Serge's  obsession of the moment is the iconic '60s cult classic "Easy Rider." Serge's plan is to finish the epic journey that was cut short in the film by the murder of the lead characters and to take a nostalgic ride back to the simpler times of the late 1960s, discovering modern-day hippie music and culture gatherings and quiet small town Florida life.  Of course, it's Serge's journey, so they make side trips through the panhandle and recent Florida history and Homosassa to see sites of Tom Petty's youth and to meet the most famous resident of the Homosassa Springs State Park, Lu the hippo, a retired movie animal star who resided there from the 1960s until his death in June 2025.  And, of course, Serge is in vigilante mode and much woe befalls road ragers, rude rich jerks, corrupt small town bosses, and Miami drug dealers who cross his path or threaten his friends.  This was an especially fun Serge adventure.

December 6.  Martin Cruz Smith.  Simon & Schuster, 2002. 352 pages.

Novelist Martin Cruz Smith died in July. I had read a few of his Arkady Renko novels, and I decided to go back through his works and read something else.  I discovered December 6.  It's set in ultra-nationalist and ultra-militarist Tokyo in 1941, with flashbacks.  The main character is Harry Niles, the son of American missionaries. Never having even visited the United States and living with an uncle while his parents work in the field, Harry is as Japanese as he can be.  As a child he runs with a group of Japanese kids in the streets exploring the ins and outs of a seamier side of Tokyo, the dance halls and theaters, learning to become a scam artist and con man.  After a brief time in the US when he goes to work for a movie studio, he returns to Tokyo.  As a foreigner, a gaijin, who spent time in Japanese-occupied China and has contacts within the Japanese government, he draws the attention of the police and military.  His contacts lead him to discover the secret plans to attack Pearl Harbor.  Now, he attempts to plant disinformation  amongst the Japanese officials and to alert American officials, as he makes plans to leave Japan before the war with the US begins.  His efforts are complicated by his childhood friends, his Japanese lover, and a Japanese military officer out for revenge.  It's a really good story and a quick read.  If you like the Arkady Renko series  or the historical noir works of James Ellroy, Walter Mosley, or Walter Mosley, for example, I think you'll enjoy this one.

Book talk by author

There There.  Tommy Orange.  Knopf, 2018.  304 pages.  

This novel has gotten a huge amount of attention since its publication, and reviewers have raved about it.  I was moved to pick it up after I saw an Instagram book influencer ( @vestcody ) call it a modern day Canterbury Tales and include it in a list of modern replacements for classics commonly taught in high school.  I read it in two sittings, and I was blown away.  It definitely deserves the hype, and I look forward to reading Orange's follow-up.

There There  absolutely lives up to the Canterbury  comparison, in both structure and quality, and it will be hailed as a classic for years to come.  Chaucer's Canterbury, generally considered unfinished, introduces some thirty characters, pilgrims on their way to visit the shrine to Thomas a Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, but only 24 tales were completed. In There There, a dozen "Urban Indians" in Oakland, California all have their seemingly disparate lives converge at the Big Oakland Powwow, a huge annual event that draws indigenous dancers, vendors, and attendees from throughout the Americas.  Each character has his or her own issues, arising from drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse, and other issues centering on identity that are found throughout the Native American community.  Their lives all intersect on that fateful day at the Powwow.  As author James Baldwin wrote, "People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them."  Orange captures that sentiment perfectly.  I recommend this book to all readers.  

Constituent Service: A Third District Story.  John Scalzi.  Audible original. 2024.  2 hours 30 minutes. (AI generated image)

Bonus non-history read of the month.  Another fun sci-fi listen from John Scalzi.   I enjoy funny and clever sci-fi like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the British TV series Red Dwarf, and I'm glad to have discovered John Scalzi.  

Amazon blurb:  "The aliens are here ... and they want municipal services!

Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself.

And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.

It's Parks and Recreation meets the Federation of Planets...."

Shelved: Books Read and Reviewed in July 2025

 

The Last Island:  Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth.  Adam Goodheart.  David R. Godine, Publisher, 2023.  272 pages.

