What are you reading at the moment?

Am currently trying to get my way through Carlo D'Este's "decision in Normandy" and am drowning in a sea of refutations and counter refutations about whether Monty really meant to capture Caen on Day 1. Its jolly hard going!!!

 

Hmm.. Reading this: "01.09. Die Akte Beslan. Stand von 07.03.2005", complete investigation of Beslan's terrorist act done by german magazine "Der Spiegel".
Previous book was Johan Brenneke "The Hunters and the Hunted" complete book about history of german submarines.

 

Am currently trying to get my way through Carlo D'Este's "decision in Normandy" and am drowning in a sea of refutations and counter refutations about whether Monty really meant to capture Caen on Day 1. Its jolly hard going!!!

Having read that one several years ago, I can concure that "drowning" is a good way to describe that portion of the book.

 

Just picked up 'Journal 1935-1944' by Mihail Sebastian. Not my usual line of country at all, but only £2 from the remaindered shop. Anybody else want one, they had a stack.
The diary of a Romanian Jewish writer and socialite in pre-war Bucharest. The book deals with the rise of Nazism and anti semitism in Romania during the war years, with the backdrop of the news of the war filtering back from the front.

 

Just started reading this, purchased it from the local Oxfam shop. About Arthur Dodd, a British POW's time in Aushwitz.

 

I´m into "Victory Roll", the RAAF yearbook for 1945; been into the other war years (1942-44) since about mid-september.

Interested parties, contact Digger History; (ANZAC)  Australia & NZ at War, a history, for this ones and others of delightul and engulfing reading.

 

Wow! Went today into book store - better not to go there Bought 3 books: Will Fowler "KURSK: THE VITAL 24 HOURS", Rupert Butler "THE GESTAPO: A History of Hitler's Secret Police, 1933-1945" and finally amazing book (that I've bought to investigate about that Gay Nazi thread) by russian author Andrey Vasil'chenko "Sex in Third Reich".

 

Sharpe's Trafalgar - Bernard Cornwell

 

Adam, I'm currently reading s book of American Civil War anecdotes and lesser known facts by the same author that was responsible for the body of my Mediterranean War at Sea thread.....Albert A. Nofi.........As for WWII, I've not seen anything original for w hile, so stick to magazines for cutting edge stuff.....

Music.......way into Russian classical at the moment....Prokofiev...serious stuff.

Movies......just re-watching Kevin Costner and Dennis Quaid do a wonderful job of recreating history for WYATT EARP.....I've got an article on Doc Holliday open and in front of me, and, considering our truly sketchy knowledge of Doc's activities, the movie does a fine job of getting the story as close to reality as the documentation allows.....great film.....

 

Tony Le Tissier - With Our Backs to Berlin.
Very good so far. Good to read the Germans perspective.

 

i got 2 books about the history of chippenham,wilts.there may be some info about the aircraft and pilots i am after.my old home town has certainly changed in the last thousand years or so.yours,lee.

 

I can reccomend a few titles:

I just recently finished Laurence Rees' "The Nazis: A Warning From History" (the book of the epoymous television series), which makes for harrowing reading. My only slight complaint is that it does tend to focus a little too much on the fighting on the Eastern Front, which renders the narrative in places a straightforward account of the military situation. Nonetheless, the full horror of the Nazi atrocities in the east is well documented, as are the equally barbarous actions of the partisan armies against their own people! Rees succinctly summaries the bestial nature of Nazism when he writes:

"In their twelve year reign they had demonstrated what human beings can do if they take the brute beasts of the animal kingdom as their role models and are inspired by words like, "Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally!" For all time the story of the Nazis will act as a terrible warning.

On a slightly lighter note, James Holland's "Heroes" is worth a read. He does make some annoying gaffes, like writing that the pilot of a Halifax bomber climbed into his aircraft and started the engine ; or that Roland Beamont found himself flying Hurricanes with the Air Component of the B.E.F. in France in November, 1940 - but maybe this is simply due to poor proof reading? On the whole, the collection of stories about individual heroes from WW2 makes compelling reading, and they're well written too. The heroes profiled cover all the armed services, including one from the Axis forces.

And finally - I've just started "The Flight of Rudolf Hess: Myths and Reality", by Roy Conyers Nesbit and George Van Acker. So far, so good!

Happy reading!

 

Hi Adam!

I just started a book called "Franklin Roosevelt and The New Deal". It examines the issue of did Roosevelt's plan really help the US out of the depression or should we credit more to the war.

I always thought a little of both. Roosevelt did so much to help "get" America back on it's feet. I look forward to seeing what the author concludes.
http://re3.mm-a7.yimg.com/image/3802662109"All we have to fear, is fear it's self."

 

Just started this morning, 'History of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars (Queen Mary's Own) 1922-1947', by Maj. Gen. C.H. Miller. A proper old fashioned Regimental history published in 1949.
The Regt. were part of the B.E.F and later retrained as a D.D. Regt. and went in again on D-Day.
The Regt. has just disembarked at Southampton after 9 years in India, it is 1938. They are about to say goodbye to their horses and become a mechanized divisional cavalry Regiment.

 

Has anybody read The Reconstruction of Warriors by Emily Mayhew

 

Just started this , a recent eBay purchase.


On the Roads of War
Ivan Yakushin

Starts off as a teenager in Leningrad who joins a Military School just after the outbreak of war and ends up as an Officer in an Anti-Tank unit in 24th Guards Cavalry Regiment, 5th Guards Cavalry Division in Berlin.
Haha, pls tell us after finishing book how do u feel about it? Interesting to know