Saturday, September 21, 2019

Starting GWTW


Slip Box of the 25th Anniversary Edition of
GONE WITH THE WIND.

This week I started reading the 1936 novel Gone with the Wind (GWTW) by Margaret Mitchell. At a recent used book sale, I could not pass up a 25th Anniversary edition for only a few bucks. I love this printing: the paper stock is sturdy and the edition is peppered with illustrations by artist Ben Stahl.

The edition also includes a little, 23 page booklet that contains essays about the book, about the author, how the publisher secured the manuscript, several illustrations and figures, and a 1936 NY Times book review.

Front cover of the booklet included
in the 25th Anniversary Edition.

Illustration from the 25th Anniversary booklet.

I have never watched the movie nor read the book. Within the past few years, I picked up an edition or two of the book but have not gotten around to reading it until now. I was so entranced with this edition that I could not help but start to read it. I'm trying to read a chapter each day during my morning reading session. It's a big book - 63 chapters spread out over 954 pages - so it's going to take a while. I'll probably watch the movie once I finish the book.

25th Anniversary Edition (1961) GWTW book.

So far I have finished five (5) chapters and am loving it. I'm spellbound by the characters and the narrative descriptions. How I wish I could write like that.

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Written Saturday 21 September 2019.

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Jackie & Me

Cover of my copy of softbound edition.

I recently picked up another book in Dan Gutman's "Baseball Card Adventure Series." Jackie & Me is about Jackie Robinson. I found a softbound copy (not a paperback) at a recent used book sale. I would have preferred to have the hardback edition but for 50¢ I could not pass up such a deal. 

This is the third book of the series that I have read (but is the second in the series). I previously read about Abner Doubleday and Shoeless Joe (Jackson). They are fun reads that mix fantasy with baseball history.  The book is 145 pages of text with a few extra pages for the Title page, copyright, About the Author, and Jackie Robinson's career statistics.

This edition was published in February 2000 (the hardback was published March 1999). While it is a work of fiction, it loosely covers the historical aspects of the time and is peppered with historical photos (e.g., exterior of Ebbets Field, baseball stadium home of the Brooklyn Dodgers). The final chapter (in each book of the series) is "To The Reader" which clarifies what was fact and what was fiction. In Jackie & Me, the mixture of fact and fiction was something of a challenge due to the discrimination and bigotry that was inflicted on Jackie Robinson.


The back cover presents the summary of the story:
Like every other kid in his class, Joe Stoshack has to write a report on an African American who's made an important contribution to society. Unlike every other kid in his class, Joe has a special talent: with the help of old baseball cards, he can travel through time. So for his report, Joe decides to go back to meet one of the greatest baseball players ever, Jackie Robinson, to find out what it was like to be the man who broke baseball's color barrier. Joe plans on writing a prize-winning report. But he doesn't plan on a trip that will for a short time change the color of his skin - and forever change his view of history and his definition of courage.
Sure, since it's a kids book, it is a bit white-washed but the reader gets the point without having it come down overly strong. During the writing of this post, I realized that this is the 100th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's birth.

I'm looking forward to the next Baseball Card Adventures book that I encounter.
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Sunday, September 8, 2019

The Colonial Wars

Cover of my copy.
General Edward Braddock's doomed British Army marches
into the Pennsylvania wilderness in the summer of 1775.

I picked up this book (The Colonial Wars: Clashes in the Wilderness by Alden R. Carter) for children and young adults at a used book sale yesterday and started to read it immediately (and finished it the next day-today).  It attracted me due to its brevity (64 pages) and a fine collection of illustrations and maps in color.

This is the original print of the colored version on the book's cover (see above).
Braddock's March, drawn by A.B. Frost and engraved by H.B. Hall, Jr.  
From: United States History, by William Cullen Bryant (1881).

The book largely covers the wars in North America prior to the American Revolution. This period is roughly 1688-1760 into the French and Indian War. In my opinion, this is an era of American History that has been neglected in current times and overshadowed by the American Revolution.

My interest in this era was rekindled by my visit in 2014 to Fort Stanwix in Rome, NY and the book and documentary film series that I studied afterwards.  A return trip to Rome for work at the end of August piqued my interest in the history so that I was compelled to purchase this little book.

There is no summary of the book except a brief statement on the copyright page (1992): Chronicles the history of the Colonial Wars, also called the French and Indian Wars, which gave the British control of North America.

The book covers:

  • King William's War (1689-1697):
  • Queen Anne's War (1702-1713);
  • King George's War (1744-1748)
  • French and Indian War (1755-1763)

I will probably read it a few more times since it is so brief. I am going to add an adult version of the history (The Colonial Wars by Howard Peckham, 1964) to my used books list for future reading.

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Links:
http://www.aldencarter.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_Wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2014/04/good-friday-in-rome.html
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-war-that-made-america.html
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-end-of-war.html
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Written Saturday 21 September 2019.

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