What Are You Currently Reading?

[CDG]

Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean.

Young Men and Fire is a non-fiction book. It is an account of Norman Maclean's research of the Mann Gulch fire of 1949 and the 13 men who died there.

Riveting read so far. The author and several others put in a lot of work researching this fire to make sure what happened there was understood as well as possible, so that future generations would not forget and not make the same mistakes. It's unimaginable to think of those, kids is really what they were, trying to sprint up a 76 degree slope with a wall of flame at their backs. Only 3 of 16 made it in the end. 2 survived the burn over only to die of kidney failure at a hospital afterwards. It is believed that of the other 11 killed, 10 were asphyxiated by smoke and gas before being burned. Sadly, 1, Stanley J. Reba, is believed to have broken his leg, and rolled down the slope into the flame where he was burned alive.

 

[Atombomb]

Has anyone read "Now it can be Told, the story of the Manhattan Project". Just picked it up, and trying to decide if I want to start it, or "The Reaper" next.

 

[digrar]

Not reading it yet, but will as soon as it gets out.

The Promise - Pan Macmillan Australia

It was a blood oath between best friends.

As Sergeant Brett Wood prepared for a third tour of Afghanistan, he made fellow Commando Jamie Zimmermann promise to take care of his wife and financial affairs should the worst unfold. When Brett was killed two months later, it tore two worlds apart.

The Promise is the extraordinary story of two mates, Jamie and Brett, each with two families - the family at home, and the brotherhood that bonds military servicemen in times of war. It charts Jamie's evolution from a bullied boy in the suburbs to an elite soldier and team leader with the 2nd Commando Regiment of Australia's special forces, waging war in Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan.

As Jamie and Brett face ever more dangerous missions, the pressures intensify on the home front. Marriages crack, families fracture and the aftershocks of combat fatigue threaten both men's lives. After Brett's death, Jamie watches all certainty slip away. He commits mind and body to the one thing he can control: he will honour his friend, he will keep his promise.

I served with both of the boys in 6RAR, played Aussie Rules with and against Brett. Looking forward to this one coming out.

 

[Ooh-Rah]

Just finished the new Jack Reacher book, Make Me. One of the best Reacher books in some time, HIGHLY recommend it

Just starting the new Mitch Rapp book, Survivor. Kyle Mills took over for the now deceased Vince Flynn, Mills studied Flynn's writing style and promised the fans to do this book justice - he had just 4 pages of new work to go off of for this book, but got a pretty good idea of the direction Flynn wanted to go - I'm expecting good things here - Amazon reviews have been kind so far....

 

[Atombomb]

As it has already been mentioned, Violence of Action was a fantastic read. Hearing the real life accounts from members of the 75th Ranger Regiment was eye opening.

I actually listened to the book via Audible as opposed to reading it. I don't know if the deal is still ongoing, but Audible was offering two free audiobook downloads when one signed up with their Amazon account. If you aren't pleased with the service, you can cancel before the month is up without being charged. I believe you get to keep the two free books as well.

I am into the Audible audio book now.... hearing the different viewpoints of the same event are really interesting. The personal details and embarrassing stories have me rolling, and the remembrances of wounded and fallen comrades well done...

 

[CDG]

Just finished the new Jack Reacher book, Make Me. One of the best Reacher books in some time, HIGHLY recommend it

Just starting the new Mitch Rapp book, Survivor. Kyle Mills took over for the now deceased Vince Flynn, Mills studied Flynn's writing style and promised the fans to do this book justice - he had just 4 pages of new work to go off of for this book, but got a pretty good idea of the direction Flynn wanted to go - I'm expecting good things here - Amazon reviews have been kind so far....

I'm currently listening to the audiobook of Survivor. I'm up into the 30s on chapters and you would never know it wasn't written by Vince Flynn.

Currently reading In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front

 

[BrassOverBolt]

I just finished "Chosen Soldier" by Dick Couch. It seems it would be a great book for those looking into SFAS and the rest of the SF pipeline, but I'll leave that up to any QPs to decide. Robin Sage sounds like one hell of a training exercise.

 

[ThunderHorse]

We it's some dystopian Russian novel from my girlfriend who love Russian Lit, after having studied four years of it in college.

 

[TH15]

Just finished The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti. It's an okay read if you're interested in reading about the transformation of the CIA post-9/11, especially in terms of the drone wars. Mazzetti came off as kind of a douche and know-it-all, and carefully choosing which characters he wanted the readers to like and then slandering individuals with whom he did not like before letting the reader make their own assumptions. When I Googled his name and found out he worked for the New York Times, I wasn't surprised.

I'm now starting Legions of Rome: The Definitive History of Every Imperial Roman Legion by Stephen Dando-Collins.

 

[AWP]

Memoirs of a Stuka Pilot by Helmut Mahlke. Interesting book, the author was a Naval Aviator "given" to the Luftwaffe because the Graf Zeppelin wasn't ready and then stayed Luftwaffe because the carrier was never finished. I'm up to a post-Battle of Britain timeframe and the book is excellent so far. The Luftwaffe would stage aircraft at forward fields the day of or the day before a raid. It never said why this was done, but every raid over England described by the author had them flying to a forward field to arm and fuel before the actual sortie. Good book so far.

 

[TLDR20]

I read No Easy Day over the weekend. Wasn't terrible.

 

[Tbone]

Just finished The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti. It's an okay read if you're interested in reading about the transformation of the CIA post-9/11, especially in terms of the drone wars. Mazzetti came off as kind of a douche and know-it-all, and carefully choosing which characters he wanted the readers to like and then slandering individuals with whom he did not like before letting the reader make their own assumptions. When I Googled his name and found out he worked for the New York Times, I wasn't surprised.