In November 2018, most of the world heard about North Sentinel Island, one of the Andaman Islands off the coast of India,  for the first time when a young American missionary broke Indian law by landing on the island, intending to share his Christianity with the Sentinelese tribe that lived there and had violently repelled almost all previous attempts to contact them.  His death was the result, and it became a big international story for a minute as people debated his mission:  arrogant, racist, colonialist, superiority complex or misguided, brash young man attempting to do God's work?  Eventually, the world moved on, but the story continued to resonate with Adam Goodheart, a journalist and historian who had visited the Andaman islands in the late 1990s and even briefly (and illegally) visited the coast of North Sentinel Island. Twenty years later, he answered the urge to return and to learn more.  He recounts his research and his journeys in this book, along with the history of the Andaman tribes and their interactions with explorers, travelers, and the British, then Indian governments.  During these interactions, the Andamanese natives were abused, killed, enslaved, and infected with devastating diseases.  However, the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island had successfully, and forcefully, resisted all contact with the outside world, and they continue to do so today, living much as they have for tens of thousands of years, but modernity's threat is intense.  Like Goodheart, I have always been fascinated by stories of first contact between cultures, and this was a great read. 

The Jefferson Key.  Steve Berry.  Ballantine Books, 2011.  480 pages.  Book 7 of 20, Cotton Malone series.

When you publish a book a year in a fictional adventure series, you have to have a formula, and Steve Berry definitely does have a cotton formula.  The plot is going to revolve around an interesting, and legitimate, historical mystery.  Somebody close to Cotton Malone is going to need assistance. There are going to be crazy shootouts in very historic locations.  There are going to be betrayals.  The bad guys are part of a shadowy and powerful secret organization of power- and money-hungry oligarchs who crawl out of the woodwork to take over the world.  Somebody is going to ask Cotton how he got his name, and Cotton is not going to answer.  And there's lots and lots of action.  They're not great works of literature that will change your life.  They are fun reads, or in my case listens, while walking or driving or doing something else, and I usually learn something or get interested in learning about something or reading something else discussed in the author's notes.

In this case, all four assassinations of American presidents are linked to the modern day descendants of four  privateers, officially and constitutionally-sanctioned pirates.  They take action when they feel Presidents turn against them, and it's up to Cotton to end their threat once and for all.  What's the Jefferson Key?  The key to the mystery is dependent on a secret cipher developed by Thomas Jefferson.

From "60 Minutes"

1000 Years of Joy and Sorrow: A Memoir.  Ai Weiwei.  Crown, 2021.  400 pages.

Before our recent trip to Seattle, I was vaguely aware of the Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei.  As it happens, the Seattle Art Museum is hosting the largest Ai Weiwei exhibition ever staged in the US, over 100 pieces on view through September 7, 2025.  I must admit the very first pieces in the exhibit did not impress me.  "Great," I thought to myself, "he thinks flipping the bird is art."  There are a lot of birds flipped.  As I got deeper into the exhibit, however, I was duly impressed and saw more, a much more varied and interesting body of work.  Ai is very prolific, and his work challenges the viewer and makes him/her think.  Isn't that what art is supposed to do?

His memoir explores his philosophy of art and particularly his unshakable belief that artists must also be activists.  It's also a history of communist China.  Ai's father, Ai Qing, was once an associate of Mao Zedong and the other leaders of the Communist Revolution.  He was hailed as the poet of the Revolution, widely known and appreciated throughout China and in international literary circles.  Then, he fell from grace during the Cultural Revolution, arbitrarily labeled a "Rightist" and an "Enemy of the Revolution."  As a result, he and his family were banished to the hinterlands for much of Weiwei's childhood, and Qing was subjected to public shaming and sentenced to hard labor, including cleaning public toilets.  Ai Weiwei recounts his family's struggles and the oppression that the Communist Party has constantly subjected the people to, most of which westerners are unaware.  The stories make it easier to believe the rumored genocides being conducted currently against ethnic Tibetans and Uyghars, among others, Westerners are also largely unaware of the long history of dissidence that has occurred in China.  Ai Weiwei was hugely influenced by his personal and family experiences and the acts of dissidence that he witnessed.  His art caused him to be persecuted and imprisoned as a dissident himself until he was allowed to leave the country.  Today, Ai Weiwei is more or less a citizen of the world, and one of the leading proponents of freedom of expression.

While I must admit that I slogged through this book, even skimming a few sections, it is not a bad book.  In fact, it's pretty good, and it's an informative, thought-provoking, and important book.  I can't explain why it took me so long to read.  

The Kaiju Preservation Society  John Scalzi. Tor Books, 2022.  272 pages.

