A Losing Streak: Three Recent Reads

This January I set a goal of reading 150 books in 2018. This total is unprecedented for me, and about four months in it’s still a bit too early to tell whether I’ll succeed. However, at finishing three books a week, so far I’ve been able to stay on track.

One downside to reading at such a pace is that if I’m halfway through a book and start disliking it, I feel obliged to finish anyway or else admit the 50% I did read was a waste of time. Fortunately, most of my books have been “keepers,” or at least weren’t books I regretted reading once I’d finished them.

This lucky streak did not hold true last week, where all three of my books were duds.

They Were Strong and Good is a book by Robert Lawson, an author I enjoyed as a kid reading the historical fictions Ben and Me, Mr. Revere and I, and Captain Kidd’s Cat. These books are narrated by animals that follow the exploits of historical figures: Most obviously Captain Kidd and his cat, Paul Revere and his horse, and—before Pixar’s Ratatouille made it cool for rats to go around hiding in human’s hats—Benjamin Franklin and a rather opinionated rodent. Lawson is also author of the Rabbit Hill books; in fact, he’s probably best known for these books, although personally I haven’t read them.

They Were Strong and Good intrigued me because in this book Lawson talks about his family and how they experienced American history—and were part of it. It also had the benefit of being rather short, which was good because I was running a bit behind this week. But its brevity turned out to be the only positive thing I could say about this book.

Reviewing Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda"

One of my favorite books—and perhaps my favorite of any adventure/swashbuckler—is Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda. I began reading this book completely ignorant of its genre or plot. In fact, I believe it was one of the books I’d had on my shelf for a decade or so, and had originally purchased at a library used book sale just because I liked the cover and thought the title intriguing.

As it turns out, this book is one of those action-packed, romantic, larger-than-life plots set in a fictional, vaguely European country and peopled by beautiful heroines, dastardly villains, and chivalrous heroes.

Rudolph Rassendyll is an Englishman visiting the land of his ancestors, Ruritania. His visit coincides with the coronation of a distant cousin of his, also coincidentally named Rudolph. And, coincidentally, they happen to look exactly alike. All these coincidences are coincidentally fortunate because King-to-be Rudolph’s jealous brother Michael drugs the heir apparent and has him kept prisoner in a castle in the town of Zenda (hence the title).

Reviewing Llewellyn and Maloof’s "The Living Forest"

Maybe this book would technically be categorized as a “coffee table book” due to its large dimensions and high-quality photographs. Yet The Living Forest: A Visual Journey Into the Heart of the Woods also contains a lot of informational text and can serve a few purposes beyond the casual leafing-through that “coffee table books” tend to receive.

Reviewing "A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans" by Michael Farquhar

History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

~ Winston Churchill

Minoring in history in college I was fascinated by what made some people “memorable” or considered major influences to how the world was shaped during their time. Why do some names go down in history, and others fade into obscurity?

“The Past” is what has really happened. “History” is how the past is remembered. “The Past” is complete, unbiased, and true. “History” is susceptible to massive omissions, lies, interpretations, and manipulations.