Some Books

I added Nature's Civil War, an interesting case study on Civil War health in 1862 Virginia (military), to the side panel. The author talked about a different subject (also a pending book) in a Civil War segment on C-SPAN. It involved post-war Southern spin making by a Confederate general, part of a "generals we hate" series.

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Also as a result of a video on that channel, I started The Girls Next Door by Kara Dixon Vuic, about 20th Century usage of women by the military to take care of the needs of service personnel. It seems interesting and written well.  For those interested, the author has a few C-SPAN videos.

Update: Reading most of it, I mostly hold to my last comment though the book gets a bit repetitive, leaving a few details -- like what happened to some of these women -- out.  She does this a bit, especially for later chapters, but like did WWI women work any in WWII?  Did any of their daughters? A quick summary of early women in war stories might have been useful too. The changing nature of the use of women and the understanding of their role is an interesting aspect of the book.  

(One other thing that I would think should pop up at least once (since concerns of male homosexuality does) is some instances of lesbianism. Also, though we do get some sense of what these women did, sort of wanted to hear a bit of their day to day tasks.)

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The Inevitable is another book that I recently finished, talking about euthanasia. It focuses on a few cases (one whose current status is unclear) and doctors involved. Overall, I liked it, including its writing style. Nothing profound, but good use of narrative mixed with informative detail on the general subject. I might have shortened it a tad.  New York is not one of the few states with an euthanasia law; one is being debated. 

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Finally, I bought the other two books by the author of Peyton Place (and its sequel), both of which were good (the second more rough; felt unedited). As to these two, The Tight White Collar (cited by more than one person as the author's favorite book) was basically a good, somewhat condensed look at a similar milieu (mostly) without the teen segment. The author again used fact, particularly the gay teacher, who basically is the one character with a tragic ending. (One is left unhappy, but he deserves it.) 

Did not read the second yet.  [This entry has been edited.]