Sagittarius rising

Rating:
Summary: an amazing adventure well told
Review: while not exactly great literature, lewis, in a self-effacing, matter-of-fact manner describes his experiences in the great war, and his efforts to teach flying to the chinese. a mixture of philosophy, humor, horror and history, what really comes through is his love of life and flying.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: _Sagittarius Rising_ is the greatest book yet written about wartime aviation. The author, Cecil Lewis, became a bud of George B. Shaw, T.E. Lawrence and Robert Graves. (If you judge people by their friends, this is a good group.) WWI junkies might be interested in Lewis' view of Captain Albert Ball and his world. It is true that little of the book deals with battles against the "Red Baron" but it does deal the magic of aviation at its beginning when it was brutalized by war less than 12 years after the Wright Brothers. I consider this one of the greatest war memoirs of the century and hope that some enlightened publisher (or new E-publisher) makes it available for new readers.