Another month, another stack of books...

1. Aaronovitch, Ben. Midnight Riot. Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 2011. (A)

With its strong emphasis on police procedure and coping with implacable forces I'm reminded of Diana Rowland's "Kara Gillian" stories, as self-sabotaging Peter Grant (who is barely hanging on to his career of as a London policeman) ( Read more... )

The usual collection of genre fiction, history and military hardware:

1. Barlow, Jeffrey G. From Hot War to Cold: The U.S. Navy and National Security Affairs, 1945-1955. Stanford University Press, 2009. (B)

A workmanlike institutional history of how the United States Navy adapted to the creation of the Department of Defense and the inception of ( Read more... )

Not that I was expecting one, but it would beat the hell out of dwelling on inexplicable massacres of the innocents, moronic right-wing politicians, or driving home for Christmas in the teeth of the first big storm of the season.

1. Ahmed, Saladin. Throne of the Crescent Moon. DAW Books, 2012. (A)

Having set up an imaginary world of Islamic flavor, but not so Islamic as to agitate the true believers, this fantasy is notable for how all the point of view characters, be they old magic users or young warriors, are afflicted with either a sense of failed duty or of the wrong ( Read more... )

...another stinkin' book list.

1. Billington, David P. & Donald C. Jackson. Big Dams of the New Deal Era: A Confluence of Engineering and Politics. University of Oklahoma Press, 2006. (B-)

An episodic examination of how the agricultural development mission of the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's concerns with river ( Read more... )

While I'm feeling a bit sorry for the folks in New Jersey and points north, that Virginia had a relatively easy time of it is something I give thanks for.

I was expecting things to be at least as bad as when the derecho storm at the tail-end of June blasted through here.

It's over.

Apart from sorting out the finances.

I can go back to thinking about things other than the convention.

1. Clark, Katerina. Moscow, the Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931-1941. Harvard University Press, 2011. (C)

When it's all said and done this effort to analyze Soviet politics through the prism of literary/cultural theory fell flat for me. While I'm not going to say that Clark is attempting to ( Read more... )

It was spent at used-book sales and entering the new acquisitions into Library Thing.

The next question is whether I want to do happy hour at one of the local brew pubs or save my money.

1. Ballantine, Pip & Tee Morris. Phoenix Rising. Harper Voyager, 2011. (C+)

I wish I could say that I liked this novel better, particularly due to how the authors really tried to build some interesting protagonists, develop a screw-ball relationship between the two, and give you an interesting set of interlocking conspiracies. Part of the problem is ( Read more... )