What book are you reading now?

[dangerboy]

Reading "Team Yankee" by Harold Coyle.  It is an outdated  (book was written in 1987) look at a WWIII battle between NATO and Warsaw Pact in Germany from at the combat team level.  I was unpacking books and realized it had been a number of years since I had last read it. There is also a graphic novel to go along with it.

 

[cjette1]

I just started doing a second read through of "Where Men Win Glory" by Jon Krakauer. It's about the life of Pat Tillman, who walked away from a 3.6 million dollar contract in the NFL to join the US army right in the wake of 9/11. It tells about his life and moral obligations during the war. Eventually he would be killed in action due to friendly fire, with no formal investigation for a very long time.

I would recommend it to anybody. It's from the same author who wrote "Into the Wild".

 

[FJAG]

I just started doing a second read through of "Where Men Win Glory" by Jon Krakauer. It's about the life of Pat Tillman, who walked away from a 3.6 million dollar contract in the NFL to join the US army right in the wake of 9/11. It tells about his life and moral obligations during the war. Eventually he would be killed in action due to friendly fire, with no formal investigation for a very long time.

I would recommend it to anybody. It's from the same author who wrote "Into the Wild".

Note that there are two editions to this book. The first edition was published in 2009 but was revised in 2010 when the author obtained more material concerning the "high level" initial attempts to cover up the fact that this was a fratricide incident.

 

[dimsum]

About a quarter through The Great Gatsby.  I didn't pick it up because of the movie; it was one of those that had always been on my list but never really bothered to read it. 

The more I read, the more I picture Boardwalk Empire or Mad Men; both shows that I will actually follow on TV.

 

[cjette1]

Note that there are two editions to this book. The first edition was published in 2009 but was revised in 2010 when the author obtained more material concerning the "high level" initial attempts to cover up the fact that this was a fratricide incident.

Strange, looks like I have the 2009 version. I'll need to look out for the updated edition. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Kirkhill]

Reading Bernard Cornwell's current series about Danes, Saxons and Brits in Alfred's England.  Lots of Shieldwalls, bearded axes and the relative merits of longswords and short blades in the shield wall - as well as chunks flying here and there, wolfhounds, sorcery and diplomacy in a multipolar society with no agreed laws.

Great primer for modern society and low intensity conflict - minus the benefits of artillery.

 

[caocao]

Game of thrones, like the hbo serie so much that i had to try the book.

 

[dangerboy]

Reading Bernard Cornwell's current series about Danes, Saxons and Brits in Alfred's England.  Lots of Shieldwalls, bearded axes and the relative merits of longswords and short blades in the shield wall - as well as chunks flying here and there, wolfhounds, sorcery and diplomacy in a multipolar society with no agreed laws.

Great primer for modern society and low intensity conflict - minus the benefits of artillery.

His next book in the series, "The Pagan Lord" comes out in September.  http://www.bernardcornwell.net/the-pagan-lord/

 

[observor 69]

A difficult book to describe but quite engrossing and hard to put down. Memories of Psyc 100.
Not a military book but I thought it worthy of recommend.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Release Date: Jun 4 2013

From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club, the story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and our narrator, Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I spent the first eighteen years of my life defined by this one fact: that I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she tells us. “It’s never going to be the first thing I share with someone. I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion, I’d scarcely known a moment alone. She was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half, and I loved her as a sister.”

Rosemary was not yet six when Fern was removed. Over the years, she’s managed to block a lot of memories. She’s smart, vulnerable, innocent, and culpable. With some guile, she guides us through the darkness, penetrating secrets and unearthing memories, leading us deeper into the mystery she has dangled before us from the start. Stripping off the protective masks that have hidden truths too painful to acknowledge, in the end, “Rosemary” truly is for remembrance

http://www.amazon.ca/Are-All-Completely-Beside-Ourselves/dp/0399162097

 

[RangerRay]

Reading Bernard Cornwell's current series about Danes, Saxons and Brits in Alfred's England.  Lots of Shieldwalls, bearded axes and the relative merits of longswords and short blades in the shield wall - as well as chunks flying here and there, wolfhounds, sorcery and diplomacy in a multipolar society with no agreed laws.

Great primer for modern society and low intensity conflict - minus the benefits of artillery.

Great series.  I love his books!

 

[Inquisitor]

"Joe & Willie - Back Home" - Bill Maudlin

Found this at a BMW books near the Eaton centre in Toronto

Bill Maudlin is the cartoonist part of the Ernie Pyle  Bill Maudlin  "Up Front" team in WWII

Its is part text and part cartoon"

Partial review from Back cover "More than anyone else save Ernie Pyle he captured the trial and Travails of the GI. For anyone who wants to know what it was like to be an infantryman in WWII this is the place to start - and finish" Stepen Ambrose'

In my opinion there should be at least one copy in every army mess, the truths seem universal.  Sad to say.

