My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March (Lester Tenney, 2000)

Enlisted man from Chicago is part of surrender in the Philippines. Bataan Death March, prison camps in the Philippines and Japan.

Quick read, interesting. The author - later a professor at ASU - was quite the operator - ran entertainment, gambling, prison black market, etc.

But the focus is on the awful conditions in which these POWs tried to function. The book is very good at describing this.

The Stranger and the Statesman (Nina Burleigh, 2004)

Gift from my five children purchased during the trip by four of them to visit KHG in DC.

Biographical information on James Smithson - illegitimate son of English nobility - who left his estate to the U.S. Ex-president John Quincy Adams played the lead role in seeing that the estate (bags of gold) was used to build what became the Smithsonian.

Not many specifics available on Smithson himself (mostly due to an untimely fire), but the book does an interesting job of portraying early 19th century America and contrasting it to Europe.

Nobody seems to know why he gave the money to the U.S. Apparently he didn't have any heirs to cut out.

Joseph Smith - The Making of a Prophet (Dan Vogel, 2004)

Lots of detail about Smith’s early life in New York, treasure seeking, “finding” the plates, “translating” the plates, etc. Apparently treasure-seeking was not all that uncommon in early 19-century NE; when the treasure wasn’t found, it was blamed on spirits guarding it or other miscues that caused the treasure to slide away through the earth. Translation ended up being done through the seer stone (in a hat) so that it wasn’t necessary to keep the plates around the house (visitors threatened to burst in and confirm its existence, or not). No one saw the plates except with spiritual eyes. Many revelations and visits from angels and others. Book ends as they relocate to Ohio.

Last Citadel: A Novel of the Battle of Kursk (David L. Robbins,

I like Robbins' World War II novels (such as The War of the Rats and The End of War). This one is set in the battle of Kursk, which is described as history's largest tank battle. Hitler was trying to retake initiative after the failure in Stalingrad - effectively his last gasp on the eastern front. Relying heavily on the huge, powerful, but long-delayed Tiger tank; outdone by Soviet T-34s.

Berko family - Cossack father with Communist son man a tank while daughter is a Night Witch. Spanish SS officer comes from Spanish Civil War and fights for Nazis. Breit is working to overthrow Hitler. Partisan fighting.

The Tiger tank stories are interesting - awesome weapon but overdone to the point of impractical.