Compulsively Aimless

1.  Guadalcanal Diary, Richard Tregaskis (1943).   War correspondent Tregaskis was the original embedded journalist who wrote this classic WWII account of the Marines fighting in the South Pacific.  Written in a series of journal entries.  Black and white photos.  Bought used, no recollection where.   2.  Invasion Diary, Richard Tregaskis (1944).  Tregaskis's follow up to Guadalcanal Diary, Invasion Diary follows the American landings in Italy in 1943.  Black and white photos.  Judging by the map in the book, I may have bought at a used book store on Beaver Island, Michigan.  Once owned by gentleman who lived on Harvard Street, Norfolk, VA.     3.  The Forgotten Soldier: The Classic WWII Autobiography, Guy Sajer (1990). Told  from the perspective of a German soldiers on the Russian front.  Bought from the Department of State used book store.   4.  Soldat: Reflections of German S...

I am endlessly intrigued by the soldiers who survived the horrors of war.  Admiration for those who can tell their stories of what they saw to the rest of us.  Most are regular guys plucked from small towns and sent into circumstances beyond their imaginations.  So many go in as idealists and come out changed.  One of my larger bookshelf collections.  I have had the rare luxury to live in an age where I not to have to be drafted to fight.   Here it is in two parts: 1.  And No Birds Sang, Farley Mowat (1980).     Mowat is best known for his writings about the Canadian arctic, was a soldier in the Canadian Army who was an eye witness to the horrific, bloody battles in Italy.  Bought used and don't know where.   2.  Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves (1929).    WWI to me is perhaps one of the most senseless tragedies.  Graves wrote what may be the quintessential English memoir of WWI entering as a patrioti...

Every bibliophile sooner or later gravitates toward some topic that defines who they are.  Roads west were one of my first interests.  In 1919, my maternal grandfather found three foolhardy friends and drove from Ohio to California in a 1915 FIAT.  This was still an adventure and in the days when there were still essentially wagon trails and very few paved roads.  I was captivated by the journal he left behind and retraced the trip 70 years later and tried to publish a book about the adventure.  The book never made it into print but the interest in roads west has always been strong.  I keep thinking I'll return to it and finish the job of publishing a book on my westward retracing.   1.  The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman, Illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton (1946).   A classic story of pioneers pulled westward.  The Oregon trail set the scene for others to come west.  Parkman himself lived among native American tribes for a summer ...