Friday, July 16, 2010

Summer Reading...

Among the various activities this summer, including the recent wedding, gardening, biking and working out, I also like to read for pleasure. Last summer I made a moderate dent in the works of William Faulkner.
This summer started with "They Fought Alone" by John Keats (not, of course, the English poet). It tells of the experience of Lt. Col. Wendell Fertig, who commanded a major resistance effort against the Japanese on the island of Mindanao during WWII. Several hundred un-surrendered American soldiers (many had been mining engineers on the island prior to the war) as well as many thousand filipinos, improvised an active resistence during the period 1942-45.
My great-uncle was among them and one of a relative handful of Americans killed during the period; I am trying to learn as much as I can about it. ("Relative handful" does not include the thousands of American and British military and civilians who died in captivity, I should add.)
I've always enjoyed Robert Graves novels (like I, Claudius) so this summer I've got "Count Belisarius" and "King Jesus". A great storyteller with scholarly knowledge of the ancient world.
And I've got a recorded book of Robert Crais "L.A. Requiem", a detective novel I just happened to find. I've been taking long long walks as part of my exercise program; audio books are great for that.

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