The Best of 2015

I read more - and more widely - in 2015 than any year in my life. Looking back through this year's blog entries, I've documented 100 books since January 1. Many have been wonderful, a greater number have been informative, and a few have been downright forgettable. I have read more highly-anticipated new releases this year, from Go Set a Watchman (which, I'm sorry, I hated) to In the Unlikely Event...(which made me want to find my Judy Blume collection from childhood and read it all over again) to Dead Wake and the Wright Brothers, titles by two of my favorite non-fiction writers that delivered exactly what I expected.

Given the extent of this year's reading list, I've decided to shake it up a bit from past years. Rather than providing a straight list of books with a date of review and synopsis, I've decided to categorize this year. So, without further ado, my favorite books of 2015:

Non-fiction:

Despite declaring two years ago that I should read less of war and disease, I seem to have read plenty of war books, if not disease. The war genre seems to encompass primarily the American Civil War, World War I, and World War II. The best Civil War book I read this year was easily They Fought Like Demons, which tells the story of female soldiers in the war, including one who gave birth while on picket duty. This is an aspect of the war about which I knew virtually nothing, and was deeply interesting to learn about.

Moving chronologically, the best World War I books were easily The Last of the Doughboys, which I read in January, but was in fact one of the very best books I read the entire year, and Over the Top, which one could argue belongs more to the memoir category. Arthur Guy Empey captures the language and atmosphere of the trenches so thoroughly, though, that I would be remiss not to call this a book of war, and give it its due here.

As for World War II, in the European theater, The Last Jews in Berlin is the amazing and moving story of a handful of Jews who managed to go underground right under Hitler's nose and survive the war by dint of wit, luck, and frequently the goodness of strangers. It is simultaneously heartbreaking and heartening. Moving to the other side of the world, Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors provides a compelling glimpse of the last major naval engagement of the war - and, thus far, in history. It is one of the most riveting, explosive accounts of the war I've read. Like They Fought Like Demons, it also gave me new perspective on an aspect of the war about which I knew very little before reading this book.

Anyone who has followed this blog for the past few months knows that I've also read a heady dose of memoirs. I have said it before, but James Herriot and the Gilbreths are a balm for the soul. Herriot's anecdotes of life as a country vet in England from the 1930s to the 50s transport the reader to a time and place that no longer exists. They're also frequently hilarious. As for the Gilbreths, they, too, provide a window into a lost world, both in terms of time and place, but also in terms of a lifestyle. Does anyone have 12 children anymore??

Fiction:

Readers of this blog will know that, one, I read far less fiction than non-fiction and, two, that what fiction I do read is almost without exception of the historical variety. Having said that, I read a handful of truly excellent novels this year. They range from I Shall Be Near You, the tear-jerking tale of a new wife who goes off to fight alongside her husband in the Union Army (and, yes, this book inspired my reading of the previously mentioned Demons), to the much-acclaimed All the Light We Cannot See (which is as good as advertised). In the same vein, I enjoyed The Paris Architect as much as any novel I read this year. Lucien Bernard begins as a coward and ends as a hero, which is the most a reader can ask of a character whose success they're rooting for, even if, at times, against their better judgment.

Moving away from war-time fiction, Under a Dark Summer Sky set in the Jim Crow-era Florida Keys against the backdrop of the most powerful hurricane to ever strike the United States, combines the suspense of a natural disaster with the mystery of an attempted murder, spun around larger questions of morality. I also very much liked Ahab's Wife. Sena Jeter Naslund has envisioned a lively history for the wife of Captain Ahab (yes, he of Moby Dick fame). This story sees Ahab's wife, Una, through numerous adventures, a few of which veer just the other side of believable, but ultimately this is an excellent story filled with some of the finest prose I encountered all year.

Finally, I would be remiss not to include Meely LaBauve here, as the single most light-hearted and fun book I read all year. Light-hearted may be a bit of stretch given that Meely is a motherless boy with an alcoholic, absentee father, and his own share of troubles with the law. Still, Meely's spirit infuses this book, and I remember it fondly as perhaps the most entertaining book I read in 2015.

Happy New Year and Happy Reading!

Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring

Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring (not to be confused with Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle...) is the history of the Richard Sorge Soviet spy ring that operated in Japan for nearly a decade, from 1933 to 1941. The Sorge ring is credited with providing Stalin some of the most crucial intelligence he received regarding Japan's intentions towards the USSR, leading him to go so far as to remove divisions of troops from Siberia and use them against German forces in the west, possibly turning the tide of the entire war.

That said...

I've been dawdling with Target Tokyo for the better part of six weeks now. The topic (espionage) interest me, as does the time period (immediate pre-war period) and location (Japan). There's no questioning the quality of research Gordon W. Prange has put into this work, and it is well written to boot.

That said...

I'm sorry, but it's just a bit dull. In fact, after six weeks of on-and-off reading, I've only just reached the half-way point, and haven't determined whether I will continue. Prange has included virtually every detail about every individual connected to the ring. As research, it's masterful, but as reading, frankly, it's a bit boring.

The ultimate verdict?

For World War II-era espionage, give me Operation Mincemeat any day of the week.

What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age

After a heavy load of non-fiction, I needed some lighter reading this week. Renée Rosen's What the Lady Wants has been on my Nook for ages, and now seemed a good time to dig in. 

What the Lady Wants is the story of the 30-plus year affair of Marshall Field and his mistress, Delia Spencer Caton, aka Mrs. Arthur Caton. As Rosen explains in her author's note at the end of the book. Marsh and Dell, as they were known to their intimates, were very real people who engaged in a very real affair; Rosen relied on a few historical records and her own rich imagination to create the rest of the pieces - the most important of which, in my opinion, is Paxton Lowry.

Without giving the story away, I will say that I felt Rosen created highly plausible motives for both Marsh and Dell. What the Lady Wants was not the best fiction I read this year (more on what was in my year end post later this week), but it is a strong story and a pleasurable read. Rosen gets bonus points for giving the city of Chicago a starring role, right alongside the men and women who built it.

Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

Part Flyboys, and part Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, James M. Scott's Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor, is the story of the 16 B-25 bomber crews who took off from the Hornet in April 1942 inflicting somewhat minor damage on Japan's infrastructure, but a heavy toll on its psyche.

Doolittle was already famous before he planned and led this daring raid. A stunt pilot and early aviator, he was already a flight instructor in World War I. By the second world war, his reputation was such that men leapt at the chance to serve with him. As such, the Air Corps had no difficulty finding volunteers for a top-secret and highly dangerous mission, the details of which the men themselves would not learn until after the Hornet had put out to sea.

The raid itself was remarkable primarily for being the first time the Japanese home islands had ever come under attack from a foreign enemy, setting the stage for the later attacks that would flatten so many of Japan's cities - to say nothing of the nuclear bombs that would end the war. It was also remarkable for the scope and scale of retaliation by Japan directed at China, where 15 of the 16 bomber crews landed after the raid. While the final tally will never be known, an estimated 250,000 Chinese civilians became victims of the Japanese as a direct result of the raid.

Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor sheds light on one of the early actions against the Japanese, one that has been rather forgotten, consigned to the shadows of such places as Iwo Jima, the Midway, and the Coral Sea. For history enthusiasts, Scott's work offers an opportunity to learn more about this turning point in the war.

The Fifties

Truman. Ike. McCarthy. Elvis. Marilyn. MLK. Brown v. Board. McDonald's.

David Halberstam takes all the touchpoints of that most-famous decade and weaves them together in a narrative that explores how technology upended so much of American life, how the consumer culture was born, the first mega-stars created, and so many truths sugar coated.  

Indeed, The Fifties is a heroic work, for its breadth, if not its depth. Some chapters - such as those on the evolution of sports and the creation of the first mega corporations (the aforementioned McDonald's, along with Holiday Inn and the now-defunct E. J. Korvette) - left me wanting more. Others, particularly on literature and the Soviet menace, saw me skimming.

Taken together, though, this is a very well-done book that provides the reader with a true sense of the zeitgeist. Volumes have been written about any one of the individuals and events Halberstam includes. Halberstam does not give the impression that The Fifties is intended as the authoritative text on any one event, but rather that the book provides background and context for the decade and how, taken together, the events of the decade shaped all that came after. (Not least the entire generation that came of age during this time.)

