What Are You Reading

[Smithy]

I picked up my copy of this last week Søren and have only flicked through it so far, looks very nice. I enjoyed his books on Malta and Italy and his novel "The Burning Blue" was excellent as well.

I agree he does have an engaging writing style.

 

[stillsparkling]

Jack Benny: A Biography by Mary Livingstone

 

[gliderace]

Winston Churchill: Biography of a Great Man by Robert Lewis Taylor

All in all, a "ripping good yarn." The book makes me smile.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Alibi Club by Francine Mathews. Here's the blurb:

It's the city's most infamous after-hours haunt—a glittering hotbed of deals and debaucheries. The sordid death of Philip Stilwell sends shock waves through the Alibi Club... for there's much more to Stilwell's untimely end than a sex game gone wrong. His murder and the desperate attempt to keep a deadly weapon out of German hands till bring together the strands of a twisted plot of betrayal, passion, and espionage—one connected to the Alibi Club... and to the most explosive secret of the war.

As the Nazis march on Paris and the crisis escalates, four remarkable characters are swept into the maelstrom. Their courage will change the course of history

 

[JazzyDame]

Umm... careful on the "sir" stuff, Miss--I work for a living too, y'know?lol But I gotta say, nice meeting you too. That student was... well, an interesting character: while I was drafting the first iterations of my eventual Masters thesis on MacArthur's neuropathology and forensic-psych, he made a case that, from a Japanese perspective, it could be said that we won because MacArthur's adherence to bushido--in its purest sense as a traditional Warrior's Code, not the corrupted version that the 20th-century IJA practiced--was stronger than Tojo's.

I do believe that the words of the day are "THREAD HIJACKED"... lol

My apologies for calling you ‘sir’, sir. I was raised around military personnel (my father served, as well), and I suppose it’s natural for me to address gentlemen strangers as ‘sir’. I shall cease the term (but not the respect) from this point forward.

Bushido…I was going to mention it in my last remark about the samurai; it would have been appropriate, but perhaps not very ladylike, so I refrained from the reference. Your student from Japan was correct in making the comparison of bushido and MacArthur’s military reputation. But MacArthur’s honor, his integrity, his strength of character and self-control, his dignity, his incomparable courage, his intelligence, his extraordinary loyalty and patriotic sense of duty…true, he far surpassed Tojo in adhering to the code of the warrior, “bushido-style”, but MacArthur’s bravado and rectitude were of a higher code than bushido. It was the code of the American soldier at his finest.

“Thread hijacked”, indeed. Perhaps we should wrap this up now.

 

[Jedburgh OSS]

Two dandy $1 yard sale finds...

Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago (some interesting then and now photos)

Forgotten Weapon: U.S. Navy Airships and the U-Boat War (large, well-illustrated hardback that lists for $50)
A friend's dad, who is now 90 and living in Florida, was in the navy as an airship crew member in this campaign and patrolled the coast of South America during his enlistment.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Prisoner of Honor: The Dreyfus Affair by David Levering Lewis
(New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1994) (originally published in 1973)

A few years back -- give or take -- Prisoner of Honor was made into a movie that starred Richard Dreyfuss and Oliver Reed. Richard Dreyfuss played Lt. Colonel Georges Picquart the head of French counterintelligence who, despite his own Anti-Semitic views, became convinced of Dreyfus's innocence and risked his career to clear Dreyfus's name.

 

[Tenuki]

I'm reading Shan Sa's "The Girl Who Played Go" . Not so much about the game of go as the story of a Chinese gal, a Japanese soldier in China and the 30s war in Manchuria.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"Re Reading "Don't tell Alfred" by Nancy Mitford, recently reprinted by Penguin"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Tell_Alfred

 

[Wally_Hood]

Binkie, with the slanted shadows across the books, it look a little noirish-

 

[Wally_Hood]

Started up again the first Harry Potter book... I've never read one so I made a goal of getting through it this summer.

 

[Geronimo]

Dave Grossman's "On Killing." Not a vintage book, but a very interesting one. Explains why major pitched battles of olden times which went on for hours had surprisingly low casualties - and it wasn't just poor marksmanship.

Just read Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning", which is excellent.

 

[DigThatBeat]

Just finished Monster, 1959 and I'm about to start reading Under the Black Ensign.

 

[Antje]

I'm still going trough dr Zhivago, but for an inbetween I read That's my life,
the biography of indorock legend Andy tielman, the tielman brothers brought the dutch people rock'n roll, in 1958 when all rock'n roll music was forbidden on radio stations.
It is a wonderfull book with great pictures I love this band and I love the book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FALutagdHNw

 

[57plymouth]

Just finished Walden.

1/2 way through 1984.

I have Slaughterhouse Five and The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt on deck next.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Doenitz at Nuremburg: A Re-Appraisal

I never knew there were so many allied officers, statesmen, lawyers, judges, and civilians that were against this.

 

[WH1]

Dave Grossman's "On Killing." Not a vintage book, but a very interesting one. Explains why major pitched battles of olden times which went on for hours had surprisingly low casualties - and it wasn't just poor marksmanship.

Grossman is a great read, also read his book "On Combat" the pair were practically required reading in Marine combat arms units. I also recommend anything by John Keegan particulary "The Mask of Command" and "The Face of Battle" this is a comparitive study of warfare as it has evolved and its effects on the men involved.
Another great read from WW2 is "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer, he was a soldier in the Gross Deuschtland on the Eastern Front.

 

[WH1]

I just finished "The Bolter" by Frances Osborne. It is a biography of her great-grandmother, Lady Idina Sackville, one of the main members of the notorious Kenyan "Happy Valley set" which was the focus of the movie "White Mischief". A very interesting picture of Upper Class British colonial life in the first half of the 20th century.

 

[Harp]

A Quinella pick: T.D. Thornton's Not By A Long Shot;
and Jim Squires' Horse of a Different Color.

Thornton serves up the insider look at Boston's Suffolk Downs,
a bore-to-butteplate track perspective complete with Runyonesque
characters, rail birds, hoss hollers, and jaded jockeys.

Squires, a former Chicago Tribune editor, turned Thoroughbred
breeder, had a Kentucky Derby winner with Monarchos, and details
the bloodstock background of Thoroughbred racing.

If you love horses, bet the ponies, and spend way too much time at the track, these are solid.

 

[Touchofevil]

Recently finished, "The Bridge of Sighs: A Novel " by Olen Steinhauer. It is set in 1948 in a European country still under Russian occupation. The story is concerned with a People's Militia homicide inspector, Emil Brod, and and a case of murder that others want swept away.

Starting Tom Bradby's "The White Russian" today. This story takes place in 1917 Russia and once again concerns a murder or two and an attempt to bring someone to justice.