This is a work born of a long-burning passion for the subject. In his introduction, Stephen Longstreet describes how as a youth he collected newspaper articles and spoke with pilots of the First World War about their experiences. As an adult he spent a quarter of a century accumulating materials about the air war in order to write this book, in which he sets out to tell the stories of “the men and machines who fought the pioneer air combat.”

And this passion shows on nearly every page. Longstreet’s focus is on the “human element,” or the lives of the men who participated in the air war. While his focus is on the famous aces – most of whom receive brief biographies and select descriptions of their air battles – he also discusses the ground crews and manufacturers as well. Anthony Fokker receives particular attention, with his story encapsulating just how fluid the aircraft industry was at the time and how quickly fortunes could change for the people in it. It all makes for very entertaining reading.

Yet for all of its strengths, this is also a deeply flawed book. In focusing on the aces, Longstreet leaves out vital aspects of the air war. As is so often the case, Longstreet’s book is mainly about warfare over the Western Front, with aerial battles elsewhere covered in just two short chapters. Moreover, it is almost exclusively a book about fighters and fighter pilots: coverage of the bombing campaigns is confined to a single chapter about the Zeppelin raids on England, while scouting is effectively ignored altogether. Nor is there is any context provided for the aerial dueling he describes, making it seem as though it was all a struggle apart from the larger conflict. Worst of all, though, is the clichéd nature of Longstreet’s writing, which too often devolves to national stereotyping to fill in the gaps in his analysis.

Because of this, anyone new to the subject can finish this book with a deeply distorted understanding of air warfare during the First World War. For all of the thrilling episodes recounted in purplish prose, Longstreet’s reduction of an important aspect of the conflict to a series of dramatic personalities and biplane battles does a real disservice to his subject. The best that one can hope for in this respect is that enough of Longstreet’s zeal will rub off on his readers that they will seek out other books for a more comprehensive picture of the air war, lest they believe that the popular image of the air war is the only one that matters.

I'm on a weekend trip to Napa right now, and while I'm having a good time it's despite my reading circumstances and not because of them. I had deliberately carved out time in my schedule to take one of my non-work, non-reviewing, non-podcast, non-website, non-group-read books to enjoy, and I chose Stephen Longstreet's book about First World War aces. Unfortunately, I discovered on my flight that it was a poor choice, with cliched prose that sometimes shades towards the purple. I'm especially annoyed that I didn't start it before I left when I still had an opportunity to switch, but here I am.

Usually I bring a backup book for curcumstaces like this, but I didn't this time because our first stop was Moe's Books in Berkeley and I wanted to save space for my anticipated buys. Normally I don't have a problem finding something to buy among four floors of used books for sale, but this time I walked out empty-handed, unable even to find something that I could read in place of Longstreet's book. Fortunately I was able to find one of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer novels at a local used bookshop in Napa, but it still feels like a substitute for what I really want to read.

I think the heart of the problem is that I so overcommit my reading schedule that my expetations for what I read when it's not an obligatory choice are pretty high. Given that vacations are when I'm most likely to have such opportunities, and given that enjoying what I'm reading is a big factor in the quality of my time off, I'm burdening my selections with a lot of expectations, so much so that it may be warping my judgment of them. Longstreet's book is an excellent case in point; it seemed like a good choice based on the times I diped into it, but from the moment I started the first page I was annoyed that it wasn't as good as I expected it to be. It's something I need to think about if I don't want to poison my judgments of books in future circumstances.

Sophia Knightly is my happy place. Her stories are like food for the soul. At first glance, The Holiday Sweet Spot reads like a Hallmark movie. Jake is the adorably, frustrating Scrooge with an agenda. Pilar is the clueless, optimist determined to make her dreams come true. However, peer a little closer and there are lessons to be learned about life, love and living in the moment. Add in a wily, irresistible matchmaker and the stage has been set to steal away with your heart.

