Last week I finished Eighth Army, by Robin Neillands.
It’s a history of the “British” Eighth Army, which fought most famously in northern Africa during WWII, and then in the Italian campaign with the US 5th Army.
The Desert Rats, as they referred to themeselves, consisted of British, Aussi, Kiwi, Canadian, Indian, and even some Polish units. […]

I’m on a bit of a war kick lately as my past few trips to the library have brought me past numerous WWII books.
Happened to pick up Erhard Raus’ Panzer Operations, which is basically the wartime diary of Raus, a German general on the Eastern front. It’s mostly tactics and strategy: straightforward history of the […]

I recently finished Hitler 1936-1945 Nemesis, by Ian Kershaw.
The book confirmed a couple of things for me - that the Nazi party transformed the whole country of Germany into a pyramid scheme (as I’ve talked about before) … and that Hitler was seriously, seriously deranged - particularly with regard to his deadly obsession with Jews: […]

I finished reading Cavalcade, by Alison Sinclair this past week. Good book!
It’s science fiction - a novel take on first contact, which is hard to do, as it’s been done and done and done. But not quite to death, as this book proves.
As usual in the best of science fiction, the times and technologies are […]

It’s a guilty pleasure, I admit, but there’s nothing like a good thriller from time to time. And you’d be hard put to find one better than Paul McAuley’s White Devils.
It’s a sort of near-future science-fictional dystopic whirlwind set in an environmentally devastated and severely depopulated Africa. But someone is gene-splicing and small, white, […]

I’ve picked up Rudyard Kipling’s Something of Myself, which, though I’m only 15 or so pages into, is absolutely fascinating … not least of which because of his so-good-you-don’t-even-notice-it writing style.

Last week I read An Enemy Among Friends, an autobiographical story by Kiyoaki Murata.
Kiyoaki was a Japanese student who, through various circumstances, found himself studying - or trying to study - at an American college as war broke out between Japan and the US on the date “whch will live in infamy.”
It’s a fascinating account […]

The year was 1948. The place was Vancouver, Canada.

The street was quite deserted, except for two drunks coming noisily along the sidewalk toward me. For a moment I watched them approach; then I crossed the sidewalk and stood in the gutter, hoping they wouldn’t notice me.
But they did.
Still arguing drunkenly, they paused to look at […]

Sig’s post on the next next (it’s flow, btw) reminds me of Ursula K. LeGuin’s discussion of sequency and simultaneity in Ursula K LeGuin’s The Dispossessed.
I’m not sure if Sig’s really on to something - well, I’m pretty confident he is - but I’m not sure how far to take it. How far can you […]

Two weeks ago I re-read Collapsium, by Wil McCarthy.
The first book of McCarthy’s that I read was Bloom, which was absolutely mind-blowing - exactly the experience you get from top-notch science fiction.
Collapsium is very, very good as well. Imagine a scientist - a shy and awkward scientist, to boot - as the star of an […]

Just finished reading Red Thunder by John Varley.
Good read but not nearly up to his previous effort, The Golden Globe. The book is about a couple of young reasonably disenfranchised Americans who, with the aid of a semi-autistic genius and a disgraced astronaut, build a spaceship to reach Mars ahead of the Chinese.
The book […]

Among the books I’m thinking of picking up is Blink, by Malcom Galdwell …

I’m (still) on a bit of a biography kick. I just finished up The Life and Death of Lenin, by Robert Payne, and I’m working on Martin Niemoller, by James Bentley.
Lenin is extremely eye-opening … offering the sad portrait of a man who caught a tail by the tiger and was forced to ride it […]

Unlimited Access: an FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House is a scary, scary book - even a decade after it was published.
I just happened to pick it off the library shelf last Saturday, picked it up last night, and could hardly put it down.
The revelations that author Gary Aldrich documents about the Clinton era […]

How will future biographers do their work?
I’ve been reading a lot of biography lately, and the vast array of detail and context historians can derive from personal letters is immense. The things is, letters were not throw-away items. They were real, physical, actual pieces of correspondence to be kept and cherished.
What will future biographers do […]

I’m on a bit of a biography kick right now. It’s one of my favorite genres, and when practised well is, in my opinion, full of opportunities for personal growth and understanding.
Backing into the Limelight: a Biography of T.E. Lawrence is the story of Lawrence of Arabia, a fascinating, conflicted figure, by Michael Yardley.
Lawrence […]

I just finished reading Nelson, by David Walder. It’s a biography of Horatio Nelson, Lord Nelson, perhaps the most famous admiral in history.
It’s a great biography - the best are ones that develop a real sense or feeling for the object of the story. Not sympathy, and not something that obscures or obfuscates, just something […]

sparkplug9.com and Sparkplug 9 would like to congratulate Gabrielle Renee Koetsier, age 8, on winning the prestigious Scholastic Canada Lucky’s Magic Treehouse Be An Author Contest!
One of only 10 recipients in Canada, Gabrielle (who recently turned 9) received a Magic Tree House Bookshelf Collection—complete with 28 books from this favourite series and a treehouse bookshelf […]

Nocturne for a Dangerous Man is Marc Matz’s first novel, and it is an absolute smash home run. Wow.
It’s not quite science fiction, not quite murder mystery, not quite spy adventure, but some mixture of them all, with a healthy dose of philosophy, culture, and music thrown in.
(Anti)hero Gavilan Robie is dashing and performs requisite […]