No comments about Phoenix: Queen Victoria's Maharajah: Duleep Singh 1838-93.

1 comments about Pitt the Elder: The Great Commoner.

1. Anyone interested in rigorously researched late XVIII century English politics will probably enjoy (and learn) from Mr. Black's book. His work about William Pitt, after just a brief, usual part of a chapter on his parents, grandparents etc., dips immediately into maneuvers, conter maneuvers and consequences of ever shifting moods within the parliament.

   Unfortunately the reader is presumed to know everything about the Seven Year War, the beginnings of America's revolution etc., as well as about England's major political parties and politicians at that time. The reader is supposed to be looking just for how Mr. Pitt and his opponents politicians handled these issues. So quite important historical events pass by as faint backgrounds.

   Although this is somewhat intended to be a biography of William Pitt, and not the history of England in the 1700's, one would look for such a towering individual as a wonderful way to see big world events through England's government eyes. Instead we get a vey narrow perspective of these events. Probably that is the way most politicians see things nowadays ...

No comments about Histoire de la guerre dans la Péninsule et dans le midi de la France, depuis l\'année 1807 jusqu\'à l\'année 1814: Tome 1.

No comments about The Life of Henry Fielding (Blackwell Critical Biographies).

5 comments about Bad Blood: A Memoir.

1. I read through this book in a long afternoon, finding it totally engrossing. The story is about a young girl growing up under the roof of her grandfather, an intellectual vicar who led a double life of sex and booze, and her grandmother, an angry, disappointed anti-intellectual diabetic who lived for the treats of going to movies, candy, and scented soaps. The two detested each other, and their daughter wore herself out and sacrificed her personality to keep the household going in a very marginal way. The daughter had a daughter of her own, the author of this memoir, Lorna Sage. I don't think the point of this story is that her life was a nightmare, though it was hardly happy. It was about how, as humans, we all just keep making messes of our lives, generation after generation, and we all have our own family history and genetics which determine our strengths and our devastating flaws. Lorna inherited her grandfather's "bad blood", along with his use of books to escape both the place he was in (an isolated, wet, postwar depressed backwater), and the mess he was actively making of his life. In the middle of this mess, Lorna used this gift to survive, and even to struggle out of the quagmire by getting an advanced education.



2. This finely written memoir of her childhood as an Anglican minister's granddaughter. Today, or recently, [she died in 2001] Sage is an English literary critic and her memoir is both appreciably granular and endowed with a coherent overview. Highly recommended. Won the Whitbread Biography Award.



3. Holy moly! You wanna talk about a dysfunctional family? Here it is. It's during the years of WWII. The author's father is off fighting for God and country, and her mother is having a delayed adolescence, so author Lorna Sage is shipped to her grandparents house somewhere in rural England. Her grandparents are weird, weird, weird, but it is their very faults that ultimately make Sage, a well-known and powerful literary critic, into the person she becomes.
   Her grandfather is a debauched, intellectual, furious and infuriating vicar whose idiosyncrasies were seemingly limitless. Her grandmother's rage at her lot in life and the man who was responsible for it (and by extension, ALL men) never once abates - and you almost champion her for her constancy.
   Bad Blood reads as wicked fun with a strongly feminist underlying message. I loved it.



4. The story of an unexceptional childhood - mild neglect, some poverty and a very filthy home - neither sordid nor tragic nor eventful enough to be compelling reading. Especially for a person raised in India the dysfunctionality level of childhood/family seems average. The only redeeming feature is Lorna Sage's writing style. Witty and insightful. Normally this should raise a book to atleast 3 and a half stars but somehow this one does not quite make it past "interesting enough to read when there's nothing better to do". To use review cliches since they work so well in describing a book, it is readable but far short of unputdownable.



5. tough childhood, I wish Lorna Sage would write another memoir telling us how she's doing right now.
   I liked the book.

No comments about The Mighty Healy-Rae: A Biography.

2 comments about Nelson Speaks: Admiral Lord Nelson in His Own Words.

