Almost a day by day cradle to the grave accounting of the famous aircraft carrier. Is written more as a history text rather than anecdotal events. The acronyms are particularly  overwhelming, I keep one finger in the footnotes so to easily flip back and catch the abbreviations. 

This reading has given me an appreciation for the SBD "Dauntless"! 

Tim Madigan

The author, who is a professor of history at MIT, describes how the post-war American occupation yielded a wholesale change in Japanese culture, economics, politics, etc. that was not mirrored by the other defeated Axis powers or in the various Asian countries that the Allies had liberated.

After fifteen years of indoctrination by the militarists and ultra-nationalists who ran their government, the Japanese people were suddenly free to be actual citizens instead of Hirohito's subjects. But the transition was not an easy one and the U.S. occupation lasted almost twice as long as the war itself.

The book, which was published back in 1999, earned the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the LA Times Book Prize for Non-Fiction.

The book I read before this was "The Truth" - also a book I probably haven't re-read in 15-20 years. As I described it to a friend, 26 years ago, Pratchett published a novel that was about what happens when the wealthy conspire to manipulate facts to upend the power structure in order to drive out immigrants and gain access to unfettered wealth, all by way of controlling the news. 

And when I put it that way, it sure does feel like it was written today, inspired by current events.

I originally tried to read this book over twenty years ago and got about 200 pages into it, but fatherhood and deployments to Bosnia and Iraq got in the way and I had to put it back on the shelf. Sadly, the book got lost in the shuffle over the next two decades due to other commitments and military moves. I finally decided to dust it off and dive into it again.

It is certainly a good read so far and it is easy to see why it was nominated for the 1982 National Book Award for Non-Fiction. Weigley was a history professor at both the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel for six years before taking the reins as the distinguished professor of history at Temple University, a post he held for 35 years until his retirement.

The only drawback is that the hardcover edition that I have is now so old that it's spine is giving out. I lost about 150 pages on the floor today when part of the binding gave up the ghost.

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson 

Couldn't be more different reads.  But I do enjoy them both.

In December, my 19-year-old son got his first summons for jury duty. Daley Center, downtown Chicago. So, for three days we took the train downtown, and while he was doing his civic duty, I wandered the city with my daughter. But I also took that book with me. That led to the surreal experience of reading the chapter about Marshall Field trying (and failing) to save his store from the great fire while I was sitting in the seventh floor café of Marshall Field's.