[books i've been reading]

Anyone who's read this blog knows how weird I am when it comes to reading history: I like to pair historical fiction with historical studies, and I found a pretty solid novel in Shelby Foote's Shiloh. His narrative style is epic, and it's one of the best Civil War novels I've ever read. He, like Michael Shaara in The Killer Angels, paints a stunning portrait of the battlefield and the psychological impact war has on those involved. As a companion book, Stokesbury's A Short History of the Civil War does a good job at capturing the many military campaigns throughout the war in the various theaters, and he doesn't neglect the "home front" and politics swirling around the war itself.