Book recommendation?

[ciceropolo]

For anyone interested in history of early Hollywood, I recently read Fay Wray and Robert Riskin, a Hollywood memoir written by Victoria Riskin. Lots of interesting content on early years of Hollywood and the start of Screen Writers Guild and the unionization movement as well as how life was for actors and writers in the studio system. Robert Riskin writer who partnered with Frank Capra for the string of classics in 1930s - It Happened One Night, Mr Deeds Goes To Town, Meet John Doe and others.

[markg91359]

I suspect the OP has long since moved on. However, if he is still reading this and is interested in book recommendations one of my favorite books that is about 350 pages long is His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis. He covers the important points about Washington and doesn't get bogged down in intricate detail the way that some authors do.

[SunGrins]

I recently read Eric Larson's Splendid and the Vile covering Winston Churchill's efforts to keep Britain's morale up and defended during the Blitz.

Shelby Foote is sometimes criticized these days, but I liked his The Beleaguered City - The Vicksburg Campaign.

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 Sally M. Walker (A munitions ship blew up and killed 2,000 people.)

Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe Laurence Bergreen (A survival story)

Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage that Redrew the Map of the New World Douglas Hunter (He was supposed to be exploring a sea route around the north of Russia, oops.)

House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest Craig Childs (This is an interesting examination of the succession of the Southwest's pueblo-like cultures following the author's notion of an evolution of cultures.)

Unknown Shore: The Lost History of England's Arctic Colony Robert Ruby (Sir Martin Frobisher's attempt to explore and establish a colony in the Canadian Arctic in the 1570s)

Young Stalin Simon Sebag Montefiore (One-dimensional demon, Josef Stalin followed a complex path to power from a very unlikely start.)

One book I always recommend for any history buff's bookshelf is The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events by Bernard Grun, which is a reference book of concurrent events. We often fail to realize what all was happening at the same time. (1642: English civil war began, Cardinal Richelieu died, the Puritans closed all theaters in England, Rembrandt painted "The Night Watch", Galileo died, Isaac Newton born, England started income and property tax).

[bus man]

Originally Posted by SunGrins

One book I always recommend for any history buff's bookshelf is The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events by Bernard Grun, which is a reference book of concurrent events. We often fail to realize what all was happening at the same time. (1642: English civil war began, Cardinal Richelieu died, the Puritans closed all theaters in England, Rembrandt painted "The Night Watch", Galileo died, Isaac Newton born, England started income and property tax).

I had that book a long time ago. Have no idea where it disappeared to, but it's long gone.

I find anything written by Walter Lord to be easily accessible. He had a knack for doing highly detailed research but distilling it all down to a fairly brief, easily digestible and highly interesting format. He is best known for A Night to Remember, about the Titanic. He also tackled Pearl Harbor in Day of Infamy. But my personal favorite work of his is Incredible Victory about the Battle of Midway.

[USC1986]

Some books that I enjoyed:

"The Washing of the Spears" Donald Morris
"The White Nile" and "The Blue Nile" Alan Moorehead
"The Campaigns of Napoleon" David Chandler
"Conquest" Hugh Thomas
" The Forgotten Soldier" Guy Sajer"
" Goodbye to All That" Robert Graves
" Son of the Morning Star" Evan Connell
"Personal Memoirs" U.S. Grant
"Strong Men Armed" Robt. Leckie
" With the Old Breed" Eugene Sledge
"Bugles and a Tiger" John Masters
" The First Day on the Somme" Martin Middlebrook

[Mokba5]

I’d like to recommend Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer, it gives a fairly broad picture of colonial America, showing how the cultures of different areas in the U.S. were determined by the different regions of the British isles that people immigrated from. It is more textbook-ish but that also means you can jump around to different subjects in it that interest you.