Another historical break - however, I did learn that there was a collective word for the giant monsters that have been a part of Japanese popular culture for decades:  Kaiju.  In my teens and twenties, I read lots and lots of sci-fi and fantasy, but I've been away from it for a long time.  John Scalzi has brought me back for a couple of hugely fun reads, and I look forward to a couple of more.  He's creative and hilarious.  Like Starter Villain, my favorite read so far this year, I listened to the audiobook version, and Will Wheaton does a fantastic narration.

The story:  Jamie Gray is climbing the ladder at a food-delivery app corporation when he is arbitrarily fired by the clueless CEO.  Stuck in New York City at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, he is forced to support himself by becoming a "deliverator" for the same company.  One delivery serendipitously reunites him with a former acquaintance named Tom who sends him to a job interview that changes his life.  The job turns out to be with an interdimensional "animal rights organization" with the job of studying and protecting a world populated with humongous nuclear-powered creatures and the parasites and mutualistic creatures that depend on them.  These giants are called Kaiju, and it turns out Godzilla was one of them who accidentally crossed into our Earth. Of course, Jamie's first mission into Kaiju-world leads to a crisis that threatens the existence of both worlds, and he and his new friends have to save them.  It's all so much fun!

Odyssey:  The Greek Myths Reimagined.  Stephen Fry.  Chronicle Books, 2025.  288 pages.  

I've loved mythology since I was a child, and Stephen Fry is one of my favorite human beings, so I'm naturally going to read his re-imaginings of Greek mythology.  This is his 4th, and most recent, volume, a re-telling of the epic-est of epics, Homer's Odyssey.  After ten years away from his throne and family in Ithaca, Odysseus and his men make their way home following the Trojan War.  Unfortunately, the easily offended Olympian gods are repeatedly offended and intervene in the journey, ultimately killing all of the hero's crew and delaying his return for another decade.  Odysseus has to survive the islands of Circe and Calypso, the Cyclops, the monster Scylla, and the murderous whirlpool Charybdis, and more, only to find his family and palace besieged by 108 evil suitors determined to force his wife Penelope to marry one of them.  At approximately 2,700 years old, Homer's Odyssey is still one of the greatest stories ever told, and it has been re-told in too many forms to count. Stephen Fry's re-telling is a masterpiece.  If you have any interest in Greek mythology, you must read Fry's books, and I highly recommend that you listen to him performing the audiobooks. 

From CBS Sunday Morning

Worst. President. Ever.:  James Buchanan, the POTUS Rating Game, and the Legacy of the Least of the Lesser Presidents.  Robert Strauss.  Lyons Press, 2016.  304 pages.  

I went looking for a biography of James Buchanan and found that there were few.  Fitting for the man that probably appears most often on lists of worst presidents ever, the president as the country literally disintegrated, the Confederacy was formed, and preparations for the Civil War were underway, all while he believed that he was constitutionally powerless to do anything about it.  During the Civil War, even his Pennsylvania neighbors blamed him for it.  One might argue that he was a 19th century of the "Peter Principle," the idea that a person rises in a business hierarchy up to a level at which they are notably incompetent, in action - except that James Buchanan was never truly competent at much of anything.  At anything political anyway.  He did amass a fairly large fortune through business investments that allowed him to indulge in the luxurious lifestyle that he enjoyed.  Otherwise, as a student, a Congressman, a Senator, an ambassador, and an ambassador, he was totally unremarkable and unaccomplished.  He seemed to have no personal political convictions. He almost never committed publicly to one view or another, and, on those rare occasions when he did state an opinion, he usually contradicted it later, sometimes in the same statement.  Yet, he set his designs on being President, and worked hard for 20 years to finally achieve it.  Unfortunately for him, he succeeded at precisely one of the worst moments in American history.  The author's examination of Buchanan and "the POTUS rating game" led me to realize that the vast majority of US Presidents have been incredibly mediocre men.  It is absolutely incredible to think that the United States is about to celebrate 250 years of existence.

And, yes, Strauss does address the only issue that has kept Buchanan, besides his incompetence, in the public consciousness for 150 years:  the speculation about Buchanan's sexual orientation.  While there are tantalizing bits of circumstantial evidence, the fact is, we'll never know.   

John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton do a reading 

Redshirts:  A Novel in Three Codas.  John Scalzi.  Tor Books, 2012.  320 pages.

