Pararescue: The Skill And Courage Of The Elite 106th Rescue Wing by Michael Hirsh- I cannot say enough about how exciting this book is! The story is one of super human strength, mind boggling concentration and courage under immense pressure. The attention to detail puts the reader in the action and right there in the spray!
Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors In The Civil War by Michael J. Bennett- It is very hard to write a book about a boring topic (Bennett delves into the boredom experienced by many Union Jacks) and make it so very interesting. What helps this book is a) the unique nature of the book and b) the colorfulness of the topic writ large. Belt buckle views of Civil War solders abound, but there are VERY few books written on the sailors that manned blockage ships and river gun boats. While not very exciting (great details of battle are not present) I was interested all the way through.
Pickard County Atlas: A Novel by Chris Harding Thornton- As the author describes this one is "a slow burn." But boy does it burn! Small towns, hopeless characters and a tight plot that leaves you hanging until the last few pages. While this one took me a minute to get into, it had my attention from page one. Something about the way it unfolded kept me guessing. Tightly written and bound up. Anyone trying to get away from the hum-drum drum beat novels would love this one!
Pitch by Pitch: My View of One Unforgettable Game by Bob Gibson and Lonnie Wheeler- To read this book is a little like listening to a baseball game on the radio. The action of the actual event is enough to keep you vaguely interested BUT the space between filled by a good broadcaster keeps you wanting for more. While the pitch by pitch description is an interesting insight into Gibson's mind, the little rabbit trails and crow flies stories are the real meat. It gets a little confusing sometimes, and I took a little while to get used to them, this is still worth your time if you are baseball fan of the 1960's.
Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy by Earl J Hess- Reading this was like reading an almost 280 page script of Real Housewives of Atlanta. Braxton Bragg was not well liked, and did not make it all that easy to like him. We get it. He messed up, we get it. I do not see needing that many pages to let us know about this. Either the subject matter (and countless back and forths between a myriad of subordinates and superiors) or the general boring nature of Bragg's service, but I found myself skipping large portions of this book. Maybe there was something buried deep in there that I just missed, but I don't think this book needed to be as long as it was to describe all the pettiness passed between Bragg and those around. Pull my southern card, but in reading this book, it makes a lot more sense why the south lost the Civil War. Too much brain space wasted fighting a war in the papers and between themselves and not on the actual battlefield. For the same reason, this one lost me too. Too much detail on issues that really didn't matter except to the story
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