What Are You Currently Reading?

Halfway through “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston. Fantastic book on the Ebola Virus. Do anyone here use Amazon prime reading? I’m curious about the selection of books, worth the 9.99 a month?
 
The Art of the Deal by the Donald! But also I just finished Never Without Heros by Lawrence C. Vetter who was an officer with 3rd Recon in Nam. Fantastic info about the Recon community at that time, hard bastards. Also 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson is excellent.
 
Halfway through “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston. Fantastic book on the Ebola Virus. Do anyone here use Amazon prime reading? I’m curious about the selection of books, worth the 9.99 a month?
Hope you enjoy the book. That was my former unit. That dealt with the outbreak in Reston VA. Ed Wise was one of the 91T Vet Techs on the USAMRIID response team and, a close friend at the time. Need to look him up. Thanks for the memory trigger.
 
Halfway through “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston. Fantastic book on the Ebola Virus. Do anyone here use Amazon prime reading? I’m curious about the selection of books, worth the 9.99 a month?
I use the basic selection on Prime and almost always find one worth reading. My favorite thing to use though is my Library Card on Overdrive. Check with your library to see if they participate.
 
Just finished Kinglake-350, by Adrian Hyland. It's an account of the bushfires that killed 170 people just to the North of Melbourne in 2009.
Horrendous, multiple accounts of families with terrified young kids enacting their fire plans, finding themselves way out of their depth when the fire turned out much bigger than anyone ever planned for. Multiple accounts of local coppers sifting through the debris to find the buried remains of families that didn't make it. Entire towns burned to the ground, the toll on the communities after the fact, vast increases in mental health issues, domestic violence, PTSD. A very emotional read.

I'm re reading this one.

I can read military books, with death and horrific wounds, with generally little emotional response, but this one gets me, every few pages. It's probably the kids getting caught up it, and every day people, untrained, unprepared, stepping up, often at great personal cost.
 
Just finished Dune. Starting Dune Messiah.

If you’re an aspiring SF soldier, read Dune.

Most military reading list doesn’t include fiction. It should. Imagination and creativity are part of how we interact with our partner forces. Sometimes fiction and sci-fi bring it into clear view.
 
Most military reading list doesn’t include fiction. It should. Imagination and creativity are part of how we interact with our partner forces. Sometimes fiction and sci-fi bring it into clear view.
It has since been removed, but I recall that Ender’s Game was on the Commandment’s required reading list when I was in the Marine Corps.
 
I just finished an older book, Legend by David Gemmell, published in 1984. How I missed this author I do not know. It's high fantasy with a brilliant look into the mind of the common soldier, the general and the leader, much less the legend-type man. It was his debut novel and I look forward to finding more to see if his writing continued in the heroic fantasy vein.

ETA - I would rank this book up there with Starship Troopers when looking at mindset.

LL
 
Last edited:
Just finished Dune. Starting Dune Messiah.

If you’re an aspiring SF soldier, read Dune.

Most military reading list doesn’t include fiction. It should. Imagination and creativity are part of how we interact with our partner forces. Sometimes fiction and sci-fi bring it into clear view.


CS Forester's Rifleman Dodd is another novel of historical fiction that could serve as a primer for the doctrines of irregular warfare and foreign internal defense. I think it used to be on the USMA's required reading list. It's about a veteran rifleman in Wellington's army who gets left behind enemy lines after his unit withdraws. He makes the most of it, gets hooked up with assorted ragtag Spanish partisans and proceeds to organize a guerrilla campaign against the French.
 
Last edited:
I generally stick to science fiction, but currently almost finished with "Forging the Hero"; and halfway through "Violence of Action."
 
Just finished Dune. Starting Dune Messiah.

If you’re an aspiring SF soldier, read Dune.

Most military reading list doesn’t include fiction. It should. Imagination and creativity are part of how we interact with our partner forces. Sometimes fiction and sci-fi bring it into clear view.

And finished Dune Messiah. You can see where this is going...

Onto Children of Dune!
 
That's a incredibly dense read. Any reason why you're reading it?

LL

If you've heard of the psychologist Jordan Peterson, he loves to talk about it.

I remember reading an article a while back stating that its sales have increased as he has gained popularity.
 
If you've heard of the psychologist Jordan Peterson, he loves to talk about it.

I remember reading an article a while back stating that its sales have increased as he has gained popularity.
Just because sales have increased doesn't mean people are reading it. ;-)

In my teens and 20s I'd read stuff just because people said it was too intellectual for me. The Gulag and Mein Kampf are 2 that stand out, the latter for it's sheer poor writing and the former for it's propensity to cram too much into it. But that's a Russian style of writing that I've never really enjoyed much.

I'm hoping @EYPhillips will give us a little more details.

LL
 
Back
Top