No comments about The Fighter Pilot Who Refused to Die: The Authorized Biography of Lt. Col. (ret) Richard Suehr.

5 comments about 2,355 Days.

1. i met spike on the north end of vancouver island,...what a guy, what a book,...if you want to read an interesting story of survival from a guys guy ex jet fighter jock there isn't many better than this.
   i have read many vietnam POW books, this one of few that does not wallow in the darkness that was the North Vietnam POW's life,...you will laugh, you will cry,...you might have a hard time putting it down.
   i could and should write the book on this guy's life since he wrote this one,...this guy is a real character that lives it on the "outside of the performance envelope",...with panache'. for me and because i know the man non fiction does'nt get much better than this.



2. I read this book and was really impressed with the Authors take on his experience as a POW. It is a one of a kind. As a Vietnam Vet of two tours and an Author of my own experiences there this one hit home. Its honest, different, and refreshing. Not to take anything away from anyone who was a prisoner but this guy had an approach and as they say today a paradigm that we would all do well to learn from. Im surprised the book is not more widely distributed but then its not politically correct or down trodden. Its unique as Im sure the Author was and is today. Great book!



3. I read the book and I thought: "Wow, how did he manage to find his way within this insanity?" I was tryly impressed by the stubborness and courage and at the same time note of humour the author brought into the story. I loved it and I think it's a must read teaching how a character can survive and become stronger in such a hard time.
   I can't wait for Spike Nasmyth's next books!



4. I read the book and I thought: "Wow, how did he manage to find his way within this insanity?" I was tryly impressed by the stubborness and courage and at the same time note of humour the author brought into the story. I loved it and I think it's a must read teaching how a character can survive and become stronger in such a hard time.
   I can't wait for Spike Nasmyth's next books!



5. Other books we have read on this subject were much better! The language used was straight out of the gutter. Would advice John Mccain, Robbie Risner books on this same subject. They are much better and very much better written.

3 comments about On the Warpath in the Pacific: Admiral Jocko Clark and the Fast Carriers.

1. The story goes that when the small carrier 'Liscome Bay' was sunk, her airborne planes had to have a place to set down or they would have to crash in the ocean. The man who gave the order on the carrier 'Yorktown' to turn on her landing lights after dark to give them a place to land was Jocko Clark.
   
   That alone would justify reading more about him, but there is lots more. An indian, he went to the Naval Academy (Class of 1918) while the indian wars were a fresh memory. Early recognizing the value of aircraft, he became a pilot when planes were still wood and fabric. World War II came with the Japanese attack at Pearl. Getting rid of the battleships left the carriers and the aircraft admirals in position to win the war.
   
   Younger than the famous admirals of World War II, he was commander of the Seventh Fleet operating off of Korea. He lived through the transition from wood and fabric through to the time of the jets. Not just lived, he commanded.



2. This is an excellent book about a great carrier commander. Jocko Clark was the initial commander of the new Yorktown, and a great task group commander as part of task force 58 under Marc Mitscher. In fact, he was Mitscher's leading commander, the one that Mitscher looked to for all the challenges. And, he delivered. This book provides how he did that - his personality traits, including his angry tirades, his physical challenges, including his continual bouts with an ulcer that required a special diet. However, he was a loyal commander and an individual who supported his men. Many a time, he wanted to look for downed flyers when the previous task force commander prior to Mitscher was nervous about lingering in an area too long and the threat of Japanese submarines. If you want a book that provides the panorama of the Pacific carrier war in detail - each minor and major action - Jocko was in the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, through Halsey's typhoons - this is a great book for the WWII enthusiast in the pacific. Highly recommended.



3. Too much glory to the Admiral - seems he had everything figured out and the majority of those who did not agree with him were incompetent or just plain stupid. I did not care to hear of his drinking or womanizing exploits - not certain what those "abilities" have to do with being an admiral. A Navy Patton???
   
   Feel the author spends too much verse in glamorizing Clark and down grading the other Naval heros of the era.

