Me give up

I'm struggling with my current book,   
                 America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation.
 It's hard to read--either
(a) the writing style is inconsistent, or
(b) my brain is too old and decrepit to follow such an erudite discussion.

I think the correct answer is (a).  Sometimes his sentences flow smoothly along, but other times they run on and I get halfway through one of his huge, fat paragraphs and realize I've gotten lost in stuff that doesn't fit together.

Half of good history writing is research--getting the facts.  But the other half is reporting the facts, with a flowing narrative or a convincing argument.

I'll stick it out.  It only has 22 chapters, so if I manage 5 chapters a week it will be done with one renewal.

In other news, I pulled a stupid yesterday. After airing up two of the three flat tires on the lawnmower, I decided to start it, then back it up a couple of feet and air the third (front) tire.  The front tires don't carry much weight, so that would be a safe maneuver. 

Since I'd had to jump start it the last twenty times I'd used it, so I wasn't surprised to find the battery dead.  I hooked up the jumper cables and...

And nothing. It thumped a little, clicked a little, then went silent and stayed that way. I reseated the jumper cables four or five times.  Continued silence.

Enough.  It was high time to buy a new battery.

I put the jumper cables away.  I put back the car I was using for a power source, got out a socket wrench and started to remove the battery. Immediately I noticed that the nut on the negative terminal was very loose, barely making a connection.

So that was that.  I'd been applying current to the battery but not to the starter.  Too late--I was halfway done removing the battery by then.  Bah!  I quit.  The battery is in the garage, the lawnmower in the shed, and the sopping wet grass is drooping in place.  It's going to rain all night and all day tomorrow.

Current Conditions.