On Today’s Bookshelf XXVII

It’s the holiday season and because I am surrounded by books, both for my work and my pleasure, I think about giving books as holiday gifts to family and friends. I would guess that many of you do the same. Consequently, it is time for the my next On Today’s Bookshelf.

There are a goodly number of past On Today’s Bookshelf essays, which you can access by clicking here.

Since my last On Today’s Bookshelf post (On Today’s Bookshelf XXVI), I have acquired the books listed below, among others, for my library. They have been added to my to-be-read pile. Most are hardcovers, but some are ebooks.

Nonfiction –

• Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation by Nicholas Guyatt
• Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel
• The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: Testing the Constitution by Terri Diane Halperin
• Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner by Franny Moyle
• Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 3: The War Years and After, 1939-1962 by Blanche Wiesen Cook (previously purchased volumes 1 and 2)
• American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White
• Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick
• The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War by H.W. Brands
• A Revolution on the Hudson: New York City and the Hudson River Valley in the American War of Independence by George C. Daughan
• No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity by Sarah Haley
• Birth of the Chess Queen: A History by Marilyn Yalom
• The History of the Hudson River Valley: From Wilderness to the Civil War and The History of The Hudson River Valley: From the Civil War to Modern Times (2 vols) by Vernon Benjamin
• The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 by Robert Gellately
• Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips

Fiction –

•  Shadow of Victory by David Weber
• At the Sign of Triumph by David Weber
• Night School by Lee Childs
• Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
• A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George
• The Counterfeit Agent by Alex Berenson
• Shadowfever by Karen Marie Moning
• Oath of Fealty by Elizabeth Moon
• Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick
• The Hermit by Thomas Rydahl
• The Heavens May Fall by Allen Eskens
• Fall from Grace by Tim Weaver

Finally, if you are looking for a great book on the business of editing (to give or receive), check out The Business of Editing: Effective and Efficient Ways to Think, Work, and Prosper (ISBN: 9781434103727), which is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble or directly from the publisher, Waking Lion Press.

Please share with An American Editor your suggestions for good books to give as gifts this holiday season. Also share the books you are hoping to receive as gifts or that you have purchased for your own pleasure reading.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

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On Today’s Bookshelf XXVI

The time since my last On Today’s Bookshelf post (On Today’s Bookshelf XXV) has resulted in some interesting acquisitions for my library as a perusal of the lists below will show.

Interestingly, I have bought (and received) in the current month alone 15 hardcovers and 29 ebooks. Although I bought some of the ebooks at Barnes & Noble, most I bought at Smashwords, which is having its annual July Summer/Winter Sale. If you are an ebook reader, now is the time to head to Smashwords; the sale ends July 31.

The hardcovers I bought in July and list here are the ones I have received. In looking at my records, it appears that I have more on order that are supposed to be delivered by July’s end. Here is the list of July hardcovers received:

Nonfiction –

• Frederick the Great: King of Prussia by Tim Blanning
• The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andres Resendez
• Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler by Stefan Ihrig
• The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren
• In Reckless Hands: Skinner V. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics by Victoria F. Nourse
• The Eugenics Movement: An Encyclopedia by Ruth C. Engs
• The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History by Andrew G. Bostom
• The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings

Fiction –

• Summer Dragon: First Book of the Evertide by Todd Lockwood (Signed Book)
• Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
• Age of Myth: Book One of The Legends of the First Empire by Michael J. Sullivan
• Flag in Exile 20th Anniversary Special Limited Edition by David Weber
• Fellside by M.L. Carey (Signed Book)
• Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator by Claudia Christian and Morgan Grant Buchanan (Signed Book)

I also bought some fiction ebooks. The following is a partial list of the fiction ebooks I bought this month:

• The Collars of Phaleran by Ashely Abbiss
• Ice Station X by V. Bertolaccini
• Ravens in the Sky by Will Bly
• Children of the Trident by B. Albert Brier
• The Ascension Trilogy by David S. Croxford
• The Key by Brian Fisher
• Philippa Barnes Mysteries Books 1-3 by Trish McCormack
• The Blue Folio by Matt McMahon
• The One Hundred by K. Weikel
• The Safanarion Order Books 1-3 by Ken Lozito
• Ties That Bind by Carolyn Arnold
• Forgotten Ages (The Complete Saga) by Lindsay Buroker

Unfortunately for me, those books are not all of the books I have acquired since the last edition of On Today’s Bookshelf. Below is a list of some of the hardcovers and ebooks that I have added to my to-be-read pile since that post:

