Books I Read in 2019

Here I go again with my annual look at the books I’ve read over the past year, letting my readers know what sorts of things I read — well, that is, besides the Bible, newsletters, History Magazine, aviation magazines, NRA magazines, American Legion Magazine, two quarterly apologetics journals, and the quarterly journal of the Air Force Museum, etc! This has actually been a fairly slow year for reading books; hard to find time to fit in all that reading among all the doctor and hospital visits!

As with the past two years, a few books were repeat reads for me for various reasons (some so I could give them away, but mostly just too many years passed to remember what was in them!). Those will be noted in blue. For the most part the titles should tell you what the subject was.  Someone asked me about the length of some of the books I have read, wondering if they weren’t too long for them if they decided to read them. So for the first time I will include how many pages of actual text and endnotes, but not indices. (Something important about how many pages — the size of the print varies. Some 200-page books — such as the Austen books — have small print while some 500-page books have larger print. Most are about average print, though.)

So if you’re interested in seeing what I fill my head with, take a gander below. (These are the order in which they were read, since I build my list as I go).

Back Home, by Michelle Magorian. About 160 pages (threw it out). Novel about a 12-yr-old girl who returns from the USA after having been evacuated there from England five years earlier due to the war. We have the 1990 Disney movie in VHS and had tried to get a DVD version, but what we found was only a 2001 movie version so we bought that. It was so very different from Disney’s that I decided to try to find the book to learn which was closer to the story. I was able to get a copy of the book from England for less than $6, and read it to my wife. The new movie was more true to the book, but the Disney version was very cleaned up, and I couldn’t recommend the book nor the 2001 movie!

The Times Complete History of the World, by Richard Overly. A regular tome! 400 pages and coffee-table sized.

The First World War: A Complete History, by Martin Gilbert. 582 pages  I highly recommend this book for anyone studying World War 1.

A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. 324 pages. My first encounter with this story was when I was in my early teens and saw the Shirley Temple version (I discovered later that for the most part it really wasn’t the same story!). Then in 1986 there was a TV version by Wonder Works and shown on PBS, and it was an excellent story! We bought the VHS version when it came out (2 cassettes) and then as our VHS machines died out and DVDs came in I bought a machine to transfer VHS to DVD, and this was one of them because it was one of our favorite movies. But, I still hadn’t read the book! Finally, in 2007, I bought a really nice book for my wife and we read it together; we discovered how closely the Wonder Works version followed it! We had recently watched the DVD again and my wife asked me to read the book to her—after all, it’s been 12 years! It’s a wonderful story.

Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory, by Maj.Gen. Julian Thompson. 322 pages. A good book for understanding what happened at Dunkirk in the early days of World War II.

Transformed: The Life of Ron Hudson, by Daniel Kuhn. About 200 pages (I gave it away). This book was given to me by a pastor friend. Interesting biography of a man who ended up as a representative for New Tribes Missions.

Mrs. Miniver, by Jan Struther. 288 pages. We have the excellent 1942 movie by the same name (and have watched it many times) and found the book at a used book store, so we decided we needed to read it to see how the movie fit it. The only similarity between the book and the movie is the title. The book is a collection of vignettes which were serialized in a British newspaper in 1940, but none of the vignettes were used in the movie!

All the Men of the Bible, by Herbert Lockyer. 369 pages. Alphabetical listing of the names, with their meanings and who they were, where in the Bible to find them, etc. For more important men there are short commentaries.

Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich, by Eric Kurlander.  About 300 pages (gave it away). How a culture wrapped up in the occult, folk religions, myths, and “border science” ended up with the Nazis and the Holocaust.

Sharing the Good News With Mormons, general editors Eric Johnson & Sean McDowell. 340 pages. Every chapter, by different authors, has good ideas for reaching Mormons. Many of the ideas can be used for any unbeliever.

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. 205 pages. We have owned the 6-hr miniseries for decades (originally VHS, then DVD, now Blue-Ray restored). I’ve always wondered how closely it followed the book, and am happy to say it is an excellent representation (unlike the horrible 2005 movie version). I read this book to my wife so we could both enjoy it.

Battleground Normandy: Point Du Hoc, by Tim Saunders, 231 pages. The story of the Rangers and their taking of Point Du Hoc during the Normandy invasion on D-Day (June 6, 1944) and after.

