Writing Exercise: Describe the last book your hero read. Did it teach him anything?
It’s, let’s say, the middle of the year 2000, and Prof. James K. Garraty is browsing for new books to read during the summer semester when he usually doesn’t teach classes at Columbia University. What do I think Jim would be reading?
Non-Fiction: Military History
Knowing Jim Garraty as well as I do, I think he’d be reading Richard B. Franks’ Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, a non-fiction account of the Pacific War’s end in the summer of 1945, with a focus on Operation Downfall, the planned two-phase invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, the Soviet Union’s declaration of war, and, of course, the dropping of the Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a historian in his own right, Garraty accepts Franks’ thesis that Operation Olympic (the invasion of Kyushu, scheduled for an X-Day of November 1, 1945) and Operation Coronet (the invasion of Honshu near Tokyo, scheduled for a Y-Day of March 1, 1946) would have been the bloodiest battles fought in the Pacific, and that millions of lives were ultimately spared by President Truman’s decision to end World War II by using atomic bombs.
Non-Fiction: Relationships (Or Male Health)/Psychology/Human Sexuality
Since his post-divorce love life has improved ever since Jim met Maddie at the Moonglow Club in late February, he would also go to Book Culture and purchase the paperback edition of Anne Hooper’s Great Sex Guide. Jim, of course, isn’t a novice in bed, but as an educator, reader, and human being, he believes in the motto “knowledge is power.” I could tell you what he learned from reading that one, but that’s between Jim and Maddie!
Fiction
As much as Jim Garraty loves history (especially military history), he can often be found, in his downtime from work, with a novel in one hand and a bottle of Heineken within easy reach. In the summer of 2000, the year for the events described in Reunion: Coda, he would be reading The Bear and the Dragon, then the latest Tom Clancy novel recently published in hardback. As a fan of Jack Ryan, Jim enjoys Clancy’s tale, which continues the narrative that started in Debt of Honor and pits the People’s Republic of China (the titular dragon) against the Russian Federation and its NATO allies. (Keep in mind that Clancy wrote this novel in the late 1990s when Boris Yeltsin seemed to be democratizing [or trying to democratize] Russia and nurturing close ties with the West.) As an academician, Jim thinks the novel’s plot is a bit too far-fetched a scenario, but he “turns off his brain” and enjoys the ride anyway.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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