David Brinkley's last report

Brinkley's Beat: People, Places, and Events That Shaped My Time by David Brinkley


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I grew up watching the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC, so I thought I knew what to expect -- I was very wrong. David Brinkley's observations over the many busy decades in which he lived surprised me all the way through.

I especially liked his places sections, and observations on Vienna, Austria, where a grad school friend now lives. The Viennese sound so laid back that I believe I really have to go there some day. Brinkley's somewhat introspective observations of the American South, and Washington, D.C., and the people associated with all of that made it much better reading, too.

Also, especially helpful, this is a large print edition, and I really appreciate that.

This is a great book for anyone interested in journalism, recent American history, or television news. It is pretty good.

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Perspective revisited

Assault on Germany: The Battle for Geilenkirchen by Ken Ford

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The stories of World War II that I grew up with came, largely, from this time in that conflict from my late first step-father, Bob Wagner, a medic in the 84th Infantry Division. I hadn't heard those stories in years -- he passed away in 1972 -- but, Ford's book very closely ran a parallel to what I heard as a boy in California.



Ford's book is more interested in historical account and readability than substance in style, but is worth the read for anyone familiar with that time.



I read it in research of a particular bloodless incident that I heard about long ago -- one in which Scottish bagpipers played all night long, effectively scaring off a larger German unit shrouded behind a nearby fog when it lifted. That incident was not in this book, but Ford brought me closer to it, and aided my insight into the horrors one goes through at that time, and for an instant, took me back to those days in the '60s when Bob thought it was important that I understand why war is so horrible.



Despite how hard it might be to talk about at times.


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