5 comments about Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President (Modern Library Paperbacks).

1. Geoffrey Perret's previous work, "A Country Made By War," which is a general military history of the United States, gives him the background to put the military career of Grant in perspective. He worked closely with the editor of Grant's papers to acquire the background to write this biography. His short chapters don't go into great details on individual battles, but capture well the development of Grant's personality, generalship, and presidency. J.F.C. Fuller's "Grant and Lee" and "The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant" go into greater detail in analyzing the military strategy, strengths and weaknesses, of Grant's command both in the Western and Eastern theaters. But Perret's book is well worth reading. He captures the spirit of Grant well.



2. There are already several reviews of this book printed here, with which I agree heartily, so I'll keep my comments brief. Perret's "Ulysses S. Grant, Soldier and President," is the twelfth book on Grant that I've read (I can't seem to get enough of this topic). Perret's writing is crisp and intelligent. He doesn't drag out his thesis in long jumbled sentences, rather, he keeps his reader focused on the point he is trying to make on each phase of Grant's personal and professional life. He exposes flaws in previous Grant biographies by proving their lack of documented evidence and holding the authors to task for their shoddy scholarship. At the same time, he does not give the impression that he intends to "show up" other Grant biographers, he just sets the record straight.

   I recommend this biography to anyone who wants to understand America in the Nineteenth century. Ulysses S. Grant is the key: he saved the Union, he fought for the rights of the freedmen during Reconstruction, he was always honest-though he did make his share of mistakes - and when he erred, he accepted the responsibility for his mistakes. Grant was a devoted family man, was loyal to his friends and forgiving of his enemies. He was humble and appeared ordinary, yet he achieved amazing things. Perret's most insightful point in this work is his statement that Grant's religion was patiotism. I agree. No one ever loved this country more.




3. This book is truly an astonishing piece of work. Considering its grotesque factual errors and bizarre misreadings of source material (more than I have ever seen in a single work of non-fiction,) the pompous writing style, the author's grating tendency to make childishly snide (and irrelevant) side comments, and--most bafflingly--the remarkable hatchet-job he does on Grant's wife Julia, I think I can state unhesitatingly that this is the most thoroughly unprofessional biography of anyone I have ever read. I find myself genuinely baffled that Perret evidently still has a career as a historian.

   As appalled as I am by the thought that readers who had no prior knowledge about Grant will be led to take some of this tripe seriously, I am even more stunned by reviewers who state unblushingly that Perret's allergy to accuracy does not matter, as long as he is pro-Grant and writes in what is, to them, an appealing writing style! There are few people who defend Grant more wholeheartedly than I do (hey, I even maintain he was a pretty good President,) but I believe that a bad defense of USG can, in the long run, be as damaging to his reputation as no defense at all. My advice to Grant neophytes? Read the man's own words, in his acclaimed memoirs and fascinating private letters, as well as first person accounts like "Campaigning With Grant," and give this silliness a wide berth.

   And those cracks of his about Julia REALLY set my teeth on edge.




4. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in 1822 (how he became Ulysses S. Grant is a story in itself). This book, by Geoffrey Perret, is a good workmanlike biography of Grant.
   
   It depicts his childhood and his journey to West Point. It discusses his marriage to Julia (with James Longstreet and Cadmus Wilcox, ironically, as two of his three groomsmen; they would be on opposing sides in the Civil War). It describes his service in the military--including some genuinely courageous behavior in the Mexican War. It also lays out his failures in the Army and his departure. His struggles in Missouri and then working in a family business in Galena, Illinois.
   
   Then, with the outbreak of the Civil War, his opportunity to rejoin the Army and become an officer. The book traces his unassuming rise in the Union Army, from early efforts at Belmont through Forts Henry and Donelson to Shiloh to Vicksburg and so on. Ultimately, of course, he came to command all Union forces and attained the exalted rank of Lieutenant General.
   