Becoming - 5 stars

Still: Die Bedeutung von Introvertierten in einer lauten Welt - dnf

They Called Us Enemy - 5 stars

Just One of the Royals (The Chicago Falcons #2) - 4 stars

the princess saves herself in this one - 4 stars

Der Atlas der Besonderen Kinder - 3 stars

Der Mensch ist böse: Wahre Kriminalgeschichten-wahre Abgründe - 4 stars

Favorite book(s) of the month:

Becoming, They Called Us Enemy

Books started this month but haven't finished yet:

These Broken Stars, Solitaire

Random ramblings:

What a month. I didn't think I would get that much reading in but damn, I did good!!!!
I dnf'd one book, that has been on my tbr for the whole year that I never actually went back to and so I decided to just put it away. Maybe I will get back to it in the future. Who know LOL 
Also this is my weirdest wrap up ever, what a weird mixture of genres.

english review only (spoilerfree)

Netgalley ebook

Summary: Star hockey player Daniel Sacachelli wants only two things: 1) for the Falcons to win next season, and 2) for his secret — the fact he’s actually the prince of Eldonia — to never make its way to Chicago. But if Daniel keeps avoiding his crown, their family will lose their kingdom forever.

Madison Myong can’t believe that her will-they-or-won’t-they best friend Daniel is really a prince! He’s always seemed more rebel than royal. But now, he needs to clean up his image, fast. Posing as his long time girlfriend, Madison accompanies him back to Eldonia, intending to give Daniel a makeover fit for a king.

Only, the more royal Daniel becomes, the more Madison misses her best friend. And if she does her job right, she’ll lose him forever...

My review: This book was just so much fun!!!

Gosh, it feels like forever ago since I read the first book in the Chicago Falcons series. I missed it. I missed these wonderful characters. Also, shocking, and really surprising for someone with my bad memory, I still knew most of what happened in the first book. Would you look at that?

I had this book on my tbr for ages now (gosh, I'm so behind on all my Netgalley ARC's. This one is a year old. Oops).

I'm so happy that I finally read it. To be honest, when I started the book I didn't read the summary and I surely didn't remember it from a year ago. So  e v e r y t h i n g  came as a total surprise. I'm not even kidding. The first sentence of the summary tells you that Daniel is a freaking prince and still, when it was revealed in the book, I was totally freaking out and grinning like an idiot, cause OMG, DANIEL IS A PRINCE!!!!

All I remembered from way back when was that I LOVED MADDISON, and that I was so freaking excited that she got her own book cause SHE IS ALL KINDS OF AMAZING, and she was the greatest friend to Alice in the first book.

So now that I got all my rambling out of the way, let's dive into the actual review.

I love the writing. I just love the flow of the whole story and you can't tell at all that this was written by two people. I loved it.

The characters are amazing, duh. Like I said, I loved Maddison in the first book. She was amazing. So I loved her right from the start in this book, obviously. And Daniel. the prince (hihihi, I'm still giddy about that. Excuse me!). I loved that Hayden and Alice from the first book didn't take a total backseat and were only mentioned a few times but that they actually played a really big part in this book. I also really loved Eva, Daniel's sister.

The relationships.
Let me start with family dynamics, cause that is were the good stuff is. I loved the relationship between Daniel and his mom. Single moms doing their absolute best and raising amazing dudes. YESSSS!!!! I also loved the bit of Maddison's family that we saw. They actually just showed up two times, in the beginning of the book and the end, and what a night and day difference those two scenes were. LOVED IT!!!

Friendships. F R I E N D S H I P S.
BE STILL MY BLEEDING HEART, cause this is were it's at. THIS IS THE STUFF MY DREAMS ARE MADE OF. Daniel and Maddison. Their friendship. I just love relationships that start in friendship and become more. I love Daniel and Hayden and how they always got each others back. Maddison and Alice. Girls supporting each other. And also how Eva fit right into them, even though these three girls are all kinds of different. I LOVED IT.

Storywise. I loved the whole Prince Daniel thing. I loved the whole book pretty much playing in Eldonia and meeting some of the people there. It was such a different vibe from the first book. I loved it. Ice hockey was still a big part of the book, cause it's such a big part of Daniel, and seeing him torn between not wanting to leave his old live behind but also helping his sister and protecting her from having to marry such a douchbag. It hurt my heart.

It was a beautiful story that was quite predictably BUT THAT WAS JUST WHAT I NEEDED. I needed amazing friendships, loveable characters and a mindset of "everything is going to get really terrible before everything gets wrapped up in a nice little bow and all will be right in the world".