#18: Pause in regular programming for some book recs

Taking a very short break from the standard aviation accident analysis around here (though never fear - I am still working on that as well as writing A LOT about cosmic rays and dead mountaineers and Alaska in 1932). I wanted to provide some book recommendations for folks who are starting their holiday shopping this week. As it happens, I review books for the American Library Association (adult nonfiction) and Locus magazine (science fiction and fantasy mostly for teens) and I read a lot for myself (hundreds of books a year). (Seriously.)

So, without further ado, here are book recommendations!

For aviation readers:

We have a lot of big coffee table and reference type books on aviation around here including a collection of Janes because if you are an airplane fanatic then Jane’s will enter you life at some point and be embraced. A few years ago my husband saw Speedbirds 1 & 2 by Laurent Negroni online and I bought them for him for Christmas and they are gorgeous and a perfect fit for someone who appreciates the art and design of aircraft. The text is brief, and in French, but these books are really all about the pictures. Bonus if the recipient is a fan of Formula 1 as the author/artist was with Renault and Alpine. (You can get the softcover books these days with reasonable shipping from France via abebooks.com and elsewhere.)

I think I’m recommending this book mostly so I can share an image from it. Lovely, right?

More conventionally, the hill I will die on is that Ernest K. Gann’s Fate is the Hunter is the best book ever written about commercial aviation in the U.S. while Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Night Flight is as close to the realities of dispatching I have seen, even in the modern era. (It might be computers now, but the weight of responsibility remains the same.) Daniel Swift’s Bomber Country should be far better known (to both aviation and WW2 readers) and for Alaska fans I recommend Winging It! by Jack Jefford, Arctic Bush Pilot by James Anderson and the best of the best on the bush pilot era, The Flying North by Jean Potter. (That one you will only find in AK or used online but it’s excellent.) Flight 232 by Laurence Gonzales is the best book I have read about a plane crash and the ensuing investigation. It can be tough reading but is outstanding on the subject. I am waiting for an investigative journalist to gift us with a title on the continued downfall at Boeing although Peter Robison’s Flying Blind is a start.

I read a lot of history and am constantly going through some literary obsession or another in that field. For awhile it was Watergate and the Nixon area and while I certainly recommend the books from that era by the men who were involved in covering the scandal, Garrett M. Graff’s Watergate: A New History is the book you would think we did not need but as it turns out, yes, we do! I also found Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz’s Bagman, on the fairly pedestrian but doggedly relentless criminal activity in the Agnew vice presidency, to be the first book in awhile where I kept shaking my head in shock.

Erik Larsen is one of the biggest names in NF history for a reason and everything he writes is a must read. I found In the Garden of Beasts and The Splendid and the Vile to be especially impressive.

As a former Cold War kid, I thought I had some understanding of East Germany but then I read Anna Funder’s Stasiland and my mind was blown. And if you think you understand Ukraine, on a human scale I recommend Victoria Amelina’s upcoming Looking at Women Looking at War. It was the manuscript she was working on when she was killed and having just read and reviewed it, I can’t stop thinking about it.

On Hollywood, and the business of movies, I am very much looking forward to Matthew Spektor’s upcoming The Golden Hour as I liked his Always Crashing in the Same Car so much. Also loved The Lady From the Black Lagoon on the search to learn about monster maker Milicent Patrick. (Oh! I just looked and author Mallory Omeara has a new book out next year!) And, it’s a classic of investigative journalism for a reason so I have to recommend Indecent Exposure by David McClintick about the complete disruption of Columbia Pictures over the greed of one man and the disastrous attempt of cover-up by a lot of others.

Here’s an Alaska airplane picture for those of you who never intended to read a newsletter on book recs.

For investigative journalism fans like me, author Patrick Radden Keefe is a no-brainer (and watch the series Say Nothing on Hulu); The Cult of We from Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell really made me wonder what it takes for certain men to fail (the money that was heaped on this guy is insane); Bad Blood is as good as everyone says it is and Perversion of Justice, by excellent Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, is about the political machinations that protected Jeffrey Epstein for way way way too long. It’s also a great look at how tough it is these days to be an investigative journalist following a complicated story.

For mysteries, I’m a fan of all the authors you have likely heard of already: Michael Connelly, Sara Paretsky and Louise Penny. I also recommend you join the Sara Gran fan club and check out her Claire DeWitt series. (Angry girl detective grows up - here’s a good review/description of what is a kind of indescribable character and books.) (Fans of the series take note of her planned February release.) Meanwhile, if hardboiled is what you love, check out Elizabeth Hand’s Cass Neary titles. Also Maureen Johnson has a teen mystery series that is very very good - one of the best I’ve read for any age - and should be top of the list for any YA mystery fan.

What did I read this year and enjoy? The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door and The Warm Hands of Ghosts, both fantasies set around WWI that were most excellent and intense and had a lot of historical accuracy to boot. Lies We Conjure which is a teen fantasy marketed as “Knives Out with witches” and yep, that nails it. Cinderwich, the latest rural ghosty title from Cherie Priest who has many excellent books and series all of which I recommend. (My son enjoyed her steampunk titles a lot.) I also read and liked Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear, which is a mashup of Red Dawn, every zombie movie ever, and the “magical doors must be guarded and closed” trope that involves a super rich guy with group of magical mercenaries against a plucky group of teenagers and is as good as it sounds and I don’t even like zombie stuff all that much but I’ve recommended this one all over the place. Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo is a combination police procedural/Chicago history/ghost story/tragedy that is marketed for teens but I found quite appealing and thoughtful and very very beautiful.

Oh - and The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka which is about a bunch of small owls that get murderous and trap some folks in the local library and how this plays out is exactly as you would expect. They never explain why the birds get homicidal but who cares? It was fun to see how the humans both succeed and screw up in trying to get out alive. (The local government…oh good grief!)

And that is all off the top of my head. If you need any teen or middle grade (8-12) book recommendations, feel free to leave a comment. I have a lot of authors I can happily steer you towards who you might not know about.

Returning next time to our regular programming…

I finished my spreadsheet for Part 135-involved accidents between 2019-2023 and I’ve pitched an article to an aviation industry publication on what it reveals. Whether I sell it or not, I will be writing about all of that in the coming newsletters. I’m working on getting many things out in the world before the end of the year, including an article on the Cosmic Ray Expedition, so there will be updates on all sorts of things coming your way. Now that I can show I won the lawsuit, it will help if anyone has questions/concerns about that. (Yes, they have filed a Notice to Appeal, but the judge was very firm in my win, so I don’t think editors will be worried about the honesty of my research and writing.)

(And this appeal situation does mean I am both still paying my lawyer and not getting reimbursed yet for all that I’ve already paid so to say I’m out tens of thousands of dollars this year because of this nightmare would not be an understatement.)

SIGH.

I’m at Blusky now because hardly anyone was saying anything that mattered about aviation anymore on twitter.

I hope you all have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. Here’s to a lovely holiday season where books and subscriptions are gifted aplenty. (I will recommned a few magazines, journals, etc., including aviation publications, next time.)