I knew this was a great book from the very first page.

I don’t know the ins and outs of the Pulitzer Prize nominations. But if in case they are listening to Joy on Paper, I would nominate Jerome Preisler’s Civil War Commando: William Cushing and the Daring Raid to Sink the Ironclad CSS Albemarle.

I read so many books and sometimes I do get sad that so many of them – books that are really good – just don’t have a shelf life. Sometimes it is because the books will become dated – they’ve depended too much on current events that won’t interest people five years from now, let alone – 50 or 100. They will be hanging out there in the ether – or Amazon’s cloud – for hundreds of years and no one will read them. That’s why when I get a book that will be for the ages, I get thrilled. I feel the thrill that Mr. Smith of Smith and Elders Publishing House felt upon reading Jane Eyre. There are a dozen novels that I have read in the past five years that I think will hold up – they will be read on Mars. Or distant galaxies. Civil War Commando is one of those books. From the very first page of the book, I was caught up with the story of Will Cushing, an American hero, who I admit I had not known. And that comes from someone who reads Civil War History and has walked many battlefields. Written with all the talent he displays in his modern-day thrillers – especially the ones inspired by Tom Clancy – Jerome Preisler writes a rip-roaring yarn that is entertaining and enlightening. Enjoy my interview with him…

Civil War Commando is a fascinating story of Will Cushing, the United States Navy's first naval commando -- the man who has been cited by historians at the inspiration for Star Wars' Luke Skywalker character. Cushing's attack on the unsinkable Confederate ironclad Albemarle is one of the "greatest feat of arms in American military history."

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.