Well-research, well-constructed, and well-written, The Fifties is still a bit of a slog. Let's face it: 700 pages on a very narrow period in American history can't help but verge into textbook territory. Ultimately, Halberstam's work is probably best left to history enthusiasts.

Every Living Thing

Every Living Thing is the fifth and final installment in James Herriot's wonderful collection of memoirs of life as a country vet in North Yorkshire from the 1930s to 1950s. The series began with Herriot as a newly qualified vet seeking work in All Creatures Great and Small, eventually progressed to newly-married, enlisted-airman Herriot in All Things Wise and Wonderful and now concludes with Herriot as an established presence in the dales, his children school-aged, his practice thriving. (For the curious: books two and four are All Things Bright and Beautiful and The Lord God Made Them All.)

Every Living Thing was every little thing I've come to expect from Herriot by now: well-written, humorous, sweet (without being "owerly" sappy), filled with the essence of a time and place that no longer exist. By the 1950s, Herriot and his partner, Siegfried, are (at the urging of their newly qualified assistant!) diving into small animal work, which is clearly the wave of the future. In that way, the anecdotes that fill this volume take place as often in the surgery as in the open fields.

The book - and memoirs - end in a good place: it's clear that by the late 1950s, the major shifts - toward antibiotics and more extensive operations and away from draught horses and hand-milking, for example - have already taken place. Thought Herriot continued to practice for many years, the real story has already been told. That said, I admit to a pang of sadness upon completing this series.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo

I wanted to like this book. It was recommended to me by someone whose reading tastes I respect, and is well-regarded by, seemingly, almost all of the reviewers on Amazon. Alas, after 333 pages, I quit.

First the positives: Irving Stone does an excellent job capturing the essence of Renaissance Italy, and in particular, of the role of the Church. Florence and Rome both come alive, and it is easy to picture a young Michelangelo wandering the streets and alleys, on his way to the baths or to meet with a patron.

That said, The Agony and the Ecstasy delved too deeply, I felt into too much, from Michelangelo's dissections, to the mechanics of stone cutting, to the machinations of the various cardinals against one another. Essentially, it got bogged down by names and places and dates. There were but a handful of characters I could consistently recognize and I frequently found myself flipping back through a dozen or more pages in an attempt to place a character who reappeared.

Michelangelo was surely one of the great artists in history. That might be about as much as I need to know.

Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean

Les Standiford's Last Train to Paradise opens aboard the rescue train that was sent to save the World War I veterans who comprised the bulk of the WPA workers laboring in Keys at the height of the Great Depression - in the midst of the most powerful hurricane to ever strike the U.S.

After setting the scene with the rescue train, Standiford moves backward in time, from the last train to traverse the keys, to Henry Flagler's singular determination to lay tracks across the ocean (up to seven miles at a stretch) and ride the first train across the Keys. In many ways, Last Train is as much a biography of Flagler as it is a history of the railroad from Miami to Key West.

Flagler is a fascinating guy: a millionaire many times over from his Standard Oil partnership with Rockefelle, he essentially got bored of the Gilded Age life and essentially created Florida as a destination for the moneyed classes. I learned of him for the first time when I visited St. Augustine a few years ago, but even then wasn't aware of the extent of his role in Florida-as-playground. Gradually, he laid tracks and built resorts from the state's north to its southernmost point, and then across the ocean to Key West. The latter was quite an undertaking, as one would imagine, and is Standiford's focus, from the labor force (Spanish and Cayman Islanders were most preferred), to the engineering tactics that allowed the supports to be sunk into deep waters and shifting sands (German concrete was the secret), to the troubles that beset construction (mostly hurricanes). Indeed, many experts have described Flagler's railroad as an engineering feat on par with the Panama Canal.

Standiford then circles back to the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 with which he began, which would ultimately wipe out most of the middle keys, and Flagler's dream of a railroad along with it.

Although I had no idea Last Train included an account of the storm (in hindsight, this is obvious, I know), I was especially interested in Standiford's recounting of the hurricane, as just a few months ago I read Under a Dark Summer Sky, which is a fictional account of the same storm. For those interested in hurricane reading, the fictional account or Isaac's Storm (Galveston hurricane of 1900), make for a more satisfying read. For a comprehensive history of how a man shaped a state's destiny, it would be hard to beat Last Train.