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A fascinating history of a training operation in World War II. A retired naval officer, Gilbert Roberts, was tasked to find a way to train destroyer captains to cope with submarine wolf packs. Because his superiors thought this a waste of time (and because there was no time to waste), he was assigned people nobody wanted — in particular, he got assigned a bunch of women from the Women's Royal Naval Service, the WRENS. Together, they devised a simulation of sufficient depth that not only could captains learn new doctrine, but they could (and did) learn it from women.

October 4, 2021 (permalink)

The Good Shepherd, Forester’s WW2 novel which was adapted for the movie Greyhound, is a fine novel. This earlier novel, about a light cruiser on Mediterranean convoy duty in 1942, is propaganda, intended to give people back home a sense of what their menfolk were doing and Why We Fight. Still, it gives an interesting picture of a crew with all its faults and oddities.

October 4, 2021 (permalink)

This intriguing British police procedural uses lots of points of view to examine a fascinatingly complex crime. Manon Bradshaw wants a relationship and she wants a solution to the sudden disappearance of a Cambridge postgraduate student. No one really seems to care what she wants.

September 11, 2021 (permalink)

Perestroika is an intelligent and curious 3-year-old filly. Earlier today, she won a purse to the great pleasure of her trainer. So pleased was the trainer that she left Paras’s stall unlatched, and left her purse — presumably the very purse the filly had won! — nearby. So, Paras takes the purse and heads off into the night to see what may be seen. By morning, she’s made her way to the Jardins du Trocadéro, where she befriends a very fine stray dog and an erudite raven. A charming winter’s tale.

August 27, 2021 (permalink)

Mona is 14. She has a magical knack for baking, in a world where such knacks are not unknown. It’s handy; she has a half-sentient sourdough starter named Bob in the basement that makes superb rolls, and she can remind the muffins not to burn. One day, she goes to open the bakery and there's a dead girl on the floor; someone is hunting the magicians. A witty late-night escape from my nutty neighborhood Democrats.

August 26, 2021 (permalink)

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A delightful novel, with sequels, of the daily life of an intelligent middle-class English woman in the 1930s. The Provincial Lady has servants, and eventually has a flat in London. She also has an overdraft, and the pawnbroker knows her by sight. She has, at any one moment, perhaps three presentable dresses and not quite enough hats and shoes to furnish those dresses for all occasions. In company she is gracious and courteous, though she frequently regrets her courtesy. These diaries are propelled by wit and good nature, and that turns out to be more than enough. (Also, The Provincial Lady Goes Further, and The Provincial Lady In America.)

August 26, 2021 (permalink)

The 1955 book on which Tom Hanks’s Greyhound was based, and a very fine book, among the best of the destroyer/submarine genre.

August 26, 2021 (permalink)

A retired admiral indulges in strange, sentimental daydreams of noble soldiers and perfidious policy-makers. All civilian officials are stupid, ineffectual, or treasonous. Every soldier and sailor is noble. This book is a recipe, and excuse, for the sort of coup that Trump attempted and for which his supporters still dream.

All speculations on future warfare rest on sand, but this one is often ridiculous. “They have better cyber!” is the problem, and that can be interesting: Tom Clancy did that in Debt Of Honor, his entertaining if implausible effort to imagine a second war between the US and Japan. Here, apparently, someone in China presses a button and nothing works: it neutralizes every communication system in three Aegis destroyers (and every US satellite) just like that. Everything else, too: the destroyers never get off a shot.

The US solution? Tear out the avionics in their fighter planes so everyone can use WW2 tech and fly by the seat of their pants.

Oh — and someone else, it turns out, has even better offensive cyber capability than the Chinese do.

This is an admiral’s book. The lowest-ranked individual with a speaking part is a single chief petty officer who is on hand — in the radio room, on the flight deck, in CIC. We never learn the name of the President. We never meet China’s civilian leaders. We contrive to break an Iranian brigadier general and make him a lieutenant commander in the Iranian Navy because establishing a new character would be too much work.

July 26, 2021 (permalink)

This is a very strange book, almost a thriller and almost a mystery, but not quite.

Jacob Finch Bonner teaches writing at an inferior low-residency MFA program in Vermont. His first novel was mildly successful; his short story collection was not, and now he is badly blocked and dispirited. His students are unpromising, and one of this year’s students is an annoying, arrogant jerk. The first chapter’s of this jerk’s projected novel are, if not very good, not terrible. Bonner tries to offer good advice, but the annoying student tells him not to bother: the plot of this novel is so good, he doesn’t need writing tips. The student is insufferable — but right.

It’s a good premise, and the execution is not bad. One difficulty is that Jake is a dolt. It’s like watching a slasher movie: one is constantly shouting at the protagonist, “No! Don’t do that!” This isn’t played for laughs; it's entirely earnest. It’s not bad.

July 29, 2021 (permalink)