Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Siegfried Sassoon. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer: The Memoirs of George Sherston. New York: Coward, McCann. 1930. Print.

First Sentences:

I have said that Spring arrived late in 1916, and that up in the trenches opposite Mametz it seemed as though Winter would last for ever. I also stated that as for me, I had more or less made up my mind to die because in the circumstances there didn't seem anything else to be done.


Description:

Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, has been considered the greatest book about World War I ever written. Sassoon, was a writer of dreamy poetic verse until the War came. Then, at age 28, he became an second lieutenant in the British cavalry and sent to the front lines in France where he soon became noted for his compassion for the men serving under him. 

 

Details abound as readers experience every aspect of war through the eyes of British Officer Georege Sherston, Sassoon's fictionalized version of himself. Sherston/Sassoon watch and enter into battles both with his men or alone, with bullets and bombs all around him. The barb wire he confronts is real in Sherston's depictions, as are the smell of chemicals, gun powder, sickness and death. Truly, readers are taken into the trenches to join Sherston and his men live hour by hour in the trenches.

Well, here I was, and my incomplete life might end any minute; for although the evening air was as quiet as a cathedral, a canister soon came over quite enough to shake my meditations with is unholy crash and cloud of black smoke. A rat scampered across the tin cans and burst sandbags, and trench atmosphere reasserted itself in a smell of chloride of lime.

After the death of a friend, however, Sherston turned into "Mad Jack," looking for vengeance against the Germans through carrying out reckless forays behind lines. He was eventually wounded and sent back to England. There, he contemplated the futility and fraud of war and wrote completely different anti-war poetry.

 

In real life, while recovering from his wounds, Sassoon refused to return to the War, publishing his statement in "A Soldier's Declaration." Here he protested the sanitized version of the war promoted by the government, and stating his personal reasons for "refusing to serve further in the army." That powerful anti-war letter is published in full here in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. Its opening lines are below:

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. ...I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest....

This is the second of three books in Sassoon's fictionalized autobiography series, centering on Sherston, a shy British country gentleman who only knows of horses, cricket, and golf, but finds himself in the trenches of Somme and other battles in the heart of World War I.

 

Powerful, yet beautifully written very penetrating eye witness account of what Sassoon experienced on the front lines, the confidence, the bravery, the horrid conditions, the disillusionment, and the eventual bitterness that led to Sassoon's future anti-war writings. 

 

For any history buff, you cannot go wrong with this realistic depiction of the men, battles, and conditions of World War I. Highest recommendation.

Next evening, just before stand-to, I was watching a smouldering sunset and thinking that the sky was one of the redeeming features of the war. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage.   

The classic narrative novel of the dreams, fears, and disillusionment of a common soldier fighting in the United States Civil War.

 

Cabin

Hutchison, Patrick. Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman. New York: St. Martin's 2024. Print.

First Sentences:

 

I bought the cabin for $7,500 from a guy on Craigslist. He was a tugboat captain. His name was Tony. Here's why.* (*Footnote: Why I bought the cabin, not why Tony was a tugboat captain or why he was named Tony.)

Description:

Patrick Hutchison, author of Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman, at age 30, found himself in a frustrating rut. He had a decent job as a copy editor with decent pay and some interesting travel. But working in a cubicle under florescent lights, turning out copy that may never be read, he longed for something else

Years after leaving college with an intent to roam the earth telling the stories of beautiful lunatics, I was in an office creating email template to sell advertising to plumbers and wondering how I'd ended up here.

He thought that maybe if he could get away to the woods, to the environment he grew up, that would be a distraction and give him a purpose to his life that would somehow provided satisfaction.

 

Eventually, he found his answer while perusing Craigslist (during slow work hours) for cabins. There, among the pricey, fully-outfitted houses, he found a very brief note for a rustic cabin for sale 40 minutes away from his home in Seattle. Driving up that same day, he saw the "rustic" (i.e. dilapidated, falling-down) 10' x 12' structure that resembled "a big chicken coop" or kids' clubhouse. It was on an isolated road lined with abandoned buses and unoccupied cabins that were once meth houses and squatters' shelters. The cabin had no running water, electricity, heat, cell service, or Wi-Fi, but to Hutchison, it was his dream. 

