The Twilight Man

The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television by Koren Shadmi  176 pp.

This is a biographical graphic novel about the life of Rod Serling from his days as a paratrooper in World War II to his creation of iconic television from the early days of the medium. Serling was the consummate workaholic from his teenage years. He pushed himself and his superiors to get into the paratroopers even though at 5"4" he did not make the height requirement. In the early days of television he frequently butted heads with his superiors over censorship and commercialism. The creation of his popular "Twilight Zone" program was a way to get around restrictions against stories about race and discrimination by setting the stories in the future with alien societies. His work ethic, writing several scripts at the same time while smoking up to four packs a day ultimately killed him at age 50. Shadmi has done an excellent job of portraying Serling's intensity and frustrations as well as his enjoyment of the good life after his successes.

The Battle of Arnhem

The Battle of Arnhem: the Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II / Antony Beevor, read by Sean Barrett, 459 pp.

An excellent audiobook, very ably read by Sean Barrett, whose contents would be better absorbed through reading the print and looking at the maps and diagrams...

Having said that, I still appreciated Beevor's account of the Allies' September 1944 push to cross the Rhine in the Netherlands and the resulting military failure and humanitarian crisis to which it contributed.  He does a wonderful job interweaving technical details, military reports, and diary accounts of top military brass on both sides, ordinary soldiers, and Dutch civilians.  While I am unlikely to retain much of the nuts and bolts detail, his accounts of the misery and courage of ordinary Dutch individuals as their occupied communities were briefly liberated only to be re-occupied won't be easily forgotten.