The Killer Angels

I bought this book for my husband last Christmas. Which is saying something, because we never buy books, we just use the library. Because we are cheapskates.

Anyway. He read it, enjoyed it, and said I should read it. And now it's been sitting on the shelf for months, taking a backseat to my unending flow of books from the library, which have a due date, and thus a deadline. Poor Killer Angels has had to sit back and wait. But no more! The time has come! I've created a deadline (October book club), and must read it by then!

From the back cover:

"In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life.

"Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war.

"The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable - a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny."

Sounds pretty great, if you ask me. But wait, it gets better. Did you know this book won the Pulitzer Prize? Well, then it has to be good, right?

And then, I read this:

"Remarkable. . . a book that changed my life. . . I had never visited Gettysburg, knew almost nothing about that battle before I read the book, but here it all came alive." Ken Burns, Filmmaker, The Civil War

That's right, Ken Burns said this book changed his life. THE Ken Burns. Of PBS fame. Who created that glorious, authoritative, masterfully done documentary on The Civil War. (Am I the only person who adored that show and would settle down to watch it again in a heartbeat?) That cinched it up for me, time to read this book. So saddle up, ladies, we're going to read about war.