Your current reading list

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Re: Your current reading list

Postby St John Smythe » Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:06 pm

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Re: Your current reading list

Postby AztecDave » Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:44 am

Fenrisco wrote:
AztecDave wrote:"quartered safe out here" by george macdonald fraser.


Brilliant and sobering. Loved the part about his reaction to modern-day Japanese at the end - completely understandable and written sensitively while losing no strength whatsoever.

There is an audio version, read by the man himself, occasionally broadcast on Radio 4 Extra. That's the version I heard; is there really a character called "Grandarse" in the book?



just finished the book. one of the best i've read about platoon level war ever. imagine the audio is eveb better w/ the author reading it, emphasizing it his way, and speaking Cumbrian vs English.
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby ktrout » Sat Sep 15, 2012 9:20 am

I have a hard time understanding why anyone would give a damn about the British royalty whatsoever. It would seem that their lives would be apropos to nothing. But People magazine is a top seller in the US so...
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby OneLungMcClung » Sat Sep 15, 2012 12:13 pm

ktrout wrote:I have a hard time understanding why anyone would give a damn about the British royalty whatsoever. It would seem that their lives would be apropos to nothing. But People magazine is a top seller in the US so...


It's like watching Honey Boo Boo or Snooki, but with the Royals you are safe from the later realization that you are celebrating a bunch of illiterate unintelligible white trash.
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby St John Smythe » Sat Sep 15, 2012 1:24 pm

A very fine family, an exquisite example of regal know-how and admirable civility.
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby diamondcutter13 » Tue Oct 02, 2012 3:03 am

I've been reading a few cheap pocket books from the 60's or older that a friend gave me from a box of books discarded from a military library. Here's the first three.

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A fantastic story of early commandos of Norway operating behind the lines to destroy the heavy water plant at Vemork and then surviving for months in the winter on the Hardanger Plateau off the land and on the run from the Nazis. The book is a little short on detail and the story telling mechanical but its an easy to read summary.

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Great little easy read on the beginnings of the OSS guerrilla program in WWII. OSS Detachment 101 operating against the Japanese in Burma alongside the British. Some great, simple truisms about COIN, guerrillas, jungle fighting, agent handling etc. Written by one of the commanding officers and one of his troops that later became a journo and writer. I'll have to find some more modern books on this.

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http://openlibrary.org/books/OL15237769M/Abraham_Lincoln_and_the_fifth_column
Only read the first chapter, pretty dry so far but if it sounds interesting to you at least its free.
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby diamondcutter13 » Tue Oct 02, 2012 5:16 am

AztecDave wrote:"quartered safe out here" by george macdonald fraser. great story about fighting the japs in burma. anybody who's ever been an infantryman anywhere will immediately recognize the characters and situations. written with the same sarcastic and cynical tone of his "Flashman" series. and those are all great reads themselves.


I must read this and thanks, you just made me start the Flashman series over again. Classic cad lessons from the master!
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby vagabond » Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:03 am

I really need to start getting into the Flashman series, maybe will hit up the library later in the week *sigh*

On the other hand, finished Dick Couch's "Warrior Elite" which was a thorough, insightful look into the training process of SEALs (at least through BUD/S and slightly beyond). As a civilian, the psychological aspects of the training has always been fascinating and I definitely gained a few lessons about the mental aspects to try and apply to my own life. It was a solid, fast read with ordinary men under extraordinary pressures.
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby coldharvest » Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:14 am

The Three-Pound Universe
Methods in Mind (Cognitive Neuroscience)
Greek to GCSE: Part 1
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
Outlines of Pyrrhonism
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby Fenrisco » Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:01 pm

ktrout wrote:I have a hard time understanding why anyone would give a damn about the British royalty whatsoever. It would seem that their lives would be apropos to nothing. But People magazine is a top seller in the US so...


Any American with an interest in the British royalty should be stripped of his citizenship, exiled across the Atlantic and forced to live in Hull and work as a dental receptionist. That'll fucking teach them.

diamondcutter13 wrote:A fantastic story of early commandos of Norway operating behind the lines to destroy the heavy water plant at Vemork and then surviving for months in the winter on the Hardanger Plateau off the land and on the run from the Nazis.


Ray Mears (the thinking man's Bear Grylls) had a terrific show based on this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUfiMoY30ac[/youtube]
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby diamondcutter13 » Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:36 pm

diamondcutter13 wrote:A fantastic story of early commandos of Norway operating behind the lines to destroy the heavy water plant at Vemork and then surviving for months in the winter on the Hardanger Plateau off the land and on the run from the Nazis.


Ray Mears (the thinking man's Bear Grylls) had a terrific show based on this:
[/quote]

The Ray Mear's show and book "The Real Heros of Telemark" was what got me interested in the story. Also a good read.
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby michelle in alaska » Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:57 am

diamondcutter13 wrote:
diamondcutter13 wrote:A fantastic story of early commandos of Norway operating behind the lines to destroy the heavy water plant at Vemork and then surviving for months in the winter on the Hardanger Plateau off the land and on the run from the Nazis.


The Ray Mear's show and book "The Real Heros of Telemark" was what got me interested in the story. Also a good read.


Thanks to you we now own it at the library.

A friend gave me this today: Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier by Alexandra Fuller ( author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonite fame).
Am starting it tonite. can hardly wait. no work tomorrow: thank you, presidents. woot! :)
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby ktrout » Wed Oct 17, 2012 3:25 am

Fenrisco wrote:
ktrout wrote:I have a hard time understanding why anyone would give a damn about the British royalty whatsoever. It would seem that their lives would be apropos to nothing. But People magazine is a top seller in the US so...


Any American with an interest in the British royalty should be stripped of his citizenship, exiled across the Atlantic and forced to live in Hull and work as a dental receptionist. That'll fucking teach them.

Well, maybe with the exception of Kate Middleton.
I just picked up Eats, shoots and leaves, used. It's actually pretty entertaining for a book on punctuation.
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby Michael » Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:46 am

Been reading The River of Doubt by Candice Millard. It's about Theodore Roosevelt's expedition down the unexplored Rio da Duvida (now Roosevelt River) in the Amazon in 1914. (And the best we can come up with these days is Romney and Obama? The thought makes my stomach hurt.)
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Re: Your current reading list

Postby Glassgost » Tue Oct 23, 2012 11:08 pm

coldharvest wrote:Marcus Aurelius's Meditations


I don't travel anywhere without my dog eared copies of that and Walden.
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