Like any new parent with a hideous baby, my eyes glazed over the flaws. At that moment, I only saw what I wanted....I saw only potential, and I saw a version of myself that was capable of making it better. Not great, necessarily, but better....Most importantly, I felt the pull of something a bit bigger, a grand pursuit, a thing to dive into that was different and new and exciting.

One problem: he knew nothing about building, carpentry, or even power tools. The only time he had used an electric drill was to hang a painting, ending up making multiple holes in the wall, chipping plaster, and making a shambles of everything. With this cabin restoration, what could possible go wrong, or through some great luck actually succeed?

 

Undaunted, he bought the cottage immediately and began obsessively searching YouTube videos and any other source of info to find the best, cheapest tools, materials, cabin restoration techniques, outhouses, foundations, driveway drains, and everything else imaginable. With friends (who also knew nothing about tools or building but brought plenty of beer), on his very first weekend they somehow built an outhouse, fortified the broken deck, cut the front door so it could swing open over the leaning house (leaving a large enough gap at the bottom for birds could walk into the house, and rigged up a Coleman stove for heat and soup. These became his cottage staples, along with plenty of beer and whiskey.

 

All this happens in the first few pages of Cabin, so I'll leave the rest of this delightfully satisfying book to your imagination. But this narration is not just a laughable series of efforts by a hapless idiot. Hutchison is a serious, dedicated, albeit unskilled worker who figures things out on the fly, Yes, he make some (many) quirky mistakes along the way. But all the while, he enjoys the feeling of personal satisfaction he gains with building something with his own hands (and yes, some power tools), while experiencing the beauty and silence in a gorgeous section of forest.

[After buying his first tool, a power drill] Climbing into bed that night, I felt a glow that reminded me of Christmas nights growing up, falling asleep to the reality of new toys and the knowledge that the future held many, many days  of good times.

While the restoration of the cabin is the foundation of the book, this is also a stream-of-consciousness memoir of Hutchison's personal restoration journey to self-confidence through problem-solving of daunting tasks along with his deep love for the cabin itself, and what it represented in his life.   

At times, it felt like the cabin and I were partners in a sort of joint self-improvement project. When the cabin was all fixed up, maybe I would be too.

I don't often whole-heartily recommend a book to all First Sentence Readers, but Cabin is the exception. I hope that everyone reads this absorbing and delightful book. It is at once funny, thoughtful, energetic, foolish, emotional, and triumphant, all in the backdrop of a glorious forest setting full of hikes, trees, snow, stars, and quiet. There are times of rollicking, deep friendships as well as plenty of solitude for dreams and simply enjoying life in an isolated cottage of your own building. Highest recommendation for all readers.

With no one but the trees to judge us and a fistful of Band-Aids to keep everything in order, we'd pick up where we left off as kids, making forts, learning how to build things again.

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Wallace, Don. The French House:An American Family, a Ruined Maison, and the Village That Restored Them All.   

Author Marshall and his wife, Mindy, both budding writers living in New York City, fall in love with the small French island of Belle Ile off the coast of Brittany where the architecture has remained the same since the 1700s. Their "brand-new ruin" is an eyesore, but a piece of history that needs tender (i.e., specific and expensive) attention.  (Previously reviewed here.)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 435 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

The Keeper of Lost Causes

Adler-Olsen, Jussi. The Keeper of Lost Causes. New York: Dutton. 2011. Print.

First Sentences:

 

She scratched her fingertips on the smooth walls until they bled, and pounded her fists on the thick panes until she could no longer feel her hands. At least ten times she had fumbled her way to the steel door and stuck her fingernails in the crack to try to pry it open, but the door could not be budged, and the edge was sharp. 

Description:

I'll start this book recommendation with a caveat: This book is not for everyone.  Jussi Adler-Olsen's The Keeper of Lost Causes is a Scandanavian noir thriller, full of exciting action, fascinating characters, and can-put-down writing style. But like other books in this genre, it depicts some shocking plotlines, stomach-churing situations and pccasionally graphic violence. So, if this type of reading is off-putting to you, stop reading now and move on to another book.

