Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, 1986)

Book club selection (via CPG; session held February 26, 2017).

Graphic novel which I've learned is the most highly-regarded of its kind.  Pioneered the concept of caped heroes with very human flaws, complex/mixed motives, etc.

Not knowing anything about comic books or superhero genre in general; not knowing anything about this book or its characters in particular; I seldom connected with what was going on.  Part of the challenge was very basic:  trying to get used to looking at some text, then switching frame of reference to take in the related illustrations.  I found this much more difficult than "regular" reading.

Part of my bad attitude results from Hollywood overkill of this kind of thing - hasn't captured my imagination at all.

Yet the reviews for this book are thoughtful and positive.  There's something here.

And the "who watches the watchmen" quote is always of interest.

America Walks Into a Bar - A Spiritual History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops (Christine Sismondo, 2011)

Focusing on bars and liquor laws yields a lot of very interesting U.S. history - I found this book quite helpful; also this one.

But I can't figure out what the author is trying to do with this particular book (or what the editor was thinking, or not thinking).  This book simply rambles across most of the span of U.S. history with some occasional tethering to events in taverns, or saloons, or bars, or whatever they were called at any particular point.

This boring author even goes through a check-the-box exercise with blurbs on bar access by the main identity politics groups.

Not nearly enough discussion of the bars themselves.  Some interesting discussion about how a tavern often was the first gathering spot in new settlements (sometimes remaining that way for years - courts, politics, meetings etc. centered there).

One of the more useless books I've read recently, just blew through it quickly.

Did like the Jack London quotes - he had a way of taking the reader inside the 19th century bar culture.

Romanovs - 1613 - 1918 (Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2016)

"Larger than life" is rather an understatement with these folks (and perhaps with Russia in general).

Key dates to memorize, at least roughly:

• Ivan the Terrible (not a Romanov) - rules 1547 through 1584
• Michael I - first Romanov - rule commences 1613 
• Peter the Great rules 1682 through 1725
• Catherine the Great rules from 1762 through 1796
• Alexander I (after his father is strangled) (dealing with Napoleon) - rules from 1801 through 1825
• Alexander II - reform efforts, then repression - rules 1855 through 1881
• Nicholas II rules 1894 through 1917

I like the author's writing style, as with here, and also here.

Separate biographies of Catherine the Great and Peter the Great; also "Nicholas and Alexandra" - naturally offered more detail as to those folks; but this is a constantly interesting overview of the entire dynasty.  The author states that extensive archives were now available - not accessible to earlier biographers - the detail is rather amazing - I had no idea so many letters etc. had survived.

Discussions of early negotiations supporting disputes - continuing in 21st century - over relationship of Ukraine to Russia.

Transfers of power were really dangerous for these folks!

Descendants esp. of Catherine the Great - a real question whether there was any Romanov blood involved.  (That likely would apply to plenty of royal families.)

Success in Napoleonic wars but military/technological stagnation - obvious backwardness as 19th century advances; culminating in humiliation at Tsushima, with dire consequences.

Interesting how anti-Semitism pops up here, especially in 19th century.  Nicholas as a big fan of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Close-connectedness to Germany.

A helpful retelling of the Nicholas-Alexandra situation - incredibly isolated even from Russian nobility - I hadn't recalled that they kept the heir's hemophilia a secret.

A little less on the numerous court love affairs would have been fine by me . . . but I guess that was a big part of who these people were, and the overall court dynamics.

Consistently interesting, useful window on various events over those 300 years.

Christmas gift from PJr/NRG.