What are we reading?

Started by Martok, March 05, 2012, 01:13:59 PM

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Pete Dero

Quote from: Toonces on February 11, 2020, 07:36:54 PM
Yes, I'm gearing up for a full play of War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition this year.  I shall finish one campaign before I die.

Please post an AAR on the forums.

It will only extend the play time by approximately 10 years.

Staggerwing


Quote from: Toonces on February 11, 2020, 07:36:54 PM
Yes, I'm gearing up for a full play of War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition this year.  I shall finish one campaign before I die.

More likely, when your time comes, your kids can inherit the game-in-progress. Then they, in turn can pass it on to their kids. By the time it gets to your great-great-great grand kids it will be on at least turn five.
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

Gusington

Ah - the book I have queued next is Thrawn from 2017. Then one on Darth Plagueis. And I got a 4 book set of 'reference handbooks' on the Sith, the Jedi, Bounty Hunters and the Empire. Going through all of these while playing Jedi Fallen Order, which is very good so far.

Ironically I also have Ian Toll's The Conquering Tide on my to-read shelf. After my foray into Star Wars reading I'm going for a deep dive into Japanese history.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

ArizonaTank

Putting aside "Cross of Iron"...  Having some difficulty with the premise of the story... 

Basically, a German platoon gets left behind to act as a rear guard in a retreat...and then has to trek 40 miles to find their regiment. On their way back, they manage to surprise and capture a female heavy mortar company....sexual tension...does the hard core Corporal Steiner (who runs the platoon) just decide to kill the prisoners? They lost me pretty much at the point where a regiment leaves a platoon behind to cover the retreat... 

Picking up "The Great Influenza" by John Barry.  My wife thinks it is because I watch too much news.  But I tend to like Louis Pasteur's explanation: "Fortune favors the prepared mind."

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2GSYQODCKV311&keywords=the+great+flu&qid=1581652998&sprefix=the+great+flu%2Caps%2C196&sr=8-1

Anyway, this is a book I read the last time there was a big virus outbreak.  Great history of 19th / early 20th century medicine. Also about how bad a pandemic can be. The Spanish Flu probably killed more people than all of the WWI and WWII military and civilian deaths combined (okay you could argue that the flu was actually spread by WWI, but that is nit picking).

What is amazing is that in Philadelphia, priests would drive horse drawn carts down the streets while calling out: "bring out your dead". They had mass graves with so many dead they just dumped them in. And to think there are people alive today who were alive then (sure, not many, and they were all babies and small children).

Anyway, I highly recommend the book.   
Johannes "Honus" Wagner
"The Flying Dutchman"
Shortstop: Pittsburgh Pirates 1900-1917
Rated as the 2nd most valuable player of all time by Bill James.

JasonPratt

Quote from: Martok on February 12, 2020, 12:03:22 AM
Quote from: Gusington on February 11, 2020, 08:46:17 AM
wut
What is nowadays referred to as the Thrawn trilogy consists of three novels written by Timothy Zahn back in the 90's:  Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command.  So since you've started Heir to the Empire, the book you want to read after that is Dark Force Rising, and then The Last Command. 

Zahn has also penned a more recent series of novels featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn (including one simply titled "Thrawn" in 2017), but they are separate from the original book trilogy he wrote almost 30 years ago.

Yeah, I haven't read those yet, but I gather they're retcon canonicity with the new baseline of whatever the hell Disney regards as canon now outside the films. Part of a project of bringing in the popular things from the old expanded universe, which sounds good in principle.

There's also an original Thrawn sequel duology written by Zahn (I don't recall the individual titles but the series itself is "Hand of Thrawn"), which I haven't read yet but I've heard is good. Been meaning to get around to that one eventually, after a reread of the original sequel trilogy someday... {sigh}

Anyway, yes, don't skip the two books after Heir to the Empire, Gus. All three are structured well, but the first is definitely not a standalone, though I don't get the impression there's a 20th anniversary out yet for the other two.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Meanwhile, I have at last finished Churchill's "History of the English Speaking Peoples", which fulfilled my expectations in every way, including by being the very illustration of epic.  :notworthy:

Next up, after a short break for lighter fare, is his four volumes of "The World Crisis" -- Great War time!  :bd:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

airboy

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 13, 2020, 11:17:56 PM
Meanwhile, I have at last finished Churchill's "History of the English Speaking Peoples", which fulfilled my expectations in every way, including by being the very illustration of epic.  :notworthy:

Next up, after a short break for lighter fare, is his four volumes of "The World Crisis" -- Great War time!  :bd:

I admire you for reading Churchill's book.

airboy

I finished Invasion Diary by Richard Tregaskis.  He also wrote Guadalcanal Diary and Vietnam Diary.

His style is to write about whatever he experienced as a war correspondent on a day to day basis.  Guadalcanal Diary was a huge commercial success since it was published in 1943 as one of the earliest, well written accounts of the war in the Pacific.  It is an excellent book.

