BOOKSCAN #3

Book: SACKET'S LAND
Writer: Louis L'Amour
Bantam, Louis L'Amour Collection Edition, 1982

This book, like so many of L'Amour's westerns, is fluff but entertaining fluff. This is one of his series of novels about the Sackett family and features Barnabas Sackett, who was the first of the Sacketts to move to America from Britain. Though there is nothing really special about the novel, the reason for selecting it for a Bookscan blog is that it took me into some side excursions - and I like side excursions.

The book mentions some people from history. One of them was Hannibal. Looking up Hannibal lead me to Pyrrhus who has the dubious distinction of giving the expression "pyrrhic victory" to the English language. As defined by Merriam-Webster, a pyrrhic victory is a victory that comes at a great cost, like most of the actual victories of Pyrrhus.

Two other names from the book that I looked up were John Leland (an antiquarian from Britain) and Richard Hakluyt. I found John Leland's life and work pretty interesting.

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