Here's another fun break from history, another fun sci-fi read written by John Scalzi and audiobook-narrated by Wil Wheaton.  Again, it does nod to history, specifically the history of science fiction television, especially "Star Trek," and this book will definitely appeal to fans of humorous and irreverent sci-fi and especially to fans of "Star Trek."  The title refers to one of the most common tropes in the Star Trek universe, going back to the original series:  if red-shirted security extras accompanied were art of an away team beamed to another planet, the chances are very high that at least one of them would die.

Ensign Andrew Dahl has been assigned to the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union, a prestige posting.  He soon realizes that something is amiss:  Every away mission is a harrowing and dangerous encounter that results in either serious injury or death to at least one low-ranked crew member while the five highest ranking officers always either escape unscathed or recover very quickly, if not miraculously, from some life-threatening condition.  Along with his small group of friends and a mysterious crewmen who hides in abandoned holds and tunnels of the ship, Dahl comes to a shocking conclusion and effects a plan to set things right.  Okay, yes, I'm seeing patterns as I read more Scalzi works:  the hero is a young intelligent smart-alec who is kind of floundering because of circumstances beyond his control, and he finds a small, equally intelligent, witty, and misfit-y friends, and together they meet and conquer the obstacle.  Characterization and character development are not Scalzi's strengths; wit and creativity are. While there is a lot of familiarity, the story is original and different, and I love the humor, and Wil Wheaton's narration makes it even better.  

Author talk

Waco:  David Koresh,  the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage.  Jeff Guinn.  Simon & Schuster, 2023.  400 pages.  Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free review copy.

For 51 days in 1993, hundreds of ATF and FBI agents lay siege to a haphazard compound outside of Waco Texas.  Inside were under 100 men, women, and children who were all devoted followers of Vernon Howell, who took the name David Koresh.  They believed that Koresh was a prophet, anointed by God to be "the Lamb" spoken of in the Book of Revelation.  As the last prophet, Koresh was destined to break the seven seals that would set the events of Revelation's End Time into motion.  He would lead them in battle against the evil forces of "Babylon," otherwise known as state and federal government, but they all knew that they would be killed in the process, only to be resurrected at the right hand of God, as His chosen people.  

As "the Lamb," Koresh controlled every aspect of his followers lives, even decreeing that all marriages were dissolved and that all women members were his.  A select number of women, and girls as young as 10 or 12,  were chosen to be his sexual partners and to bear his children.  The sect's activities were partially funded by the illegal activity of converting semiautomatic guns to fully automatic guns and manufacturing hand grenades.  While the local sheriff basically ignored the Davidians because they weren't really bothering anybody else, accusations of child abuse drew the attention of local authorities, and the gun business drew the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.  Warrants were issued for the arrests of Koresh and a few others, and search warrants were issued for their compound.  The raid occurred on February 28, and it was an unmitigated disaster, leading to the deaths of 4 agents and 6 cult members.  The siege began and ended with a tear gas raid and the burning of the compound; nearly 80 Davidians, including Koresh and a couple of dozen children, died.   The whole operation is still clouded by differing accounts, uncertainties, lies, cover-ups, incompetence, stupidity, arrogance, inter- and intra- agency rivalries, and it had, and continues to have, a huge impact on Americans' view of, and relationship with, the federal government, from distrust to outright antipathy, as exemplified by Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City two years later and the formation of armed militant organizations around the country.  

Guinn's book is an enlightening and through account of the subject, well worth a read.

 

Band of Brothers Documentary

Band of Brothers:  E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest.  Stephen Ambrose.  Simon & Schuster, special 25th anniversary edition, 2017.  336 pages.  Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free review copy.  

If you know anything about great books about World War II or about the greatest WWII television series ever filmed, you probably have read Band of Brothers, as I did in the 1990s.  It is an absolute classic and a must read for anybody interested in the war.  I was sent a special review copy of the 25th anniversary edition, and it's definitely re-read worthy.  It's easily one of the best military history books that I've ever read.  

Just in case you don't know the story, this book is the story of the men of Easy Company in the 101st, told in their own words drawn from many hours of interviews.  These men, drawn form a wide variety of backgrounds were put together at a camp in North Georgia in 1942 and trained to be paratroopers,  As a unit, they led combat forces across Europe from D-Day to VE Day, from Normandy to Bavarian concentration camps to Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden, suffering starvation, freezing cold, and an extremely high casualty rate along the way.  The book was made into the HBO series of the same name that first aired in 2001 and is still widely considered to be the best HBO series ever produced.

author talk

The Vice President's Black Wife:  The Untold Life of Julia Chinn.  Amrita Chakrabati Myers.  The University of North Carolina Press, 2023.  296 pages.

