The War of the Words

It's December 31, 2017, the last day of the year. We're supposed to reminisce on such days, aren't we? Well, then, so as not to disappoint, I shall. And it all comes down to words.

I'm not really sure why the reading bug bit me so hard in 2017 but it did, so much so that much of what I did this past year was read. It was a grand, fulfilling endeavor.

The basic theme which developed could best be described as baseball and history. To the former I submit Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty which argued that, while not perfect, Cobb was not the ogre so many people believe of him. The Kid, a quite readable biography of the Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams, was engrossing though more crude than it needed to be (and how many books and movies can we say that of, eh?). Shades of Glory was my first real look at Negro League baseball, and a good look it was. Remembrances of Swings Past was okay yet too obviously ghost written. That was all topped off with an anthology, Great Baseball Writing, compiled from articles originally printed on the pages of Sports Illustrated over 50 years. Great stuff, if you're any kind of baseball wonk. And you should be some kind of baseball wonk, if you have any appreciation of America at all.

1944: FDR and the Year that Changed History was very good. The Arsenal of Democracy, about Detroit's role in World War II, was excellent, and I only got it at Christmas and have already read it through. It gave me a new appreciation for the effort necessary to win that war. I read David McCullough's biographies of John Adams and Harry Truman, both outstanding, though the trouble with biographies is that the hero always dies at the end. Rock of the Marne was also a very good read on how raw American troops single-handedly held off the Germans during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I, stopping Crown Prince Wilhelm's 'Peace Offensive' and likely winning the war for the Allied nations.

On a more esoteric level I read Strange History, a collection of interesting yet mostly obscure incidences in human history, and The Inklings, a history of the great writers' group of that name from (mainly) the 1930s and 40s. It featured C. S. Lewis of Narnia fame and J. R. R. Tolkien of Hobbitdom. Those two really ought to have collaborated on a book.

All of this actually only scratches the surface. I can't recall everything I read off the top of my head, which included of course reading the Sunday paper and all kinds of (often tripe) online. But reading-wise 2017 was good to me. And now 2018 needs to step up its game and top that.