However, if you are drawn to police procedurals, gripping writing, Scandanavian settings, and flawed, complex  characters (both good and evil), then Adler-Olsen is your author. The Keeper of Lost Causes is the first of his ten novels in the Department Q series featuring the Copenhagen homicide police division assigned to take on unsolved murder and missing person cases.

It's a hopeless assignment for Carl Morck, the abrasive detective who, since no one in the Homicide force could get along with him, is kicked downstairs to to tiny basement office and a one-person staff named Assad. Carl is prepared to nap and quietly avoid any work until the five-year-old missing person case of Magete Lynggard is randomly selected to appease his boss that he is actually working on something.

Magete was traveling with her younger brother, a mute, damaged young man who, along with Magete, had survived a terrible car crash that killed their parents and several other people. When her ferry was unloading, Magete's car was left untouched and she was nowhere to be found. Because she was a noted political figure, news interest in her spiked for awhile until it was concluded that probably she had either fallen overboard or committed suicide.

But as we read in the opening paragraph, she is very much alive, but trapped in a hopelessly impenetrable prison, in complete darkness, with only an occasional voice over a PA system to fill the silence. Why she is there and what her outcome will be are a mystery until the final pages.

What drives this book and others in the Department Q series are the characters. Detective Morck has become deeply uninterested in his job after an unexpected shoot-out where one of his partners was killed and another paralized by a stray bullet. Assad, Morck's assistant, slowly shows special talents that take him away from his copying, filing, and cleaning jobs to providing valuable insight and help with the Lynggard investigation. Then there are themembers of the homicide division: some brilliant, many incompetent, all of them to be avoided by Morck at all costs.

This is a book that is impossible to put down. I read it during every spare moment, and late into the night, always regretting whenever I had to stop. It is thrilling on every page, providing questions and, little by little, possible answers as Carl begins to peel away confusing layers of this long-dead case.

Highest recommendation for lovers of thrillers, procedurals, unsolved mysteries, and absorbing characters.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Adler-Olsen, Jussi. Locked In.   

Carl Morck, fresh off of solving the nail-gun murder case, is thrown into jail when a suitcase full of money and drugs is found in his attic. Can Morck and the Department Q team unravel the reasons behind this situation and get him out of prison before he is murdered by one of the inmates he had put into the same jail? (Previously reviewed here.)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 435 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

Special Post - Holiday Gift Books

Description:

I know it is a bit early for the holidays, but since I am taking a break from writing new book recommendations until after the New Year, I thought people might be looking for interesting titles to read themselves or give to others over the gift-giving season.

Below are some of my favorites with links to my reviews. Every one of these I highly recommend. I hope a few will catch your interest and work their way onto your shelves for reading or for sharing with friends and family.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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          (and an Intro to The First Sentence Reader) 

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Fiction

Animals

Horse (historical fiction) - Geraldine Brooks

Remarkable Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt

West With Giraffes (historical fiction) - Lynda Rutledge

  

Humor

Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

Food: A Love Story - Jim Gaffigan

The Golf Omnibus  - P.G. Wodehouse

Round Ireland with a Fridge - Tony Hawks

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen  - Paul Torday

 

Mystery

Booked to Die - John Dunning

Remarkable Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt

The Twyford Code - Janice Hawlett

 

Romantic Relationships

The Japanese Lover - Isabelle Allende

Meet Me at the Museum - Anne Youngson

The Odds - Nan Stewart

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

Two Across - Jefff Bartsch

 

Science Fiction

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing - Hank Green

Cold People - Tom Rob Smith

Golden State - Ben H. Winters

Machine Man  Max Barry

Seveneves  - Neal Stephenson

Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuval

 

Short Stories

The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke - Arthur C. Clarke

 In Sunlight or in Shadow - Lawrence Block, editor

 

Small Towns / Western Setting

Juliet in August - Dianne Warren

Outlawed  - Anna North

Plainsong - Kent Haruf

The Whistling Season - Ivan Doig

 

Thrillers

Before I Go to Sleep - S.J. Watson

I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes

Memory Man - David Baldacci

Shibumi  - Travanian

The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides

Sometimes I Lie - Alice Feeney

 

Young Adult

Brewster  - Mark Slouka

Ender's Game - Orsen Scott Card

Five Children and It  - E. Nesbit

Hatchet - Gary Paulsen

The Hobbit  - J.R.R. Tolkein

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

 

