Book Review: Four Hours of Fury

A weekend non-fiction reading review!  Because a Pastor also need a break from heavy theological reading!

James M. Fenelon.  Four Hours of Fury. New York, NY: Scribner, October 1^st, 1997. 448 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Do you feel you already know a lot about World War Two and still want to read a military history book on battles that are that not as well-known and where the book is filled with operational details?  I recommend this book for you!  Or if you just simply like a World War Two military history book to read I recommend this too.  This book is about Operation Varsity, the largest airborne operation by the Allies.  For some reason I always assume D-Day on Normandy was the largest combat airborne operation until I found this book.  It is incredible to think of two thousand aircrafts and seventeen thousand airborne troops coming from the air to seize German land from the Nazis.  This book tells their story.
I really like this book for its different angles.  The biggest thing I was blown away from the book is the account of glider troops.  I have never really read much about them.  It seems during World War Two they were not thought of much by others too, since glider troops did not have combat pay nor jump pay.  They also did not have special symbols like Paratroopers nor did they have extra parachutes like other troops in other planes.  Yet the risks these men faced was high.  Paratroopers then and now are glamorized but after reading this book I felt glider troops should be given their due respect.

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Review: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family

A weekend reading review!  A break from heavy theological reading and politics!  Because Pastors need a break also!

Annette Gordon-Reed. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.  New York, NY:  W. W. Norton & Company, September 8, 2009. 816 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Thomas Jefferson.  Most Americans and people around the world know him as the founding father of the republic of the United States.  But what was like Jefferson like in his personal life?  This book is an incredible mammoth work on a side of Jefferson that can be controversial: Thomas Jefferson and a family of slaves that he own and in particular probably the famous of the Hemings: Sally Hemings, a woman who bore children with Thomas Jefferson her owner.  I was surprised at the care and historical handling of the data by author Annette Gordon-Reed and I thought she did a really good job putting things in context and also reading history with consideration of what we can know and even what we do not know.  The author also gave careful historical reasoning in a way that I thought was fair to Jefferson and also the Hemings family.  I was genuinely blown away at how much we do know about the Hemings family and their relations with Thomas Jefferson and other slave owners.

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Review: Index, A History of the

A weekend reading review!  A break from heavy theological reading and politics!  Because Pastors need a break also!  If you want to read more boooks like this one I also recommend the author’s Where Good Ideas Come from

Dennis Duncan. Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age.  New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, February 15, 2022. 352 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Over the years I like books that makes me appreciate things in this world that I take for granted; and one of the things that I take for granted has been the invention of index in our books.  Now at first this might sound like a boring subject but the author writes with wit, humor and insight carry me all the way through.  You can see the with of the author with how the book is creatively titled “Index, A History of the” in index literary form.  Maybe one can’t judge a book by its cover but this book’s cleverness can be gleam from its title!

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Review: First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in the Second World War

I”m posting this weekend non-fiction reading review early!  A break from heavy theological reading and politics!  Because Pastors need a break also!

 

Alex Kershaw. First Wave.  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, May 21st 2019. 384 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

What was it like to be on the early part of the assault on Nazi occupied France on D-Day during World War Two?  Obviously those of us who weren’t there would never know fully what it’s like but this book gives us a narrative glimpse of that day with accounts of soldiers in different military outfits that were part of the initial forces to attack the Nazis that day.  The book subtitle is appropriately “The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in the Second World War.”

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Review: Where Good Ideas Come from

A weekend reading review!  A break from heavy theological reading and politics!  Because Pastors need a break also!

 

Steven Johnson.  Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, October 5th 2010. 326 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

What kind of environment and circumstances best breed innovation?  This book is a fascinating read on technological development, progress and the conditions that foster innovation.  I read this book after earlier reading the author Steven Johnson’s  How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World.  While I enjoyed the first book I read more this one still was quite gratifying to read.

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Review: How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

A weekend reading review!  A break from heavy theological reading and politics!  Because Pastors need a break also!  If you want to read more boooks like this one I also recommend the author’s Where Good Ideas Come from

Steven Johnson.  How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, September 30th 2014. 293 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Do you want to read a book that makes you appreciate the forward progress of technological innovation that lead to the luxuries that we have today in the West that we consider essential but haven’t been enjoyed by most people in history?  This book is a fascinating read of technological development that help advance society and sometimes in ways that the original inventors and innovators would have never been able to have imagined.  I was glued reading this book!

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