Reading

I enjoy reading history books, some current affairs/events, and action novels.  I really like the books of the late Vince Flynn, Lee Child, Brad Thor, Ben Coes, and Robert Crais.  The action is really great and most of the books are tightly written, with good/interesting (if not always completely believable) plots.  I think I like them most because the good guys win and the bad guys lose.  Mitch Rapp, Jack Reacher, Scot Harvath, et al may have unorthodox methods, but they are always for the cause of good, of justice.  I think I like that, for once, good triumphs over evil, right wins over wrong.  OK, these books are fiction, but still they are a respite from what seems, more and more, that the bad guys win in real life.

I also enjoy reading Tess Gerritsen's novels.  OK, she's a bit strange.  Where does she come up with all of that grisly stuff?  What does she have in her mind? Still, her novels are gripping.  They form the basis for the TV series about her two major characters, Rizzoli and Isles.  But I don't watch the television shows.  In part it's because I don't watch much television.  But I think in part it's also because the TV characters don't match at all my vision (or Gerritsen's) of Rizzoli and Isles in the book(s).

I like the late Jack Clancy, too.  But, phew, those 1000-page tomes are sometimes tough to lug around.  I wonder who does his research for him?

And, in many of these books, I wonder how much is true, even remotely?  If close or even close to close, what goes on out there is pretty frightening.

Some of my favorite nonfiction writers are mostly historians.  I like Joseph Ellis on US History, esp the early years and Founding Fathers.  One of my college dept heads from years ago always was critical of David McCullough because he was not "a trained historian."  Yet, I find him terrific and his range is remarkable, from John Adams and the year 1776 to the Panama Canal to the Johnstown Flood to American expatriate authors in Paris in the '20s.  Harold Holzer is terrific on Lincoln, although I still am hooked on Stephen Oate's With Malice Toward None.

For current commentary, it's tough to beat Thomas Sowell, who's been at it for about 40 years.  His writing is clear and logical.  And it has the added advantage of being backed up with facts!

I know how difficult writing is/can be.  That these authors and many others (fiction and nonfiction) are so good at it is a marvel to me.  I certainly hold them in high regard.