What I'm
currently reading
N E W !
It takes a strange
person to write a book about cadavers, and even stranger to make it
informative, interesting and - funny. Ms Roach is such a person.
The variety of what
she discusses is astonishing -
The process of
decay; dissection through the ages; severed heads for plastic surgeons
to practice on; head transplant research; corpses for crash dummies, for
crash evidence, for weapons practice; cannibalism; composting as an
eco-friendly alternative to cremation.
To get a flavour,
and to see how she makes this stuff both educational and amusing, have a
look at her
online article, reproduced in her book,
about a dead human brain being
“a
terrible thing to waste”.
Or her
archive.
Or her website.
+++++
This is the definitive account
of the most foul human being ever to have walked the earth. No
other monster comes close - not Stalin, not Lenin, not Hitler, not Pol
Pot, not Genghis Khan, not Ivan the Terrible.
The book is
meticulously researched, magnificently structured, beautifully written -
and drips innocent Chinese blood from almost every one of its 971
riveting pages.
Moa Tse Tung was
obsessed with simply killing as many of his countrymen as he could by
whatever means in order to maintain the remainder in such a permanent
state of terror that the idea of turning on him would never even cross
their wretched minds.
He also starved
peasants in their hundreds of millions in order to confiscate the food
they grew to pay the Soviets for a gargantuan armaments infrastructure.
Most terribly, Mao
was absolutely right. He proved that terror is the most effective
way of retaining power. Too many despots have tried to emulate
him, but none with the same single-minded ferocity.
Disgustingly, people name
restaurants in his honour
+++++
English historian
Charles Foley's
fascinating account
of
an honourable man who introduced the concept of Special Forces to the
German military during World War 2.
In
that role, as Hitler's trusted operative, he recounts much derring-do,
such as rescuing Mussolini from mountain top captivity, bluffing the
then Hungarian strongman into surrendering, wreaking covert havoc on the
Allied invasion of France.
Particularly moving is his account, from the German viewpoint,
of the invasion of the Soviet Union and
the stoic, stolid, suicidal resistance of the Russians.
This page-turner of a book concludes with a forecast of the role of
Special Forces in future conflicts, which has turned out to be
surprisingly prescient.
It
was written in 1954.
+++++
The purpose of this
500-page novel is to present in graphic detail the horrors of living,
fighting and - above all - dying in (and under)
the trenches during
the First World War.
It
does so,
both commendably
and shockingly.
You certainly cannot come away with other than feelings of
deep admiration and sympathy for what those young men endured,
not to mention the distraught families at home, in their tens of
thousands, when the dreaded news of their sons' demise arrived.
But the book is spoilt by the introduction of a storyline which is
sentimental and distracting. Much of it is frankly boring. You
might enjoy the sex which is detailed and graphic, but it's unnecessary.
Also, the interminable, repetitive description, going on for over 40
pages, of being
buried alive in a collapsed tunnel,
just ends up
being irritating.
About 200 pages should have been edited out.
+++++
Other books
here
Tallrite
Inc; Tallrite Ltd
