What are you currently reading ?

[Ithoriel]

[FierceKitty]

 

[kipt]

Finished "Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin" by James Lee McDonough and Thomas L. Connelly.
Good book on the battle with a good discussion about General Hood and his failures.  He was out of his depth as an army commander, but President Davios wanted a fighter so he replaced Johnson with Hood.  then Hood proceeded to ruin the Army of Tennessee.

I bought this book used and it had been signed by the authors, so an added bonus.

[Subedai]

For the first time in months I've picked up a hardcopy book as opposed to a pot boiler on my Kindly thing; Panzer Leader by Heinz Guderian. Never read it before and thought it was a steal  for £3 in my local The Works.   

[Steve J]

A very interesting read and I got my copy from a charity shop for a few quid too

[paulr]

An interesting read, if perhaps somewhat biased in his favour, I got my copy at the local book fair for about £1

[kipt]

Finished "Without Warning" by John Birmingham.  this is the first novel of a "bubble" that destroys all life across most of America.  I previously read book 3 of this series (not realizing that it was a series).  Good read but long and pretty grim.

Main characters are a city engineer in Seattle, a female smuggler on a yacht, a female special agent, an embedded reporter and various military types. It bounces back and forth through their stories similar to a Clancy novel.

[kipt]

Finished "Rommel and The Rebel" by Lawrence Wells.  This is a surprisingly good work of fiction.  The premise is that a team of Wermacht officers, Model, Schoner, Kruger and Rommel visited the US in 1937, traveling under assumed names. Rommel was named Erwin Rilke. They were in the US to visit some ACW battlefields as suggested by a lecturer at the War Academy who was also the military attache at the German Embassy in Washington.

When they visit the south, Rommel wanted to see the battlefield of Brice's Crossroads where Nathaniel Forrest beat a superior Federal force.  Rommel had studied about Stonewall Jackson and NB Forrest.  On the tour, the US Army had assigned a young lieutenant, Max Speigner, German speaking and an intelligence officer as escort.  Max had been compiling information about German officers and suspected that Rilke was Rommel.  They became friends.

In any event Max had written an appreciation of how the Germans would attack if war should come.  The report got into the hands of the British and Mx was posted to Africa prior to the US getting involved.  He was able while there to predict how Rommel would try and capture a supply depot and once that became fact he was "famous".

The rest of the story is sort of a cat and mouse game where Max is trying to convince the Brits of rommel's next move and Rommel has guessed the Max in in country.

The book was first published in 1986 and I have a Bantam Publishing paperback version of 1987.  An entertaining read.

[Terry37]

Finished "Tin Can Tommies", which was more like reading a comic when I was a kid in the 50's. But still enjoyable enough and full of ideas. However, now it's time for a reread of Watership Down for the upteenth time. It is a story I never tire of , and has so much more meaning having visited all of the places in the book (which are all real, places and very much like they were when the book was written) and having had tea with Mr. and Mr.s Adams in their home on  the last trip at their invitation. Truly, truly wonderful people. Sadly, he has passed now, and have not heard of Mrs. Adams, but they were in their 90's when we met them.


Having lunch on top of WD with the Beech Hanger behind.


The view from WD  To quote Dandelion - "Come and Look! You can see the whole world."

If you've never read this book, you should, and if you're in the UK and have never visited this place you should, and even though it's a bit more involved for those in other countries it is still so wonderful. We went twice 2011 and 2012.

Terry

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Today was spent reading, identifying and cataloguing the museum's collection of maps of Basra and surrounding area. I now know an awful lot more about map overlays than at 9am this morning! Most are still secret too!

[Leman]

Well done Terry, looks like you caught the three days of summer we used to get back then. This year, however, we baked for three months - of course global warming is made up !!!

[paulr]

Today was spent reading, identifying and cataloguing the museum's collection of maps of Basra and surrounding area. I now know an awful lot more about map overlays than at 9am this morning! Most are still secret too!

Sounds a very interesting day

[cameronian]

Well done Terry, looks like you caught the three days of summer we used to get back then. This year, however, we baked for three months - of course global warming is made up !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg

Correct, it is.

[kipt]

Finished "Solferino: the Birth of a Nation" by Patrick Turnbull.  A lot of the history leading up to the battle and more on the "nation building" than the  combats.  However a good lesson of history of the time.  Nappy III was not the best of friends to Piedmont and Franz Joseph was a sore loser, not allowing Victor Emmanuel to the treaty table and Nappy III acquiescing.

But, overall,  a good history book.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

'This Is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor' by Adam Kay. Utterly brilliant.