Book Recommendations: Military Content

It's Memorial Day, and I've been thinking about my preference for books with military content. I've reviewed enough military-based books within different categories to create a list of recommendations for readers who enjoy them the way I do.

SCIENCE FICTION:

SF Military Space Opera

• Old Man's War by John Scalzi
• Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie

  Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
  Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
  Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

• The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold 
• Paradox Series by Rachel Bach

  Fortune's Pawn #1
  Honor's Knight #2
  Heaven's Queen #3

Military Science Fiction / Romance

• Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair *
• Rebels and Lovers (Dock Five Series #4) by Linnea Sinclair *
• The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald

LGBT:

• Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War by Jeff Mann
• Captain Harding Trilogy by Elliott Mackle

  Captain Harding's Six Day War #1
  Welcome Home Captain Harding #2
  Captain Harding and His Men by #3

• Wingmen by Ensan Case

ROMANCE

• Always to Remember by Lorraine Heath
• Seduced by Molly O'Keefe
• Roselynde & Alinor (The Roselynde Chronicles #1& 2 ) by Roberta Gellis (Historical Fiction/Romance) 

NON-FICTION:

• War by Sebastian Junger

Although there are more books I could recommend, this short list includes some of my favorite (note, the majority fall under the military sci-fi category). My list feels incomplete, however, without including a Linnea Sinclair book under the SF Romance category, but unfortunately, I read my favorite books by this author before I began blogging. Bummer!

How about you? Do you have any good military-based, or books with military heroes or heroines, to recommend? How about a few other historicals, and at least one or two in the contemporary romance category?

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*Edited to Add: Linnea Sinclair books with links to reviews under SF/Romance. I did review a couple!!

Photo: Pink Hydrangea Bush

Sunday Weekly Update May 29th

This is the last complete week of the 30 Day Blog Challenge and my last real update. I still have two days left, Monday and Tuesday, since I began the challenge on the 2nd of May.

Monday, May 23rd
…On Vander: The Magnificent Tool 

• A sort of review I wrote last year right after I read Four Nights with the Duke by Eloisa James. I say sort of review, because my main focus was placed on the male protagonist as the reason behind my issues with the book. I decided to let the post percolate for a while before posting it to see if maybe there was more there for me to say. That never happened, and unfortunately the post lingered forgotten with my drafts until this past week. 

Tuesday - May 24th
@my brother's poetry reading

• This is a short, personal, but bookish post I prepared for earlier posting. On Tuesday, a headache that later turned into a crushing migraine hit. This was the perfect backup post! 
• The post is all about my brother Noel's poetry reading at NYU and the release of his poetry book this summer. 

Wednesday - May 25th

• Could not post because of migraine, however, I posted my prepared post on Thursday. 

Thursday - May 26th
Highlighting: Weaving the Boundary by Karenne Wood

• This small poetry volume has a fantastic summary that hits the nail on the head. I wanted to include it with my short review, but the post would have been way too long since I also wanted to include an excerpt from a poem. So, I split the post in two. This was supposed to be my Wednesday post. 

Poetry: Weaving the Boundary by Karenne Wood

• This Native American poetry volume was part of the Spring Catalogue at the University of Arizona Press and I received an early ARC. I read it early and it immediately became one of my favorite books of the year! I decided not write a long review for this book, and instead to post short impressions and an excerpt from one of Wood's poems, and to highlight the summary. I believe that should be enough to give the interested reader a sufficient idea as to Weaving the Boundary's impressive content and true value. 

Friday - May 27th
SF Mini: The Telling (Hainish Cycle #8) by Ursula K. Le Guin

• I've collected the whole Hainish Cycle series by Le Guin, and I'm in the process of reading it slowly. This is a mini-review of a book I highly enjoyed for Le Guin's humanistic (sociocultural) approach to science fiction, as well as the linguistic / language interplay she utilizes. I am loving Le Guin's work, and savoring each and every book as I move along her back list.

Saturday - May 28th
Break: Memorial Day Weekend

• This is self-explanatory: Remembering the reasons we are off this three-day weekend before going away to enjoy a few days with family and friends. 
• My plans for the weekend are fluid; pool party, barbecue with family and friends, getting away from my apartment, enjoying the weather.   

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Edited: I scheduled the above to post yesterday, Sunday. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, it did not. Soooo, you all get my Sunday post on Monday!

Break: Memorial Day Weekend

I'm going to be away from home this weekend, and will post if I can. But, just in case posting becomes an impossibility, these images are reminders of the real meaning behind Memorial Day.

SF Mini: The Telling (Hainish Cycle #8) by Ursula K. Le Guin

Aka is a planet whose totalitarian government destroyed its culture and history in order to build a technologically-based society, with an eye on a future that would take them to the stars. Its citizens are closely monitored, books and ancient traditions are outlawed, as is their religion, the Telling.

The Telling is Book #8 in Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle series. In this story, Sutty, an alien observer from Earth, struggles to find and later understand Aka's long-lost history and culture - specifically, since Aka's culture stands as a complete opposite to her own experiences in Earth.

