Book recommendations?

[Ulrich]

Firelock76

Some railroad books boring?  No doubt, the problemis either the author can write or he can't.  If he can't well...

Steven Ambrose used to say the best advice he got from his mentor Dr. Heseltine was "learn how to write!  You'll never make it in this business otherwise!"

I've been lucky, the rail books I've gotten so far have all been keepers.

 

Or the author hasn't clearly identified his/her audience. Some historical tomes that are sold in hobby shops should come with a warning: "Don't buy this unless you've got 20 thousand hours available to study it and a burning interest in this very specific subject". Some people publish their PhD thesis' , perhaps in hopes of cashing  in on what they spent so many years working on.

[Murphy Siding]

      I can generally tell within a few minutes of looking through a book whether it's something I would enjoy, Paging through some of the pictures, and reading a lttle here and a little there lets me know  the writer's style, and whether I would enjoy it.

     I can read a book about something that is essentially uninteresting to me, if I like the author's writing style.  On the other hand, the most interesting subject in the world can seem tedious if I don't like the writing style. 

[Paul of Covington]

Murphy Siding

      
     I can read a book about something that is essentially uninteresting to me, if I like the author's writing style.  On the other hand, the most interesting subject in the world can seem tedious if I don't like the writing style. 

  Amen.

   Captain, if you're interested in historical reading, one book I thoroughly enjoyed is "The American Railway."   The author is listed as Thomas Curtis Clarke, but it is a compilation of articles from many different writers in the late 1880's.   One day while re-reading it, it occurred to me that it's "The Railroad, What It Is, What It Does" from over a hundred years earlier.   The writing style of the time, in which the passive voice is frequently employed and the not infrequent use of the double negative is used, is found by this reader to be not unpleasant.   It's available from Amazon at a reasonable price (I never could figure out their multiple prices).

   For more technical history, I would recommend any book by John H. White, Jr., such as "A History Of the American Locomotive- It's Development: 1830-1880."

[John WR]

The American Railway Its Construction, Development, Management and Appliances is available on the internet here:

http://archive.org/details/americanrailway00clargoog