What are we reading?

[Staggerwing]

^ The chemical used, Polyvinyl Alcohol, is one of the ingredients in Elmers Glue. Dissolves in water, which could be problem if it rains on your nifty transparent balsa sunroof.

[GDS_Starfury]

Im sure that, much like Windy, theres a chemical that makes it far stiffer and resilient to moisture.

[Gusington]

Currently reading Luftwaffe Secret Projects: Ground Attack & Special Purpose Aircraft by Dieter Herwig and Heinz Rode.

[Jarhead0331]

Just finished Fighter Pilot this morning. Had me in tears.

The last couple of pages were written by General Olds in 2007, shortly before his death. He describes a reoccurring dream where he is flying in the clouds in his F-4 at full burn. He rolls out and lands. The airbase is empty. He climbs out of the cockpit and hears music and laughter coming from the O Club. He walks in and sees all his old friends who have already passed. His father, a pioneer of military aviation himself, is at the piano playing. They meet and he tells his dad that he was a fighter pilot and his father tells him he knows and is so very proud. They all sing, laugh, dance and tear the place up right before setting off into the clouds again for another Mig sweep.

It is exactly how I picture these heroes crossing over to the other side.

[Gusington]

Wow, nice.

[Ubercat]

Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan To Destroy Democracy

by Andy Ngo, the gay Vietnamese man whose parents had to flee Communist Vietnam after spending time in "re-education" camps.

[al_infierno]

^ That sounds like a very well-balanced, fair, and non-partisan take on the issue.  Good thing you mentioned he's gay or I might be questioning his credibility!

[Ubercat]

Edit: Nevermind.

[GDS_Starfury]

reminds me of the time we were passing around Gus.  :-X

[Dammit Carl!]

Outside of some RPGs on the Kindle, I'm kinda light in the reading department - got a delightfully dense work on the Spanish Civil War (title and author escapes me as the physical book is sitting in the truck right now) and my fascination with the Eastern Front circa WW2 continues via The Russo-German War 1941-45 by Albert Seaton.

[Gusington]

Now reading Historical Atlas of the Viking World by Angus Konstam.

[Jarhead0331]

Having just finished Fighter Pilot, I've moved on to "When Thunder Rolled," which is an account of the 1966 Rolling Thunder bombing campaign written by an F-105 pilot who was there. It's cool because he was in Robin Olds' AO flying out of Thailand and probably flew on some of the same missions in which Olds and his squadron were flying MIG CAP. I've already recognized some of the same names. Pretty cool.

I also started a book called, "The White Sniper" about Simo Hayha, but I'm having trouble getting into it. The author is a currently serving Finnish sniper. It is not written in the most engrossing format and there are some issues with editing, probably due to language or translation issues. 

[ArizonaTank]

Inspired by a post from Smuckatelli, I am re-reading "The Good Soldier Svejk" (also spelled "Schweik"). 

It is basically a mix of "Catch 22" and "No Time for Sergeants", but set in the WWI Austro-Hungarian Army. Since it was written just after WWI, it may well be partial inspiration for both of those books.

Having a great time with it...

The book is well past its copyright, and is available for free as a PDF download from archive.org if anyone is interested.
https://ia801600.us.archive.org/27/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.220415/2015.220415.The-Good.pdf

I'll post my thoughts when I am done with it.

[WallysWorld]

Currently reading 'An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Uniforms of World War I' by Jonathan North and Jeremy Black.

Looked at that book and ended up buying it and two others.  Super thanks for posting about it here.

I started with "An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Uniforms of the Roman World" by Kevin F. Kiley. Super enjoying it and the drawings are excellent. Makes me want to play Total War: Rome II.

The other uniform book I got was "An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Military Uniforms of the 19th Century".

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I just finished Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II by Jeffrey Cox.

It examines the naval aspects of the early war Japanese campaign to take the Philippines, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies.

I knew the highlights like the sinking of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, the defeat of the ABDACOM ships,  and dugout Doug's flight from the Philippines to Australia but I knew almost nothing about the details or personalities involved, especially the Dutch.   I found it very informative and easy to read.  The author readily admits his anti-Japanese bias in the preface and that bias does surface repeatedly which j personally found to be somewhat detrimental to the book but I'd still say its well worth reading.

I have several titles in the 2nd World War at Sea series of games from Avalanche Press and enjoy the games quite a bit.  One of the upcoming titles, Java Sea, covers this campaign.  I was going to give it a miss because the several games in the series that I already own don't see enough table time and I thought the battles would be very lopsided with the IJN just swatting aside the ABDA units.  I think I might pick it up after all (along with the upcoming Norway title.)