Leftovers - Just Plain Great Reads

An American Marriage - Tayari Jones

Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson

The Immortalists  - Chloe Benjamin

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

Manners from Heaven - Quentin Crisp

The Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon

The Scapegoat - Daphne Du Maurier

To Serve Them All My Days - R.F. Delderfield

World of Wonders - Robertson Davies

 

Non-Fiction 

Animals

The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery

 

Books Themed

Dear Fahrenheit 451 - Annie Spence

One for the Books - Joe Queenan

Outwitting History - Aaron Lansky

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distractions - Alan Jacobs

 

People

84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

At Ease: Stories I Tell To Friends - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Educating Esme  - Esme Raji Codell

The Feather Thief - Kirk Wallace Johnson

The Hammersteins - Oscar Hammersteins

Insomniac City - Bill Hayes

The Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 - Victoria Wilson

Never Cry Wolf  - Farley Mowat

Nothing To Do But Stay - Carrie Young

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio - Terry Ryan

Shakespeare Saved My Life  - Laura Bates

We Took to the Woods - Louise Dickinson Rich

Sports

The Glory of Their Times - Lawrence Ritter

Handful of Summers - Gordon Forbes

Three-Year Swim Club - Julie Checkoway

Wait Till Next Year - Doris Kearns Goodwin

Why We Swim - Bonnie Tsui

 

War

To End All Wars - Adam Hochschild

The Volunteer - Jack Fairweather

We Die Alone - David Howarth

Winter Fortress - Neal Bascomb

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke, Arthur C. The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Tom Doherty Associates. 2000. Print.

First Sentences:

But what is science fiction anyway? Attempts to define it will continue as long as people write PhD theses. Meanwhile, I am content to accept Damon Knight's magisterial: "Science Fiction is what I point to and say 'That's science fiction.' "


Description:

Reading science fiction is not everyone's cup of tea. But I defy anyone reading even a single short story from Arthur C. Clarke's magnificent The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, to be less than gobsmacked by the imagination, vision, characters, and plot lines shown through every entry by the master writer.

 

Just a few examples of what you will find in this 966-page tome. (Don't worry, you don't have to read it front to back. But I guarantee that when you are done, you will wish there were more such gripping stories to devour):

• A world ruler chooses to be placed in a suspended hibernation vault in a secret location, to be revived after 100 years when doctors feel they will have developed a cure for his heart disease. Unfortunately, over the years people have forgotten the location of the vault and even the man himself, so he sleeps for millenniums until he wakes to an entirely new world;

• Two ordinary crew members of a lowly space transport ship that has been hit by a meteor, discover their oxygen supply has been damaged and is now completely gone. Thirty days from the rendezvous point, they calculate they have only twenty days of recycled air for both of them to survive, ten days short of their destination. (One of the stories that was used in the development of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey;

• A man discovers his known world is bordered in the distance by a huge, insurmountable, indestructible wall built by who knows who, and when, and most importantly for what reason. His goal, of course, is to somehow overcome this wall and discover what, if anything, is on the other side.

• One man journeys to discover whether the rumor of a mechanically futuristic city, hidden by the Earth's governing body from the rest of the world, really exists, the reasons behind its construction and secrecy, and why no person who has sought it out has ever returned or even been heard from again. 

•  An engineer in a power plant, due to an electrical accident, has his body somehow reversed so that, while he appears as completely normal, everything he sees is now mirrored, his right-handedness is now dominant left-handed, and food that once nourished him is rejected by his inner system. Even the coins in his pocket have reversed their inscriptions.
  

• Using a new radar system, scientists discover miles below the Earth's surface what might be signs of non-natural developments. Of course, they decide to drill a deep hole to discover what, if anything, they might discover there. Naturally, there is a surprise in store for them.

Each story is completely different from any previous tale, an impossibly entertaining facet that pulls readers from one plot and character to the next. You dip into various chapters throughout the collection or read them, as I did, in the chronological order Clarke wrote them, starting with his earliest published story in 1937 through his last (in this collection) in 1999.