Nonfiction –

• The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition by Manisha Sinha
• At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others by Sarah Bakewell
• Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck by Adam Cohen
• The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade
• Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion by Susan Jacoby
• Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era by Thomas C. Leonard
• The New Mediterranean Jewish Table: Old World Recipes for the Modern Home by Joyce Goldstein (I also bought copies for gifts)
• A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America by Frederic Cople Jaher
• The Jews and the Nation: Revolution, Emancipation, State Formation, and the Liberal Paradigm in America and France by Frederic Cople Jaher
• Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter H. Wilson
• Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation by Nicholas Guyatt
• Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
• The Paper Trail: An Unexpected History of a Revolution Invention by Alexander Monro
• Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf

Fiction –

• Light in a Dark House by Jan Costin Wagner
• Burned, Pierced, and Scarred (3 novels) by Thomas Enger
• Where Monsters Dwell by Jorgen Brekke
• The Photograph by Beverly Lewis
• Upon a Dark Night by Peter Lovesey
• Cold Shoulder (Lorraine Page Series #1) by Lynda LaPlante
• Crossbones Yard by Kate Rhodes
• Power in the Blood by Michael Lister
• The Serial Killer’s Wife by Robert Smartwood
• Two Strangers by Beryl Matthews
• The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

I mentioned retirement in my last essay (see Thinking About Retirement). Part of my thinking of retirement is looking at the TBR pile and wondering how many years it will take me to read all of the books I currently have in the TBR pile, the ones that I have preordered and will be coming, and the ones I do not currently know about but that I will buy in the coming months. I keep promising myself that I will stop buying books, but buying books is the bane of my editorial existence.

I guess I will never stop buying books, regardless of whether it is likely that I will be able to read them in my remaining years, until the time arrives when I can no longer read. Are you a book buyer? Have you cut back? Do you have plans to stop buying books?

Richard Adin, An American Editor

On Today’s Bookshelf XXV

In the time since my last On Today’s Bookshelf post (On Today’s Bookshelf XXIV) has resulted in some interesting acquisitions for my library. Here is a list of some of the hardcovers and ebooks that I have acquired and added to my to-be-read pile since the last On Today’s Bookshelf post:

Nonfiction –

• The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
• Classical Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 1  by Peter Adamson
• Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 2  by Peter Adamson
• The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism by Ross King
• Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King
• Top Nazi: SS General Karl Wolff by Jochen von Lang
• The Last Jews in Berlin by Leonard Gross
• Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science by Alice Dreger
• The Spanish Armada by Robert Hutchinson
• Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Holocaust’s Hidden Child Survivors by R.D. Rosen
• American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans by Eve LaPlante
• The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War by Tim Butcher
• Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt
• The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush by Howard Blum
• Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series by David Pietrusza
• Childhood at Court, 1819-1914 by John van der Kiste
• Lady Katherine Knollys: The Unacknowledged Daughter of King Henry VIII by Sarah-Beth Watkins
• Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte by Carol Berkin
• The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis by Julie Kavanagh
• The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
• The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels
• Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels
• The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China by Samuel Hawley

Fiction –

• Calamity by Brandon Sanderson
• The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson (signed edition)
• The First Order by Jeff Abbott
• Magic Breaks, Magic Binds, and Magic Shifts (3 books) by Ilona Andrews
• Mutineer, Deserter, and Defiant (3 books) by Mike Shepherd
• The Forest at the Edge of the World, Soldier at the Door, The Mansions of Idumea, and The Falcon in the Barn (Books 1-4 in the Forest at the Edge series) by Trish Mercer
• City of Light: An Outcast Novel by Keri Arthur
• The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett
• The Case Against William by Mark Gimenez
• Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbo
• Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold (signed limited edition)
• The Fatal Flame by Lyndsay Faye
• Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China by Pearl S. Buck

As you are reading this, I am on vacation with my son and one of the places we are stopping is Daedalus Books in Columbia , Maryland. I have bought a lot of books from Daedalus online, and thought I’d like to see their retail store and perhaps add to my collection — especially children’s books, which I am hesitant to buy without having first read the book myself or being familiar with the author.

I recently read something that I plan to discuss in a later essay, but thought I would share now. In discussing John Gillingham’s new book, The EU: An Obituary, the reviewer wrote: “His thesis might be more persuasive if his book were not littered with errors.…” (“The Economist,” May 14, 2016, p. 76). It is just a reminder of the value of a good, professional editor.

Richard Adin, An American Editor