history

America is our gal!

Americans by Douglas Wood

December 26, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Douglas Wood has created a very idealistic look at America and Americans. What is presented is what we were told this country is about: freedom, differences, agreeing to disagree. There is not even “oh sometimes we disagree so much we decide to kill each other like in the news shows us.” It does mention that we are human and sometimes we make mistakes. It speaks of the Fourth of July, the Bill of Rights and other things that does make America unique. It does show what we want to be. The illustrations of Elizabeth Sayles save the day. They are […]

12/26/2018 BlackRaven's CBR10 Review No:473 |

There May Be No Supernatural Shenanigans, but That Doesn’t Make the Real History Less Engrossing.

Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin

November 28, 2018 by LittlePlat 2 Comments

A few weeks ago, something shocking occurred when I went to check my credits on Audible. Usually, their recommended section either accidentally recommends books I’ve already read, or throws me some kind of self-help book – which, honestly, they probably inflict these on everybody. But this time they got it right – they gave me a recommendation off their new release list that wasn’t something I was already familiar with. And it turned out to be really damned good! I wasn’t sure of how to categorise Erebus: The Story of a Ship when I purchased it. Was it history, or […]

11/28/2018 LittlePlat's CBR10 Review No:31 |

Everything is awful

Blood River: The Terrifying Journey Through The World's Most Dangerous Country by Tim Butcher

November 26, 2018 by TheShitWizard 2 Comments

Fresh from finding Dr Livingstone in the Congo, newspaperman Henry Stanley sensed an opportunity and so, in 1877, returned to the Congo to travel through its interior and map its giant river. Despite the mouth to the river having been discovered by Portuguese explorers in the 15th century, until then no outsiders had ever attempted to travel further than the coast. Following the initial routes laid out by the slavers who virtually decimated its coastal communities, Stanley accomplished his mission, opening the interior up to the European powers who instantly claimed chunks of the country for themselves and set about […]

11/26/2018 TheShitWizard's CBR10 Review No:78 |

Who What When Where Why and How…..

Who Was.... by various

November 6, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Who Was Mark Twain? He was an author, adventurer, tall-tale maker and the subject of this book by April Jones Prince. There are several different people in the Who Was/Who Is series. I read Mark Twain and Who Was Joan of Arc by Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso last night. While each has its own author(s) each are illustrated by a different artist (John O’Brien and Andrew Thomson respectively). They are a non-fiction story about their subject. You can have everyone from Joan of Arc to Walt Disney, Claude Monet, Annie Oakley, Barack Obama, The Williams Sisters and Dr. Martin […]

11/6/2018 BlackRaven's CBR10 Review No:411 |

Stripping away the air of glamour to reveal gangsters who were actually pretty crap at robbing banks

Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn

October 8, 2018 by TheShitWizard Leave a Comment

Go Down Together was bought immediately after I read and loved Jeff Guinn’s The Road to Jonestown, and was no disappointment. Prior to reading this, I knew the very basics about the pair – Depression era gangsters and snappy dressers, who went down together in a hail of bullets. After reading this, I feel I know the pair rather intimately – and was rather surprised to have some of the more popular myths about them demolished. Both hailing from incredibly poverty stricken backgrounds – the Barrows moved from one struggling farm to another before giving them up as a loss […]

10/8/2018 TheShitWizard's CBR10 Review No:70 |

Caught out in the rain in the most dangerous Magic Tree House mission yet!

Hurricane Heroes in Texas #30 by Mary Pope Osborne

September 13, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

By my count, this is number 16 in my bingo journey and The Last in a Series! The Magic Treehouse series is an interesting one. Ever since I have heard about it, I wanted to read one. However, I have only read some of the non-fiction companions to the fiction stories and some of her non-Treehouse books. When the read the last in a series came up on the bingo board, I figured why not? Well, the problem is, there are series within the series! There is the main story, the Merlin series and a couple others, plus the non-fiction […]

9/13/2018 BlackRaven's CBR10 Review No:354 |

A Dual Biography that works

Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Thomas E. Ricks

September 5, 2018 by thewheelbarrow Leave a Comment

I read Churchill and Orwell because I am a fan of the author, Thomas E. Ricks. Ricks is best known as a military historian who wrote Fiasco and The Generals, both of which I highly recommend. This book is a bit of a departure for Ricks but the topic seemed interesting. Churchill and Orwell is a dual biography of two British men who had similarly parallel lives during WWII-era Great Britain. I was surprised to find how much the two men had in common, especially considering how different they were. Churchill and Orwell is not a comprehensive dual biography. […]

9/5/2018 thewheelbarrow's CBR10 Review No:36 |

Delicious morsels of trivia, with hints of cheekiness.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

August 16, 2018 by Halbs Leave a Comment

Bill Bryson is a delightfully dorky guy full of interesting and trivial facts. In this book, he utilizes his own English country home as a launching pad to discussing, room by room, the history of the modern home. The concept works well to take us everywhere, from the kitchen (that’s why it’s called “room and board”) to the bathroom (weirdly enough, was once considered something for poor people) to the bedroom (people love sex). I never knew I would care so much about the history of chairs, or what “limelight” actually means, or whether people always stayed up late, or […]

8/16/2018 Halbs's CBR10 Review No:53 |

Scootsa1000 on “Now we have the opportunity to start over and try to do better this time around.”I loved Hutchinson's We Are the Ants from a few years ago, and will most definitely keep an eye out for this one. Thanks.
narfna on I know it means he’s not working on Winds of WinterYeah, there's this throwaway line, I think in that scene, where she remembers having found a shield with that coat of arms on it shoved...
lowercasesee on I know it means he’s not working on Winds of WinterWhaaaaa thank you! Also I did read that when she got her new shield on the road looking for Sansa, it was painted like Dunk's...
Meg on A Tidy Little MysteryHugh Fraser played the part of Colonel Hastings in the BBC Poirot series. He's my favorite narrator.
teresaelectro on I just wanted to do my job.This book is on my TBR list, but sounds like a library situation and not an instabuy. Thanks for the review!