Puttering in the Study

The Sultan's Harem - Colin Falconer

Falconer tells a really engrossing story about sultan Suleiyman the Great and his difficulties with his two kadin (concubines) which eventually brought massive grief to the Ottoman empire.  The infighting among his harem (basically two women, although a third is discussed) eventually resulted in his murdering his best friend and his eldest son, and giving his empire over to his wife Hurrem's son Selim the Sot, which the book posits wasn't his son anyway.
I made the mistake while reading this of flipping through a history of Istanbul and found out that the book is essentially factual, and that the evil wife Hurrem is better known to history as Roxelana.  Falconer's point at the end is that her hate for her captivity and for Suleiyman led her to deliberately leave her husband (she predeceased him) with an incompetent heir after manipulating him to kill every heir (and friend) capable of ruling the empire. Overall a very well-written, albeit depressing, book.

Alexander's Tomb: The Two Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conqueror - Nicholas Saunders

This book was a good summary of the facts known about, and the theories regarding the tomb(s) of Alexander the Great.  The author was nice enough to point out that there's not a decent theory out there about what happened to the tomb, and that only a major archeological excavation of the entire eastern part of the city would give us any idea where it was and what happened to it.  But it's an interesting subject, nonetheless.  (For good fictional descriptions of where it might have ended up, read Steve Berry and James Rollins' accounts in their books - I think it is The Judas Strain and Map of Bones, respectively).

Inside Star Trek: The Real Story - Herb Solow & Bob Justman

This book was written by Star Trek's original executive producer and one of its producers, and provides a fascinating insight into how the series came to be, from someone's perspective other than Gene Roddenberry.
Star Trek was, hard as it seems to recognize now, simply a one-hour television series in the 1960's, even to the people making it.  Solow successfully sold Roddenberry's concept to a network, and oversaw the production of this massively complex show on a shoestring budget at an also-ran studio (putting Star Trek in the context of its birth requires noting that it was produced by Lucille Ball's studio Desilu).  Although Roddenberry went out of his way to maximize the myth that he generated everything to do with the series' creation and production, the fact of the matter was that it was many hardworking and talented people like co-producer Bob Justman, and costume and set designers that made the show work, on budgets that actually shrank as the series went on.  I was already pretty familiar with the series' genesis and production through Stephen Whitfield's book, but I had never seen it from the perspective of the studio workers who made it run, nor was I familiar with Roddenberry's shortcomings, including taking advantage of cast and crew members to gain financial advantage from the show, and finally bailing out on the show entirely in its third season when it became clear that NBC's putting it in a late night time slot would kill it.   But even then, even Roddenberry just saw it as another TV project, which would hopefully lead to more.
But what was the most amazing fact was that no one associated with the show - not the producers, the cast, the crew, or anyone else, ever seems to have viewed it as anything other than just another TV show.  Its status as a lifestyle and a legend starting only after it was cancelled.  Paramount even considered selling the entire rights to this financial money pit to Roddenberry right after cancellation, but he didn't have the $150,000 Paramount wanted.  Amazing when you consider that as of when this book was written (1996) Star Trek had generated over $1.4 billion for Paramount.  What it's generated in the thirteen years since then is anyone's guess, and judging by early reaction to the upcoming movie, that's only the tip of the iceberg.  And it was the least desirable property in Gulf & Western's acquisition of Desilu in 1967 - its two other shows Mission Impossible and Mannix were, if not exactly making money yet, were at least not losing as much, and had the potential for generating some profits in syndication.
Amazing.

The Illustrated Alamo 1836: A Photographic Journey

 For the Titanic there are "rivet counters" and for Star Trek there are readers of Nacelles Monthly.  What fanatics of Alamo history are called I do not know, but Mark Lemon is now the imperial grand wizard dragonmaster poobah in chief of us all.  This book, which I picked up as soon as I saw it at the Texas Capitol gift shop yesterday, is the latest (even Lemon would say it isn't the "last") word on what the Alamo physically looked like at the time of the 1836 battle.  As such it replaces Nelson's 1998 Illustrated History (which I bought in softcover and then in hardback) on the Texas history shelf of my library, which in turn replaced Schoelwer's 1985 Alamo Images.
I have been interested in Alamo history since at least seventh grade, when I built models of the fort out of both Celluclay and then balsa wood and sand, both of which I still have.  The physical appearance of the fort at the time of the battle and after is what has interested me as well, and this book is more than I ever could have expected.  in it, Lemon has painstakingly reviewed every scrap of evidence we have about the fort's appearance and come up with a 1/48 scale model of it - magnificently photographed - that details the appearance of every part of it.  I learned far more than I ever would have thought possible about the fort's appearance from reading the book late last night.  I was also really interested in the forensic work that went into Lemon's conclusions, although it has to be said (as Lemon does himself) that much of what he posits is simply informed speculation, based on his review of what information there is.  It is, for example, it is simply his conclusion based on his research that a particular part of the fort looked a certain, but in no way is this a complaint, since Lemon does the reader the great service of explaining why he concluded the north wall, for example, looked the way he claims it did, and identifies the specific historical sources supporting his conclusions. For example, while I always knew the north wall was deteriorated by the time of the attack, Lemon explains specifically how it had been shored up and the other work that had been done around it, and comes up with the most plausible configuration of the wall.  It cannot be said that it is accurate, because we do not have sufficiently detailed records to say either way, but it is without a doubt the most likely appearance of that portion of the fort, given the available sources, and it can serve as a starting point for future researchers, who now have the benefit of perhaps the most exhaustively documented reconstruction ever attempted.  Lemon would also be likely to agree that nothing would please him more than for his work to serve as the impetus for future research that proves part of his reconstruction wrong.  That, after all, is the whole point of historical scholarship.
Lemon provides a wealth of detail about parts of the fort I never knew much about, such as the wall joining the Alamo church to the Long Barracks.  It appears to have been the side wall of an earlier church it turns out, and he specifies the minimal archaeological work that would be necessary to confirm this theory, which is based on evidence that has not been apparent for 150 years.  Likewise I didn't know that the courtyard behind this wall was originally a monastic-type arcaded courtyard, most of which had collapsed by the time of the battle.
In short, this book is a must-have for Alamo buffs, as well as anyone else looking for a painstaking forensic reconstruction of a historic site.