Even the buffest of history buffs outside of Kentucky have probably never heard of Richard Mentor Johnson, the ninth Vice President of the United States and presidential contender who was a US Representative and Senator for years and whose political career was enhanced by stories that he was the man who killed Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames. His family was among the first white settlers of Kentucky and was a prominent family in the area of Georgetown for decades.  However, Johnson's story goes much deeper, and it is an incredibly important and quintessential part of southern history and the legacy of slavery.   

For six months each year, Johnson lived in a boarding house in Washington while doing the young nation's business by day and attending the young society's most exclusive society affairs by night.  As far as Washingtonians knew, he was a lifelong bachelor.  His Kentucky neighbors knew different, and, later, political opponents used that knowledge to tarnish his career and to thwart his presidential aspirations.  The secret?   He was married.  To an enslaved woman that he "owned," a woman named Julia Chinn.  He and Julia had two daughters who were legally his property as well.  He never officially freed wither Julia or his daughters.  Julia died enslaved, and her daughters weren't freed until the ratification of the 13th amendment.  That doesn't make Johnson that unique.  The history of American slavery is the history of interracial sex, consensual and not consensual.  Slaveowners viewed enslaved women as their sexual property, and that view was universally accepted even if it was not stated aloud.  Slaveowners raped, cajoled, bribed.  Some treated their concubines as wives.  Some freed their lovers and children. Some sold them when there was too much gossip and people started noticing resemblances.  A few left their property to their enslaved or freed wives or children.  

Johnson stands out because he called Julia his wife.  The preacher of the church that Johnson's family co-founded married them.  He gave Julia complete and total authority to run his plantation and the Choctaw Academy (a federally funded school for young Choctaw men that provided a major income for Johnson) that was located on his property.  His daughters married local white men, and they and their descendants have "passed" ever since, with the vast majority of their descendants never knowing their family history until the last few years.  In this book, Myers digs deep to tell Julia's story for the first time.  Because there isn't much of a paper trail,  (Johnson's papers are sparse for such a political man.  It is thought that his brothers destroyed most of his letters and documents upon his death due to shame.), there is a lot of "could have," "probably," "possibly," and the like, and a lot of references to similar stories, but she does an excellent job of telling the important story and bringing it to light.  Important and extraordinarily complicated.  Spoiler alert: don't go thinking Johnson was heroic.

 

Shelved: Books Read and Reviewed in June 2025

 

 

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A Perfect Frenzy:  A Royal Governor, His Black Allies and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution.  Andrew Lawler.  Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025.  544 pages.   

While the American Revolution officially began in April 1775 at Lexington and Concord, two major events occurred in January 1776 that were pivotal in fueling the Patriot cause.  Thomas Paine published his pamphlet "Common Sense" laying out the arguments for independence.  The other event is perhaps less known today, but it was perhaps even more effective:  On January 1, 1776, the city of Norfolk, Virginia was burned to the ground.  No other American city in history has been completely and utterly destroyed as Norfolk was.  Twenty years later, visitors were still stunned by the vast ruins and fields of debris.  For 250 years, the Norfolk fire has been blamed on the British, specifically the royal governor Lord Dunmore.  As a result of the fire, Dunmore was vilified on both sides of the Atlantic and labeled a war criminal.  Patriot propaganda painted him as a cruel and witless libertine who hosted huge orgies with enslaved women in the Governor's Palace when he wasn't wantonly destroying the lives of his subjects.  Following the Norfolk fire, Dunmore was even shunned by his peers in the House of Lords who believed that he had gone too far.  Dunmore died in a state of ignominy, and his family was reduced to relative poverty, ostracized by the British upper class.  

