What are you currently reading ?

[Hertsblue]

Just started Ian Morris's Why the West Rules - For Now, in which he attempts to plot the patterns of history and predict future developments. It's a sort of survey of Life, the Universe and Everything. In which case I guess we could all tell him the answer.... 

[Leman]

When you've finished you might want to start learning Mandarin, just in case.

[Hertsblue]

I was thinking more along the lines of 47. 

[kipt]

Finished "The Battle of Barrosa 1811: Forgotten Battle of the Peninsular War" by  John Grehan & Martin Mace.

Good description of the battle and the campaign for Cadiz.  Makes as a point that Joseph and Soult would probably have won the whole Peninsular War if they had taken Cadiz.

[FierceKitty]

Tales from Moominvalley. Cor, she knew how to choose the right details for a story!

[Leman]

Have now made it to volume 3 of Ken Follet's Century Trilogy - Kicks off in Berlin in 1961. Volume 2 had my heart pounding in many sections as people in Germany and Russia tried to cope with the Gestapo and NKVD, while the Americans were getting on with nuclear research. A real page turner.

[cameronian]

Have now made it to volume 3 of Ken Follet's Century Trilogy - Kicks off in Berlin in 1961. Volume 2 had my heart pounding in many sections as people in Germany and Russia tried to cope with the Gestapo and NKVD, while the Americans were getting on with nuclear research. A real page turner.

Have you ever read any of the Bernie Gunther novels? A Berlin detective before, during and after the 3rd Reich; touch of the Philip Marlowes but rattling good reads.

[Leman]

Thanks for the info.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

The new Elric and the Ruby Throne graphic novel.
Awesome.
Sickening, thought provoking, evil as you expect Melinobeans to be.  Just awesome. 

[kipt]

Just finished "The War in the Crimea" by General Sir Edward Hamley.  It was good but I was hoping it would have been more like his "Operations of War".  However, the battles and siege descriptions are good.  No OB's but they are obtainable elsewhere I presume.  Not a war I game however.

[paulr]

Just finished "The War in the Crimea" by General Sir Edward Hamley.  ... Not a war I game however.

Yet 

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Crimea - it's not a war - just glorious. A Frenchman said so.

IanS

[pierre the shy]

Just finished "The Last Torpedo Flyers" by Arthur Aldridge and his son. Aldridge was a Beaufort torpedo bomber pilot with 217 Sqn in the UK, Malta and Ceylon in 1941-2. Its one of the best accounts by a wartime flyer that I have read (he was still alive as of late 2013). He is very forthright and honest about his chances of survival and seeing so many of his contempories set out on missions never to return.

I found a few bits of the book a little colourful in the light of hindsight (the Tirpitz is the biggest battleship in in world?) but to him in wartime it was what was thought to be the case. He was the pliot who torpedoed the Italain crusier "Trento" during the desasterous Harpoon/Vigorous convoy operations to relieve Malta in June 1942. I wonder if Jeremy Clarkson will follow up his recent rather good TV documentary on PQ-17 with one about the June convoys which ended almost as disasterously.

Overall a great read.     

[Dave]

I'm currently reading the three volume set published in the early 50's on the RAF in ww2 currently working my way through book 2 and coastal command

Dave

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

No doubt written in the "heroic stiff upper lip" style.

IanS

[Techno]

Listening to 'Purity in death", by Nora Roberts.
Cheers - Phil

[fsn]

Techno!!!!  Nora is one of my faves. Could we have been separated at birth?


I'm re-reading "A Universe from Nothing" by Laurence Krauss. It explains how a matter can actually spontaneously come into existence. I read one page, understand it fully, then turn the page and magically know nothing.

Cheese, Philly - FSN

[Dave]

No doubt written in the "heroic stiff upper lip" style.

IanS

Yes, abit hard to read in places, and glossing over cock ups.

Dave

[Techno]

Techno!!!!  Nora is one of my faves. Could we have been separated at birth?
Cheese, Philly - FSN

Well.....We quite possibly share the same great, great, great, great (repeat a few thosand times) grandmother/grandfather, I suppose.
I sometimes wonder whether there was just one single celled orgasm organism that effectively 'gave birth' to every single creature on the Earth....In which case, we're all related, in a way.

'Ere....Why did my PC decide to 'lose the hour' yesterday afternoon.....I hope it doesn't do it again tomorrow morning.....It's getting confusing !....Life's daft enough as it is !

Cheers - Phil (Probably)...... But I AM enjoying the Nora Roberts, writng as J.D. Robb, story 

[Hertsblue]

Picked up a copy of the Osprey Campaign volume for Ramilles 1706 yesterday. I find the Osprey titles vary greatly in quality, but this one seems, at first sight, to be one of the better ones. At least the author, Michael McNally, has grasped the first requirement of any wargamer - an order of battle for both sides.