What Are You Reading

[V.C. Brunswick]

Oliver Twist

Is that by Dikkens the Dutch author?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCM2nEBE0RY

 

[DharmaBum]

Try Col. John Boyd's Clausewitzian triad elude Observe; Orient; Decide; Act Loop doctrine.[angel]

Ah, very familiar with COL. Boyd and his concepts of entering the enemy decision cycle. OODA loop theory has seemed to have fallen out of favor or was replaced by other theories.....I have not heard it referred to in professional military education since around 2010.

 

[1mach1]

Is that by Dikkens the Dutch author?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCM2nEBE0RY

lollol

 

[Harp]

Henri Jomini.......while different it is easier for me to digest than Clausewitz

Ah, very familiar with COL. Boyd and his concepts of entering the enemy decision cycle. OODA loop theory has seemed to have fallen out of favor or was replaced by other theories.....I have not heard it referred to in professional military education since around 2010.

A maverick shunned in life, Boyd finds disfavor in death; yet his reputation is secure. As he criticized Jomini's formulaic predictability,
conventional orthodoxy faults his decentralized approach and lauds an ill disguised rigidity. If you haven't read Frans Osinga's analysis
of Boyd, Science, Strategy, and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd, please do so.

 

[cw3pa]

"The Story of the Malakand Field Force" An Episode of Frontier War (1898); by Winston S. Churchill. The title sort of says it all. Looks like we're repeating history again.

 

[DesertDan]

The Race: The Complete True Story of How America Beat Russia to the Moon; by James Schefter

 

[1mach1]

The Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky by Stuart Sanders. Very interesting.

 

[Smithy]

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Marquez. Loving it thus far. Beautifully written and hugely engaging story.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II, by Belton Y. Cooper



Rob

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The Life, Music and Times of Carlos Gardel
by Simon Collier

 

[nick123]

"Lincoln, the Unknown" by Dale Carnegie

 

[cw3pa]

Just finished "The Virginian" (1902) by Owen Wister.

 

[Harp]

Reading memorials to Pierre Ryckmans who passed last August. Australia's loss is the world's loss.

Gene Weingarten, the fiddler in the subway

 

[Fading Fast]

Josephine Tey's A Daughter of Time is one of my favourites. It's basically an examination of the death of the princes in the Tower and the role of Richard III. Good read.

My copy just came today, bought on your recommendation. Once I finish one of the two books I'm currently reading - "The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York" and "Cast a Cold Eye" - I will start it. Very excited.

 

[Formeruser012523]

"My Wonderful World of Slapstick" by Buster Keaton. :biggrin:

 

[Harp]

Next book is The Group by Mary McCarthy. I will not be put off by the fact it is described as a precursor to Sex and the City - its 1930s New York and I want to love it.

A splash of Padraic Fallon's poetry goes well with Maria. :drama:

The Mary McCarthy Case; Norman Mailer, December 17, 1963 New York Review

revisiting herself and The Group

 

[tropicalbob]

"The Peripheral," by William Gibson. As usual, the first sixty or so pages are murder, but once you figure out what's going on you're locked in for the ride. Great book.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Mary McCarthy Case; Norman Mailer, December 17, 1963 New York Review

revisiting herself and The Group

I read Mary McCarthy's "The Group" several years back and my impression was that you could see how it was groundbreaking for its day in its frank talk about sex, marriage, infidelity, suicide and others taboo subjects. Also, it was a good soap opera of a story. But my expectations had been set too high, so I was somewhat underwhelmed.

But, coincidently, I am reading her "Cast a Cold Eye" and am enjoying it very much. Expectations have so much of an impact on my opinion. For example, I also read "The Best of Everything" by Rona Jaffe - a 1950's "The Group" type of book (heavier on the soap opera and less on the social commentary) - but I enjoyed it more because I stumbled on it by accident.

 

[Harp]

I read Mary McCarthy's "The Group" several years back and my impression was that you could see how it was groundbreaking for its day in its frank talk about sex, marriage, infidelity, suicide and others taboo subjects. Also, it was a good soap opera of a story. But my expectations had been set too high, so I was somewhat underwhelmed.

Mailer thought the novel little more than tripe vapid Vassar, not so kind but neither off target.

 

[Fading Fast]

Mailer thought the novel little more than tripe vapid Vassar, not so kind but neither off target.

Maybe not, but he wrote plenty in the second half of his career not to be that proud of either. Again, my guess from reading commentary about "The Group" is that part of its fame is its open discussion of some "not discussed" subjects at the time. Today, we could use a little more not-discussing as every human foible gets its own special interest group and reality TV show.