Mike's Books

The Missing Chums (The Hardy Boys #4) by   Franklin W. Dixon 3 Stars I grew up reading the Hardy Boys, and read a few of them with my son when he was younger although I don’t think he ever enjoyed them anywhere near as much as I did.   Reading them again now is truly a wonderful trip down memory lane, and my ratings for the books are due entirely to their nostalgia value, not to their literary merit.   However, I have to take this one down a notch to only 3 stars because it just requires too much suspension of disbelief.   Two of the Hardy’s chums are kidnapped and, although the two teenagers are missing for what is apparently several days, both the local police and the Coast Guard are content with letting the Hardy brothers take the lead on trying to locate them.   It makes the Hardy’s into the heroes when they’re found, which is obviously the purpose, but it’s incredibly frustrating to read through.   I must be getting old! https:/...

How the Old World Ended: The Anglo-Dutch-American Revolution 1500-1800 by   Jonathan Scott 2 Stars How the Old World Ended is unquestionably one of the most disappointing books I have ever read.   I’m a great lover of history and consider myself at least a passably knowledgeable student of the subject.   So when I first saw this book I was immediately excited.   The Industrial Revolution and the birth of our modern world are fascinating historical subjects.   This book, however, was a huge letdown. I can best describe it as a very poorly written college thesis.   The author’s basic premise seems to be an interesting one, but the writing is so truly terrible that it just becomes completely lost.   If I can take the liberty of quoting another Goodreads reviewer:   “ I have a hard time describing, even, what the language is like as it is truly terrible and nearly inaccessible. It almost feels like somebody's college thesis wher...

Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Masters of the Sky by   John R. Bruning 4 Stars John Bruning’s Race of Aces is a wonderful portrait of the Army Air Force fighter pilots in the Southwest Pacific during World War II.   The book was obviously extensively researched, it is well written, and it is eminently readable.   Bruning succeeds in bringing the war to life, exposing the heroism and the flaws of the pilots who battled to become America’s Ace of Aces while many times taking the reader right into the cockpit in the heat of battle.   It’s not a history of the war in the Pacific, it’s the story of the men who fought it; and it’s a great one.   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45692395-race-of-aces https://www.bookbub.com/books/race-of-aces-by-john-r-bruning