What book are you reading now?

[FJAG]

I am a big fan of W.E.B Griffin books, but he is now dead, any recommendations for books with massive story lines?

I have read a lot WW2  history and enjoy Canadian military history books, but for casual reading it was always Griffin and Clancy. Both authors now dead. looking for something new to read

Depends somewhat on the era you wish to read as well. Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books and his Last Kingdom series http://www.bernardcornwell.net/books/ are very good. Simon Turney's Roman series are also very good (not to mention inexpensive as Kindle books) http://simonturney.com/

If you like police mysteries then go to John Sandford's http://www.johnsandford.org/ and Michael Connelly's https://www.michaelconnelly.com/

And if you like to mix military with police you might even want to try mine (they're relatively inexpensive in Kindle format as well) https://sites.google.com/view/wolfriedel, https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Riedel/e/B00459ATSU

:cheers:

 

[Kat Stevens]

Revisiting an old favourite. American Gods- Neil Gaiman

 

[Good2Golf]

Re-reading the series of spy thrillers from Colin Forbes, sort of an ‘English Tom Clancy’ of sorts.

 

[medicineman]

Emergency Department Resuscitation of the Critically Ill...

 

[dimsum]

I just finished The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.  It's very much in the vein of Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), The Forever War, and Old Man's War, and it was nominated for this year's Hugo award for best SF novel.  I personally think it's alright but not earth-shattering. 

The last novel of John Scalzi's Collapsing Empire series is out later this week, so I'll give that a whirl. 

 

[FJAG]

I just finished The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.  It's very much in the vein of Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), The Forever War, and Old Man's War, and it was nominated for this year's Hugo award for best SF novel.  I personally think it's alright but not earth-shattering. 

The last novel of John Scalzi's Collapsing Empire series is out later this week, so I'll give that a whirl.

Speaking of Scalzi, I've just seen the first episode of the series "Love, Death and Robots" on Netflix. These are some of his short stories put into short films. The first one "Three Robots" was quite entertaining.

:cheers:

 

[dimsum]

Speaking of Scalzi, I've just seen the first episode of the series "Love, Death and Robots" on Netflix. These are some of his short stories put into short films. The first one "Three Robots" was quite entertaining.

:cheers:

I've heard that LD&R episode order is different for different viewers.  I personally liked Beyond the Aquila Rift and Zima Blue the most (both are by Alastair Reynolds) but Three Robots is definitely a close third.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Start of a post based on book just finished--not saying the parallels are close...yet and in todays' Trump world (further links at original)...:

The United States the “Indispensable Nation”? Compare to the Later Habsburg Empire

Excerpts from the last two chapters of the excellent historical analysis, “The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire” (review here, Amazon here), by A. Wess Mitchell who served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs 2017-19 (don’t hold it against him, tweets here); if one reads attentively between the lines there are serious cautions for today’s United–how much these days?–States...
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/the-united-states-the-indispensable-nation-compare-to-the-later-habsburg-empire/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[dangerboy]

Just finished reading "Snow and Steel: The Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45" by Peter Caddick-Adams. I thought it was an excellent book on the battle. One of the things I liked about the book is the detail he went into about the events leading up to the battle. Most other books just spent a few paragraphs maybe a chapter in this book he spends close to a third of the books talking about not just the tactical situation but also the politics especially the rivalry between the various allied generals. He also covered the psychology of Hitler and his thinking behind the operation, and his screwed up way of thinking in general.

Recommend the book to anyone interested in military history https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20318207-snow-and-steel

 

[Xylric]

John Kelly's The Great Mortality is an excellent and rather unsettling book to be reading given current events, as it is a history of the Black Death. I always find it interesting that it was in part the product of biological warfare as a result of a Crimean port being put to seige. Sun Tzu may have said that all warfare is deception, but if he were a microbiologist, he might have said all plague is warfare.

 

[RangerRay]

Not really something I am reading now, but have read, been thinking constantly about since, especially in light of recent events.

Claws of the Panda by foreign correspondent Jonathan Manthorpe, outlines the influence, intimidation and espionage operations waged against Canada and Canadians by the Chinese state, with help from high ranking but naive Canadian politicians, bureaucrats and businesses leaders.

https://www.amazon.ca/Claws-Panda-Beijings-Influence-Intimidation/dp/177086539X

Until our government grows a spine and stops kowtowing to Beijing, we are going to be in a lot of trouble.