Sooo. What did happen to the famous duo - Happily ever after? Not exactly.

The text starts history as the pair spent about 1/2 their time at the front, by 1944 neither man could do it sober and the other 1/2 recovering.

Then VE Day - surely Happy ever after!!!!

Not exactly, Ernies wife is mentally ill. He ships out to cover the Pacific and meets the end he expected.

Bill, more of a mixed bag. Very famous and considered successful. I wont include any spoilers.

How about the troops return/reactions? - Again excellent

Cartoons? Excellent - I found them surprisingly topical

Do a Google - still available from the publisher - heartily recommended

 

[NavyShooter]

Team Yankee, by Harold Coyle.

 

[Danjanou]

Team Yankee, by Harold Coyle.

A classic.

His other stuff is pretty good too,  fictionalized "future" conflicts in Iran, Egypt, Germany, Mexico, Colombia, Philippines and Idaho. A good series of characters that move from book to book gaining rank. One starts off a Major in Iran and ends up a Major General in command of a an Armoured Div in the 2nd US Civil War

 

[FJAG]

Finished three the last two weeks:

The Hunt for Bin Laden by Robin Moore - an old one ((c)2003) and a bit of a rah rah thing for the Green Berets but not a bad telling of the initial operations into Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 ending around Op ANACONDA. There are better books out there but Moore had a good in with the SF and therefore got more personal anecdotes from the various ODAs then others.

Soldiers of God by Robert D Kaplan - also an old one. The original version was (c) 1990 and was updated with a new chapter in 2001 just before 9/11. Kaplan is an excellent war correspondent and foreign affairs analyst who got up close and personal with the Mujahidin during their war against the Russians. Full of insights and details about what makes the Pashtuns tick.

No Easy Task - Fighting in Afghanistan edited by Bernd Horn and Emily Spencer - (c) 2012. A collection of essays on Canada's involvement up to date. Like any collection of essays you've got your good and bad. I particularly liked the Horn's Lessons Learned and Major Alex Haynes' Opportunity Lost. The first deals with Op MADUSA in 2007 (and is effectively a small precis of Horn's book No Lack of Courage - Operation Medusa, Afghanistan) while the second outlines the failure by the coalition in building an effective Afghan National Police in the early years.

:cheers:

 

[PMedMoe]

Just started River-Horse by William Least Heat-Moon.  One of his follow-ups to Blue Highways.

 

[dangerboy]

Just started reading "Along Came a Spider" by James Patterson. I have not seen the movie nor read any books by James Patterson before.  So far I am enjoying the book, it is a good distraction from the homework that I am supposed to be doing.

 

[Teager]

Finished three the last two weeks:

No Easy Task - Fighting in Afghanistan edited by Bernd Horn and Emily Spencer - (c) 2012. A collection of essays on Canada's involvement up to date. Like any collection of essays you've got your good and bad. I particularly liked the Horn's Lessons Learned and Major Alex Haynes' Opportunity Lost. The first deals with Op MADUSA in 2007 (and is effectively a small precis of Horn's book No Lack of Courage - Operation Medusa, Afghanistan) while the second outlines the failure by the coalition in building an effective Afghan National Police in the early years.

:cheers:

Having been on OP Medusa No Lack of Courage really gives insight and answers as to why things happened the way they did. IMO it is also the most accurate account of OP Medusa that I have read. Very good reading.

 

[Journeyman]

I was reading Robert Kaplan's The Revenge of Geography (NY: Random House, 2012).  I can only assume that he has debts to pay, and some publisher offered up some cash, based solely on word-count. 

I struggled as far as chapter 3 before I chucked it....literally.  I'd recommend this book ONLY if you had absolutely no clue about Political Studies 101 and very basic current events.  Seriously, it's a shallow rehash of Gr 12 political theorists overlaid on 'the Syrians are kind of miffed at their government'.....with as many adjectives and adverbs per possible crammed into each sentence to pad the page count.

He should stick to writing fluff magazine articles; the only redeeming feature is that the book was sent to me for free.

 

[a_majoor]

Kaplan does seem to be an acquired taste. I liked "The Revenge of Geography", but view it almost as a primer on Kaplan (once you start reading his other works you could almost see them as expanded versions of each chapter). Some of his older works like "An Empire Wilderness" or "The Ends of the Earth" are well worth reading in my opinion.

Currently reading "Monsoon" by the same author.

 

[Journeyman]

.....you start reading his other works you could almost see them precisely as expanded versions of each chapter

In the intro, or maybe on the dust jacket, he states that much of this has been published before, he's simply "expanded upon" the original work.  By expanded upon, I can only assume he means adding superfluous adjectives and adverbs.

I can see some utility in that he's a recognized name; one can cherry-pick his work for a useful one-liner from which an argument can be built using actual academic rigour.  In the end though, I can't see him showing up on my future reading lists.