What are you currently reading ?

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

Previous topic - Next topic

pierre the shy

Quote from: kipt on 18 December 2020, 04:58:51 PM
Finished number 4 of the Owen Parry ACW series, "Honor's Kingdom". Out hero, Major Abel Jones, has been sent to England to discover the whereabouts of a warship the British are supposedly building for the Confederates.

Lots of murder and mystery and old acquaintances from his days in India (not friendly)..

A lot of fun.

Owen Parry is the pen name of Ralph Peters who wrote "Red Army" as well as numerous others.

Thats interesting to know Kipt, I've read a couple of Ralph Peters' books including Red Army....he's a good writer. Red Army is a novel about a theorectical mid 1980's Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe from a Soviet point of view.

I found, at least in Red Army, that he refreshingly focuses more on the characters than the hi-tech equipment that most authors of that genre tend to do.

thanks for the heads up.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
we are not now that strength which in old days
moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.

paulr

The Dambusters Raid by John Sweetman

Fascinating, he has gone deeply into the available records (British & German) and has busted some of the common myths

One example, the RAF were considering the Möhne dam as a high priority target in 1937 :o
The problem was that they didn't have the capability to destroy it
Lord Lensman of Wellington
2018 Painting Competition - Runner-Up!
2022 Painting Competition - Runner-Up!
2023 Painting Competition - Runner-Up!

flamingpig0

Quote from: kipt on 18 December 2020, 04:58:51 PM

Owen Parry is the pen name of Ralph Peters who wrote "Red Army" as well as numerous others.

"Red Army"  was one of the few cold war gone hot novels I found enjoyable
"I like coffee exceedingly..."
 H.P. Lovecraft

"We don't want your stupid tanks!" 
Salah Askar,

My six degrees of separation includes Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, and Wendy James

kipt

And another by Owen Parry, "Bold Sons Of Erin". This takes place in the coal fields of Pennsylvania.  A Union General has been murdered when on recruiting duty among the Irish miners. Government is afraid of another rebellion and Major Abel Jones is sent to discover why and what. His home is only about 10 miles from the scene, so there is some other adventures about that.

Again fast, entertains read.

kipt

And finished the last Owen Parry book, "Rebels Of Babylon".  Takes place in Union occupied New Orleans, again to solve a murder.

Voodoo, crypts, poison and disappearing slaves. Too bad this is the last of this series, although there were to be more. His one published 2005.

kipt

Finished "Himmler's War" by Robert Conroy.

An errant B-17 jettison's its bomb load in order to gain speed. However, Hitler happens to be in the buildings at Rastenberg and is killed.  Himmler takes over.

Stalin needs a break in the fighting and so does the Wehrmacht, so they call a truce.  Stalin trades 1000 T-34's for Vlasov and the German armies go west.

An atomic bomb goes off, but not by the US.  Skorzeny is involved so lots of action.

Fun and quick.

flamingpig0

'Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism'

Am overview of Strasser's political career and some useful info on the overwhelmingly middle class social base of the Nazi Party
Quite dry and I was more interested in his brother Otto

Oh I have also been reading a graphic novel the 'Vengeance of Vampirella'
"I like coffee exceedingly..."
 H.P. Lovecraft

"We don't want your stupid tanks!" 
Salah Askar,

My six degrees of separation includes Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, and Wendy James

kipt

Finished "Gerrmanica" by Robert Conroy.  Hitler stays in Berlin as the Russians close in, vowing to die there.  Goebbels however goes to the Redoubt in the Alps, adjacent to Switzerland.  American infantry division, the 105th (fiction) and the OSS with Allan Dulles are determined to close this last bastion of Nazism.  Goebbels is determined to make a new country, Germanica, with him as the head and hold off the Americans for the country to be recognized.  Delusional.

Good characters and descriptions of terrain and people, as well as situations.

Leman

My daughter bought me a copy of A Concise History Of The Netherlands. Looks like it is going to be a good read and of course very useful now I live here.

Andy
The artist formerly known as Dour Puritan!

kipt

Finished "Red Inferno" by Robert Conroy.  Truman is President, the reds are fighting in Berlin but not helping the countries they have "liberated".  Truman decides to send a 2 division column to Potsdam which greatly upsets Stalin.  Staling decides to push the Americans out, all the way to the Atlantic.

Lots of action per the Robert Conroy type.  Surrounded garrison, second line troops, and finally nucs.

Fun read.

steve_holmes_11

Strategos II (Wargame rules)


Rather Avalon Hill in their presentation, plenty of paragraph references, occasional Barkerese (nothing too bad).
Soldiering on leaving hard-points of incomprehension behind (will mop up later).

I have high hopes that these will present a light version of ancients without needing bazillions of little men, or a massive table.


Steve J

Nomonhan 1939 by S D Goldman. Just a few chapters in, but a great book so far setting the scene on the lead up to the battle as well as general relations between the Soviet Union and Japan. Highly recommended.

hammurabi70

Quote from: Steve J on 06 January 2021, 09:18:02 PM
Nomonhan 1939 by S D Goldman. Just a few chapters in, but a great book so far setting the scene on the lead up to the battle as well as general relations between the Soviet Union and Japan. Highly recommended.

Looks very interesting but I note that the single one star review on Amazon excoriates the author on the grounds that he uses old secondary sources rather than modern primary research and therefore repeats past errors in fact and emphasis. It is a topic most of us know little about but can you make any estimate of the validity of the criticism?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/159114339X/ref=cm_cr_unknown?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=1#reviews-filter-bar

kipt

Finished "God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause and Southern Minds" by Thomas Connelly and Barbara Bellows.  I should have paid more attention to the first part of the title.

I was hoping for military science just because Longstreet was in the title, but it was social science discussing the "Lost Cause" from the end of the war to the 1980's (book was printed 1982).

But, right after the war, southerners were looking for a reason they lost, blaming it on certain events; Jackson's death, Early not attacking on day 1, Longstreet reluctantly attacking on day 3.  But then it went to Lee in defeat but peacefully trying to bring the sides back together.

As it says "The essence of the modern Lost Cause is not the South of 1861, but the Confederacy of 1865.  It is an awareness of defeat, alienation from  the national experience, and a sense of separation from American ideals."  It goes into a discussion of country music even.

bit of a grind to get through it for me, but I always finish a book I start.

flamingpig0

Quote from: Steve J on 06 January 2021, 09:18:02 PM
Nomonhan 1939 by S D Goldman. Just a few chapters in, but a great book so far setting the scene on the lead up to the battle as well as general relations between the Soviet Union and Japan. Highly recommended.

I would second that - I was quite interested that the post Stalin purge Red Army seemed relatively competent  particularly compared to its efforts in Finnish debacle
"I like coffee exceedingly..."
 H.P. Lovecraft

"We don't want your stupid tanks!" 
Salah Askar,

My six degrees of separation includes Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, and Wendy James