   After his work in the Civil War, his presidency is discussed, warts and all. Perret's view is somewhat more nuanced than those of others who have evaluated Grant's terms as President. Nonetheless, his failings are described.
   
   Finally, his desperate dash in the race against death to complete his memoirs and secure some degree of financial security for his family.
   
   This is not a great biography, but it is serviceable and is a nice addition to the literature on Grant.



5. By far the finest field commander produced by the North or South during the US Civil War, US Grant saved the Union and delivered our country as we know it today. Reviled in the South as a butcher and thought of as a drunk in the North, Hiram Ulysses Grant is possibly the finest general ever produced by the United States of America, and one of its worst Presidents.
   
   Geoffrey Perret pulls no punches in this biography. Grant failed in private life before re-entering the Army, and he says so; Grant failed in several of his early campaigns, Belmont for one, and was stunningly surprised at Shiloh, and he says so; and his Presidency was riddled with corruption, and again, Perret says so. But despite his many failures this tenacious, never-say-die individual had the backbone and determination to defeat every Confederate General he was to face and captured 3 complete Confederate Armies intact, in the field: Fort Donnelson, Vicksburg, and the vaunted Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. And he damn near bagged Bragg in middle Tennessee. To put these accomplishments in perspective, no other General Officer, North or South, captured even one.
   
   This is a good, workman-like biography of the first modern general the US ever produced. Perret does an excellent job of focusing on his subject, Grant, and does not spend too much time analyzing his campaigns. As a result, the author moves the reader topically through Grant's life experiences and we get to know him as an individual. Intensely interesting, this work's 476 pages simply fly by. Despite the 8 miserable years of his failed Presidency and his subsequent Wall Street bankruptcy, in true Grant fashion, he works diligently to complete his memoirs, does so and restores his family's fortune 8 days before he dies. His was a most remarkable life.

2 comments about Civil Wars.

1. June Jordan's collection of essays spans almost twenty years of her life, from her days as a young mother "learning to see" the world around her and beginning to make her own actions seen and voice heard, through her growing involvement in Civil Rights demonstrations, the beginnings of her teaching career, and later on in her life as a Black woman still fighting for justice using her weapon of choice: words.

   This book explores Jordan's perspective on and experience with a variety of topics, including race riots, urban housing, educational language policy, children's rights, university Black Studies programs, African liberation, land reform, and the politics of publishing. Her combination of social political commentary and personal reflection is thought-provoking and accessible to a diverse audience of readers. Her writing is clear and passionate, and most pieces, previously published, are prefaced by background information that places them historically.

   This is a book to be savored both for what it says and how it says it.




2. In Civil Wars, poet and activist June Jordan explores political issues through a very personal lens. This collection of essays, speeches, and letters, previously published but presented in this text with contextualizing annotations, masterfully blends public and private spheres. Jordan looks at critical issues such as race, homosexuality, linguistic differences, and violence by drawing on events in her own life and telling her intersecting story through vibrant prose. For instance, Jordan examines the power differential between "White" and "Black" English by discussing her novel His Own Where in relation to Shakespeare and questioning the linguistic hierarchy that values particular codes over other alternatives. Civil Wars is an engaging, moving text that will make you think deeply about social justice through a personal perspective. A must read!

No comments about Sailor of Fortune: The Life and Adventures of Commodore Barney, Usn (Classics of Naval Literature).

5 comments about His Name Was Donn: My Brother's Letters from Vietnam.

1. My review starts with a warning to readers. Once you pick up the book, you will find it hard to put down. Long after you do read it, you will find yourself still connected to the young lieutenant and his world.
   
   The book is a combination of letters from Donn, who is stationed in Vietnam,to his mother and the reflections of his sister as she reads the letters again thirty years later. Like war itself, the book contains jarring juxtapositions. The abstract and the specific, the important and the trivial, the terrifying and the hilarious are side by side. Donn worried about the beloved car he had warily left in the care of his family, joked about his mother's weight, and relayed the brutality and dangers of war in a careful and powerful way.
   
