markk

As I explained in a recent post, I've been thinking lately about reading Paul Britten Austin's trilogy about Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Remembering that one of the volumes was available for sale as one of my local bookstores, I trekked there today to begin the acquisition process.

Sure enough, the copy of volume 3 was still sitting on the shelf. I snapped it up and proceeded to the register. As I did so, though, I opened it up and began reading a page at random.

And then I remembered why I had passed on reading this series in the past. Because Austin's book is really just a series of paragraph-length quotes from various memoirs of the campaign's survivors, all stitched together with a few sentences moving events along. It's the kind of historical writing that I find frustratingly dull -- all narrative from others, with little in the way of analysis. So I marched back and returned the book to its shelf, because there are plenty of better books out there for me to read.