Currently Reading

[srock]

The Big Short, the new Michael Lewis book. Just finished it. I suggest everyone with a hand in the economy read it.

It is amazing how people in charge sometimes haven't a clue what is going on

[sakata_catching]

Reading The Obscene Bird of Night, recommended by hangout member sakata_catching

The narration is pretty wild, reminds me of Celine, I'm enjoying it a lot so far

Just a tremendous, tremendous novel. Quite unlike anything else you'll ever read. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it.

If you enjoy Donoso, you might also check out the Portuguese novelist Antonio Lobo Antunes, who's been shortlisted in recent years for the Nobel.

Myself, I'm getting ready to jump into Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy, loosely based on his experiences in WWII.

[Gulfbird44]

I wasn't sure if I should make this post as I know not all OH members/readers might not be interested in history, much less military history but I thought highly enough of the book to go ahead and recognize excellent work.

The story is about Special Force Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 574 and their work in supporting Hamid Karzai right up to prior to the surrender of the Taliban in Kandahar. In my personal opinion, Eric Blehm did an excellent job in piecing together various interviews of eyewitnesses and some official documents of events that occured between 11 Sept - 5 Dec 2001.

The book is likely still out in your local book stores in hardback and is also available through Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Only-Thing-Wor...3539511&sr=1-1

[Spoonless]

I'm about to start reading The City & the City, by China Miéville.

[cindyluvsbrady]

The Gospel According To LOST.

[VThokies]

Just finished Blood Meridian, moving on to Lehane's The Given Day.

[theonestevewh]

I'm currently reading Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It by Richard Clarke and Robert Knake. It's an interesting read and Clarke keeps the tech jargon to a minimum so most non-geeks can understand it. His cyber attack scenarios are a little too sensational and oversimplified but not ultimately unrealistic. Clarke is doing a good job to spotlight cybersecurity but it's more than likely in vain.

[Mark Carver]

Five Days in London, May 1940 by John Lukacs.

No. 8 on the 2001 Washington Post Book World Best-Seller list.

The days from May 24 to May 28, 1940 altered the course of the history of this century, as the members of the British War Cabinet debated whether to negotiate with Hitler or to continue the war. The decisive importance of these five days is the focus of John Lukacs’s magisterial new book.

Lukacs takes us hour by hour into the critical unfolding of events at 10 Downing Street, where Churchill and the members of his cabinet were painfully considering their war responsibilities. We see how the military disasters taking place on the Continent—particularly the plight of the nearly 400,000 British soldiers bottled up in Dunkirk—affected Churchill’s fragile political situation, for he had been prime minister only a fortnight and was regarded as impetuous and hotheaded even by many of his own party. Lukacs also investigates the mood of the British people, drawing on newspaper and Mass-Observation reports that show how the citizenry, though only partly informed about the dangers that faced them, nevertheless began to support Churchill’s determination to stand fast.

source

[GMU Orioles Fan]

Read a few books this summer thus far: Game Six, great baseball book about Game Six of the 1975 World Series. I hate the Red Sox but hard not to tear up a little reading about Tiant's reunion with his folks. Read Revolutionary Road which was the novel that became the movie with DiCaprio and Winslet last year. Tragic but I like Yates writing style. I'm reading right now Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefore. It covers Stalin's life up until the revolution and it's well researched and well written. Real remarkable insight in to how Stalin became the mass murderer he was.

[24fps]

Volume 3 of Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy.

Because, more than anything else, his language reminds me I never was from Los Angeles nor will I ever be.



(syntax intentional)

[Spoonless]

The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin.

[glorydays]

Just finished The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson. It was fantastic!

[Spoonless]

I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, an absolutely fantastic novel chronicling the colonization of Mars.

[Mark Carver]

Volume 3 of Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy.

Because, more than anything else, his language reminds me I never was from Los Angeles nor will I ever be.



(syntax intentional)

There's an audiobook version of this series out their. Foote does the reading! His words and his voice, perfecto!

[Mark Carver]

What another book on D-Day? Well I liked Antony Beevor's other books - Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943; The Fall of Berlin 1945 and The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, so why not give his D-Day, The Battle of Normandy a try. So far, so good..

Beevor has established a solid reputation as a chronicler of WWII's great eastern front battles: Stalingrad and Berlin. In addressing D-Day, he faces much wider competition with historians like Stephen Ambrose and Max Hastings, who also use his method of integrating personal experiences, tactical engagements, operational intentions and strategic plans. Beevor combines extensive archival research with a remarkable sense of the telling anecdote: he quotes, for example, an officer's description of the bloody mass of arms and legs and heads, [and] cremated corpses created by artillery fire as the Germans tried to escape the Allied breakout. He is sharply critical of senior commanders on both sides: Bernard Montgomery's conceit; Adolf Hitler's self-delusion; Dwight Eisenhower's mediocrity. His heroes are the men who took the invasion ashore and carried it forward into Normandy in the teeth of a German defense whose skill and determination deserved a better cause. The result was a battle of attrition: a bloody slog that tested British and American fighting power to the limit—but not beyond. Beevor says that it wasn't Allied forces' material superiority but their successful use of combined arms and their high learning curve that were decisive in a victory that shaped postwar Europe. Maps, illus.