   Another dimension of the book is his sister's growing awareness of her brother and how he adapted to war. Her teenage vision of him was incomplete, and the matured vision she reveals as she reads his letters again is moving and truthful.
   
   I know many will read the book and say they learned a lot about the realities of war, and you will, but the book is about more than war. The book is about love and the strong bonds of family.



2. 
   A young soldier dies heroically in battle. His maimed body is returned to his grieving family. Medals and citations are awarded posthumously.
   
   At once the circumstances of his death eclipse all other aspects of his life. He becomes forever a fallen soldier. The military citations extol the "ultimate sacrifice." Nowhere in the formal wording is there mention of "the life that might have been."
   
   But the two are one and the same.
   
   This is the message of Evelyn Sweet-Hurd's remembrance of her brother, Lieutenant Donn Sweet, a native of Roanoke VA, who was killed in Vietnam in 1968 at age 26.
   
   In, "His Name Was Donn," Sweet-Hurd attempts to rescue the memory of her brother. From a box of letters shuffled from attic to attic over forty years, she has fashioned a soldier's journal that speaks to our day as poignantly as if written from Iraq yesterday.
   
   From the first line of Letter #1 ("It's a warm Saturday afternoon") to the final signoff two days before his death ("Well, it's beginning to rain"), Donn Sweet reports on his Vietnam experience very much as an observer, more war correspondent than soldier at times, fascinated with events, people, places and how the weather was. Absent, always, is any acknowledgment of personal danger.
   
   To his mother, he writes: "Yesterday we left Dong Ha in a driving rainstorm and
   took a boat up the river to the coast and a Marine camp called Qua Viet. The day before, Qua Viet had been shelled and a dentist and three others were killed."
   
   We are reminded of the young Martin Sheen journeying up the river in Apocalypse
   Now, without, in Donn Sweet's telling, the sense of foreboding.
   
   Forty years later, his sister wonders if her beloved big brother had indeed
   taken a first step into the "Heart of Darkness." It bothers her when he writes,
   "I took pictures of one of the dead VC. He was 28 and was from Gio Linh -- or so
   his papers said."
   
   The reader has difficulty sharing the author's concern. Donn Sweet seems always to have a sure hold on reality. His lifeline is a mischievous sense of humor and a relentless focus on his civilian life to come.
   
   Three days after describing a fire fight in which "We lost nine men...", he pens
   an appreciation of a package newly-received from an aunt, "[There was] a black
   oblong soft smelly object. At first I thought it was a squashed eclair; the
   Marine captain living with me thought it was a piece of liver. You know what it
   was? A BANANA! What would make someone think a banana would make it to Vietnam?
   ... I will write a thank-you note."
   
   After noting that the officer who relieved him in his last command has been killed, he instructs his mother: "I want you to please do the following and write me on what you do and the results. Please have the valves on my Porsche set for the proper setting and have my oil changed correctly. I want the filter screen cleaned. The manual explains how it should be done. I don't want them to simply drain the oil out the plug and put some new oil in. Check it out and have it done right... and let me know what the story is."
   
   He mentions running into a mortar ambush, "...we had one KIA (killed in action)
   and one WIA (wounded in action"...", then inquires about law schools: "Ask Ernie
   [a lawyer friend] what he thinks about McGeorge College of Law and U. of Arizona,
   OK?"
   
   John Lennon famously said, "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." Donn Sweet was killed in Vietnam by a mortar shell. His Silver Star citation states that he had confronted and killed a North Vietnamese sniper in order to reach a hilltop from which he could direct artillery fire. There is nothing in the citation of his having other plans.
   
   In her commentary, juxtaposed among the letters, Sweet-Hurd does not disguise
   her anti-war sentiments. But they come across as neither insistent nor intrusive. They are a crying out for comprehension, and they are a needed perspective, a simple wondering at what Donn himself might have made of the Vietnam outcome and of his own "ultimate sacrifice."
   
