describes the north African campaign from 1940 through the final collapse of the German and Italian forces. Strawson tries to keep his level of analysis on the troops themselves which is unusual most histories of this campaign focusing on the high command arrangements. He does share some unusual perspectives he thinks very highly of Wavell and Auchinleck. I think there's definitely some hyperbole there particularly his statement that Wavell is one of the great captains of history. Discussion of the battles are clear and easy to follow.Recommended.
this is the second book in an ongoing mystery series. Jonah Geller is a Toronto private investigator who was asked to investigate the suicide of the daughter of a developer. This leads to the high stakes world of construction. Shrier is excellent at characterization, if a touch stereotypical at times. The plot is fast moving. The conclusion was a little over the top. I'll be looking for the first book in the series.
is a science fiction novel the first in a series. John suffering from amnesia must help protect his community from an attacking army of Azteca [like the Aztecs] who want to human sacrifice everything in their path. The book takes quite a while to get going but the last third with the race to find an abandoned piece of technology is well worth the journey. The dialog which is based on Caribbean dialect takes some getting used to but it does make the thing nice and atmospheric. I'll try the sequel.
is the author's memoirs of his WWII experiences. Mowat deservedly has a reputation of being an elegant writer with many colorful expressions. Unfortunately there's a artificiality to the work particularly in the dialog. I just can't believe WWII Canadian soldiers would say anything remotely like this. This does cover the Sicily and Italian campaigns which is unusual enough to be interesting.
I really hate sales departments that put the word "complete" in the titles of their history books because history is never complete. That complaint out of the way this is an excellent book that describes the breaking of German and Japanese military codes in WWII. There's a nice balance between anecdotes about the personalities and highly technical accounts of the decryption. Not surprisingly the story mostly revolves around Enigma and Purple there's also a fascinating section on American attempts to break Russian codes. Finished off with some notes onwhat the Germans were reading. There are a few general history errors he brings up the old canard about Polish cavalry charging tanks and mistakenly refers to the MKVD as the KGB.
an American intelligence official tries to track down links between a money launderer and terrorism. A wealth of real world info is unfortunately delivered in minute detail by characters I just didn't care about. An ARC.
a lesser novel from the master of espionage fiction. He seems to be more interested in telling the rambling back story than actually getting to the plot. An aid workers kidnapped a mercenaries hired to rescue him.
this was sold to me as a spy novel but it's more of a family saga. Unfortunately it's very over written. Instead of just telling us that their first landlords husband in Scotland died of a heart attack it's described in the pros. An ARC.
written at the time of Vietnam this discusses Just War Theory in the context of the Christian tradition. Unfortunately the number of straw men make the book next to useless.
a terrible translation from German does little to hide the rather silly idea of tracing Germanic people's through language. He spends little time trying to prove his case instead going in for broad statements.
is a humorous look at the major individuals in classical music. Barber relates genuine information that is in and of itself amusing. For instance what Bach left behind when he hurriedly quit one of his posts. This information is easy to pick out from the puns that litter the text. There are cartoon illustrations throughout. Most of them illustrating one of the puns.
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