September 2013 archive

Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King

I recently finished the Dark Tower series, which is mostly fantasy rather than horror, so I had forgotten how utterly creepy Stephen King’s imagination can be. I had been of the opinion that King peaked in the 80’s and had lost his touch since then, but this collection of stories has forced me to revise …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2013/09/28/nightmares-and-dreamscapes-by-stephen-king/

The Early History of Rome by Livy

One thing is clear from this history: from the founding of the Republic, class warfare was endemic to Rome. Rome was perpetually at war with her neighbors, but was politically at war with herself for much of her history. It seems the aristocracy used war and external threats as a means to stall the popular …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2013/09/21/the-early-history-of-rome-by-livy/

The Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor

The writing and the research of this book is first rate, but still, reading endless accounts of the orgy of mass rape committed by the Red Army in 1945 is quite disheartening. Stalin from the beginning intended that the Soviet army would reach Berlin before the Western Allies, but he deliberately misled Churchill and Eisenhower …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2013/09/18/the-fall-of-berlin-1945-by-antony-beevor/

An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson

This book goes a long way toward dismissing the notion that America’s triumph in World War II was inevitable. Operation Torch in North Africa was full of mistakes and setbacks for the Allies, with generals blaming each other for failures and British and Americans viewing each other with contempt and mistrust. The French, contrary to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2013/09/04/an-army-at-dawn-by-rick-atkinson/