Blades upon Books - Traditionals

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This originally belonged to this fellow: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7692333/david_gregg-mcintosh
 
I read Orwell's 1984 last month. I had read it before as one of the books my Mom was always bringing home from yard sales, when I was starting 9th grade in 1965, and I don't think I knew enough about economics and politics at the time to appreciate what a "dystopian" novel it was. (I was probably much more impressed by the "racy parts", something I'd never seen in a book before.) Last month, I was struck by how many of the policies and shenanigans used by The Party and Big Brother were relevant to current events.
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- GT
 
I recently finished Joseph Finder's latest novel. It turned out to be sort of like a classic Cold War spy novel, except it was taking place long after the breakup of the USSR. It was structured so that it alternated between 2 storylines, one in "the present" and one "five years ago". I might have preferred just getting all the "flashback" stuff first, then a page that said "... FIVE YEARS LATER", then all the present stuff. But I can see how the alternation actually built suspense and kept the "plot twists" harder to predict. It was over 400 pages, and I could have done without about 50 pages describing the opulent, extravagant lifestyles of the oligarch and his family. But, as usual when I read a book by Finder, it was a great story.
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- GT
 
5K Qs said:
I read Orwell's 1984 last month. I had read it before as one of the books my Mom was always bringing home from yard sales, when I was starting 9th grade in 1965, and I don't think I knew enough about economics and politics at the time to appreciate what a "dystopian" novel it was. (I was probably much more impressed by the "racy parts", something I'd never seen in a book before.) Last month, I was struck by how many of the policies and shenanigans used by The Party and Big Brother were relevant to current events.
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- GT
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This library book by Wolff was a good chess book for me - not too easy, not too advanced. (I think it was originally published as Idiot's Guide to Chess. 🤓) Clear explanations and LOTS of diagrams so I didn't have to set up a chessboard to use to follow discussions in the book. Renewed the book several times, but I still didn't finish it. I was in the middle of an extensive chapter on tactics (forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, etc.).
Maybe I'll check it out again when we rent a cottage in August.
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- GT
 
In the summer (and fall IIRC) of 2023, I read several books about the Vietnam War. One of them was this book by Bowden about the battle for the city of Hue in the days following the Tet Offensive launched by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces across South Vietnam, starting at the end of January 1968. Here's what drew me to Bowden's book.

I've occasionally spent a couple of hours during past Memorial Days searching the internet for info on a guy who was 3 years ahead of me in school, went to the same church I did, grew up on a dairy farm about 5 miles from the one on which I was raised. He was killed in a guard tower at the MACV compound (posthumously named after him) in Hue, South Vietnam while fighting off the initial enemy assault during the Tet Offensive, Jan 31, 1968, less than 2 weeks before his 20th birthday and 39 days before he was scheduled to return to the US. I suppose not surprisingly with memories of a violent situation like that, there's a lot of conflicting info online.

In one of my "research sessions", I happened to stumble across an excerpt from Bowden's book and discovered that Chapter 2 was devoted to Frank Doezema, the guy I knew! Later in the book, the last hours of his life during the attack on his compound are discussed in detail. The entire book was fascinating to me, describing U.S. and ARVN efforts to eventually evict the communist forces from Hue, basically one city block at a time. In the process, the beautiful city was destroyed and casualties on both sides were horrific.
If you want to read about Frank's time in Vietnam, this link should take you to Chapter 2 of the book. Edit: the link takes you to a sample of the book, but you have to click on a little "outline icon" and then choose Chapter 2 Thirty-Nine Days.
https://www.amazon.com/Hue-1968-Tur...71Y87H9H&revisionId=da2e6197&format=3&depth=1

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- GT
 
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