On It Like Oxford.

I just started school for my BSN - with the focus on the BS - so I read a lot to clear my head of nonsense.  Just finished Craig Mullaney's outstanding book on becoming an Army officer and fighting in Afghanistan, The Unforgiving Minute. 

Mullaney attended Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and explains that it's completely different from school in the U.S. - you don't study for your degree, you read for it. Essentially they hand you a library card and tell you to go crazy.  When I look at the stack of books I finished over the last three weeks I think I might be on track for my Oxford degree in Random Historical Trivia. Here's the list:

Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris (Reagan, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt) showcases Teddy's presidency.  I read it simultaneously with Truman by David McCullogh and their leadership styles were fascinating in juxtaposition.

While I drive I listen to audio books - the miles vanish in visions of glory and wonder!  A friend loaned me Ken Follett's 40-hour Pillars of the Earth, a story of cathedral building in Medieval England - it was so engrossing I hated to arrive at my destination.

I had to listen to its sequal, World Without End, which takes place 200 years after the end of Pillars and featuring the descendants of the main characters who now want to build a steeple on the cathedral to make it the tallest, most glorious building in all of England - absolutely absorbing!

Dovetailing with the time period was a book my brother loaned me Dissolution, by C.J. Sansom, historical fiction about a little-known (I didn't know about it) period in England under Cromwell when the monasteries were dissolved and razed - 400 years of tradition leveled in 4.

To take a trip back even further into English history I read The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell, a rousing account of the uneasy occupation of Northern England by the Danes just after the death of Alfred the Great.  It's such a popular book series that BBC is premiering a TV show this fall based on the books.

I listened to a mildly amusing book by Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) called Earth: The Audiobook. It's a tounge-in-cheek description of mankind's life on earth as described to aliens who've arrived after we've all gone extinct. It's a primer on pop-culture and sarcasm.

On a more serious note, I've always wanted to read a first-hand account of the conditions healthcare providers endured in New Orleans hospitals during hurricane Katrina; Code Blue, by Richard Deichmann, M.D. was a study in ingenuity, endurance, and bureaucracy.  Fascinating read.

I also enjoyed Kurt Vonnegut's short story 2BR02B, a dystopian future reminiscent of Brave New World.

No one writes better short stories that Poppa Hemingway; he's a study in evocative style and dramatic action.  I've been dipping into his stuff for 30 years - it never gets old.

Finally, I started a new series that's popular not only as a book but more recently as a TV show: The Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon.  It takes place both after WWII and in Medieval England - it's a time-travelling adventure.  It's no Game of Thrones, but it's OK so far.

I don't think my eclectic taste in books would find approval for a degree at Oxford but as much as I'm reading about the turbulent history of the island it inhabits, it almost feels like I'm on it.  Does that count for anything?