I'm now starting Legions of Rome: The Definitive History of Every Imperial Roman Legion by Stephen Dando-Collins.

I saw the Legions of Rome book(can't remember where?) and it caught my eye. When you get far enough in I would love to know if it's worth picking up.

 

[Brill]

We, it's some dystopian Russian novel from my girlfriend who love Russian Lit, after having studied four years of it in college.

For you all you knuckle draggers out there, here's the WIKI link:

We (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State,[2] an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which allows the secret police/spies to inform on and supervise the public more easily. The structure of the state is analogous to the prison design concept developed by Jeremy Bentham commonly referred to as the Panopticon. Furthermore, life is organized to promote maximum productive efficiency along the lines of the system advocated by the hugely influential F. W. Taylor. People march in step with each other and wear identical clothing. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society.[3][4] The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State.[5]

A review:
Yevgeny Zamyatin's We: A dystopian novel for the 21st century

The 20th century was haunted by literary visions of a future dystopia. In 1905, Robert Hugh Benson published Lord of the World, in which the Earth is governed by the Antichrist. Later dystopias would be more political: George Orwell's 1984 (1949) featured a cold, merciless, Party-dominated tyranny, while Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) posited a drugged, manipulated, and productive society. The point of writing a dystopian novel is rather straightforward: for the best authors, it is a way of critiquing current trends and actors by drawing out their ideals and actions to their extreme conclusion.

I've loved all of the above, but the dystopian novel most relevant to our time is Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, which predated Orwell and Huxley, and obviously inspired the former.

 

[x SF med]

For you all you knuckle draggers out there, here's the WIKI link:

We (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State,[2] an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which allows the secret police/spies to inform on and supervise the public more easily. The structure of the state is analogous to the prison design concept developed by Jeremy Bentham commonly referred to as the Panopticon. Furthermore, life is organized to promote maximum productive efficiency along the lines of the system advocated by the hugely influential F. W. Taylor. People march in step with each other and wear identical clothing. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society.[3][4] The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State.[5]

A review:
Yevgeny Zamyatin's We: A dystopian novel for the 21st century

The 20th century was haunted by literary visions of a future dystopia. In 1905, Robert Hugh Benson published Lord of the World, in which the Earth is governed by the Antichrist. Later dystopias would be more political: George Orwell's 1984 (1949) featured a cold, merciless, Party-dominated tyranny, while Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) posited a drugged, manipulated, and productive society. The point of writing a dystopian novel is rather straightforward: for the best authors, it is a way of critiquing current trends and actors by drawing out their ideals and actions to their extreme conclusion.

I've loved all of the above, but the dystopian novel most relevant to our time is Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, which predated Orwell and Huxley, and obviously inspired the former.

You forgot THX1138, Ben Bova's novelization of the Lucas film that was released in conjunction with the movie in 1971. I like both the movie and the book... really bleak... but the book is well done (hell its' Bova) and the movie is well done (hell it's Lucas before Star Wars).

 

[Viper1]

We is an amazing book.

 

[Totentanz]

For you all you knuckle draggers out there, here's the WIKI link:

We (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State,[2] an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which allows the secret police/spies to inform on and supervise the public more easily. The structure of the state is analogous to the prison design concept developed by Jeremy Bentham commonly referred to as the Panopticon. Furthermore, life is organized to promote maximum productive efficiency along the lines of the system advocated by the hugely influential F. W. Taylor. People march in step with each other and wear identical clothing. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society.[3][4] The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State.[5]

A review:
Yevgeny Zamyatin's We: A dystopian novel for the 21st century

The 20th century was haunted by literary visions of a future dystopia. In 1905, Robert Hugh Benson published Lord of the World, in which the Earth is governed by the Antichrist. Later dystopias would be more political: George Orwell's 1984 (1949) featured a cold, merciless, Party-dominated tyranny, while Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) posited a drugged, manipulated, and productive society. The point of writing a dystopian novel is rather straightforward: for the best authors, it is a way of critiquing current trends and actors by drawing out their ideals and actions to their extreme conclusion.

I've loved all of the above, but the dystopian novel most relevant to our time is Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, which predated Orwell and Huxley, and obviously inspired the former.

A great book and an easy read... another that should be mentioned along with Orwell and Huxley is Anthem by Ayn Rand.

 

[TH15]

@Tbone Definitely a good read. I'm about 100 pages into it and have found it all pretty fascinating. As a side-note, having a basic understanding of Roman history, specifically the emperors, would be helpful. The author assumes the reader has read about ancient Rome before which allows him to exclusively focus on the legions.

 

[Tbone]

@Tbone Definitely a good read. I'm about 100 pages into it and have found it all pretty fascinating. As a side-note, having a basic understanding of Roman history, specifically the emperors, would be helpful. The author assumes the reader has read about ancient Rome before which allows him to exclusively focus on the legions.

I might have to pick it up now.

 

[x SF med]

We is an amazing book.

Sir, for a college grad and having a master's, your grammar, agreement and usage absolutely suck. :wall:

 

[Sendero]

I've read Caesar's Legions by the same author, many years ago, and remember enjoying it. I'll have to check out Legions of Rome.

Read Naylor's book and while the only Military info I have is from reading books, I had a lot of the same thoughts as @Freefalling. Since I've read so many SOF books focusing on GWOT, I was surprised at how much seemed "copy and paste". I hadn't read that some in ST6 felt Gen. McRaven was micro-managing, so that was new(s) to me.

Currently reading Jake Tapper's - The Outpost (60% read on Kindle). The flow becomes familiar and given that it's fairly lengthy, I find it becoming tiresome. With that said, it's a heavy book given the loss that was experienced there. I feel it's worth the read given the courage of the Warriors who fought there under really crappy circumstances. I'm glad their story is being told as they're worth remembering.