On Today’s Bookshelf (XXII)

They say summer is the time for reading. I suppose that is based on the assumption that a person has more time to read while on vacation. Personally, I do not see any difference in my reading habits or the time I spend reading for pleasure (or work, for that matter). So, my acquisition of new titles to read never ends. Here is a list of some of the hardcovers and ebooks that I am reading or acquired and added to my to-be-read pile since the last On Today’s Bookshelf post:

Nonfiction –

• The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 by Alistair Horne
• Napoleon’s Poisoned Chalice: The Emperor and His Doctors on St Helena by Martin Howard
• A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain by Marc Morris
• The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England’s Self-Made King by Ian Mortimer
• The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England: 1327-1330 by Ian Mortimer
• The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville by Clare Mulley
• Treacherous Women: Sex, Temptation and Betrayal by Gordon Kerr
• Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson
• The Queen’s Agent: Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England by John Cooper
• The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism by Deborah Baker
• The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997 by Piers Brendon
• Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford
• The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg
• Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
• Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen
• Monster by Allan Hall
• The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World by Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone
• The Man Who Would Not Be Washington: Robert E. Lee’s Civil War and His Decision That Changed American History by Jonathan Horner
• The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones by Thomas Asbridge
• KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann
• Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna & Benjamin Shapell
• The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal by Hubert Wolf

Fiction –

• The Darkest Hour by Tony Schumacher
• Blood Song and Tower Lord by Ryan Anthony (2 books)
• Critical Error by Murray McDonald
• A Maiden’s Grave by Jeffrey Deaver
• The Defenders of Shannara: The Darkling Child by Terry Brooks
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Dreamfever by Karen Marie Moning

Nonfiction Books I’m Thinking About –

These books I am but a keyboard away from ordering. Some are from authors I have previously read, but others are just ones that keep drawing me back.

• The Story of Science by Susan Wise Bauer
• The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe by E.M. Rose
• The Paradox of Liberation by Michael Walzer
• Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography by Sara Lipton
• The Last Slave Market: Dr, John Kirk and the Struggle to End the African Slave Trade by Alastair Hazell
• Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed

What are you reading this summer?

Rich Adin, An American Editor

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