What are the Forum members reading (2 Viewers)

[marco55]

The Upper Country.
Mark

 

[theBaron]

I wrapped up some "commemorative" re-reading. For the anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea, I read the Osprey Campaign number on the battle-the only book specifically on the battle that I have-followed up by John Lundstrom's "First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Miday". That includes the Coral Sea, naturally. Then I read Walter Lord's "Incredible Victory" and Parshall & Tully's "Shattered Sword" for the Midway anniversary. And today I read through Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day". So I'm good till the Fourth.

Prost!
Brad

 

[Deitz]

Wolf Pack " The American Submarine Strategy that Helped Defeat Japan" by Steven Trent Smith

 

[Mark Terbush]

The civil War by Shelby Foote.

 

[Combat]

"Hitler's Final Fortress - Breslau 1945" by Richard Hargreaves. A very well-written account of the brutal last months of the war. It doesn't just focus on the final battle but the preamble including the disastrous civilian evacuations. Hargreaves also has a new book "Opening the Gates of Hell" about the first two months of the invasion of Russia in 1941.

 

[Combat]

This one looks interesting:

Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West by Peter Cozzens.​

"Sifting through layers and layers of myth and legend—from nineteenth-century dime novels like Deadwood Dick, to HBO prestige dramas to the casino billboards outside of present-day Deadwood—Peter Cozzens unveils the true face of Deadwood, South Dakota, the storied mining town that sprang up in early 1876 and came raining down in ashes only three years later, destined to become food for the imagination and a nostalgic landmark that now brings in more than two and a half million visitors each year."

 

[Combat]

This one looks interesting:

Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West by Peter Cozzens.​

"Sifting through layers and layers of myth and legend—from nineteenth-century dime novels like Deadwood Dick, to HBO prestige dramas to the casino billboards outside of present-day Deadwood—Peter Cozzens unveils the true face of Deadwood, South Dakota, the storied mining town that sprang up in early 1876 and came raining down in ashes only three years later, destined to become food for the imagination and a nostalgic landmark that now brings in more than two and a half million visitors each year."

I started this one and it's very well done. Great for any fan of the HBO series. Even the tiresome politically correct nonsense about how the Native Americans were mistreated can't ruin it.

 

[OzDigger]

'Project Hail Mary' - Andy Weir

What a great book, it's in my Top Five list of the Best Science Fiction Books of All Time, no surprise really as it's by the same author of 'The Martian' that became a huge movie success. And it won't be long before the movie based on 'Project Hail Mary' comes out.

 

[Barkmann]

No Greater Slaughter by Michael Livingston
About the Battle of Brunanburh in 937
The Battle that Created England.

Fiction - the latest Mark Dawson, The Hanging Tree

 

[Barkmann]

Reading this, interesting, looks at tactics by the allies on attacking concrete bunker systems, including D Day and the Siegfried Line, as well as other Western Europe strongpoints.

 

[theBaron]

I haven't had as much time for reading lately as in the past, but I reread "Jurassic Park" and "A Canticle for Leibowitz" again. Those are two sci-fi novels I enjoy so much that I've read them maybe 20 times each over the years.

I also re-read "The Caine Mutiny". It's a good novel, but I think I like the movie version better. Barney Greenberg's speech at the climax is such a great scene. Though I do enjoy Wouk's full story in the novel, following Willie's career and maturation.

In the queue: "The First Battle of Manassas" by John Hennessy, and "The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny" by Daisy Dunn.

Prost!
Brad

 

[Deitz]

A Wonderful Career in Crime by Frank W. Garmon JR. Mr. Garmon was a speaker at a Civil War Round Table I attend. The Lincoln Davis Civil War Round Table. It is held in a suburb south of Chicago.

The person in this book was quite interesting he was pardoned by both Lincoln and Davis, worked for the US, Canadian and British Governments among other cons he pulled.

 

[Combat]

Mexico - A 500 Year History by Paul Gillingham:

From acclaimed and prize-winning historian Paul Gillingham, a rich and vibrant history of one of the world’s most diverse, politically ground-breaking, and influential of countries

At the beginning of his masterful work of scholarship and narration, Paul Gillingham writes, from its outset “Mexico was more profoundly, globally hybrid than anywhere else in the prior history of the world.” Over the ensuing five centuries, Mexicans have prefigured and shaped the course of human lives across the globe.

Gillingham begins in 1511 with the dramatic shipwreck of two Spanish sailors in the far south of Mexico. Ten years later Hernán Cortés led an army of European adventurers and indigenous rebels to seize the legendary island city of Tenochtitlán, the center of Montezuma’s empire, the largest in the Americas. The capture of the future Mexico City was, more than an extraordinary military event, the collision of two long-separated worlds, radically different in everything from biota to urban planning. Spaniards discovered tomatoes, chocolate, and a city larger and more sophisticated than anything they had ever seen. Mexicans discovered horses, wheels, and lethal germs, sparking a cataclysmic century of disease that wiped out a majority of the pre-existing population and led to a unique recombination of European and indigenous cultures. The industrial mining of Mexico’s silver transformed the wealth and trade of the world. Mexico’s independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821 led to a calamitous mid-century war with the United States and one of the first great social revolutions that brought peace for Mexicans throughout many of the global horrors of the 20th century, before the country itself collapsed into the violence of the cartels and a refugee crisis in the 2000s.

 

[paxtoysoldier]

Mexico - A 500 Year History by Paul Gillingham:

From acclaimed and prize-winning historian Paul Gillingham, a rich and vibrant history of one of the world’s most diverse, politically ground-breaking, and influential of countries

At the beginning of his masterful work of scholarship and narration, Paul Gillingham writes, from its outset “Mexico was more profoundly, globally hybrid than anywhere else in the prior history of the world.” Over the ensuing five centuries, Mexicans have prefigured and shaped the course of human lives across the globe.

Gillingham begins in 1511 with the dramatic shipwreck of two Spanish sailors in the far south of Mexico. Ten years later Hernán Cortés led an army of European adventurers and indigenous rebels to seize the legendary island city of Tenochtitlán, the center of Montezuma’s empire, the largest in the Americas. The capture of the future Mexico City was, more than an extraordinary military event, the collision of two long-separated worlds, radically different in everything from biota to urban planning. Spaniards discovered tomatoes, chocolate, and a city larger and more sophisticated than anything they had ever seen. Mexicans discovered horses, wheels, and lethal germs, sparking a cataclysmic century of disease that wiped out a majority of the pre-existing population and led to a unique recombination of European and indigenous cultures. The industrial mining of Mexico’s silver transformed the wealth and trade of the world. Mexico’s independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821 led to a calamitous mid-century war with the United States and one of the first great social revolutions that brought peace for Mexicans throughout many of the global horrors of the 20th century, before the country itself collapsed into the violence of the cartels and a refugee crisis in the 2000s.

Sounds interesting. A good idea for an X-Mas book gift.