 

[FJAG]

Just finished reading the three volume Interdependency series by John Scalzi. Not so bad. Not up to his Old Man's War series but not bad.

https://www.amazon.ca/Last-Emperox-Interdependency-Book-ebook/dp/B07QPGW9FS

Just started into Guy Snodgrass's Holding the Line covering Jim Mattis's time as the Secretary of Defence. Well written so far.

https://www.amazon.ca/Holding-Line-Inside-Pentagon-Secretary-ebook/dp/B07NZK1ZZ4

:cheers:

 

[dimsum]

Just finished reading the three volume Interdependency series by John Scalzi. Not so bad. Not up to his Old Man's War series but not bad.

https://www.amazon.ca/Last-Emperox-Interdependency-Book-ebook/dp/B07QPGW9FS

I'm still on the fence whether the series was "good" or "adequate".  It has an interesting premise, but I really did not give a hoot about any of the characters by the end.

 

[FJAG]

I'm still on the fence whether the series was "good" or "adequate".  It has an interesting premise, but I really did not give a hoot about any of the characters by the end.

Especially when every time they are killed, they're not really dead. That deus ex machina should never be used more than once, if that.

op:

 

[FJAG]

...
Just started into Guy Snodgrass's Holding the Line covering Jim Mattis's time as the Secretary of Defence. Well written so far.

https://www.amazon.ca/Holding-Line-Inside-Pentagon-Secretary-ebook/dp/B07NZK1ZZ4

:cheers:

Have now finished the book and I highly recommend it. Very good look at the major events from a front-office worker. Interesting highlites into the blading and backstabbing that goes on at these levels.

This is not an anti-Trump book although much of the emphasis is on how difficult a job it is working in the Trump administration regardless of your best intentions.

:cheers:

 

[FJAG]

Have now finished The Room Where it Happened by John Bolton.

It was a tedious slog. As one reviewer on Amazon said and I've slightly expanded on, it should have been called: "The mistakes that Obama made, that I, John Bolton wanted to fix but which Trump wouldn't let me."

Let's talk style. It's like Bolton picked up his daily planners for the last few years and just started dictating from them dropping names liberally left and right. Then to make matters worse, when you think he's gotten close to the end of his tenure, he goes back and writes a few chapters more this time based on a few major topics: Iran, Ukraine etc. While Bolton complains that much redrafting was needed to comply with security reviews, it seems that what was really needed was an editor with the cojones to get the thing cleaned up.

As far as content is concerned, you're probably well familiar with most of it if you've followed the press over the last four years. Not much is new here although there is more detail, much more detail, so much more detail. It's as bad in the White House as you might imagine, only so much worse.

In the end I've never been a fan of either Bolton or Trump. This book has not changed my mind about either and I seriously doubt whether it will change the mind of anyone who is a fan of Trump's.

A long tedious slog. Did I say that already? Well, it needs repeating.

:cheers:

 

[FJAG]

"Too Much And Never Enough" by Mary L Trump. https://www.amazon.ca/Too-Much-Never-Enough-Dangerous/dp/1982141468

Not a bad read. Quite well written and the content is pretty much what you'd expect albeit that it's a short book (just 206 pages).

Mary Trump is a clinical psychologist and approaches her subject pretty much as a clinical psychologist would looking into not just Donald but the whole Trump family.

Again, one of those books which will be taken just the way that the reader intends to take it. It never ceases to amaze me how divided the country is on what is patently a very flawed man.

:cheers:

 

[mariomike]

It never ceases to amaze me how divided the country is on what is patently a very flawed man.

:cheers:

As General Mattis put it,

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that "The Nazi slogan for destroying us...was 'Divide and Conquer.' Our American answer is 'In Union there is Strength.'" We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Commando: Memoirs of a Fighting Commando in World War II, by John Durnford-Slater.

An excellent account of the chaotic birth, and amazing achievements of, of the Commandos in WW2:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Durnford-Slater

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Lamb:  The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.

It is astoundingly good.