Books I read last year

At the end of each year, I look back on the books I read and think about my favorites. Let me tell you about a few of them here.

I really enjoyed The Autobiography of Mark Twain, a huge book that Twain asked be held back until long after his death. I still prefer his famous stories like Life on the Mississippi, Roughing It, and Innocents Abroad. But anything by Twain is enjoyable for his command of the English language.

I'm a history nut, so there were plenty of good history books on the list. One chilling example was Stalin, the story of the ruthless butcher who took over the Soviet Union. As an airplane lover, I enjoyed the autobiography of Jimmy Doolittle, known for his daring attack on the Japanese mainland not long after Pearl Harbor. The title was I Could Never Be So Lucky. Another powerful historical book was Flags of Our Fathers, which followed the lives of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima from recruitment through the battle and on to their lives afterwards.

Maybe my favorite of the entire year was a book by Peggy Noonan. She told the story of Ronald Reagan in When Character Was King but not in a traditional, dry format. She injected her own thoughts and a sense of the dramatic as she told stories of the man who came to power at a crucial time in American history.

Then there is the story of two brothers growing up in Montana early in the 20th century – A River Runs Through It. This has beautiful writing that I wish I encountered in student papers I see out at Palomar.

A few more books round out my favorites. Two of them, The Japanese Imperial Conspiracy and The Rising Sun, followed the rise of the Japanese Empire before World War II, the war itself, and the destruction of the empire by the end of that war. We in the West have a hard time understanding the Japanese mindset that led to the war, but both books helped a great deal. Then there was Canvas Falcons, a detailed look at the men and their airplanes of World War I. It took a lot of guts to get into these rickety crates without parachutes and maneuver them all over the skies. One more good read was simply called Apollo; it had wonderful pictures and stories of the moon missions in the 1960s and 70s. I miss the optimism and engineering skills that America displayed during this time period.

Well, those were some of my favorites of 2011. I look at my bookshelf now, and it's full of unread books that are calling out to me. Guess I better get started with one.