Category Archives: Away all Boats

Finished some books

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Since I wrote my first three posts on March 1, I have finished some books, bought some books, started some books AND managed to get my blog about reading books to display on the Interwebs.  (If you want to start a blog, I have some tips.)  This post is about the books I have finished:

I finished one book that was on hiatus:  We Meant Well: How I helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, by Peter van Buren (Kindle).  This book is a personal, heartfelt account of the author’s frustrations with the prescribed methods of nation-building in Iraq, where he had a Foreign Service assignment on a Provisional Reconstruction Team (PRT).  Just after I finished the book, I read a news article saying that the State Department has taken action to fire Peter van Buren from the Foreign Service.  Nearly all of the reasons cited for firing him have to do with a blog he has kept since his book was published last fall.  My take as a retired Foreign Service Officer (FSO):  the things he did on his blog were stupid and ugly and wouldn’t be acceptable from any FSO.  However, his book is important and interesting; the things he writes about might be embarrassing to State and Defense, but the wacky processes he describes for spending appropriated funds (“the taxpayers money”) ring true.

I finished current book Underfoot in Show Business, by Helene Hanff (my book), an autobiography of the author’s experiences writing for the NYC theater in the 1940s, and writing for television in the 1950s.  Funny, sweet, realistic, great storytelling.  Helene Hanff’s most famous book is 84, Charing Cross Road, about the books she ordered from a used book shop in London after WW2.  The book is short, in the form of letters between Helene and the bookshop, and has cult status with many book lovers.  84, Charing Cross Road, and Q’s Legacy, another autobiographical book, are still in print.  Ms. Hanff’s other books are available through Amazon’s used book sellers.

I also finished Flashman on the March, by George MacDonald Fraser (library book), and actually returned the book to the library before it was due.  I had put Flashman aside for many years, because the bigoted bombast from him and his curmudgeonly creator Mr. MacDonald Fraser finally got to me, but really, given the obnoxious tone of current public discourse, I’ve toughened up a lot.  In their favor, the Flashman books are intelligent, historically accurate and funny, the exact opposite of the aforementioned obnoxious current public discourse.  I got so enthusiastic about my renewed interest in the irascible George MacDonald Fraser that I ordered his book The Hollywood History of the World (from an Amazon used book seller) and started reading a book of his short stories, The Sheikh and the Dustbin (my book), based on his experiences in the British Army.  These books are interesting and clever, but just don’t have the charisma and dash of awful Harry Flashman.  I think I’ll start with Flashman, the first book in the series, and read through them again.  Yes, I still have all of them. 

Away all Boats and Midnight Rising are still in hiatus.  Still reading Ireland in fits and starts.

Books on hiatus (March 1, 2012)

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I usually have several books going at once: history, mystery, thriller, short stories, how-to, humor, old favorite.  It’s good to have several strings to my need-to-read bow so I always have something at hand to suit my mood.  A book, usually a new or new-to-me book, goes into hiatus when I’ve started it, like it, want to finish it but it gets put aside so long that it’s due back at the library or vanishes into a big miscellaneous pile of reading material.  Books on hiatus can be identified on my bookshelves because they still have bookmarks in them.  Hiatus books on Kindle are harder to track, as their titles slip farther and farther down on the list.

I only have three books on hiatus now, which is pretty good.  We Meant Well: How I helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, by Peter van Buren, is almost a current book.  When I turn on my Kindle, it still opens in this book, but the Kindle itself slid to the bottom of a pile of books, magazines, catalogs, and paid bills, which is how it got into hiatus status.  Kindle says I’ve read 90% of the book, it’s written in a very readable style, the subject is compelling and the author is a Foreign Service Officer, so this one has a good chance of getting finished soon.  I think I put it aside because it just got too depressing to read about how State and other USG agencies can mess up in spite of the best of intentions and the many (too many?) management controls in place.

I tracked down a copy of Away all Boats,  by Kenneth Dodson, after I found out that my beloved Uncle Ralph served on the real ship that Dodson, an officer on the ship, based his novel on.  The story is so realistic and so detailed that the storyline gets overwhelmed at times, and I got bogged down in it.  This beautiful 1950s vintage paperback is in the revolving bookcase, waiting for me to take it up again.  I think I’ll dip into another book about WW2 in the Pacific, Tales of the South Pacific, by James Michener, as a step back into Dodson.  This is a favorite of mine, with fascinating details about Michener’s experiences in the Navy giving an authentic voice to some great storytelling.  “Away all Boats” has some compelling voices too:  Dodson’s, and my uncle’s voice that echoes in some of the anecdotes included in the book.

I’m surprised that Midnight Rising, by Tony Horwitz, is also a hiatus book, also shelved in the revolving bookcase so I don’t forget about it.  Horwitz is an excellent writer, and his nonfiction books are favorites of mine, so I’m surprised this book about John Brown and the raid on Harper’s Ferry is in hiatus.  The first part of the book has fascinating information about John Brown’s life that was new to me, but the book slid into hiatus at the point where Brown and his band are getting ready to go into Harper’s Ferry.  I know that things are not going to turn out well for Brown and company, and Horwitz is so good that he’s made me care about all of them.  I need to trust Horwitz to not just tell a harrowing story, but put it into historical perspective so the sacrifices these men made, which includes sacrificing some high ideals, make sense.