Entering the New Year, I look back at my reading list from
the past year. This year, I hit a
personal record 103 books read for the year, but I almost consider that number
cheating. In the summer of 2023, I started
reading during my walking “coffee breaks” during days in the office. I walk a mile in the gym and read while I do
it. Thus, I have managed to go through a
few more books than I have in past years.
Of course, the books I read while gym walking are not deep, 500-page
theological tomes – who wants to carry that around, plus I often read those
with a note pad alongside. That said,
some of the “gym walking” books made it into my list of best books of 2024.
One book that is not listed in any of these posts does not
fit any category but was hugely impactful in my life. As a guy who struggles with blood sugar
issues, I would highly recommend Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power
of Balancing Your Blood Sugar by Jessie Inchauspe to anyone who needs
it.
Here is a list of the best history and biography books I
read this year, along with others I would recommend and a few that
disappointed.
The Savage Storm:
The Battle for Italy, 1943 by James Holland. James Holland’s books occur regularly on my “best
of” lists. He is one of my favorite
military historians right now – a great blend of scholarship, insight and a
writing style that drives the story in a novel-like fashion. This book is about the American, British and
Canadian invasions of Italy and the battles that followed. I am currently reading the sequel to this
book –
Cassino, 1944 – which carries the story on into central Italy. In addition, check out his informative and
chatty podcast – We Have Ways of Making You Talk.
The Necessary War:
Canadians Fighting the Second World War 1939-1943, vol. 1 by Tim
Cook. Tim Cook also shows up regularly
on my best list – he is one of the best Canadian military historians writing
currently.
The Necessary War is
the first volume of his history of the Canadian military during World War
2. He covers it all – land, sea and air
– with an interesting style, discussing both the decisions made in Ottawa as
well as the experiences of the average soldier, sailor and flyer. Volume 2 –
Fight to the Finish – is in
my “to read” pile for this year.
King: A Life
by Jonathon Eig. This is a fascinating
and very balanced biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Eig does not stand him on a pedestal, but
neither does he spend the whole book in character assassination. There is much about Dr. King that is
praiseworthy, like his courage and commitment to civil rights that was rooted
in a biblical foundation. That said, Dr.
King was far from a paragon of personal virtue – the book makes it clear he was
a serial adulterer during his lengthy marriage to his wife.
The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans. The years between the world wars of the 20
th
century were a painful, troubled time, nowhere more so in Interwar
Germany.
The Coming of the Third
Reich is the first volume in Evans’ trilogy on the Nazi Party prior to and
during World War 2. In this volume,
Evans tells the story of how the political and economic fiasco that was the
Weimar Republic ushered in circumstances that enabled Hitler to from obscurity
to power in a few short years.
The Cold War: A
New History by John Lewis Gaddis. We
have achieved enough historical distance from events such as the Cold War to
enable historians to write insightful books about those events. Gaddis’ book is an example of this – this is
high level history that shows the trends and decisions of those decades,
whether made in Washington or Moscow, and focuses especially on the importance
of individual actors (Pope John Paul II, Reagan, Thatcher, Solidarity in
Poland) who made choices and took stands that finally broke the world out of
the Cold War stasis.
Challenger: A True
Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham. I
am not an engineer – I leave that to sons-in-laws and nephews – but even as a
non-engineer, I was both fascinated and horrified by this book. It reads like a gripping detective story; a
cover-up of serious design flaws in the Space Shuttle and the brave people who
risked their livelihood to expose them against the will of government
functionaries. Unfortunately, good
people had to die before that happened.
And as Higginbotham makes clear, even after the Challenger disaster, the
bureaucrats at NASA did not learn their lesson.
Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of
Social Engineering by Malcolm Gladwell.
My brother-in-law Stephen has recommended Gladwell’s books to me more
than once. When I saw this one on sale
at Costco, I figured I would give it a try.
What a fascinating book. Gladwell
is the one who popularized the idea of a “tipping point” that brings about
change. But what happens when the
tipping point is misused, manipulated or leads to tragedy? What happens when people use the tipping
point as an opportunity for social engineering?
Covering topics like COVID-19, gay marriage and opioid epidemic,
Gladwell shows what happens when the tipping point becomes a tool in the hands
of society.
The Eastern Front:
A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 by Nick Lloyd. This is a follow-up to Lloyd’s previous book
on the Western
Front in World War 1.
Lloyd covers the initial battles on the Russian front, the battles over
Serbia, the Italian front, the war in the Balkans and the immediate aftermath
of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Especially fascinating are his discussions of the relationship between
Germany and its weaker partner Austria-Hungary as well as the internal debates
of the leaders of the Entente about where and how to use their military
resources to bring about victory on the battlefield.
More great books,
although not quite good enough to make it to my best list:
Leyte
Gulf: A New History of the World’s
Largest Sea Battle by Mark E. Stille
Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age by Tom
Holland
The Blazing
World: A New History of Revolutionary
England, 1603-1689 by Jonathon Healey
Our Last Best
Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril by King Abdullah II of
Jordan
Our Ancient
Faith: Lincoln, Democracy and the
American Experiment by Allen C. Guelzo
There Will be
Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA and Two
Minutes that Changed History by Rory Caroll
The Impulse of
Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at Chattanooga
by David A Powell
The Murder of
Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield by H. W. Brands
The Mounties
March West: The Epic Trek and Early
Adventures of the Mounted Police by Tony Hollihan
President
Garfield: From Radical to Unifier by
C. W. Goodyear
The Rise of
the G. I. Army: 1940-41, The Forgotten Story of How America Forged a Powerful
Army Before Pearl Harbor by Paul Dickson
The Wide, Wide
Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact
and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides
Throne of
Grace: A Mountain Man, An Epic Adventure
and the Bloody Conquest of the American West by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin
Left for
Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery and Survival
at the Edge of the World by Eric Jay Dolin
Monte
Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell by Peter
Caddick-Adams
Against All
Odds: The Untold Story of Canada’s
Unlikely Hockey Heroes by P. J. Naworynski
Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike
by Brian Castner
The End of
Everything: How Wars Descend into
Annihilation by Victor Davis Hanson
An Unfinished
Love Story: A Personal History of the
1960’s by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Checkpoint
Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall
and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Iain MacGregor
Snow and
Steel: The Battle of the Bulge 1944-45
by Peter Caddick-Adams
White Knights
in the Black Orchestra: The Extraordinary
Story of the Germans who Resisted Hitler by Tom Dunkel
The Holy
Fox: The Life of Lord Halifax by
Andrew Roberts
House of
Lilies: The Dynasty that made Medieval
France by Justine Firnhaber-Baker
Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest
Warrior King by Dan Jones
The Darkest
Summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950: The Battles That Saved South Korea--and the
Marines--from Extinction by Bill Sloan
Books that
disappointed on some level:
Children of
Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
by Neil Price (he lost me when he mused extensively about “transgender
Vikings…”)
Battle for the
Island Kingdom: England’s Destiny
1000-1066 by Don Hollway ( I am not sure how one can make such an
interesting time filled with interesting characters such a dull read)
The Bone Ships by R. J. Barker. A third surprise and another super cheap
Kindle purchase. This is the first book
of the Tide Child Trilogy. Barker does
some wonderful world-building, creating a fantasy world ruled by sea power and
ships that are crafted from the bones of sea monsters. But, what happens when the sea monsters die
off? Or when one last sea monster
appears again? This is swashbuckling
naval adventure at its finest. And the
best part – no foul language and no sexual content! Just a great story.
