On Today’s Bookshelf (XV)

Here is a list of some of the books that I am reading (or acquired and added to my to-be-read pile since the last On Today’s Bookshelf post) either in hardcover or in ebook form:

Nonfiction –

• Harry Truman and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Shogan
• The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 by Maristella Posttiani & Zvi Eckstein
• Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
• The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election by Zachary Karabell
• The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision by Henry Kamen
• Ghettostad: Lodz and the Making of a Nazi City by Gordon J. Horwitz
• Eichmann’s Jews: The Jewish Administration of Holocaust Vienna, 1938-1945 by Doron Rabinovici
• The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997 by Piers Brendan
• The History of the Renaissance World by Susan Wise Bauer
• The Heavens are Empty: Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod by Avrom Bendavid-Val
• Understanding the Book of Mormon by Grant Hardy
• Would You Kill the Fat Man? The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong by David Edmonds
• A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination From Persecution to Genocide by Alon Confino
• Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition by David Nirenberg
• The Internal Enemy: Slavery and the War in Virginia 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor
• Glorious Misadventures: Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of a Russian America by Owen Matthews
• An Idea Whose time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Todd S. Purdum
• The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD by Simon Schama
• The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne
• Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson
• Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
• Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker
• The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today by Kevin Bales
• Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin by Neal Bascomb
• Wilson by Scott A. Berg
• Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte by Carol Berkin
• Lucrezia Borgia by Sarah Bradford
• The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
• To Kill Rasputin : The Life and Death of Gregori Rasputin by Andrew Cook
• The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America’s Most Progressive Era by Douglas R. Egerton
• The Borgias and Their Enemies: 1431-1519 by Christopher Hibbert
• Voting for Hitler and Stalin: Elections under 20th Century Dictatorships edited by Ralph Jessen & Hedwig Richter
• Social Democratic America by Lane Kenworthy
• Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King
• The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy’s Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici by Elizabeth Lev
• Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin’s Plot for Global Revolution by Giles Milton
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Fiction –

• Blood Land by R.S. Guthrie
• Cauldron of Ghosts by David Weber & Eric Flint
• Rex Regis by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
• Like a Mighty Army by David Weber
• The One-Eyed Man by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
• Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb
• Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
• One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
• The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson (a 10-book omnibus)
• The Bat by Jo Nesbo
• The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin
• Death Is Not the End by Ian Rankin
• The Ludwig Conspiracy by Oliver Potzsch
• The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Potzsch
• The Dark Monk by Oliver Potzsch
• Freeman by Leonard Pitts
• The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett
• The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter
• Witch Wraith by Terry Brooks
• Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini

I acquired most of the nonfiction books in hardcover and most of the fiction books in ebook.

Alas, I wish I could say that the above list represents all of the books I have added to my library since the last listing, but it doesn’t. I calculated that if I retired today and read four books every week, I would need more than 30 years to read all of the books I have acquired. Fortunately, most of the books are in ebook form (I have acquired more fiction than nonfiction) and I am trying to restrain my purchases.

I have found this to be the primary negative to my being an editor — I never seem to have enough books on hand, always want more, and spend much more than I should on books. On the other hand, editing provides me with a sufficient income to support my book addiction.

I admit that feeding my book addiction was less costly before ebooks. The ease of storage of ebooks encourages me to acquire books for future reading that I wouldn’t acquire if I had to acquire them in print form; in the latter case, I would wait until I had reduced my to-be-read pile significantly.

I also note that once I started acquiring ebooks, I also increased my hardcover acquisitions. My son claims (tongue in cheek) he will be able to have a comfortable retirement just from the sale of my library.

What books have you acquired in recent months that you would recommend being added to the TBR pile?