StanleyWheeler

This book has been my companion for at least a couple months. The title of the book comes from something Washington said after the war.

Another book about the American War of Independence? Indeed. I acquired both the kindle version and the hard copy. I'm glad I did. Ferling's Almost a Miracle ranks among the best single-volume treatments of the conflict that I've read. The book provides background on the politics, personalities and international ramifications behind the decisions. The options available to the parties are discussed at length in many cases. In some instances, such as Cornwallis' reasons for refusing to leave Yorktown until it was too late, the author provides the statements given at the time, as well as the justifications given with the benefit of hindsight. This is an excellent book. I think I prefer it to another favorite, Leckie's Washington's War, because it does not focus on Washington as much as that work.

I give the book 5 out of 5 stars. Being a treatment of the whole war, many details about specific battles are omitted but I found sufficient information to make the accounts of the battles meaningful. A little less than half of the book consists of notes and bibliography. The writing style is engaging, easy to follow and never boring. The account never bogged down in useless detail or irrelevant quotes. There are many quotes from the people involved which provide great insight into their thoughts and rationale for their actions.

I would have liked more biographical detail about some of the participants. Some great information was included; I hoped for more. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will continue to refer back to it often. I did see a couple of single star and two star reviews on Amazon for this book--incomprehensible; I can't believe that they were reading the same book that I read.

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My reading queue includes Francis Parkman's The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada (which I've already started), and The Founder's Revolution by Michael S. Law. On the lighter side, I have Andy Peloquin's Trial of Stone, Ambrose Bierce's Can Such Things Be?, and Frostborn: The Gray Knight by Jonathan Moelle to consume. I have Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer to tackle but I know it will take a lot of time and monopolize my attention; I'm saving it for something but I don't know what. I also want to the read third book of the Jorgensen's Kusunoki Chronicles: Might of the Barbarians.

More importantly, after an entire week without writing on my work in progress which followed a week in which I fell a couple thousand words short of the goal for the week, I devoted time yesterday to making up the deficit from the previous week. I expect to finish writing the book this week. Because of some changes from the story as outlined and the decision to breakup the story differently than I had originally envisioned, I had to make some decisions about the stopping place while bringing the book to an exciting conclusion. I've figured that out. It should finish out at just over 80K words.