I was completely engrossed by every story, challenged mentally and emotionally, but emerged at the end of each plot line with a feeling of satisfaction at having been stretched to see the world and people in completely new ways. Highly recommended.

(P.S. As a bonus, I include below his shortest story, just to give you a feel for the writer and his quirky, scientific, and expanded mind. Enjoy.

 

      'siseneG'   (published in Analog, May 1985.

 

And God said: 'Lines Aleph Zero to Aleph One -- Delete.'

      And the Universe ceased to exist. 

Then She pondered for several aeons, and sighed. 

'Cancel Programme GENESIS,' She ordered. 

It never had existed.  

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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          (and an Intro to The First Sentence Reader) 

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles

Chronological science fiction stories about the exploration of Mars by Man, from the first ships to the final days of Earth. Fabulous. (previously reviewed here)

 

The Year of the Locust

Hayes, Terry. The Year of the Locust. New York: Scribner 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

I once went to kill a man.


Description:

Now there's a first sentence that does it's job. With those seven words that hint of upcoming violence, probably most readers will either be excited to read further or else dismiss the book as a topic they have no interest in.

 

But Terry Hayes' The Year of the Locust is, for me, a worthy addition to my "Highest Recommendation" category. It is a worthy sequel to I Am Pilgrim, my all-time favorite international thriller. 

 

Written ten years after Pilgrim, The Year of the Locust brings back Ridley Kane, the "Denied Access Area" CIA spy whose specialty is sneaking into (and successfully returning from) forbidden countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, etc.) and doing what's necessary to stop terrorists who threaten the United States and the world.

Here, the CIA is alerted to a terrorist, al-Tundra, forming his own anti-Western army of hatred in Iraq for nefarious ends. Thought long-dead, al-Tundra (identified by the huge locust tattooed on his back), is revealed as alive in a grainy photograph smuggled out of Iraq for the CIA. Kane's mission is to infiltrate into Iraq, meet with the informant, and understand what al-Tundra is plotting for the world so the CIA can figure out how to stop him.

 

What could go wrong ... besides everything.

 

And that assignment is only the first in Kane's encounters with al-Tundra over the course of 700+ pages in Locust. Adventures follow in Russia, Pakistan, and even the United States. Yes, there is violence, some very graphic, but author Hayes relies on building plotting, unraveling situations, and nail-biting tension rather than glorifying blood. You are side-by-side with Kane, in his head as he pours over even trivial or complex detail ("like digging a well with a needle") and decision as he works out to best deal with each encounter or threat he faces.

The action is compelling, and, although the book is 700+ pages, it goes along rippingly due to the very short 1-3 page chapters. It's so easy to binge-read Locust, saying "Oh, I have to read just one more chapter to see how he decides/executes/escapes this situation." I won't say it flew by, but definitely it read as quickly as humanly possible since I was completely engulfed in the action, Kane, his CIA boss Falcon, the elusive CIA traitor Magus, and al-Tundra, the Locust. 

 

Locust is able to humanize Kane more over the pages, introducing his partner Rebecca, and her dealings with his profession. Kane is a loner of a man with many worries, but his relationships with Rebecca and Falcon, as well as several characters he encounters during his "Denied Access Area" missions, make his a rounder character, someone with internal conflicts.

 

Of course, the writing by Hayes is superb. His attention to every detail and descriptions of people and environment paint a totally enveloping atmosphere that make us lucky readers get hopelessly caught up in the action. There are new age weapons like a rifle scope with a built-in GPS system, an completely undetectable missile, copious use of satellite surveillance and recordings, a deadly virus, and even a bit of science fiction in the end to make the world right again. All seems reasonable and acceptable due to Hayes able writing style, terse dialogue, and believable character personalities.

I loved it, can't you tell. Won't spoil any more of the plot, but by now you should be able to decide whether this book is for you. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but for me it was gripping and fully immersive on every page. My highest recommendation.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

     See More Recommendations 

          (and an Intro to The First Sentence Reader) 

________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out

Hayes, Terry. I Am Pilgrim.   

Simply the best, most thrilling, unexpected, spy caper ever as CIA agent Kane tries to track down an unknown terrorist threatening a nefarious, unstoppable act that will destroy America. My Highest Recommendation. (previously reviewed here)