No, I haven't been able to make it all the way through Vincent Bugliosi's new 1600+ page book on the Kennedy assassination and neither have you. The main difference between us is that you were probably smart enough not to try. Not that the text of Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy isn't accurate. From what I can tell — reading as much as I've been able to read and checking out the rather feeble rebuttals around — Bugliosi has made a reasonably airtight case that L.H. Oswald acted alone in offing our thirty-fifth president. I'm just not sure he made it in a way that will convince even the eleven people in this country who might still be persuaded. (Here's an interesting column on some folks who can't be.)
One of the things that helped to break my interest in the case — at one point, a very strong interest — was the realization that most "conspiracy buffs" were intractable in their view that there was a conspiracy. Most were not irrevocably wedded to one theory of Who Killed JFK? A few were irrevocably wedded to more than one but most had their one theory and the view that it was an ongoing investigation; that there was so much that had been withheld or unscrutinized that we didn't have all the facts. They were willing to follow the evidence anywhere as long as it did not lead back to the Warren Commission verdict. Almost anything else was believable but not that.
I came to the conclusion that too many of them — not every person but enough to control the dynamic of that community — had some sort of deep emotional need to deny The Official Version. In some cases, it was a kind of snobbery and status; in others, a distrust of authority that went far beyond a healthy, admirable skepticism. They claimed to live for solid proof of what happened on 11/23/63 but if that solid proof had been than Oswald dunnit by his lonesome, that would have robbed them of something vital in their lives. Some would have lost their incomes and/or their very identities. So it had to be denied at all costs.
The turning point for me may have been an all-day conference I attended around 1974 — a gathering of Kennedy assassination "buffs" that was billed as an open forum and discussion. I was stunned at the extent to which the Closed Mind faction controlled the agenda. If you'd gotten up and argued that Kennedy was slain by four-legged Venusians, you'd have been allowed to talk because "all viewpoints must be considered." But stand up and suggest that Oswald actually owned the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle registered to him and you were hooted down, ruled out of order and almost made to stand in the corner. "We've moved past those lies," someone yelled. At the time, I thought there was a conspiracy of some sort — I would later be persuaded otherwise — but I found the stonewalling unacceptable. If you want the truth in this world, you have to be able to accept that it may not turn out to be what you want it to be.
The problem with Bugliosi's volume? In order to even pick up a book that thick about the case, you have to already have a powerful interest in the topic. And if you do, you probably already have an opinion set in plaster if not concrete. I admire Bugliosi's effort but I doubt he's going to change anyone's mind on any topic except maybe the purchase of books by Vince Bugliosi.