Herman Wouk Books

'Aurora Dawn' is a light, almost whimsical story about some shenanigans between a radio broadcasting network, an advertiser (Aurora Dawn, makers of soap products), and an evangelical preacher with a successful (live) radio program. We have a young network employee who tries to balance the interests and misbehavior of all these entities, plus somehow sort out his confused love life. The book was written over fifty years ago and feels rather dated, with the surprising exception of the barnstorming preacher character.

While in many ways a perfectly adequate read, and is certainly a very good first book by the wonderful Herman Wouk, its satire lacks bite and its humor is rather weak. I suppose what really annoyed me was the structure of 'Aurora Dawn'. Its story is actually narrated by a pompous radio announcer-type of narrator. Cute for the first fifty pages, grating thereafter.


Bottom line: certainly a book that would not have been reprinted if it weren't for the author's latter works and subsequent reputation. Very missable.

"Aurora Dawn" was Herman Wouk's first book, and while it is an enjoyable read, it is not comparable to his masterpieces like "The Caine Mutiny" or "Marjorie Morningstar." This tale of a young man in advertising who is determined to rise to the top at all costs is told in a flippant, almost sarcastic style. The author keeps intruding himself into the tale with comments on how the story is going, which can be annoying even though it yields some of the book's most humorous lines. The characters are deftly drawn but not especially sympathetic. This book is a quick and enjoyable read, and has some interesting takes on the advertising business. Just don't expect one of Wouk's masterpieces.

I don't know if it is accurate to say that this novel is not as good as Wouk's masterpieces (Caine Mutiny, Winds of War, etc.), because it is an entirely different genre. As an example of satire, Aurora Dawn excels in much the same way that the Caine Mutiny excels as a war novel. Wouk very cleverly mocks the modern world, from psychiatry, to advertising, to irreligiousness. An easy, enjoyable read.

What a great book.

On the U.S.S. Caine... an unimportant ship that sees little action during "The War" a mutiny is brewing. But its not a standard keel-hauling mutiny.

Also, there is a trial after the mutiny.

The author does a perfect job of taking you along for a ride. half the time you believe the captain was nutty as a fruitcake, and the other half of time time you think that the crew was just a bunch of whiny crybabies and that the captain was sane.

I highly recommend this as an audiobook as well.

There's a famous line in the book that I'll never forget:

"Mr. Merick, you may tell the crew that there are four ways of doing things on board my ship. There's the right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and *my* way. We do things *my* way"

I was intrigued by the idea that Herman Wouk was still writing books, and being a native Texan, was attracted to the title. The story involves an astrophysicist who was formerly involved in the now defunct Superconducting Supercollider. Now he gets involved in the national uproar over the Chinese discovery of the Higgs Boson (which the former SSC was supposed to find) and the potential superbomb it might enable. Our hero gets connected with a romantic congresswoman, his former Chinese love, a zealous reporter, many lawyers, and former academic colleagues. And to top it all off, he must save his marriage while keeping America safe. This light hearted romp is interesting.

Perhaps I am influenced by being a resident of Texas, but I enjoyed this tale and its characters. Had to wonder what kernels of truth might have been hidden in the workings of politicians. More than a few laughs in this book which is a quick read.

Wouk e' un vecchio lupo di mare della narrativa, avendo anche un Premio Pulitzer nel palmares. Che io sappia non ha nessuna conoscenza scientifica specifica, e nessuno dei suoi molti romanzi precedenti e' di tema scientifico. Eppure, e' abbastanza evidente che per scrivere questo romanzo si e' documentato, ed e' davvero difficile coglierlo in castagna.
L'intero romanzo gira attorno alla vicenda (vera) dello SSC, il Superconducting SuperCollider che avrebbe dovuto essere il piu' potente acceleratore di particelle al mondo, e la cui costruzione fu sospesa nel 1993 dopo il 20% dei lavori. Il protagonista, un fisico di mezza eta' reduce da quella esperienza, si ritrova a dover spiegare a vari personaggi, in termini semplici, cosa siano il bosone di Higgs, i principi base di funzionamento dello SSC, e svariati altri dettagli di contorno come i raggi cosmici; e in tutto questo e' egregio. Spiega anche i motivi che hanno portato alla chiusura del progetto, e su quelli non so quasi nulla, ma quel poco che so combacia con cio' che lui racconta (anche se li' probabilmente si devia necessariamente dalla solidita' dei fatti per entrare nel campo delle impressioni, trattandosi piu' di politica della scienza che di scienza).
La storia e' ambientata ai giorni nostri, e parte da una sconvolgente pubblicazione cinese sulla scoperta, in Cina, del bosone di Higgs. E ogni volta che il lettore informato ghigna tra se' e se' dicendosi "ma questo non e' possibile", volta pagina e legge uno dei personaggi che se la ghigna pensando "ma questo non e' possibile", per farsi poi rispondere qualche paragrafo o capitolo dopo con una spiegazione piu' o meno plausibile.
La descrizione della psicosi anti-cinese dei vertici della societa' americana e' piuttosto godibile e verosimile, come anche l'ossessione dei politici per sapere se il bosone di Higgs puo' avere applicazioni belliche (non tanto per sapere se poterne fare uso, ma per capire se ne puo' fare uso l'infida Cina).

