What are the Forum members reading (4 Viewers)

[Mister Dave]

Now reading, "The March of the Montana Column: Prelude to the Custer Disaster", which is essentially the journal of one Lt James H. Bradley 7th US Inf from March to July of 1876. Bradley had previously served in the 18th US Inf at Forts Phil Kearny and CF Smith in the late 1860's and then transferred to the 7th at Ft shaw near Helena Montana. He led the mounted Inf detachment and Crow scouts of Col. Gibbons column in the campaign against the Sioux in 1876 and is credited with discovering the remnants of Custer's command after LBH. It is very well written and reads quickly at around 175 pages or so.

MD

 

[theBaron]

Just finished re-reading "Shattered Sword" again, in the wake of the anniversary of the Battle of Midway last month. Now I'm in a reading lull, but I'm thinking of re-reading some of McCulloch's books on the Revolution, as 4th of July reading.

Prost!
Brad

 

[Leadmen]

I am also reading a book about Custer by Nathaniel Philbrick. The title is THE LAST STAND. I find the book interesting and have a few chapters left to read. J

 

[Mister Dave]

I am also reading a book about Custer by Nathaniel Philbrick. The title is THE LAST STAND. I find the book interesting and have a few chapters left to read. J

I'll have to look this one up. I've started 2 more this weekend. One is "The Arikara views of the Custer fight" and the other is "Exactly the right place: a history of Fort C.F. Smith". First one is self explanatory. The second one is proving to be a good history of this short lived fort located along the Bozeman Trail on the Bighorn River in southern Montana between 1866-68. Liking them both an awful lot so far.

MD

 

[pugio]

Just started reading "Exodus From The Alamo"... Not your Wayne or Disney version, but so far an interesting read. The author blames everything on slavery and the "Anglo-Celtic" mind-set. Also writes that most of the Alamo defenders were city boys with no military experience, at least 62 men tried an escape after the start of the battle........

 

[cantinetozzo]

Just finished "Fatherland" by Robert Harris (but i already watched the tv movie )..now i'm reading the memoirs of Traudl Junge (the secretary of Hitler..)..

 

[uksubs]

Just finishing reading luftwaffe Fighters-Bombers over Britain Witch is a great read about the fw 190 hit & run raids + loads of great photos

 

[Mitch]

Excellent book and just finished re-reading it and started re-reading Sons of the reich by Michael Reynolds
Mitch

Just finished "Fatherland" by Robert Harris (but i already watched the tv movie )..now i'm reading the memoirs of Traudl Junge (the secretary of Hitler..)..

 

[cantinetozzo]

I really like the style of Harris..i've read "Selling Hitler" and it's very entertaining then Fatherland..both of them full of characters but clear and well written (and "Selling Hitler" is a real story) now i want to read more from him..

 

[marco55]

Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars and War on the Run.
Mark

 

[Spitfrnd]

I am now about two thirds the way through David Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon and understand now why it is considered such a classic. Of course my primary Napoleonic focus has been on the Peninsula and British versus French part of the wars but it is interesting to broaden your horizons. I have found this to be a very entertaining and informative read and learned a great deal more about the Little Corsican

 

[Mitch]

Today I have just finished Mein Kampf. I have to say, its the most dire book I think I have read and, although its one of those 'must reads' how anyone did not see what was coming is beyond me.

A true classic!!!!! I do not think so
Mitch

 

[Mister Dave]

Finished with the Fort CF Smith history and still working on the Arikara views of the Custer fight book, but have started in on "Where a Hundred Soldiers Were Killed:The Struggle for the Powder River Country in 1866 and the Making of the Fetterman Myth" by John Monnett. Title in this case is fairly self explanatory I think.

Beefing up for an excursion with my oldest out to Powder River country and the Black Hills next month and will visit the sites of C.F. Smith on the Bighorn in MT, Phil Kearny, and Reno in WY.

Also need to finish up some Missouri village tribes and Lewis and Clark related reading soon as we will pass through North Dakota on the way out.

MD

 

[Scarlet Pimpernel]

I am now about two thirds the way through David Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon and understand now why it is considered such a classic. Of course my primary Napoleonic focus has been on the Peninsula and British versus French part of the wars but it is interesting to broaden your horizons. I have found this to be a very entertaining and informative read and learned a great deal more about the Little Corsican

I just picked this up last week...despite its length, it's an easy read and fills in a lot of gaps for me. I also picked up William Siborne's History of the Waterloo Campaign, 3rd ed., which is unbelievably detailed and meticulously compiled from first-hand accounts, even if the first chapter begins almost a hundred pages in following lengthy prefaces, introductions, special notes, and some gorgeous engravings including Ligne and Quatre-Bras. If you are interested in this book, be sure to pick up the 3rd edition, as several corrections have been made. For the obsessive, the appendices include casualty numbers of killed, wounded, and missing broken down by rank and file, officers, sergeants, drummers, and even horses (by battalion). Another includes every British officer present and his assignement.

I know that when this work was first published it met with a lot of contention, but unlike so many histories written by the victor, this work appears to be as objective as possible (and perhaps why Siborne met with so much resistance initially).

 

[Fusilier]

I am currently reading a two-volume set on the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777. The author, Thomas J. McGuire, certainly knows his research. If you don't like primary source material, this is not for you, as virtually every page has some quote in it, complete with period spelling and puncuation. Still, McGuire does a good job of weaving those sources into a coherent narrative. The provided maps could be better though.

Noah

 

[Mitch]

I have just began reading Catcher in the rye today. Its one of those books I have always wanted to read but, somehow never got around to it
Mitch

 

[Russell]

This spring I was stuck in a far and distant land without TV, the internet, libraries and bookstores but this book was sitting on a shelf: Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman. I really wanted a detective novel, an easy read, but it was this or meditation. So I dusted it off and got hooked.

It's a bit heavy going but Tuchman writes well and the information, of this period during the Hundred Years War, is outstanding. Having read this history you will walk away with a much deeper understanding of life as it was then. It gives one a whole lot more than who won when and where.

 

[OzDigger]

I have just began reading Catcher in the rye today. Its one of those books I have always wanted to read but, somehow never got around to it
Mitch

I was obliged to read 'Catcher in the Rye' at school and found it overated. But at least it was more interesting than 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' which was also required reading. From memory I believe my essay on the later novel indicated to my English teacher that teenage boys were less than enthused by such bodice rippers. Let's hope there is a wider reading selection for school boys these days.

 

[Mitch]

OzDigger....

Just finished the catcher and, totally agree, just cannot see, now having read it, what all the fuss and some controversy was about.

Got a few books on their way to me and should get them tommorow so, glad to get back to WWI/WWII
Mitch

I was obliged to read 'Catcher in the Rye' at school and found it overated. But at least it was more interesting than 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' which was also required reading. From memory I believe my essay on the later novel indicated to my English teacher that teenage boys were less than enthused by such bodice rippers. Let's hope there is a wider reading selection for school boys these days.

 

[jazzeum]

I was obliged to read 'Catcher in the Rye' at school and found it overated. But at least it was more interesting than 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' which was also required reading. From memory I believe my essay on the later novel indicated to my English teacher that teenage boys were less than enthused by such bodice rippers. Let's hope there is a wider reading selection for school boys these days.

Maybe you didn't have the proper debauched, angst ridden youth experiences that otherwise qualified us all