I confess that I am a bookaholic, and my attempts to limit my book-buying only succeed in moderating it a bit. Why I am telling you this now is that Thursday I got a flyer in the mail offering membership in the History Book Club. The flyer offered four free books with no required purchases after joining. Now that’s an almost-irresistible deal.

I actually belonged to the History Book Club several decades ago, and I still have some fine books I purchased back then, such as Norman Cantor’s Medieval History, Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, and Jonathan Sumption’s Pilgrimage. So I read through the flyer and was surprised at some of the fascinating books they were offering. When I went to their website, I found several even more interesting books.

So this morning I winnowed through the possibilities and selected four books which I ordered as my initial offering:

• E.L. Doctorow’s novel about the Civil War The March. I have read several other Doctorow novels and enjoyed all of them, especially Ragtime which is one of my all-time favorite books
• Shan Sa’s novel of 7th century China Empress
• a biography of Charlemagne, one of the most important figures in early medieval Europe
• Frank Delaney’s Ireland, a novelization of the history of the Emerald Isle.

How could I possibly refuse such exciting offerings? The first two above were already on my Recommended Books list (as is Shan Sa’s Nanking Massacre novel The Girl Who Played Go), so I am awaiting these books anxiously. In the meantime, I am...

Currently reading: The Book of Life, a history of all life forms on planet Earth

Currently listening: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 36 All-time Greatest Hits. Although I already have all the CCR albums in various formats, I’m a sucker for greatest hits packages, and this is one of the finest in my collection.