The kicker?  Dunmore and the British didn't destroy Norfolk.  THE PATRIOTS INTENTIONALLY BURNED THE CITY TO THE GROUND, and this fact was always known.  The Patriot propaganda machine used the destruction to maximum advantage to stir patriotic fervor. The fact is that Norfolk was a Loyalist stronghold, and British warships did destroy a few dozen structures, mainly warehouses and docks, but 95% of the buildings destroyed were intentionally ignited by Patriot troops under orders from Patriot officers and political figures. Why? They wanted to punish Norfolk for being strongly Loyalist, and Dunmore, once extremely popular and respected governor among the landed gentry and yeoman farmers alike, had crossed the line.  He recruited and armed free and enslaved black Virginians to fight for Britain, promising freedom in return.  This book tells a great, formerly untold, story and illustrates that history is extremely complicated and never just black and white.  In this situation, you have black and white Patriots wearing engraved brass breastplates or embroidered shirts saying "Liberty or Death" going into battle against Dunmore's black Ethiopian Regiment troops wearing breastplates engraved with "Liberty For Slaves."

 

 

A Fatal Thing Happened On the Way to the Way to the Forum:  Murder in Ancient Rome.  Emma Southon.  Harry N. Abrams, 2021.  352 pages.

Although I reject the stupid social media trend a short while back claiming that men constantly think about ancient Rome, I know that it is a major topic of interest for many people who like history.  Here, however, author Emma Southon illuminates an aspect of Roman history that few, if any, consider.  To paraphrase Southon, ancient Rome was an exceptionally "murder-y" place.  That in itself is not very different from our own society which has a morbid fascination with murder.  Think of how much of our entertainment - books, television, movies - is murder based.   

In this book, Southon examines a number of murders, including of course the assassination of Julius Caesar.  After all, Rome was conceived in murder when mythical founder Romulus murdered his twin Remus.  The Roman Republic was founded when the last king was overthrown following the suicide of a noble woman raped by the son of the king.  Crowds thronged arenas to cheer as men, women, and animals slaughtered each other. Criminals were crucified.  In one fifty-year period, 26 emperors were murdered.  Rome was an exceptionally violent society. This book is much more than just a recitation of cases, though.  It is an examination of Roman society and culture as a whole, through the prism of murder.  We, as readers, discover how ancient Romans viewed life, death, and what it means to be human.  It's complicated. For much of Roman history, murder was not viewed as a matter for the state to handle.  It was a family issue.  If a person was killed by another person, the victim's family handled it. Then you throw in murders of family members, murders of slaves by masters and masters by slaves, murders of emperors and political figures, and state-sponsored murder.   This book is extremely informative and thought-provoking, and it's also quite entertaining.  The author is a British podcaster with a PhD in ancient history, and the tone of the book is very "podcast-y," and she has that very British sense of humor that I love.  I highly recommend this book for those who are interested in ancient Rome.

                                                                        Part 1 of talk on life and legacy of Anna May Wong

Anna May Wong:  From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend.  Graham Russell Gao Hodges.  Chicago Review Press, 2023.  304 pages.  Updated 2nd edition, first published in 2004.

Between 1919 and 1960, Anna May Wong appeared in over 50 movies, and she was one of the biggest celebrities in the world.  American, European, and Asian movie magazines constantly published photos of her, stories about her, and stories written by her.   She socialized with other A-list celebrities and with European royalty.  She was recognized as an excellent actress, but she was also a stage and nightclub star, as an actress, singer, and monologist, often performing in multiple languages.  She was incredibly talented at presenting herself, thoughtfully using her own hairstyles and wardrobe to develop fuller characters and to advance the film plots.  During the Sino-Japanese War and World War II, she contributed most of her income and much of her time to raising funds for aid to Chinese civilians and refugees.  She invested wisely and made a comfortable living, enough for herself and to educate her siblings.  She was one of Hollywood's brightest stars --- quite an accomplishment for the daughter of a laundryman born in Los Angeles in 1905 who made her on-screen debut at 14.

Yet, few people know her name today, and far fewer have ever seen one of her films.  Her career and legacy were handicapped from the beginning by outside forces over which she had no control.  Strict movie codes of the day forbade any hint of romance between characters or actors of different races, so she was not considered for leading roles.  Her roles were often stereotypical, reflecting American racism. She played the devious Chinese female, almost always a villain or a servant, and almost always forced to kill herself in the end. Hollywood refused to hire Asian actors, casting white actors in "yellow-face," instead.  While she had many adoring fans in China, the Nationalist government condemned her because she embraced being a flapper, bared her legs and arms in films and photos, and she often played prostitutes or slave girls.  She was accused of shaming the Chinese people and their culture.  Wong was a very complicated and interesting character, and there has been a bit of resurgence in curiosity about her in recent years, with new biographies, documentaries, and even a Wong Barbie and U.S. quarters.  This bio was ahead of the curve, however, and this new, updated edition is a thorough look at her life and career, although it's a bit dry.

