One of the best books I've read in the past year (and one of the best books I've ever read regarding Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution) is the recently published Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War by Michael Kranish.
Although the book is extensively annotated and footnoted, Michael Kranish's prose flows in a manner that reminded me of a classic thriller or whodunit. Granted, he bogs down now and again, especially when detailing tedious legislative deliberations (what writer wouldn't?), but my interest rarely flagged.
The primary focus is the British invasion of Virginia in 1781, which ultimately concluded with the surrender at Yorktown. While I'm generally familiar with this chapter of the war, the author's detailed examination of this operation, conceived and carried out by infamous turncoat Benedict Arnold, is revelatory.
Notable characters such as Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Lord Cornwallis, Baron von Steuben, the Marquis de La Fayette, William Byrd III, and other key players, both humble and exalted, are quickly and vividly sketched in brief anecdotes.
For example, Lafayette refused to allow two of his snipers who had Benedict Arnold within their sights to shoot him because he believed it would be unethical.
On two occasions the British came within a whisker of capturing Jefferson, once at Monticello when he was riding his horse down one side of the mountain while the cavalry was racing up the other side, and again at his Poplar Forest plantation about 80 miles southwest of Monticello, where they were within minutes of his residence before calling off the hunt due to exhaustion and poor weather.
Whether you're mildly interested in this period or consider yourself an expert on the key events of the American Revolution, you'll likely learn a great deal from this excellent book.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Book Nook
Recently completed reading (well, skimming might be the more accurate word for my perusal of a number of these pages) Samuel Adams: A Life, by Ira Stoll.
Given the many books about John and Abigail Adams (and two blockbuster miniseries produced by PBS and HBO) I was interested to learn more about John's famous cousin. Alas, this volume is not the best book to turn to in order to learn about this astonishingly capable revolutionary.
One major obstacle is the decision by Samuel Adams and his spouse Elizabeth Wells Adams to regularly burn their personal correspondence as soon as possible after reading. This places the biographer at a great disadvantage when it comes to discussing their marital and family life.
This profound obstacle begets another, which is reliance on the existing public writings of Adams, who was a newspaperman and a wordsmith at least as competent as peers such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and his cousin John Adams, but who exhaustively focused on two themes during his lifetime as a polemicist.
One, the enormous importance of religion in the public and private sectors of daily life in colonial Boston and the state of Massachusetts. Two, the need to fully separate from Great Britain, the sooner the better. Adams was one of the first, if not the first, to begin beating this prophetic drum, for which he deserves immense credit.
However, the generous and overly enthusiastic use of this material bombards the reader page after page with excerpts highly similar in tone, style, phrasing and content. Although Adams modestly modified a few of his core beliefs over time (e.g., eventually becoming a bit more tolerant of Roman Catholics and Quakers), this thematic repetition very quickly became very tedious to this reader.
Given the many books about John and Abigail Adams (and two blockbuster miniseries produced by PBS and HBO) I was interested to learn more about John's famous cousin. Alas, this volume is not the best book to turn to in order to learn about this astonishingly capable revolutionary.
One major obstacle is the decision by Samuel Adams and his spouse Elizabeth Wells Adams to regularly burn their personal correspondence as soon as possible after reading. This places the biographer at a great disadvantage when it comes to discussing their marital and family life.
This profound obstacle begets another, which is reliance on the existing public writings of Adams, who was a newspaperman and a wordsmith at least as competent as peers such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and his cousin John Adams, but who exhaustively focused on two themes during his lifetime as a polemicist.
One, the enormous importance of religion in the public and private sectors of daily life in colonial Boston and the state of Massachusetts. Two, the need to fully separate from Great Britain, the sooner the better. Adams was one of the first, if not the first, to begin beating this prophetic drum, for which he deserves immense credit.
However, the generous and overly enthusiastic use of this material bombards the reader page after page with excerpts highly similar in tone, style, phrasing and content. Although Adams modestly modified a few of his core beliefs over time (e.g., eventually becoming a bit more tolerant of Roman Catholics and Quakers), this thematic repetition very quickly became very tedious to this reader.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Book Nook
Janis Ian's book, Society's Child: My Autobiography, is a candid account of her troubled childhood growing up as a "red diaper baby" in New Jersey; her rise and fall as a gifted musician who made millions of dollars and then lost every penny due to the machinations of a sleazy accountant and the ire of a vindictive IRS agent; and a wife who was viciously abused every which way by her crazy drug-addicted husband, a man whom she knew was dangerous well before they married. And that's just for starters.
Author John Cheever, masterful writer for many years of classic short stories that were hallmarks of The New Yorker magazine, is on my short list of successful writers who spent as much or more time torturing themselves than they did putting words to paper.
Cheever by Blake Bailey, combines literary criticism with detailed research and judicious use of the author's extensive journals to paint a detailed portrait of this conflicted and deeply alcoholic and sexually confused artist who never seemed comfortable in his own skin, yet managed to produce more than a hundred short stories and several novels before his premature demise.
Author John Cheever, masterful writer for many years of classic short stories that were hallmarks of The New Yorker magazine, is on my short list of successful writers who spent as much or more time torturing themselves than they did putting words to paper.
Cheever by Blake Bailey, combines literary criticism with detailed research and judicious use of the author's extensive journals to paint a detailed portrait of this conflicted and deeply alcoholic and sexually confused artist who never seemed comfortable in his own skin, yet managed to produce more than a hundred short stories and several novels before his premature demise.
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