What book are you reading now?

[Retired AF Guy]

  Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan. As the series finally comes to an end, I'm re-reading the books to catch-up on all the threads that I've forgotten over the years.

How War Came: Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938-39 by Donald Cameron Watt.                 

 

[gcclarke]

  Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan. As the series finally comes to an end, I'm re-reading the books to catch-up on all the threads that I've forgotten over the years.

I purchased the latest book, realized that I need to do some refreshing, and then put the book down. Frankly, even the idea of using some of the online plot summaries to get sped back up was a daunting amount of reading. I really don't think I'll bother until the last book is out.

As for what I'm working on now, I just finished up Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Good read. I'm now working on Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Sci-fi detective, fun times.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

I purchased the latest book, realized that I need to do some refreshing, and then put the book down. Frankly, even the idea of using some of the online plot summaries to get sped back up was a daunting amount of reading. I really don't think I'll bother until the last book is out. 

According to people who track this kind of thing, Jordan's The Wheel of Time has a supporting cast of over 1,880 characters! Pretty hard to keep track at the best of times. However, I've heard the guy who has taken over writing the last three books has started thinning the ranks so to speak.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Social history of the machine gun

 

[Bellesophie]

I'm reading A Soldier First By Rick Hillier.
Very good . I'm learning a lot for the civilian that I am...

Sophie

 

[KnightShift]

"Enter the Babylon System" by Rodrigo Bascunan and Christian Pearce (founders of "Pound" magazine).  It talks alot about firearms in the hip-hop culture, with a little bit of history as well.  I'm not usually a fan of hip-hop, however I try to remain educated about gun control issues, and this book touches on that as well some of the other problems facing communities that are threatened by drugs, gangs, etc.  Overall a very interesting read, I'd recommend it.

 

[PMedMoe]

Roads to Quoz by William Least Heat Moon.

 

[Kat Stevens]

The American Pit Bull Terrier Handbook by Joe Stahlkuppe

 

[OldSolduer]

Marching as to War

Pierre Berton

 

[daftandbarmy]

S&M book, of course.  ;D

Not wild about the translation, but it's a first edition. Lots of parallels with every other COIN campaign I've heard about or been involved in - sadly....


St Michael and the Dragon: A Paratrooper in the Algerian War
PIERRE LEULLIETTE


One of the finest military memoirs to be published since 1945, this is an account written by a young French paratrooper during the FLN nationalist uprising in Algeria. Despatched to North Africa at the beginning of the insurgency in 1954, Leulliette and his comrades were soon thrown into combat, staggering under heavy loads across the ridges and ravines of the Aures Mountains in pursuit of elusive FLN guerrillas. Although there is a brief and fascinating interlude when his battalion takes part in the 1956 Anglo-French Suez operation, the focus of the book remains the relentlessly brutal counter-insurgency campaign in Algeria.


His cool, measured prose (ably translated in this edition by Antonia White) is ideal for describing the Goya-like horrors he encountered on a regular basis. Casualties were enormous: approximately 700,000 people died during the conflict, a figure compounded by the intense viciousness of the fighting. The FLN terrorised the civilian population into providing them with material support – mutilating and murdering to ‘encourage the others’ – while the French devastated Arab villages that provided the FLN with assistance, routinely torturing the inhabitants to provide intelligence.


One of many revealing incidents described by Leulliette occurs when the paratroopers capture an FLN gang deep in the mountains. Having plenty of time on their hands, the paras casually hang the insurgents by their feet from nearby trees, where they remain for several days, their faces turning black in the process. Those prepared to talk are cut down, interrogated and subsequently shot; those unwilling or unable to provide the necessary intelligence die slowly in agony. 


