McSweeney's 44

I like Jim Shepard's "The Ocean of Air", a fictionalization of the Montgolfier brothers. The rest of the stories didn't do much for me.

Ford: We Never Called Him Henry

I was expecting a lot more from Ford: We Never Called Him Henry. It's very bare bones -- given the "as told to . . ." it reads like a series of anecdotes told over drinks or dinner. There's little context, few conclusions, and the editorial notes (not the words of Mr. Bennett) are dry and rarely relevant.

At least it's an easy read, but even as a supplement to the history of Ford, there's not much here.

Shattered Sword

Shattered Sword offers a new perspective on the Battle of Midway -- previous English accounts had been based off of mainly American combat records, and a few Japanese sources. The authors here have seen some primary Japanese sources (ships' logs, etc) translated into English for the first time, and as such are able to provide clarification on how events actually occurred.

Worth checking out if you're very interested in this particular area of history.

The Black Jacobins

C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobins is a classic for a reason. What we have is a fascinating narrative of how the Haitian Revolution stemmed from and paralleled the French, as well as how the slave result took the ideals of the French Revolution to their logical end.

James builds a clear narrative that is usually easy to follow, pointing out and correcting errors and misconceptions that other historians have had or perpetuated.

One of the issues with James is that he'll introduce a figure in passing, then repeatedly refer to him later. I'm not sure his index is always good at picking up the first reference to some of the more obscure figures, either.

Probably the biggest criticism I have of this work is that James is occasionally oblique -- he doesn't elaborate well on why the conflict between L'Ouverture and Rigaud was inevitable or necessary. And will occasionally refer to something he'd elaborated on previously as only the "[date] incident", which necessitates flipping back and forth.

An interesting part of the work is how obviously written from a socialist perspective it is, as James interprets events leading up to, and of both revolutions through the (as yet unwritten) lens of Marx. Some of these interpretations are insightful, but other times James ascribes feelings to the people (typically the French peasants) that they may not necessarily have held.

Another interesting part of the work is how James casts the anti-slavery efforts of the British as not motivated solely by altruism and a belief in justice/equality/etc, but in that Haiti required much more slave labor than any British possession, and the colony would have been economically crippled without it. Thus, British anti-slavery sentiment was propped up by a desire to harm France's interests.

I don't know if this is the definitive work on the Haitian Revolution (initially published in 1938, and James annotates his references in the second edition, that this was written during European domination of Africa, and prior to the Second World War), but it's well worth the read.

Sled Driver

Brian Shul's Sled Driver opens with an introduction where he promises that this isn't necessarily a technical book:

This is not a story of the making of the SR-71 , nor is it a technical digest of the
many intriguing facts and figures about the plane. . . Instead, this book is one man's view
of what it was like to fly the world's fastest jet.

 This is, of course, fine with me, and what follows are a series of anecdotes about the author's time with the SR-71, from his training to seeing the final flight of the plane as the last model was transferred to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

The good: there's a lot of interesting material here, even given that Shul glosses over the actual missions for the most part (which of course makes sense, given the nature of the SR-71's duties.

The bad: the overall tone is akin to the narration of Starship Troopers, and many passages end abruptly (and not just because what would follow would be classified)

The verdict: an easy read with interesting flying stories, so try it if you can find it.

I understand that this is out of print, so I'd recommend seeing if there's a version for the Kindle or if it's available used somewhere.

The Cheater's Guide to Baseball

The Cheater's Guide to Baseball is a fun read, if nothing else. Covered here are such diverse topics as groundskeeping for an advantage, stealing signs, doctoring the ball, gambling, and steroid usage. Zumsteg maintains a relatively lighthearted tone throughout, not venturing much into moralizing until we get to gambling and steroids. As he says, cheating helped create the modern game (with pitchers no longer delivering the ball in a place the batter calls for, in trick pitches, corking the bat, etc)

Worth picking up, if you're interested in baseball.

The Three Musketeers

I realize that I've filed The Three Musketeers under "historical fiction", which isn't altogether accurate -- yes, this is fiction set in the past, but it's almost an alternate history type of fiction; while some of the characters portrayed here (Louis XIII, Cardinal Richeliu, Anne of Austria, the Duke of Buckingham, D'Artagnan himself) are clearly historical, the specific interactions are not. Also, in "I am a big dummy" news, the author's preface states that the following novel is based entirely on some obscure memoirs he found. Imagine my surprise when I realized this wasn't a literary device, but an admission he was borrowing from an earlier novel.

Dumas sets a good pace and keeps it up -- the novel never drags, which is impressive for something that was originally serialized, as that can tend to lead to filler. The one exception was later in the novel, when one character was imprisoned, and there were several chapters from their viewpoint that I didn't find particularly engaging.

The one criticism I would make was that while the musketeers are trusted members of the king's guard, the scope seems a little small, and the denouement seems out-of-place and petty, as does the resolution to another conflict. But this is a fun, well-paced novel that's worth reading once.