Had me in the first half: Dropzone Normandy by Napier Crookenden

I am finding beginning this project a little difficult. I have never blogged before, never done book reviews, and have not done much writing since I finished grad school five years ago, so I am just going to let it come out and leave it at that. The first book is Dropzone Normandy by Napier Crookenden. History books will likely make up a large number of the books I roll for this blog, given my love of the subject. This particular book is from what I think of as my West Point collection. It is a strange story, but not very long so I will tell it here. A while ago my father mentioned my love of history, and the couple of degrees I have in the subject, to a coworker who has a large collection of history books. He then arranged to put me in his will as the inheritor of his library. This coworker of my father, after arranging for the inheritance, remembered me when a friend of his was looking to downsize his collection, and so this friend twice removed called me up and said "Hey I have a bunch of old books from my West Point years, do you want them?" I jumped on it, and now I am the proud owner of a bunch of books from a student who attended West Point in the late 1970s. 

As a book, and not an excuse to tell a story, Dropzone Normandy, published in 1976, is in the sad position of trying to do two things and failing at one of them. It is a history of the British and American airborne landings on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, and the fighting that the American 101st and 82nd Divisions, and British 6th did to hold the approaches to the beaches for the next week. To do this also tells a history of these units, how they were formed, equipped, and trained, and in that it succeeds wonderfully. There are a lot of interesting differences between the two nations, and both nations get great and even-handed coverage. I quite enjoyed the book, until it comes time to present a narrative of the fighting itself. One of the best quotes I have heard on military history is that it is very hard history because it seems so easy, and I feel the author walk right into that. The narrative is confusing, which I initially put down to the confusion caused by sprinkling 20,000 men over France like salt on a steak, but that confusion lasts well after the units form up and lines solidify. The greatest cause of this is that Dropzone Normandy addresses almost all levels of battle. The movement of Corps, divisions, battalions, companies, platoons, squads, and even individuals are all addressed, and this means that the author never spends enough time with any one group for the reader to be familiar with the who and what and where before we are off to another village. 

So in the end I left Dropzone Normandy feeling a little letdown. The first section of the book was really good, but the latter sections were frustrating, and the bibliography is atrocious. Chicago Manual Style, use it. Authors who wrote books 50 years ago, go forward in time and pick up a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, and then go back and use it. Seriously though, I found the book worth a read, enjoyable in places, and if I ever feel the need to go over the development of British and American airborne forces in the Second World War I might pick up the first bit, but this is not a book I would read cover to cover again. 

With that book done, it is time to determine the next book. I currently have 20 shelves full of books with more books needing shelves, but I will pick from the shelved books today. The roll of a d20 gets a 5 for a shelf with 29 books on it, and a roll of a d20 and a d10 gets 17 total, so book number 16 on the shelf. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I have never read any Hemingway. I'll let you know what I thought when I am done.