Catching up again: 8-13

I've been reading some random things online and in PDF form (an embarrassing amount of Barb LP's Harry Potter fanfic), but actual books...

8: The Hitler Book: the secret dossier prepared for Stalin from the interrogations of Hitler's personal aides, edited by Henrik Eberle & Matthias Uhl

It doesn't look like it from this list, but I've been reading a fair amount about Nazi Germany recently.

9: Copenhagen, Michael Frayn

Liked it. Made me want to read biographies of Bohr and Heisenberg.

10: The Rosetta Stone: the tory of the decoding of hieroglyphics, Robert Solé & Dominique Valbelle

Some historical background I was unaware of on the fight for the Rosetta Stone and various other stelae.

11: The Mayas on the rocks, Covo

Comic-book-style Mayan history. The translation from Spanish is comically bad.

12: Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil, Hannah Arendt

The writing is, to me, charming. The subject is of course fascinating. Made me think more about international law. This quotation from a 1942 pamphlet issued by the Nazi Party Chancellery explaining the "need" for the deportation of the Jews reminds me of a lot of some political rhetoric in early 21st century America:

It is the nature of things that these, in some respects, very difficult problems can be solved only with ruthless toughness.

13: Wild women of song: great gal composers of the Jazz Era, Pamela Rose

Very short, poorly written biographies of ten composers. This could have been so much better. Not sure I'll even bother to keep it.