The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, by Victor Davis Hanson. 529 pages, plus 100 pages of end notes. Excellent examination and study of the title topic.

Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1—2.4 in the light of changing scientific paradigms, by Douglas F. Kelly.  252 pages, plus references. Excellent examination of these passages and how science actually supports the Bible. I haven’t read it since I first purchased it and read it in 2002. I will now be passing it to someone else.

Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. 194 pages.  Read for the same reason as for Pride and Prejudice; we have the movie and decided to see how closely it follows the book. Pretty close, but not as good as P&P. It was Austen’s first book and a bit “long in the tooth” — which is probably why it was changed and condensed for the movie.  

The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough. 267 pages, plus notes and bibliography. An excellent biography of the two men and the invention of the airplane.

The Last Drop: Operation Varsity March 24-25, 1945, by Stephen L. Wright. 309 pages. The story of the last airborne operation of World War II when allied paratroopers and glider troops landed on the east side of the Rhine River.

Discrimination and Disparities, by Thomas Sowell. 228 pages, plus notes. An excellent examination of why disparities in human living will never be eradicated, and are rarely due to discrimination.  Many historical examples of disparities are demonstrated to understand the current situations.

You Gotta Be Tough: A Paratrooper’s Story, by Michael JW Sells. 147 pages. An autobiography of the author’s tour of duty in Vietnam in the late 1960s. My wife and I had gone to Culver’s for lunch and this man, with his wife, was coming out of the dining area and heading for the parking lot. As he was about to pass us I noticed by insignia on his hat that he had been a paratrooper. Now, there is a tradition in the Airborne (paratroop) units that when a lower ranking trooper is passing an officer, the trooper (or lower ranking officer) salutes the officer and loudly exclaims, “ALL THE WAY, SIR”; when the saluted person returns their salute he responds in the same tone, “AIRBORNE!”  With us veterans in the civil world, if we recognize a veteran as a paratrooper we acknowledge that with “AIRBORNE,” to which the person addressed responds with “ALL THE WAY.” And that is what happened when I recognized the veteran as an ex-paratrooper; I said “AIRBORNE” and he replied “ALL THE WAY.” And then we began to chat (he was a couple years older than me, and I got in the Army as the war was winding down so I wasn’t sent) and after sharing our periods of service he asked me if I read much about the Vietnam War. I told him I had, and that I read a lot of books on military history. He asked if I ever read “You Gotta Be Tough” and I responded that I hadn’t.  He gave me a synopsis of the story and asked if I’d be interested in reading it and I asked for the author and told him I’d check into it.  Big grin from the guy as he responded “I wrote it.” Then he said he had a bunch of copies in his car and would happily sell me one for $25. I figured this was his way of earning money in his retirement (like I earn money bagpiping) so accepted his offer and joined him at his car and took one off his hands. It isn’t a scholarly book, but it does keep one’s attention. His tour in Vietnam was near its end when he was unfortunate to be severely wounded.

1812: The War That Forged a Nation, by Walter R. Borneman. 304 pages plus end notes.  The title says it all.

World War I: The Definitive Visual History From Sarajevo to Versailles, by R.G. Grant (Smithsonian). 363 pages. Good condensed study with hundreds of photos. Coffee-table sized.

Why I Write, by George Orwell. 120 pages. I’ve read many excerpts of Orwell’s book “1984” and finally decided to get the book to read the whole thing. So when my next 20% off coupon came in the mail (I have a Barnes and Noble membership and get 10% off everything and they send a couple 20% off — on top of the regular 10% — coupons about every 6-weeks) I headed to B&N to buy a copy. Right next to it was this book, which piqued my interest, so I purchased it also (just the 10% off). Written during the early part of WWII and during the Battle of Britain, he comments a lot about how England was unprepared for war. But for the most part the book was a continuous rant for socialism as he soundly condemned capitalism as well as the whole peerage system in England. He considered those who earned their money as bankers, brokers, loan institutions, factories, etc, to be lazy and not working to earn their pay. Claiming to be a “democratic socialist,” he wanted to see a total takeover by the government of all industries and other businesses, and then have a minimum as well as maximum wage — and no one should be allowed to earn more than 10 times the amount of the lowest paid worker!!  I couldn’t help but wonder just how wealthy he got by writing his books! I can only recommend this book for those interested in understanding where Orwell stood politically.

