Melly: brushing up on her history....

Greetings fellow readers! :)

For the unfamiliar- I've been an employee at Back to Books for a little over two months now. I'm still familiarizing myself with the many neat activities and events that personalize our business and connect us with our local community. In doing so, I've decided to give blogging a shot! 

So...

Being a junior in high school, I've boldly decided to accept the challenge of taking AP U.S. History (APUSH) this year! With the insanely large amount of textbook reading that this class entails, you'd think that I would have had enough of learning about history... think again! At the recent Midwest Booksellers Association Trade Show, I got my hands on a couple of neat history books that I would other wise have been uninterested in:

Jamestown: The Buried Truth

William Keslo

In this book, the author William Keslo performs an archeological dig, dissection and reconstruction of four-hundred-year-old artifacts and human remains of colonial

 Jamestown, Virginia. He uncovers details of how the first settlers spent their days, how they lived and died, and what they accomplished and suffered.It is an adventurous non-fiction that gave me a different perspective on the English settlers in the 1600's.

The Art of Ill Will

Donald Dewey

This fascinating book tells the history of the American Political Cartoon, beginning with the Join or Die advertisement by Ben Franklin in the 1750's and ending with modern day cartoons. It analyzes some of the craziest ones and connects them to the politics and hardships of the time which they were written. Not only is it an informative, interesting non-fiction, but it has pictures! This book grabs the attention of any reader... even if they are not history buffs.

Other history-oriented books I've enjoyed lately....

Charlie Wilson's War

George Crile

If you haven't spoiled the plot by watching the movie yet, I fully recommend this book before its movie-counterpart. Just as captivating as the action-packed movie, and a truly unique perspective of Charlie Wilson's run-ins with the CIA, Afghan rebels, and members of the Soviet army.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Tom Wolfe

My most recent and modern history-related read... The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is about the acid movement of the 1960's focused on Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. Shockingly disturbing and graphic, Wolfe reports with a strictly accurate and real journalism style and writes in a way that portrays the "stream of consciousness" of his characters. A definite page turner!

Thats about all of my historical revelations at the moment... but I will continue to explore the past and report back with any

thing else I find to be interesting! Continue your journeys in reading!!! :D

Melly