I rather enjoyed Mark Hillier's Royal Flying Corps Kitbag, which is a new look at the uniforms worn and gear used by Britain's flying fighters over the Western Front during World War I.

But I didn't like reading it.

That's not a criticism of Hillier's work. His scholarship is sterling, but the topic makes -- let's be honest here -- for drying reading. He describes in meticulous detail the clothing worn by WWI flying aces and crewmen, and the adaptations made to accommodate the freezing conditions in the air, and there's simply no way to make it a riveting literary experience. We're talking pages and pages devoted to innovations in headgear, a variety of coat linings, new types of goggles, insignia, experimental footwear and so on.

It's dry stuff. I mean, how much can you read about gloves?

But Hillier has collected an amazing collection of photographs showing the particulars of the clothing and equipment in question. And that's where the book shines. Some of the photos are closeups of details, sometimes even of clothing labels, and that's not thrilling stuff ... but pictures of the airmen with their marvelous machines, all decked out for a chilly sortie in the cockpit, are much more interesting.

While I didn't find myself sitting and reading all of the text here in depth, I spent days paging through, reading bits here and there, studying the photographs and spending admittedly more time reading the captions than the accompanying narrative.

It's probably not how Hillier intended the book to be read. But it was far more compelling -- to me, certainly; I can't speak for others who might enjoy the topic more -- and along the way I learned plenty about the subject at hand.