I sit here and wonder not what mister Wouk was thinking when he took on the challenge of making a superconductor and it's scientist interesting but what the negative reviewers would have written had he published under the pen name Pug Henry and not revealed his true identity till a year or two later. I got the feeling while reading the reviews that the majority of negative reviews were so not because it's a bad book it's not it's not war and peace but neither are the last 4 books I read it's a decent little light piece of literature written by a 90 yo genius who has earned the right to write one and should be judged on it's own merits and not as a contrast and comparison of all of his works.

When reading through the negative reviews, one thing is apparent. Those who disliked the book were hoping for another sweeping war drama.

"A Hole in Texas" is a different style than his historical fiction, but it is still excellently written and dynamic. Who else could make particle physics entertaining?

Herman Wouk does a great job telling his story of Israel from the Israeli point of view, but it is a one sided viewpoint nonetheless. What is disturbing to me is the fact that in the Winds of War/War and Remembrance, Wouk managed to present the German side, even portraying one or two sympathetically, yet in The Hope (and The Glory), he does not even mention the Arabs or their reasoning. They are dismissed as a people who must accept Israel, leaving the reader to ask "why is their side of the story ignored?"

The Hope is an interesting and informative story about the early years of Israel's history. Wouk's strength lies in his historical research rather than as a dramatic writer of fiction, and I found myself overlooking literary shortcomings while enjoying informative and exciting historical aspects. I found the romantic affairs of the charcters in "The Hope" to be completely superfluous. Unlike Wouk's "Winds of War," in which the romantic liasons between characters could be said to represent the historically-relevant changes in women's roles and sexual mores, the affairs between characters in "The Hope" seem to add nothing of value to the overall story either from a historical angle nor a narrative one. But nonetheless, it was a good book and I'm glad I took the time to read it.

I got from "The Hope" exactly what I expected to. An interesting tale backed up by solid historical events. The book is no substitute for non-fiction military history, but it does reveal the passion behind the founding of Israel. Mr. Wouk makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is a Zionist, so if you are looking for a balanced telling of the conflict look elsewhere. It is not that the book is anti-Arab; it is just that Arabs hardly exist at all. They are talked about, but never form characters.

The book does give a great insider feel that made me feel I could understand what was going through the minds of many actual and made-up characters that inter-mingle throughout the book. I would not call the book sappy, but it does spend almost as much time on the love life of the main characters as it does the political/warfighing events of the time.

The book takes a while to get going and never seems to be in a rush. The pace takes is time, so do not look for a quick read

Mr Wouk obviously spent a lot of time in Israel researching the book, and the feel for the different regions and sub-cultures really comes out. If you like history and are looking for something a bit heavier than beach books, but are not quite ready for a 1200 page academic tome on mid-east history than "The Hope" may be for you

I frequently suggest "The Hope" and the second half of the story, "The Glory" as 'must-reads' for anyone who would like to understand where Israel is today in world politics. Wouk's other two great historical-fiction works, "The Winds of War" and "War and Rememberance", gave the non-history major a view of the history and politics of World War II while reading a fun and well-written novel. "The Hope" and "The Glory" give insight to the rebirth of Israel in the last 1940s and a feel for her tenuous survival since that time - again, while reading of interesting fictional characters interwoven with real characters and real history. As one who has spent 26 of the last 39 years in elective office and one who is a graduate level student of 20th Century political and diplomatic history, I rate Wouk as the most important historical-fiction writer of our time.
Senator Mike Fair
Oklahoma State Senator (retired)

Herman Wouk is best-known for two works, The Caine Mutiny (which grew out of his service in the U.S. Navy in WW2) and the two-volume WW2 saga that he wrote later, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. The former I read in high school, and really ought to re-read sometime (because I don't think I got as much as I could have from it) while the latter I read a few years later. While I thought it good, the second half was something of a let-down from the first book. I also thought the inclusion of a fake history of the war to be a bit gratuitous: if you need such a thing, either write your own or get permission to use someone else's. The present book is the author's attempt to do the same thing he did for the U.S. in WW2, only this time his topic is the state of Israel, and the scope is from the War of Independance to the Six Day War in 1967.

The back cover of the book tells you of a large cast of characters, but it's frankly a bit misleading. Mention of four men and three women is made, but of the men only two--Zev Barak and Yossi Nitzan are real characters in the book. Nitzan, by the way, is known as "Don Kishote"--the Hebrew spelling and pronunciation of "Don Quixote"--throughout the book. The other two characters on the back of the book (Sam Pasternak and Benny Luria) are much less evident in the story. Pasternak's only in the plot occasionally, and after a brief appearance at the beginning of the story, Luria dissappears until pretty much the end.