   In the book's "Post-Mortem", the author makes her point with quiet subtlety.
   Without comment, she lists the official telegrams and citations received from
   the Army. They commemorate a hero, the military laying claim to her brother's memory. To the reader, who has come to know Donn Sweet through his own words, his kid sister's appeal proves successful on at least one score: the citations seem to be placed where they properly belong -- in the appendix.



3. "His Name Was Donn" is powerful and poignant, a book that will stay in your head and your heart long after you have raced to finish it--even though you know the tragic conclusion from the first page. What an amazing accomplishment of Donn's sister to open the box and share his letters with all of us! Evelyn Sweet-Hurd's technique of alternating letters and commentary keeps us involved and challenges us to think about the individuals who are sent to war on our behalf.



4. Too often books about war deal more with the officers and civilian leaders, the ones who direct the military actions without looking at those most involved. The young men and women on the front lines who must live with life and death and whose minds are concentrated both on the action at hand and their loved ones back home. It is most likely the latter that keeps them going in the face of enemy fire, the memories of happier days in their home towns or cities.
   
   His Name Was Donn: My Brother's Letters from Vietnam is a particularly moving book, a collection of letters written by Donn Sweet during his service in Vietnam up to his tragic death. An honored soldier, his letters are a combination of describing what is taking place over there and his memories of home. These letters were put together by his younger sister, Evelyn Sweet-Hurd whose grief over his death kept her from re-reading them for decades. Now this book has helped bring her closure and is a moving tribute to a brave young man with a sense of humor who truly loved his country. It gives us an insight into the heart and soul of a true American hero and patriot.
   
   The reader also learns a great deal about the Sweet family and Evelyn's own thoughts and feelings then and now. It is the sort of book every reader can relate to whether Donn is writing about comrades dying or his memories of home. Home is very important and Donn takes the time to write thankyous for gifts and letters even when under enemy fire. There is a strong connection between Donn's two worlds and his relationship with his younger sister Evelyn who idolized him. The book is a testimony to the importance of family in the growth and maturity for young people.
   
   Ms. Sweet-Hurd writes in a style that is both vivid and concise. Once finished this is a book you will want to re-read as you will feel connected with the family. This would make an excellent film and we want to see more works by this author.



5. The letters reveal Donn who was a lively, exciting, fun-loving person with great love for his mother(the names he gives her in every letter never ceases to bring a smile)his sisters and all his other family members. His sense of humor is contagious as it springs from each of his letters. All the characters with their special quirks become familiar to the reader as he paints them so well in his letters. This is a great book that could be made into a movie and any actor who plays the role of Donn will be paying a rich tribute to this wonderful young man who teaches that life is full of promise and hope to be enjoyed every single day. The author did a great job of taking a painful memory and leaving a lasting impact on the readers who will close the book with a great big smile for having known this wonderful person. Great job Evie!!!!!!

5 comments about Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company.

1. This book gives insight into one of the American literary greats. There are times that the book drags, but I think this is due as much to the author as to the fact that some moments in Bierce's life are so interesting that when you read about the "average" moments in his life, you are left, well , bored. This is a good book for a Bierce fan or someone that would like to learn about an American writer who, deservedly, lived in the shadow of Twain.



2. "Bitter Bierce" they called him because of his scathing sarcasm. After the Civil War, in which he fought valiantly for four years, he went to San Francisco and began writing for the Hearst newspapers. Satire was his game. He wrote a couple of decent short stories ("Chickamauga" and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"), THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY, and that's about it (other books, mainly short story and poetry collections, have been forgotten, in some cases unfairly so). His wit, as revealed in the DICTIONARY is clever, but at times sophomoric. Influenced by Poe, many of his stories deal with the supernatural and are laced with horror. He disappeared in Mexico in 1913 and was never seen again. Speculation, from suicide to fighting for Pancho Villa, has been rampant ever since. Morris does a good job relating the events of Bierce's strange life, who must have been a very difficult man to know.