 

The Emperor's Tomb.  Steve Berry.  Ballantine Books, 2010.  436 pages.  Book 6 of 19 in Cotton Malone series.

I've inadvertently been on a China reading jag lately, and the sixth Cotton Malone adventure fits right in.  Retired Justice Department special agent Cotton Malone and Cassiopeia Vitt are drawn into a looming power struggle for the control of China. Two highly placed government ministers are locked in a battle that will drastically alter the state of China, and, consequently, the world.  The tomb of China's first emperor, the site of the famous terra cotta army, is the key.  The Emperor's Tomb is definitely following the Malone formula.  There's an evil secret brotherhood, there are shootouts in historic sites, and the dominant theme is betrayal.  Who's betraying whom and whom can you trust?  It's always up for grabs in a Steve Berry novel.  It makes me want to ask "Who hurt you, Steve Berry?"  They're not great books, admittedly, but they are good adventures that hold my interest.  One thing I really appreciate about each one is the author's note at the end.  Berry always explains the real history that inspires his stories, and I've learned about a number of actual events, people, and things that have led me to do research.  

 

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Bad Monkey.  Carl Hiaasen.  Knopf, 2013.  336 pages. Book 1 of 2, Andrew Yancy series.

A break from history with this one.  Carl Hiassen introduces his "Florida Man" character, former detective Andrew Yancy.  Yancy's been fired from both the Miami and Key West police departments and finds himself demoted to "Roach Patrol,"  health inspector in in Key West restaurants. Desperate to get his detective job back, he agrees to take custody of a human arm accidentally snagged by fishing tourists.  The official story is that the arm belongs to an unfortunate boater whose boat sank and body was assumed to have been eaten by sharks, but Andrew soon finds that there is much more to the story.  A victim who is a career criminal lately practicing Medicare fraud with Feds on his trail, a scheming gold-digging widow, an estranged daughter, and a sexy medical examiner all enter Yancy's life to makes things difficult.  The case takes him to the Bahamas where an elderly Voodoo Queen and the titular simian, a former Hollywood monkey, enter the picture.  It's a great adventure, funny, action-packed, with twists and turns, full Florida.  Apple+ adapted the book into a series starring Vince Vaughn as Yancy.  It sounds like perfect casting and a good show, but I'm not adding more streamers.   (Photo generated by AI)

 

The Taking of Jemima Boone:  Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America.  Matthew Pearl.  Harper, 2021.  288 pages.

In July 1776, twelve-year old Jemima Boone, the daughter of the best known frontiersman in the American colonies, and two of her friends were kidnapped by a small group of Cherokee and Shawnee warriors.  Over the next few days, Boone and a group of men from the settlement of Boonesborough took off in hot pursuit. After about fifty miles, the pursuers caught up, rescued the girls, and killed some of the warriors, including a son of an important war chief named Blackfish.  This incident, fueled by British efforts to tamp down colonial resistance on the frontier before it blew up, led to a broader conflict as the Shawnee, the pro-war faction of the Cherokee, and elements of other tribes launched a major effort designed both to seek revenge and to end, once and for all, white encroachment into the region known as Kentucky.  The actual kidnapping and rescue are dealt with rather quickly in the book, but the real story is the aftermath.  The summer of 1776 was extremely consequential in American  history.  As delegates in Philadelphia argued over the Declaration of Independence and the opening months of the Revolution, white settlers were crossing the Appalachians into Native American territory, foreshadowing the conflict and extermination that was to follow.  This book is an excellent account of the events.

The Riptide Ultra-glide.  Tim Dorsey.  William Morrow, 2013.  304 pages.  Book 16 of 26 in Serge Storms series.

Serge Storms, psychotic serial-killing vigilante and Florida history savant, is back to wreak havoc across the state and punish the never-ending stream of criminals and con-men that prey upon the hard-working and innocent elderly, underprivileged, and tourists.  In this installment, Serge and his travel buddy Coleman take on Florida's illegal oxycontin pain clinic operations and come to the rescue of the sweet and naive McDougals, laid-off special education teachers from Wisconsin who have devoted their entire lives to their students only to find themselves in the middle of a very violent turf war that rages all over Fort Lauderdale. It's typical Serge, action and hilarity at breakneck speed.