The Story of Britain From the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History, by Rebecca Fraser. 800 pages.

Devil’s Gate: Brigham Young & the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy, by David Roberts. 337 pages, plus endnotes.  I read this book when it first came out in 2008 and decided to read it again to see if I wanted to keep it. I do. It’s an in-depth study of Mormon handcart companies trekking from Iowa City to Salt Lake City. There were ten companies total, all enduring all sorts of trials and tragedies but the worst ones were the Willie and Martin companies, which started too late and got trapped in the snow in the mountains. All because Brigham Young wanted to save money.

Witchcraft: B-24 Liberator, by Kenny Kemp.128 slick pages, 8X10 horizontal format. The history of the WWII B-24 Liberator bomber, and then the history of the Collings Foundation’s restored and flying B-24J in the markings of one historical aircraft. We went to Waterloo, IA, to see this plane and Collings’ sister ship, a fully restored B-17G Flying Fortress, as well as their TP-51D Mustang. That’s where I bought the book. (Sadly, just a couple weeks later their B-17 crashed with some fatalities; cause is still under investigation.)

Iowa Firefighters Memorial History, compiled by Joan Reuman. 92 pages, 8X10 format. Dedicated in April 1994, they began having annual memorial services the 2nd Sunday in June. Because other memorial services for firefighters around the country had bagpipers, for their 2000 service I was contacted to play for their honor guard. I thought it was a one-time thing but the following year I was contacted again and I decided that it was an honor to play for this service and have played for them since. In 2010 I was given an statuette and made an honorary firefighter; in 2014 I was given an award for 15 years of service on their 20th Anniversary, and then this year I was given another award for 20 years. The book has many photos and tells the whole story of the ideas to build and all the processes to get to the completion, a brief examination of each service and who had died in service over the past year and had their names carved in the wall. This book was sold as fundraising during the 2019 service so I bought one.

First Christmas, by Paul Maier. 125 pages including end notes.  Paul Maier is (well, retired at 89 years old) a professor of history, and a novelist. He has written several works of scholarly and popular non-fiction and novels about Christianity. I picked up this book at a used book give-away; it’s copyright 1971. Very interesting historical look at events and places surrounding the birth of Christ.

The Hospitality Commands, by Alexander Strauch, More of a booklet than a book at 64 pages. A study of the Bible reviewing all the commands of how Christians are to be hospitable.  It was an interesting book.

Decoding the Bible Code: Can We Trust the Message? By John Weldon, 166 pages plus end notes. Pretty good analysis of the “Bible codes” nonsense.

Emma, by Jane Austen. 256 pages.  As with the other Austen books, we wanted to see how closely the movie followed it. Very good, and we recognized where they compressed parts of the book.

WASPs: Women Airforce. Service Pilots of World War II, by Vera S. Williams. 155 slick pages, 10 1/4” square book. Small print but lots of photos. I’ve known about the WASPs because I’ve studied WWII aviation. For our first time, we were at the Stearman (mid-1930s through WWII primary trainers) Fly-In at Galesburg, IL this summer. The National WASP WWII Museum had a table in a hangar and this was one of the books for sale. I figured I could learn the whole story if I bought the book, and it was well worth it.  The sad thing is the way the government treated these women once their job was finished; virtually no recognition. They provided a very valuable service in training and  ferrying warplanes from factories to fields where crews could take them overseas, etc. They were 100% military in the way they were trained and outfitted yet they were later “discarded” unwanted civilians. It was decade later before they got recognition.

American Soldier of World War II: D-Day, A Visual Reference, by Denis Hambucken.  101 shiny pages with about one-third print and two-thirds photos. Part of a series on WWII, this one highlights equipment, uniforms, etc of troops who participated in the D-Day (6/6/44) invasion of Europe.

Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945, by Saul Friedlander. Paperback, 422 pages plus endnotes and bibliography. This book is an abridged version of two books: The Years of Persecution and The Years of Extermination.  You can’t imagine what this book covers in depth — horrors beyond imagination.

For next year, the book I’ve just started upstairs is Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West, by Raymond Ibrahim. I saw a review of it this a few months ago and decided I needed it. Downstairs I’ve begun The Illustrated History of the Vietnam War, by Andrew Wiest and Chris McNab.