I had these in my eBay Watch List, and accidentally bought them. Boring story. However, I’m glad I did as they are a great find! I don’t believe this is a complete set, but it would be pretty hard to finish it, and it’s good reading anyway. The first ones were published in 1914, the first year of the war, and the last one in the set that I have was published a year before the war ended.

The first issue is interesting with things such as the chapter on airplanes, because at that point they were just used for reconnaisance and some very basic bombing, consisting of the passenger or even the pilot dropping the bomb from the side of the plane. It was all experimental in that first year. They quickly changed that.

Being more than a hundred years old, these aren’t in that great of shape, but very readable. I had to pay to have them shipped from Great Britain, but that was worth it. They are like big National Geographics from the time.

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The Ernie Pyle book below was made in 1944… and it is like brand new. White pages, no issues whatsoever! Almost as unbelievable is that I don’t have it already!

America 1908 is interesting as it shows what the USA was like right before the war, which is important to know.

Images Of War • Artwork from the war. There is a lot of this in books, but I have few books about it.

Warrior is one of those books I see every once in a while, and wanted when it was new. Finally found one at a cheap price! A nice romp of photos and text, not heavy reading but very interesting, visually.

300 • Finally, I get to experience the book that one of my favorite movies was based on. I read Frank Miller’s take on Batman back in high school, so I’m familiar with the visual style. What I didn’t understand about the movie for years, is that it is from the point of view of the narrator, telling the story. It isn’t actually supposed to be historically accurate.

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Not much to say here, although the Songs Of WWI is a nice two-disc volume that has the original recordings… I read about these songs all the time so it will be a nice reference.

Voices of Time is a nice disc, and the Living Stereo of Van Cliburn is of course something I won’t turn down, especially with the Prokofiev 3.

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History of Western Europe • This is a great find, being in good shape and printed in 1903. Always interesting to read out-of-date history!

Thunderbolt • Memoirs are never a bad buy (unless it is someone who is unscrupulous, such as this book by a mobster I read a long time ago… by the second chapter it was obvious he was just making everything up. It was crazy.)

Why The Germans Lose At War • Interesting analysis of the skilled people in the German military/political scene, and the wildly unskilled people in the German military/political scene.

Mathew B. Brady’s Civil War • Amazing how old these photographs are, and we are very lucky to have them. Sure would be interesting if photography had developed earlier and we could have seen the War of 1812 or Revolutionary War. This is a great book though.