So the book's about Barak and Nitzan. Nitzan starts out a paratrooper, then transfers to the armored branch of the army, while Barak starts out a tanker, so you get the tanker's view of the wars--at least those where Israel had tanks, because of course in 1949 they didn't have any at all.

The back cover also speaks of the women these men love, and here it's more honest. Nitzan starts out in love with Shayna, a deeply conventional and religious woman, but he has a fling with Yael (who coincidentally is the sister of the Benny who's almost completely absent from the plot) and winds up marrying her. After this happens, she pretty much dissappears from the plot also, because she moves to Los Angeles to be a successful businesswoman. The author seems to want to provide a picture of American society, and at least some commentary on the difference between Israeli and American society--and what he presents isn't that flattering to Israel.

Barak, meanwhile, is married to Nakhama. Though she's supposed to be a supporting character, she's in the book as much as Sam Pasternak is, and more than Benny Luria. Zev Barak travels to America repeatedly, and meets with a shadowy government adviser named Christian Cunningham. He in turn has a daughter, and Zev and she have a long-distance love affair over the years that's really the center of the book in many ways, and certainly the most interesting part of the plot.

I generally enjoyed this book. It's hard for an author to know how much of this stuff to include and how much to cut out: since there's no real central plot, just side-stories that could be published separately as stand-alone pieces, it could just go on and on. Here, the author opted for something shorter than The Winds of War--slightly less than 700 pages, as opposed to over 1000. I don't know whether this is a good choice or not. Perhaps what was left on the editing room floor was the rest of Benny Luria's story and more about Sam Pasternak. Whether that would have improved the story or just made it drag I can't judge.

Save your money and purchase the REAL stories 'outlined' in this cheap book put together to ride the wave of The Perfect Storm. The collection of stories is nothing more than a collection of extended abstracts of the real stories. Many of the 'abstracts' are taken out of context and the reader does not get an accurate picture of what and why the nautical situation developed or how it concluded. Pass on this one.

Clint Willis has created a fascinating series of books with Epic, Climb, High, Wild, Ice, Rough Water, and The War. Each of these volumes presents the best literature about their respective subjects in a powerful cohesive manner. These books are a quick read, but intricate and spellbinding. I have given many of them to friends and family as gifts.

These accounts by sailors captured in truly overwhelming situations form a microcosm of humanity in extremis--the reader can't help but compare his or her notions of his/her bravery, cowardice, fortitude, skill, intelligence, and sanity to those of the real-life characters in the anthology. Though the book is awash in humbling, awe-inspiring accounts of the almost mythic power of the ocean, its storms and waves and wind and rain are secondary to the humanity of the people in its grasp. The most compelling element of these stories is the will to survive of their characters, and the craftiness and real bravery employed in doing so (with a couple notable and harrowing exceptions). There isn't a weak selection here.

This book is in a series put out by Adrenaline books and each book contains certain selections chosen by the editor. The selections are either excerpts from books, excerpts from diaries and journals, short stories, or an occasional essay. I look at how good the writing is, and how good the stories are.

There are 16 selections in this book. Half of them range from good to great, and the other eight are fairly poor. The writing is okay throughout, with some being more exceptional than others, but it's the stories that differ the most in quality. Six of them, whether written well or not, have virtually no story whatsoever or are very poor. As it turns out, the best stories in this book are also some of the better written. This is where the book's strength shows up. The selections introduce you to stories and books you may have never read and after reading some of the good selections, it makes you want to go read the books they were taken from. So I would mostly recommend this book to people who have not read much or any sea stories. It introduces you to a wide variety of sea literature. But otherwise I would only lightly recommend it by saying that everyone would find some selections that they really like.

I have never known much about life at sea. I got this book because it was in the series of good collections by Clint Willis. I figured it would probably not be as good as his others, but I was pleasantly surprised. I liked as much if not more. Stories ranging between the plights of sea-men caught in huge storms to single individuals trapped in the solitude of an open sea. These stories are from today as well as from the distant past. If you're intrigued by the sea but don't have much knowledge of the world it creates, take a look at this book. It's wonderfully diverse and highly adventurous.

Not a review as much as simply a warning. If you're looking for "The Caine Mutiny" audiobook, this is *not* it. This is the unabridged play...with actors reading their parts. If this is what you're looking for, then jump right in. If you're looking for an auiobook of the actual 560 page text...this is not it.

The Caine Mutiny was an excellent novel. It gave a great insite on a sailor's life during the war. I found it to go into great discription at times. THis was often confusing and boring. Besides these detailed parts I found it to be intriguing.

To do it justice it was excellent! But if you've already seen Humphrey Bogart and Jose' Ferrer in the Cain Mutiny movie then you've already seen the best that can be done. This audio book has some more and some different information but it's really close. The actors did fine jobs but better than Bogart and Ferrer, no. I enjoyed it as a comparison read and if you can suspend your memory, don't criticize and just absorb, you will enjoy it.