Sutty's dangerous journey takes her into the heart of the planet, where she finds that Aka's culture, customs, and traditions, are very much alive. More importantly, despite all attempts by the government to erase it from the collective memory, the Telling has not been lost to time. As Sutty studies and explores this ancient religion, her journey becomes personal, and slowly she loses the objectivity and distance of the observer.

Based on Taoism and revolutionary Chinese culture, Le Guin approaches this work of science fiction for the sociocultural perspective, as it examines human behavior in a closed, restricted, society. Sutty's own struggle to understand herself comes to represent the individual's attempt at self-examination while being part of that same repressed society. Additionally, Le Guin is unquestionably a mistress of language, and in The Telling, she plays with language and its nuances: in this case, language's true significance when placed in context with culture.

The Telling is not a quick or fast paced read, but it is definitely profound, and more than worth the time. I loved it. Highly recommended.

Science Fiction
Published by ACE
Trade paperback, 2000 Edition
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Related Reviews: Books by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4) 
The Birthday of the World: and Other Stories
Spotlight: Ursula K. Le Guin and The Hainish Cycle Series

Poetry: Weaving the Boundary by Karenne Wood

Weaving the Boundary by Karenne Wood is, without a doubt, one of my favorite books of the year.

The very thorough summary for this poetry volume states that the collection "explores personal and collective memories and contemporary American Indian realities through lenses of human loss, desire, violence, and love." Yes it does, and, the success of that exploration originates with how Wood expresses those realities through poetry, and weaves history with contemporary issues. Her prose is gentle, lyrical or vigorous one moment, and deeply intimate the next. And haunting, always haunting! This powerful poetry collection shines with truth. Highly recommended.

All four parts of Weaving the Boundary: Keep Faith, Heights, Past Silence, and The Naming are meaningful and intense. Tough as it was to choose, I decided to highlight an excerpt from The Naming.

The Naming (excerpt)

******
Names have determined the world.
To use them, call language out whole,
immersing yourself in its sounds.
We are made from words, stories,
infinite chances through which
we imagine ourselves. Estranging
ourselves from the sensual world
in which language was born, we will die.

What if, as through history, a language
dies out, if its names cannot be uttered
or if they exist mapped
as place markers no one interprets:
Passapatanzy, Chattanooga, Saratoga?
They are part of the ground,
a language of vanishing symbols.

******

Is this what we are now?
fragmented,
a language of shattered dispersal?

Grief keeps watch
across a field darker than water.
We live in a wounded space,
voiceless cries breaking with all
utterance, even the idea of utterance.

Without a vocabulary, how
does the story continue? in words
that have murdered the people
before us, their voices airborne
like corn pollen, out into the desert?

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About the Author: Karenne Wood holds an MFA in poetry from George Mason University and a PhD in linguistic anthropology from the University of Virginia. She is an enrolled member of the Monacan Indian Nation and has served on the Monacan Tribal Council for many years. She directs the Virginia Indian Programs at the Virginia Foundation for Humanities.

Highlighting: Weaving the Boundary by Karenne Wood

Evocative, haunting, and ultimately hopeful, Karenne Wood’s Weaving the Boundary explores personal and collective memories and contemporary American Indian realities through lenses of human loss, desire, violence, and love.

This focused, accessible collection carries readers into a deep and intimate understanding of the natural world, the power of language, and the interconnectedness of life. Untold stories are revealed through documented events in various tribal histories, and indictments of destructive encounters between Western colonialism and Native peoples are juxtaposed with a lyric voice that gently insists on reweaving the past, honoring women and all life, creating a sovereign space for indigenous experience. Wood writes, “Nothing was discovered. Everything was already loved.”

Political yet universal, Weaving the Boundary tells of love and betrayal, loss and forgiveness. Wood intertwines important and otherwise untold stories and histories with a heightened sense of awareness of Native peoples’ issues and present realities.

Moving from elegy to evocations of hope and desire, the poems call for respect toward Mother Earth and feminine sensibility. One hears in this collection a longing to be carried deeper into the world, to return to tradition, to nature, to truth, to an innate belonging in the “weaving” of all life.

Publisher: The University of Arizona Press
Publication Date: March 24, 2016
$16.95 Paper; Electronic edition available
96 Pages, 6 x 9

@my brother's poetry reading

Long day at work with a headache to boot! I have a couple of reviews on the works, but unfortunately not for tonight. So, a personal note with a bookish theme.

I'm always mentioning my two older brothers, either in posts or comments, mainly because they have always influenced my reading and, hopefully, I have influenced theirs. We read, read, read. We debate, discuss, agree, disagree, and agree to disagree. It's great fun!

So here is some news. Back in March, my eldest brother Noel was invited to read his poetry at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU. The first picture was taken during the reading, and the one with the three of us was taken during the reception that took place afterward-- that's my brother Alex on the right.

Noel's next poetry volume, in Spanish, will release this summer. Although I have never mentioned it here before, we are all very proud of his work -- past and present.