Read Books This will provide a list of the books I've read with a brief review. Users are blocked, contact me for access. I welcome discussions, but I'm tired of spam.

Family Britain is a compilation of two books previously published as Certainties of Place and A Thicker Cut. These books are parts 3 and 4 of Tales of a New Jerusalem. Family Britain is a thorough sociological analysis of Britain from 1951-1957. There is a strong class division, the book discusses how they relate, how they spend their time and money, and issues they have with each other and with the government. During this period, Britain finally managed to come out of WWII rationing, started to rebuild its housing and began extending its road network. These were controversial, and these issues are represented well, detailing those involved and their positions.

After the stage setting, complications were compounded by a series of Comet (the first commercial jetliner and a landmark of British engineering) crashes which dashed their hopes in their jet construction, a series of strikes, the hanging of Ruth Ellis, and the rather political issue of Princess Margaret’s relationship with Captain Peter Townsend. This period saw several major events in world and British history. King George VI died in 1952 and followed by the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. The book describes how the coronation served to bring people together in small communities. The death of Stalin was in this same period. The tories came into power following the liberals, who had little of the vote. This set the stage for a lot of political issues.

I see a lot of similarities to today. We are still dealing with racial issues, and with homosexuality. Many of the arguments for and against are still the same arguments we use today. They express concerns with television, which is just coming available to the common man. The new road network enabled the British to make trips easily and this enabled the appearance of the day-tripper, a one- or two-day traveller that lead to changes in what merchants would carry and pricing.

It seemed that most international issues either did not affect the British culture, or the author chose to gloss over the issues. These include the H-Bomb development and political issues between the Soviets and Britain.

One international issue handled strongly was the war over the Suez Canal. Britain entered as a peace-keeping force following the Israeli war. The citizens were against the war, by a small margin. This was stressed when the Soviets used this issue as a smokescreen to crush the resistance in Hungary. However, when Britain was able to pull out, the support flipped to slightly in favor.

The book is fascinating, and presents enough information to really enable you to understand the issues. It almost presents too much information, I can’t imagine I’ll be able to retain a whole lot of it.

One complaint I have is that the author doesn’t make clear what the subject of a chapter or section is. Sometimes I was a couple of pages into it before I was able to really follow it. The author also has a tendency to change subject suddenly, and is difficult to follow at times. The book could have used a stronger editor.

Family Britain provides a very thorough view of British society in this dynamic period. The reader can see the influences on their society and understand the effects they produce. I did enjoy the book a lot, but cannot recommend it unless a person is particularly interested in either Britain or in sociology.

This is a good history of the Smothers Brothers. The majority of the book covers the story of their show and their fights with CBS. It does a good job of portraying the facts of the issue and does not pretend to portray the brothers (Tom) in the best of light. It clearly shows Tom going to far to create problems where compromise or moderation would have served his own goals better.

The book does a very good job of putting the events into their place in history. Clearly the Vietnam War is an important part of this, but it also draws on the general politics with LBJ and others, social movements, CBS, and the CBS battles with NBC and ABC.

The one disappointment was that some of the stories were repeated. They were in different contexts, but it seemed like whole paragraphs were copied and pasted. I would have preferred that a different perspective were provided, or different details to keep the information fresh.

The Three Stooges Scrapbook is both a biography of the Three Stooges and a summary of the Three Stooges phenomenon. It is provided in three parts, the first provides a history of each of the stooges, Healy, their manager, and a summary. The second part talks about the marketing, all the gadgets, comics, cartoons, and spin off/copycat acts. The last part is a summary of the films, both short and feature length. Each of the three sections is roughly 100 pages.

Having been a fan since I can remember, I really wanted to enjoy the book more, and I expected more out of it. I can summarize my issues into two areas.

First, the writing was poor. I felt at times I was reading a bulleted list of events through the lives of the various individuals than a biography. The writing had very little emotional content, and felt like a lecture given by someone just working to get through it.

Second was the repeated information. The biography section of the book follows each individual in his own chapter. These chapters, eight in all (Healy, six stooges, and a summary) had a lot of overlap. Each time, the same information was provided again.

Because of the duplicated information, each of the biographies does stand well on its own. The biographies are very complete (at least beyond my own knowledge) and provide a wealth of information on the individuals.

I found the second section very interesting, as I have always been interested in gadgets and collectables. I was disappointed that almost half of this section was devoted to comic books, and felt that there must be more variety in the toys and knick-knacks.

The last section provides a complete list of their videos, including release dates and synopses. This section includes films including non-stooge roles and cameos. I did enjoy the poster and film shots included.

Overall, I found the book difficult to read, but containing good information. It will be a good reference book for my library.

This is a well-written book of the events in 1066 that ultimately lead to putting William the Conqueror on the throne of England. The book starts by chronicling the recent history leading up to 1066 and culminating with the death of King Edward.

We learn the life of a common thane, his values and the scope of his world. It then expands into the justice system, their decision-making process, and ultimately how they choose their kings.

The book then follows events for each of the major players, King Harold, Harald Hardrada of Norway, and Duke William of Normandy. Filling in their backgrounds, motivations, and actions as each interacts with, or nearly misses the others.

The author builds on a series of events, each which could have changed the course of history, but collectively, led to the conquest of England. In the end, he brings it back to the thanes, and how it affected his world.

The story is very well told, contains a wealth of information and was difficult to put down. It provides a new perspective and great insights into an area of history most of us know too little about.

This is a behind-the-scenes story of Star Trek. It starts from its early concept and pitch to the studios. Herb Solow and Robert Justman (co-authors) discuss the politics and manipulations that happened to make Star Trek turn into a tv series. Years of work and three pilots later they debuted on the screen. But their obstacles never ceased, each year was a fight for renewal, there were problems with the cast, and problems with Desilu.

After reading it, I certainly have a different view of many of the people involved. My opinions of some of the major and minor actors and supporting staff has changed drastically. The authors attempt to take some of the credit normally attributed to Roddenberry and distribute it to other deserving individuals.

The book isn’t just for Trekkies, (the term was coined by the staff during the series run), but anyone interested in what goes on in a series production. My complaint is that the book is too terse. I feel like there’s a lot of information still untold.

This is a collection of short stories of World War II. The stories are from personal journals or personal accounts, and provide a different glimpse into different aspects of the war. One of the stories is of a Kamikazi pilot who was shot down and survived. There is one each from the German and Japanese perspectives of their end of the war, a story of a B17 and B52 bomber pilot, a German perspective on the invasion of Poland, and others. Each provides a unique view of the event and the people portrayed. The stories are well written and cohesive, although at time it can be gory. Overall, I found it an enjoyable and enlightening read.

This books traces Descartes’ influence through history, and the iconic holding of his bones by various people. It is enjoyable and enlightening as the bones are tied to Descartes’ influence on the individuals, society, and religion of western society.