1. I was looking for a comprehensive work of Admiral Lord Nelson and in this work I was disappointed. For the $32 retail price I was expecting more 'meat' to this work. At just over 200 pages the 5 X 7 book size was rather lean upon content. It is however, in itself, an excellent work as it contains many excerpts of his letters to both Family and Colleagues with clarifications and comments as to the situation in which the letters were written and their over-all reflection of the man himself.
   
   It is an excellent reference for 'quotes' and brief insights to the politics and realities of the British Navy during Nelson's service. Comments that reflect truths and feelings felt at one time or another by all sailors and soldiers no matter the Flag being served:
   
   "Government don't care much for us." written by him aboard the famous HMS Victory is a case in point.
   
   If your looking for anything like a comprehensive work on the Man and his life I'd advise another work (They are legion and cited in the Books Bib.) but for a beginning this will suffice.



2. Anyone who is interested in research about Lord Nelson and the British Royal Navy will find this book helpful. The author is well qualified and respected. The book is full of many eyewitness accounts of Nelson's apparent wry humour. Anyone wishing to know somewhat type of a man and Admiral Nelson was will find this book helpful. It is excellent, and very affordable.

No comments about British Monarchy from Henry VIII (Teach Yourself History).

No comments about John Todd: The Story Of His Life Told Mainly By Himself.

4 comments about Ramble Through My War: Anzio and Other Joys.

1. This is a very aptly titled WWII memoir by a former U.S. intelligence officer. Aptly titled because it could certainly have used a little more rigorous editor to eliminate the numerous repetitions and help the narrative flow a little better. That aside, Marshall's memoir is valuable if nothing else for its ground-level description of Anzio--which I had always heard of but never really knew anything about--and the inside look into "order of battle" and "document exploitation." Both are elements of military intelligence whose importance is largely unknown to the general public and Marshall does an excellent job in explaining and showing how it all works. Less important but also interesting are the day to day details of an army on the move from the invasion of Italy all the way into Germany.



2. Marshall gives the reader a feel for the day to day life of an army intelligence officer in the big war's european theater.



3. Marshall gives the reader a feel for the day to day life of an army intelligence officer in the big war's european theater.



4. "A Ramble Through My War" is an insightful account of portions of World War II's European Theater through the eyes of a then-young U.S. Army lieutenant. A highlight of this engaging memoir is an inspiring account of the battle for Anzio--its trials and tribulations. It is unfortunate that Charles F. Marshall, a retired business executive, waited until now--55 years since Anzio--to publish this vivid recollection. Today, there are too few former WWII veterans remaining to appreciate this story and too few others who realize how important Anzio and Alsace were to the total scenario of the war in Europe. A Columbia University educated would-be journalist who later settled for a career in the knitting industry, Marshall used a daily diary maintained through most of "his war" to help chronicle the events viewed from his assignment as an army intelligence officer. Although he missed the Anzio landing, Marshall was at the beachhead from early February 1944, through the terror of German counterattacks against Allied troops with their backs against the sea until the breakout in late May and the run to Rome. Much of his G-2 work involved scouring over captured German documents taken from fallen soldiers. "Most German boys carried enough documentation to write their biographies," he explained. Wallet items included birth certificates, baprismal certificates, diaries, driving licenses, personal letters, family photographs and pictures, often nude photos of wives or girlfriends, "stimulating reminders of the joys awaiting their return," Marshall wrote. From these items he and his colleagues amassed amazing bits of information, "a significant contribution to the battle to undo Hitler," Marshall said. In his narrative he interwove the horrors of war with amusing and perceptive commentaries--often blunt, but necessary to the story. After the Allied victory in Italy, Marshall and his intelligence team moved to the invasion of southern France, on to Alsace, later chasing retreating soldiers of the Reich into mother Germany and finally into Austria. Marshall, in his frequent day-to-day accounts, provides details of the U.S. intelligence operation and how the newly gained information helped in coming battles and air attacks. In the closing days of the war and afterwards, Marshall interrogated as host of Germany Prisoner's of war and other German officials, including Lucie Marie, the widow of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. His recovery of Rommel's letters added much to that story of the war. This book was so enjoyable that I searched for Marshall's earlier war volume, "Discovering the Rommel Murder: The Life and Death of the Dessert Fox" published in 1994. It was found still in print and has been ordered.