St Michael and the Dragon is more than a catalogue of atrocity, however. Leulliette is both a fluent writer and a first-rate soldier – he comes top in the ferociously tough corporals’ course – and is uniquely placed to tell the story of the French paratroopers’ war with the FLN, whether deep in the Algerian bled or in the casbahs of Algiers. But his empathy with his comrades never clouds his unflinching gaze at the horror of this most cruel of wars.

http://www.warbooksreview.com/war-books-review/2009/07/st-michael-and-the-dragon-a-paratrooper-in-the-algerian-war.html

 

[jollyjacktar]

Warlord: A Life Of Winston Churchill At War, 1874-1945
Author: D ESTE CARLO, first time read of this book
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Warlord-Life-Winston-Churchill-War-D-ESTE-CARLO/9780060575731-item.html?ref=Search+Books%3a+%27warlord%27

and

Guns Of The South
Author: Harry Turtledove, reading it for the 5th time or so...
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Guns-Of-The-South-Harry-Turtledove/9780345413666-item.html?ref=Search+Books%3a+%27Guns+of+the+south%27

 

[Danjanou]

D&B  St Michael and the Dragon has been on my bookshelves for many years and I've read it a couple of times. I agree and excellent account of the Algerian War

Recently picked up and read in one go:

Whores, Wars, and Waste: Antics of the Modern British Army (Paperback) by Richard Sharpe

A collection of anecdotes, mostly humorous of his 30 odd years in the British Army. The tale of the RSM charging his pace stick had me in stitches.

Now rereading Stephen Hunter's Swagger Novels, Earl and his son Bob the Nailer, good little time wasters.

 

[observor 69]

And you expect me to find "Whores, Wars, and Waste" in my local library ? 

 

[MarkOttawa]

Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, by Richard G. Davis
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/bookrev/davis.html
http://www.amazon.ca/Carl-Spaatz-Air-War-Europe/dp/0912799773/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278691533&sr=1-4

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Danjanou]

And you expect me to find "Whores, Wars, and Waste" in my local library ? 

Nope

http://www.amazon.ca/Whores-Wars-Waste-Antics-British/dp/1857565061/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278692983&sr=8-1

 

[mariomike]

Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe, by Richard G. Davis
Mark
Ottawa

I have not read that particular book, yet. But, I have read a good deal about Gen. Spaatz.
Prior to D-Day, he wanted to precision bomb oil targets. Harris wanted to continue area bombing Germany by night.
Albert Speer considered oil to be Germany's Achilles Heel. Spaatz appealed directly to Washington to be permitted to undertake his Oil Plan. Eisenhower authorized him to carry out experimental attacks against oil plants. The results were dramatic. Spaatz had touched the vital nerve of the German economy. It's jugular, was the word used. 
"Now Harris and Spaatz, each in his own way, set out to prove that by air power alone, they could bring Germany to her knees."

Spaatz was put under Gen. Eisenhower. Being USAAF, he had little say in the matter. He did say,"What worries me is that Harris is being allowed to get off scot-free. He'll go on bombing Germany, and will be given a chance of defeating her before the invasion, while I am put under Leigh-Mallory's command."
"From apes to warlords" by Lord Solly Zuckerman ( 1978 ) page 276.
Harris answered to Winston Churchill.

Professor  Zuckerman was the planner of the Transportation Plan. Churchill was against it because of the danger to French civilians. The Americans were less concerned. Estimates were that it could kill 40,000 French civilians. The Transportation Plan was a controversy that locked the Allied leaders in a fierce conflict until just before D-Day.
Eisenhower formally notified President Roosevelt and Gen. Marshall that he considered the Transportation Plan "indispensable": "There is no other way this air force can help us, during the preparatory period, to get ashore and stay there."
He said that if Churhill did not put Bomber Command at his service, he would "simply have to go home."
With that, Churchill finally bowed to Washington.

At one of the vital meetings called to discuss the rival merits of the Oil Plan ( Spaatz ) versus the Transportation Plan ( Zuckerman ), it was estimated that even if attacks on oil were immediately effective, it would be four to five months before the results benefited the battlefield. 

Despite the heavy losses, the Transportation Plan was a success.
On the 20th anniversary of D-Day, President Eisenhower wrote to Bomber Harris, "No historian will ever know the depth of my obligation to you."

 

[HavokFour]

I'm currently indulged in The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp through Civilization's Best Bits. This book makes 60,000 years of human civilization pretty interesting.

 

[LineJumper]

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

It's a rich, multilayered study of love, war and the supernatural...  ;D coupled with my joy of necro-posting.

 

[pfinlayson]

I just finished The Road, and liked it enough to follow it up with No Country for Old Men.  Both by Cormac McCarthy, who apparently hates punctuation.

 

[Danjanou]

Juat finished

I highly recommend it, A historical novel based on the Penobscot Expedition during the American Revolutionary War.