Invasion Diary recounts the very end of the war in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily, and the invasion of Italy.  It is also excellent, but quite different.  It reads in a very similar way to Guadalcanal Diary.  The war is slowly marching up the toe of the Italian boot.  The allies have not yet reached the Cassio line. Then Richard gets a horrible brain injury from shellfire.  The book then goes into his initial inability to talk or move his left side.  He goes through several aid stations and hospitals and ends with his embarking on a hospital ship.  It is an excellent, but different from his earlier book because of his injury and writing about the military medical care he experienced.

I could not finish Vietnam Diary.  He uses the same writing technique - but a battle against an insurgency with no clear lines of battle becomes confusing when he writes of it.  He is able to move around a lot by plane and helicopter making the story much harder to follow.  His other two war books are much easier to follow because the battle is understandable from his first hand view.

I got both books for Kindle for $1.99 and they were well worth it.  He does not sugar coat what is going on.  He also really has no idea what is going on in the larger picture on a day-to-day basis - pretty much like the enlisted men and most of the officers.   

JasonPratt

Quote from: airboy on February 16, 2020, 06:49:14 PM
I got both books for Kindle for $1.99 and they were well worth it.  He does not sugar coat what is going on.  He also really has no idea what is going on in the larger picture on a day-to-day basis - pretty much like the enlisted men and most of the officers.   

I regard this as being reflective of his fast transport around areas with no front lines in the Vietnam War, too: "confusing" and "much harder to follow"!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Meanwhile, finished my quick entertainment read (Rusty Wilson released another book of Bigfoot short stories, up to his usual quality, all new material set in Montana; practically a quintessentially American writer at this point! -- not kidding!)

Then back to Churchill kicking off THE WORLD'S CRISIS! The first chapter recaps events in the history of English Speaking Peoples (so to speak ;) ) from 1870 onward with an eye to forming a context for the upcoming preliminaries to war in the early 1900s. I can already tell this will be different from his previous epic (which was written both before and after WW2), from how he intends to structure his narrative as much as possible on his personal account of events backed by correspondence he wrote, or was involved in issuing, plus texts released by other parties publicly: the first major one of these being Germany's resolution to build a second-rank fleet, i.e. a fleet stronger than France's and Russia's put together, thus affecting Britain's policy of aiming for a fleet stronger than the next two nations combined. Overtly, though without naming names, the German plan is to use such a fleet as a mutually assured destruction deterrent in the sense that they don't have to build a fleet capable of beating Britain. They only have to build a fleet requiring Britain to ruin her own naval lead to beat it! -- thus ensuring Britain will be very loathe to even challenge it.

In modern geek terms, that is one hell of a Yang Wen-Li strategy (from Legend of the Galactic Heroes). I had never even heard of that strategic rationale before! I'm not twenty pages in and I'm already learning new things!  :D
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

airboy

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 16, 2020, 06:59:24 PM
Quote from: airboy on February 16, 2020, 06:49:14 PM
I got both books for Kindle for $1.99 and they were well worth it.  He does not sugar coat what is going on.  He also really has no idea what is going on in the larger picture on a day-to-day basis - pretty much like the enlisted men and most of the officers.   

I regard this as being reflective of his fast transport around areas with no front lines in the Vietnam War, too: "confusing" and "much harder to follow"!

My mistake.  Unclear writing.  He writes about the horror and randomness of combat in all of his books.  He does not write with a narrative and knows no more about the strategic situation than the average grunt or lower level officer.  This comment applies to all of his books, not just Vietnam Diary.

Martok

Have just begun Sword of Kings, the 12th novel in the Saxon Tales series by Bernard Cornwell. 

I've really enjoyed these books, but hope Cornwell finishes them soon.  The man isn't getting any younger, and in terms of history/storyline, there's relatively little left to cover before the climax (the Battle of Brunanburh) anyway. 




Quote from: JasonPratt on February 16, 2020, 07:08:47 PM
Overtly, though without naming names, the German plan is to use such a fleet as a mutually assured destruction deterrent in the sense that they don't have to build a fleet capable of beating Britain. They only have to build a fleet requiring Britain to ruin her own naval lead to beat it! -- thus ensuring Britain will be very loathe to even challenge it.

In modern geek terms, that is one hell of a Yang Wen-Li strategy (from Legend of the Galactic Heroes). I had never even heard of that strategic rationale before! I'm not twenty pages in and I'm already learning new things!  :D
Really?  My impression is that's long been known among (at least some) historians that that was the raison d'être for the High Seas Fleet.  At the very least, I know I've read that somewhere before (and for as voracious a reader as you are, Jason, I'm mildly surprised you hadn't already as well :P ). 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

JasonPratt

Ha! -- well, goes to show that I can read and hear a fair bit on a topic and yet never run across something widely known to others!  O0 But I'm relatively minor on WW1 studies; I don't think I've even read Guns of August and the prequel or sequel to that (though I do have them). I've read The Sleepwalkers, on the politics going into WW1, but as far as overview books that's it. Everything else I've picked up piecemeal from reading widely on other things, or watched some overview documentaries.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Windigo

While I was in Cuba, I listened to Red Storm Rising. First time using the audio-book format on my iPhone.
I love the format.
My doctor wrote me a prescription for daily sex.

My wife insists that it says dyslexia but what does she know.