3. I am perfectly aware that to say that Ambrose Bierce was the most original, provocative and fascinating of all American writers (not to say the most brilliant of all) is like preaching in the desert. It is probably going to cost me a lot of negative feedback to say what I'm going to say, so I won't extend myself more than what it is absolutely necessary in order to speak my mind.
   
   The main reason for me to write this review is that this laughable biography by Roy Morris is so flagrantly detrimental on Bierce's accomplishments that I personally didn't want to lose the opportunity to advise you against reading such a lot of blather. The author even puts an awful novel like "The Red Badge of Courage" above Bierce's war stories (hilarious, isn't it?). After that, what else can be said about this biographer's ineptitude? Let's draw a veil over it and forget it.
   
   Anyone wishing to know something about the skilled artistry and posterior influence of the Ohio writer would be better looking for another book written by someone who had actually grasped Bierce's significance. But the best thing to do is reading Bierce's stories on your own and make up your mind about them instead of losing your time with the prejudices and lack of perspective of others.
   
   After reading some passages of this book, I reassure myself in my opinion that literary critics are, well, funny...
   
   In a world where mediocrity runs rampant and where authors like Mark Twain and the hideous Henry James have always been praised, it is difficult that really worthy authors like Bierce can find the recognition they deserve. But, perhaps, it is better that way, I don't know.
   
   What I know for sure (because I've seen it) is that, when a genius is born, all nefarious souls tend to ally themselves against it. Anyway, how could a writer like Bierce be enjoyed by a majority? It's impossible.
   
   Well, I don't think this review is gonna get anywhere, so I'd better stop here. Thank you for your reading.
   
   Note- sorry for any bad grammar on my part. I don't usually write in the language of the "Empire".



4. Conventional wisdom and history books have it that Ambrose Bierce died in Mexico during the Revolution. But Morris, in this in-depth biography, offers a fairly plausible alternative. (Sorry, not giving the store away as part of the review; you're going to have to get your hands on this book.)
   
   Much of the rest of the speculation in which Morris engages is psychological. He first analyses Bierce's childhood and parents, then takes note of his Civil War head wound, and wonders just how much the two of these things combined to contribute to the Ambrose Bierce we know today.
   
   That said, while not denying either childhood or adult causes of personality development -- or personality change -- I give more credence to genetic causes, i.e., the ideas of evolutionary psychology, properly applied.
   
   I find it likely that Bierce was pretty much born with tendencies toward the character he later exhibited. His upbringing and his war wound may have intensified it, but I think he came by much of his cynicism naturally. Life events probably added the dollop of churlishness to it.
   
   I teeter on a rating and end up at 4 stars. If I were to fine tune, it would probably be about 3 2/3 stars. The psycho-speculation is interesting, but in addition to being incomplete, if not somewhat wrong, too much of a focus on it means less focus on historical biography or on literary analysis.



5. Morris' biography of Bierce is thorough and has a lot of insight, but one thing that irritates is the implication that Bierce is not a "major" writer. There's even a a blurb on the book jacket from some critic at the Washington Post referring to him as a "lesser" writer.
   
   Are you kidding? Bierce wrote at least four or five of the greatest short stories in American literature. He pioneered the idea of showing readers that they weren't paying attention; he explored near-death experience masterfully in "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"--as well as delivering a scathing criticism of war; he wrote the most riveting Civil War story of all time, "Chickamauga," and he inspired dozens of modern and postmodern writers--Hemingway through Joseph Heller.
   
   Yes, Bierce's work was inconsistent. But so was Twain's, Crane's, and the work of dozens of other "major" writers.
   
   The best Bierce criticism is Richard O'Connor's _Ambrose Bierce: A Biography_, published in 1967. If you're interested in Bierce, read that one first.

No comments about Vietnam and Beyond: A Diplomat's Cold War Education (Modern Southeast Asia Series).

No comments about A Southern Moderate in Radical Times: Henry Washington Hilliard, 1808-1892 (Southern Biography Series).