What are you currently reading ?

Started by goat major, 03 November 2012, 06:40:05 PM

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mmcv

Quote from: Raider4 on 22 September 2020, 08:05:09 PM
There's also another Dune movie coming - they've split the first book into two films this time.

But I can't face re-reading that at the moment.

The new movie looks promising. I "re-read" Dune on audiobook earlier this year and enjoyed it. Think the last time I read it was in my early teens.

Steve J

The Battle of Killicrankie: The First Jacobite Campaign 1689-1691 by J.D. Oates. A good read so far with plenty of detail for the wargamer. Still in the early stages of the campaign so haven't got to the nitty gritty stuff yet.

kipt

Finished "Honour Be Damned" by Tom Connery.  A Markham of the Marines Novel, as it says on the cover.  This is the only one I have (given by a friend).  It's in the tradition of Sharpe and Fox.  Lieutenant Markham is a Marine officer and on an escapade in the south of France after Toulon.  Loyal sergeant as in Sharpe.

An OK book but it didn't hold my attention as other Napoleonic novels of the type.

Ithoriel

Quote from: mmcv on 23 September 2020, 08:55:04 AM
The new movie looks promising. I "re-read" Dune on audiobook earlier this year and enjoyed it. Think the last time I read it was in my early teens.

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion."

The first thing I think of in relation to Dune and it's not even in the books!
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

Jerboa

I'm currently reading, and thoroughly enjoying, 'Brazen Chariots' by Robert Crisp. It's a memoir of a tank commander in 3RTR during Operation Crusader (Nov.-Dec. 1941). Fascinating character. Great story. Honeys vs. Panzers in the desert. What's not to like.
Jerboa

Steve J

1914 wargames rules from Great Escape Games.

hammurabi70

Quote from: Jerboa on 26 September 2020, 04:51:36 PM
I'm currently reading, and thoroughly enjoying, 'Brazen Chariots' by Robert Crisp. It's a memoir of a tank commander in 3RTR during Operation Crusader (Nov.-Dec. 1941). Fascinating character. Great story. Honeys vs. Panzers in the desert. What's not to like.
Jerboa
Great read but a view limited to that of an individual tank commander during Operation Crusader.

Ben Waterhouse

Just got the 5 volume Phipps "The Armies of the First French Republic and the Rise of the Marshals of Napoleon" from the N&M Press reprint. That'll keep me quiet for a couple of weeks...
Arma Pacis Fulcra

paulr

Not, it would appear, entirely quiet ;) ;D
Lord Lensman of Wellington
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Chad

Ben

Enjoy the books. They are an excellent introduction to the Revolutionary period

Steve J

Landscape Turned Read: The Battle of Antietam by Stephen W Sears. Just getting going but I do like him as an author.

kipt

Finished "Napoleon And His Marshals" by A.G. MacDonald.  A good look at the different Marshals with a lot of the interaction and strife between them.  Good anecdotes of who they were and how they interacted.  I have 6 other books on the Marshals as well as several on specific men.  This has other information.

A few inaccuracies (printed in 1934) that later books corrected, but well written and easy to read.

Adamwest

Collision of empires, the war on the eastern front 1914,
Found it on my tablet and reread it. I really enjoyed it i thought the author did a good job of zooming between the large scale offensives down to the individual regimental actions. This combined with osprey the 'austro-hungarian army in 1914' has got me wanting to play some early great war, see if i can do better than Conrad!

hammurabi70

Quote from: flamingpig0 on 30 May 2020, 11:02:08 PM
In some ways it is complimentary to Montgomery - best people read the book themselves and make their own minds up.
BLOOD, SWEAT & ARROGANCE - G Corrigan

A good point so I have read it.  I am not quite sure how to take it as large sections of it are taken up covering pre-war and early war periods; as these often suffer from neglect there is some value there.  Much of the material seems to be a narrative  on progress of the war but I am not sure if it is done as an attempt to highlight failings or just carrying on the story of the war. I guess it may depend on how much of the material the reader is familiar with; having more than 50 years of reading the only new material for me was Churchill's input on budgeting during the 1920s and the ten-year rule but then my memory recalls that Churchill was in the Treasury so presumably had an implied aim of keeping down expenditure.

I did find his generosity towards the behaviour of the Waffen SS and the German Army to be irritating and one might pick up on a few other points, such as:
* Wittman was not killed by a rocket firing Typhoon, which is what he suggests.
* It is suggested (curtesy of a Waffen SS officer) that there is no evidence of German usage of the intact Monte Cassino monastery; however, a BBC documentary includes the testimony of a veteran who generously credits the German High Command with issuing such orders and having such intent but who swears that he observed firing from the intact monastery.
* His desire to use the 3.7" AAA as a converted anti-tank weapon misses the point that it was designed to defend against aircraft and did a good job of keeping the Luftwaffe away from RAF bases, while the 88s converted to anti-tank roles failed to do the same for the Germans., whose airbases got badly bombed by the RAF.  The memoirs of a major who commissioned the development of the 6pdr anti tank gun in 1936 mentions that his successor in Whitehall cancelled the project as an economy measure, thereby delaying the introduction of the 6pdr by two years.  Investigating that claim and the issues around procurement would have been more helpful, as Wing Commander 'Dizzy' Allen did with his analysis on the Battle of Britain.

My personal take is that as a history of WWII [British Front] it is unbalanced and the criticisms too dilute in the narrative to make it worthwhile for a 470+ page book but each to their own.

MSawyer

I've been reading The Men Who Would Be Kings Rules from Osprey.
Keep your stick on the ice.