[ken5050]

There were a lot of good books published this year. For myself, I most enjoyed the biography of Paul Tibbetts, "The Man Who Won the War"....just a really good read. It brought tears to my eyes to read about Tibbets and his crew today, what they think and feel about their momentous mission, after all the intervening years. I can heartily commend it to you all...

I'm gone from FR from now till Wednesday...lots of prep for Christmas dinner tonite...we have a full house, and the usual riot of activity tomorrow. So, to one and all, Merry Christmas. May we have Peace on earth, and Godspeed to our troops.

[Dittohead_2]

Almost finished with Peggy Noonan's book about Ronald Reagan, ' When Character was King'. That would be my selection for 2001.

[Chad Fairbanks]

I'm so far behind on my reading list, it's not even funny... and I know I'll get more books for Christmas (my parents always asked me what I wanted for christmas when I was a kid, and the answer was always the same: books) ... but the best book I've read this year was 'Unintended Consequences'... I re-read 'Atlas Shrugged' this year, and also re-read 'Pillars of the Earth' by Ken Follet (which, oddly, is one of my all-time faves)... I also had to read 'The Hobbit' and the 'Lord of The Rings' books again, since the movie is out (I won't take my kids to see the movie until they've read the Hobbit and the first of LOTR, so it'll be a few more weeks before we go...)

Where, oh where does the time go???? Mybe I've changed my mind - this year, for Christmas I want Time... ;0)

[Jaxter]

Band of Brothers - the companion book to the HBO series. Excellent!

[white rose]

I'm a horse racing devotee, so my pick would have to be Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit." Even if you're not into the sport, it's a terrific story and beautifully told.

[DeaconBenjamin]

Can I sneak in Jeff Shaara's "Gone for Soldiers," published last year?

[Bahbah]

The John Adams biography. What a guy. I also read "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, whose politics I can't stand, but I liked the book lots. A very Merry Christmas to you and to everyone on FreeRepublic. I expect to get some good reading ideas on this thread.

[RocketWolf]

No contest: John Kegan's " The First World War" . You can read several hundred works on this subject ( I have) and still learn much from his boook. As far as I know he is the first to refer, even in the most guarded terms , to the mutiny of the British Fifth Army in 1918 and the only popular historian to point out that WW1 didn't really end in Nov 1918. Also, who else can you read who lectured at Sandhurst AND Vassar ?

[stevem]

I always have a difficult time assessing what book is "best." There are so many different reasons as to why one or another would earn that description.

This year I read We Were Soldiers Once...And Young. Virtually every page in that book left me in awe. Stories of courageous actions when life and limb are the stakes always leave me with that feeling.

Certainly, the Ia Drang engagement wasn't the worst battle in the history of the world. Nor were the casualties at the highest percent of combatants as in every battle in history.

Still, it was described vividly. There had to have been an epiphanies throughout the American command.

For frightful intensity, it remined me of the two day Wilderness engagement between Grant and Lee in 1864. My hat will always remained tipped to those that were there and didn't shrink from responsibility.

[Shooter 2.5]

My son just finished a couple of books on the AR15 rifle and he lent me his copy of Handloading for Competition by Glenn Zedicker. I feel like I'm starting all over again and this time I want to do it right. I want to change the way I read a book. It's not going to be just for a time waster or for amusement. I want to get something out of this and study. Hopefully, the next time someone asks me how I liked a book, I'll be able to remember even the smallest details.

[sharktrager]

Relatively new:

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan.

Puts the emperor in a new (and not very flattering) light. It also shows how little our so-called experts knew about Japan and the Japanese culture both before and after the war. Much of what we are told about their culture truly did not come about until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but we are taught that these are philosophies are centuries old.

[Reo]

As of right now, "John Adams" by David McCullough, but I better leave the final choice open because I've dropped an awful lot of hints for the Peggy Noonan Reagan book to show up under the tree tomorrow.

[Prodigal Son]

I don't really go by whether a book is "new" per se- as long as it is new to me is what counts.
Notable books (to me) I've read this year- "Flowers for Algernon"; "The Thin Red Line" (much better than the film); "In Harm's Way"; "Only Forward" (by Michael Marshall Smith); and working on "The Road to Serfdom". I've gone back and re-read some books that I saw discussions on at Free Republic including "The Secret Agent" (Joseph Conrad).
Merry Christmas.

[RandyRep]

Thanks for asking -- now I can take everyone's suggestions and shop at Amazon after Christmas for the books I really want!

My favorite book was "Scandalmonger" by William Safire. It's about James Callender, the English newspaperman who took on Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and others in the 1795-1805 period. Absolutely first rate historical novel.

[goorala]

Neal Stephenson. Cryptonomicon.

[Keith]

I also recommend "Band of Brothers." Ambrose certainly does his homework. Also, just finished "Duty" by Bob Greene, the newspaper columnist. It's about his dad, that generation and Gen. Paul Tibbetts, the pilot of the Enola Gay. Pretty interesting...the Boomers are re-evaluating the "Greatest Generation"...finally...after calling them warmongers and pigs when they were young.

sigh.

[airedale]

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold set in the Harding administration this story about a stage magican has as many twists and turns as a good magic act. In fact it's kind of structured like a good magic act. I will probably buy his next novel on the basis of reading this one. Both my wife and I liked it.

Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe by Michael T., Ph.D., M.P.H. Osterholm, John Schwartz A good basic primer on biowarfare written a couple of years ago and published last year in hardback and now out in paperback. This is the kind of book that you can give to someone without much scientific knowledge and by the end of the book they will have a decent layman’s knowledge of the subject. Sets up examples that read like a decent thriller and then goes on to explain the basic problems in clear concise and readable form.

John Adams by David McCullough. He’s an outstanding historian and writer and I’ve pretty much read every book he’s written. A couple months before I read his book on Truman. While I enjoyed that book you can tell from reading it that McCullough was a big Truman fan and it may have colored the writing a bit. In Adams you don’t have that problem and the writing is superb.

I’ve read these recently and would really have to think about what I read earlier in the year that I would recommend. Well perhaps any book by George McDonald Frazer in the Flashman series. Not great literature but a lot of fun. I’ve read all of them. Another of recommendation would be all of the books by Lawrence Shames starting with his first one, Tropical Depression . Nothing serious just a light suspense novel which deals more with relationships and characters than it does with suspense. In the summer I describe it as a great book to take to the beach or to read on the plane.

[gfactor]

hardt & negri's "empire"

[xm177e2]

I guess "Bias," I can't remember what else I read...

[MississippiMan]

Would love to ask a more narrow question on this thread. What's the best technothriller of the year to you? I love stuff like Deaver's The Blue Nowhere and other thrillers that work in a heavy dose of technology. There are surprisingly few good ones out there.

MM

[Churchillspirit]

Fiction choice - Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn.