On the morning August 9, 1945, the American bomber Bockscar dropped a thousand pound bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man” over the city of Nagasaki. When the bomb was about 1,600 feet above ground it exploded and, “the entire city convulsed.” Windows shattered miles away from the epicenter. It’s estimated that some 74,000 died in the initial detonation. They may have been some of the lucky ones. Those who survived the initial blast faced horrific injuries. The city roared with the moans and cries of the injured. […]
A Kafkaesque Nightmare
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”– George Orwell, 1984 Ben Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” It’s a sentiment this country has been at odds with since its inception, from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, […]
IDK my BFF Jane?
I went back and forth about reviewing this book. Considering I spend most of my times reviewing nonfiction tomes, it felt weird to review such a short, fun bookette. But Texts From Jane Eyre has become one of my go-to recommendations. It’s an inside joke to all of my fellow book nerds, that yeah, Scarlett O’Hara would totally have texted that annoying crap. The premise is simple enough-what if classic characters from fiction were able to text? Although it seems like a one-note joke, I […]
Stick with Doris Kearns Goodwin
One of the issues with being a history nut (besides the fact that people tell you to get a better hobby, have you tried knitting?) is that you end up covering the same ground a lot. Normally that’s pretty interesting; I’ve read way too many books about the Roosevelts, but I’m able to glean something new from each new book. Unfortunately, sometimes you read a history book that’s decent, but it doesn’t really give you something new. Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and […]