Another insight:

Atomic Heroes and Atomic Monsters: American and Japanese Cartoonists Confront the Onset of the Nuclear Age, 1945–80 by Ferenc M. Szasz &Issei Takechi

Physical books are more convenient and more portable than a laptop. Physical books are less expensive to replace when damaged or stolen than an electronic device. The text in a physical books doesn't "disappear" in bright sunlight. Reading a printed page is less tiring for the eyes than looking at an electric screen.

Catch-22 is a great book. It's my all-time favorite book. Heller weaves several story lines into a fine tapestry of literature. I have not read the other two, but I did read The Thin Red Line, which I believe is comparable to The Naked and the Dead. The Thin Red Line is a good book, but I prefer nonfiction, e.g., Into The Valley: A Skirmish of the Marines by John Hersey, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugen B. Sledge, and Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle by Richard Frank.

I read sitting-up with my feet propped up. I use a folded blanket in my lap to hold my book so that I'm not required to actually hold the book with my hands. I just rest my fingers on the pages to keep them from flipping.

I used to be a bookstore/library browser, but I don’t do that anymore. I read primarily nonfiction. Now days, I’ll read an article, hear a lecture, or see a TV show about a subject, and when it sparks my interest, I go to Wikipedia to find what books are used to support the article. Once I locate a title or titles, I go to Amazon to read the customer reviews on the selected book(s). If I don’t want to add the book to my personal library, I go on-line to see if it’s available at the local library. Usually, however, I’ll purchase the book.

The second method I use involves picking a book from the footnotes and bibliography of the book I am reading. For those, I skip Wikipedia and go directly to the reviews. If I think I’d like the book, I go ahead and order it: usually a used copy from an independent bookseller at AbeBooks. For example, a few years ago I determined I wanted to learn more about the Second World War in the China-Burma-India Theater. I bought Burma: The Longest War 1941-45 (1984) by Louis Allen. It sat on my shelf for about ten or fifteen years, but I started reading it at the end of this past December. As I was reading it, I became curious about three other books Allen cited as primary sources. I bought all three of them. I finished the third one last night. I received it from England last Monday. It was published in 1946, and it’s not available in my local library.

One area Allen didn’t cover well was China’s role in the war in Burma. So, by the first process I described above, I found and selected China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China 1937-1952 by Hans van de Ven. I started it today.

One last thing. A couple of years ago I came across a title in a bibliography I was interested in. When I researched it, I found that it was out-of-print, and no one was selling new or used copies. On that occasion, I luckily WAS able to check it out of the local library.

Robert Trumbull: The Raft: The Courageous Struggle of Three Naval Airmen Against the Sea.